Wow. You all are amazing. So far there have been 165 answers to the question posed two weeks ago, "What's Your Favorite Non-Traditional Cue?" I've read through every one of them with great interest (and often amusement). My plan was to go through all the comments, list every cue mentioned with it definition (some people included as many as 7 or 8), and see if I could find some patterns. Several hours later, and less than a fifth through all the cues mentioned, I suspected that a smart person might want to modify the plan. So that's what I've done, whether either out of laziness or wisdom, I couldn't tell you. I'm using the list I've generated so far as a sample, and have re-read all the rest of the comments that have been so thoughtfully provided. Here's what I'm seeing so far: Read More
What’s Your Favorite “Non-Traditional” Cue?
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on the cue "Get Back," which is one of my favorites because it is so useful in so many contexts. Katie Martz, Communications Coordinator here at PMcC, video taped Willie getting back in a variety of contexts, and we noticed that every time I said "Get Back" in a context in which he'd rather not, he tongue flicked. That led to a very interesting discussion with readers about why he was tongue flicking, but distracted us from the reason we did the taping: the usefulness of "non-traditional" cues in dog training. Yes, we all need Come, and Sit and Stay; I can't imagine what I would do without them. But there are a variety of cues that are equally useful, but not as common or well known. I thought it would be fun to canvass readers to learn about their favorite Read More
Willie and Tongue Flicks and What it All Means
As if any of us REALLY knows "what it all means," right? But thank you for your interesting and thoughtful comments about the previous post's video of Willie and the "Get Back" signal. They were great. I'll cut to the chase about my own interpretation. Here's the data: Willie tongue flicks when I ask him to back away from somewhere or something he wants to go toward: the outside of the house, into the car, or toward the toy. All of these have been taught using lots and lots of reinforcement with food and play and "life rewards," like going outside after I say "Get Back" or getting the toy as soon as he backs up (But I don't reinforce every single response every single time once he has a cue down pat. That would be unnecessary in my opinion, not to mention completely impractical.) But Read More
Using Positives to Decrease Negatives
Here's something interesting I learned while working on a talk I'll be giving at the Annual Conference of the Wisconsin Association of Behavior Analysis on August 15th in Madison. My talk is "Creating Harmony Between Dogs and Special Needs Children," and it involves discussing the benefits to the family of having a dog, but also the risks to the dogs that need to be addressed and minimized as much as possible. As we all know, even parents of typical children sometimes struggle with interactions between their children and their dog, and things can be even harder for parents of children with special needs. While working on my talk I read a research paper that is relevant to dog training in general, even though the case study was about changing the behavior of a child with Autism Spectrum Read More
Simply Wrong
I don't know about you, but anytime I hear a dog training product described as "revolutionary," I get worried. And for good reason. Have you heard about the new "revolutionary way" to walk your dog? It's called SimpleLeash, and it is guaranteed to work on "dogs of all sizes and temperaments." What's the revolutionary idea? Your dog gets a shock if he pulls on the leash. Ah, but it's not called a shock. I couldn't find the word shock anywhere on their website. No, no shocks here, just a "harmless correction stimulus," that intensifies the harder your dog pulls. There is simply nothing for the owner to do, the collar automatically does it all! Thus, the SimpleLeash. "You literally don't do a thing except hold the end of the leash." Well, maybe one more thing, like scrap up the puddle Read More
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 14
- Next Page »