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DeltaDogz - Purely Positive Real Life Training

"She's just stubborn."

10/16/2018

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Jessie was my first dog, long before I became a dog trainer.  She went to puppy school at a popular local dog school.
I was annoyed with Jessie. She had already refused to come when I called her at the beach, and now that we were back in the holiday house, she was hiding behind the couch and refused to come out. "She's so stubborn today" I thought angrily. I managed to get my hand on her collar and dragged her out from behind the couch, reprimanding her for being so obstinate. 
She seemed unusually subdued though, so I offered her some food which she refused - very unusual for her. She tried to crawl back behind the couch. I started to get worried something was wrong. Maybe she had eaten something poisonous at the beach?
It was difficult finding a vet that was open at this holiday location. By the time I put Jessie in the car she couldn't walk anymore.

"This is bad." the vet said. Her gums were nearly white. She was losing blood internally. 

She was dying.

She had been dying when she didn't come when I called her.

She had been dying when she refused to come out from behind the couch.

Yet I had assumed she was "stubborn", a "bad dog", when she hadn't done as told. This was the underlying assumption I had been taught when I took her to dog school: If the dog doesn't listen, they are "stubborn", "trying to be boss", etc. You just had to be tougher, be more dominant, and they would start to behave.

Jessie died only a few hours later. A post mortem revealed a ruptured spleen tumour. She was just 7 years old.

Labelling a dog stubborn is rarely as drastically and unforgivably wrong as it was in Jessie's case. Yet, always wrong it is.

Usually, a dog is called "stubborn" if they refuse to do something the handler is convinced the dog "knows". This would mean that somehow the dog finds "getting his own way" more motivating, in and of itself, than doing the handler's bidding (which neatly ties in with "dominance theory").
This absolves the handler of any responsibility to check for any physical, emotional or training related reasons for the failure to do as asked.

Whilst Jessie's case was particularly drastic, consider these other examples of "stubbornness":
  • A highly trained dog suddenly refused to retrieve a dumbbell. Attempts to retrain the "retrieve" from scratch failed. It turned out the dog had a lose tooth and was in pain when picking up the dumbbell. 
  • My own Whippet Kiara, who loves being inside (and whose Recall is superb), suddenly refused to come back inside after being let out to toilet. It was raining and cold, and she was shivering, yet she wouldn't budge. It turned out that a new printer I had recently installed caused her extreme distress when turned on.
  • A client's Golden Retriever was very slow to execute a Sit. It turned out she had Elbow Dysplasia and needed an operation to make her comfortable.
  • Giro, my Collie, would sometimes start pulling hard on the leash, despite being trained to walk on  a loose leash. This was early on in my training journey, when I was "crossing over" from dominance based training to positive training, and so I still got mad at him (just like with Jessie). It turned out that Giro had developed a phobia of train noises, particularly the horn tooting. He was terrified, and just wanted was to get away as fast as possible.  

Then of course there is also (and most commonly) "stubbornness" arising from problems with the training process. 
Eileen Anderson has put together an excellent article including videos shedding light on this issue here:  eileenanddogs.com/2012/07/24/missed-cue/

So, next time you are perplexed why your dog isn't doing something you asked, become a detective rather than being angry with your dog. Whatever they do makes perfect sense, whether we like it or not.
​
RIP Jessie. I wish I could right all the things I did wrong by you.

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Snake avoidance - does electric shock collar training keep your dog safe?

11/27/2017

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Dog owners are understandably mortified by the thought of their dog getting injured, or even killed, by a snake.
“Snake avoidance” training, therefore, is a seller in snake season. Electric shock collars are commonly used to try and scare the dog away from snakes. It seems logical: How else can you make sure your dog avoids snakes? How else but to instil fear of a painful experience, to protect them from an even more painful one?

Unfortunately, it is not that easy. There are two main problems.
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Problem #1: Even with electric shock training, dogs will not reliably learn to avoid snakes.
​Some might freeze in panic at the thought of getting zapped. Some might attack the snake before (so they think) it will bring on the horrific zap to their neck. 
Some may only avoid snakes in the environment they have been zapped in; some only if the “trainer”is present, and some only if the electric shock collar is on.
And if the timing of the electric shock isn’t absolutely precise, e.g. it’s a fraction too late as the dog looks back at its owner, or is even when it’s starting to turn back to the owner, then the dog may well conclude that it’s the owner who is causing the pain it feels and run towards the snake. If the dog gets zapped as it stands still looking at the snake, he may well jump forward as a response to the shock.

In summary: even the most painful training will not reliably work, particularly if timing of the shock is not perfect.
Problem #2: Training with pain raises stress levels in dogs and can lead to behavioural problems
There are several scientific studies documenting the damaging effects of the use of electronic shock collars.
Veterinary Behaviourist Dr. Karen Overall lists them here: Open Letter from Dr. Karen Overall Regarding the Use of Shock Collars
Also see: The welfare consequences and efficacy of training pet dogs with remote electronic training collars in comparison to reward based training.
So, what is the alternative?
Rather than try to make the dog scared of snakes, the dog can be trained to see a snake as a "trigger" for an immediate return to the owner - not for safety, but for a large reward. An “Emergency Recall” can be trained for when the owner is present and can call the dog away from a snake. This can be done with the correct application of positive training techniques and tools, with guaranteed no behavioural side effects. Other than an improved Recall overall.

Is the outcome 100% snake avoidance? No. 
No training of a  living thing will ever yield 100% perfect outcomes.
But if training is done well, reliability will be as high - and most likely higher - than with using an electric shock collar. With no risk to the welfare of the dog.

The best insurance against snake bite
But the best insurance against snake bite is to keep your dog away from areas where the risk of a snake bite is high in snake season, such as around waterways and in long grass. Keeping your dog inside when you’re not at home means there is much less chance of your dog being bitten by a snake, at least while you’re not there and can’t help if it does happen. If you're not sure how this can be done, contact a certified positive trainer in your area for assistance. 
More information
Pet Professional Guild BARKS from the Guild Jan/Feb 2015, pages 32 - 34
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When Kiara ignored "Leave It" ...

2/18/2014

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For a while now, Kiara had made it a habit of snatching a treat I threw for Giro at the off leash park. Being a Whippet, she would win the race every time. So I decided to train her to leave the treat I throw for Giro. Great opportunity for Leave It training, I thought.
Leave It is one of Kiara's most solid behaviours. I can throw a super desirable reward, and ask her to Leave It when she's within an inch of grabbing it. She'll swivel around instantly and race back towards me.
So, as I was about to throw the treat, and she was staring at me expectantly, I said "Leave It" and threw the treat. She went straight for it. I was flabbergasted. I tried again ... same result.
"No!!" I yelled at her as she scoffed up the treat, and then fed lots of treats to Giro as extra punishment. I was fuming (which is sadly when I fall back to verbal corrections, the way I first learned to train dogs many years ago). How could it be that my reliable Kiara was completely blowing the Leave It?
Fortunately, Whippets have extremely expressive faces. She looked quite shocked when I yelled at her, and puzzled as I fed the treats to Giro. Within moments that look on her face made it obvious to me that she had not "ignored" the Leave It ... something about it just didn't make sense to her. Was it because I hadn't done much Leave It training at the park? Was it something about the situation that looked different to my training approach?

I calmed down and analysed the situation. At the next attempt, I threw the treat and let her chase it. This time, "Leave it" brought the desired response, as instantly and quickly as I would expect of Kiara. I concluded that giving the cue "Leave it" as she was staring at me, before I had even thrown the treat, meant I was effectively asking her to "Leave" looking at me. But the subsequent behaviour to "Leave it" is to return Attention to me. Which is what she did by continuing to look at me. So the treat I threw then must have just looked like her reward for "Leave It" to her.
The way I had trained Leave It, it was always something she was looking at that I asked her to Leave. So of course I can't now expect her to Leave the next thing that she might like to go for.
When I asked her to "Wait" instead, and then threw the treat, she did not go for it. "Wait" makes sense to her in those circumstances: I had trained it to mean "remain in position no matter what, and wait for further instructions (either being released to what she wants, or any other cue I might then give her)".

So as usual, a "failure" to respond to a cue is always a reflection on the trainer. There is always a reason why dogs do what they do, but it can take some time to figure it out. Punishing the dog (by either verbal or physical correction) means we lay the blame on the dog, when, uncomfortably, it is us who has stuffed up.

I like what the outspoken Susan Garrett has to say about corrections:
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Here is a video of some other examples of situations where it would have been easy to put the blame on the dog for "disobeying", when in fact there is a perfectly good reason for the dog to behave that way:
This is also true when we deal with dogs' fearful or aggressive behaviour. Both in training and behaviour modification it comes down to trying to understand the situation from the dog's point of view, a point beautifully made by Rise Van Fleet in her article "The Empathic Dog Trainer: Considering the Dog's Point of View".

This is what makes reward focused training so challenging: the need to really communicate with your dog, to listen to their feedback about you, to accept full responsibility when things go wrong. It's so much harder than just punishing perceived disobedience. But nothing beats the joy of feeling in harmony with your four legged best friend.
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Why I won't be watching the Coen brothers' new movie

1/17/2014

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Picture"Inside Llewyn Davis", by the Coen Brothers
"The whole exercise of shooting a cat is pretty nightmarish because they don't care about anything. They don't want to do what you want them to do," says Ethan. [...] "The cat was just horrible." The Age, January 17, 2014.
Clearly, the Coen brothers were in dire need of an animal trainer who knew what they were doing. The old notion of cats being "aloof" and "untrainable" is about as antiquated as the view that dogs "need to be shown who's boss" or else they take over the pack.
Cats (along with most other animals including us) respond extremely well to positive reinforcement focused training methods. They get their "untrainable" tag because contrary to dogs, you can't "make" a cat do anything. But you can motivate them do almost anything with the right training approach. And, along with a well trained cat, you get a pretty sociable one too.

PictureRajah and Kiara waiting for training. | Practicing "Flat" together.
Rajah the cat loves his training just as much as Kiara the Whippet does. He offers his latest trick whenever he catches my eye (at the moment, this is lying down flat on his side - a trick he learned by watching Kiara). His eyes light up when he "gets it right" and gets his reward, just like my dogs'.
Whilst training dogs with positive reinforcement is gaining traction around the world, the way most people view cats has not followed suit, as the Coen's example shows. Fortunately, things are changing, with trainers and behaviourists such as Pam Johnson-Bennett and Karen Pryor publishing books and online information about training (and better understanding) cats.


So, I won't be watching the movie. I know I won't be able to help observing the cat and more than likely, given the attitude of the makers of the movie, I would see its signs of stress and anxiety. If only they knew how easy it could have been - and how much more fun for both people and cat alike!
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Rajah comes home (again)

8/20/2013

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Only a few weeks ago, Rajah recovered from a desexing operation which included abdominal surgery. He had just rediscovered the joy of climbing trees, when on Saturday he didn't respond when I called him - very unusual for this well trained cat :-)
Soon after he started vomiting and wouldn't move. I rushed him to the Animal Emergency Centre (what do people do who live miles from one of these places?) and he was immediately admitted, by then panting heavily. Had he poisoned himself on the lillies in the garden? Had he finally eaten one of the small pieces of Lego he loves chewing on? By early next morning, they finally knew what was wrong: his stomach was sitting in his chest. Probably congenital, exacerbated by some form of trauma (pictures of him jumping off trees came immediately to my mind.) I didn't even know such a thing was possible. There was a hole in his diaphragm, and the stomach and parts of his small intestine had moved through it and were squashing his lungs and heart.
A complicated operation, requiring a specialist surgeon, was all that could save him. In the end, with the vets assuring me that the chances of Rajah leading a normal life again were good, I decided to go ahead. He nearly died during surgery, but he made it through.
Now he is home. I can only hope the vets were right, and he will be able to resume a normal cat's life to make all the pain he has to go through worth it. At the moment he can't bear to lie down, his nose is snotty and his breathing rattles, but flashes of his indomitable personality come through in the few minutes after a good sleep and a small meal. Late tonight he crawled on my lap and finally, awkwardly, lay down and slept. I told him I loved him and that all will be good.
I can only hope I have made the right decision.

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And then there were three ...

5/3/2013

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About two months ago my kids and I  found a little kitten staggering out from under a scout hall. We gave it water and food and after a few days, managed to bring it home. After I overcame my cat allergy with massive doses of Vitamin C, he ended up staying, and is now called Rajah. By now he loves clicker training, sitting in laps and winding his way around Kiara the Whippet's legs. He also has a fabulous Recall :-). Kiara has been undergoing intense training to change her from a - potential - cat killer to a cat lover. I used a combination of Katen Pryor's ("Curing a cat chasing dog") and Leslie McDevitt's (LAT, Puppy Ping Pong) approaches, and so far, things have been progressing well. They even have (heavily monitored) play sessions together now, while Giro and Rajah have unanimously agreed to ignore each other's existence.

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Mother dogs have a lot to answer for

3/27/2012

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They shake their puppies by the scruff of their neck. They bite across their puppies’ noses and hold them down. They roll them over on their backs and stand over them menacingly.

Or so you would think looking at the array of reasons being rolled out for various methods of disciplining dogs. When I came across the latest version of this, during a video about a head halter, which delivers pressure across the bridge of the dog’s nose “just like the mother dog would do”, I decided to write about this.

The fact that mother dogs are generally extremely tolerant of their babies’ antics, including heaps of biting, doesn’t sit so well with this line of reasoning. They also never shake their puppies by the scruff of the neck: this “death shake” is reserved for prey they want to kill. Nor do they roll them over on their back to punish them; they may do so, but only in play.

I got suspicious of the efficacy of human growling when I took Giro to puppy school. There, Giro, at a tender age of 8 weeks exactly, was used by the trainer to show how to stop a dog doing something you don’t want him to do. Giro was presented with a plastic box, which, being a curious puppy, he obligingly started to sniff. Little did he know that this was “not his”. So the trainer gave a deep rumbling growl, which for all the class sounded convincingly scary. But not for little Giro: he simply kept sniffing the box. So he got another growl, and, obviously too “dominant” to respect the human trying to act as a serious alpha dog, he was scruffed by the neck as a result.

I am fairly certain that a puppy, if growled at by an adult dog, would heed this message instinctively. Giro simply didn’t understand that that sound the clearly non-dog being was making, was meant to warn him off.  What he did learn was that things that smelled like humans make these sounds, and that sniffing a box made a bad thing happen. Unfortunately Giro turned out to be a very wary dog with little confidence: I often wonder how much this very early experience (and my subsequent dominance-busting attempts in his early life, before I knew any better) shaped his personality.

But back to the topic. We are not dogs, and dogs know it. They are surprisingly easy to fool by things shaped like dogs, even when they don’t smell or act like dogs: a stuffed life-sized toy dog is used by shelters for behavioural assessments, and how the dog interacts with this dummy appears to be a good predictor for his behaviour with real dogs. But there is absolutely nothing about us that would fool a dog into thinking we are dogs. Our crude attempts to copy dog language (including so called “Calming Signals) can never match their body language repertoire, and all they probably learn is that those dog-like sounds/movements we try to make are simply more sounds/movements we humans make.

The “dogs do it to dogs” or “mother dogs do it” reasoning is applied by all dog training camps, although usually more so by the aversive trainers. We don’t need this type of unfounded “reasoning” to train our dogs. What we need is a solid understanding of what the dog’s behaviour means, and how it learns, and how we can best teach them what it is we want. Dogs have evolved to live with us, and they know us far better than we know them. They are magnificent creatures, imminently and amazingly trainable, and they deserve that we find out as much as we can about the best way we can communicate with them – like an intelligent human being, not like a mother dog.

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Is there such a thing as a child-friendly breed?

3/18/2012

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Whenever I research breeds, I frequently come across supposed traits such as "loves kids" or "perfect family dog". These alleged characteristics are attributed at some place or other to anything from Golden Retrievers to Pit Bulls. I consider this to be one of the most misleading statements for any breed, even the Labrador. It is downright dangerous, because people will buy a dog of a so-described breed, thinking that his child-friendliness is "in-built" and so does not require any particular attention.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

For puppies to develop into dogs that are comfortable around children, they must be exposed to children during their critical socialisation period between 8 and 14 weeks. The more positive experiences the puppy has when around children, the better. This could include having children feed the puppy treats, rewarding simple behaviours such as a sit or coming to them.  Ideally an adult should provide reassurance and maybe more treats when kids make their high pitched noises and run around wildly, as they will. 
At the same time, children need to be taught how to behave appropriately around dogs and puppies. Whilst you can try to get your dog to accept things such as patting on the head and pulling his tail, it is very advisable to teach the human youngsters that dogs are to be treated gently at all times, and to protect the dog from unpleasant handling.

Omitting to do any of the above can easily lead to problems. Yes, many dogs end up being tolerant of children even without proper socialisation, but that is no more than luck, and grossly negligent.
The only thing worse than omitting proper socalisation is subsequent punishment of the dog if he growls at a child. One owner proudly informed me recently how his dog now promptly leaves the room when his child enters, after having been severely punished for growling at his child previously. I know who is going to the blamed for the disaster that is likely to occur should this dog ever find himself inadvertently cornered by a child. Unfortunately it won't be the owner. 

The other aspect of "perfect family dogs" such as Labradors is that they rarely classify as anything other than tanks on legs in their first few years of life, and, without proper impulse control training, possibly for the rest of their lives. Labs show up in relatively large numbers at the RSPCA, and their "giant puppy" temperament could be one reason. Children under eight will find themselves taken off their feet by the happy Lab pup on many occasions, surely not quite what the parents had in mind when they completed their family with their four-legged child.

So the unsurprising conclusion is that most dogs can become the "perfect family dog" and be tolerant or even appreciative of children given correct positive training and conditioning and extensive socialisation. As for the breeds, it is much more important to be aware of what they were bred for, and so what their likely inbuilt behaviours are, than supposed "kid-friendly" characteristics. Read some breed-specific training tips here. 

Bringing a dog into a family is a huge commitment and poses many challenges, particularly if the children are small. Tips on how to get it right will be the topic of another blog post!
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Tethering a GSD inside an off leash park: Great training for aggression

1/17/2012

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Owners who let their dogs off leash in on leash areas have been rightly lambasted on various websites. 
However, my other "pet hate" are owners who have their dog ON LEASH in off leash parks. The logic of this has always escaped me. Innumerable parks allow dogs on leash. Only a few allow off leash dogs. Are the leashed dogs meant to have fun watching other dogs run and play?  Most dogs feel pretty unhappy being approached by an off leash dog if they themselves don't enjoy the same freedom. Some will cower, some will lunge. They will definitely be uptight. Worst of all, many them also get reprimanded (or even punished via the choker chain) by the owner, for straining on the lead. A perfect setup for developing aggression. Which was perfected by an owner in my local off leash park today: Not only was the young GSD on a leash, it was tethered to a goal post, with the owner sitting some way away, watching a Rugby game on the other side of the park. Just keep your dog away from leashed dogs then, some might say. Now, I have a pretty decent recall with both my dogs. So yes, I can keep them away from a dog like this: but that means I have to work pretty hard. After all, a new dog in their local haunt intrigues my two socially happy dogs. Why can't we go and say hello? When I go to the local park, I want my dogs to have a good time. I do a lot of training, but at the off leash park, we relax. So I'm not keen having to keep them firmly in check, it's not my idea of relaxing. 
And of course accidents happen: As I was focusing on Giro, trying to steer him around this tethered dog (by now I had leashed him as well, as we were on the way back and knowing Giro, after controlling himself for a long time he was on the edge), before I knew it Kiara had flown down to the dog at top Whippet speed. What I thought would happen did happen: The GSD gave her a nasty reception, fortunately without any consequences, as Kiara had the mind to freeze just at the right time. I'm sure the owner was upset with me for letting my dog go near it. I called Kiara back and left: not much fun to be had today.
So, unless you're actively out to make your dog aggressive: train a fabulous recall, and get out and enjoy life with your dog at the off leash park. But until then, please spare your dog and others the stress of mixed off leash/on leash encounters, just like at the on-leash park. 
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Roast chicken and the reliable recall

12/19/2011

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My dogs love roast chicken. They hardly ever get it, because I'm vegetarian, so when they do, they very nearly fall over backwards to get it - that is, they will try very hard to figure out what it is I want, so they will earn it as a reward. 
Roast chicken is very desirable for most dogs. Because of this many owners are surprised that even when they have this delicacy with them, their dog still doesn't come back reliably, usually when other dogs are present, or there's something interesting to chase.
Unfortunately, getting a reliable recall is not that easy. It takes a structured training approach - as well as roast chicken and other high value rewards - to make a reliable recall a habit the dog will happily execute, no matter the distractions.
To build a habit, the dog will need to go through many many successful repetitions of coming back when called, as well as be very well rewarded by a variety of pleasurable things: this can be roast chicken, or (for the ball fanatics) chasing the ball, or being sent back to play with those dogs he just left for you!
How do you get many successful repetitions? You start at home - and no, the next step is not the dog park. That's like going from Prep to High School in one year and will lead to your dog not coming back when you call him, roast chicken or not.
I pride myself on offering one of the most comprehensive recall training programs, training an "everyday" recall as well as an "emergency" recall, and carefully training each part of this important behaviour separately and in various environments. 
But while roast chicken alone won't get you that perfect recall, it certainly won't hurt. Your dog will definitely love you even more for it, and come back - at least sometimes.
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    Daniela Pelgrim

    I started my dog journey with Jessie, a small white fluffball bichon-schnauzer cross. She was trained in the traditional way by choke collar and praise via voice. After she died, Giro, my smooth collie, taught me how wrong this approach was. Kiara, my whippet, reaped all the benefits, and can't wait for her training every day, all day!

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