Aidan3

Oh I agree wholeheartedly! The problem is that I am skeptical of your identity and claimed experience.

Excuse my skepticism.

I tried to read the supporting research, but the links are broken. Do you have working links to them? http://replay.web.archive.org/20061130200545/http://www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/great_dane_vaccinosis_fullreport_jan04.pdf "the long-term potential adverse consequence of repeated vaccination is likely to remain unknown"

Diane Jessup actually has over 60 working titles (inc SchH and ring sports), has trained working guard and police dogs, and is an expert witness on behalf of police k9 units. I've enjoyed your latest incarnation the most, entertaining at times, but don't push your luck. The story behind this thread illustrates why we ought to take dogs seriously.

I'd keep moving, or keep him occupied. There is an old article by Bob Bailey somewhere that discusses this, Bob suggests putting the dogs away when they aren't working and that's what I do in my classes. The dogs are either working or in the car. As they mature and learn the norms of going to class, they are then able to stand around a bit more doing "nothing". It takes a bit of time though.

Hi CG, sometimes with dogs like this we just have to work a little bit harder on the boundaries. It's not an unusual problem and it can be a bit tricky to deal with, more because it's a little exasperating for the owner than anything else. I don't let dogs like this stand around doing nothing. If they are allowed to stand there, all of a sudden they are at the end of the leash, or barking, or whatever takes their fancy. So always give them something to do and always pay attention, if they are sitting there quietly, reward it. If you are walking and they aren't paying attention, change direction before it becomes a problem. No need for a big correction, just a gentle tug, release and keep walking in the direction you have chosen. Class is paying attention to you time, not socialising time. If socialisation is allowed, be really specific and obvious about it, have it on cue.

No. But thanks for the lesson in working dogs, I look forward to seeing your performance in the working arena some day. Have you got any videos of good working dogs you could share that would illustrate your points?

Hi kiesha09, it's always best to work with someone experienced and knowledgeable who can help you but in the absence of that I have a few suggestions. You can often work at some distance from an obedience class or fenced, off-leash park. Alternatively, you can tee up some friends to help you out. Other people in your area with reactive dogs are often a source of valuable assistance, because you can work together towards the same goals (just work at the threshold of the most reactive dog for reasons which will quickly become obvious). It is true that, similar to housetraining, the fewer errors you have the sooner you get there. However, LAT does give you some flexibility because you can almost always find something to click. It is also very efficient in reducing threshold. The idea is to shape in the right "direction", so some errors are not the end of the world so long as you are getting closer and closer to your goal.

This is a straw man argument but I'll play along. Why were you sneaking out of your room to go kiss girls? Did your dad want you to stay away from girls completely? If this is so, did you not find another way to avoid getting caught? How did you feel about your dad giving you the strap to prevent you having any relationships with anyone else? I using this reference for the recognition of bad behavior Yeah, I get that. It's still a straw-man - it's not analogous, you're using something similar but different to fabricate flaws in my argument. And you still haven't answered my questions, which I'm going to have to assume is because if you did, you'd have to relate the straw-man argument back to the real discussion, thus exposing the flaws in your argument. I could do this all day, but I'd rather you engaged in the discussion on rational grounds. To anyone following this discussion, please note that while there may be some trainers who do this, the whole point of the exercise suggested (LAT) is to engage with the scary thing. In fact, just about any modern method for working with reactive dogs actively avoids what JoeK is suggesting here. We do not "distract" or "lure" the dog except in special circumstances which I won't go into. Look at That is specifically about teaching the dog how to respond to scary stuff while you build positive associations with it. The dog learns that he isn't under attack. The red-herring of the working line protection dog assumes that the dog wants to fight for the sheer thrill of fighting, which may be true in rare cases, but mostly is misguided self-deception from cowboys who think they have the biggest, baddest d...og in town. Defence drive means the dog feels like he has to defend himself, which should be obvious. There are many roads to Rome, not all of them are alike.

Lindsay does a good lit review and makes suggestions based on those data. Domajn would be the one I would get if I had deeper pockets, or a greater need.

What was his name? Can we verify this story?

This is a straw man argument but I'll play along. Why were you sneaking out of your room to go kiss girls? Did your dad want you to stay away from girls completely? If this is so, did you not find another way to avoid getting caught? How did you feel about your dad giving you the strap to prevent you having any relationships with anyone else?

^which tells me you know as much about clicker training as I know about restoring classic chevys It's not just working dogs who bite people and other dogs. Dogs with bite histories are part and parcel of the business, JoeK. I'd have a lot of trouble paying my insurance premiums if this was an issue.

But how do you know that he isn't keeping "reacting up his sleeve" just because you punished him? I can understand using punishment to quickly suppress something dangerous and then start working on building a different emotional response to something the dog has been reacting to, but I cannot understand this claim that punished dogs don't keep "reacting up [their] sleeve" and dogs who have undergone behaviour modification with positive reinforcement and classical conditioning do. Hundreds upon hundreds of experiments have shown us that nothing is 100% reliable, given enough trials, and none of them would support the claim that punishment is better than positive reinforcement as a behaviour modification technique - in fact, the opposite is frequently suggested. My GSD was accosted by two bouncing labradors yesterday, one of them an adolescent. Do you know what she did when teen-punk came bouncing into her face like an idiot? Exactly what any normal, healthy, "strong-nerved" dog should do, gave him a little bit of a telling off and backed off of her own accord when teen-punk gave the appropriate signals. Except that at one stage she wasn't a normal, healthy, "strong-nerved" dog. She was sharp, aggressive and teen-punk wouldn't have made it that far. I don't know that if I tied her to a fence and let teen-punk at it that she wouldn't eviscerate him, and I don't intend to find out. I think my "world's friendliest" Golden boy would take issue with teen-punk if he were tied to a fence. But I do know that my girl can now communicate like a normal dog without having to suppress anything for fear of correction, and without needing me to tell her anything or distract her with food or whatever people imagine we might do.

I don't know that you've really answered my question though, JoeK. Why are you assuming that the dog, correctly conditioned, with clicker training does not know the ruling of what he does? Why is this so? I can understand healthy skepticism. If you've not seen it yourself, why should you believe anyone who says otherwise? I wouldn't. The burden of proof is upon those who make the claim. But you seem to have a concrete reason, not just disbelief, but a belief in some other principle that dictates the necessity of compulsion. This is what I'm interested in, where does this come from? Or am I wrong, and you are simply skeptical?

Why "must" and "bad"? Is there a reason? Or is this a personal opinion? (Ich bin schwierigkeiten verständnis dieser absatz. Vielleicht können wir diese diskussion fortsetzen mit einer ziege in Deutsch? или на русском языке, где многое lolz будет? )

But the dog is focusing on the other dog - that is the whole point of LAT. I'll explain the clicker for you - it provides a bridge between response and reinforcer. So the dog looks at the other dog without reacting, the handler clicks the clicker to reinforce looking at the other dog without reacting, then because the click promises a reward, the dog looks back to the handler. What you get more of is the dog looking at the other dog without barking. Not "looking at the handler" That's just what happens after you click, it isn't what makes you click. Tell me, if you were going to teach this with corrections, exactly what would you be teaching the dog? Don't say "to not bark" or "to not desire to react" because I want to know what you are teaching the dog to do. When they started putting rats in electrified cages to investigate what happens with punishment, some bright spark noticed that the rats didn't cease to exist when they were punished so the question was raised "what are they doing instead of behaviour X?" It turns out they were doing a whole lot of "freezing" which is their "spezies spezifisch sicherheit reaction". This was what happened when they were shocked, and then the shock got turned off, so that's what they did instead of behaviour X. Of course, dog trainers would never do that, right? It would look ugly if we had dogs cringing and flinching, so we're a little bit more sophisticated. But do you get what I'm asking? What is the dog doing if he isn't reacting? Well I asked you about the dog's body language and you've not responded to that, so I'm wondering what you "aren't seeing" that makes you think the "wunsch für aggression" is still there? If he isn't reacting, why do you think he "desires to react"? Is it his body zunge? If it's body language, please be specific, what are you seeing?

Not really, you can make a dog too frightened of punishment to react. Some people don't have a problem with that but I do. It gives a false impression of safety and the dog doesn't feel any better - only the owner does. I'm not saying it's a bad test or that punishment doesn't have a place, but as a test on it's own it tells you nothing and doesn't impress me. Tell me, JoeK, in the "after" video above, what does the dog's body language tell you?

The owner is happy, the dog is calm. If she had any competitive goals she would be able to start. If she just wanted to be able to walk her dog down the street, she can do that. Well I'm sure you've seen plenty of dogs trained with food compete without food so I'm not sure what your point is?

:D

They were before and after videos. That was the "before", the "after" looked pretty good so they figured something out.

Yeah I can picture it, I've seen it hundreds of times. The handler is not in control, they are watching it unfold in exasperation. You just walk off like there is no option but to follow. Every time you walk off do it like there is no option but to follow, don't stop and negotiate or motivate. Again, 6 month old puppy here.

The aim is to reinforce being able to engage with the scary (or exciting) stuff without over-reacting. So what you do is reinforce calm behavior when looking at the scary or exciting thing. Using a clicker, you can mark the precise moment the dog looks at the scary thing, before they have a chance to get carried away. You need to begin at an appropriate distance. An appropriate distance could be 2m or 200m, you want to set the dog up for success so pick a distance that works. I had a quick look on YouTube and couldn't find a great video (probably didn't look hard enough), but here is one that has a before and after: Before: After:

Why is this so difficult? The handler is in control - exactly! :D If your dog can't greet someone without jumping all over them, don't let them greet anyone unless they are sitting. No special tools required. Sit = attention, jump = taken away, flat collar, martingale, check - whatever. I know it's not always that simple, but this is a 6 month old pup. He hasn't had years to learn this and chances are his owner will figure it out pretty quick once she starts setting this up and using a leash.

Good solution! Now that you have a high level reward, have a look at the Look At That game videos on YouTube, it would be a great way to move from distracting him to rewarding him for being able to keep his head.