[nagdu] [nagdu' new dog, sniffing, and scavenging

[Daryl Marie]

Tami,

You said:
Those things you have to deal with on the fly because they never turn up 
in training sessions can be frustrating... Until you start looking at 
the triggers as training opportunities! So, see? Gizmo wasn't being an 
obnoxious little brat, distracting your guide. He was giving you 
training opportunities! Honestly, I still see dogs doing distracting 
things that very way, since maintaining dog distraction training is an 
ongoing thing. So instead of getting all mad that someone is doing 
something to me because their dog is doing someting distracting, I just 
enjoy my dog's lack of distraction or I remind her that she is working 
and knows better than to be distracted. /shrug/

My response:
Oh, how true!  Though I must admit that I am not the biggest fan of little ankle-biter dogs. When we came down the stairs again and Gizmo started barking at Jenny, I waved at the people in the office and told them to just let him do what he was going to do; I was going to train my dog.  Sure, the dog couldn't get right into her face, but by that point the distraction is too far along anyway.
I normally agree about dogs doing distracting things and using them as training opportunities, with one exception.  Here, it is illegal to have your dog offleash in any place by an offleash park or in your back yard.  A couple months ago, jenny and I were walking home when out of the blue a dog came flying out at us from across the street. His owner just kept yelling uselessly "Archie! Come back, Archie!" So I was trying to move along with Jenny, who wasn't distracted at all until he came FLYING at her, but we were getting it together to move along, and figure out what the hell to do with this other dog. Our of sheer frustration, I yelled across the street "Come get your dog!" Ultimately Archie came back to his owner who told him sweetly that he had to stay in the yard *sighs*

You said:
More generally, on the subject of switching from correction to positive 
methods, I recently read an article that reminded me of that phase where 
the behavior you are now not correcting increases. Do I remember which 
article and where I found it? Sorry, no. The phrase that trainer used 
was extinction something or other. In other words, the behavior that is 
now being ignored will increase before becoming extinct in favor of the 
new behavior for which you are rewarding. That can be really 
frustrating, because it feels like you are now doing the right thing and 
it is sooo not working. 

My response:
YES!!  This is sooooooo it! It was like we had gotten the scrounging thing down pat with the correction collar, then it seemed to appear (though with less intensity) with the regular collar.... this is a good thing to know!  I think the term is "extinction burst".
not sure which article you are referring to, but here are a couple:
http://www.legacycanine.com/terrys-tips/the-powerful-tool-of-extinction.html

http://positively.com/contributors/extinction-bad-for-dinosaurs-good-for-canine-behavior/

http://www.thrivingcanine.com/ExtinctionDontRewardBehaviorYouDontWant


You said:
This is one reason I prefer to train my own 
animals... I don't have to go through a bunch of that to convert them to 
my handling methods for positively trained dogs, horses, whatever. This 
doesn't mean I've never had to change my way of reacting to a behavior 
I've been inadvertently reinforcing by giving it negative attention 
without redirecting. It's completely maddening because I'm also having 
to change my response to a behavior that is increasing in frequency and 
intensity to get me to give the old response I am trying to change, and, 
well... It's my own dang fault, so at least I can be mad at me and not 
the dog, so that helps me ignore the behavior and focus on the the new 
way of doing things. /lol/ Once the dog has discovered that doing the 
replacement behavior gets attention and a positive reward, the unwanted 
behavior will dwindle and become extinct rather quickly. Not so quickly, 
if it is a self-rewarding like barking or scrounging, but even those 
become easier to manage.


My response:
LOL yeah. barking/scrounging/pulling toward a target are definitely self-rewarding... just gotta work through it!
I just don't have the time or experience to train my own dogs... and I don't know how well it would go over in Canada (which is a whole other topic).

Daryl and Jenny