Kelpie-i

SM, I would like to try the Emergency Shut down maneuvre on Gabe but he has been quite good lately! I HOPE I will never have to use it! Although I am curious to see if it will work.

What Erny said...plus Try not to console/comfort the dog when he is looking a bit "green around the gills" as anything you do/say will be perceived as reinforcement. Try not to travel when he has a full stomach. There are some herbal car sickness remedies that you might wish to look into. Rescue Remedy (drops) may help also. You can find this at your local pharmacy. A few drops on the tongue 15 mins before travel may help to alleviate some of the anxiety.

If you are first time dog owners, then I would highly recommend NOT going the 2 pups at once, regardless of whether there are 2 of you doing the training.

There is nothing wrong with looking into the WHY's but the dog is jumping the fence due to a motivation on the other side that nobody is able to control. You cannot tell the neighbours not to come out of their home because it causes the dog to jump the fence. The electric fence is not invisible, the white tape is clearly visible to the dog and once he has learned that the act of fence jumping is no longer rewarding, he will no longer try. You can then remove the unit and leave the tape in place as a visual. I liken fence jumping to stock chasing in a way. There is a high level motivation behind the action. Once Jessca deals with the fence jumping problem, which is a very real concern, she can work on the other things. As a trainer, I would be tackling this problem first and foremost which will save her dog's life. The other problems like the barking etc, you can deal with afterward. If a dog is on someone elses property, they have the right to shoot it. No questions asked!

Persephone, escaping/fence jumping is a highly self rewarding act. I wonder how you or any other trainer would be able to stop a dog from jumping a fence when the owner is not there by way of conventional training.

Hmmm, I don't think it's such a good idea....I can just see the lawsuits flying! Need to be extremely careful of what goes onto print about anybody or you could be sued for defamation of character.

We can't help but tense up when we know that something may happen, this is a natural human reaction and is our own conditioned response to a particular trigger. Therefore to tell a person to "relax" is as useless as...well you get my drift. No matter what you do, your body will stiffen even slightly and dogs can sense this change. This is why counter-conditioning is a great way to condition the dog to your natural tensing. In a usual aggression situation, the owner tenses just as they see another dog, this tensing is just another trigger for the dog. Your dog has conditioned responses to various triggers and therefore you can counter-condition the dog to respond to your tensing in a different manner. Doing some collar grab work as well as lead tensing work and teaching/conditioning the dog to show a new behaviour when these things happen is a good way to add to the current conditioned response, and IMO a much more sensible way of dealing with the situation where tensing is going to happen, albeit it may take a few weeks to condition the new respones but if you are in the habit of training then that should not be too difficult a task. I did some major counter conditioning work with my DA dog and it went from a case of redirected aggression towards me whenever I tensed and therefore shortened/tightened the lead to keep him from lunging another dog, to now full focus on me upon tightening of the lead upon seeing another dog. Do I still tense up...you betcha but funny thing, I am much more relaxed because I know that my tensing will not cause any problems..if that makes sense!

Jessca, you can purchase the electric fence unit from Bunnings or from this mob Thunderbird unit. You only need a 12v system with a 12v battery (battery you can buy from Super cheap Auto), that is plenty strong for a dog. You will also need the electric tape and a metal stake for earth. They also make a mains unit but if you don't have access to mains power outside, then the battery unit is sufficient. Much cheaper than buying the containment system and works a treat. Run two strips of it accross the fence, one lower (or at middle) and the other higher..he will try once and never again!!

I know of one registered "breeder" (not as a friend but I have spoken with her and know of what she does) and there is absolutely no way I would recommend her to anyone.

She most certainly did PAX. She sniffed out a sucker a mile away!! I just learned from our neighbour that she too had a puppy land on her doorstep on Monday night, the description is identical to the one we have here. We are certain it must have been her sister.

I have posted this in Rescue but I feel it may get more "air time" here. I hope Troy won't mind :rolleyes:

Can you please show me where you've stated this Midol....I cannot seem to find it.....genuinly! You're coming accross as being angry!! Are you losing control???

Midol, the anthropomorphising I was referring to was the fact that you feel a dog is being dominant if is it not listening to you. You come accross as placing YOUR human emotions and beliefs onto your dog's actions. Almost as though you take it as a challenge to your persona and status when your dog doesn't listen to a command. My trainers know their stuff, many of them experts in their chosen field of dog sports and dog behaviour issues and will impart information to the clients in a manner that is easy for the layman to understand. If this means describing something in a slightly anthropomorphic way, then so be it and there is no harm in it as long as the information imparted is correct. As I always say...you've gotta "walk the walk before you can talk the talk". Dogs make choices every day and it's the dog who feels it is working as a team with its owner is the one who will make the choices to happily and willingly comply with commands. If your dog is continously refuting a command/s, then there is something seriously wrong with either your training and/or your relationship. A dog is not a robot and I don't believe it should not be treated as such...it is a thinking, breathing being. And because of this, things aren't always as clear cut as you would like to have them.

That's what I said earlier tkay.....totally agree!

Volunteer at your local shelter or pound. This will give you good experience handling various different dogs, although you may not be actually training them. The best experience is handle as many dogs as possible, with all types of personalities, problems and experience. Dog walking perhaps with the added bonus of a training session??

Slightly Off Topic but in response to LM's post..... Absolutely incorrect here LM. Remember I spent 3 days with captive wolves in America and with those who study and care for them each day and I will tell you that there is absoutely no way on God's green earth that you could compare these animals to our domestic dog. To do so is absolutely ludicrous. Whilst the interactions amonst each pack member were somewhat similar to what we see amongst our dogs (dog to dog), interactions between wolf and man is very different. There was much discussion about what would happen to you if you even raised your voice at them...all I can say is that it wouldn't be wise nor pretty. When they put the wolves on the lead to move them from the enclosures, they would hope and pray that the animal was in a cooperative mood that day. If that animal wanted to pull the handler to Kingdom come, it would and all the handler is able to do is let go of the lead and try to entice him back with a fresh piece of road kill. No e-collars here unless you wanted to end up dead. Captive or not, these are wild animals and are an extremely different animal to our domesticated dog who have gone through thousands of years of domestication and selective breeding. The comparison, unfortunately, is null and void.

Beautifully put tkay! :rolleyes:

Yes totally agree. This is exactly what I was trying to say. I guess I am one of those people who hates to hear the word "dominance" used as an excuse for everything the dog does or doesn't do. It's almost anthropomorphic.

Can, but not always necessarily so Erny, but I get where you are coming from. I still cannot see how a dog that does not listen can be labelled "dominant"!!! Testing, defiant...yes...but not dominant. My kelpie who chose to take chase on a lone sheep one day would not come back no matter how much I called her, her drive took over and she was gone, yet she normally has a beautiful recall even around the sheep and works mobs of sheep without any problems. Was she being dominant in this case or did she make a decision based on what was more favourable to her? ETA: I wouldn't even say she was being defiant as her decision was instinctual based and after much training, has not attempted it again.

Exactly, you were your OWN boss, you were full of your own importance. It was an act of defiance, not dominance. How is making the choice between, say, coming to you and continuing to sniff a dead rat, exerting control over you? In the animal world, dominance is the control of group and resources for the purpose of survival and reproduction. How is a dog not listening to you an act of domimance? Sorry LM, but I fail to see...but heck, what do I know right! Have you been hanging around with protection dog trainers who always talk about "rank"?? Let's just agree to disagree.

But what about if its a matter of choice for the dog and not the fact that you have no control? Remember he listens to you every other time except for when there is, perhaps, something more interesting or exciting for him. When you were a teenager and didn't listen to your parents, were you being dominant or just defiant? Did you feel dominant over your parents when they told you to be home by midnight and you weren't. You made a choice not to listen because the act of doing what you wanted was more pleasurable and held more reward to yourself than listening to your parents. You were acting in a degree of arrogance...your own self importance. I see dogs as no more different than this. They do not live their lives as a continous plot to seek power and control over you, they merely live their lives as they see favourable to themselves. Give and inch, take a mile....grass is greener etc etc. They will do what works for them and what we allow them to do. They will act if and when it is favourable to them. This is not dominance but rather opportunistic. Are they full of their own importance....you bet they are. This would make them more arrogant (to varying degrees) not dominant. A dog who does not listen is making some life choices and will deal with the consequences of his decisions later.

Arrogant: "Having an exaggerated sense of one's own importance". Dominance: "Power and influence over others" If a dog does not come when called (and he knows the command) is this dominance? Let's have a good think about it.

So why can't a dog be labelled as arrogant instead of dominant when he refuses to listen?

A vet I know said she wouldn't own a Dalmatian in a pink fit! When I asked why, she replied: "I don't want to live with a dog that is smarter than I am" Hmmmm, I know of a few dogs like that.. Quickie....when you call your cat and it ignores you, is that dominance? Do you alpha roll your cat for scratching you? Just interested that's all.

I tend to agree with you m-j, opportunistic and clever to a "T".