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I really need to get my act together and start typing these blogs up more than one a year. Maybe it is true what they say the older you get the less time you have, i am sure it is happening to me. I use to blame the dogs but I must admit they are all going well and my numbers are down so it has to be age.
Well lets sell what we have been up to, first the trialling year went ahead and I was quite happy with our results. Luna won a novice and made a few finals, Koda won a novice and backed it up later in the year with a Improver win. She too made a few other finals. Mercy started and made 2 novice finals and Eden the baby of the team had a couple of runs. We had some struggles and learnt much which we took away and practised harder. The secret to trial is training, plain and simply. Do the hard yards and look at your dog as a reflection of what you have taught and see the mistakes you have made or the lessons you have missed and go back and refine your work. Much still to do. Gibsons Toy had pups, our first litter for some time and all didn't go well. She had 9 pups only to loose 8 in a matter of 2 days. The sole survivor was a white pup we named Kaden's Babygirl. Toy had no milk so it was a hard slog to fully feed and keep this wee lass alive but thanks to Kate we did it and now she will be the star in our Puppy section of the school. We will be filming every step of her journey. I have just finished re-filming our entire Online Course and boy that has been such a big job. It costs a fortune to have it done professionally so me and Kate rolled up our sleeves, bought better equipment and did the job ourselves. I must admit I am quite pleased with the end result. Now just weeks to start of a new year what is Kaden up to, well training our young ones and oldies to get ready for another year on the trial field. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas holiday period, catch up with family and friends, enjoy the dogs and we will come back next year refreshed and ready to learn and to conquer.Cheers Denise
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I feel like my small time here at Warwick has been spent making one plan after another. As they say try , try again and this is defiantly my motto.
I have decided it is time for me to concentrate on my own dogs and my health is not right to continue with doing lessons. I will still support and improve my online school as I believe it is a good source of information and something I can always add to. For now it is all about trials, I have started and nearly competed my first year, oh my what a learning curve. Training for the paddock is so much easier, our dogs do not have to be so precise. I have been frustrated, angry, disappointed to the point of tears but at the end have learnt so much and am more determined than ever to continue. Trials are hard, but we must remember it is a sport and sportsmanship is important, there is good and bad in the sport like most and it is a choice how you want to play the game. I am competitive as everyone but instead of being envious of others or blaming my dog or bad sheep or unfair judge I have chosen to returned to the training paddock with some new tips and ideas to improve myself and to train better. All that I have learnt I will then share with my students but here is a quick run down on how my dogs are going. Luna is a funny girl and tries so hard, she has posted some good scores and made one novice final, far better than I expected. Koda was off to a slow start but finally got a score. I feel I didn't equip her well enough as I didn't have an out on her which made things hard when the sheep ran on to her. Arana, OMG what a learning curve, started strong, good scores, a final in a Novice then he got on top of me and hit the sheep hard. Back to the drawing board with this boy. I also bought a new dog, Gibson's Ken, a beautiful soft lad who is trained in the basics. I have just started working with him and adore him. My Mercy, my young pup is 7 months and now in full training what a gem she is and finally Flowers Raine is having a cast put on him. All very young and a long road to go but looking forward to what they may be. It is hard to have a camp of young dogs and would suggest you always have a couple of older ones to give you a run and make things easier, it was not possible for me so it is important to keep my expectations in check. This will allow for me to be patient, and not feel that frustration that comes with training young ones at times. Set achievable goals, believe in yourself, do right by your dogs and you will have training success, most of all you will enjoy the ride!  Our daily Schools and 2 day schools have really gone quite well considering the short amount of time I have been here at Warwick. I had fair more belief in my powers to have everything perfect as the wheels fell off soon after. Working here on my own, trying to run 2 properties accounts, build the infrastructure need to have training days and host schools was just a tad too much to take on. A failed septic caused the cancellation of our first 5 day school plus a few back problems made things difficult. Guess what, I am not superwoman like I thought I was.
Time to regroup and have a much more achievable goal I think. This reminds me of training. We can have unachievable expectations on our dogs and their training. Expecting too much too soon can lead to so many behavioral problems and huge disappointments. We need to keep our expectations in check. Oh did I add I also was trying to study to become a behaviorist as well as adding a new trials section to my online school PLUS train my own dogs. Hummm just way too much, something had to fail. I interviewed a top trial handler and you know the biggest advice he had to give was patience and I thought is that it. Now I fully understand, we need to be patient with our training and our dogs and a also our lives. The old saying Rome was not built in a day makes more sense to me now and although I was disappointed in not achieving the impossible I am happy now to have realistic goals I can achieve and time to spend on myself and dogs. Even though I am the Instructor I still need to learn a few lessons at time. My young dogs are getting going, not all as good as I hope but hey we have time. Luna will trial soon and hopefully Asti will begin in September. Arana will be right for next year. Candy my problem child will never trial but she has many talents I need her for. What an amazing casting girl she is. I hope you are all training strong, remember Patience's is the Key!!!!! Till next time Denise  What a beautiful picture, this is one of 4 dams on Stoney Grove our new home at Warwick. Just 40 acres but plenty for what I want to do.
Kaden Working Dog Schools has found a home and we have got it up and running. I am holding 2 day clinics as well as daily herding classes. Something I have always wanted todo. Trick is Never Doubt Yourself! Gosh that is hard to learn. The dogs absolutely love life here, beautiful play areas and lovely climate. The people of Warwick have been welcoming and we have settled in well. Dogs that I have coming here are a mixture in level of training as is the handler. One thing they all have is a want to learn and a incredible love for their dogs. I never get tired of watching people interact with their working dogs and their faces when they achieve success. I think it is what drives me to know more so I can give more. My team now consist of, Camara Luna, going well and will have a go at Chinchilla Trial in September as well as Barcoo Asti. Then from WA I have Dyranda Arana, my beautiful boy who is a delight to train and I have also picked up a young lass called Koda. Koda is a lovely direct working girl and again easy to train. Last I guess is Candy and Angel who have been part of the team for some time. Dearest Angel is getting old and showing it. She sometimes join us in a work but does much prefer a sleep in. Keep Training, Keep Positive, never give up and will chat again soon! Cheers Denise Well it has been such a long time since i have posted, my world like many has change and many interruptions have happened, 2020 is the year of covid, the year all plans stopped.
Our schools were cancelled bar one and my once in a lifetime overseas holiday never happened but I am alive and well for that I am a lucky person. Our dogs are consistently changing, the problem dogs I took on to trial my new methods have all found forever homes and now I have a huge gap to fill to get my team ready to work and maybe trial. I am short of dogs but that is ok I am in no rush. I have found working with problem dogs difficult but rewarding, did it test me, in every way. I learnt more than I could imagine and am happy to pass it on to my students. I believe we always question our ability at times and that is not a bad thing as long as we always remember we are the best person for our dogs and we can do this. Knowledge, confidence and belief are all necessary to becoming a great handler. Location changes are being made slowly, it is time I bid Spring Plains and life on the big runs farewell, I have worked hard all my life and it is time I enter a new phase and start a new journey, adventure awaits me. I am wanting to move closer to people, yes people. I will open up a working dog school, a regular one every weekend, I would love to teach as many people as I can and hopefully pass on my passion for these great dogs. Maybe I can return to the trial grounds as well who knows. I will keep you all posted,. I am also adding to my knowledge a advanced accredited canine behavioral course which I started some months back. Knowing more about our dogs can only improve us as handlers, I even get letters after my name, ones I will never use but it is the spreading of what I learn that excites me. 2020 is nearly over, I wish every one a Merry Christmas, look forward and leave the year behind as great things are going to happen next year, stay safe and stay happy. Love Denise (founder of Kaden) I found this article interesting and worth a look, this is a common problem in working dogs, I have had in the past dogs who guarded cars, kennels and bowls. it is not something I would encourage and have found various ways to find a solution. Hope you enjoy the read! Resource Guarding in Dogs: Solving This Troubling ProblemDog resource guarding is a common— and fixable—behavior.
By Karen B. London PhD, October 2016, Updated May 2020 Does your dog growl and show his teeth if you come near him while he’s chewing on a bone? Does he stiffen if you try to take a toy from him? If you walk near him while he’s eating, does he eat faster? Would you be nervous if a child approached while he had a rawhide? If you can answer no to all of these questions, take a moment to appreciate your good fortune: you have what most dog people want. If you answered any in the affirmative, your dog is exhibiting behavior that canine professionals call “resource guarding.” Resource Guarding In Dogs, Resource guarding refers to any behavior that a dog displays to convince others to stay away from something he considers valuable. Among these behaviors are the growling, tooth displaying, stiffening and frantic eating already mentioned. To that list, add glaring, snapping, barking, leaning over the resource to shield it and biting. Dogs commonly guard food, toys, treats, bones, rawhide, beds and even another dog or a person. In most cases, resource guarding is subtle. A dog with a pig’s ear, for example, may turn his body to shield his precious treasure from anyone approaching, or he may pick it up and carry it to another room. He might put his paw on it or even give you a look that means something along the lines of “Don’t even think about it,” or “Please don’t take it away. I want it.” Few people are troubled by such mild forms of resource guarding. Even though resource guarding can become far more serious, it’s one of my favorite behavioral problems, for several reasons. One, there are ways to prevent it in most dogs. Two, behavior-modification plans are easy to implement, clients usually buy into them and they are effective at improving the dog’s behavior. Three, many people choose to simply live with it, managing it as best they can. That may not sound very inspiring, but I consider any solution that keeps a dog at home and people safe while allowing a loving relationship between the two to flourish and grow to be a success Prevent Resource Guarding Dogs are often nervous about losing what they value. With that in mind, a key aspect of preventing resource guarding, including its most common form--food bowl aggression—is to teach dogs to be happy when someone approaches or reaches for their treasure, or for the bowl while they’re eating. Dogs who are happy in a particular context are a whole lot less likely to act aggressively. Creating this positive emotional reaction is simple: teach the dog to associate the approach of a person with treats. I advise people to walk toward their dog and toss a really good treat into the bowl or near their treasure. Once the dog is used to this, the next step is to walk over, pick up the bowl or the treasure, deliver a treat (in the bowl is fine) and then return the bowl or the treasure. It’s important to do this quickly—within a few seconds at most—so the dog doesn’t feel like he’s being teased. I suggest doing this only once or twice per session; even though the dog receives a treat, the interruption can still be irritating. (I imagine dogs in that situation feel like I do when a restaurant server refills my water glass every time I take a sip: mildly harassed.) Many people have been advised to put their hand in the dog’s food bowl, or to pick up the bowl and hold it. Unfortunately, this strategy is far more likely to lead to food-bowl aggression than to prevent it. Such actions are irksome, so it’s no surprise that many dogs will lose their temper eventually. While some dogs will never become resource guarders, even when provoked, others can be taught to be aggressive around their food. Some of the worst resource guarders I’ve ever seen were taught to be that way by their well-intention guardians. People accidentally teach dogs to guard their resources in other ways as well. If a dog has a bone (or food or a shoe or the remote control) and it is taken from him, he learns that he loses treasures unless he takes action. To avoid that, instead of taking something from a dog, trade him for it. Hold a treat or other desirable object right by his nose, and if he drops the contraband, give him the offered item. This teaches him that he gets paid for letting go of things rather than that he will be mugged whenever he has something valuable. It’s very important to help dogs feel happy about releasing items and to actively avoid making it a negative experience. Trading is far better than a battle, and is very effective, especially if he’s “trading up”—getting something better than what he surrenders. Another strategy is to have the dog drop the object, give him a treat and then give him back the item. This helps him learn that it’s worthwhile to release things. I like to teach the cue “drop it” so that if a dog gets something he shouldn’t have, I can ask him to release it before he damages it, or damages himself. Stop A Dog's Resource Guarding Behavior, Giving extra treats when a dog has something of value is a useful technique for prevention of resource guarding, but it can also be used to stop an existing behavior. (If the dog has previously bitten or threatened anyone, I advise having a behaviorist supervise this interaction.) Start by standing outside the dog’s reaction zone and tossing high-quality treats to him. The goal is to make him happy that a person is present when he has a treasure. This change in his emotional response is what will lead to a change in his behavior. The closer you get, the more intense the situation becomes. Intensity also goes up if the dog has a more highly valued item, or if you approach, reach for or pick up the resource. Work at each level of intensity until the dog is comfortable, and only then progress to something harder. The highest-intensity context is to approach a dog and take something that he values highly. Success can only be achieved by gradually working toward that goal and requires many steps and many repetitions over a period of weeks and months. Live With It, Despite the challenges of sharing a home with a dog who guards resources, it’s common for people to choose to live with it. People who have a dog with this predilection know when to expect the behavior, and they simply avoid going near their dog when he has a valued item. This predictability may account for the lack of concern many have about resource guarding. Of course, predictability varies depending on the household. A single person who rarely entertains is in a very different situation than a family with five small kids who have additional children over to play nearly every day. Years ago, the standard view was that a dog shouldn’t be approached at mealtimes or when he was chewing a bone or playing with a favorite toy, and there’s a lot of good sense in that. If people don’t bother their dogs while they are eating, and they purposely avoid going near them when they have a bone or other treasure, trouble can be averted. Life with a dog who allows absolutely anyone to take absolutely anything away from him is pretty easy, but that’s really a lot to ask of even the dearest, sweetest dog on the planet. There are, of course, dogs who are as unlikely to guard resources as they are to calculate Schrödinger’s wave equation. But we shouldn’t assume that dogs who are lovely but perhaps not so nonchalant about being mugged are bad. With dogs who are at risk of causing injury, it’s obviously critical to have some way to make sure that everyone is safe. People can deal with this problem by preventing situations that trigger problem behavior (particularly aggression) and with behavior modification that alters how the dog behaves when he has something of value. How important it is to train dogs not to resource guard is an individual decision; many people are highly committed to changing their dog’s resource guarding behavior, while others, not so much. Resource guarding is both common and absolutely normal canine behavior. I’m not excusing it or saying that it’s not a problem, but like barking and chewing, it is accepted by many people as part of living with a dog—although clearly, it’s nobody’s favorite part. As is true of other undesirable behavior, though it can be changed and improved with behavior modification, tons of people choose to accept it, figuring that life is too short to demand perfection of their best friends in all contexts. Article first appeared in The Bark, Issue 87: Fall 2016 Tags: dog training dog behaviorImage by tugores34 View Comments 347Karen B. London, PhD, is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist and Certified Professional Dog Trainer who specializes in working with dogs with serious behavioral problems, including aggression. She has authored five books on canine training and behavior. It has been one of those weeks on FB were so many posts brought out mixed emotions in me. You know the feeling, as you scrolled down and something catchers your eye only to reveal utter disappointment and even anger when you read it. Or you click on the video hoping to find some inspiration only to let down by the progress of our working dog industry.
These moments don't happen often but for some reason this week it seem to bring out this desire in me to make things right, to have my say, to correct the misrepresentation of dog training. I knew the old days were not better as I was there and they were filled with cruel moments, I knew the 8 month old pup was not on his first run it had a lot of training under its belt and what we were looking at was not natural instinct at all, I knew it was over training or over commanding that was hurting our working dogs, I knew that UK dogs were just as good as Aussie's and visa versa, but as I took to my key board and started to types how wrong so many things were I hesitated. When I learnt how to become an Instructor, when I studied dog behaviour, concept training and various other courses one thing always stuck out to me. You can not be everything to everybody. As much as i have had to accept much criticism for my new age methods I have also received many thanks and seen students go from strength to strength. It is not about me righting the wrongs as what i teach may not suit every-one and that is OK. It is all about offering a way, believing in myself and what I teach and letting people make their own mind up. It is about excepting some-one else right to choice but staying true to my beliefs. People are smart and they know in the end what is fact and what is fiction. If they don't well maybe they are happy not knowing. I nearly became a keyboard warrior, I kidded myself it was for a good cause, I, Denise was in defence of the great working dogs of Australia but really I just wanted to prove my point which was not the way to go. Thank goodness I remember the teachings of my course and took my fingers off the keys to rethink my beliefs. To make sure I was doing what I was doing for the right reasons. To access my successes and once again be happy in the methods I use. I may not be everything to every-body but I know I am everything to somebody, and that is enough for me! Click Flexibility 24 March 2020
We need flexibility for our dogs Being a flexible learner as a dog is handy, graining a different response to a similar set up is ideal for working dogs. We need to train our dogs to be able to respond differently at times example a different distance is needed for cattle to sheep, more pressure is needed to move ewes and lambs to weaners. Even dry our dogs need to be flexible, sometimes we need them to enter a gate first sometime not, to know to give distance and when to come in. A flexible learner will find all these things easier to pick up than one that is not. Studies done found dogs that are trained without variety and don’t get the outcome they were expecting find it punishing which is totally opposite to what you planned. What I mean by this is simple if a dog is rewarded the same way for something like waiting to go into a gate say by a treat and then comes one day when he has to go in first and gets a pat that pat can be like a punishment. Confusing isn’t it and we thought we understood everything. Flexibility is the ability to adjust to multiply rewards and situations, u get this by playing games in your foundation work, using a variety of reinforcers. Foundation work is so important no matter what sort of dog you have. I have added a few flexibility games into our games book on the online school for you students. Now what about us, are we flexible and while is it important for us as trainers. No matter what system you run by there is no golden rule or program that will answer every problem you will come across. Our ability to assess our dogs then alter our program and yes even some of our golden rules for the betterment of the dog is important. The trouble is if we have a system we follow and push ahead with our ideas some dogs will suffer, take the fast problem child, our rule is get a stop first, never ask twice and no steppies. That is my ideal plan. Fast problem dogs like Candy don’t respond to this, they have no stop and if you ask you will be yelling soon. You must forgo the stop lessons and concentrate on the speed. You must work at a fast pace rather than a nice calm one as per normal. I love to talk to my dogs, but Candy responded by going faster so talk had to be limited, access and re-access until we find the solutions to solve these problems. Flexibility makes us great trainers. Some days I look at Candy as I am trying to work for the best of her and inside my head, I have a little voice saying this dog is perfect fit for a e collar. They can frustrate us and send us to the wall at times. It is a constant rethink after every training session to make sure I am doing it right. She deserves that. I must throw away the book and work with her personality and behavioral issues to get a result. The biggest thing is I must be flexible in my method. She still needs variety and reinforcement so you can not get stuck on one thing. Duration training dry is important, the food she eats monitored so it is not hyping her. A variety of solutions have to be found. If you are not flexible what could happen to a dog like Candy. Placed in a small yard and a Stop demanded and worked on. With her speed lots of yelling and growling and possible a pinning to the ground. Finally, it would not be long before she would shut down, how do I know this, because that is how I got her. Lack of flexibility in the training leads to this, trying to achieve something one way when the personality of the dog or problems behind the dog is preventing it, looking deeper and changing things up and addressing the issue from a different angle or continuing on and teaching that element at a later stage may be a better choice. By building value in the work, they are doing right and concentrating on improving the connection between you and the dog may make teaching that difficult element later a lot easier. Look at casting, most people have trouble getting a cast wide and have a method they use to widen a cast but when a dog comes along that is way too wide they get lost in how to fix this problem. Simply by changing the area and hoe you set your dog up to cast can help a lot with this, also when you start to cast train the dog may have been wide and you have just gone on the same old method of setting them up to kick right out which for this type of dog set up the problem. You can see why we need to be flexible with our training, we need to understand our dogs very early in the peace and adjust to offer the best outcomes we can get. Part 2 Different strokes Communal verses not For me communal feeding has not real purpose, you must guard, and I don’t think it really sorts out disagreements. I do believe it would save time. I have dogs in different stages of life, some old and some young. The old dogs do not need as much feed while some young ones need a little extra. I like to feed according to the induvial and it is nice for them to be relaxed when eating. No rushing down their tucker. I added in this I found…….
There is not much research I could find that supports communal feeding, the problems I see is that you make the dogs more desperate to guard and also speed eat. I can’t see how you can control who gets what as the younger ones will not get a look in at times. Also older more controlling dogs who need less feed will not go without. Some dogs that do not get on may in fact strengthen their dislike for each other. ISDS v AUSSIE BC Are these totally different dogs that need training a totally different way. I believe if you are training to trial either ISDS or Yard or Australia you will train the dog according to what you want to do with it. Many ISDS dogs they say are poor heading dogs they don’t get the head cleanly; it is in their traits. Look I believe we breed traits to suit what we want so I never get into a certain way or style of dog is better than another. There is always exceptions and we should be focusing on our method of training. ISDS has a drive and a shed which most people know, casting is about the same as many properties here have huge casting dogs, I think we can learn from each other. My belief never close off any opportunity to learn. Wet verses dry food When I say wet I actually mean raw, well hands down every one will say raw is fantastic but I was amazed at what I found out….. Dog owners want the absolute best for their canine companions to ensure they live healthy, happy, and active lives. The first step in achieving that goal is feeding your dog a balanced, nutritious diet. Historically, dry dog kibble and canned dog food were the only choices on the market. But over the years, raw food options have become increasingly available. Some brands, now even offer formulas featuring a blend of dry kibble with freeze-dried raw meats mixed right in. What food is right for your dog? You should always discuss your pet’s diet with your veterinarian. They will be familiar with your dog’s nutritional needs based on health, lifestyle, and exercise level. For example, working dogs, service dogs, and even show dogs, may have different caloric requirements than a more sedentary household pet. Raw Dog Food A raw dog food diet commonly consists of:
Raw food diets are not recommended in homes with small children or immunocompromised individuals. This is due to the health risk raw foods can present. For example, there have been multiple reports of recalls of certain raw dog foods due to contamination with salmonella, E-coli, campylobacter, and/or listeria. Dog owners should also know that the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has taken a formal position opposing the unregulated feeding of raw foods. Their policy states: “The AVMA discourages the feeding to cats and dogs of any animal-source protein that has not first been subjected to a process to eliminate pathogens, because of the risk of illness to cats and dogs as well as humans.” However, there are still many raw food diet advocates. If a dog owner elects to pursue this type of diet, find a veterinarian who is familiar with raw foods and can help guide you in the proper handling and cleaning required to prevent possible health concerns. Dry Dog Kibble Dry food ingredients vary by brand, but all kibble dog foods are required to be balanced and meet the nutritional needs of a dog. In fact, the content, calories, and nutritional value of commercially prepared pet meals and treats are regulated by law. The ingredients in dry dog food kibble are processed together and cooked. These required ingredients include:
For me it is a mixture of raw and kibble which experts don’t agree with either. It is important we investigate like most things to do with dogs and learn from people who have done the studies and then do the best we can. I have 10 dogs and work hard to feed them the best I can. Kibble is a good fit for me, but I do buy a good grade, even that check it out first as some very expensive ones are not what they seem. RESPECT and COMMUNICATION
The information I am going to offer today on communication and respect comes from a Professor of animal behavior, comparative cognition and psychogy, she has studied dogs for years and it’s from the results of numerous tests that these facts are based on. Respect means the deep admiration for someone’s abilities, qualities or achievements. Firstly, if you look at the meaning should we demand respect and most important does a dog understand what it is we are wanting. The answer is no they have no idea what respect is. We imagine dog’s behavior from a human biased perspective. We think our dog is happy when we see a smile but remember a smile for chimps means fear, the onus is on us to confirm or refute things like depression, jealousy, sad, anxious or respect. Imagine using antidepressants on our say so and we called it wrong. In her studies she found there are 13 different meanings to the position of a tail, that is more than most of us would have thought. A yawn is not boredom it is the way a dog calms itself down after stress and anxiety, these are just a few things that we may have read wrong in our dog’s behavior. Why is this important to know all this, because it set the scene to the way we train, our reading of a dog will influence what we believe our dog is doing and how we address it, my dog is arrogant, disrespectful, doesn’t listen very hard headed. These are all our human views on behaviors that could and most likely be wrong. Take chickens, we know battery hens is a big no no, but how much space do they like, when tested with plenty of room to roam they didn’t, most of the time they flocked together, unlike us who love our own space. What is important to an animal is what they can see, hear, smell, senses that have meaning. What we need to know or consider is what was proposed by a German Biologist who discovered that anyone wanting to understand the life of an animal must consider their unwelt (oom-velt), its self-world, what life is like as a dog. What things are meaningful to it. Let’s look at an example… A rose to us is a thing of beauty, represent love, a gift, a flower with a scent. To a dog, their only interest is if it has been urinated on before or has it got their owners’ scent on it. In the case of the dog, the most important thing they desire is food, and we already control that so knowing this how do we get training these beautiful dogs so wrong. Simply, we don’t look deep enough at the dog as a species, based on today’s research, and also, we don’t look at them as individuals. What was tested in these experiments was different ways we trained dogs. The 2 types of training most used are…. One is wolfism training or the Alpha male, be the boss, demand respect, get a quick solution, complete control, they still love their dogs but do they understand them, Dogs are no longer pack animals, we don’t have to assert power we have it, we control their most important thing, FOOD. It has long been proven we own a group of dogs that have a pecking order, not a pack. Packs have a Hierarchy of a breeding pair with younger siblings under. The younger ones often look after the pups, they teach their young to hunt cooperatively, one the one pair can mate, this is nothing like my group of dogs. We can’t be the alpha male in our group. We are human and they are dogs, we need to communicate what we what in a way that they understand, not try to copy what a dog does as if we read it wrong we could be giving the wrong message, remember the 13 different tail movements. I thought this method was nearly dead and buried till I read FB this week. It overseas many people’s way of training. This constant belief and need to be the boss, to control, to suppress everything, rather than understand. The second is operant or conditioning training, treat based by lured, in other words you are making a dog do what you want in a nicer way but still controlling the choice and outcome. Both ways you make the decision Neither is correct The answer lies in the middle Reward based training, using positive reinforcement which allows the dog to make the decision to do a behavior. This is the best and most proven method of training. This is the way you get a behavior right and a behavior a dog will repeat over and over again. Dogs are keen observers they learn by us showing them, not telling them. They observe us so much they know us not just by our looks, but by our smell and walk yet we never really study them enough to know them. They are sensitive to our stress and notice our breathing and tensing of our muscles. They are astute watchers but not mind readers, they can be fooled. When given 3 cups with one food they copied which cup we turned up, the one with food under it. Then when tested again and turned up a cup without food they still picked up the one we tipped up. In other words they copied us instead of relying on their great sense of smell. Positive training is not all about the rewards and it is not that simply. You are not demanding a behavior; you are showing them what you want without words, gestures or pulling them. You are helping them make the final choice to do it. It is hard to explain, lets take teaching a boundary. You stand near a bed and look at it, you wait till the dog puts any paw on that bed, you reward quickly and continue until he has decided the best place to get a treat is to be on that bed. Summing up… Your relationship is defined by what happens in the undesired moments. Managed the unwanted and praise the wanted. Teach first, correct second. To become a good trainer, you must first be able to understand how to communicate with your dog. To learn more, enroll in my ONLINE school. Look forward to having you as a student one day! Hi Everyone,
There is no rest for us at Spring Plains, this summer saw a good drop of rain and our second wet season in a row so finally all our sheep came home. Looks like plenty of dog work ahead for the Kaden crew. My dogs are all going ahead and am loving training these days. The set up with now 2 ten acre paddocks has improved things and green grass means no feeding of hay. I have a wonderful mix of dog, some I have taken on with problems and others are my old faithfuls. Problem dogs are a challenge and success is slow but it improves me as a handler and I can pass on all I learn to my students. Talking students, Kaden schools have grown. We have filled our 2 on property 5 day schools and the Online one is slowly taking on. The online is very unique for the working dog industry and may take a bit to get going but I am proud of it and know it will be an asset to anyone who uses it. I already have some wonderful students taking advantage of the course and we will constantly improve it as we go along. Now that should keep me out of trouble you would think but I have decided to open Spring Plains up to our locals on a Saturday. I train here so why not give people the chance to join in and learn a bit on the way. With my passion for the working dog I am always keen to help anyone train in a more positive way. The heat here, like most of Australia is still pretty intense so thinking we may make a start in April. That way it will only be the flies to worry about. Looking like a good ahead and very excited about our program. Hope one day you can join us here, either online or on the property. Take Care Denise |
AuthorDenise Hawe, Archives
November 2023
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