PETS Thread

[beave]

oh god moving the cats never really crossed my mind. i'm just gonna kill all of us.

[pellegrino viking essays]

When fantasizing about moving out west I include in my fantasy paying a shit ton to ship my belongings and then renting an RV so I can safely drive the cats to our new home

Even in the fantasy I'm like "mother of god this is a lot of money"

Yeah, we did a cross country move to a place we knew we weren't gonna stay forever and bought a puppy.

Idiots.

[mouse pad]

The Donaldson book is written from a very pronounced point of view, which I don't find objectionable because hey, she's right. The book also contains a very thorough explanation of common training errors and how to avoid or correct them. But if you want a more objective approach and/or survey of current scientific literature, as opposed to "here's why X training techniques work and Y techniques don't," then the Bradshaw book and McConnell DVD set may be more appealing.

From your descriptions I think I'd prefer Bradshaw/McConnell but the title of the Donaldson book intrigues me because this Clash is really fucking intense. Two sides very far apart, very impassioned, severe consequences for being right/wrong..
But I can get really annoyed with that pronounced POV because I'm always thinking "SHOW YOUR WORK". Anyway Dog Sense is $9 for Kindle so I'll get down to it.

I always wrote off clickers because they just seemed kinda dorky but I'm thinking I should get over it.

[Merciel]

I feel like every book and DVD is one piece of the puzzle. Some are bigger than others, and a lot of them overlap (get ready to hear about Belyaev's foxes a whole bunch of times!), but no one of them has the whole story. You have to collect a bunch to even get a sense of which way is up.

So none of those recommendations is likely to answer all of your questions, but hopefully they'll give you some sense of where the research is. In the same spirit, you might also find Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs worthwhile. (These are all books geared toward lay readers, btw, and as such they mix study with anecdote freely; while there are more technical/rigorous works available, they tend to be very expensive and very dry, because they are literally textbooks.)

There really isn't much dispute between positive vs. punishment anymore. You do see it sometimes, but generally just among (a) pet owners whose last dog was trained decades ago; (b) people who base their ideas about dog training on things they've seen on TV; and (c) the hold-out dog sports I talked about earlier. Among dog trainers, the discussion has largely moved past that and onto topics like the relative merits of free shaping vs. lure-reward training -- which are just variations on positive training.

re: clickers -- I didn't use one for probably the first year that I was training Pongu, because he was so skittish and noise-sensitive that the sound was terrifying to him. I relied on marker words instead because he was okay with that. Now that I'm working with client dogs (who are not completely insane) I find that the clicker is a hugely valuable tool.

What's particularly valuable for my purposes is that the sound is identical whether I'm training the dog or the client is. Nothing is lost in translation; the dog understands the signal exactly the same way. It makes it a LOT easier to transfer behaviors (and then people are like "oh wow my dog is listening to me!!" and I look awesome, so that's nice).

Also the clicker is really quick and precise, which helps a lot when I'm working with high-energy "hyper" dogs. They really don't sit still long enough for me to use a marker word (at first). The clicker works in a fraction of a second and lets me get in there fast enough to start building some duration into Sits and whatnot. For the same reason, it's way more effective at capturing behaviors, especially super-quick behaviors like Breathe.

So I've really come around on clickers, but I still rely mainly on marker words when I'm training Pongu. He tolerates the sound fine these days, but the advantages of the clicker are not as great for his specific situation, so I go with the marker word because he's used to that. Which tool you use just depends on what's best for your dog.

[Merciel]

ALSO I took Pongu to the vet today to get a lump on his side checked out. It's probably either a cyst or mast cell cancer. I won't find out which until next week.

Either way he's probably going to need surgery to get it removed. Yay. >:(

(at least it's small and highly operable, whatever it is. so even if it is cancer it shouldn't be like the serious kind of cancer.)

[raskolnikov]

I'll be thinking of pongu.

bella goes in for her spay on friday, and I'm really hoping that little asshole gets a cone for the weekend.

[Merciel]

Thanks. <3

Good luck to Bella!

After six days of work, here's where we are on the mat sendaways.



Pongu can go to the mat at the end of the hall. He can go to the mat in another room. He can go to the mat and do position changes or spins or bows or whatever else I ask.

Crookytail can go to the mat and sit on it SOMETIMES if it is in a straight line not more than fifteen feet away. Five feet beyond that, he's stumped. But fifteen feet he can do.



-_-

Both dogs have had roughly equal amounts of time practicing this. It is about the ONLY thing Crookytail's been doing all week. Pongu's been drilling a bunch of other stuff too. So, if anything, Crookytail has had more practice on this exercise and more focused practice, yet here we are.

Oh well, at least he has fun pretending to learn.

[mouse pad]

Good luck Pongu. How did you find the lump?

Crookytails attempt

[pissydan]

i need to buy one a' them clicker things.

[a-10 warthog champion]

HAY MAN I HAD A FE WAFTER WORK LOL N IM JUST MUNCHINN ON SOME GRASSSS

[pissydan]

just because she looks so dang happy...




(with a dog walker friend of ours. wife is in germany and im working late, so he took the dog out tues & weds afternoon)

[bread]

HAY MAN I HAD A FE WAFTER WORK LOL N IM JUST MUNCHINN ON SOME GRASSSS

Wow this is fucking adorable I am dying

[a-10 warthog champion]

i love how he can't keep his tie on straight even if it's super cute when he can

he doesn't mind wearing it i might just leave it on permanently

[bread]

Hot Wings can never keep his bandana and cowboy hat on straight

Makes me crazy

[a-10 warthog champion]

it's as if they don't understand how much we're trying to help them to fit into society

[bread]

You know I've said this before and I still think it's true: cats are totally self-absorbed and have absolutely no consideration for other people

I mean none

[a-10 warthog champion]

sherman gets really upset when one of us is sick

[bread]

That's really sweet. One time I banged my knee on the coffee table and it really really hurt and I was sniffling and feeling sorry for myself and Hops came over and bit me on the elbow. I think she wanted me to be quiet

[bread]

I could literally think and talk about my cats all day. It's a sickness

[a-10 warthog champion]

me too bread me too

[mouse pad]

ever since I got my roommate on a strict daily cat box cleaning routine I've been liking cats a lot more

[drudge]

[bread]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHe loks so haooy

[Merciel]

GREMLIN <3 <3 <3

How did you find the lump?

I'm just (like everyone in this thread) obsessed with and overprotective of my pets. They're always getting minor scratches and cuts at the dog park, plus I'm super paranoid about ticks because of Lyme disease, so I'm in the habit of looking for stuff while grooming or doing tummy rubs or whatever.

I first noticed that little bump on Pongu's side last fall while petting him (initially I thought it might be a tick, but it wasn't -- it was just about the same size as one), so I was already monitoring it daily and noticed pretty quickly when it started to get bigger.

[raskolnikov]

yeah, I give gilbert "kitty massages" daily because we've lost 2 of our 3 previous cats to cancer at the injection site. we lost our dog regis to a giant stomach tumor as well.

no bumps so far.

[pellegrino viking essays]

yeah, I give gilbert "kitty massages" daily because we've lost 2 of our 3 previous cats to cancer at the injection site. we lost our dog regis to a giant stomach tumor as well.

no bumps so far.

whoa...wait...injection site for....?

[hey look]

driving my cats up 11 hours on saturday to portland, giving them to my (ex) gf's mom for the summer, at least.

weird shit

[Merciel]

yeah, I give gilbert "kitty massages" daily because we've lost 2 of our 3 previous cats to cancer at the injection site. we lost our dog regis to a giant stomach tumor as well.

no bumps so far.

whoa...wait...injection site for....?

Rabies, probably.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine-associated_sarcoma

That's what killed my old family cat Mouse too.

[raskolnikov]

yeah, vaccinations.

they never made it past 9 and 10, and gilbert is going to be 10 in january although it seems she doesn't age.

[bread]

Oh my god.