#dog training

[riley-coyotl]

Did I reblog this one already? Either way, it is much-needed truth that bears repeating. Don't let the joyless bastards steal the joy of living with a dog in the name of bunk "training" advice!

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)

[blueboyluca]

Weaving is happening 🫢

[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.

[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

[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.

[wyrddogs]

I think everyone who trains herders or retrievers should also train a less biddable breed to keep you humble.

Nothing like training your Belgian shepherd puppy to do a task in ten seconds and then it takes weeks to backchain the same task for your dachshund because he doesn't see the point of the task and also he demands fair wages and by god you had better reward him consistently or he's outta here.

Also while having your Belgian enjoy training is great, having your dachshund present himself for his training session is incredibly gratifying. You know you're doing something right when the "all work must be negotiated per my union contract" dog demands his turn.

[groenendaze]

today’s episode of “i was trying to teach a back rebound but my dog did something else instead” ft. a 5 ft vertical leap

[kermit-the-fox]

On the dogs removed from the study:

Eight dogs were assigned to Group A, five to Group B, and six to Group C. Two dogs were removed from Group A as they received e-collar stimulation in excess of the 20 shocks approved by the IACUC, leaving six dogs in this group.

Literally 25% of your abysmal sample had to be removed. So not only your method didn't work, but it also hurt them for nothing. I feel generally that they realized in the discussion that they fucked up, but for some reason they didn't want to say that, even if this paper could have become an analysis about the correct application of reinforcement. The fact that they consider gentler methods ineffective because it requires time and a trainer, and then end the discussion saying that you have to do ecollar training with a trainer... lol.

Very wonky data.

This is an embarassingly bad paper based on the use of two aversive based dog trainers who are clearly incompetant in the use of +R - yet the e collar training community is taking a victory lap.

The fact that this got past an animal ethics review is honestly appalling and the university should be ashamed.

Let's go over the main huge flaws with this study:

The positive reinforcement protocol they are using to compare to e collars is laughably incompetant - with no management or use of distance, desensitisation. Just use a leash? Maybe?

Use of aversives to stop chasing is, unsurprisingly, effective. Because, yes, painful consequences tend to work to suppress behaviour. That isn't the problem that people have with e collars.

The author seems to think that use of e collars is justified because it "gets results" in a short amount of time to stop dogs chasing - again, apparently we haven't heard of a leash.

"Aside from presumably pain-induced yelps in the dogs with e-collars when they received shocks, none of the dogs in any groups showed any signs of stress or distress." So we're saying a pain vocalisation isn't a sign of distress? That's your welfare parameter? Jfc.

Love how they didn't even try to get fecal cortisol baselines and just collected samples from a few dogs but not all of them. You tried, I guess?

The fact that the trainers for the study is "Ivan and Ivan's Student" is ridiculously biased. Acting as if both these trainers know how to apply +R effectively as opposed to their heavy aversive tool use is laughable.

"We designed our study’s methods around current trainer practices as well as the recommendations of our senior trainer while attempting to keep continencies as simple as possible." - yeeeah that's a conflict of interest. Especially when your "senior trainer" has an axe to grind with R+ people using scientific papers to support their training methods.

You're chucking treats in a bowl after a few sessions and you think that's going to stop a dog chasing a lure? Oh yeah, you got us. We just throw kibble in a bowl to stop dogs running into traffic. I am genuinely floored that that's how they think a +R protocol for chasing works. They have no business comparing the two when they can't even do one properly.

"We also did not test whether the food rewards we deployed were highly valued." Okay so the majority of my client dogs will go nuts for my meaty high value treats because they've only had store bought dry treats and the client is shocked at how food motivated their dog suddenly is..... So this study was relying on whatever the guardian of the dog brought with them lmao rookie mistake.

"Dogs that chase livestock may be shot or otherwise euthanized, and dogs that chase cars may be killed in traffic." Put. Them. On. A. Leash.

"The practical applicability of either the LIMA or LIFE models is likely limited, at least in the United States where dog trainers are not required to be licensed or certified. In a sample of highly rated dog trainers, more than half did not document any relevant education." Does that include your "senior trainer"? It does. Because he doesn't have any formal education in canine behaviour, welfare and science. You know this. You chose him to be your trainer for your study.

"The speed and effectiveness with which the e-collar inhibited the dogs in this study from chasing may justify the limited number of painful stimulations the dogs experienced if the object the dogs were chasing had been something that could directly or indirectly cause them serious injury or death." Or..... OR.... you could not use electric shocks on your dog and potential cause long term damage, fear responses ect.... And use a leash.

Just baffled by this whole study. My high prey drive whippet will go feral for a lure but only when she knows the context for when she's being allowed to chase. She can be at a lure coursing trial for the whole day not worrying about the lure because 1) I keep her at a distance where the stimulus isn't saliant enough and 2) she gets reinforcement for calmly watching from a distance.

I'm honestly getting second hand embarassment reading this study. It's just such bad science should never have gotten past an ethics board.

[abirddogmoment]

It drives me crazy how people will label independent thinking dogs as slow or stubborn. It's a different flavour of intelligence, not less.

[fayeandknight]

I was talking to a client and they were expressing frustration with having to move or change routes because of their dogs reactivity. It's something they are working on and part of it involves creating distance right now.

They wanted to know if they'd ever get to a point where they can walk by any dog and not have to worry. And I told them, honestly no. You will always need to assess other dogs and sometimes make the call to go a different way.

Because even if your dog can walk by a dog losing its shit without doing the same in turn, it's still not always the best move.

I relayed a recent experience I had walking Forte. Now Forte does really well ignoring other dogs and I am confident in his ability to remain neutral. But I maintain that neutrality by not putting him in sketchy situations. So when we rounded a corner onto a street I immediately noticed a person sitting in their front lawn with their large dog. I paused to see if I could spot a leash or invisible fence markers. While I was looking the dog noticed us, stood up with a wide stance, and started flicking it's tongue quickly. I also noticed that it had nothing on, not even a flat collar.

I turned around and went back the other way. Not because I thought Forte would react, but because that dog gave a pretty clear indication it was uncomfortable with us approaching. And if it had decided to charge us, the person had no way of restraining it.

Could Forte remain neutral if the dog charged and barked at us? Maybe. But there was no reason to put him in that situation. Also, could he remain neutral if it attacked us? I'm guessing no. So for the safety of my dog and the health of his trust that I will not put him in a risky situation, I turned around.

The client thought about that for a minute and then told me they'd not considered that. That part of them giving space or changing course wasn't just about keeping their dog under threshold, but also about showing their dog that they, the person, won't put them in a stressful/risky situation.

So I'm sharing this story in case anyone else finds it helpful.

[thepetcares]

Car’s engine is running

Source: instagram.com

[dexter-boi]

Poindexter Aloysius Gogo (Dexter)

[dogs-are-awesome]

When your pup is responsible vs. when they have other plans! 😇➡️🏃‍♂️ #DogLife #PuppyAdventures 🐾

source: https://imgur.com/RXsUxFh

[abirddogmoment]

if your dog's best quality is their sillies you have to remember to be silly right back at them sometimes