Dogs’ Dogs

Dogs’ Dogs Dog behavior and training information through the lens of my experiences owning and working with dog
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15/11/2023

If a PRONG COLLAR means the owner could walk their dog everyday, why would you be against it?

If the E COLLAR means the dog will be able to have a better recall, why would you be against it?

If CRATING a dog means it wont destroy the owners house when they're not home, why would you be against it?

If a 2 second CORRECTION could make the difference between a dog swallowing something it's not supposed to and possibly dying, why would you be against it?

We all just want to make a owner and dog's life better. So stop knocking people struggling with their dog for being open to all options.

Keep your options open. It's what's best for the dog. Isn't that what you want?

13/08/2023
12/08/2023

Emotional facial expressions are an important part of across species social communication, yet the factors affecting human recognition of dog emotions have received limited attention. Here, we characterize the recognition and evaluation of dog and human emotional facial expressions by 4-and 6-year-o...

Getting your dog to hold position while you go out of sight enables you to impromptu stop for a coffee while out for the...
12/08/2023

Getting your dog to hold position while you go out of sight enables you to impromptu stop for a coffee while out for the morning walk or handle anything else that might come up.

11/08/2023

This was a really fun pairing to watch play. That little Frenchie really does have the biggest attitude. I was very happy to see him find a playmate that can handle his play style.

10/08/2023

Intermittent schedules of reinforcement are frequently used in dog training. During fixed-time schedules (FT), reinforcement delivery is time-based an…

All of this. 💯
08/08/2023

All of this. 💯

This morning I witnessed an interaction between two of my dogs that I realized a lot of pet owners mishandle a lot of the time.

My 5-month-old Swedish Vallhund puppy, Rune, was eating her breakfast. My (almost) 9-year-old Bull Terrier, Armani, was very interested in the food as well (many of you have heard stories about Armani - this dog, even at her age, lacks all sense of boundaries) and walked up to stop about 2-3ft from Rune and her bowl of food, then just casually stared. Not a hard stare, nothing overly concerning in body language, just rude behavior.

Rune gave a quick glance at Armani and subtly raised her lip then went back to eating. Seemingly not very concerned but wanting to communicate regardless. Saying: “go away”. She did not snap or truly snarl, just a very naturally socially in-tune puppy giving another dog a warning. Her breakfast is for her. It is not to share. We definitely agree there.

Armani, as she does as a dog who has never been socially well tuned, continued to just stand and watch. She did not take the warning as it was and did not move away. This was not to challenge Rune in this case - just a dog who is genuinely oblivious to boundaries. Harmless, but rude nonetheless.

Now I get involved. I gently grab Armani’s collar and guide her away. I tell Rune she’s a good girl.

Most people would have seen Rune’s actions as potential aggression - or, gasp, - is this resource guarding?? And punished her for it.

STOP doing this. Stop punishing the one that gives warnings or even fair corrections. Your dog is setting boundaries and advocating for themselves - if YOU don’t advocate for them, who else will but themselves?

Rune communicated a boundary with Armani and I advocated for her by removing Armani from the space. Armani was in the wrong for ignoring a warning. Rune was in the right for communicating clearly and in a fair manner. Had I not intervened, a situation like this could potentially escalate to further, more serious action being taken by Rune in order to get her point across. She is learning that she does not need to go this far. Mom always has her back 💪🏻 As I do for all of them.

Punishing Rune for this would quickly create a puppy who feels she has nobody advocating for her and isn’t even allowed to do so for herself. Do you know what this results in? Dogs that SKIP the warning and go straight into HEAVY corrections, most often leading to a dog fight.

Don’t take the warnings away. ALLOW fair and appropriate warnings and dogs who communicate well. They DO NOT need to tolerate every little thing in this world and I’d rather my dog can warn / correct / communicate confidently than to be a dog who is afraid to do so and as a result tends to go way overboard when they’ve finally had enough.

Bottom line: stop punishing the punisher. Correct the one who isn’t respecting boundaries!

04/08/2023

I wrote this in 2018

Please consider sharing it to encourage people
To THINK 🤔 💭

Society’s ‘animal welfare elite’ are failing dogs & owners by attempting to create a Truman Show. A sickly sweet daytime TV fairytale, rather than responsibly preparing dogs & owners for the ability to successfully negotiate the inevitable trials of reality.

27/07/2023

Getting a ton of clients right now who have tried an “ecollar” before coming to me.

I will NEVER be one to gate-keep ecollars but guys, if you’re gonna grab one and try it, please at least invest in an Ecollar Technologies or Dogtra collar. The more “affordable” ones on Amazon aren’t gonna do you much good, if any. To add to that, they actually hurt… even on the lowest levels. I’ve felt ‘em.

There’s tons of free and affordable ecollar training help available online but a quality collar will make a world of difference. It’ll also run you $180-250. An ecollar is an investment, not a “quick, easy, cheap fix”. 🍻

25/07/2023

I just posted a screen shot from a book by a well known dog behavior expert.

"It is proven that pain, as well as punishment has no effect whatsoever on learning and is therefore an expression of ignorance. "

Imagine that. 'no effect whatsoever'. I guess that means you can cause pain to a dog and it won't matter. Hmmm. Remember, it will have 'no effect whatsoever' on behavior. It means you are ignorant.

That is a theme that is repeated by modern 'behavioristas' Consider this next one from Ian Dunbar.

“There are two undeniable facts about punishment:
1. Any punishment for inappropriate behavior is an obvious advertisement of insufficient, or ineffective training. You have yet to effectively teach your dog to want to do what you want it to do.
2. In most cases, the dog associates punishment with the training situation and the trainer, understandably causing it to dislike both training and the trainer, i.e., you!”

(Note: This was from a presentation at the Canadian Association of Professional Pet Dog Trainers conference. I also presented. I was in the audience. I have removed the periodic burps that I clearly heard.)

So, you have not received sufficient training if you use punishment. I hate to be a skeptic, but where did Ian get his training in the use of punishment? There is no course, text, instructor, intern program, certification or residency in the practical use of punishment. None. Zero. Zip. The obvious answer is that Ian has NO training in using punishment for inappropriate behavior. He wafts his PhD around like a Harry Potter wand - but it's just a fancy stick that's been 'Bejewelled'. It means nothing. A Phd in physics does not imply a knowledge of chemistry or thermodynamics. The difference is that those real scientific degrees can be studied all over the world at academic institutions. Not so, punishment.

These things are said, not to reveal nature - the purpose of science - but to punish you for even thinking of using punishment. Isn't that ironic? The people who oppose punishment use it freely to suppress those who wish to speak about it logically.

Photo: Harry Potter with Ian Dunbar's "Phd stick".

25/07/2023

It is possible to love a dog to death.

Overfeeding is one example, but more commonly it's when people give their dogs nothing but love and absolutely no discipline, rules or structure.

Loving a dog also means providing boundaries. You can't love behavior issues out of a dog. At least not in the way you think.

Part of loving your dog is letting them know what is and isn't acceptable. If you let your puppy jump all over you when they are small, then what is stopping them from knocking down grandma or the kids when they grow up? Unlimited access to food, toys, furniture and space is telling your dog that they can do whatever they want. So don't be surprised when they take over and bite a family member who wants to sit on the couch.

Unfortunately, many dogs that have only known love turn out to be spoiled brats. And for many of those dogs that's how they end up being euthanized.

This is all too common these days especially when people are being fed a lie that they cannot discipline their dogs. Lunacy.

I have big dogs here. Powerful dogs. Dogs that need to have a clear understanding of who is in charge around here. Of course I love them. Part of that love is communicating to them what I do and don't want. Simply: correct the bad, reward the good. Corrections do not mean abuse. Corrections mean holding your dog accountable.

I love my dogs and the dogs that come here from the bottom of my heart. My job is to make sure that love isn't just the comfortable fun stuff. Tough love is very much a thing and your bond will grow when that kind of love is expressed.

So yes, love your dog, cherish your dog but also respect yourself and your dog by setting boundaries. You'll both be happier for it.

The day this whole dog thing started for me. Zelda, my first dog, the day we brought her home from the pound.
24/07/2023

The day this whole dog thing started for me. Zelda, my first dog, the day we brought her home from the pound.

20/07/2023

Neutrality is everything. Love seeing my dogs chilling while all the dogs moving around them.

20/07/2023

The internet is ablaze with opinions of what constitutes 'force' in dog training; what is too much, why is it used at all, etc.

There are entire philosophies built on the theory that any force is too much force, but those arguments sort of fall apart the moment a leash is attached to a dog using any conveyance- whether that be a zero-circumference slip type collar, a martingale, a prong, a buckle, or a harness or head halter.

What the handler has just done was limit the dogs' ability to escape or avoid the handler's sphere of influence. That in itself is a form of force. Now that the dog cannot escape, his options become fairly limited, fairly quickly. The dog can fight, and some do, but the only option that remains, if we do nothing but simply hold the leash, is the dog simply accepting his condition and offer no resistance.

The other issue is the understanding of the term reinforcement and punishment.

Reinforcement strengthens a behavior. Punishment weakens a behavior.

This is where people get lost in the weeds.

Positive means to add, so positive punishment means adding something unpleasant to deter a behavior, and positive reinforcement means to add something pleasant in order to encourage a behavior.

Negative means to subtract, so negative reinforcement means to remove something unpleasant in order to encourage a behavior, and negative punishment means to remove something desirable in order to decrease a behavior.

The average layperson reads that and faints...

The next huge hurdle in reading comprehension is further muddied by the use of the word pressure, which is simply the action of a force against an opposing force.

So, what is force?

People tend to dwell on the negative; automatically assuming that an individual is being coerced through the threat of violence to do something against their will. Although I agree that it may be against the dog's will, it is not through threat of violence.

I'm going to go a little cerebral here and further define it as a vector quantity.

Mathematicians and scientists call a quantity which depends on direction a vector quantity. A quantity which does not depend on direction is called a scalar quantity. Vector quantities have two characteristics, a magnitude and a direction. Scalar quantities have only a magnitude.

Why does this matter? Because in dog training, the physics of what we do is mitigated through pressure direction, pressure magnitude and pressure duration.

Sciency!

We know that applying directional pressure in a specific way will yield a repeatable result.

Physics dictates that the presence of the leash acts as a sufficient deterrent to many behaviors that are associated with escape. If the dog cannot flee, we have successfully removed it as a tactic of avoidance. He can fight, but it is unlikely, as long as we are careful not to increase the amount of pressure to the point the dog becomes defensive.

We aren't really trying to cause inertia, but where escape or avoidance are unavailable (depending on the moment in time created by all of these external applications of reinforcements, punishers, pressure and force), the dog could potentially renew his fight/flight or he might realize his predicament isn't all that bad, and relax.

Without doing anything more than having the dog wear a leash, we have directly affected his ability to make choices, the choices he has available, and the outcome of the choice he makes.

That is powerful. And still, the only active contribution we made to this effort was a leash.

This is the crux of the argument that the positive-only tropes tend to not be able to move past.

The tool just helps deliver information. Folks get caught up in the application of aversives. We don't even need to do anything. We just need to let it happen.

If the dog is given the opportunity to discover how to achieve something it wants, you can believe he's gonna work harder to achieve it.

Make the alternative enough of a deterrent to motivate the dog to choose correct action- you have just duplicated the evolutionary learning pattern of successful survival instinctive to all animals.

In a sense, it is rocket science, because physics plays a significant role in the mechanics of how dogs are trained.

If you have additional questions, I am only a message away.



If you like this content, feel free to like, share, and follow!

18/07/2023

Socialize your puppy.

The most critical period of a dog’s life is 0-4ish months old. If you’re waiting until the puppy has all its shots, you’re too late. Use common sense when you take the puppy places… no dog parks or pet stores, or anywhere that’s highly frequented by dogs or has a concentration of dog waste (even if it’s been picked up). Get that puppy out and exposed. Absolutely NEVER allow a strange dog to greet your puppy, especially on a leash. Only allow a few of the humans you run into, not all of them, and never if your puppy is overstimulated or overly excited or scared.

Exposure to car rides, sights, smells, surfaces, and being neutral in social environments. That’s really it, y’all.

If your vet is saying to never take the puppy out of the house or yard until it has all of its shots, and you listen… save up now for intensive training later, because you’ll likely need it.

📸: Redbow Photography ❤️

17/07/2023

"The horse is a thinking, feeling, decision making animal...but the human always acts superior. [The human] thinks he's smarter; he always wants to have things his way and right now. He wants to be boss. If trouble comes up, he turns it into a contest with the horse. What I'm talking about developing with the horse is not dominating by fear, but more like dancing with a partner... the kind of dancing where his body and your body become one." - Ray Hunt

Good boy.
14/07/2023

Good boy.

14/07/2023

Beginning conditioning Baku to the treadmill.



13/07/2023

My Dog Is Driving Me Crazy!

Drive. It's a hot-button, poorly understood and frequently misused word in dog training. Dog owners want their dogs to stop driving them crazy. Dog trainers talk about building drive, channeling drive, switching drive, engaging drive, all sorts of things that simply determine what the dog is internally motivated by when he engages in an act.

Although understanding drives might be important to trainers, what pet dog owners usually want is to suppress or inhibit drive. They don't want to engage it or enhance it. They don't really want a dog that vibrates with anticipation at the mere suggestion of activity.

Most owners want dogs that are mirror reflections of themselves. They want a dog that's active enough to keep up with their weekend warrior-ing, and as low maintenance and comfortable as their favorite pair of boots; comforting and familiar when they are on, taking up little space and inert when they are off.

Most dog owners are not professional trainers either. Although all pro trainers are *usually* dog owners, some may not be, and I kind of look sideways at those folks. I mean, how can a trainer be without a dog? That's sorta like a chef without her own cutlery.

A lot of inexperienced, newer trainers tend to have gotten into training because they owned a dog that drove them crazy. They figured that since they started with a drivey dog, they can train any dog. Every dog is nuanced and requires that we not only understand them, but that we know enough about instinctual drives to be able to help them. Learning how to manipulate every drive successfully should be every trainers' goal.

Experienced trainers deliberately get high drive dogs because they wish to pursue a sport or activity where that kind of dog is desirable.

Drive is defined largely by instinctual or internal motivators. Defensive drive, prey drive and social drive are the 3 basic drives that facilitate survival. The ability to look for and locate game and to chase and kill game would be prey drive. An animal willing to fight in pursuit of a meal, a mate or territory, could be classified as defensive drive, and the desire to seek a mate, procreate, and hunt cooperatively with a group would be considered social drive.

The only drive most dog owners actually want in their dog is social drive. The companionship a dog offers by his mere presence is what most humans seek. They may admire dogs that display strengths in the other three drives, but most owners are inadequately prepared to control them effectively without professional intervention.

Having a dog with a lot of drive can be a blessing or a curse to an owner. As I age, I am less inclined to own dogs with a lot of prey, hunt or defensive drive, because although easy to motivate and fun to train, they can be difficult to challenge meaningfully over time and even more difficult to exhaust, mentally. A highly social dog can present his own problems, but he is largely content to just be with his owners.

A person looking for a dog needs to ask themselves how hard they are willing to work in order to maintain their dogs' heritable drives. It's work! Life happens! Priorities change! That cute little yellow lab you bought down the shore was bred to hunt. Are you prepared to give that dog a meaningful job for the next 8 to 10 years? That Shepherd needs a job. There are ordinances against sheep or cattle in urban areas, so... what's the plan?

High drive dogs are demanding. When their needs are not adequately met, they become obnoxious. Some can even become dangerous.

Everybody loves the romance surrounding the dogs they see in movies and on TV. What they don't see is the work involved in making that dog perform those feats of derring do. When a person says "I want a dog JUST LIKE THAT", they aren't aware of the work a dog 'just like that' requires.

Puppy buyers start with the best of intentions; their grandiose dreams of the next Hero Dog usually end about the time their puppy has eaten it's way through several pairs of shoes, a crate or two, and all the baseboards in the kitchen.

That can be construed as UNdirected drive.

Maybe the puppy gets enrolled in a generic puppy class, where the misguided focus is on "socialization" instead of channeling that drive, so the owner is never taught how to control that drive effectively and encourage more pro-social behaviors. Dog starts lighting up on guests, becoming defensive around food or space. That would be called MISdirected drive.

If the owner is smart, they contact the breeder for advice. If the breeder is respectable, they will give it or tell you where to look for it. In my book, a respectable breeder wouldn't sell a novice owner a dog with high drive to begin with, but that's an article for another time. Breeders of top quality dogs with high drives aren't selling their best dogs into inexperienced pet homes.

Some folks don't get their dogs from breeders at all. They get them from alternative sources like Craigslist. Petfinder is another, or as I have heard it referred to, Tinder for Furmommies.

A lot of the dogs that end up in those places can be categorized as having had too much drive in their previous homes, which landed them on the "available" page of some animal specific aggregator like PetFinder, a rescue, or the local shelter.

Their behavior became intolerable to their previous owners, who ultimately became frustrated with them and gave up. Dog ended up stuck in a crate, in a back yard, sequestered away when company comes. As his life becomes even more unfulfilled, he becomes a nuisance and potentially a genuine risk.

Predictably, dogs with a lot of un-directed drive tend to get dumped first. Usually the owners discover their mistake too late (that the Husky they had to have because Game of Thrones was their favorite show is a nightmare screamer who is destroying their landscaping) because their only criterion for consideration was the dog would be a nice ornament to their lifestyle.

People buy dogs for a variety of reasons, most of which are reasonable. People usually want a companion, not a project, and when the dog starts to bloom with it's genetic predispositions for certain behaviors indigenous to the species and specific to the breed, owners become confused and frustrated. They didn't bargain for that. They want dogs that look the part, not actually act the part.

They never realize that a dog with a lot of drive requires a lot of effort.

Then come the armada of dimwitted self-proclaimed 'experts', all of whom are more than happy to show prospective owners their high drive dogs of super popular breeds, engaged in a variety of behaviors that the average pet owner may find entertaining but entirely impractical.

Having a dog back it's ass up a tree is hardly a practical skill when the prospective client is dealing with a crack addled bully breed pup that plasters guests with a barrage of barking and other behaviors that showcase his adolescent insecurities.

Showing a dog sitting on tiny, irregularly sized and shaped perches, or brief, erratic vignettes of what the handler thinks looks like crisp, stylized obedience routines by their Hero Dogs participating in their favorite disciplines, but end up looking more like a panting coke addict in a 90's dance club trying too hard. That isn't what most dog owners want.

Being able to retreat on command is useful. Settling into a spot and remaining there is too, so why trainers don't demonstrate relaxed, emotionally neutral behaviors from their personal dogs is vexing.

If I were a consumer of dog training, I would look for the trainer with the dogs I want mine to be like. The ones that can operate without leashes, collars, lots of wordyness... but that's just me.

Every trainer involved with dogs has a different training philosophy, a lot of which is an unclear understanding of drives and how to manipulate them.

I hear new trainers prattle on about 'engagement' as if they think every owner walking their dog to the mailbox should look like the heel routine of the performance dogs of the annual National Championship. Aaaaand, no. It shouldn't. It can, but the average owner should not be expected to demand that sort of focus from himself, let alone his dog. Yes, heel does mean heel, but expecting an average owner to be able to understand and maintain that level of focus from their dog is unrealistic. Owners want dogs to ignore distractions. They do not want to have to continually 'engage' a dog's attention in order to maintain a focused, stylized heel for their evening stroll through the neighborhood.

Tying value to work is nothing new, and this nonsense that the dog can only function when it's dumping endorphins is ludicrous. The reason most people call trainers is because they either own or are quickly creating adrenaline ju**ie dogs and need help learning how to correct that.

Dogs don't mean to drive you crazy, but it's important to remember that what you allow will continue. Learning how to manipulate drives are what most successful dog training is all about.

When the behavior your dog is engaged in is the result of that underlying motivator called 'drive', learning how to inhibit and redirect that drive is the difference between that dog driving you crazy, or you driving that dog to the shelter.

If you are ready for results, feel free to contact us at 717-880-4751 or reach out via email!

04/07/2023

If you want to improve a dogs response to fireworks they must receive exposure. Desensitization to something that triggers a fearful response does not begin with drowning out all sights and sounds of scary things. This is the common practice repeated every year by so many. And you wonder and bitch about why your dog suffers.
If every year you put a blanket over the crate and turn up the music etc you yourself are running away from the problem.
All GOOD dog training involves seeking a solution to modify behavior not to place a band aid on it.
If you have neighbors shooting off fireworks…. That is NOT the time or place for exposure. In that case USE a band aid but PLAN for how you can better PREPARE for the future.
Exposure and systematic desensitization are done strategically and not haphazardly.
You don’t expose a gun dog to gunfire by taking them to the range.
You don’t expose a family dog to fireworks by going to the show.
Where is the threshold to where that fear becomes overwhelming. Create a buffer to where exposure is occurring but you can engage the dog in training exercises and play.
If a traumatic event has already occurred that can certainly be difficult to overcome without meds. That said difficult is still your responsibility and you owe it to your dog to “do the things” before doping the dog. Once you start doping and turning the music on… you have thrown in the towel and will repeat this every year.
I am happy to answer any questions that I can so long as you agree to quit making excuses.
Work hard to change the association to the sounds and ABSOLUTELY work hard to change your relationship to your dog.
BE PROACTIVE AND NOT REACTIVE.

28/06/2023

Enough said?🐶🤯

Did this back in March. Playing around with the laminator at work today, I decided to use this as my test run. Thank you...
15/06/2023

Did this back in March. Playing around with the laminator at work today, I decided to use this as my test run.

Thank you Robert Cabral for a fantastic course! Working my way through the Members Only content now!

This story should make your blood boil. It does mine.
15/06/2023

This story should make your blood boil. It does mine.

Not a day goes by that I don't wonder about the destiny of the human race. Bogus service dog training claims so many victims a year, it has crossed the line from simply being amoral and criminal to profitable business..

The magnitude of the incompetence reflected by these crooks is only outpaced by the gullibility of their victims.

I mean, the internet is a thing. It's the same place that holds the entire accumulation of the world's collective wisdom in a format you can carry in your pocket. But still, those alluring emotional appeals crafted by eloquent wordsmiths that tug at the heartstrings, appeal to the guilt, or promise all the babes and fast cars one's heart desires, still outweigh the power of knowledge.

These stories are out there! They should act as a warning! A claxon call to be aware of potential fraud!

In a highly publicised story out of the Pacific Northwest involving a bogus service dog provider, an individual has been bilked out of a substantial amount of money, and is expected to wait for judgement from an individual that has an established track record of litigation and duplicity.

These types talk a good game, but many of these places will fill your ear with all the right words, without being able to deliver.

It's a common refrain.

Read the entire post on my blog at https://lionheartk9.com/service-dog-training/

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