Good Dog Training

29/01/2020

Hi all,
Unfortunately, due to being in final year of BSc Veterinary Nursing in UCD I am not currently taking any dog training clients.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Jessie

30/10/2018

Great enrichment idea!

03/08/2018

Love this idea - it shows a training session doesn't have to be long and you don't need to fill your dog up with treats!
Just train your dog for 2 minutes a day with ten treats - for example when the kettle is boiling and you will quickly notice the difference in their behaviour.

04/07/2018

Went to see the lovely Penny yesterday evening for some puppy training. She is a lovely bundle of fluff and is very quick to learn.
We went through basic training, localisation and how to stop puppy mouthing.

(Photo by her owner)

01/07/2018

Had the pleasure of doing some puppy training with Rosie a Whetan Terrier last week.
She was progressing really well much thanks to the hard work and great ground rules her owners have implemented - they had lots of toys for her and replace anything she is not supposed to chew with her own toys so by now she only chews her own toys!

16/06/2018

13/06/2018

Easy enrichment

20/03/2018

I am pleased to announce my website is now live!
Please take a look www.gooddog.ie

16/03/2018

Important information

08/03/2018

Whosagoodboythen? If you want Rover to roll over, then it may pay to speak to him like he's a furry baby. Researchers have found that dogs pay more attention to humans who use exaggerated "dog talk".

28/02/2018

Snow day fun!

27/02/2018

Had a great time last night seeing David Blake Knox talk about the 9 Irish dog breeds. Very intresting. Would recommend reading his book 'The Curious History of Irish Dogs". There was also a Chinese artist there painting the different breeds as he talked about them. It was part of a celebration of Chinese New Year: Year of the Dog.

13/02/2018

25/12/2017

Merry Christmas

16/12/2017

This is an absolutely fantastic way to teach children the best way to approach greeting unfamiliar dogs, and even better, if you print it out it can be used as a colouring-in sheet, making learning much more fun and therefore more likely to be remembered!



https://www.facebook.com/PreventTheBite/

26/11/2017

Companion dogs remind us that more is not always more

13/11/2017

Had a great time brushing up on my skills with The IMDT Institute of Modern Dog Training in Dublin

03/11/2017

21/09/2017

08/09/2017

Share if you've ever had this thought too!

30/08/2017

“Just resting the head here.”

23/08/2017

With extensive engineering work at London Waterloo causing a month of misery for the station's commuters, a pair of delightful elderly terriers proved to be the perfect antidote to delayed trains and overcrowded carriages. Former Battersea residents, Mollie and Millie, were brought to the station to...

06/08/2017

The study, published in the Irish Veterinary Journal, suggests there is no correlation between a dog’s breed and the likelihood it will behave violently.

30/07/2017

20/07/2017

A little kindness goes a long way-

04/07/2017

Fear is an emotion. Emotions are involuntary responses.

Reinforcement refers to an increase in behavior. Behaviors are voluntary responses.

Fear is something you feel. Behavior is something you do.

Here's an example: In the movie JAWS, actors had to appear to be afraid of a mechanical shark. Their eyes widened, they opened their mouths, they screamed. But they weren't experiencing fear. Their brains were not releasing the neurotransmitters and hormones that prepare the body for fight or flight. They were simply acting.

Dogs, however, are not actors. They do not fake being afraid in order to get paid (attention, treats, invitation on the bed). If they are exhibiting the behaviors associated with fear, they are feeling afraid.

Don't believe me? Feel their chest and check and compare their heart rate to when you know they are relaxed. Dogs can't will their heart to beat faster just to get your attention.

Fear is an involuntary emotional reaction. For dogs, it can be triggered by fireworks, thunderstorms, veterinary exams, the behavior of other dogs, etc. Just because we can't perceive the threat doesn't mean it's not real to our dogs.

What about giving treats to a fearful dog? When we pair the presence of a scary stimulus (at a reasonable distance/intensity/duration, of course - desensitization is always important) with something the dog LOVES, we change the underlying association. The dog can learn to associate fireworks with frisbee time or vet visits with hot dogs. This is what counter conditioning is all about. Dog not taking food? Your dog is not ready to work at this level - find a way to decrease distance, intensity, or duration of exposure.

Here's another example: You're terrified of spiders. We go to a local football field. While standing at one goal line, a person with a tarantula in a glass case appears at the other goal line. You see the spider. I give you $100. The spider goes away. Now, we repeat this multiple times. At some point, when the person with the spider re-appears, you will reach out your hand, anticipating payment.

Through this process, we can change your emotional response to the presence of spiders. Spiders predict cash.

That does not make you MORE afraid of the spider.

Now, can you CONTRIBUTE to your dog's fear? Absolutely!

If you don't recognize the signs of fear - or you do and ignore them - and force your dog into a situation that he is afraid of, you can certainly contribute to their fear. Like taking a fearful dog to a dog park to "get used to" other dogs, or picking up and holding a small dog that is afraid of strangers, so that strangers can pet him/her.

If we try to pet a fearful dog who just wants to leave the situation, holding them still and forcing "soothing" massage is just adding something unpleasant to an already bad situation. Listen to your dog. If your dog is leaning against you and seeking that physical contact, then he/she may be comforted by being stroked. But if your dog is looking away, leaning away, or otherwise trying to escape your well-meaning affection, you're better off just removing him from the situation.

When we take away opportunities for our dogs to escape or avoid the things they fear, we can make things worse.

Dogs don't "get used to" scary things through repeated and forced exposure. What they get used to is that we put them in situations where avoidance doesn't work, forcing them to protect themselves. When avoidance stops working, aggression is often the only option left.

And, yes, this applies to dogs whose fear manifests as aggressive behavior just as much as for dogs who cower and hide. Fear is the emotion behind the behavior. Change the emotion and the behavior will change, too.

If someone tells you that comforting your dog will reward their fear, replace the word "fear" with another emotion and ask yourself if it still makes sense. For example, "giving a dog treats just reinforces his frustration," or "petting your dog reinforces his disgust." Does that make sense? Like fear, frustration and disgust are feelings. No one can will themselves to be disgusted. If we could, diets would be SO much easier!

Can you teach a dog to be afraid of something? Of course. You can create a negative association by pairing a neutral stimulus with an aversive. This was first shown in 1920 with the Little Albert study.

This is why knowledgeable trainers don't recommend using aversives. Over 100 years of scientific research into learning has shown that you can create negative associations.

So, unless the form of comfort you give to your dog is AVERSIVE (something he wants to escape or avoid) to your dog, you aren't going to create a negative association.

And yet, there are those who insist your response will "prove to the dog" there's something to fear. The only way you can know what the dog is learning, either by association or consequence, is the dog's behavior. Everything else falls in the mind-reading category.

While it is a longstanding and much-repeated belief in the training world (and there are so very many of them), it doesn't hold up to what science tells us about learning and behavior.

UPDATE: Some people have mistaken this post for a "How-To" for fearful behavior or that this is suggested as an alternative to counterconditioning and desensitization. This is solely to address one dog training superstition, not a guide for how to help your dog overcome fear.

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