New foster Sophia need some advice

[westcoastflea1]

absolutely love the advice and support here
its like a little community with all kinds of different personalities
its been really helpful for me hearing so much advice from so many different people
sophia really is a little cutie

a trip to the dog park today certainly helped my mental health:) i think sophia enjoyed it too!

she is going up for adoption on friday i believe

[agilebasenji]

One day I went to the local (Colorado Springs) zoo and they were in the process of clicker training one of the elephants. Actually, I think they were training a new trainer to clicker train the ele.

[listeme]

Simon started out fearful of loud noises and has… improved :) He's still cautious, but young enough that I think it will mostly pass. One sort of odd thing we discovered by accident: we have a ton of action and scifi movies (teenage/college kids) and running them softly and then gradually increasing the volume sort of desensitized him. Scifi movies have a lot of "sudden" noises. Once we realized it helped him, then we upped the ante with pizza :D

Edit to add: Matrix and Lord of the Rings were awesome for this. I think the best part for Simon was that we were snuggly watching movies - he would lurch away at sudden sounds and then see us keep munching away and come right back. "Surely it can't be too bad if they're safe on the sofa; also, they have pizza." I'm pretty sure that's what he was thinking.

[sharronhurlbut]

Clicker training is used by many animal groups.
We saw Cheeta's clicker trained to lure course at their zoo.

[thunderbird8588]

Lovely pics of the pretty Sophia, hope she finds a great forever home when her adoption comes up.

[nomrbddgs]

@sharronhurlbut:

Clicker training is used by many animal groups.
We saw Cheeta's clicker trained to lure course at their zoo.

Lucky for the animals. Trainer's are starting to realize the benefits of clicker training. Training has come a long way in a short time. While some animal trainers still use the hooks on elephants, things are changing-very slowly though.

[Patty M]

West Coast Flea, how is Sophia doing? Is she "Bunny" on the BRAT Rescue page? :)

[westcoastflea1]

hi there
sophia is doing great, she stopped the humping behavior almost a week ago, the getting used to each other part is over and we finally meshed :)

unfortunately or fortunately ( im not sure which) :) she is leaving here tomorrow to go to her new home.

yes sophia is bunny on the brat page

her daughter is venus who i believe is still on the page as well

its going to be sooo hard to hand her over to someone she doesnt know when the brat volunteer comes to pick her up tomorrow,

im not really sure how im actually going to be able to just hand her over to a stranger, makes me cry just to think about it.

but im sure she will be very happy once she gets over being thrust into a new environment with new people for the second time in less then a month

i just wish there was a way to make that easier for her, if i could do that then i wouldnt mind letting her go nearly as much. :)

[sharronhurlbut]

Her new home will be so very happy to have her!

[gjrcvw]

@westcoastflea1:

who is the ultimate judge of a good training method and a bad training method?
)

Well, science, and the dog. We judge training methods by how effective they are. Does the training method work? Does it harm the dog in any way? Does it harm the human? Does it TRAIN the dog? Meaning, does it teach the dog what we wa nt taught? Or does it intimidate the dog so that bad behavior is somehwat suppressed but not necessarily changed?

Good training is simple, effective, and teaches what we want taught. Bad training is confusing or intimidating, teaches things other than we want taught. A good example of this might be:
Your dog tries to eat your cat all the time. You are at your wit's end. So you go out and buy a remote control shock collar. Every time the dog so much as looks at the cat, you shock the heck out of him. The dog changes hgis behaviour. He begins snarling aggressively at your child who happened to be in the vicinity when he was shocked for looking at the cat. He has 'learned' that your child triggers the scary shocks. He is no longer looking at the cat. He doesn't try to chase the cat. Instead he growls, shows fear of your child and concentrates on that.

So is the training method good or bad? You say above, "Who is to judge?" Well, I will. The training method is bad. The dog has indeed stopped trying to eat the cat but he has not LEARNED to not eat the cat. He has reacted to an aversive and has changed his focus. He is confused. He has learned the wrong thing.

Cesar Milan is admired by many people who are ignorant of dog training and animal behavior. He appears to get results. But I ask, what exactly do you want to teach your dog?

There are clear and correct methods for training animals. Aversives and punishment are not as useful or clear as positive training methods. Period. That is not opinion. That is science.

It is good that you have learned SOMEthing from Cesar. Learning to read dog's body language is very important. As is setting your parameters for behavior. Other than that, though, I would urge you to read up on animal behavior and dog training. Educate yourself, esp as a BRAT foster home, and you will be much much more equipped to deal with the idiosyncrasies of dogs in general.

Best of luck.

[westcoastflea1]

thank you :)

[gjrcvw]

no problem at all.

I noticed you are in maine. If you ever need training help, an extra set of eyes in assessing your situation with a dog, please feel free to ask. I am about an hour from you (Gray, right?) and I can easily pop over and see what is what and help with ideas.

[westcoastflea1]

hi there
thank you so much for offering that would be so helpful since im new to this
are you by any chance the woman who came to pick up sophia/bunny last night?

[gjrcvw]

nope! not at all. :)