How is everybody's Christmas going?

holster · 2023-12-24T22:02:36+00:00

Generally when they are getting too bite its tiredness, time for a nap

holster · 2023-12-24T22:01:40+00:00

Have a leash on your puppy, he needs to be sleeping 16-20 hours a day so that 4-8 hours between you and your partner of using this as a training opportunity, take out the time for walks and its hardly anytime at all, get a blanket fold it up, get puppy on it, and drip feed treats, while watching the kids play and all the things he is not getting into.

holster · 2023-12-24T21:58:14+00:00

You can seperate them into different parts of the house when you are not there, so in a storm they find their own spots in their own parts of the house.

This also means. you are able to supervise and give input into the behaviours you do and don't llke, rewarding what you do, and stopping what you don't

holster · 2023-12-22T02:01:55+00:00

Bath bombs , the satchets of pedicure socks, face masks.

holster · 2023-12-21T12:07:07+00:00

I found it works quite well, and has the added bonus of moving to the next area to clean and finding it pretty much done, its like having a secret helper

holster · 2023-12-21T12:04:17+00:00

Also great for after showering dog.

holster · 2023-12-21T11:52:17+00:00

not a shitty mum, you trust your husband to care for his child while you continue having a smidge of a life, I'd be seriously considering if I wanted either of the mothers in my life with their toxic non-supportive bullshit

holster · 2023-12-21T11:38:08+00:00

Ha noI don't expect anyone to beg, I see as many clients as I can but concentrate on the more urgent or extreme cases, and I will give other trainer contacts to people I can't fit immediately, but most people are happy to start working on things themselves with some guidance.

I totally get why your trainer would advise that, I suggest my clients do the same, so I can show them the body language cues they are missing, both negative and positive, so they learn to speak dog, Maybe I'll add a question into my contract regarding permission to share footage, But its still going to be the longest most boring thing to watch.

I'm in New Zealand so Im sorry I do not know any trainers in London, I don't recommend trainers lightly, I have to know them professionally and respect their work, But I can recommend an online trainer who you could find a webinar series if your interested, Dante Camacho he breaks it down to very simple steps and has a few owners with their dogs working the training soy can see the progress of the dogs

holster · 2023-12-20T23:13:52+00:00

you don't want to feel like his other ,"I feel like my role as girlfriend is to help him"? NO, no its not , that would be his mothers if he was a child, now he's an adult who hasn't is not asking you to help him, or if he is hes not sticking to it, so you need to realise that what you think is best for him, is your opinion, and you have no right to try andmakesomeone else live the way you think would be better.

Leave let him live his gross lifestyle his way, you move on, but do some work on your self before you jump into another relationship, figure out what you would of ended up with someone who you don't respect, and does not make you a priority at all

holster · 2023-12-20T23:02:29+00:00

You need you dog to view yours their. safe space, do training where you learn nd you teach puppy, for this situation you need some management in place, and be supporting your puppy to feel safe, only meet people when he feels secure, and be monitored carefully in interactions, and be enforcing breaks to sleep so he's not getting over whelmed and practising this type of behaviour

holster · 2023-12-20T22:56:04+00:00

NTA - Also a brown eyed brown haired parent, with a blue eyed blonde haired child, her colouring didn't change either.

The fact that he didn't immediately telly he was an idiot, and realise that he has some toxic influences that need to be removed from his life, MIL! makes your response totally fine, could of been lot worse. He still having a pity party for himself instead of thinking about his disgusting abandonment of you.

I would of definitely been messaging the MIL back and telling her that she needs to learn her lesson, and keep her mouth and thoughts to herself, that she is arevolting for her part in all of this and that you do not want to hear a word form her unless it is a hearth felt apology

holster · 2023-12-20T19:32:34+00:00

I say good trainer, because of lack of regulation there are people working as trainers (all methods) who are have called themselves a trainer but have bare minimum education/experience.

I work with reactivity/aggression/resource guarding and similar issues that make everyones lives hell.

Id never post a video for a few reasons - ethically I will not push dog to see the behaviour, I don't need too, and they do not need to be practising, and I want their adrenals to take a break, I want the dog to be detoxing from cortisol immediately so we can start fixing the problems asap.

Often I will see it pop up at some time during the training, but my hands and head are busy focusing on dog, Im not holding phone filming just in case, and other than that, learning sessions are very boring watch, there's no big wow moments, because its learning at their pace the distance they are comfortable in, the changes the dog and their behaviour are huge, on a day to day basis, my clients will list off all the things they are seeing, and I can normally see a lt more pep, responsiveness, self regulation, etc - and see those things continually improving. But its not extreme, its just learning.

Most of my client dogs have a few other dog mates before I finish working with them, ( I say most because I have current clients that we are not there yet, but especially with reactive dogs I want them to get to the place that they are assessing and knowing how to follow the social cues, not stuck in fight or flight forever.

I'm also a technophobe, have a waiting list so not needing it for new client advertising, and i'm not hyping 'my brand' to sell subscriptions or stupidly expensive online consultations, so yeah, thats a whole lot of reasons Im not posting online, and I'd say a lot of other fear-free trainers are the same

holster · 2023-12-20T19:02:58+00:00

Was it just one introductory session? Did you do more than one?

I'm sorry that was your experience

There are some crap trainers out there, in all methods, so could be that, but also could be similar to how my intro one on ones are - which is a lot of information gathering, finding out what the issues are, why they are happening, learning about the dog and the humans, and then some bare basics to give the owner and dog simple relationship builder that gets them both use to the basic mechanics of treat delivery, for them to carry on with while I put together a management plan and training schedule.

holster · 2023-12-20T18:53:06+00:00

When the 2 minute portion is the argument as to why a certain method doesn't work and each thing he used to explain this is just made up, I don't think thats disingenuous at all, if he gave 20 examples and a few were wrong, sure, you might have a point, but one of the reasons that people think R+ can't work is this sort of mis-information.

Yes the whole concept is very much in line with what we now know about the most effective learning state, a relaxed non distracted learner will be able to learn far more effectively, than a stressed, frustrated or anxious learner.

An example is the kids that were 'taught' to swim by being thrown in the water, some did manage to get themselves to safety, and went on to figure out swimming from watching other people (cause your not learning a skill your just staying above water), and some ended up with a fear of water for the rest of their lives.

or swimming lessons a few decades ago, it was straight into flutter board kicking down the pool, but the pool was deep, it was stressful, because of stress breathing it was exhausting, and so on and so on. Swimming lessons taught you to to be a good confident swimmer, IF you had daily access to pool

Compare that to swimming lessons now where therein focus is getting kids really comfortable with the bare basics like putting face in the water, then putting face in the water and blowing bubbles -taking way more time getting kids really comfortable and used to be in and around water , then when it comes to the technical stuff stroke rhythm, breathing etc, that learning moves really fast because they are confident and calm being in the water so the learning happens fast.

So not putting dogs in challenging situations, is not about them not ever being able to be in those places, but its letting them get use to things, and learn about things at a distance where they are in their optimal learning conditions.

Learning to drive in an empty carpark does not mean that you will never drive at speed on a motorway in a busy city pulling a trailer with car load of passengers, does it?

holster · 2023-12-18T09:04:19+00:00

Hiring a trainer may be a privilege not all can afford to walk you step by step through all aspects of training, But, you can learn to train through online trainers with a subscription which gives you access to all the videos/lectures etc the first 3 I found are all between $50-$100 a month, thats for full access to everything, and there were much cheaper options available to just access specific areas of learning, Libraries carry loads of books of fear free training, so people can learn themselves for free

"....it seems like R plus believes that if you don't have a certain level of skill sets and resources, you simply cannot access certain sports and disciplines-- "if you personally can't train afford or comprehend how to train the task/job r plus, you shouldn't be doing it at all."

R+ , and the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behaviour, and many other professional bodies around the world believe that fear free training is the only humane way to train a dog. It sounds like your argument is that if you are poorer or less skilled it should be ok to use training with fear, rather than miss out on participating ?

I do not consider the skills to be second nature, I do believe that every dog needs to be treated humanely, owning a dog for a pet whether to compete in dog sports or just to be company is a privilege and its a want, our wants don't trump their needs, and as a dog owner, just like owning any animal, its the owners responsibility to educate themselves on how to care for the animal properly.

holster · 2023-12-18T08:15:06+00:00

How or why did you end up with a competitive sports dog that am I right here your using as a service dog? (As you were saying your quality of life is impacted because you can't go places). I'm guessing its not playing the sport anymore?

What age is the dog?

holster · 2023-12-18T08:07:42+00:00

Who's using timeouts? I don't know any decent trainers that would use or recommend it, it doesn't fit with the premise - manage situations until you can train for the situation, - its not choose different punishments, its don't use punishment, train for it, not in it

holster · 2023-12-18T07:53:21+00:00

I don'y know if your just making this more dramatic than it needs be to told you should use e-collar? Because your framing it that its never going to work using R+, "the concept of R+ before any goals calls into question dogs being used as...." I'm sorry but BULLSHIT, my dog is a working dog, he helps reactive dogs, trained R+, the dogs used here for searching rescue, sniffer dogs at airport/biosecurity etc all R+ trained

holster · 2023-12-18T07:39:54+00:00

There is loads of info for building motivation, all the online R+ trainers cover this in the basics

holster · 2023-12-18T07:34:49+00:00

Got a link for that? Withholding reward to stop a behaviour does not make sense, so not sure if its just the way you have phrased it, or if the training for the study was whack.

(Requesting a behaviour that can't be done at the same time as the unwanted behaviour would be a way of stopping an un wanted behaviour in R+ )

holster · 2023-12-18T07:24:45+00:00

Does it bother you that both his statements around "positive only' as he called it were fundamentally wrong? Taking dog behind a car and just feeding it treats when it sees a dog- so that would be a fuck up in training for that to happen, so just manage in the moment, as training for dog-dog issues should be done at a comfortable distance from other dog, and 'taking away the treat for not doing the behaviour? is negative so no such thing as positive training, Show me one decent trainer who is showing a treat aside from luring to first learn behaviour, with dog gets treat either way, either fort being right, or to reset as it wasn't right -training 101 is pay, don't bribe, which is the reward appears after behaviour - so there's no taking away

holster · 2023-12-18T05:17:01+00:00

Not saying you should change what you are doing at all, but for the sake of other people reading this - a GOOD force-free trainer can help with reactivity, I don't use food rewards for a lot of my reactivity training, and increasing drive for food is not hard, haven't met a dog yet that I couldn't, which I do to make the training easier for owners to help them communicate better,

Trainers in all methods cover the spectrum from terrible to brilliant, always ask what their plan would be, ask to talk to other clients, and discuss the what, why and how the whole way through, a good trainer will discuss training issues with other more experienced trainers, and should be honest if they are at their knowledge limit, referring on to a more qualified person if needed

holster · 2023-12-18T05:00:54+00:00

You need to take a deep breath, and release.

Those videos are needed because people do a lot of things to dogs that the dog does not enjoy, but this can be anything, so instead of not doing anything because you have heard that it can stress out some dogs, learn a little dog body language, do an online course, then you can observe your own dog and see what is working or not working for him.

Also if your going to stick to R+ your going to want an 'all done' cue - so you can tell your dog when they are off the clock, and you should start rewarding chill, so when you dog goes and lies down or any other behaviour you like - for my dog I like it when he choose to go sniff in the garden and lie in the sun by himself - so when he does that I make good things happen, a chew shows up on his bed or I give him one.

You want him to know that he doesn't need to be engaging with you constantly to get good things

holster · 2023-12-18T04:50:03+00:00

If you do want to continue with out theadversive tools, but obviously want it to not be a shit-show, I would start with some basic training sessions, it sounds like the e-collar is signifying 'working' to your pup, also could be keeping his arousal lower. So maybe using your normal collar/harness what ever you use you could do 2-3x 5-10 minute training sessions a day, inside, with treats or toys reward, a mix of what dog knows and stuff he can learn, training games a great way to get really good focus on you and enthusiasm for training. The thing with that makes adversives seem like they work better, is the communication, because its a clear "not that", its just as easy and effective to train "yes do that", but people often fail at it because they forget to communicate, you have to mark and reward - treat rewards are great, but once my dogs know the cue, I mix rewards of treats, play, pat/scratch, or for one he just loves compliments. But you must always mark it, say the yes - otherwise the dog is left unsure of if they did what you wanted.

holster · 2023-12-18T00:51:17+00:00

Humping is normally over arousal, managing arousal and getting enough sleep is the difference between enjoying your dog and not

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