All posts in category clicker training

Lasting Change…by Lisa Harmon

living roomThis was my Christmas… how was yours? Merry and bright I hope!

I guess New Year’s is the next half of the holidays, and many of us are settling on a resolution or two for how we will improve our lives this coming year. It’s a good idea, too.

No matter how old (or young) we are, there is always room for improvement. I’d like to offer a few suggestions though, to counter the high abandonment rate that usually accompanies a New Year’s Resolution.

Be Real

A goal is a great thing, unless it’s unattainable. If you think you’re going to unilaterally alter a long standing family dynamic, or get a rambunctious dog to change how they interact with you just from force of will, you’ve set yourself up to fail. The only person you can really change is yourself, and that is hard enough!

If your goal for change requires change from another person, be prepared to accept that you’ve held up your end of the bargain even if they couldn’t or quit trying. I’m not trying to be a downer, it’s just that we all know how hard it is to break a habit. We have to have an understanding (and back up plan) for disappointing results. A lot of dreams and hopes in life are only half fulfilled, and it’s a reality everyone faces.

Be Thoughtful

It’d be nice if we could simply say, “I’m going to be a better friend” and the magic fairy dust makes it happen. But we really need to have spent some time thinking about what a better friend is. Does it mean your night owl partner really needs you to stay up with them until midnight every night, or would say, 10 pm be gesture enough? Would getting the aforementioned rambunctious dog more exercise mean giving up drinks after work with your friends a couple nights a week?

Think through a New Year’s resolution before you set it, knowing what demands on your time or your habits would be altered. Many  resolutions get dropped because we weren’t prepared for the effort or time that it takes to make a long lasting change. If you know ahead of time, and have set your mind to “do what it takes”, the odds of being successful go up.

Break It Into Parts

Some resolutions, especially the ones you need to make happen for your health and well being, will be too big to take on all at once. If your goal is say, to lose 50 pounds, there are many moving parts that can break down. It would require a change in eating habits, in exercise habits, in awareness of how much change you can adapt to and at what pace.

Trying to take on many changes all at once if about half doomed before you start. Dog trainers call this “lumping”; ie expecting a perfect five minute down stay from Pooch, regardless of distraction. Take an idea from successful clicker trainers, and break a goal down so you can work on the individual parts one at a time before putting the peices together.

For instance, decide that in January you will adjust to eating different foods. In February, if all went well with January’s changes, you will begin to reduce your portion sizes. If you are still struggling a bit with the different foods, you’ll wait to change the portions a little longer. When you’ve adjusted to different foods and different portions, you will begin a mild exercise program.

If the goal is for your rambunctious pup to get his Canine Good Citizen patch, there might be several habits you want to break. Take them one at a time, methodically, and consistently. Some parts of a plan may take longer than you might have expected, some might go faster. But with the end goal in mind, keep working, and occasionally look back to see how far you’ve come!

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by greatdaneservicedog on December 26, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on December 26, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/lasting-change-by-lisa-harmon/

Preparing a Puppy for the World of Humans

Having a well adjusted dog starts with a puppy coming to enjoy a variety of new things. It’s official term is “socialization”. Laurie Luck over at Smart Dog University is a fabulous trainer, and I love to read her blog. This is a bit of a flashback in time, back when she was raising Talos the Dane puppy to become a grown up Great Dane Service dog. But these truths are timeless:

The key to introducing your dog to something novel is to do it incrementally, to do it systematically, and to always (and I mean always!) go at your dog’s pace. If you see signs of anxiety (tucked tail, ears back, lip licking, hiding behind your legs), STOP! Move further away, speak calmly and quietly to your dog, and try to feed some extra yummy treats. If your dog isn’t eating those delicious treats, you know he’s still too stressed. Move even farther away. Keep moving away until the dog’s body language is more relaxed and until he’s able to take treats. http://smartdog.typepad.com/smart_dog/2009/12/fear-not-video.html#

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Each dog or puppy will have their own set of triggers. For my late Kenai, it was the post office. He could hear those mechanical noises he feared so much, but couldn’t see what was causing them. For some dogs, it is people rushing up to them head-on.

There is no such thing as a “perfect” service dog, to be honest. They are living creatures, and have their own quirks like any other. But assistance dogs really have to be as close to perfect in their behavior as possible.

Why?

They live and work in an unnatural world. A human world is chock full of unnatural things, like mechanical sounds, chemical smells, and people acting in ways that don’t make sense to a dog. After all, dogs didn’t invent cars!

All dogs have to become fluent in the ways of the human world and human quirks to be a part of it, through exposure and socialization. Just going to the pet store is an excursion into an unnatural world. But service dogs have to become at home in it.

Otherwise, they will often find it a struggle to focus and complete the tasks that make them a service dog for a disabled handler. So how you expose a service dog candidate or service dog in training to some new experience really does matter in the long term.  Bad experiences last, so if you’re having a bad hair day yourself, let the outing wait.

It is really helpful to have made a written list of every type of surface, sound, smell, and sight that you can think of. Just take stairs: there are wide stairs, narrow stairs, spiral stairs, tall stairs, concrete stairs, metal stairs, wood stairs… A dog’s senses of their environment are much more acute than ours, so they will notice the feel underfoot and height, the trace smells of shoes and the like.

Those things are background to us, and service dogs have to be regularly exposed to almost everything for it to fade into the background the way it does for us. Essentially, they have to be desensitized. These experiences have to continue long after puppyhood for them to remain familiar and comfortable, too. But the first exposures are the most important.

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by greatdaneservicedog on December 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in clicker training, Great Danes
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on December 9, 2012

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Andy’s Babysitter…by Lisa Harmon

It never fails to amaze me how naturally grateful many dogs are! I “doggy sat” a neighbor’s GSD mix, and decided to try and use up the remaining Bravo raw in my freezer. Boy did he chow down, too. He ate almost as much as Kenai used to, roughly 3 pounds per day. And despite missing his “family”, he happily ran around the back yard playing with me which he’s never really done before.

Andy also has (had) a habit of jumping up on people. A clicker and 10 minutes pretty much took care of that, with me anyway. He got clicked and rewarded every time he sat beside, in front, or just near me. If he was about to “forget” and I’d see him ready to jump up, a simple “ah ah” and I’d get a nice pretty sit. Followed of course, by a click and a treat.

For all our fun though, you could tell he missed his own people. He’d sometimes just stand and look down the road for awhile. Then he’d come get the jolly ball and run about with it. Andy’s a mostly outside dog, but the temps were cold a couple nights so I would bring him in from the garage for a warm up hour or two. He would get a comfie, have a snooze, then when he woke up he’d want out again for awhile.

He’s a good fella, that Andy. We had a pretty good time together, but he was off like a shot when he saw “Mom and Dad” pull into their driveway! What did surprise me, was he came back down to my house about 2 hours later, just for a hug and pat. Then he went home again. Maybe it’s between my ears, but I think he wanted to say thank you for the company.

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by greatdaneservicedog on November 16, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on November 16, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/andys-babysitter-by-lisa-harmon/

Choice and Recognition…by Lisa Harmon

my late Kenai, way back at 10 wks old

Many of us who’ve trained a dog have come to really understand the principle of cause and effect: the more we reward a pup for something, the more they do it. Many have also learned the more opportunities you find to reward a pup, the more enjoyable your time together is.

It’s why I like clicker training–the person gets trained to look for things to reward, rather than just things to correct. Sure, there’s always something that needs some corrective attention, like teaching a pup to “go” outside or not to chew the furniture.

But even those times present the chance to reward when they do “go” outside and ignore their chewing post you call a table leg. The more your pup is rewarded for choosing a behavior on their own that is “right”, the more they realize they have a choice and can choose well. Confidence soars!

Clicker training teaches dogs they aren’t entirely at the mercy of whatever impulse or event happens. It’s all about choice and positive recognition. Somehow, that understanding of cause and effect gets “lost in translation” when it comes to how we treat ourselves and other people.

The more you take note of and give weight to the positive in yourself and your life, the more confident you become. You can “positive train” yourself, too, if you are willing and consistent. This can really be hard to do when you’re used to being hard on yourself. It’s worth the effort.

One of the things I’ve had to learn to do, and re-learn to do many times over, is to alter my internal focus. What are you really giving weight to? How do you talk to yourself or your spouse? Do you take note of more things to correct then things to be proud of?

This isn’t trivial or pollyanna stuff: if I spend my time noticing the negative, and passing up chances to recognize the positive, I will become less confident and constructive. The more we “correct” a dog, the more uncertain of themselves they can become. Great Danes are typically sensitive dogs, and if they can’t seem to do anything that pleases you, anxiety rather than confidence increases. So do behaviors you’ll need to “correct”. It becomes a negative feedback loop.

That reality is equally true for people, and becomes very stark to me when I talk to my mother. She’s suffering from depression, and long term PTSD. When I ask her what she likes about herself, she literally cannot think of one thing. Mom does not give any notice or weight to her triumphs, so the negatives totally overwhelm her. She is anxious, and chronically negative. Cause and effect manifests.

I’ve suggested she keep a little notebook with her, and write down what’s positive in her actions and thoughts. That’s been remarkably hard for her–she finds it difficult to even think of what she does in positive terms, and when she does, it is very quickly forgotten. Now I can point things out for her, like she went to pilates when she didn’t feel like it. Big things, little things, matters not.

But until Mom chooses to begin noticing and giving weight to the positive herself, my pointing out the positive becomes yet another means of dependency and “I can’t for myself”. That endless dependency is exhausting for me, and a reinforcement of the negative for her. When somebody can rapidly turn a positive like encouragement into a negative like neediness, you have to be very cautious and deliberate about how, and how much, you “help”.

The correlation in dog training is when we try to reassure and soothe a fearful reaction by petting and affection. What we’ve inadvertantly done is reward timidity and neediness. A better response is to let them settle down some, then go investigate what rattled them: what made that sound, did you hear that (click/treat)? See that skateboard, sniff it (click/treat).

This teaches a pup that they can rather than they can’t. At first you may have to take the lead, but when they begin to do this on their own, you’ve laid the groundwork for a dog that can cope and overcome! The pup’s discovering they can figure out what that was. They can touch it, and move it, and even play with it themselves.

They can move away if they need to, but they can also move towards “it” with curiosity after the initial fright. They can lose their fear, be empowered, and be rewarded. They can turn a negative into a positive, and with consistency in rewarding, they begin to make that response a habit. It changes how they think and feel.

I came across this pic on facebook, and taking this advice to heart and putting it in practice is tremendously powerful. You have a choice for positive or negative, every moment of the day. That choice of positive or negative comes with every feeling that arises, every thought that you have, every interaction you’re a part of. Choose wisely…

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by greatdaneservicedog on October 24, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in anxiety, clicker training, Great Danes
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on October 24, 2012

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A Not So Secret Marvelous Secret to Life…by Lisa Harmon

Denise and Chloe
I must admit, this is my favorite assistance dog pair.  http://hearingelmo.wordpress.com/  or https://www.facebook.com/HearingElmo I KNOW, it’s not a Dane, so please pardon. But these two ladies are just the most delightful friends to have.
Chloe came from Fidos for Freedom, and works (HARD!) as a hearing assistance dog, with a bit of mobility/balance assistance. http://www.fidosforfreedom.org/
Hardly a post goes by via wordpress or facebook that Denise doesn’t make me smile, make me think, or just notice something I would not have noticed.
 She’s just fun!
And she’s real–no pretense of never having a flaw or doing something less than brilliant. Denise can laugh at her dingy-human moments. She can even laugh at her disability, admitting the really odd things she thought someone said when the words get garbled.
Denise has found a secret to life, whether you live with or without a disability; enjoy every little thing you can.
My fatigue levels say “nope, no working for you gal”, and in truth, finishing my laundry in one day is a challenge. But I can go sit on the deck in the autumn sunshine with a cup of hot cocoa.
Sugar Free cocoa for me: 1/4 cup of water, 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla, and Splenda equivalent of 2 tablespoons of sugar, mixed up smooth and added to 3/4 cup of warmed heavy cream.
What can you enjoy right now? Big or small, matters not. Even if it’s only a cup of cocoa, savor the sweetness, the warm liquid versus the cool air, the big fat fuzzy sweater you got on, and maybe even the antics of a squirrel looking for the best acorns to stash. Find it. Trust me–FIND IT. If I’ve learned anything from clicker training, it is the need to always keep a proverbial eye out for something positive to click and reward, for the every little thing that’s good and a step in the right direction.
Before you think to yourself that humans aren’t like other creatures, that we are so much more enlightened and not nearly so “primitive”, allow me to ask you to question that. We are mammals. We are special mammals, singular mammals but mammals just the same. Mammals with a soul, or a spiritual ability, yes. But the brain is the brain, and it has the same basic structure as other mammals. We learn via many of the same modes, such as social mimicry, experience, and which parts of our brains have the most active wiring.
What are you making a mental “click and reward” of regularly? Check it, because what you notice and respond to gives weight to it. Do you give weight to more of the “well, that was dumb of me” than to “hey, you did it”? We’ll never run short of things to beat ourselves up for, nor things to think positively about ourselves. The only difference is which gets noticed more.
If like me, you are hard on yourself, realize it is a tendency that becomes a habit. If like me, you can judge someone else hard, that too will become a habit. My Mom is really deep in a world of being managed entirely by feelings and impulses, and she can drive me up a wall. There are days I wanna swing from the light fixtures. Yes–I can easily go to “if she does __ one more stinkin’ time”. I have to be absurdly vigilant sometimes about my mental click and response.
A pup whose feedback is mostly correction for doing something wrong will fast become insecure and hesitant. A puppy that is consistently rewarded for getting something right at every opportunity grows into a confident and trusting dog. Even “basics”, like a pat and treat for relieving themselves outside, or looking at then walking away from the shoe they could have chewed on, IS IMPORTANT. It is a chance to tell the pup you are proud of them, that they can make good choices, that you noticed what a good boy or girl they are. It builds confidence.
The very same is true for humans: we can build our confidence up, we can build better relationships on our end, or we can do the opposite. Pay attention to what you pay attention to, and deliberately choose to go heavy on the positive. It really is a choice. Perhaps it will be a struggle if you aren’t used to it, but here’s a secret to the marvelous secret of life my friend Denise has discovered: it is the determination to enjoy what you can that defines who you become, not the habits or circumstances.
“Thank God for all the good things, ’cause the good things are enough. The ties that bind and leave behind a legacy of love…” http://www.songlyrics.com/david-phelps/legacy-of-love-lyrics/.
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by greatdaneservicedog on October 14, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in anxiety, clicker training, service dog
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on October 14, 2012

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Choices from America…by Lisa Harmon

AMERICAN DANES

Overall, I’m not pleased with the state of Great Danes in America. They’ve become either tiny and delicate, or disproportionately tall and scrawny. When I was young it was typical for even a fawn male, which tends to be smaller than say a mantle, to weigh in about 170 pounds.

This is a nice quality Dane here, but still very small and to my eye, insubstantial for an intact male. Back in the day, ya didn’t see the average Dane with long chicken legs, snipey heads, and narrow chests outside of poor quality puppy mills. It’s hard to find even a good male like the one in this pic these days.

I believe the rewarding of AKC show judges for “elegant” and “refined” has weakened the Great Dane overall. My opinion, for what it’s worth. And the explosion of uninformed pet owners that breed without a clue to what makes a truly beautiful, sound Dane has made the selection of Great Danes a frustrating experience for anyone who remembers what Danes used to look like, move like, and their former longevity.

It’s been 40 yrs since I met my first Dane, and the widespread weenie-ness of Great Danes I see these days sent me looking for European bloodlines a few years ago. The European breeders have generally maintained the working dog body: shorter, heavy boned, muscluar and athletic Dane.

This intact brindle is more like what I remember, and what I admire as the traditional standard. This dog could work for years and never wear out. If he could pull a cart, he could pull me up a steep slope once in awhile without developing arthritis at 5 yrs old.

My philosophy is a dog was created to work for and with humans. Once upon a time, they weren’t accessories, not intended for nothing more than to be well, decorative. Since I need a Dane that can work, can bear weight, can carry a pack, I cannot have a delicate decoration.

That being said, there are some American Breeders with strong, well built, substantial dogs to choose from. And I’ve stuck to the desire for ENS and rules of seven socializing that the breeder must do before an 8 wk old comes home with me. I will certainly clicker train, and use the “Control Unleashed Puppy” once I get them, but the breeder has as much or more to do with a pups future success than most people realize.

My American Breeder Choices

Saravilla Danes has American Danes, with the harl lines, which produce harlequins, mantles, and occasional blacks. They also work with ChromaDane, who won’t have pups available even next year. They are excellent breeders using ENS and other socializing techniques in their pre-7wk old puppies.

http://saravillagreatdanes.com/

There is nothing insubstantial about their dogs, and I like that. Unfortunately I don’t prefer the harl/mantle color for Danes, just as a matter of personal tastes. But if their dogs have the goods for a working dog, I gotta put on my big girl panties and care less about superficial stuff like coat color.

Saravilla requires a good kibble, and approves of neutering after sexual maturity even for companions. She also is a welcoming and visitor-friendly lady. So a trip to Ohio is in my near future! My only concern is working dogs tend to have higher energy levels, and having Chronic Fatigue…

I may ask for a show quality male, and have a go at conformation shows. It’s expensive and alot of work, but it is the best way to learn what really makes a dog’s body structually sound, what it takes to have smooth ergonomics so the joints last, and a tolerant disposition. All of which is essential for a working dog.

Being an experienced Dane owner, I got the basics of conformation: a straight topline, good angles in the stack, a nicely shaped head. But there’s a big difference between an experienced owner’s eye, and a breeder/shower’s eye. There’s much to learn there.

Green Bean, the big beautiful black Dane!

It’s a strange name for such a majestic, laid back fellow. But he’s no scrawny string bean. His owner strictly follows the GDCA code of ethics in breeding. I’ve known them from Facebook for awhile now, and they seriously know their Dane genetics!

Green Bean is not only gorgeous and well built. He is a (get this) a Dock Diving Dane, who watches the fireworks in the park, and never gets in a flap.

I’m aware of the “black dog syndrome”, and would expect perhaps more access challenges if one of Beanie Boy’s pups becomes my service dog. But heck, any Dane attracts serious attention in a grocery store or restaurant.

I have come to love Bean’s owner, and trust their judgement. They were “there” for me during the heartbreaking ordeal with Levi, and gladly volunteered to help me find a puppy that I would have a much better chance of success with. Kindness makes a world of difference to me.

LIBERTY DANES https://www.facebook.com/#!/libertydanes.lrs?sk=info

I’ve not had much contact with this lady yet, but I do now have a phone number. She not only trains, shows, and uses her harl lines for assistance dogs, she has a Dane SD herself. I am hoping like crazy she will agree to mentor me, teach me, and make a durn good owner trainer out of me. Her expertise in puppy aptitude testing would make a huge difference for me, reducing the chances of another wash out.

Again, the harl lines I don’t prefer, but even if I purchase a black Bean boy, I hope very much she will become a world of help to me. She has experience in both the conformation ring and the service dog training arena. And the center she works and trains at is only 3 hours drive time from my home.

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by greatdaneservicedog on July 24, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in clicker training, Great Danes, new puppy, service dog
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on July 24, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/choices-from-america-by-lisa-harmon/

Learning the Dane Chill…by Lisa Harmon

 My early morning jolly ball time with the blue shark…Levi is 13 wks old now, and growing like, well, a Dane puppy!

A consult with a second trainer experienced with agression and anxiety issues had some added suggestions for Levi’s “issues”.

Truthfully I’m discouraged enough not to get my hopes up. But she believes he can be turned around (with rather endless practice for awhile).

Once again, we’re back to a kibble as treats, since he’s so persistant about things he shouldn’t do (he’d eat too much if he had much of a meal too). I HATE switching foods around as often as I have, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Much of what we’ve been doing continues, but with a few tweeks. And much more self-control exercises for Levi.

The kibble we’ve gone to is Wellness Super 5 Mix Large Breed. It has low minerals so he can have 4 cups or so a day, but enough fat etc to keep him satiated. I hope not to run out of those 4 cups before the end of the day, so I need to be aware of how much I’m using while we are working on his various exercises.

I’m a little torn about keeping Levi: I know there’s a good pup in there underneath all that misbehavior. I mean, it’s never taken me more than a few days to housebreak a Dane pup, and we’re 3 1/2 weeks in and he’s still whizzing on the floor. Then there’s the bite and shred and snarl…

I’ve never given up on a dog before, certainly not a puppy. Yet I’m expending tremendous time, energy, and money to assist the puppy I’d intended to assist me.

It’s possible he would do better with another person, with a more active lifestyle, one who doesn’t have chronic fatigue so they can keep on top of this training without negative effects on their health.

Someone who’s out and about, perhaps has other pups or dogs to take up his time when not interacting with a person might keep him more active and thus more tired. And the younger he is when going to another home, the better it would be.

But I’ve spent all my savings and then some already to aquire Levi, on trainers and classes, on vets and food.  Additionally I don’t know what the breeder would choose to do if I decide he’s more effort than I can physically manage. Since it was likely the shipping that traumatized him, to ship him back might greatly worsen his behavior.

Fortunately, Saturday was a fairly good day with Levi. It came at the cost of my legs, but he had 3, not 2, outside times and I kept him running until he laid down.

We did self-control exercises like stay and wait most all day long as prevention for the wildman stuff. I used “positive interrupters” to break off the frustrated bite at you’s.

(Positive interrupter:  a distracting action he can be rewarded for that also makes his biting at me and things physically impossible)

An example of a PI is hand target with his nose when he goes for the clothes while we walk, or an auto-sit to recieve a treat. We play attention games, name games, self control games… but then it occured to me that he’s excited to begin with. He gets even more excited about the prospect of food, so the training gets linked to higher and higher levels of excitement.

Levi doesn’t know how to relax, how to just chill. Most puppies nap a lot, but not Levi. When he can’t take any more of his own excitement or frustration, that’s when he explodes. Mom or I could just be sitting in a chair and he spits out his bone, suddenly snarls and lunges at us for no appearant reason.

He needs to learn how to “turn off” as much as he needs to learn self-control. He needs help “slowing down” so he CAN turn off.  So in addition to the stays/waits to gradually slow him down enough to settle himself…

I’m speaking to him now in soft tones, quiet voice, like you’d talk to a baby going to sleep. I’ve started rewarding him with food when he’s dozing, or say, when his head goes down to relax after something gets his attention…he’ll get probably 15 pieces of kibble in and 40 minute snooze while I watch TV.

Yep, it’s a continual effort, being aware of his stimulation level, how much it too much, how long he’s capable of holding a stay…Levi is a 24/7 dog.

The question is, will the chronic fatigue allow that? The fibro pain I can take OTC meds for, the Lyme inflammation I can take meds for. But there is no treatment other than rest and mild, measured exercise for CFS.

I dont’ get rest with Levi, and the physical exertion is way more than mild or measured. Can’t count on Mom, save perhaps to make things worse. Ugh, baby blue, will you promise to turn around and master the art of the Dane chill? Please, little love, I want so much to keep you and love you and have a happy life with you.

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by greatdaneservicedog on July 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in clicker training, Great Danes, Levi, puppy training
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on July 8, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/learning-the-dane-chill-by-lisa-harmon/

First Pothole In The Road

 Levi’s vet visit showed him to be 18″ tall, and weigh 31.4 pounds. He’s grown quite a lot, the little stinker!

He got his vaccination, so next month is the final shot in the puppy series. They were pushing me to give him several others too, like leptospirosis and rabies. Huh?

He’s too young to load up like that, and no he’s not getting the rabies which is a live though altered virus until he’s 6 mo old when law requires.

A conversation with the author of “Control Unleashed” finally filled out the what’s-going-on-with-Levi picture for me. Yes, he does a lot of displacement and the book provided the anxiety part of the puzzle, but the growly/biting thing is called conflict aggression. He seemed aggressive at times, but I didn’t want to believe it.

It’s essentially a dog’s intense, even hidden, anxiety building up until it explodes. Often the dog seems better in public, but at home often takes out the accumulated stress on the people and animals they live with.

They will often go up to strangers on their own and seem fine or suddenly get scared and run away. The majority of targets of the aggression oddly, are gentle and quiet people. The behavior is also usually worse in the evenings. Levi to a “t”.

For instance, my nephew came over and Levi did wonderfully, with a tad of submissive peeing, but no barks or spooks. They played a little and he got lots of affection. Not ten minutes after Evan left, the chewing, tearing up, growling and biting at me started.

It is upsetting to me, to have a bona fide case of aggression of any type be evident in a 10 week old puppy. He’ll be 13 weeks old Friday. The ray of sunshine is in fact, how young he is though. We still have 3 weeks in that socializing/learning window of the first 4 mo of life to help him adjust and learn coping skills for frustration.

I’m still trying to really grasp what that means for how I interact with him, and the war between the alpha dominance believers and the positive reinforcement believers becomes personal now. It isn’t theory vs theory on an intellectual level, and I don’t really have room for error with Levi.

My vet’s suggestions I won’t follow because I know from experience of Levi and other aggressive dogs that physical confrontation with a dog being aggressive is both counterproductive long term and potentially dangerous.

“Just be more intense than him” they said. Huh? I mean, being more aggressive to an aggressive dog will teach them not to be aggressive? No.

But at the same time, I’ve seen how clicking and treating Levi for letting go or leaving it turns into him going back to those items later when he wants food or attention. Clicker training can be used by a smart pup to further their own ends, to take advantage.

So harshness will backfire, and the gentler clicker methods can be manipulated by him if I’m not careful and worsen the situation. And all the while I risk worsening his anxiety/insecurity too. Like I said, no room for error on my part.

***

I’m coming up with alternatives to some of the training and redirecting I’ve been doing, as well as understanding what things have worked and why. First is no longer clicking and treating for most let go or leave it, particularly if the object is a repeat grab.

That situation is where being less gentle and coaxing, more firm will help me. No more asking vs telling, treating, or frequent attention about it.

That’s a wiser type of ignoring than just pretending it isn’t happening. If he begins to escalate or continue using it to get attention on demand, I have the expen. A negative consequence.

As for biting in frustration, the combo of the expen when he’s not managable such as after my nephew left, and a touching/petting exercise our trainer Lisa S taught us during our training time Monday I hope will start making progress.

It’s a touch or petting starting from back end towards front end when he’s quiet, then click and treat for not reacting. If he reacts a little, moving the touch back to where he didn’t react last time and click and treating can counter-condition.

I’ve got to add for bite inhibition that if he reacts more than a little, and keeps nipping, he gets a deep voice firm warning “no bite”, and if it continues, he goes in the expen.

Other things to continue is restraint practice when he’s calm. Much like a vet restrains to do something, I hold him in a position andwait until he stops fussing, then click and reward. Exercise too is a good tool: I have to watch how much running about he gets since he’s shown some growth discomfort already but he needs exercise for the endorphins and other feel good hormones.

Social outings also have to be kept up. He’s very good in public at the time, but I have to ensure that he doesn’t have bad experiences.

Outings that involve physical exercise, that don’t involve chewing, in addition to mental stimulation will be the best for him. Like our river park he enjoys so much!

Again, I have to be both calm, low pitch in voice, with head up and shoulders back. Confidence on my part can reduce any stress he feels about people, places, and things.

He loves the treats and interaction of our training times, so I need to find a way to even increase those in frequency without letting them get linked to his demands for attention or food. He’ll be getting alot of negative (“no bite”, “ah-uh” etc), so there has to be a balance and stark contrast with the positives.

What I did after my nephew left and Levi wound up in the pen for a few minutes until he was calm was first give him a stuffed Kong ball, then do a short little obedience practice. It was in between meals, and about 5 minutes after the Kong was empty, so I don’t think any of it was linked to my nephew.

The hardest thing for me is not to get frustrated, or angry, when I am especially tired or in pain. Might as well ask someone with GAD/PTSD to cure themselves before they get a dog. It is very frustrating to me: I had one path of training in mind when I got him and now that assistance dog training is on ice indefinitely.

Levi has to be a trustworthy and enjoyable pet before anything else. Given that he’s a Great Dane, he will be 70-80 pounds in just a three months, so aggression of any kind is absolutely intolerable in Danes. He can still be a puppy and do serious damage with a bite. When grown, it can be catastrophic.

The clock is ticking.

6 Comments
by greatdaneservicedog on July 3, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in anxiety, clicker training, Great Danes, Levi, puppy training
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on July 3, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/first-pothole-in-the-road/

Good Days, Bad Days…by Lisa Harmon

Saturday and Sunday I was really fighting the fatigue (CFS), even with the Mitosynergy, and Sytropin. My brain is all but blue screened and the muscles are both weak and heavy as lead.

But we still made our outings. Saturday morning we returned to Finley River Park, as they were setting up for a cancer charity event. Levi had a mixed bag of reactions: some people he went right up to, and others he was spooked by.

We played a game with things that made him nervous: run up, touch, click and treat, and run away. The motor that was inflating a kids game house startled him, so we’d run up, touch the inflating item, then run away. It was a partial success but not total.

He is really shy of kids, even older kids. Monday at the courthouse with our trainer he did much better and was petted by a young girl, though. Fingers crossed. He’s much better when we’re out and around. Lisa S thinks its because there’s so many other distractions around him in public.

Sunday night was a really bad one with the frustration/biting etc. Uhg. He’d had lots of outdoor time, plenty of food and treats, even an outing Sunday morning. But come evening, oh boy.

Here he is discovering the joys of a jolly ball. He’s finally big enough to actually play with it!

He has a vet appointment for his 12 week vaccination Monday afternoon, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a bit pooky for a day or two. But better that than coming down with parvo or distemper. His growth is pretty good, though he still is slightly turning out his front feet. Perhaps they will straighten up as the growth spurt slows down.

Starting today, Levi is going to have regular xpen time, so I can get a shower every day, or eat a meal in peace. Maybe even finished “Control Unleashed Puppy”? He’s going to have to learn to cope with his feelings on his own, since I cannot seem to alter them much. Almost 3 wks in, he isn’t responding to rewarding self-control exercises as well as I’d hoped.

I hope being confined doesn’t make him worse when he gets out, but jeez, I need a break sometimes. He’s going and grabbing the things I’ve practiced leave it with just to get attention and treats. He’s deliberately doing things to manipulate me now. This 24/7 demand for attention is too much to take. He’s gotta learn to lay down and chill out and leave me be sometimes.

 Levi really does well with men, and I was extra proud that he left the man’s tie alone when the guy bent over to pet him!

It’d be just like Levi to see what do ties taste like…but he didn’t. Good boy.

He even walked within about 10 feet of the mower there at the courthouse, though he was in a bit of a hurry. No loitering to sniff around that noisy thing…

He was a good boy during his training time, and wore out afterwards! He never barked or anything when the Orkin man came to the house. (He’s still doing outside only, since the grey shark here will eat things on the ground and lick floors…).

We’ll see how the regular pen time affects him. Got my fingers crossed.

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by greatdaneservicedog on July 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in clicker training, Levi, new puppy, puppy training
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on July 2, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/good-days-bad-days-by-lisa-harmon/

Training Me…by Lisa Harmon

If you only ever buy one book about dogs, it should be “Control Unleashed: The Puppy Program” by Leslie McDevitt. That is a serious blanket statement, huh?

Whether you think you have a problem or you don’t have a problem to work on with a puppy, you should get it and read it anyway.

The author clearly and easily shows how something that turns up in adolescence like fear of strangers was actually present in the puppy but went unnoticed. Since it went unnoticed and thus unaddressed, it escalated during the intense development stage of adolescence.

For me, the intense behaviors Levi displayed when he first came to my home (and still does) mostly fall into “constant arousal displacement”. His pacing, biting to the point of bloodletting, tearing up clothes, enjoying some people’s attention but avoiding others, whining and growling for no obvious reason, peeing excessively, extreme food drive, chewing on or eating anything he could get his teeth around…

On a scale of one to ten, I’d guess Levi was about an 8 in the anxiety that causes such displacement behavior. It wasn’t me or my emotional state, it was his; triggered by sounds, social interaction, and the dramatic change in his environment. He was going after me to bite and beg because I spent the most time with him (15-20 hours/day).

He isn’t as “good in public” as I had attributed to him, according to the book. The anxiety about social interaction is still present, so the little things I’d noticed aren’t excessive worry on my part, they are clues to when he feels pressure. Thankfully, the social anxiety isn’t as strong as the anxiety from the home change.

Now I can look back and recognize why Levi had better days than others in many cases, and it correlates amazingly well with what we did and where we went. He’s showing the most anxiety about children in public, and visitors/noises at our home. Sounds that bother him at home don’t bother him in public nearly as much.

Now before you think “there she goes again, blowing things out of proportion and being reactive herself…” This knowledge actually takes the pressure off ME. I know for a fact that Levi isn’t reacting to me, it’s not that I have to change myself  to help him, nor do I neccessarily have to work so darn hard!!

The solution: dealing with the underlying anxiety, not the behavior it causes by providing 3 major things to Levi. One is allowing him to “escape” from a situation that stresses him, and definitely rewarding him if he returns to it on his own.

This is one thing I haven’t really done well–I’ll let him run to the end of the leash but then I call him back and try to help him interact and stuff. Oops. Often I will click and treat when he’s calmer, or give the person a treat for him, but I haven’t helped him relax about the situation first.

Second is information that the “threat” isn’t really threatening, by allowing him to check out the person, place, or thing at his own pace. Watching me interact with whatever and enjoying it is also very helpful to him.

And thirdly, teaching him that he can use his own behavior to calm himself and make the stressor less stressful. Sniffing, chewing, and foraging he likes to do, so I need to find ways to incorporate them as part of the training and socializing, not just the in-between training.

I’ve done this some, and our trainer has this concept down much better than I do, at least in terms of allowing the sniffing/chewing/foraging more. I need to make the chewing a reward, as a positive association with a stressor in a more formal and consistent way.

Anyway, you can tell how much I have yet to learn and I’ll digest then apply the exercises in the book to help us both!! Thank God for smart people, huh?

4 Comments
by greatdaneservicedog on June 30, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in anxiety, clicker training, Levi, new puppy, puppy training
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Posted by greatdaneservicedog on June 30, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/training-me-by-lisa-harmon/

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