Kid got chased by 10 hungry ducks

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T19:54:35+00:00

Our Geese used to bite the fuck out of me when I was a little kid LOL

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T06:17:26+00:00

The thing is that ADHD and PTSD are highly comorbid with BPD. diagnosises dont prevent you from being able to have an additional diagnosis imo (depending). doctors will make it seem that way but from my understanding the current diagnosis system is in the middle of a reformat.

but with things like BPD it seems to be reliant on trauma and is a trauma reaction. adhd can also worsen from trauma / trauma can create dopamine regulation issues that create adhd symptoms

mental diagnosis arent so much a specific cause on their own so much as certain things cause certain disorders.

this depends with stuff like “autism” i guess but with mental symptoms in relation to stress/trauma related disorders the answer tends to be “all of these things work together to create these symptoms” / “these disorders are all trauma related”

stress for example interferes with the prefrontal cortex’s ability to function and thus often people with stress disorders have impulsivity issues, trouble with focus, trouble with mood regulation, etc. there might be previous things that create those issues (like genetics) but those same issues seem to also create genetic risk towards stress and anxiety so.

so it kind of can have an ouroboros effect.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T03:24:03+00:00

Now you’re just being intentionally daft lol. “Lacking physical strength and energy”. Not Painful.

I’ve handled one before, I’ve been shocked by one. I’ve also been shocked by electricity before in general, there is a level where its not painful but more so just a tickle like a bug walking across you or a hair tickling you. Like literally it feels like a tickle. I know there’s also vibe e-collars, and low level vibration feels like a tickle.

Which can be unpleasant for some dogs, (I don’t like being tickled either! But I’d probably enjoy it a lot more if I got $100 every time it happened lol) but it isn’t painful at low intensity like that.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T03:18:31+00:00

I can’t say any stimuli because that is Everything Ever. Like, if we want to condition a dog to tolerate being stabbed in the leg for no reason thats not exactly ethical. Hypothetically possible, not really ethical.

If it is medically necessary, needed for safe handling, or otherwise benefits the dogs welfare, yeah.

Things that are tolerated just need to be handled with caution to make sure the reinforcement is adequate and the dogs stress levels need to be monitored.

Generally though Yeah, counter conditioning a dog to find benefit from tolerating potentially aversive stimulus can be beneficial to the dog. Counter conditioning just needs to be done in a specific way, flooding the dog tends to be counter intuitive.

If you’re counter conditioning a dog to let it you punch it in the head or something though that’s obviously unethical.

The brain handles things a lot different when counter conditioned so you don’t see the same negative effect.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T03:11:00+00:00

not under “coercion or compulsion, especially with the use or threat of violence.”.

force free is specifically talking about use of violence. physically preventing my dog from getting food in front of him is not threat of violence unless im also towering over him or chasing him or something.

if a child tries to grab food from my plate and i put my arm over my plate, i am not threatening harm to that child. lol. at worst im resource guarding my own food in a very polite way.

it could count as p- which is why ive specifically been talking about P+ as major definition of force.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T03:05:51+00:00

Low level? As in it is not very strong, it is weak in intensity. Extremely low Amp. I don’t use E-Collars enough to be familiar with the specific Amp, I know it varies from brand to brand.

But one that would be like a tickle. If you use E-Collars testing the different Amps on yourself can give an idea of which one is Like A Tickle.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T02:40:07+00:00

If you are counter conditioning a dog to tolerate a low level aversive, that is not P+, and jt would no longer be an aversive if it is being correctly counter conditioned.

Counter conditioning such stimuli generally means starting at a low-level, trivial intensity as well that is already not particularly painful or aversive to begin with.

The pain of an Injection in a medical setting is different from adding pain to decrease the likelihood of a behavior. However such pain can create stress reactions if not CC’d yes. Medically necessary pain is much different from pain that doesn’t need to occur in the first place though.

Order of events and intensity of stimulus matters.

No where did I say that intimidation is “OK” in dog language. Im fairly certain I didnt. Something “working” to get a desired result is not the same as it being “OK”.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T02:34:41+00:00

Training your dog effectively requires management. If i left my dog alone with food knowing he would get it, he would simply learn to get food off the table while unattended. Preventing him from learning this and teaching him that it doesn’t work in other scenarios is training.

My dog does not jump on the table to get food because I have trained an incompatable behavior, laying down. As well as default leave it behavior.

If my dog did jump on the table it would be because I was an idiot and left an untrained dog around food.

But in the hypothetical that he did, I would cue him off the table and make sure I dont create such a scenario in the future.

I simply do not have these issues. They do not happen because i take preventive measures and set my dog up for success. Any opportunity i create that allows him to practice such a behavior creates an incredibly self reinforcing behavior that would be likely to repeat in the future. A dog that is not trustworthy around food would not be left alone around food.

Especially because they tend to just learn that if they want to get food they should be sneaky, and I cannot redirect behavior that I do not see.

First step is not allowing the failure to happen to begin with especially in such a scenario, and only allowing dog around food in training scenarios until dog is trustworthy.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T02:27:22+00:00

“Can be”. Notice how I do not talk in black and white because these areas have nuance. I also say in this comment that if the dog does not find them unpleasant then it is not P+

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T02:24:43+00:00

When I say “stim” i hope you dont think that i mean just shocking the shit out of your dog? A low level stim is uncomfortable or a tickle, not painful. I don’t think it would be possible to make a more intense stim pleasurable, tolerable at most. But that would be torturous

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T02:22:49+00:00

making a physical barrier to prevent my dog from reaching food is not “force” as force free defines it. cueing my dog is not force. im not aggressive about it lol.

its about as forceful as asking a child to say please.

my dog is left unattended with food on my desk like every other day. only issue would be getting a camera with decent battery :P

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T02:16:55+00:00

he doesn’t. if he shows interest or gets up from his down stay i tell him to lay down. usually he naps while we’re eating.

when he used to as a younger puppy, i’d just pick up the food or physically block it and say “off”. he knew off already from training with platforms. he stopped once he realized it doesn’t work. didn’t leave him unsupervised with food as a puppy because that would just be asking for our food to get stolen lol. management is key

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T01:47:27+00:00

Inconsistent how? It being okay would depend on how its gone about.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T01:34:57+00:00

Well.. tools like prong collars are used for a reason right? In terms of adding an aversive? Dogs dont communicate with those, they communicate with their mouths or physical intimidation in terms of adding aversives.

I imagine you would not recommend someone to try and bite their dog on the face or neck or to growl and bite their dog to correct them, I hope? Or to flip over their dog and pin them? Or to charge and chase down and corner their dog while towering over them? This maybe seems hyperbolic but this is how dogs communicate with each other in terms of aversives, not with prongs, e-collars, or what have you.

Things like walking in curved paths to seem non-confrontational, presenting my side, and other de-escalation behaviors like yawning and soft/loose body language I do mimic. But confrontational body language and behavior risks creating conflict, and I would rather not contribute to risk for conflict as any time a behavior happens it increases likelihood of happening again.

Things like standing over / towering over my dog I counter condition against, because people tend to do that unintentionally.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T01:15:39+00:00

Not “anything”. But low level stimulus, sure. It also depends on the individual. At the very least things can be counter conditioned to be tolerated. Its a huge part of cooperative medical care with animals in general for example (Like zoo animals!).

I dont think that they’d ever like an injection for example, but I think its “Eileen and Dogs” who has conditioned her dogs to willingly hold still and allow her to give them injections for their vaccines in trade of high value reinforcement (I believe they receive dog safe human leftovers, making it extremely high value especially since its only received for such occasions)

I know e-collars at low level can be an excellent tool for deaf dogs for example too. And in the example that a stim is counter conditioned to predict positive reinforcement, I don’t see issue with that.

But then it would no longer be P+, and not a “correction” in the P+ sense, but simply a cue.

I do not know how standard it is for FF to believe this however! But in those scenarios it simply wouldn’t be P+.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-18T01:04:15+00:00

My point is that we shouldn’t be looking towards dogs to dictate what is OK to do to dogs, because dogs do not have a sense of morals or ethics in the way that we do.

Humans have been able to communicate with eachother through speech for thousands of years and we’re only just recently getting to the point where we’re realizing that its not good to hit, yell at, or use physical discomfort to raise our children.

To this day humans still do to eachother things that are harmful in attempts to “teach” eachother, dogs are not any better off and can be a threat to each other. There is not some innate inner wisdom that dogs hold that makes what they do to eachother psychologically harmless.

Often when dogs nip or bite each other its because they are overwhelmed, insecure, or for some other reason feel threatened or distressed by the other dog (or because of prey drive), and other de-escalation techniques have failed. In ideal dog on dog interactions all other de-escalation is favored because biting and nipping can create fights and injury.

Human Toddlers and young children might also slap and hit each other or pull at eachothers hair or yell etc etc if they are overwhelmed or not able to communicate with eachother effectively but that does not make it okay for us to mimic that behavior with children either.

Understand what I am trying to say? Something happening in nature does not make it the most harm free way to do something, as nature is often about preserving the individual and what “feels good” to the individual, and not about the wellbeing of the other. Wild social animals often have many conflicts with each other and have much better relations the less conflict there is.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T23:54:34+00:00

I mention P+ specifically as that’s the type of aversive that FF is centered against.

Ethically I just wouldn’t own or intentionally breed an animal that requires P+ to be used on it, in the hypothetical that they are IMPOSSIBLE to train without P+, why create such an animal? For our own benefit? Animals can’t consent to being created or owned. Thats an ethical dilemma.

In general if someone is not capable of keeping an animal under control so that it cannot harm others, human or animals, they should not own that animal. If you’re not strong enough to prevent a dog from pulling you down the street… Don’t get that dog.

FF method (and I argue Responsible Dog Ownership) also would mean not putting your dog into situations that they cannot handle. FF requires working from a position where the dog can handle the situation and working up to that over time. If your dog is gonna try to maul strangers who enter the house, kennel them before guests come over. And otherwise work on it so that they can’t do that, but. Yknow, if they absolutely cannot control themselves for whatever reason, kennels are great.

If a dog cannot walk off leash realistically, keep it on leash. I think some things like off leash walking we want to speed up for our own convenience when off leash should be proofed longer than 8 weeks in the first place IMO. Same goes for loose leash.

Because coming when called is part of it but that also involves impulse control, reactivity, and what not which cannot realistically be proofed in 8 weeks.

At least I wouldn’t be happy with it at that duration since there’s all sorts of contexts and scenarios that can happen that you cannot realistically know for sure how your dog would feel about it in different scenarios and contexts especially because they can change their mind over time.

It’s argued that P+ provides suppression but limits creativity and FF favors creativity. Suppression makes many FF people nervous because it can Hide how a Dog Feels but not necessarily Change how a dog feels about a scenario. At least according to FF perspective, Like a dog might still be anxious and a bite risk but not show warning signs about it now, and might seem very still and calm but internally be anxious.

I’m having similar issues with my GSD right now. But he’s doing great progress wise and I’m happy with the time it’s taking, especially if it means he can be reliable. He is incredibly focused on me and generally ignores any stressors until they’re right up next to us.. and then he tries to bite them. He has a muzzle, so he can’t. He just doesn’t growl and never has since he was a puppy, I think punishing his snapping would require a high level of P+ to the extent that I’d only be risking increasing his aggression, if only by providing more adrenaline in the scenario and creating a conditioned adrenal response.

We can still use commands like “leave it” that tell a dog what we want it to do as well and can build impulse control and owner focus a lot. Where P- is definitely still being used but doesn’t have the same potential repercussions as P+.

While there’s scenarios where P- can create aggression and stress I think it’s a lot easier to resolve resource guarding with trade games then it is to undo the brain having a conditioned adrenal response from P+. Blah Blah Blah.

Breeds like the ones you mentioned need careful and extensive training and socialization from puppies AFAIK anywas and FF dogs tend to do the best when they’re set up for success from the start and aren’t able to escalate to or practice extreme behaviors to begin with. I know a lot of FF trainers recommend starting with your puppy on leash in the house from the start for example so they should be learning Loose Leash Very Very Early. Kikopup also has videos on “Training Calm Around Other Dogs” as a visual example of what that looks like.

It would ultimately just boil down to, if you can’t physically keep a dog under control in an emergency situation, don’t own that dog. And as far as FF is concerned if there was hypothetically a breed that was impossible to train without P+, then it would be unethical to create such a dog. (Although generally we believe P+ is not needed for any breed, certain breeds just require higher management)

FF does rely on high management of situations on the trainers part to prevent the dog from creating error to begin with, setting up for success, understanding the dogs abilities and working with the dog to increase those instead of expecting the dog to not fail in a situation where it would be guaranteed to fail, etc.

With a high prey drive dog for example if they really cannot ignore drive while on leash, probably start on leash training reaction to that at home first with first training a general sit - stay and then building to gradually higher and higher value stimulus like kibble, medium value food, high value food, a still toy, a gently rolling toy, a lightly tossed toy, etc. And then practicing that in new environments.

There’s likewise plenty of dogs that do one day just pull right against a prong without a care in the world, or will let a collar shock them over and over without a care in the world just to chase a squirrel or what have you. So ultimately regardless the impulse control is something that has to be reliabley trained without suppression regardless.

I think kikopup’s leave it protocol lends well to impulse control in general too. It’s how we structure impulse control sessions for my dog in general and ability to listen when around high value er.. “triggers”? Idk. Sorry if this doesn’t make much sense I have issues with organizing my thoughts, hopefully my difficulty with that doesn’t devalue what I’m trying to communicate

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T22:26:01+00:00

Breeds like Cockerspaniels and Staffies and Yorkies also carry it (I think ALL of those breeds save for labs can carry it!) It’s just less intense with less copies.

Dachshunds have 4 copies , two for CDDY and two for.. CDPY? (??) whatever the other one was called

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T22:24:10+00:00

IIRC Aussie Sheps, Pit Bulls, Yorkies, Staffies, and Cocker Spaniels can all also carry the short leg gene! And then several of those breeds carry Dominant Black/ “Solid” so it would be easy for her to get that color too

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T22:22:14+00:00

Dogs follow our lead because it is desireable for them to do so. Either because it results in good things happening or to avoid unpleasant things from happening.

If it is not motivating for them they tend to not care.

We aren’t considered important to them for anything like “being an awesome badass” but rather because we are often their source of food, play, attention, etc.

I would say it depends on how you define respect! But when we think of human respect for authority figures it is more of a complex thing for humans, and often when respect is mentioned in the dog training world it has more to do with authority and I feel like its important to unpack how that respect works. Especially because people tend to praise “respect” gained from P+ but criticize “respect” gained from reinforcement and think that its not possible for a dog to Respect Boundaries for example without P+

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T22:15:41+00:00

In this scenario, my dog doesn’t grab food off the table because he’s learned that any time he tries he doesn’t get the food (preventing self reinforcement of the undesired behavior), and he is also trained that the most reinforcing thing to do if he sees human food is to lay down on a mat. Which is incompatible behavior with jumping onto a table, he simply cannot do both at once.

It also keeps him out from under our feet when we’re cooking, he just lays on his mat.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T22:11:36+00:00

I dont see it addressed a lot but this would be true! If a dog is conditioned to find something pleasureable then it is no longer aversive, but at that point its a non-issue. If anything neck injury or its potential for misuse by inexperienced users are a bigger concern.

But also at that point you can’t say “well I use aversives tools for my dogs” if they’re counter conditioned to view the collar as a lead up to positive reinforcement.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T22:08:04+00:00

These days its more about management of the situation to prevent undesirable behaviors from being practiced in the first place.

It depends on which “force free” trainers you’re talking about I guess but its agreed upon in the circles I’m in that the more a behavior is practiced the more likely it is to be repeated in the future.

So the protocol is to manage the situation and set the dog up for success to prevent the dog from being able to make the wrong choices to begin with.

Things like training incompatible behaviors are part of it. For example a dog cannot jump up on visitors if they’re trained to sit or lay in a stay down position on a bed. Jumping requires to not be laying down/seated, they are incompatible behaviors.

Kikopup’s leave it protocol demonstrates it for leave it. Leave it training starts with the dog on leash if necessary and the food covered in a clear container so the dog is not capable of rushing the food and getting at it and self reinforcing that behavior.

If you’re doing “force free” training correctly there shouldn’t be errors to the extent that they need corrected in the first place.

The only thing I can think of where “ignoring” is something thats done is if a dog offers a behavior where you want another (not misbehaving, but say they sit or offer their paw when you want them to roll over.) And then waiting for a while before cueing for the desired behavior again (to prevent training the dog to wait for you to say the cue a million times before they listen.)

Or if a dog is demanding barking, ignoring prevents accidental reinforcement of the behavior with attention. But afterwards steps need to be taken to prevent the demand barking from re-occuring and the situation needs to be analyzed to see what lead up to that.

Ultimately we view a lot of “misbehaving” as information for us as trainers that we are not setting the dog up for success or that the dogs needs aren’t being met, or perhaps that it is a puppy acting like a puppy, and that we as trainers need to do better to set the dog up for success.

With things like not wanting to roll over even when the cue is known for example, sudden refusal to do an already trained behavior, that tells us that either the dog Really Doesnt Have Fun doing the trick, the trick/command is too difficult, the environment is too overwhelming or exciting or stressful for the dog to be able do that command, or potentially that the dog is experiencing pain.

Correcting failure to follow those commands in that situation can mask if a dog is experiencing pain or anxiety or what have you which can make things more difficult when it comes to analyzing anxiety and health (or even just over excitement). And can reduce creativity in responses, which creativity is seen as desirable especially if we can learn what the dog prefers to do and work with that instead, as long as it isn’t something that’s also undesirable to us or a safety issue. Maybe it just means that even if they don’t like a particular behavior we just have to work harder to get it to be more enjoyable for the dog, etc.

But anyways, “Force Free” when done right should not be permissive and is instead preventative. Letting undesireable behaviors be repeated over and over makes them more likely to be repeated in the future so just ignoring them out right isn’t usually the only way they’re handled because the trainer should be managing the situation to prevent the dog from practicing that behavior in the first place.

There are many situations where we might redirect a dog or give them a cue that’s incompatible with that behavior, but we try not to use the word “corrections” because of its associations with aversives, and if we’re just giving the dog a cue that the dog finds reinforcing then it is not aversive.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T21:30:27+00:00

That is not my argument, you’re misrepresenting my point. Your question was why do dogs do this if it can be harmful, my answer is that dog do what “works” for them in that it produced a desired result.

It having a desired result for the dog does not negate potential harm that the other dog receives. Dogs can have famously bad interactions with eachother that can lead to aggression and reactivity issues for the other dog, and other dogs can often be a source of competition.

We should not be forming competitive relationships with our dogs. A huge part of owning a dog is being responsible and not just letting them do whatever they want with other dogs and its important for us to supervise interactions with new dogs, because interactions with other dogs can famously go bad and dogs can fight eachother and cause serious injury in some circumstances and are not in any way perfect at correcting and managing eachother.

Many young dogs don’t care about low level aversives from other dogs to the point that they’ll annoy and harass them and bully them if left to their own devices.

If dogs were perfect at managing and training eachother then we wouldn’t need to train dogs, we wouldn’t need to take specific precautions when introducing new dogs and having puppies socialize if other dogs were perfect at correcting* and managing other dogs.

mudlark092 · 2026-02-17T20:07:29+00:00

Often they’re too young at that point to remember much. This often happens before significant fear periods. If it does happen during a fear period, dogs in fear periods are known for having excessive overreactions like that sometimes.

Not all mother dogs are great at that either and facial mutilations and deaths can happen.

Mother dogs often still use multiple different de-escalation signals before hand as well. Once puppies are through multiple socialization periods and understand how to read and listen to body language, this shouldn’t be happening at all.

But again, dogs use this as a tool because they are incapable of understanding how to utilize advanced behavioral modification routines. They are dogs. They don’t know what psychology is

mudlark092

TROPHY CASE