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  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    February 11, 2024 at 9:19 pm in reply to: Luna p3 freedom!!!
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    I hear Jorge’s happiness and pride and see a calm, happy, relaxed dog. Thumbs up to Jorge, Luna and Allie!

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    February 11, 2024 at 9:04 pm in reply to: Shout Out!
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    I recall watching vids of when this process began. The patience and dedication of the owners + the skill of the trainer have started working wonders. I betcha that the training momentum’s gonna accelerate, enabling these dedicated owners and their dog to have the kind of life together that they’ve been dreaming of.

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    November 26, 2023 at 9:46 pm in reply to: Luna Update
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    1. I really admire your patience. 2. I hear more enthusiasm in Jorge’s voice and see much better leash handling. Great. (3) Your explanation (at the very beginning) of the importance of ‘No.’ and of predictability is exemplary cynopraxis. (3) There are a few points where Luna / Jorge are Heeling and Luna starts to eyeball the other dog. What about using a ‘Leave It?’ R u not using “Leave It’ because Luna’s Avoidance conditioning is strong enough that you don’t think it’s needed?? And, related, is that why at one point you tell Jorge to lower the stim level.

    Great session.

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    driver’s licenses haven’t prevented tens of thousands (maybe more?) horrific accidents, road-rage fights, etc etc etc here in the usa and, i’m sure the UK and other places. because people are …. imperfect creatures. that said, they do mandate at least minimal driving standards. i suppose the same might apply to dog licenses.

    at least some swiss cantons have laws re dog welfare and training. I’m not sure if there’s also a federal law. i just did a duckduckgo search and, evidently, as of June 22, Zurich canton has quite strict and detailed requirements. [ https://www.amicanis.ch/english/info-mandatory-courses/ ] ALSO ; https://www.animalcoach-zh.ch/hundekurse/mandatory-dog-training ]

    i don’t know how well this works in zurich. and i’m not sure how it would work in the UK. maybe i’m cynical tonite, but how about letting people who have been bitten by someone else’s dog bite the offending dog’s owner??? It might motivate the owner to start respecting / paying attention to / relating to / training their dog. i can understand getting a dog for all the wrong reasons (fur baby, hood ornament, lifestyle statement etc. etc.). Personally, I have little patience for people who stubbornly persist in their dog-fantasy world. Bad for the dog. Bad for the human. Irresponsible. (good example: the biden family’s gsd.)

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    September 8, 2023 at 9:36 am in reply to: Dog Trainers Regulated by Goverment Entities
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    interesting factoid, imo: my local ny state senator (maybe assembly member, i forget) sponsored anti-puppy mill legislation which passed. she also sponsored anti-e-collar legislation, which failed. i learned about both via change.org, which is a petition platform for all sorts of things. i’m on their mailing list and get petitons for all sorts of things, most of which i ignore, but i pay a lot of attention to animal, esp dog, stuff. I signed both the anti puppy mill petition and the anti-anti ecollar petition. i believe those petitions helped steer things in the right direction

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    September 8, 2023 at 9:32 am in reply to: Dog Trainers Regulated by Goverment Entities
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    Like you, I’m highly skeptical

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    August 30, 2023 at 6:40 pm in reply to: Charging the Marker
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    Another ‘off the top of my head’ — Suppose you’re teaching ‘charging the marker.’ How about something like this: We’re gonna start showing Fido the stuff we want him to do — like sit, down, heel — by using food in front of his nose, when he’s good and hungry, to get him into whatever position we’re teaching. But we’ve got to let Fido know he’s done the right thing. How do we do that? By marking the behavior as soon as he gets it right. But how do we mark the behavior? We mark the behavior by saying ‘Good Boy!’ But Fido doesn’t know what ‘Good Boy’ means. So we have to teach him what this marker word means. How do we do that? We do that by standing near Fido, saying ‘Good Boy!’ in just the right tone of voice and giving him a small treat. It’s called charging the marker. Think, ‘charging a battery.’ Once Fido associates ‘Good Boy’ with something good, we can use ‘Good Boy’ whenever we want to let Fido knows he’s done ‘the right thing.’

    Mike sez break it down to stuff a kid can understand. I hope the spiel just above does that.

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    August 30, 2023 at 12:59 pm in reply to: Charging the Marker
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    Off the top of my head: metaphors work better than detailed explanations, especially if those methaphors are part of the client’s life experience. For example, if the client has kids and you want to explain the concept of arousal / distraction, ask / tell them about 3-yr-olds getting so excited they can’t hear mommy or daddy. this might be relevant when you are transitioning from phase 1 to phase 2 and want a client to understand the what correction means and why its important that the ‘distraction’ not be so great that the dog doesn’t / can’t hear the handler repeat the command (escape) or ‘no’ (avoidance).

    Also general metaphors to help adjust expectations, for example ‘getting it (whatever it is) right is like learning to ride a bike, learning arithmetic, etc. mistakes are part of the learning process.

    i believe that stuff like this might help w/clients seriously interested in building a good relationship with fido, teaching fido the rules of the road, and doing fun stuff with fido. imo, it’s best to screen out clients who aren’t a good fsdt fit by explaining up-front what fsdt is all about.

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    August 26, 2023 at 9:54 pm in reply to: Pit bull/Dalmatian being needy and human possessive.
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    Something else just occurred to me, which likely supplements what’s in the Q&A’s that Allie recommends: To the max extent that’s physically possible, in a situation like this, esp re: the aggression, make distance, duration, intensity your friend. In other words, try not to let the arousal-level be so high that the Pitbull gets so hyped up that s/he can’t hear / feel / understand / learn your fsdt-style correction / punishment, followed by praise reward. It might be hard to arrange. It depends on how much space the owner’s got and how you might be able to rearrange that space. If you can do that, imho, it helps you to be more LIMA

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    August 26, 2023 at 8:47 pm in reply to: Pit bull/Dalmatian being needy and human possessive.
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    Pitbull or Pitbull / Dalmation? How old? How old is the Schnauzer? How long has the owner had Helga? How long has she had the pitbull? IF I understand you correctly, the pitbull is both needy and aggressive and the Schnauzer is just needy? How does the neediness manifest itself in both dogs. How does the Pitbull / Dalmation(?) neediness manifest itself. I’m not sure if it really matters, but it might. I assume that, for the time-being the owner is managing the situation as well as possible.

    Kudos to you for taking this on gratis.

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    Congrats, Marina! Smart, thoughtful, creative application of ethology / dog-culture principles. Knowing / understanding the principles is necessary to be a good trainer but it’s not enough: ya gotta be able to figure out how to apply these principles to each and every specific case. Reading your account made me smile. Thankyou for sharing your insights.

    (Please pardon me for this. I’m a safety-first worry-wart: Remember to muzzle when the son visits.)

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    August 20, 2023 at 10:58 pm in reply to: Dog’s Tail movements
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    The following book isn’t specifically about tail movements. (There’s loads of sometimes contradictory interpretation if you duckduck go something like ‘meaning of dog tail movements,’) But you can lotsa moving in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of contexts. tails, combined with the rest of dogs bodies. Literally thousands of fotos + authors’ interpretations.

    Dogs in Translation: A Unique Journey of Observation and Interpretation. Pricey. I went throught the first hundred pages in a day or two, but now I just have time for a few more pages at a time. I’m sure it’s worth going through this book more than once.

    Part One — What Does the Dog Body Tell Us? Part 2 – Communication Signals. Part 3 – The Emotions. Pricey book.

    There’s also a much briefer Dogs in Translation Workbook. Look at the Fotos and take a test.

    Good stuff, IMO

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    If u have time, would you please clarify Stormies story. All I know (or recall) is that you got her as a sickly puppy and nursed her back to health. I also recall your mentioning projectile vomiting, but I don’t know what caused it. Re her guarding her vomit: makes perfect sense: It’s nutritious. Ask any wolf pup. Why / when did the resource guarding start. What caused it?

    Quadruple wowie for Stormie Allering her chew toy. Re Aller, maybe the details are in one of the Forums and I missed it — I peruse them sporadically and whenever I do, I learn / discover something — so, could you please tell me if you trained this by back chaining; ie (Seek) Heel, Fetch, Heel again, probably w/you standing where you were for the initial (Seek) Heel but then moving on to progressively more challlenging static presentations (ie you still are standing still but in a different place) and (finally) to moving presentations (i.e., you’ve tossed the object. Stormie’s going for it. while she’s going for it, you start moving and don’t stop, because, finally, Stormy. Aller. means get the toy, bring it to me, regardless of where I am and regardless of whether I’m standing still or in motion.

    Did I get that right? How long did it take to reach this point in training. Are any of your clients working on this.

    Great stuff.

  • Arthur Lopatin

    Member
    September 8, 2023 at 8:59 pm in reply to: Dog Trainers Regulated by Goverment Entities
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    Thx, Mike. In other words, unless the Blue Heeler and Akita are (or begin) fighting each other, then separating the dogs is unnecessary. In fact it’s a backwards step. I get it. But, IMO, if your the trainer in a situation like this, best not to automatically accept the owners’ say-so; instead, ask probing questions, and observe for yourself. Sometimes, dogs that have been getting along, for all sorts of reasons, begin — apparently out of the blue — to have conflicts. Maybe I’m being overly careful, but IMO, being prepared for potential issues is a confidence builder, at least for me it is.

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