As Memorial Day has recently passed and May winds down, I make a mental note that I have one full year left to the biennial renewal of my LISW and have successfully received a few CEU's already by attending and even participating in a recent autism conference. Bean and I went to learn from other experts as well as share with others the benefit a well trained dog can provide clinically for children and teenagers and adults with special needs including but not limited to autism / Aspbergers or PDD/NOS diagnoses.
Someone once said, “doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity”. While that brings a smile to us and seems to true, have we thought about the flip side? If we continue to repeat our actions over and over again we should be able to count on the result.
In fact, we might even say that this applies to the general thinking when it comes to dog training. If we repeatedly give a biscuit to our dogs for sitting when asked, we should be able to count on the result. This reward Vs no reward concept is widely used in dog training.
However, have you ever stopped to consider that this method is the one used by our dogs to teach us what they want? We are not the only clever ones in the scenario, in fact I think that dogs do a great job at teaching their humans and seem to get the upper hand in many homes.
Bang is a fun and practical trick. It’s sure to impress your friends and it makes it easy to examine their underside. At the end of the class we begin working on a small following course and a loose-leash walking exercise to work on improving our pup’s focus during heeling.
“Words can only hurt you if you try to read them.” (Derek Zoolander) Or, of course, if arguing about words detracts from training dogs.
Having researched the development of domestic dog social systems for ten years, I know two things for certain: 1. Dog social structure is pretty darn complicated and 2. Most notions, discussions, and disagreements about the terms: alpha, dominance, hierarchy, rank and aggression are all largely irrelevant when it comes to training dogs. Moreover, moot debate, banter and badinage only delays us from training dogs.
I'm writing this in response to a discussion on a dog trainer's list that occurred recently. As most doggy people know the use of crates as a form of dog management has increased monumentally over the last two decades. Back in the day people used dog runs or cages to put their dog in for various reasons - but you wouldn't have seen crates sitting in bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms like you do now. You wouldn't see so many dogs essentially living their lives in a crate until their owner comes home from work.
The crate can easily be misused - as so many dog trainers like to say, "It's not the tool, it's the fool". Or, "any tool can be misused". This is true and too many owners (and even many trainers, ouch!) see nothing wrong with confining a dog in a crate all day long and much of the night too. "It's the quality time that matters", they say, "not the quantity". I must disagree.
In week 1 we take a little time for all of the dogs to get comfortable and meet each other before we jump into some settling, position changes and stays. We begin by assessing their obedience skills so we can see how much they improve throughout the course.
Konnichiwa, dog aficionados. I am sitting here in a hotel room in warm and sunny downtown Tokyo contemplating some talks I am due to give between now and June 1st. The first is on canine aggression and when it comes to owner-directed aggression, the type of aggression formerly known as dominance aggression, I often find myself somewhat stuck for words. A recent article by Sophia Yin in the Huffington Post explains current thinking on the matter and gives some pointers (not German short-haired ones though). The gist of the article is correct, that physical punishment in dog training is passé and, whatever TV made lead you to believe, is counterproductive.
Get your pup excited, then settle them down. Repeat! You simply can’t do this too many times. We also start working on position changes and stays from a short distance. After a little handling with strangers, we finish the class on the following course.
We have become a culture where low intelligence and shock value rules (think reality shows, dumb and dumber films), and judging others has become a spectator sport. Popular shows like American Idol ferret out real talent, yet there’s an awful lot of nastiness along the way. Let's face it, mean sells. Many internet sites have become festering forums of negativity where those who post their opinions would never dare say those things face to face to the person they’re maligning.
So in this Twitter, Youtube, let’s-all-share-our-every-thought era, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that so many people jumped on the Obamas when they dared to purchase a dog from—gasp! A breeder! In this article-- http://www.prweb.com/releases/stop_animal_cruelty/puppy_mill/prweb244369...
Shannon McKay made an excellent point in her post about how asking for obedience is not unkind. The post got me thinking about how a dog's physical health is still taken more seriously than behavioral health by most people. They'll follow doctor’s orders to the letter when they've got a dog with a physical ailment. For example, Shannon's Great Dane will need several days of "bed" rest in order for her body to get back into condition. Few would question why she needs to lay low, or the importance of keeping her confined while her body heals. It's a necessary step in the process, and one that if heeded, will lead to her quality of life vastly improving in the long term.