Aidan3

I suggest you wear one of those boiler suits that Schutzhund trainers are sometimes fond of. Problem solved.

Positive training was not supposed to be about avoiding aversion. Some current takes on it are ridiculous. Karen Pryor, Bob and Marion Bailey, Gary Wilkes, Ian Dunbar - none of these people ever suggested that training would ever be devoid of aversion. "Set the dog up for success" and "timing, criteria, rate of reinforcement" - two mantras which anyone claiming to be "positive" (or not) should heed and if followed lead to good, efficient training. Both apply to successfully teaching a dog to walk on a loose leash, especially the "severe" pullers. Dog pulls, you stop straight away. The moment the leash goes loose, you can start again, or click and treat, or whatever you do. Be a robot, another mantra - "training is a mechanical skill" (Bob Bailey). You don't start with high distractions. There is minimal frustration, it's efficient, and there is no avoidance. My mantra for LLW - "every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash a fairy dies and it's all your fault". Use tools if you can't be that consistent all the time, but be aware of the limitations. Use tools if your dog can over-power you, particularly if this is likely to put someone in danger.

You necessarily have an extinction component in any schedule of reinforcement or shaping procedure, all +R training will involve this. If the dog is working to avoid it, then it's a different situation, but that would usually involve a pop or check, maybe on a correction collar unless the dog is sensitive.

A longcoat in one of my classes was not double-coated, hardly any shedding due to lack of appreciable undercoat. I must say that given my experience with both breeds (not inconsiderable) I'm really surprised that anyone would think a Goldie sheds less, but after reading your post I'm thinking that maybe it has something to do with the climate down here? My GSD blows coat like a Husky, although she is unusual. She seems to respond very quickly to changes in weather too.

No, and as I have said earlier, I don't know of too many breeders who think that is the case either. Certainly the ad in question does not suggest that these dogs are extreme in aggression, quite the opposite, just that they are not suitable for pet homes. Whilst aggression might have a part to play in this (if not competently handled), the bigger issue is that working line dogs necessarily have more drive than most pet homes can provide outlets for. The litter in question is a line-breeding on one of those classic working dogs you mentioned, and very closely related to your own pup. Passing a BH is no guarantee that anything that dog produces will fit in well in a pet home.

I couldn't comment on Integraguard as I don't know them, from what I can tell they train in the KNPV style. I was commenting on the use of "aggression" in the ad, which you seem to agree is OK (based on the above critique). You might be interested to know that they have based their breeding on Yultzen and Von Forell dogs, similar to your latest pup (and very similar to my bitch), and that Fax also features in these lines. In fact, the litter in question is line-bred 4-4 on Fax!

If you go to www.dragonflyllama.com there is an article on gaiting for the show ring. I've not read it but it's by Sue Ailsby so I will vouch for it's brilliance without bothering to read it.

My Goldie started retrieving at 9.5. He is losing his hearing but is otherwise in excellent shape, and despite 9.5 years of "running in" and playing tug instead of retrieving to hand he started getting the idea very quickly. My GSD turns 9 next month, getting a few white hairs around the muzzle but will still herd a soccer ball for 6 hours at a time. They are all a bit different and things can change fairly quickly but I won't consider them "senior" or treat them as such until they tell me they need me to.

What's the situation with other countries that DO allow SchH but do NOT stipulate that dogs need to hold SchH titles? Another thing, is it not actually SV that insists that dogs hold either SchH or HGH titles? The FCI regulate, amongst other things, the international sport of IPO.

I will just say, not a comment on the sub-thread that has formed here, but one of the advantages of shaping is that you can make lemonades out of just about any lemon that falls off the tree. I remember a follow-up visit to the vet after a bloat episode and subsequent surgery. Differential reinforcement of least intense response was the only ticket out of that little tantrum and it did the trick. A correction would not have been appropriate, there was nothing good to reinforce, no way to set the situation up any better, no way of avoiding it, no way of managing it, no tool to make things easier. Within about a minute and a half I had her targeting the surgery table, then the vet and everything was well again. Subsequent visits to the vet still get a conditioned emotional response, but severity has been substantially reduced so I would say the effects have been lasting.

At first, pick times where he is not distracted and has nothing to pull towards. Short bursts, reinforce the good stuff. Build it up. Be absolutely consistent, never let pulling achieve anything for him, even in the harness. If he can pull a little bit and get a sniff at something, he'll keep doing it. If you identify that he wants to go over to something, let him - so long as it's on a loose leash. He would be calmer and more sure of what he is supposed to be doing which is very settling. Glad it's working out, do keep us updated.

Cool, now we know. It's good to get clarification on these matters.

Is an animal that seeks out, consumes and digests non-animal foods omnivorous? That would be my understanding.

but that ones true....!!! No it's not. Not all dogs who are entire will get cancer (actually very few will), although they will all die.

I know someone who used to beat his dog after it escaped the yard through a broken gate, so it would cower when it returned from a visit to the neighbours French Poodle. I told him to fix his gate. His argument was that he didn't need to fix the gate because his dog "knew" it was wrong to leave the yard. no such thing as a "French Poodle" Poodles are commonly held to have originated in Germany French Poodles are the ones that walk around with their nose in the air, have pink fur and use a sexy French accent!

The "quitting signal" used in the study is a really, really inappropriate use of an SD (Discriminative Stimulus). The dogs are conditioned using two different scenarios similar to what clicker trainers call "doggy zen"; DOLers might be more familiar with the "Triangle of Temptation". They are then expected to generalise the SD to completely different stimulus conditions with no attempt to bridge the gap between the conditioning phase and the completely different testing phase. In other words - they have no idea what they are supposed to do. The most surprising finding is that four of the dogs actually figured it out! Malinois, hey? I'm not surprised that it was ineffective, nor am I surprised that the dogs displayed temporary stress. I did like the parts of the lit review at the beginning though.

Oh yes, I wasn't disagreeing with you, just narrowing it down. I'm not sure about "will power" though, except as a cognitive construct. It is reinforcing to "give in" to pulling, which is one reason why I try to limit the opportunities and condition people not to do it (is that "will power"?) As a couple of DOLers can attest, I pay more attention to what people do on the way from the car than I do once they get to the field. I'm sure a few of my local clients are more consistent than they would otherwise be just because they might run into me on the street. Yes, but suprisingly not for the behaviourism aspect!

See: http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=...e=992370272.pdf (it's very long) Readers may also wish to see this study by Schalke et al, don't just read the abstract though (although it is informative on it's own): http://the-digital-library.com/purdue.pdf#page=158 (particular relevance for people teaching recalls I thought)

I think the real issue with positive methods (+R coupled with a flat collar or normal harness) is that it takes absolute consistency. You cannot reinforce pulling on a variable schedule and expect it to extinguish. Hence, the reliance on tools for some people. Hence, why if I suggest a tool I also suggest a double ended leash so that they can have two stimulus conditions and neither of them need to involve pulling. P.S Neither of us should be here, Staranais! Haven't we got exams looming?

I self-insure and recommend it for those with the discipline to do it. So far one of my dogs has had about $10k worth of emergency surgery in her 8 years. The other has had a bee sting and a couple of hot spots and ear infections (in 10 years), so I average it out to make myself feel better... When I looked into it insurance was not an option for my older purebred dogs.

I couldn't agree with that at all. I think BB's point was well taken prior to that and I don't recall anyone disagreeing with his point about the need for training in order to truly rehabilitate a chronic leash puller.

Apparently it is a Ttouch design, the back ring is for "brakes" and the front for "steering" - which is definitely not my recommendation, but maybe has some relevance in a broader context for Ttouch practitioners. Black Dog sell a kit which includes "balance leash" and "harmony harness". It is good value, they are both good products but I'm uncomfortable with the lightness of the plastic clips on the harness (which may be different now) so I would not use one without a double ended leash or safety connector to a flat collar. Other than that I have no complaints, but K9Pro has many more out there than I do and he may have uncovered faults that I am not yet aware of. K9Pro is correct, if people come to me as a trainer, then I assess the dog, recommend equipment (if necessary) then show them how to use it. I am of the understanding that Gentle Leader do suggest their product as a management tool for aggressive dogs, and certainly there have been clinical trials that have used the GL in this way. Again, it depends on an assessment, this is not the sort of thing anyone could make a blanket recommendation on. No doubt Steve and I (and Cosmo and Erny) all work a little bit differently and would draw different conclusions about how we might utilise a tool based on our individual approaches to different problems.

Clicker is just a reward marker, always follow a click with a reward. You can click and treat less often when he gets really good at things but never stop following up the click with a reward. In answer to your earlier question, high-5 can be used as a reward but what you are looking for is an increase in the behaviour you rewarded. Then you will know if he sees it as a rewarding consequence or not. Well all end up using food quite a lot. Your dog is a good candidate for a front attaching harness. It will immediately end the stress while you deal with the real problem. If you also invest in a double ended leash it will be easy to transition from harness to flat collar.

You might muzzle the dog, it would depend on the dog/handler combination and what you were trying to achieve. If you are using food a muzzle will slow you down. Most dogs will not lunge on a head collar at all, and of those that do the majority learn very quickly that it is fruitless so long as the owner doesn't do anything to encourage it (like reinforce it by trying to "calm the dog down" or worse, removing the head collar).

Actually neither was I (it was BB's hypothetical) so let's not let the facts get in the way!