corvus

Erik is fine if I leave him with Kivi, and fine if Kivi leaves him with me, but goes mental if I take Kivi away and leave him by himself. Unsurprising, but I wonder what I should do about it. I shut him in the house every time I train with Kivi, which is usually once a day or so for a few minutes. He has improved in that he no longer gets so worked up he wees and poos while we are gone, but today I had to go into town and he wanted to eat his venison ear, so I put him in his pen with it and took Kivi into town with me. He was just about hysterical and when I got back I had a big pile of stinky diarrhea to clean up. He was at least calm and perky when I got back and no longer shrieking the house down. Is he likely to improve as long as I keep taking Kivi out for short trips without him? Should I go back to baby baby steps and take Kivi into other rooms of the house without him and build him up?

I understood that a bridge is anything you have conditioned to be reinforcing that you can then use to tell a dog they've done the right thing. I reward every time I click, but not every time I say "good boy", but both are bridges and I use both to mark behaviour. The clicker is stronger though, because a bridge is only as good as the last time you reinforced it. I tend to use "good boy" a bit too much without reinforcing it, so it is a bit on the weak side.

Diva made a good point. An IB is like a signal that tells the dog they are on track to getting a reward, but they have to keep going. The clicker is a terminal bridge that signals that the behaviour is complete. So IB then click would be the way it would work. In the link the author talks about using an IB, a terminal bridge, and a target all together. The IB is used not only to tell the animal they are on the right track, but to rescue something before failure. The way the author was using it was a continual sound that would stop if the animal got distracted and would start again if the animal looked back at the trainer and would continue if the animal then started on the right track again. The terminal bridge would be used once the behaviour was finished and then the reward. It is interesting stuff and I think it would make teaching new things very quick. Baby steps for me, though.

From here: http://www.synalia.com/articles/bridgesIB.html

All my best photos have big ugly harnesses in them! But here's a nice one in the yard with minimal hardware.

Who uses them? I don't at the moment because I'm concentrating on nailing my timing. I think there's a danger in using an intermediate bridge as a bit of a crutch and ending up meeting the criteria a bit messily if other things creep in. I kinda feel like my dogs aren't ready for another level of communication, either. I think I would mess it up and just confuse them. Maybe if we all get really good at marker training I would introduce one. It might be useful for getting the ball rolling and then shaping with the primary marker?

I had my old corgi on a check chain very early as well. It was also light and I was gentle and she responded very well. But with heavier applications under the direction of a trainer or three many months later she eventually came to just want to walk as far away from me as possible because it was only when she was near me that she got checks. For her, I think if I'd never actually checked her I would have been fine. She disliked the tightening of it and would not voluntarily create tightening. I don't like check chains in general very much because of what happens in an emergency situation. I stopped using a check chain with my corgi after the second time I had to pull her out of the way of a charging dog that wanted to hurt her. Given the speed of the oncoming dog and need to wait until the last moment so it couldn't change direction, I ended up hanging my dog on both occasions. Way to make a bad situation even worse for a dog. That's just my experience and it's never happened with my current dog, but those experiences with my corgi turned me right off.

No, they just charge a lot more. I got Kivi done at 12 months and he had one descended testicle that had astonished everyone by going back up into his abdominal cavity. He was a mess after the op. Very sore. Both of Erik's are descended now, but if I had my time again with Kivi I would have given him another few months to see if they came down.

We very nearly went with a Shiba this time, but I wasn't convinced I'd be able to cope with the activity, and for an uncommon breed it's hard to find a good breeder. We met a pup while looking at Akitas and the Akita fellow said he was trying the breed out with her, but was so far finding her too busy. She had such a sparkle of mischief in her eyes, though. What a naughty little dog she would be! I met a few and got the impression they are aloof, but full of mischief.

Well there's one way to tell if a NRM is punishing to a particular dog or not and that is by whether there is a decrease in the likelihood of a behaviour reoccurring after the NRM. :D Of course, it's hard to tell if there's been a decrease in, say, offering behaviours, or if a decrease in breaking early is due to a NRM or an extinction process, but if it were the latter, what's the point? You would achieve the same thing with no marker. If you are using a NRM as a punishment, then I'm guessing you won't get the independent thinking Cosmolo is after. Feedback is all fine and dandy as long as it achieves something. I think that if you routinely do anything in particular before you refuse to offer a reward it can potentially become a NRM, same way as doing anything routinely before offering a reward can become a signal that a reward is coming. I think perhaps you can combat this problem with a high reward rate and lots of free-shaping practice. I like free-shaping. :D Incidentally, if you follow a NRM with putting pup back on the boring leash, then that kind of strays from "no reward" into "good things are going to go away", which would be P-.

Cosmolo, could you explain how you would introduce a NRM to increase confidence? I was participating in an interesting discussion recently about the use of pressure in training and I noted that I thought a little pressure served to increase confidence in my hare because if it was low level enough it was a little like flooding and he'd get through it without moving a millimetre away from me and then he'd relax. Release the pressure a little and he'd become a little bolder than he was before. Do you think it's remotely similar? Also, if a dog is taught to free-shape, is that the same as learning to think for itself as a result of NRMs?

NRMs are, I think, a comparatively safe topic when it comes to discussing training methods. Do you use them? Why or why not? I started out using one because I thought it would help my dog understand what I wanted from him and decrease frustration. I decided after a while that this was not the case with my particular dog at least. I stopped using it because it did not seem to make any difference to his level of frustration. I also trained an interruptor that meant "stop what you're doing" and used that for a while in training specifically when he was about to break early or something like that. I have since given up on the former and am weaning myself off the latter. There are three main reasons why. The first one is because I talk too much when I train. I originally felt this was just my style and my animals needed to get used to it. Then I got over myself somewhat and realised that my hare at least actually kind of disliked my constant verbalising. I got out of the habit with him and it carried over to my dog training. With less talking I paid more attention to body language and that seemed to do nothing but help us all. The second one is that I have come to think that NRMs are a bit of a waste of time. If my reward rate is high enough, I shouldn't really be wasting time telling my dog he needs to try again. He knows he needs to try again because he hasn't been marked and rewarded. I have so far found this to be true in practice, even when my reward rate wasn't really high enough. The third is kind of two-fold. On one hand, a NRM can become punishing and the last thing I want for my soft, low drive dog is for him to feel like he doesn't want to get a NRM. He would lose interest in training with me. On the other hand, a NRM can be a bit like an interruptor, and if you lean on those things too heavily they lose effectiveness, at least in my experience so far. In all honesty, I think that dividing myself between "this is what I want" and "that is what I don't want" just makes me fall into the first trap of too much chatter. Concentrating on just what I do want means I'm rewarding more often, which makes training more fun for everyone. Discuss. ;)

Our local council requires us to have a certificate saying the dog is desexed when they get registered with the council, which is meant to happen at 6 months. I think they don't mind that much if you hold off and get their registration a bit late, but it's something to consider.

Well, I have a big fluffy babysitter. Kivi is just the right age and temperament to adore having a puppy around. In the last week Erik's toilet training has come along in leaps and bounds, he has settled down considerably with Kivi so I don't have to do so much supervising with them. When Erik gets crazy Kivi is normally happy to take care of him for me. I'm also finding Erik to be an easier puppy in general to Kivi, even though he's a little firecracker in comparison. Maybe it's because I've got Kivi to soak up all his energy, but he seems to have been just easier to train. The most exhausting thing I find is just training all the things I have to train! Where do people find the time to train their puppies? It seems there's an endless list of good manners and basics you have to teach them as quickly as possible.

I carried a tug toy with me whenever I walked Kivi on leash for the first 6 months or so. If he got the tugging urge I'd just present him with the tug toy and he was happy to let the leash go and act like an idiot with the toy instead. He grew out of it in due course and it was never a big deal. I guess it depends on whether you want to stop tugging all together or just redirect it to something appropriate.

The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson Bones Would Rain from the Sky by Susan Clothier

Ooo, an intermediate bridge. Great idea! I'm sure Shani needs all the help she can get with this.

Latest news is that Shani has not messed in her crate all week and there was a little hint that perhaps she has figured out weeing in front of my mum gets her a reward. Unfortunately there are some other more serious things going on and my mother has decided to get the help of a behaviourist.

Thanks Sandra, that is a great idea. I think it could work, seeing as it's bedding she seems to think of as a toileting surface.

Shani has never cried in her crate. She'd just wake up and soil the crate in silence, from the day she came home. At least, that's the story I'm told and I believe it because a mother of 4 doesn't sleep through puppy whines. I don't sleep through puppy whines and I sleep like a log. The method my mother was using is almost exactly the same as mine and it really depends on a puppy making a noise if they need to go while in the crate, or at least fidgeting a bit. The rest is just vigilance. Are there puppies out there that naturally don't whine when they are confined and need to go? Everything I've heard says no. Anyway, thanks for the ideas. Like I've said, Shani is already outside most of the time, so the inside toileting has been reduced down to just the early mornings and evenings or wet days when the dogs are inside.

I'm confused. Does anyone really believe that you can rely soley on an untrained dog for personal protection? It seems to me there are two sides to an argument here, but they are not sides of the same argument. It is fact that some dogs will protect their owners in a threatening situation even without the training. It is fact that not every dog will regardless of breed, unless it has been trained in PP. It is fact that not every dog of a guarding breed would if not trained in PP. Is anyone disputing any of that? Seriously, because I'm having trouble following the arguments in this thread. I think there is more to whether a dog will "step up" than leadership. I've seen behaviour from dogs that has made me seriously consider that perhaps they see the people they live with as their family (despite the fact it flies in the face of some of my other dog behaviour theories), and there may be protective instinct associated with families. There is also context. If the threat is in the dog's own house or yard or car, that's different to if it is on neutral ground.

Sorry, I don't really remember what the prices were for bones. I normally get bones locally and it was comparable, so I didn't bother taking note.

Mum's last puppy was a petshop puppy. No problems at all with her. Well, if I remember correctly the breeder said she was crate trained. Never met the breeder, though, so I can't say for certain. What else could have happened to result in this problem? Unfortunately the dogs can't be given access to outside all the time as the cats have to be kept in. Shani is currently spending most of the day outside and has been for months. That's the best that can be done without forcing her to be out all the time.

Not sure if she's been checked by the vet, but she actively seeks out her bedding to toilet on. It's not a lack of control at all. She can go all night without needing to toilet. If she's inside and she needs to go, she goes on one of the dog beds no matter what she needs to do. It's more like she's imprinted on beds as the toilet. It's not just in her crate. If the crate is closed she'll go on any dog bed, but it'll be a dog bed, not just on the ground. I am not 100% sure on the breeder, but Mother is not feeling very interested in speaking to her right now. She's raised plenty of puppies and crate trained the last two, I think. I think she is of the opinion that toilet training is basic stuff and what could the breeder possibly add except to explain how it is that her puppy thinks beds are where you toilet? She wouldn't know and if she did she wouldn't say is my guess from what I've heard. The crate is what I would consider the right size for the dog. There's room for her to sleep comfortably in any position she likes. Erik doesn't even want to go in his pen and it's at least twice the size of Shani's crate and he's half the size of Shani. Anyway, I'll pass on all the suggestions and see what she thinks. Clicker training might help her make that connection between toileting and rewards. I feel bad for her. Toilet training is one of those things that really impacts on your relationship with an animal. Thanks guys.

Erik is terrible with this! I was sitting on the ground with him today and he spun around with a growl and grabbed my pants and tugged. I pretend my clothes are the most sensitive part of my body and shriek blue murder when he grabs my pants. He generally stops dead and then I shove a toy in his mouth and we are all good. If he doesn't stop instantly I grab his scruff and he gets the message. He's getting better every day. Except for today's experimental setbacks ("chewing the toy is boring when I could randomly spin around and chomp on the human's leg and make her shriek. It makes her jiggle the toy!").