The Challenge Video/Spitting in Food

I have included a link that explains why some long time trainers include saliva in their dogs food. http://www.bharatbhasha.com/pets.php/41991 Now it's not that I am trying to dominate Hoobie, but I am trying to include anything and everything that may make him as accepting as possible that others handle things that he thought were his solely. This is also the process of teaching him that he does not need to aggress. He will get what he needs and wants by NOT AGGRESSING. I have never tried this, but I am not one to shirk a technique that may help a situation, especially if it does not harm the dog (it may harm me but not the dog LOL).

So here is my payment that I issued to Dogstardaily and the Dunbars to allow balanced trainers to talk about balanced training on their site!! Kelly Dunbar most likely did not know of the challenge, but she did indeed allow conversation for the first time from balanced trainers on why tools and methods work. Kudos to Kelly Dunbar. Again, I don't need them to talk about balanced training at all, but if they are going to say they are acquiring the term, bash it, or talk about it----they should allow for conversation that is not blocked or moderated.

The below is the video. When I say I will treat him with a lamb treat if he growls LOL, that is not what I mean. Since we are working with his meds, it's important that he get the meds so I don't walk away. What I do if he growls is I then do reps of sits and downs, and when he is not growling he gets a very small piece of dried lamb. Or I sometimes put that very small piece on the popsicle stick. He actually tends to be more cooperative when he's out of the crate, but I like him to be able to do either, so that the owners will have options of ways he can safely get his meds, but while also working with him to desensitize him to getting meds up high or down low as a normal thing. That is still working on the resource guarding issue.





One thing that I noticed is that his tolerance for both resource guarding and crate training went down when the two were combined in one exercise. So since this time, I have gone to doing them seperately again. One training time for resource guarding, the other training time for crate training. Normally it's not a problem for dogs to combine, but for Hoobie it seems the combo of the two just made his intolerance times four instead of divided by two. I want to go in the direction that makes both of these things easy peasy for Hoobie. Or as easy as they can be for him:) I think sometimes he may be almost as stubborn as I am LOL.

By the way, I think Hoobie has taken the crown from Hannah as most stubborn dog, and most stubborn Springer!!! Oh well, Hannah is still the Queen here when she visits, and Kate remains our teddy bear. Wonder what they would think of Hoobie??

Mannerly Mutts Dog Training
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Balanced Training/Positive Politics/Postively An Example of Abuse

http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/walking-fine-line#comment-2118

Dogstardaily.com is allowing for conversation of Balanced Training (and why this site is not balanced). I think this is excellent. There are many great examples here of what balanced training is from posters like thinkdog, allgooddoggies, and dogrealist to name a few.

What did pop up though from poster user name, reflxyon, is an example of real abuse by a positive extremist? First of all she/he got an idea to use hot sauce as a replacement for an e-collar or prong collar to test on her dog. I am frankly horrified! Why? Because the actual punishment (not correction) does not go away even when the dog is in compliance. You are teaching the dog nothing other than to be uncomfortable for a twisted argument that doesn't even make sense.

The danger in this, and this site, is the complete lack of understanding of other training methodologies and equipment, that allow for people who have not studied them to put their dogs deliberately through this kind of abuse. Rather than learn about the equipment and why it's kinder than hot sauce, instead they deliberately chose to torture their dog. This is the kind of scary "science" that goes on to prove something. It's the complete lack of knowledge that leads to these sorts of things, never mind the total myths out there that everyone takes as fact without further investigation.

However, reflxyon does make one very important point that I am sure was not intended. When a prong or e-collar is used correctly, this can be seen by the dogs happily working state. If the prong or e-collar was used abusively as was done with the hot sauce, the dog would neither be happy to see the collar OR go on a walk.

Similar stories abound on other trainers misuse of equipments, and now their dogs are scared of them. This usually happens when people decide to use equipment on their own (and according to the myths), and use it abusively with their dogs. They did not research the methods and true use of the collar. That is something that I never condone.

Mannerly Mutts Dog Training
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Dogstardaily/Dunbar Challenge

I normally don't make a challenge. However, since The Dunbars would like to own the word "balanced", and if as they say most dog trainers are balanced then....

Surely they will allow a balanced trainer to answer this post. I mean what is the problem if they are suddenly enlightened and balanced trainers, right?

See the reply named "wait a minute" from Cindy Bruckart. Cindy Bruckart has previously before been on boards arguing for Truly Dog Friendly, while not being a member herself. She was advocating for letting it take over APDT, and then everyone could just not follow the mandate. She also was a daycare provider that allowed dogs to hump in her daycare, and is now apparently a trainer. Yikes.

Anyway I am willing to run around clucking like a chicken on video if Kelly or the editors of the site allow a balanced trainer to answer the question (without being edited) regarding the equipment and how it works. I expect it would be similar to my answer below:) I could also put each morsel of Hoobies disgusting fish food in my mouth before feeding him (video taped for your amusement of course). I am doing this because their are those balanced trainers out there that hope The Dunbars shifty spots have changed. However, what has really changed is that they realize the slice of marketing pie is moving away from their ineffective one size fits all methods. Or I should say one treat fits all!!

What would my answer be to Cindy (God I should look up my old ones, surely she should know this by now or at least what the answer would be):

No Cindy dogs don't enjoy punishment. That's rather the point. They are not being punished when taught correctly.

Let's start with the fact that correction does not equal punishment. If I move a dog's leg over for a straighter sit, that's a correction and it would need to be an over the top extremist to think that was a punishment. I am showing the dog where I wish their position to be. If you follow a method like Koehler (ignoring the pesky paragraph or two that gets the extremists underpants in a twist---and that one could simply not use) then you are GENTLY MOLDING YOUR DOG INTO A DOWN FOR MANY REPS. That way when the time comes and you need a cleaner way to communicate the correction, you don't need to remotely blow them in the water. Remember the handler is controlling the piece of equipment and the level of correction.

Metal chain collars can also be used simply as a mechanism for holding the dog there, just like flat collars but they don't slide over the head. In fact a flat collar can make the communication all that much foggy and confusing by simply chocking or straining against it themselves. This also places tension on one spot.

What dogs enjoy is the freedom that the collar gives them once they are trained reliably off lead, the many more things they can do with their owners. So ditto for e-collars assuming you are using a method or plan that allows you to do training well.


Mannerly Mutts Dog Training
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mannerly_mutt@yahoo.com

Pawsitive Dog Blog News

Nicole Wilde shares a touching moment where she "rescued" a puppy. However, shock turned to horror as it was found out that GSD puppies have energy AND that have an injured claw messed with at the veterinarians might envoke a nip. Truly a heart warming story of "rescue". I would ask you to comment on this on dogstardaily.com or fearfuldogs.com, sadly they both block and monitor comments they don't like. How odd.

Laurie C. Williams comments on her dog's short fallings during a Rally moment. Clearly it wasn't the fault of the trainer not preparing their dog for the environment either thru training or warm up. Maybe it's just me that thinks it was always my fault if my dog is that ill prepared. Didn't know I could just blame it on Jack's short fallings.

Gillian Ridgeway and Kelly Dunbar are now lusting over the term "Balanced Training" and wish to own it under their extrimist views. Wonder why that is? And thanks for the "heads up"?

This dog's owner feels that cheating on AKC guidelines meant to protect the well being of dogs makes her a responsible "show person". Well, thank goodness she got her title even though her dog was uncomfortable.


This dog owner thinks it a far better idea to outlaw responsible breeders (because there are none, don't you know, and instead have only the irresponsibly bred dogs out there). Sounds like a great plan to scrap all the work done in breeding in temperaments and health. Instead we can complete the process of shelters actually becoming the puppy stores that they are beginning to become. Oh yeah, about thirty comments from others and the owner of the blog were deleted, I can only speculate as to why.


This dog owner declares that they rescued (as a healthy puppy-normally we call that buying a puppy) their Dachshund. He calls his dog special needs because he is a normal Dachshund who he hasn't been able to train yet. Sigh. Such great positive rescuers out there.

While you will be able to post any positive comments on their blog (of course), the people who think these things are not representative of the dog community not to mention any part of positive dog care or training, will need to e-mail these people with their discontent. I know I have:)



Mannerly Mutts Dog Training
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mannerly_mutt@yahoo.com

Friday Blog Fishing

This is my rant for the day, after reading my "favorite" social networking site DogStarDaily.com, and managing not to bash my head against my desk into sweet oblivion. This has been building up for awhile, so these may not refer to recent postings.

Actually, DogStarDaily.com has surprisingly had quite a few posts on the fact that some of the rabid advocates of the "middle of the road" spin off of the "truly dog friendly" phenomenon use aversives.

(TRANSLATION: for most of my audience who doesn't know the politics of dog training. These people pretend to not be extremists while blocking comments, limiting posts, and not allowing answers from their blogger to information the blogger posted about. If you need to hide and control it, there is something there to hide folks!!)

No not aversives, you say (which may include the word no, body molding, or a leash correction)!! Yes, those that have been preaching to the choir, can not honestly say that they don't use aversives. Apparently they just like to in secret, so they can demean others who use methods that largely aren't aversive and compete with them in the market. Or that's my opinion anyway.

In the spirit of venting and serving up my Friday blog fishing in a different way, I am listing these as "there must be something wrong with me, as I don't do the following":

I don't have a "heart dog" as some trainers claim to. All my dogs and pets have been or are my heart dogs or pets. It's like saying you have a favorite child. Huh, that's positively dog freindly? Luckily dogs don't need therapy LOL. Or maybe they do and just can't ask for it!!

I don't accept payment for services before meeting with or talking to the client.

I don't ever wish that I did not have dogs, didn't have children, or wasn't doing what I currently do right now. I'm thinking some of that training some people don't like too much to do, or do well might help this situation.

Being bitten is not all in a days work. I have been bitten once, and deflected on once since starting. Both my fault, of course.

I am unable to train a dog fully around all distractions in two weeks. (It's the same blog as above, sigh)

If I have to hold up a cookie to get a command performance, then I have not trained the command. (It's the same blog as above) heavy sigh

I don't serve dogs or allow them to manipulate everything around them. (I do what is in their best interests to protect them and their freedoms. We have a partnership and both have duties to perform in that partnership.) This has more to do with what makes the human feel good, not in the best interests of the dog and family.

Dogs will obey commands, even when I don't have a treat or toy in my hand (unlike in this photo) once they are trained. A trained dog also does not need corrections. I don't consider a dog trained if I can only get them to perform with treats or corrections.

I am not afraid to give straight answers to questions, not conflicting answers or the run around. Still am very unclear as to what titles or designations her dogs may or may not have beyond CGC, TDI, or Rally titles LOL. And if you look on her blog bio or her website, you will be equally as mystified.

Then try and figure out, does this trainer use aversives or does she not? Hmmm, different answer everywhere you go. Then she says one should "show not tell". Sure saw this trainer doing a lot of telling on the Greatest American Dog, though sadly this trainer did not win. In fact lost to a dog owner. Seems she can't honestly say she doesn't do this just to live with her dogs, she just doesn't want anyone to know this:) Or heaven forbid, correctly try techniques at home that aren't even aversive.

I don't misrepresent training methods that I have supposedly learned by linking them to articles that inappropriately depict them. In my opinion, a person that does this hasn't learned very much about the method, as claimed in the blog. The article even talks about negative reinforcement correctly LOL. Negative simple means to take away, and reinforcement means to increase. It does not need to be aversive or a yummy treat, for the love of DOG. Koelher relies on you showing a dog gently and patiently with many repetitions. Those that don't do their homework and don't understand the method, may do harm to their dog as this blogger seems to be admitting she has.

I don't have promotional pictures of my dogs where they look afraid. Also can be found by scrolling down here.

I have a real problem with allowing dogs to hump other dogs. I would certaintly not leave them at a daycare that allowed this.

I don't put people down or demean them or villify them if they want a well trained dog. I understand that most people want the best in safety and freedom for their dogs, and that's why they do the best obedience training that they can.

I really feel for any of the general public that would give this social website with blogs from such "experts" any credence, whatsoever. The shame is there are some knowledgeable dog trainers on there somewhere, who very infrequently post. The main posters are people with minimal experience dog training, or who won't answer a straight question about their experiences dog training. IMO, this is all about money. Note that the bloggers have their products advertised on this site. Ian Dunbar's products are prominently displayed as well. He is notably well known for creating a huge divide in the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, before trying to play both sides of the fence. Unfortunately, the reason he is doing this is not for the dogs, but soley IMO for his own profit. This couple of Ian and Kelly Dunbar can jaunt off to here and there all they want, but IMO they are hurting dogs and the profession of dog training in seeking to dominate the market.

Just my humble opinion of course.

New Celebrity Trainer on Dog Star Daily

Do you remember the Greatest American Dog TV show? There was one trainer on there that continually attacked others for their methods not being as "positive" as hers. Meanwhile, let's be clear, she wasn't competing against all trainers. In fact, she lost to a dog owner!! However, she has apparently had 25 years of experience, and based on a reply to me on her blog on Dogstardaily.com, she is quite arrogant and self righteous.

Dogstardaily.com has allowed their bloggers to go on quite a tear against traditional training methods and tools lately. Since their newest blogger professed to have many years of experience with this, I inquired as to her previous experience with metal training collars. In other words, the actual specifics of how she went to it "back in the day". I was contacted by Kelly Dunbar, and in her e-mail she said that this was off topic to discuss the use of a metal training collar. Meanwhile, as always happens with these folks, it's completely on topic and correct to bash anyone that tries to use them. This particular blog was about the failure of the trainer to listen to the owners of the dog or address their needs beyond telling them "okay let's try as usual" after they let her know their dog was working better for them with the metal training collar.

The usually diplomatic Kelly Dunbar also sent me another e-mail saying that I don't belong at Dogstardaily.com, a publicly promoted website to the public and trainers coming across as the authority of dog training. She claims to only want to promote progressive new ideas, and the other ideas are just old fodder, and there is plenty of places to discuss them. She thinks I have a problem with that. I don't, I have a problem with a site where she admitted to not being the authority of training or behavioral problems, that instead spends a lot of their time bashing other methods. Perhaps that's because they have no real accomplishments to crow about? Perhaps that is because they are unable to speak on the correct way to train with a tool that they are quick to harp on and on and on about how bad it is?

In any case, the nice thing to know is that I do have their attention. And no, I won't just go away, they will have to deal with me at least. As a member of the IACP, Ian Dunbar has not directly violated any code of conduct, but I personally think that he does not deserve a membership in an organization that he clearly does not respect. If that membership is honorary only, it should be pulled IMO, unless or until there is an unfettered voice on that site and the bloggers include people from all walks of dog training, not just the one sided face they are trying to promote.

Do you need your dog trained? Call Mannerly Mutts at 207-361-4395 for your Maine Dog Training needs. Or you can e-mail Maine Dog Trainer, Robin Rubin, at mannerly_mutt@yahoo.com.