Puppy Developement

Dog Development graphic created by Pet365 - a UK stockist of dog beds and brands like Hamish McBeth. Click below to see the full size version.

Cyper Rally-O

Cyber Rally-O offers the opportunity for you and your dog to participate in this fun sport by video entry. Fearful and reactive dogs can have fun and earn titles in an environment that is comfortable for them. All dogs (and their people) are welcome! ~ Cyber Rally-O Yahoogroup

First time I entered a ring at an AKC event with any of my dogs was in March 2005 with Rylie. We did good and she earned her Rally Novice tile the following trial. I was so proud of her. She was nervous, I was nervous, but we did it. Raygen earned his RA and Ryker earned his RAE. At this time I am not able to enter any trials with Ryddick due to his unpredictabilty towards humans. Cyber Rally-O gives me the oppurtunity to enter via video. No people around (or only close friends) anywhere, anytime :)
www.adogsjourney.com
Or join the CyberRally-O Yahoogroup

WW Treibball

Rydge, a Toy Poodle, pushing the ball with his nose.

Bailey

On July 22nd I offered to foster a tiny Chihuahua/Dachshund mix thinking she would get adopted in a few weeks. She had some fear issues with people, places and large dogs, although anything was larger then her tiny 5lb body. I took her to Agility trials and socialized her with the help of my friends. She has been attending ever puppy playtime during my puppy classes and sat on the sidelines during the other classes. She has become a bubbly fun little dog. She is operant and has shown some great athleticism doing flips and jump-flip-twist-push-of-your-leg-bounces. She sits, downs, rolls over, has an amazing recall and does some funky break dance routine when she feels she is waiting to long to hear the clicker sound.
After she got spayed and her her excess teeth pulled she amazed me with her tugging abilities.

Well, it is October 25th and she is still with me. So, I enrolled her in a basic manners class to get her Resume looking better. She is a very special dog and her future home will absolutely adore her.

Clicker Expo 2011

 Julie Vargas-Skinner

Emma Parsons

I signed up for the January 2011 Clicker Expo in Newport Beach, CA. This will be my fourth time attending. This year I will visit labs and lectures with Eva and Emily, Cecilie Køste and some lectures with Emma Parson and Ken Ramirez. I will visit with my daughter who is living nearby and hopefully get a ride to the Ocean. For me there is nothing more breathtaking then the Ocean. I miss it every day.
I am going to see some friends form SoCal and look forward in meeting new ones.

Doors & Tug & Eating

Play or dominance? 5 week old ACD on 7 week old Rottweiler

And the answer is:
What are three things that are often falsely thought of dominance behaviors?

Going through Doors first:
Some trainers say that going through doors first establishes dominance. No it won't.

Playing Tug:
Some trainers say that playing tug will make your dog dominant. No it won't.

Eating First:
Some trainers say that eating first established dominance. No it won't.

All of these mentioned have nothing to do with dominance.
Take the test.

Doors: Have your dog pack by the door and open it to release all dogs at the same time to an outside area that is save to run out to. Don't ask for a sit of down. The alpha may or may not go first. The fasted, most boisterous dog usually does. If you mix big and large the biggest usually go, since the little ones stay back to avoid being trampled.

Tug: If you are physically able, playing tug with your dog is a great way to exercise your dog and yourself. It is also a great way to reward your dog during training. Establish rules. No biting hand, not even by accident. Teach releasing the tug when you ask the dog to. Sometimes you can let the dog win, sometimes you ask for a release.
It is not a game that should be played with dogs who have toy guarding issues.

Eating: Without saying anything to your dogs, throw a handful of kibble on the ground in front of the pack. Unless you have some resource guarders there is not going to be any growling. All dogs eat as fast as they can until all the kibble is gone. Alpha does not eat first while all the other sit quietly on the sideline. The ones that may squabble are the ones that guard their resources which is a behavioral problem not an alpha behavior.

Don't confuse dominance, with reactivity, with aggressive behaviors. Dominant dogs don't bully, fight or demand anything.

Effect of the Poisoned Cue

I recently met with a young man to test his dog for the CGC. On previous email correspondence he said that his dog was ready to take the test. When we met I was not very impressed with the dogs behavior. Testing has to be done without a prong. Once he removed the prong collar he had no control of his dog. He lunged at me and my dog Raygen. The sit and down where painful to watch. When the owner asked the dog to sit, he winced and slowly, very slowly sat down. He did the same when asked to lie down. This leaves me to believe that the cues were poisoned. When I asked him how he trained the sit he told me that he commanded the dog to "sitz" and he then pulled up on the dogs leash, while wearing a prong collar, until the dog sat down. For the down he would command the dog to "platz" and pull the leash down.

Clearly this dog was anticipating the pain of the prong. Very sad.

Let's get it straight

I hear it over and over from trainers who don't understand training using +R.
"+R does not work since we ignore bad behavior" No we don't. Positive is not permissive. We don't let the dogs run in the house, we don't let them jump on the kitchen counters, we don't let them run away. (That is kind of funny to think we ignore the dog for running away. >bg< )
+R is used in training a behavior we want to see again. For example: sit. We don't reward a down, stand, roll over. We reward the sit. Lying down is not a bad behavior, just not something we are going to reward the dog at that time, since we are teaching the sit. If we don;t want the dog to jump on the counter we don't kick it, jerk it off the counter, yell at it or booby trap it.
First we manage it. No dog allowed in the kitchen. 100% supervision. No temptation, no food on left on the counter.
Second we train an incompatible behavior. Sit, or down, or four on the floor. We reward when the dog is no jumping on the counter. It really works.
Manage-Train vs Set-Up For Failure and Punish

Chain Leashes

On a recent discussion forum the topic was, using chain leashes for dogs that bite the leash when they become aroused by environmental changes (seeing another dog). How about teaching a dog not to bite the leash, PERIOD. Biting a chain leash will not keep a dog who is over threshold from biting a leash. Biting chain leashes cause broken teeth, that is a fact.

Train the dog to leave the leash using clicker training methods before exposing him to environmental changes that puts him over threshold. The rules of Tug of War and keeping the dog under threshold apply in the case of the exuberant Lab (as seen on the show: "It's me or the Dog".)

Rule # 1 Drop it and leave it must taught

Rule # 2 Only tug when I ask you to.

Rule # 3 Only tug on toys I want you to tug on.

Rule # 4 Dog needs to be kept under threshold and desensitizing to other dogs before going out for a real walk.

I was a bit disappointed that Victoria used a shortcut to teach the owners how to train their dog. But live goes on and dog dentist need to make a living, too.

WW Lola

This is Lola, a Puppy Class attendee

Announcement

Clicker Expo location for 2010 has been announced. It will be in Doubletree, Oregon on January 29th-31st.
Already time to start planning some of next years seminars?

Jim Basic Seminar

I went to another seminar. This one was with Jim Basic from California. Sigh! I miss CA.
Him and Nancy Guyes have a series of training articles in the Clean Run Magazine that are very popular. Gamblers was the topic all three days. First day was all about foundation. Driving ahead, teaching the out, not loosing to much "real estate". I really needed to hear about the "real estate". Something simple that will determine a Q or a NQ.
Ryker was a working dog on day three. I felt a bit out of place as he was hyped to the max and even a simple wrap around the jump seemed to much for him. Being in the car the two previous days did not help.
In the end we were able to be were we needed to when the gamble whistle blew. I collected more training tools and will use them in my classes for anyone that is interested in distance games.
Next..... July Stacy Camp with Anne Braue, Stephanie Spyr, Karen Holik and Stacy

Pre-Agility Class

I just finished up a pre-Agility class at a local SLC park.
It has been challenging at times. There were three dogs, all Black Lab mixes at different training levels. The most challenging one was the girl. Very enthusiastic about "live+". I taught the owner how to positively teach impulse control. We did some doggy zen and lots of rewards for doing the behaviors correctly or just sitting still. I saw a lot of improvement within a few weeks. One of the dogs was a bit more on the shy side and I introduced some motivational games with food and toys. We also did some chute training and after a few sessions he had become confident in running through.
The 3rd dog came with more advanced behaviors. He was able to sit and down stay and had an awesome recall. The dog learned a perfect straight chute at full running speed. I was also able to introduce come to hand exercises.
Near the end of the classes I would ask them to perform some basic CGC exercises. This improved some handler/dog focus.
The owners and I were happy with the results at the end of the session.
Everyone had a small taste of how demanding training for agility can be.

Puppy Class using a clicker

Teaching puppy class is one of my favorite things. I love puppies of all temperaments, sizes and breeds (or mixes). I introduce the clicker and at first the owners are very skeptical. However, when they see that within minutes their puppies are paying so much more attention they all want to learn more about it. Since I don't specifically teach a clicker class I give all my students a choice of using a clicker or only a marker word. Clicker trained dogs always come out on top of the class. It doesn't matter what any of the goals are. Training Manners, Tricks, Competition Obedience, Rally, Agility, Flyball or Freestyle; it is all trainable with a clicker. For more information on clicker training visit www.clickertraining.com

Inconsistently Inconsistent

Being consistent is very important in dog training and behavior modification. Being unpredictable will create a confused dog. Sometimes we let the dog jump up and sometimes we don't, is just a small example of a problem behavior we create.
How to create a confused dog:

• Be inconsistent all the time, but not always and don't do the same thing more then twice, only once in a while. Surprise your dog with different rules.
• Use more then one command for one behavior. Come, could also be "get here", "now", "this instant".
• Every human in the household should use a different word so the dog really learns better English, faster.
• Don't enforce rules when you are to tired and change them at your convenience.
• Every member of the household should have a different rule for the same behavior.

WW Red 'n White Dogs

Loves me......

.......Loves me not

Blame the Dog

He is stubborn. Nope, dogs are not stubborn, you just haven't figured your dog out yet. Find out what makes him want to work with and for you. And work withing the limits of your dogs capabilities. Are you asking a Basset Hound to race Flyball in 4.5 seconds?

He is doing it on purpose to make me mad. Nope, dogs don't want to get anyone mad.

He knows better. Nope, they sure don't, that is why you are there to teach him manners.

He feels guilty. Nope, dogs don't feel guilt. Really.

Dogs are none of the above. It's a trainers excuse for not knowing how to train dogs.

A dog is for life

3 year old Gabriel and Rylie

Our human nature craves companionship. Sometimes we don't like other humans as companions as much as pets. (For the sake of this blog I will always use dogs.)
Here are a few misconceptions that some people have when getting a dog

...........They can be ignored. You don't have to take them to dinner, vacation or childcare.
A few of us really care about our pets and do use a dog walker or pet sitter when we can't give them the time they deserve. Some of us have the luxury of being a stay at home dog parent.
....They don't complain when ill. Most dogs will just lie there if they have a headache or tummy ache or generally don't feel well. Some dogs get aggressive and all we do is yell at them and they will usually remove themselves from our sight. Unless we are having a training session. We get mad when the dog won't sit or down or refuse to do behaviors we are sure he has learned. Lets just bring out the prong or shock collar and cure the dog. Give the dog a break!
....They can be replaced. Jumping up, digging, barking, nipping, wanting to play all the time, (what a bother), moving, going on vacation, are just a few reasons why we can just dump Fido at the pound. When we decide to get another Fido all we have to do is ask around. There sure are many Fidos that are being replaced and need a flat to stay for a while.
....They will eat anything. Whatever is on sale, buy it and feed it to Fido. He sure isn't picky. If he is, just don't feed him anything else until he eats it out of hunger. Some dogs start going into the trash to try to get the nutrition they need. Don't bother looking at the ingredients. They must be good, because the bag says nutritious and delicious. Yum!
....They go get a little brother. Getting a Bro for your Fido is a great idea. Especially if Fido has some issues. Maybe Fido will calm down with Bro in the house. They play very nice together. Fido is even teaching Bro some of the things that is upsetting you. Yes, dogs do learn from watching other dogs.

Common Recall Training Mistakes

1. Call the dog when he doesn't want to come


2. If the dog comes, ignore him


3. Call the dog when you are going to do something unpleasant to him


4. Teach the dog that the "come" command preludes a chase game


5. Put the dog on a leash and call him and when he doesn't come, give it a jerk (or pop or whatever you want to call a quick snap on the leash)

There is no correction....

... in Clicker Training. Even the use of a NRM (commonly used in Pet Store training) during Clicker Training, can result in the dog shutting down, get confused or the cue will become poisoned. Clicker Training teaches the dog to be operant (offer behaviors). If you or your trainer do not know how to put the behavior on stimulus control, then ask someone that can. Clicker training is simple uncomplicated, positive, fun training. Really!