#Problem Dog Training

[creekfiend]

I rewired my brain so that the "ohh idk .. am I really allowed to do that..." thought process is tied directly to "WHO'S GONNA STOP ME" but the thing is that I forgot that I am the oppositional defiant disorder poster child, and in casting my own insecurity as an authority to defy, I may have accidentally rendered myself too powerful

oopsie whoopsie

[crisisensues]

Typical morning 🌅

[vaguely-concerned]

I must admit it exhausts me a bit when people compare the interactions between the companions in da2 and veilguard and complain that the veilguard crew don't argue viciously enough or don't have enough fundamental unbridgeable ideological differences. like yeah it's almost like dragon age 2 is a game specifically about implacable human discord in all its forms and that's the theme the companions also build up under and provide a lens to look at. and perhaps. just maybe. veilguard is doing something different and also interesting thematically if you look at it for what it actually is, and its companions are playing into those themes instead (come become beside me my friend none of us have this figured out but at least we have each other along the way. you must struggle with who you are. despite the high high stakes on paper, veilguard (sometimes to its detriment, often to its advantage once you realize this is what it's doing) is really not that interested in outward conflict, between ideas or groups or individuals -- most of the real meat and potatoes is in the internal struggle of the characters with themselves and their identities, the ways they've been changed and also stay the same, it's weirdly deeply trans all the way to the depths of the narrative that way, as well as fundamentally being about trauma recovery. again, what you're ultimately fighting is not actually in the realm of elgar'nan and ghilan'nain at all, it's on the level of solas' despair and his regret over what he's done and who he's become).

tl;dr why are we pitting two bad bitches against each other etc. they're literally both pretty and I love them

[abirddogmoment]

today's hot take for dog people: management is not the same thing as training.

[fruitless-vain]

This weeks update on *the drama you watch living next to a public field*

There’s this one guy we call rottie pup (bc his dog looked like a rottie mix when it was a pup but now it just looks like a shepherd mix) who’s dog is that degree of hyper sociable that it’s just rude af. Very sweet dog, very cute dog, just has no understanding of boundaries or reciprocating body language cues.

He used to come to the field once every few days in the evening to run out his dog, occasionally see him Trying to do some training to get his dog to Calm Down (it’s Very Excited and Pully and Barky and Jumpy). Standard dog person things.

He’s now transitioned from Trying to work on it to just accepting this chaos as is (you do you nbd) but to add to this he’s now coming to the field twice a day Specifically to see if anyone else is there. If someone else isn’t in the field he’ll just walk by.

But if someone else is running their dog he will come on to the field and ask if their dogs can play (we stan someone who asks) I’ve seen one person say yes. Practically as soon as his dog was off leash it b lined for the new dog, body slammed it, pursued it, extremely one sided play, just outright bullying by dog terms. He did nothing to try to collect his dog, calm it down, or intervene, just stood and laughed while his dog mercilessly chased down this, now nervous and trying to escape, doodle. They don’t say yes anymore, and everyone else I’ve seen him ask has said no

[alexsummersgf]

*Someone talking about something I’m interested in*

Me, because I’m convinced I know more about it than anybody:

[fbwzoo]

Gotcha day lick mat 🥰 We've had my little gremlin girl for TWO YEARS!!!! I am constantly amazed at how far she's come. Here's the obligatory long, rambling progress post. 😂

In the past year, Emma has stopped taking her anxiety medication, started having visitors to the house again, become ever more enthusiastic about training time, gotten increasingly opinionated, and also gotten SO much cuddlier. 💜

The only time she's fear panted had been with vet visits - and only occasional shaking periods. I think those have only happened during fireworks or big storms, maybe a time or two with people over. She's been so brave with visitors & gone up to sniff new people, even taken treats from them too! Honestly, having friends over again has gone even better than I expected - I really think the nice long time to settle in with us before helped with that.

It's a huge joy to watch how interested & excited Emma gets with enrichment & training - even brand new things are less scary, bc she's learned to expect good things from us, even if it's new. She's more confident with other family members besides me now too - Jack gets snuggles nearly as much, she tried new enrichment with just him there last earlier this week, and she'll stomp on Arte when excited for dinner. 😂 While Joel is still bottom of the list for her, she's much more comfortable with him & has even cuddled him a time or two!

One other interesting development has been her resilience to not being babied so much. I can scold her, I can hold her back from lunging at a cat, I can tell her no cuddles & shoo her back if I need to, and her feelings don't really get hurt the same way Spring's do. She'll pout some, but no shaking, no major upset, etc. She's really become a bit more independent from me over the past year! Only a bit 😂 but hey, progress!

And finally before I shut up, her reactivity has really improved as well! She's much more tolerant of the cats cuddling me, even Shilo. She handled the new kitten addition pretty well, and her food guarding has improved some too. She often still needs the extra reassurance of my presence to relax & enjoy a high value chew or enrichment, but then she's fine.

I'll shut up now, but I'm SO fucking proud of my baby dog. She's so brave, so funny, and so loving. I can't wait to see where the next year takes us. 💙💜

[healingheartdogs]

Every single time I see a resource from a sport scentwork trainer that recommends cocktailing odors for imprinting (imprinting multiple target odors at once) I wonder if they are truly that ignorant about how odors are made up and how they behave on a science level and how dog scent discrimination and odor imprinting works (which means they probably should NOT be selling scentwork classes if that's the case), or if they are in fact intentionally setting up their clients to struggle and fail more to sell more classes and private help since most uneducated clients (and I mean uneducated on a science level about this specific topic to be clear) are likely to turn blame on themselves for doing something wrong somewhere than to question the trainer they bought a class from.

[mandana-the-service-pup]

Missed another appointment because of my flare. That’s like the third appointment I’ve missed in the last month because of brain fog. I have everything written down. I have reminders set. I just can’t seem to keep my head on straight right now. I’m really struggling. Luckily it was just a vet tech appointment for Mandana’s monthly Librela injection. We are “frequent flyers” at our vet clinic so they let us do a walk-in today to make it up. I brought some cute vet themed stickers as a holiday gift for the staff so I think they forgave me 🥲

Mandana was awesome as always. She did really well in the waiting room despite a very nervous golden retriever sitting across from us. Mandana has a thing against Goldens in particular due to a bad experience she had when she was an adolescent. A very reactive golden retriever was being walked by a young boy who could barely keep hold of the leash and they unintentionally cornered us against a fence so we couldn’t move away. I had to yell at them to move back and got some strangers to help him hold the leash so we could leave without getting attacked. She’s also been rushed by off leash Goldens recently and I had to use my airhorn which startled her because I haven’t had to use it in so long. So I was really proud of her for laying on the ground and practicing her chin rest with a Golden Retriever crying and fidgeting nearby.

All of the staff loves her. She’s a dream to work with and she volunteers for everything. We had a new vet tech and she was stoked to get to do a completely voluntary injection for the first time. Mandana was quick to opt-in with a chin rest and gave her lots of kisses afterwards. On the way out, we had a little oops when an owner walked up next to us at the checkout and placed her cats carrier on the ground with the wire door next to Mandana’s face. Mandana’s only experience with cats comes from the colony of strays that lived at our old apartment. They would take off running every time you walk out of your apartment door which would trigger her to want to chase them. She likes the chase more than anything and doesn’t do anything once she catches up to them but I consider her unsafe around cats for that reason. Luckily all she did was stand up and look at the cat before a staff member realized the error and politely escorted the lady and her cat to a different checkout. She quickly refocused on me and relaxed back on the floor while I finished checking out so I consider that a win.

[cinnamonsikwate]

watching the first 2 episodes of frieren last year shook me so bad i still can't get myself to continue it, but between what i remember of it and the nightmares episode of dungeon meshi i can't stop thinking about the ways laios would prepare marcille for his death. what would he leave behind to remind her that he (and by extension all the people she loved and who loved her) are still with her in spirit, even if not in body?

[rowanthestrange]

Doggy DNA test results are back, and baby Cody is none of the breeds anyone thought he was.

he is…

*drumroll*

Quarter Cocker Spaniel (cute and fluffy yay! Guess that’s where his slightly curly tail hair comes from)

Quarter XL Bully/Pit-and-mix (the UK’s answer to the banned pitbull that just also got banned)

and Half Belgian Malinois (German Shepherd on Hard Mode)

😬🥲 Pray for him, and us lol

Though the people we used also give you relative links, and there’s a dog which has low genetic match but high breed match (so they’re not directly related but their root breeds are very similar) and damn true. Roch even does the ear thing.

[fjordfolk]

also first hike of the year where we've met strangers, and both girls did very well with their trail manners. i always ask them to sit on the side - uphill or on a rock, ideally, because it gives them a bit more mental barrier - while i stand between so people won't have to pass them directly.

sparty has always been good with this because she values food rewards over socializing with people. troj is different and while she won't approach people unless spoken to, if people look at her and talk at the same time, she sees it as an invitation. i haven't been hard on it because she's very calm and the people we've met have seen it as a friendly gesture (which it is) but its happened a few times now and its definitely one of those Things That Make Sense To Troj.

anyway an old man with trekking poles commented on our "good cooperation" which was nice

[abirddogmoment]

She's putting the pieces together for such a nice baby retrieve 🥺

[darkwood-sleddog]

Can the balanced dog trainers please stop fucking talking about positive reinforcement as if those dogs are not “obedience trained”? A majority of competition obedience dogs I know were trained with R+. Letting your dog wander on the end of a line because you want to do so does not = untrained. It is simply…a choice.

[asdpawprint]

Something I don't often see mentioned about the process of training your own service dog is the period of time where the dog is actively making symptoms worse instead of helping.

I started with a mature adult dog with decent obedience, and still there were several months where he made everything worse every time we left the house. In order to be a good trainer for him, I had to abandon my prior strategy of just shutting down and following my parents through the store. I had to actually be conscious and aware of my surroundings and navigate on my own and give my dog feedback and guidance, and he didn't know how to help me yet. His training wasn't proofed to those distractions yet.

At first, having my dog with me eliminated my existing coping strategies and offered nothing to replace them with. Over time, as his training progressed, he gradually started becoming helpful. That took months even without the challenges of baby puppy stages and teenage stages and general lack of maturity.

Owner training a service dog is HARD, not just because of the time, effort, and skill required. It's also hard because the dog doesn't become helpful until towards the end of the "in training" years, and until then, it's usually the opposite of helpful.

[ignisgayentia]

An update on new yard for miss jellybean.... SHE LOVES IT 😭 she gets to sniff, run, and play in her private space without having to worry about mean reactive dogs from our old apartment 🥺 It's sooo nice to just sit outside while vibing and playing with her 😭