Flooding and overcoming fear
People think "flooding " is unacceptable and only results in learned helplessness. That is NOT true. This time, I'm using myself as the example.
I have a phobia of snakes. I mean a real phobia. I started doing animal control as a teenager and my old man would force me into attics and under houses to catch things I was terrified of. Usually I was terrified of the environment I was in also. That mattered none to him. He was bigger and stronger than me so it just wasn't an option to say "no". I just HAD to do it. I could go, or he would throw me in there. Either way..... it was happening. 😅
Eventually, I learned to manage the fear even if I couldn't completely overcome it. Sometimes, flooding is unavoidable. It's not the preferred way to start, but sometimes it's just unavoidable.
Fearful dogs THRIVE on good e-collar work. Today we did some more work with the e-collar and you can see the obvious difference it makes. She was more confident than ever.
Big thanks to all who donated and shared her fundraiser. I'll add the link in the comments
Lots of good stuff today. We're going back amd forth between 2 different vacant houses. Even though we aren't in "public ", training has to be done outside your own yard. If you you only train in your back yard, go to the front yard and try it. You'll see the confusion even for simple things.
She played Tug for the first time. That was a big deal, especially to play with a man. I even gave her a couple smacks on the booty afterwards and she had no reaction to that.
At the end, she encounters the cats. Usually even from a distance that causes a reaction but she handled it well. I thought for sure the other dog going off would trigger a reaction but she corrected there too.
I was super proud of her today. This is only a few minutes out of about 40. These clips will be put together later to show how the process evolves.
Big THANK YOU to everyone who's donating and sharing the fundraiser for Lucy.
Is it OK to correct fearful dogs?
Yes absolutely
People act like corrections are meant to make the dog sorry for what they did.... Thats not the point.
In this particular scenario, the correction wouldn't even be considered punishment. It's simply an interruption. Now that she's starting to think, we're going to encourage her to think more. When she's about to have a reaction, we have plenty of warnings so we take that opportunity to interrupt the her train of thought and then redirect it.
Another important detail here is when she comes to me for her reward. In this situation, me going towards her would be spacial pressure (negative punishment) she would feel that before she got the reward. That means I would have punished her good behavior and then tried to reinforce. These are the type of conflicts you have to learn how to avoid.
I demand 110% focus. Like a soldier standing at attention awaiting orders.....
She said "hold that thought, brb" 😂
E-Collar for fearful dogs. Complete game changer.
You can't see a difference in the dogs behavior from clicker training vs e-collar training.
My beef with Zak George and the FF cult is that they make so many false allegations against real dog trainers in an attempt to excuse their own inability to present results. In the meantime, there's hundreds of people like me showing dogs that completely debunk their allegations.
Day 2
Still scared but not reactive. Willing to accept pressure to do new things.
Almost ready for some e-collar work. 😁
First day went great. 99% of her problems are due to lack of exposure to the world. All I'm doing the first 2 or 3 days will be giving her room to explore and conditioning her to the clicker.
Reason I'm using the clicker is because my verbal marker caused a fear reaction. Skip that and use a clicker instead. (Saves time, removes the conflict, we can change it later.)
Most of the first 3 days will be testing and seeing what she's willing to do. Seeing how she reacts to different things. And getting the marker established.
We're exposing her to a lot of stress and a lot of new things. It's important for her to experience this stress. It's a perfectly natural to be anxious about new people and environments.
It won't let me tag Shannon but she did an amazing job with Lucy the last couple weeks. We just picked her up tonight and got her into a kennel. It was a long ride but she handled it well.
I'll get back to more serious videos when I can move again. New Shepherd coming soon. For now, just settle for 3 aggressive dogs loving the 💩 outta me.
My dogs aren't prisoners in a crate or on a place board. We simply tell them " no" or to "stop" when they do something wrong or unwanted. Plenty of people show the dogs they're "training " but never show how they interact and live in daily life. If they did, you wouldn't see them doing things like this because it would cause problems.
The point of having a dog is to have a companion. Not a robot or an animal that just hangs around because you feed it.
Complete fail on my part. I thought it would be a funny video but instead I'll make it a quiz.... Baby does this hopping thing if you walk her backwards on her hind legs. She does it all the time, but this time my wife had laughed at her. I couldn't get her to repeat the behavior after that, which surprised me.
Why won't she repeat the behavior? "Scientifically " speaking, what happened?
I don't feel old, but my back reminds me of it occasionally. 😅 So today I'm stuck here. Just trauma bonding with my girls.
This is the new excuse as to why our dogs love us more, even though we we use tools to train. Trauma bonds are incredibly strong bonds but are considered unhealthy because it's defined as a bond between a victim and their abuser.
However, that's 1 perspective. What do you call it when soldiers bond after they experience battle together? Relationships forged in fire so to speak. This type of bond is the strongest bond you can ever have. I would timidly call those "trauma bonds" but not necessarily unhealthy.
When you and someone (a dog) overcome things together, most especially stressful situations, the bond that grows between you is solid.
Trying to contain a Patterdale is like trying to contain a fart in church by pretending you're praying to blow the smell down.
You can try, but it never really works. 😆
I never ask for help with rescue work but we really need your help to save this one. Time is of the essence for Lucy.
Nobody has room, but we're going to make some. She was a last minute save from euthanasia and we're trying to bring things together fast to get her a kennel built, and get her to a vet. We will cover several weeks of training and all the work that's included in making sure she's healthy and ready for a permanent home.
Right now she's in a temporary foster home and that was supposed to be very temporary. We need to move as fast as possible.
She's a great pup, only 18 months old. Has a lot of potential and a lot of life left to live.
If you can only donate $5 I assure you that will make a difference and be greatly appreciated.
https://gofund.me/4249d940
I woke up this morning to look out my window and see these 2 laying together. 2 killers sunbathing together without a scratch on either dog. All the cats and ducks still whole. 😉
I've come to the conclusion that I must be a Wizard. All these things that "can't be done" are happening on camera for me.
Am I a magician, or is it maybe that these cookie pushers are just full of 💩 and killing dogs that don't really need to die?
Bonus material in the comments.
"What happens if you let them off that chain?"
Everyone satisfied now? 😉
If you didn't have a problem with the sit and stay video, then you don't have a problem with my e-collar work either.
The public really has no idea how tools actually work. E-collars are probably the most gentle tool every invented for dogs.
If I cared about an image I probably wouldn't show you this but....
I've had this dog 4 or 5 years now. She had neurological damage from major head trauma, blind in 1 eye, missing teeth etc. She was honestly a dog who should have been euthanized.
She was afraid of other dogs, afraid of humans, wouldn't accept food. It took months to get her to walk inside the house where we encountered all sorts of fears like the ceiling fan, and the television 😅 I mean she was terrified of everything and she bit when she was scared.
We worked through all that, now she's cool with lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners and even watches fireworks with the rest of the pack. She's fine with strangers coming over, she occasionally escapes the pen but comes right back when called.
Now my point..... she worked through all that but a leash was too much to handle. It caused too much pressure and too much stress to the point she shut down. It took 5 years to get her to move on a leash. So if you're bashing e-collars as inhumane while using a leash, I present daily proof of your hypocrisy. The tools are irrelevant, it's about what's best for the dog. The e-collar allows me to use less pressure on the dog. Less physical force, the dog isn't restrained, and there's not as much spacial pressure.
If the "force free" crowd had any understanding of how the dogs work, the e-collar would be the only tool they used. Good E-collar work is as close to "force free" as you can get
