It makes me so happy to say that Tootsie is doing great. Right now she's sleeping in her crate beside my desk. The door is open, but she loves it there. The only places she likes as well are 1) being in bed with me, 2) being on the couch or 3) being by herself in the crate in the back of the car. She likes it so well in the car crate that I am actually having to train to leave it. I'm assuming this is baggage from her puppy mill days and that she feels most secure and comfortable in a small, confined space. She's progressed so well in so many ways: I'm especially taken with her flipping around mid-air when outside after I call her to come, ears flying like a furry dumbo, her open, happy mouth taking up half of her tiny little Cavalier head. As I mentioned in an earlier post, now that Read More
Positives of Negatives & Negatives of Positives
Thanks to all who have commented so far in answer to the questions "Are you a 100 % positive trainer?" and "Would you sign a pledge to only use positive reinforcement and never use punishment?" I appreciate the thoughtful discussion that the questions have generated. I'll jump in now, with the caveat that this topic deserves an all day seminar (at least) and I can't begin to say all I'd like to in one post. I'll start however, by summarizing some of my thoughts on the issue. Let me start by saying that I consider myself to be an overwhelmingly "positive" trainer. I would imagine that those who have seen me work would agree that I am a kind and gentle trainer, and primarily use positive reinforcement when working with dogs. That said, I'd never sign a pledge saying I'll only "use Read More
Are You “All Positive?”
Recently there have been some debates and discussions about whether it is possible to be a "100% positive" trainer. This has become an issue because some seminar hosts have policies that they will not hire anyone for a seminar unless they only use positive reinforcement and "never use punishment or aversives." Some people are being asked to sign pledges that they will never use punishment as a trainer. I'm curious what you think. Are you a "100% positive trainer?" Do you ever use "punishment?" Do you use what some people call "aversives"? Ever? If so, what kind and when? I'll weigh in on this debate next week, (as you can guess I have a few opinions about the matter) but I'd love to hear what YOU think. MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The snow is melting! It's been well over freezing Read More
Dog-Dog Reactivity – Treatment Summary
The seminar in Seattle was great fun, lots of good folks and excellent questions from the audience. In the morning I talked about treatment for dog-dog reactivity, and I promised a summary of that on the blog. Here it is, with the obligatory caution that the morning itself wasn't close to enough time to cover the topic in depth, so the summary here will be chapter titles (but hopefully helpful ones). Knowing that I couldn't possibly talk about how to handle every type of case, here are some highlights: REACTIVITY? What are we talking about here? When I use the term I am talking about what we usually think of as "over reactivity," or "reactivity" that we see as inappropriate. After all, a loose body greeting is a "reaction" to another dog, right? In this case, I am talking about 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