Aidan3

You mean apart from all the food he gave them at the end?

Must depend on the course? I don't recall ever being sold a political agenda. Primary school was a different matter entirely.

what is she getting distracted by? Is she both distracted outside and inside of the ring? I doubt switching methods in one day had any impact at all on your runs, especially if she's prone to distraction while running. Sounds like you need some serious work on your reward system. I know someone in agility who used LAT between runs at trials as her dog was prone to reactivity outside of the ring but was fine in the ring. In the end she gave up on it as the LAT game became more fun for him than the chance to earn a reward in agility & the result WAS distraction both inside & outside of the ring. She gets distracted in the ring, not a lot, but just enough to put us one or two seconds over time & its mainly dogs running in the other ring that pull her attention away from the job at hand. I did some more LAT today at the trial & she ran well, but still overtime, due to small pauses to look over her shoulder At monday night's training she doesn't get distracted, so I can only really practice this in trial situations. I am going to a seminar with Ashley Roach tomorrow...anyone know about him...he was our judge for the weekend. Given what you've said here I would stick with the "by the book" version of LAT - on cue (under stimulus control), and focus back to you straight away.

I take it you are opposed to selective breeding practices also?

For those of you who, deep down, know you do best when you follow the directions exactly as written, ignore what I'm going to say next. For anyone else, this is what is important about LAT - the dog can engage with the 'thing' whilst staying calm. The cue (e.g "Look at That!") is an important part of Control Unleashed, but it's not really that important as far as what the dog is learning. In fact, I don't use a cue at all as I prefer to just have the dog learn to look at stuff that might otherwise cause excitement (or fear) and just be able to do it without hysterics regardless of what I'm doing or saying. I also don't teach the dog to look back at the handler. When viewed in the context of what I've been saying here, it just isn't necessary - unless you're following Control Unleashed and need the dog to focus back on the handler. I aim to have the dog turn into a "normal" dog and do "normal" dog stuff; like being able to look at other dogs, then just do whatever normal dogs do next. You'll find the dog looks back to you anyway, because when you click, they should know what comes next (food, for e.g).

If you have one dog inside, and the other dog is barking at the fence, is the dog outside responsive to you if you, say, call them to you?

Just a question, what happens if you keep one of the two barkers inside? Does the other barker go down to the fence alone?

No, spray and shock collars do not address the underlying cause. Anti-bark devices (including your device) are justifiable in reducing barking, especially learned or self-rewarding barking, and especially where the owner has no choice but to quickly reduce barking for the sake of the dog. I would choose a spray or shock collar for this purpose because it works very quickly. The problem is where people take the option of buying a collar and ignore the underlying problems. The collar is effective, so they have no motivation to address the underlying problem. This is a serious ethical concern and unfortunately, on the whole, no anti-bark device really addresses this problem on it's own.

The [undeveloped] idea I put forward of using a token system would punish barking by response cost (-P), and reward spending time in the kennel. You can't reinforce the absence of behaviour, you can only reinforce other behaviours that are absent of the unwanted behaviour. You would have to condition the token system, but that's not the issue as it's not difficult. The learning bit is not the problem, the problem is that for this system to be worth pursuing (i.e better than what we already have) I think it really needs to address the underlying problems, which it doesn't.

These things are already self-reinforcing, so there would be little to no risk of making them any worse to be honest.

That's the sort of thing, except you wouldn't make them wait all day, it would need to be more salient. Maybe an hour? I can only guess really. I like dogs to get their crazies out when I'm home and to sleep during the day. So maybe you have lights going on on an FI schedule for going into a kennel, and lights going out if they bark. That way there is no real penalty for coming and going from the kennel as needed, but there is a reward for seeking it out and spending time in there. It would take a bit of thinking about to come up with something suitable. You could still use environmental enrichment, treat balls etc Tokens are fairly well studied, not so often used with dogs. Nina Bondarenko, who trains service dogs in the UK now, was having a problem with pups getting too much food when they were being trained intensively so she went to a bridging system very similar to the Syn Alia "Intermediate Bridge". Removing tokens as a penalty is something you more usually see with humans (monetary fines, for e.g), I linked to the pigeon study because it was the first animal model I found using Google Scholar.

If you look at what pigeons do when they are put in a Skinner box and non-contingently reinforced on an FI schedule, you'll see what I mean. Skinner called it "superstitious behaviour". Going off studies of this paradigm (FI with a response cost contingency) I suspect you'll be more likely to end up with superstitious behaviours than reduction of unwanted behaviour. You could probably test your hypothesis with a Manners Minder, hiding out inside to trigger the machine on a schedule. See if it works or not. OK... can we come up with a solution to this? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635705000288

I'm kinda thinking that even my food obsessed lab would not find one piece of kibble every 5 mins an overly exciting reward! I do not understand how the dog is meant to know that not barking for 5 mins is the desired behavoiur to produce the "treat". There are a lot of other behaviours that could happen in the 5 minutes that could be inadvertently reinforced instead. I think what critters is proposing is quite different to this. Imagine you get $2 every 5 minutes so long as you are just going about your business quietly, but if you speak, a tone sounds and at the end of the period your $2 fails to materialise. That would be a response cost, which in dog training we normally refer to as negative punishment. So the consequence for barking is to lose the reward. If you really want to geek out, look up the inverse of this, which is the Sidman Avoidance Procedure. Learning can happen in some crazy ways.

It depends a lot on the sort of schedule you need to employ. Off the top of my head (without looking up studies) you could probably go FI(5min) which means one piece of kibble every 5 minutes (not initially though!) so too much food would not be an issue. 96 pieces of kibble in an 8 hour work day, not really a big deal. Whether you could get to that point I have my doubts about.

If you look at what pigeons do when they are put in a Skinner box and non-contingently reinforced on an FI schedule, you'll see what I mean. Skinner called it "superstitious behaviour". Going off studies of this paradigm (FI with a response cost contingency) I suspect you'll be more likely to end up with superstitious behaviours than reduction of unwanted behaviour. You could probably test your hypothesis with a Manners Minder, hiding out inside to trigger the machine on a schedule. See if it works or not. They've all come looking. I am a trainer but I've written for various publications (mostly Karen Pryor's websites, KPA, and the APDT), and that information is free. I also had a free, interactive "Help With Your Dog's Barking Problem" course on my website for a long time, for which I received a lot of feedback. So I know that people can learn this sort of thing even by correspondence (as I have said, it's really very simple), but they would all at least know what a clicker is.

A FI schedule is a non-contingent schedule. This is fine in a Skinner box, but not so good when your dog could be doing almost anything. For the record, Kavik uses a lot of food in her training so she is past the sort of objections you were anticipating. My suggestion was for your machine to do this. I have taught quite a lot of people to shape their dog's barking. It's really very simple compared to a lot of other things dog owners routinely teach their dogs.

Reduction in FI can punish responding but real environments usually aren't simple enough for this sort of thing to be effective. A stimulus to mark barking and -P might work in some cases but I still think there are too many "what ifs?" Ian Dunbar threw some ideas around for auto-shaping for barking control several years ago, you might shoot him an email and ask what sort of problems or successed he encountered? One thing I know that does work that would also be conducive to autoshaping is to shape less barking or a fixed duration of barking. In this case you start by reinforcing 6 seconds of barking, then reduce the time second by second to say, two barks. Or you could reduce the volume of barking. If the barking is being maintained by something else, or environmental stimuli are triggering barking very often, then you still have a problem. But it would work with a lot of dogs. The real problem with anti-bark collars is not the aversive control. Studies have shown that dogs are not distressed by the spray or shock, they simply learn to avoid it. The problem is that people buy them without always considering the reason for barking. There is an ethical question that is raised by giving owners access to a tool which will stop or reduce barking, which may reduce the likelihood of the owners doing something about the cause of the problem; e.g boredom, threat, anxiety. This same problem would also apply with a collar that uses +R or -P to reduce barking.

So you suspect a biological problem (genetics) and you think that will respond better to training than medication? Maybe, it seems a bit counter-intuitive though. There are a number of medical conditions which can be tested for, but you cannot test for "low brain serotonin". You can wait until the dog dies, remove his brain, liquify it and measure serotonin - but by then it's too late to medicate! The decision to medicate is based mostly on behavioural symptoms, followed by response to medication post-treatment. This is the silly part about this debate. If there are side-effects that outweigh the benefit of medication, you taper-off and discontinue drug therapy. If there are not, you have a happier, more relaxed dog and your problem is solved. Any behaviour modification becomes much, much easier and more likely to remain effective post-treatment. If the dog is simply lacking exercise, training and mental stimulation - then this is usually fairly easily remedied. I have no doubt that there are veterinary behaviourists out there who just blindly write scripts for drugs that dogs don't need without addressing more pressing matters but I think the incidence of this is HIGHLY over-stated. As is the incidence of veterinary behaviourists who have not worked with, and do not understand GSDs and other working dogs. They are one of the most popular breeds in this country. They are massively over-represented in presentations to veterinary behaviourists, behaviourists and dog trainers. They are far from a misunderstood and unknown quantity!

I'm not saying that somnolence isn't a known side-effect of modern psychopharmacology, but the evidence does not support that notion that serious side-effects (those that outweigh the benefits of medication) are common. In one quite large double-blind study (Fluoxetine in humans) the placebo group discontinued use due to side-effects equally as much as the treatment group! This suggests the possibility that the drug itself was not responsible for the reported side-effects. PetSitters suggested "GSD's" (plural), but did not specify how many dogs, verify the actual effects, identify the medication prescribed or any other factors that might account for what she has implied. I'm not saying that she hasn't seen a dog or dogs who have suffered side effects from medication, but it's hard to accept such accounts over stringently collected and published data. To do so limits the valid and useful options available for treatment on the basis of what is probably a fallacy. Clomicalm is usually prescribed for very serious stereotypies, some anxiety disorders, and self-injurious behaviour. Not all of these cases require medication as we know, but for those that do, it is literally a life-saver.

Could you be more specific? Which drugs? Were the dogs taking any other drugs or remedies? What do you mean by "zonked"? How would you tell the difference between "zonked" and "calm"? Were these cases recent?

It sounds more like something else is maintaining the behaviour unless this is only a recent approach that you have adopted? I would try the easiest thing first, and that would be tryptophan supplementation every morning. You probably have a very good idea of how much she is squeaking, but it's worth actually timing it for a week or so, every time you come home (so you have a reasonably uniform antecedent stimulus). This will give you an objective baseline measure. Then begin supplementation. If, after a couple of weeks, the squeaking has reduced you will know whether it's worth continuing. You may find that if she is less wound-up, it's easier to implement behaviour modification such as giving her specific things to do, quietly, when she greets you.

When I have recommended a head collar I also recommend a double-ended leash connected back to the flat collar. It is safer, and the handler (and dog) are less likely to become wholly dependent on the head collar. Medication will always get a strong response, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Modern medications are not sedatives, tranqs, or dangerous experiments with brain chemistry.

Thats what I dont understand. With a problem that is so severe it requires medication why is the OP on here asking about what equipment would be best for a reactive GSD. I get the impression that a third party has made the suggestion.

The Black Dog hands-free belt has a plastic clip but if you ask Warren he'll explain how to bypass it by passing the leash through one of the D-rings.

If the vet behaviourist has recommended a head collar as part of a program that requires one (there are clinically tested, published, peer-reviewed programs for reactive dogs that use head collars) then get whatever they recommend. If it is just a suggestion from someone else, then there really isn't any need unless the owner is seriously over-powered by the dog. The arguments against head collars are a lot like the arguments against prong collars.