Friday, March 13, 2009

Calming/Avoidance

I wanted to take a picture of the pups as they sat next to each other. I positioned them and asked them to stay. As I turned around Ryker had turned his head away from Ryddick and when I snapped the photo Ryddick was also avoiding him by looking and lying down. This is typical avoidance behavior. Yes, there are issues between Ryddick and Ryker and yes, I have to manage and train them to be able to live in the same home. No I will not re-home either and no using aversives does not work to fix this problem. It may suppress it, but not fix it.
I have been training using positive methods described in the books, Click To Calm by Emma Parsons, Feisty Fido by Patricia McConnell, Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. I have learned to better read Ryddick's body language to avoid a full blown tantrum. I am happy with how they respond to the training and proud to say that I did not use aversives to get where we are.

4 comments:

  1. Just want to say that I admire you for your love of your dogs :-)

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  2. Ahw, thanks.
    Sometimes I do like them a little bit ;-)

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  3. But isn't avoidance the best management you can teach the dogs though?
    I'd rather see each of them try to control the situation by avoidance rather than a staring down contest.
    Some say that's a sign of a wuss dog, I say that's a sign of a smart dog that knows better.
    I'd say that's great self control and my job would be at this point to not put them in precarious and uncomfortable situations.

    G.

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  4. Management and training. Teach them avoidance alone is not the solution. They also have to learn to except certain situations without reacting. That is why I teach a lot of calming around distractions.
    I don't let them do a staring contest, ever. They are able to sit next to each other without problems.
    This one time they felt a bit uncomfortable and they fixed it by turning away from each other. I was very proud of both of them.

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