Comments for Dancing Dogs

Comment on Puppy Farms in New Zealand by Marika S. Bell

Marika S. Bell — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:48:59 +0000

I am looking forward to the review coming out soon. I hope we have as high standards in DC soon, as they have in NZ now.

Comment on A Trainer’s Hierarchy… by Marika S. Bell

Marika S. Bell — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:47:35 +0000

Very true “the trainer”, being me. I didn’t feel that specifically listing each quadrant was necessary for this little blog. I had assumed, perhaps wrongly, that when I said “operant conditioning” that would be taken to mean all four quadrants + extinction. So you can see I did not disregard any quadrant, excepting that I find those two quadrants of very little use in he higher tiers of working with animals (and no use at all with wild animals). I understand that trainers in the lower tiers have a hard time seeing the potential of not using P+ or N- as often as they do. I am not saying that there is no place for those quadrants in dog training. There are some cases when they are necessary. I don’t see those cases all that often.

Comment on A Trainer’s Hierarchy… by Frankie

Frankie — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:23:59 +0000

One more:
The trainer claims to fully understands Operant Conditioning and learning theory but choose only Positive Reinforcement and Negative Punishment, disregarding Negative Reinforcement and Positive Punishment knowing full well that Operant Conditioning it is a quadrant.

Comment on Puppy Farms in New Zealand by Anna Carson

Anna Carson — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:28:05 +0000

I met an acquaintance at the vets the other day, she was holding a small puppy in her arms. I patted the pup and asked where she’d got him from. She’d bought him at a pet shop in Dunedin. I was horrified because this women is an intelligent, well respected and active person in our community, yet she had no idea why buying a puppy from a pet shop was the wrong thing to do. I didn’t exactly get on my soap box, but I did mention that her puppy probably came from a puppy farmer. Her response was “oh well, he’s with me now so he’ll be fine”.

Puppy farm awareness in this country is extremely limited. Websites like Trademe don’t help the situation, they allow these people to advertise their puppies, having no regard for the industry they support when they do so.

I’m a supporter of Oscar’s Law, Australia (Founder is Deb Tranter) and she’s got a huge following in Aussie and has really got things rocking. They have rallies to raise awareness, they’ve got high profile sporting personalities involved in helping raise awareness and get the message out about puppy farms.

Hopefully, with the Animal Welfare Act 1999 Review which is happening at the moment, there will be enough submissions about puppy farming to make the Government realise that something needs to be done.

Comment on Tug!!! by Top Ten Misunderstood Behaviours: # 5 Winning Tug of War | Dancing Dogs

Top Ten Misunderstood Behaviours: # 5 Winning Tug of War | Dancing Dogs — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:45:16 +0000

[...] player’s arm or hand while playing the game. So tug is like any other game. Win or lose, there needs to be rules and until the dog learns impulse control, probably shouldn’t play this game with children (or [...]

Comment on Excessive Barking: Attention Seeking by Marika S. Bell

Marika S. Bell — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:24:50 +0000

Thanks Allison, impulse control is hard, it takes most children years to learn it (if ever). I actually think dogs learn impulse control very quickly (3-4 years) to get really good at it. But some learn extremely fast.. one day I will have a dog like that –yeah right.

Comment on Excessive Barking: Attention Seeking by Allison

Allison — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:02:14 +0000

Thanks for this Marika. This is a good reminder to us to keep consistent about the little things like making Doris wait calmly before she can come in the house or get out of the car. She definitely struggles with impulse control!

And I loved the last post about “How my dog taught me to politely walk on the lead” by the way.

Comment on How my dog taught me to politely walk on lead. by Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:52:28 +0000

This is a lovely blog entry, Ripley! I’m glad Marika is becoming a better walking companion…

Comment on How my dog taught me to politely walk on lead. by Angi Buettner

Angi Buettner — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:19:12 +0000

Thank you for making me smile, and what a great photo of Ripley.

Comment on Top Ten Misunderstood Dog Behaviours: # 4 Duck and Run! by Annie

Annie — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 05:29:25 +0000

We know this one pretty well!
The recall desensitisation advice is well worth working on. And something we could do better!