This is a tough one to write. As regular readers know, I primarily got Hope as a playmate for Willie, my turned-around crazy dog who took three years of intense work to deal with his pathological fear-based aggression to other dogs, his episodes of all-out rage, his extreme sound sensitivity, his dysfunctional gut, etc etc etc. And inside all that was one of the sweetest dogs I'd ever met, and that is the dog you'd meet if you came to the farm today--a sweet, people-loving healthy dog who loves his dog buddies and goes all happy-faced and loose bodied when he sees an unfamiliar dog approaching him. I'd never take him to a dog park, and he becomes a nervous wreck if a large dog he's never met comes into the house, but with a little easy management he is a wonderful dog, and I love him now Read More
DVD Sale; Anniversary Pie
I promised the people who keep an aging hippie social worker like me in business that I'd mention that the summer 1/2 price DVD sale is on. Okay, I did that. Good Trisha. Sweet day today. Jim's and my 10th anniversary. Making, as I write, a cherry/blueberry/strawberry/rhubarb pie for Jim. I will eat some myself to keep him company and prove that I love him. Greater love hath no woman. I had planned to write a post yesterday about the correlation (if any) between testosterone and aggression, but got overwhelmed with speech preparations. I've got 6 separate talks to give in the next 2 weeks. Oh my. Giving a Keynote address to the Int'l Society of Human Ethologists on Monday, then off on Thursday the Best Friends Forever in Pennsylvania (giving 3 talks there, soooo looking forward to Read More
Markers and Secondary Reinforcers
We've been talking about secondary reinforcers and markers, and the good question has come up about the difference between them. On the one hand, we know that a click or a "yes" can be used to communicate to a dog that a specific behavior is what is about to be reinforced. Clicking or saying "yes" at exactly the right moment is incredibly powerful in that it is a precise way of communicating to an animal exactly what it was doing that will elicit the reinforcement (clicks are more precise than words, by the way). However, you could also call a click or "yes" a 2ndary reinforcer, since to be effective it is paired with a primary reinforcer like food, and the animal learns to associate the click/marker with the treat, right? So which is it? Ah, you gotta love the English language: Read More
Using Secondary Reinforcers – Wisdom from Ken Ramirez
I wish the world could have seen Ken's seminar on Sunday in Worcester MA, it was fantastic. For those of you who don't know his name, he is the Training Director and Senior Trainer at the Shedd Acquarim, has trained exotic animals for over 30 years, and could train just about anyone to do anything. I left inspired and crazed to train something, anything, and had to stop myself from trying to teach the flight attendant to scratch her head on cue. When I got home, close to midnight, I sat down with Hope and taught him to flip his hips sideways while lying down to "Settle" before I even walked upstairs. Took five minutes. Scary easy, and extra fun because of being inspired by Ken. However, in order to get home Sunday night, I had to miss the last hour of Ken's videos. I heard they were Read More
What’s In It for Me?
Lots of dogs go through a "what's in it for me?" stage (and this stage lasts longer in some dogs than others, right?). Mr. Hope is dancing around it right now, especially when I ask him to come into the house. Several of you asked about ways to handle it; not surprising, since most dogs aren't like the Lassie on television and don't automatically do what we want just because we love them. Here are some of the things I'm doing right now to get Hope to come back into the house from the yard. Of course, "But I don't wannnaaaaaa" is going to occur in different contexts, but many of the principles here apply to all situations, they just need modifying to fit the problem. COMING IN MEANS GOING OUT Hope loves loves loves to be outside. He'd happily stay outside all day long if he could. So, Read More