Question on Dog Discipline

Whispered

DBB wrote: »

Eventually, you graduate on to poo.

I LOVE how dog people can say things like this in full seriousness.

Discodog

Whispered wrote: »

I LOVE how dog people can say things like this in full seriousness.

I am old enough to have heard hippy's referring to "good s**t"

My problem was made worse by the local Otters. Their pooh is extremely appealing to a dog - very musky & fishy :eek:.

Tranceypoo

Discodog wrote: »

My problem was made worse by the local Otters. Their pooh is extremely appealing to a dog - very musky & fishy :eek:.

Nice :rolleyes:

Mine haven't discovered that yet, I'll look forward to the day.....

Discodog

Tranceypoo wrote: »

Nice :rolleyes:
Mine haven't discovered that yet, I'll look forward to the day.....

The fun part is when my lovable looney is swimming after the Otter with me yelling "leave it"

jupiterjack

my dog seems to love sheeps poo, must be all the good nutrients sheep are eating on the mountain...

Discodog

jupiterjack wrote: »

my dog seems to love sheeps poo, must be all the good nutrients sheep are eating on the mountain...

One of mine had a thing for rabbit poo - must be for the same reason

DBB

LOL. I love where this thread has gone

TooManyDogs

jupiterjack wrote: »

my dog seems to love sheeps poo, must be all the good nutrients sheep are eating on the mountain...

I swear I'm bringing a pocket full of sheep poo with me the next time I go agility training, would work far better than liver cake!

belongtojazz

TooManyDogs wrote: »

I swear I'm bringing a pocket full of sheep poo with me the next time I go agility training, would work far better than liver cake!

Please don't!!! Jazz already wants to go home with you, this will completely ruin any chance I have of her listening to me

Discodog

It amazes me how many people still don't realise the potential of reward rather than punishment. A friend's neighbour has a young, about 12 month GSD. The first time that I met the dog the owner assumed that I would be scared of it, as apparently lots of people are. I gave the dog a cuddle & a few dog treats that always reside in my pocket.

Two week later the dog was off lead & the owner was trying to call it & their yells were being ignored. I whistled once & the dog came rushing over, sat next to me, & looked at the pocket where the treats had been .

TooManyDogs

belongtojazz wrote: »

Please don't!!! Jazz already wants to go home with you, this will completely ruin any chance I have of her listening to me

Don't worry, I'll bring some for you to give Jazz too

Cú Giobach

Kash wrote: »

I don't agree that the reaction needs to be completed instantaneously. Quick, yes, and linked. I firmly believe that my dogs are capable of understanding action and consequence, providing there is somthing to make the link in their doggy heads. So, using the postvan as the example, their action started with them chasing the van. My reaction came when they started barking, which was as they got close to the van. The almost instantaneous reaction, was me saying 'No! Inside!', when they started barking, (coincidentally, the same time the postie slammed on the brakes) which resulted in them coming back to me and was swiftly followed up with the wooden spoon. No more than 30-40 seconds would have passed between the initial 'chase the van' action, and the final 'go to bed' command that finished the punishment. The link between all events was my tone, which my dogs are hugely responsive to.

Just a few things on this, 30-40 seconds is way too long, especially since you gave the commands "No!, inside!" beforehand, and also because the dogs were in a totally different environment when the punishment occurred.
What basically happened here was you gave a command, the dogs obeyed and were then punished.
Basically if you give a command and the dog obeys, it is then too late to punish, and anything longer than a couple of seconds after the event is too long, and pointless (especially in a different environment, like being inside).

The Sweeper

Discodog wrote: »

It amazes me how many people still don't realise the potential of reward rather than punishment.

I think it's because sometimes reward is really hard to establish with some dogs.

There's the undesirable behaviour, and how much reward the dog gets from the undesirable behaviour.

Then there's me, and my reward, and whether the reward I have for the dog is a higher value than the reward he gets from the undesirable behaviour.


My dog is frickin exhausting to work - he won't work for food, not for a second. He'll work for the ball to some degree, but not a huge amount. He'll work for a squeaky toy pretty hard. But to get the best effect out of him, I have to take a deep breath, and go nuts myself. I have to be bouncing around and hyper hysterical and excited. I have to match my movements to his and he sticks by me like glue, goes when I go, freezes when I freeze. Once I have him in that mode I can switch to voice only (luckily because I'm telling you, I can't keep up with him.) The more I work him like that, the more I can work him voice only. But if I start to slack off and lose my energy over a few days, I have to really pull out all stops to get him focused next time.

It does work though - when we moved in here late November he used to fence fight with the neighbour's dog. He still does it, but now he'll leave it when called because he's been guaranteed a game of squeaky toy fetch with a madwoman - I don't have to carry on like a pork chop to get him away from the fence, I just have to call him and squeak the toy. I'm saying that to make the toy exciting, I had to spend some time being a looney with the toy and the dog to create that reward association.

Kash

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Just a few things on this, 30-40 seconds is way too long, especially since you gave the commands "No!, inside!" beforehand, and also because the dogs were in a totally different environment when the punishment occurred.
What basically happened here was you gave a command, the dogs obeyed and were then punished.
Basically if you give a command and the dog obeys, it is then too late to punish, and anything longer than a couple of seconds after the event is too long, and pointless (especially in a different environment, like being inside).

DBB said much the same, and as explained in my post, I don't agree with this theory regarding my own dogs cognizant reasoning. Perhaps I give them too much credit, but they are very intelligent dogs.

I don't see the point in rehashing what was already said, but thank you for your input.

In related news, when the postvan arrived on Friday while I was waiting outside with the youngest (the usual instigator of any barking/chasing) she came straight over to me as soon as i made the at-at noise, and sat down beside my leg. There was a warning huff, but no barking, and certainly no running out on the road. It probably helped that I had a pocket full of nibbles

Hopefully, the eldest will be the same tomorrow, but we'll keep training so that nothing happens even if my back is turned. I just wish I had use of a little green van for training purposes!

Cú Giobach

Kash wrote: »

DBB said much the same, and as explained in my post, I don't agree with this theory regarding my own dogs cognizant reasoning. Perhaps I give them too much credit, but they are very intelligent dogs.
I don't see the point in rehashing what was already said, but thank you for your input.

Your welcome.
I just wanted to emphasise the importance of the "issuing command" >>>> "giving punishment" sequence.
In fairness it's not about the intelligence of the dog, but how all dogs actually reason, which is much more "action-reaction" based than ourselves.

OldNotWIse

jupiterjack wrote: »

my dog seems to love sheeps poo, must be all the good nutrients sheep are eating on the mountain...

Maybe he thinks they're chocolate raisins... I love those (the raisins that is...)