LGD feeding arrangements? and UPDATE: goat surprise! on pg 4

[watchdogps]

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I will try this. Turk seems to be especially quick to make associations and adjust behavior (a good thing, or not, sometimes) so it won't take long to see if this works with him.

If you are familiar with clicker training, it works very well with LGDs. In turk's case, you would click when he would pull his attention away from making ugly face at an other animal.
Clicker could work well for your little princess too. I recall you saying she really tests you, and retries behaviors before giving them up. This to me indicates she is a real thinker and probably would take very well to the clicker because it would be a way for her to know if she is right or not. It also marks the behavior at the right instant, so you could do it even when you arent right on top of her to praise.
I know a lot of working LGD owners who used to poo-poo the clicker in favor of more "hands on" methods, but have switched over and are thrilled at the difference.

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:
I will try this. Turk seems to be especially quick to make associations and adjust behavior (a good thing, or not, sometimes) so it won't take long to see if this works with him.

If you are familiar with clicker training, it works very well with LGDs. In turk's case, you would click when he would pull his attention away from making ugly face at an other animal.
Clicker could work well for your little princess too. I recall you saying she really tests you, and retries behaviors before giving them up. This to me indicates she is a real thinker and probably would take very well to the clicker because it would be a way for her to know if she is right or not. It also marks the behavior at the right instant, so you could do it even when you arent right on top of her to praise.
I know a lot of working LGD owners who used to poo-poo the clicker in favor of more "hands on" methods, but have switched over and are thrilled at the difference.

"little princess"... that made me chuckle... no princesses here, just workin' animals. well, ok, one retired cat, but still no princesses. Seka will likely fit the boot-wearing ranch girl image better than the tiara and ball gown wearing princess ideal.

haven't used clicker training... from what I've seen, it's a way of clarifying behavior of the *trainer* more than the dog. clicking at the right time requires the trainer to be precise. precise timing and body language or verbal commuication from the trainer is already required for effective training. the clicker gives a consistent stimulus to respond to. if the trainer is consistent in their communications, that happens without the clicker. there doesn't seem to be anything magic about the clicker except people's expectations and ravings about it. to be clear, I'm certain it works for many folks, and I'm sure it *does* make many people's communications more consistent and understandable to the dog. but if you're already consistent, I don't see the magic in it. if I've somehow missed the point of why communicating by click is better than communicating precisely by voice and body language, please feel free to fill in what I've missed.

FWIW, I've got a ton of experience and success in training horses and livestock, and a fair amount with dogs. the issues I have in training dogs are not with the communication of my approval or disapproval, or in my timing, but with understanding the dog's view of the world, and using a clicker instead of voice and body language won't fix that part.

 

[watchdogps]

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Not exactly. The clicker is a marker, that when clicked at the right time (you are correct, timing is important, but is also easier to do with the c.licker than with verbal. we take too long to spit it out), marks the exact instant the dog does what you want. I dont use it for everything, but when it is important for the dog to understand something very precise, it is quite handy. You also need to understand the idea of shaping, and how to break down the desired behavior into steps.

For example, if you want the dog to lay down, you dont start with clicking for laying down, you may start with a click when the dog drops its head. next you click when the dog drops head and extends a foreleg. You continue to ask for more until the dog downs. Its a little more difficult to decode "behaviors" rather than "tasks" sometimes, but it can be done. For example in the food aggression issue, you might first use an empty food bowl and click when he looks away from it, then you go to eating one kibble with no aggression and click when he looks back to you. Next he is fed a bit with a goat 50 feet from him, click for no response. Move the goat to 45 feet, same, and so on.

yes, you can acheive much the same results without, but you can really speed things up with it. I'd encourage you to check it out and give it a try, not with an issue that is serious yet, but just pick an exercise as an experiment and see how it feels. A lot of people use it for horses too. It may be a nice new tool for you.

here is an article on how clicker training affects the brain:
www.clickertraining.com/node/226

 

[ChickInDelight]

Have you thought about 3 feeding dishes? Then, the male can chase the female off a dish, but there will always be an extra.

 

[bagendhens]

i also wanted to add on the female gettng chased from food dishes die fo things...ive yet to meet a MATURE female dog who will take any flack form a male (intact or not) every female ive ever met, especially in working breeds has been the same...i wouldnt sa agressive, but they just dont take any bull from the boys

my female crestie and our female chihuahuas are that way too, the boys like to think they run the show, but if the boys push hard enough the girls will end it right there and then..the boys dont stand a chance...and that includes the cocker spaniel, he runs around like a lunatic but when the 5lb female chihuah says enough that it, its done imediatly...and if he doesnt listen, she MAKES him listen.

in my experience in most canine species the females tend to be the dominant force in the pack...its much cleare in hyenas than it is in wolves (hyenas are truely matriachal) but even in a wolf pack, the alpha female and her sisters tend to be the ones that realy run the show...they just let the boys think they do lol.

in other words...i dont think id want to just let the agression go by placing an extra bowl down and hoping for the best because one day he may try and run her off and she may decide to tell him exactly where to put it!


wow, its increidbly hard to type with 2 dogs and a kittne using you like a bed lol

 

[zzGypsy]

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tried this once... he spent all his time pushing the other dog off the next dish... it'll make you dizzy watching them go dish to dish to dish, and it really just reinforced the behavior of him dominating the other dog. neither dog gets any peace eating. would probably work if they were far enough apart, we do that with our horses - 2 more piles than horses, piles far enough apart that they don't spend much time pushing each other off the piles.

 

[zzGypsy]

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oh, I'm pretty fast... I've got a total ferarri of a border collie I use for herding and you have to be darn quick in communicating or she's 30 feet from where you want her to be. not that I don't occasionally miss something, but again, it's typically because I've misunderstood what the dog is seeing and responding to or I'm not clear on what her intent is.

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right, I know how that all works. use the same thing in horses and in livestock. the goal may be a sidepass where the horse steps sideways across himself, but it starts with a slight weight shift in that direction, and that's what gets rewarded the first time.

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I'll just say I don't know of any of the top border collie / herding trainers using it, and lots of pet trainers, trick trainers and dog owners who do, so that puts a sort of context around it. I will pop over and read the article, and if it looks useful and makes sense, I'll experiment.

in working with horses, the VAST number of training trends, especially involving tools and gimicks, work for one of two reasons: 1) they force the horse to submit, or 2) the force the owner to become more consistent. and occasionally more observant. they're crutches and they're used for training the *owner* not the animal. ask any old cowboy trainer who's made his living at training working horses - the "new horsemanship" is the same old horsemanship that's been around since Alexander the Great, just repackaged with shiny new products to be sold at a tidy profit and with a better marketing plan. Please don't mistake my comment here, the "natural horsemanship" fad has probably saved a lot of horses a lot of pain and stress, because their owners are now better trained. but it isn't new, and it isn't about the Carrot Stick(tm). Like clicker training, it's popular in the hobby trainer arena, the tried and true professionals don't use Carrot Sticks(tm) to train a working horse. nonetheless, I will go read your article.

I spent a number of years working with an old cowboy trainer who specialized in fixing horses that other trainers had declaired untrainable or unfixable, or who's owners were at wit's end with them and were one step from having them put down. horses that had become unsafe to handle or ride. his first job was undoing the damage already done to their minds, his second was retraining them, but the most important thing he did for their future was to teach them to be tollerant of the huge inconsistency in their ower/rider's behavior, while still doing their job. working with this trainer and those horses taught me to be observant of very subtle things, to be fast, and to be precise. it taught me a whole lot about the minds and instincts of prey animals. predators have a different mind and different instincts, I don't know as much about them, nor have I seen as many of their problem behaviors successfully solved. still lots to learn.

 

[dainerra]

I don't know about herding, but I know a lot of competitive obedience trainers who do some type of "marker" training.
Using the clicker never worked for me because I do a lot of training "on the fly" whenever I get an opportunity and I never had the clicker when I needed it. So I just use a marker word "yes"

And I must say that the biggest difference between marker training and other types is the amount of thinking that you are asking the dog to do. You're not saying "sit" and then pushing down their butt every time until they get the idea. You can also free-shape a lot more behaviors and I think that retention is better because the dog's own thought process shows them what the next step is. (Kind of like some people learn better by doing than by explanation)

A lot of service dogs and even detection dogs (bomb, drug, etc) are trained with clicker training. But, I will agree with you on one thing. 99.9% of all dog training is about teaching the owner what to do. That's why a lot of "doggie boot camp" training programs don't work. Sure, the dog learns lots of commands, but the owner still doesn't know how to get the dog to perform.

 

[zzGypsy]

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I'd like to understand that observation better, can you elaborate?

 

[dainerra]

I don't know how to describe it really well. Basically, you let the dog offer behaviors - and you pick things you like and put them on a cue. Say you have been working on teaching the dog to "settle" (go lay down on his bed).
You see the dog go over and check out the bed. You click and reward (not necessarily treats, can be praise, toy whatever). After the dog goes TO the bed when you tell him "settle" you wait until he takes the next step. Dog approaches the bed, but there is no click. Dog will think and then say "hmm maybe if I touch the bed" and you click and reward that. The next step would be him putting both front feet on the bed. So you hold back the click until he figures that out on his own. Then all 4 feet. Then laying down.

It sounds like a long process, but when you compare how long it takes to get 100% reliability on the command with this vs conventional methods, the time is much the same. I think that retention is better because the dog comes up with the idea on his own. It is great for thinking breeds like BCs, GSDs, etc

For a service dog, it might be teaching them to bring a named item. You say "hairbrush" and reward the dog for looking at the object. Then you move up to touching the object. Then picking it up. Then bringing it to you. Then you can have the object in different places or have a couple different items. Sometimes, you will find that the dog will skip a couple steps like going from touching the object straight to bringing it to you.

It can also be used to "free-form" behaviors. Like you see your dog rubbing his eyes with a paw and want to put it on a command as a trick.

I think the dog retains better because it's his own thought process that links the behavior to the command.