#dog training

[douche-canoe-regatta]

I've worked with animals for 12+ years. this shit happens all the time. highlights from this month (no animal abuse here; just poor decision-making):

- Tried to talk a lady out of buying a Bengal kitten because her daughter is 4.5 years old and has never had a cat. The last Bengal I knew used to escape from the shelter by getting into people's fucking cars and bit half the staff. I sent her to the local cat-specific shelter and told her to let her kiddo pet the nice kitties to see "what kind of cat might work well for [their] family." (trickery) (I'm betting that girl will walk out with a kitten in each grubby paw because "you should really get two") (trickery, also true)

- A 72 year old woman proudly showed me pictures of her rambunctious German Shepherd puppy. "We always get a GSD puppy when the last one passes," she boasts. "Been doing it all my life!" GUESS WHAT: Lady. you are 72. that puppy almost immediately broke her arm, wrist and hip. Plus he started biting her very young grandkids (he is 5 months old, that's what puppies do). She's frantically trying to rehome it, but no one wants a GSD with a bite history.*

* Her son will likely take the dog when he's back from deployment, btw. He's not fucking happy about it (he'll need to invest in a ton of training) but he also grew up with GSDs, so no worries my friends.

No one tells you that one day you will get older and look around and notice that 95% of ppl who own a dog should not own a dog

[nefja]

Practicing doing stuff with other people if she wants to become a successful film dog.

[refugeed-kim]

YES YES I NEED THIS SIGN IN EVERY SINGLE PARK PLEASE

This is my daily struggle, I had so many arguments with people with off-leash dogs (in a mandatory leash area!!!). Thanks to this behavior I'm struggling with Kim being anxious/aggressive with other females as she often gets involved in unpleased interactions with free females while on leash. And every single time that I ask for the dog to be at least recalled, I'm being called names and insulted of course.

Also 9 out of 10 their dog isn't really that friendly at all.

[technitaur]

I could - and actually might - write an entire novel on what it was like to live with untrained dogs every day of my life for 41 years. My parents always felt like they were great dog owners and that they understood dogs, but they never saw any need to train the dogs.

They also had an unfortunate tendency to acquire new dogs on impulse. At one time, we had 5 dogs in the house and 3 of them were large dogs. All of them were untrained. Whenever there was a noise out of the ordinary, it was mayhem. I get a very unpleasant adrenaline rush whenever I hear the sound of knocking on a door, even if it's in a video game or something. It's because for most of my life, a knock at the door always resulted in a lengthy explosion of ear-splitting barking.

We were not dog owners. The dogs owned us. We had to work our entire schedule around the dogs. We could never have company over spontaneously, because we had to take the time to get all the dogs locked away in other rooms (and we had to make sure to divvy the dogs themselves up into groups that wouldn't be aggressive with each other).

Just walking out the door was a whole production. We had to spend the whole time holding back all the dogs because they were trying to get out, too. Getting back into the house was a frustrating trial of stumbling, getting jumped up on, and sometimes stepping on paws.

I could go on and on about all of the ways that living with untrained dogs is miserable, but I'll settle for giving the most egregious example. Somewhat fittingly, this most extreme example of my dog issues was also my last ever dog issue:

Earlier this year, both of my parents passed away within a few days of each other. I was left with my two cats, a cocker spaniel puppy, and two large (90lbs each) and very aggressive coon hounds. We originally got the hounds because my mom desperately wanted companion dogs, but we couldn't find any dogs available for our price range, so... my parents pretty much just took the first free offer that they found.

The hounds turned out to be way more of a handful than expected. So instead of them being inside dogs meant to be companions, my parents turned them into guard dogs that were left outside all the time. Outside, completely untrained, and frequently fighting each other over the food bowl or space in the doghouse, they eventually grew up to be extremely aggressive towards strangers and other animals.

(When they were younger, they would quite literally just bark all night, and most of the day. I'm amazed we never got the cops called on us for it. I'm also astounded that my parents, while annoyed at the barking, never seemed to think that it was an indication that there was anything wrong. To them, that was just 'what dogs do.')

Though the hounds were normally outside dogs, they had to come in during the night in the coldest part of winter. Because they were so aggressive, I couldn't allow them to be in the same room as the puppy if she wasn't protected. She had to be kept in a cage for her own safety the entire time the hounds were in the house.

I felt horrible for her. She was caged up quite a lot even before my parents died, because we had a lot of clutter and other stuff that she could have gotten into. That poor dog spent most of her formative months in a cage and it broke my heart. I had to go through an agonizing month of juggling the dogs' schedules by myself. I had to set alarms to get up every 3-4 hours to let out the hounds and give the spaniel a small walk. I was finally able to get the SPCA to come and get the spaniel. She was an incredibly sweet and happy little dog, and the guy said that she was going to be re-homed very quickly.

The hounds were a completely different, and much more stressful, story. They were not so easy to get rid of. I knew that I was completely unqualified to keep them. So were my parents, really, but all of a sudden, the legal liability was on me if something bad happened.

The SPCA wouldn't take them because they were aggressive. Even the county dog warden refused to help me, even when my lawyers asked for help on my behalf. I practically begged for the dogs to be taken away because I knew that they were a lawsuit waiting to happen. But the various forms of animal control around here just outright refused to help, basically saying that it wasn't their problem.

And to an extent, I agree with them. I know that they must have hundreds if not thousands of cases every year where people get dogs, won't train them, and then just want someone else to take care of the problem for them. But my situation was unique. I had dogs that were aggressive but it wasn't my fault they were that way. So I inherited a really shitty situation and I kept getting turned away wherever I looked for help.

A neighbor did try to re-home the dogs for me, and he even had a taker lined up. But when he came to get the dogs, they were so psychotically aggressive towards him that we didn't even manage to get them outside my fence. I was at my wit's end.

There was no way I could safely get the dogs into a car and get them to a vet myself. After 3 long months of struggling with having these dogs and living every day terrified that they were going to get out and hurt someone... I finally had to call an at-home euthanasia service to come and do the job for me.

It took a couple of hours to do it. With each dog, first I had to get them into a large cage, which was a task all by itself because they weren't used to being in cages. So they weren't very willing to go in. Once in there, I had to feed them a bunch of food laced with sedatives, but because it was an unusual situation, they weren't entirely willing to eat.

Fortunately, it finally worked. Once the initial sedative kicked in, the vet had to sneak in the room with a pole syringe and administer a second dose of sedatives to fully knock the dog out. After that, the final injection was administered. Fortunately, the process went much more smoothly than expected for both dogs. But it was an incredibly long and delicate process that wouldn't have been necessary if they weren't so aggressive.

It cost $1600 to put the dogs down. $1600 that could have been saved. Two lives that could have been saved. But because their previous owners didn't believe that training was necessary, two innocent, relatively healthy animals had to be put down.

If the dogs were younger, I might have paid the money to have them trained, but that also would have cost a bomb. They were about 3/4 of the way through their lifespan, so I figured it would be best to just put them down and save them the stress of being trained out of all of that anxiety and aggression.

I have hated dogs all my life, simply because I had to live with ones that were untrained. When I encounter well-behaved dogs that belong to other people, I love them. But I have always hated having dogs due to my experiences, and I will probably never have another one.

IF I ever decide to take that leap, I will not get the dog until I have pre-emptively set aside at least $5000 for training and medical costs.

Moral of the story: DO NOT FUCKING GET A DOG ON IMPULSE.

A dog is not something you can just enjoy for a month and then get bored of once the novelty wears off. You cannot just get it and then never expect to spend adequate time/energy/money on it again.

You should plan for a dog like you would plan for a child. You need to be willing to consistently put in the time and energy to raise the dog properly - for the duration of its entire life.

Some people probably don't want to hear that, but can you really call yourself a 'dog person' if you can't even do the bare minimum that's required to ensure the dog has good physical and mental health?

if you're unwilling to train your dog then you need to just not have a dog

[jameelaillustration]

In vet tech school my favorite class was Breeds & Behavior. I remember learning how showing teeth is not always a sign of aggression!

Dogs also do it to show submission, nervousness or fear, often paired with cowering, licking their lips and squinting their eyes!

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[coffee-mage-sans-caffeine]

My wife's service dog in training, Matilda, is trained to be super annoying at specific times of day. This is because my wife's executive dysfunction does not allow her to 'unfreeze' and therefore she gets 'stuck' in places/doing things long after she needs to move on to another task, room, etc. This isn't some arbitrary 'you should only play video games so long' type of thing. It's 'If unattended, my wife will not eat or sleep because moving from one thing to another is very hard'. Eating and sleeping are necessary things for survival, so moving to these tasks is necessary for survival. Matilda has therefore been taught things like 'ten pm is bedtime'. In order to help Matilda with this, her feeding schedule is on a pretty tight timeline as well--this way her internal body cues are lined up with the schedule of the day. For example, Matilda is fed between 8 and 830 pm (usually at about 810 pm, as it works out). She poops at 830 pm after dinner and she will throw a WHOLE FIT if she is not let out at this time. Daylight Savings has Happened to Matilda. She's only just a year old, so she does not remember Daylight Savings last year (she was two weeks old, roughly) and she does not remember the spring time change, either, as she was a fairly young puppy at that time and therefore not trained to a schedule like this. She is BEREFT. We're making her wait an hour for dinner. We're making her wait an hour for bedtime. She knows she needs to go out at 830, but it is not time for her to poop yet, which is BAFFLING. This poor dog. I'm sure she'll adjust in a week or two, but poor Matilda. We need to outlaw Daylight Savings. For Matilda.

[stinkybrowndogs]

Dog training

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Jfc so many TikTok dog trainers push this idea that giving your dog attention when they ask for it, getting excited when you come home and letting your dog sleep in you bed causes separation anxiety.

It doesn’t. Research has shown that separation anxiety are caused by factors like genetics, trauma, sudden environmental changes, moving house and other usually completely out of control factors.

Your dog is a goddamn social animal. Social sleeping is natural behaviour, big excited greetings is natural behaviour and seeking social support and interaction is NATURAL BEHAVIOUR. Because you have brought a social living breathing animal into your house and you are their social group.

Withholding attention and being unpredictable or conditional about interacting with a social animal makes you kind of an asshole. Sure, you should set boundaries and your dog doesn’t have to live in your skin either, but don’t let unqualified so-called “professionals” shame you for loving your dog how you choose to love them.

Let them sleep in your bed if you want them to, revel in the joy of an excited dog greeting you when you come home, give your dog pats and cuddles when they seek you for them.

And don’t let anyone tell you that giving social support to a social animal is going to cause them anxiety. Because that is not how anxiety works at all.

(I have a Bachelor degree in Canine Science and am a Certified Professional Dog Trainer)

[rubybug]

learning new tricks! 🐶

[wyrddogs]

Okay I can't find the dogblr post that inspired this so you just get my train of thought:

An acquaintance of mine was looking into getting a WL terv last year. She is a great fit for the breed-- has owned SL tervs and currently owns sporter collies. She did end up getting a WL terv earlier this year and I'm excited to see what they accomplish together. But we did have a conversation that stuck in my mind.

We were both volunteering at a tracking trial in December-ish last year and brought our dogs so they weren't sitting around at home. I had Zaku out on leash and he was quietly destroying a stick while we chatted.

My acquaintance, who I will call Janie, was telling me about the traits she wanted in a terv. She told me she liked Zaku very much, but she thought she wanted a dog that was more active. She kept looking at him and saying he was "too calm" and she was looking for something sporty with a lot of drive and oomph.

And I had to explain to her that Zaku has a ton of drive and oomph, but right now, as we are standing here on day two of the tracking trial, where he has spent most of the day just hanging out in the car, Zaku understands it is time to be chill, so he is being chill. I don't want a dog that is buzzing 24/7 because that would drive me bonkers. But when I ask him to turn on, he Turns On, and it's like steering a freight train or a rocket.

Janie said, "Hmmm... I guess you're right," but appeared unconvinced.

So yeah, something something just because my dog knows how to settle and quietly entertain himself when he's "off-duty" doesn't mean he has no drive or speed. I need to be able to live with him, and while he is absolutely super active, he isn't bouncing off the walls at all times.

[elvenferretots]

I don't think the idea of what retirement should be is talked about enough in dog sport spaces.

People "retire" dogs from sports all the time. The dog gets too old to safely play, acquires an injury that makes the sport unsafe or uncomfortable, or has a behavioral or temperament issue that makes the sport unenjoyable. I don't think anyone can argue that it's unethical to keep pushing a dog in a sport to their detriment.

But what I see from there, I can argue with. So many people get high drive working dogs and do... nothing with them when they retire. They often refer to them as a "couch ornament". They leave them home on sport weekends. They use the lack of finances or time to do an extra sport as the excuse to stop coaching and building new repertoires with the dog.

We spend so much time arguing these dogs NEED jobs, then do nothing with them for months to years at the end of their working life. Retirement (for humans as well as dogs-- but that's a whole new can of worms) should not mean doing nothing. Living beings aren't meant to stop learning and growing and doing. Puppies are less capable, but we don't do nothing with them until six months anymore. We meet them where they're at. It's so important for physical wellness and neural plasticity that we do the same with our retired dogs.

I have a dog whose health meant he would be retired in any serious competitive context. Biting a sleeve or suit is too high injury risk. He can't jump his full obedience height or to catch a disc. He will never get the AKC RACH or OTCH I had him slated for. But he still plays! He comes with to mondio club and is preparing to trial in obedience with no jumps. He trials in AKC preferred obedience and got his rally choice title, the highest level without jumps, last fall. We're going to compete for our UKC RACH this trial season, since they don't require jumps for rally and let you jump minimum height. He still competes in every disc dog competition my competitive dog does, and even surprised me by placing in the last two despite only catching rollers. We started shed hunt and a Nosework class even though I currently don't have the funds or time to compete in more sports.

The biggest difference I've noticed in him since competing with him and taking him to classes again? He's so so much more behaviorally sound. He's happier. He's fulfilled. And he's physically more sound on top of that, because he's using his body in healthy ways and is not so pent up that he's injuring himself with normal movement.

Retirement should mean a new phase in life, not life being over. Rest and stagnancy are not the same. Quite honestly, if my retired working dog isn't ready to learn a new activity or play a new game, it's time to have a serious talk with my vet about quality of life.

[darkwood-sleddog]

What the fuuuuck:

I’m sorry but comparing force free dog training to neglect because you aren’t willing to accept that not all dogs are behaviorally stable enough to live with people is so asinine.

The “balanced” folk will literally say anything negative against R+, force free, and other positive reinforcement heavy training methods but always they fail to do anything about actual abuse, heavy handedness, and actual aversive trainers parading themselves around as “balanced” (like I cannot take these folks seriously as balanced until they are actively doing something and speaking up).

My dogs aren’t “force free”, I’m LIMA (Least Invasive Minimally Aversive) trained but I believe heavily in R+ and that if R+ methods are what animal behaviorists are using for tigers, hyenas, and other dangerous non-domestic animals for cooperative care behaviors that this can AND should apply to dogs as well.

Dogs do not languish in shelters because of R+ and/or force free training methods. They languish there because many rescues are hoarding situations, because “adopt don’t shop” has done irreparable damage to people’s perception of ethical dog breeders, because so many dogs in shelters are BEHAVIORALLY UNSAFE for the average person, because we view euthanasia as a cruelty instead of a necessity to reduce behaviorally unstable dogs from society or a kindness from a cruel and scary life. There are worst things than dying. All the “balanced” training methods in the world will not change those things.

[abirddogmoment]

You’ve probably heard it before: “Working dogs need working homes.”

It’s a phrase that gets repeated a lot, especially when a dog is struggling in a pet home. But it ignores the reality that not every dog bred for work is suited to it. Some are too anxious. Some don’t have the drive. Some are injured, aging, or simply not a good fit for the pressures of a working environment. And the truth is, there just aren’t enough working homes for all the dogs who need them.

Right now [in the USA], there are over 8,000 Australian Cattle Dogs and mixes listed on Petfinder. There are 4,500 border collies. Not all of them are cut out for working homes. Not all of them need one. Not all of them would fail in pet homes. And there likely aren't enough working homes for all of them.

If it were true that all working dogs had to be in working homes, how is it that so many are thriving in pet homes right now? Not just surviving. Thriving. Doing scentwork in the city, hiking local trails, learning tricks, competing in sports, building relationships with the people who adopted them. Pet homes aren’t always the problem. Sometimes they’re exactly what the dog needed.

I've said it recently in other posts, but we also see gatekeeping around these breeds. There's a certain appeal, for some people, in owning a dog that’s seen as tough, intense, and too much for the average person to handle. But that kind of thinking doesn’t help the dogs. It creates unrealistic expectations and pushes away the very people who might be willing to learn and do the work.

We also tend to blame pet homes when don’t go perfectly. They’re told they didn’t do enough research, or that they don’t have the right lifestyle. But many of those same homes are the ones stepping up and taking in the dogs who weren’t placed by breeders, who aged out of working roles, or who were surrendered when things got hard. They’re filling the gap in a system that isn’t working well for anyone, least of all the dogs.

That doesn’t mean every pet home is a match for every working dog. Some dogs simply aren’t a fit for certain homes. But that also doesn’t mean there isn’t one of the 8,000-plus heelers and mixes out there who would be a match. With the right support, the right expectations, and a little honesty, a lot of these dogs could succeed.

Dogs bred for work don’t necessarily need a job in the traditional sense. What they do need is engagement. They need outlets for their brains and bodies. They need to move, sniff, solve problems, and learn new things. That might be scent work, trick training, hiking, food puzzles, or play that taps into their instincts in a safe and healthy way.

That kind of engagement can happen on a farm. But it can also happen in a backyard, a townhouse, or a city apartment with someone who’s paying attention and putting in the effort.

Let’s stop saying all working dogs need one specific kind of home. Let’s start asking what the individual dog actually needs and who’s in a position to meet that.

A repost from a suggested page that popped up on Facebook, Wild at Heart Dog Training and Behavior Consulting (x)

[3liza]

concept I'm rotating in my mind palace: for an autistic person dog ownership and specifically social acceptability training of the dog can be a way of literally externalizing and literally embodying in the Other all the frustration and trauma of not knowing how to behave in social settings as a human. the dog's range of behaviors and expectations is much narrower and easier to systematize. the ease and facility with which the animal-empath/Beastmaster autism subtype (the "Temple Grandin Autists") trains and cares for a dog and creates a socially-acceptable creature is immensely therapeutic to the social shame injury of childhood rejection, while simultaneously acting as a social and physical shield from the judgment of other humans: if there is a dog in the room everyone is looking at the dog and not you, and judging you by the dog's behavior, not your own. this is localized to North America I think and probably mostly for white people, Americans really have a weird and unhealthy relationship to pet dogs but autistic people can really benefit from leveraging it