alternating food and tug game as reward in dog training

Fanny Gott is a professional dog trainer in Norway. On her blog, Fanny's Clicker Blog, she lists five ways to improve training sessions. The first one, playing crate games, was completely new to me, but looked interesting.

However, I was particularly struck by the idea that I should be alternating fun tug games with food as rewards for good behaviours. Lately I've only been using food. There's a lovely video clip of a training session in which the dog is obviously having lots of fun.

The session was a little hard to concentrate on, though, because the location was so stunningly beautiful!

great new dog cookbook aids animal hospital

Yesterday I came across a lovely new book full of healthy recipes for dogs. (Actually, it's for humans, too, and cats, ferrets, birds, lizards, turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs and rodents, but who cares about them?)

The cover of the book grabbed me immediately because it was so gorgeous. (I always judge a book by its cover!) But I've noticed the version that is to come out soon on Amazon has a less colorful design. I presume the Amazon version would have US measures and names for ingredients, as I can't think of any other reason for the difference in the editions, seeing it's brand new.

It's written by Dr Sasha Herbert, senior vet at the Lort Smith Animal Hospital, so that gives the recipes credibility. She mentions a recipe loved by Jasmine, a samoyed her family adopted from an animal shelter many years ago. She say:

Walking along the rows of cages with all those sad eyes or frantically wagging tails is one of the hardest things to do.

Yes!! Many years ago I took my class of young children to an animal shelter. It was the first time the children had seen me cry. I couldn't stay within metres of those sad, sad cages and had to wait outside for the students to come out.

So I love the fact in buying this book I'm giving money to the Animal Hospital.

The first recipe I'm going to try is a meatloaf, made of one kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef mince, two eggs, a tablespoon of tomato paste, two cups of breadcrumbs, one large carrot, grated, one cup of chopped celery, including the leaves, two tablespoons of soy sauce, one large garlic clove, chopped, and a cup of raw rice (which has to be boiled for 15 minutes and the water strained off after it has cooled).

It sounds simple. You just bake it for forty minutes at about 5 cm (two inches) deep in a baking tray. She says for the celery you can substitute fruit or vegetable pulp left over from juicing.

There are a couple of ingredients I've never given Penny - garlic, tomato, soy sauce - but I'm willing to try them because the author is an experienced vet. However, I won't be feeding this often, because Penny basically has a raw diet, and we don't usually feed her rice or bread.

I thought I might try baking a little of it for longer and producing treats for training - but it might be too crumbly, so I'll have to experiment.

This is one of the most beautifully produced dog cookbooks I've seen.

a dog focuses on her back legs

At one of our canine freestyle sessions we learned it's important for dogs to be aware of the movement of their hind legs, so I thought we'd practise that today. Here's how I set up a ladder in the backyard:



I put the table and chairs alongside so Penny might go back rather than sideways, but the first attempt didn't work. She just turned away from the ladder. But we persevered, with me clicking for any backwards movement to the ladder and in a susprisingly sort time she got it.



I completely forgot that I've been told not to keep saying 'back' as she goes!

I added a piece of timber on the left to stop her sneaking out through the legs of the chairs and then I had the bright idea of putting a treat behind her so she'd go back faster. Silly me! What right-thinking dog would back slowly towards a nice treat when she could turn around and go quickly?



So, back to the first method...

dog grooming

Who is this elegant stranger? And where has Penny gone?




Yes, it's still her. Looking very aristocratic, in my opinion. We've always thought her lineage was royal, except for her mother's 'unfortunate encounter' with that canine gypsy at Macdonalds.

She's just come back from a grooming session at Yuppy Puppy in Macleod. I like going there because it's a specialised grooming shop, not part of another business, and I feel welcome to stay while she is groomed. There's a big glass window through which you can see everything, and a comfortable chair to sit and wait.

Of course, Penny's not in a very happy mood, as you might have noticed from the photo, so I thought her patience deserved to be rewarded with a new type of treat, some strange-looking thing made from goat meat.

lunge-training for dogs

Penny and I are always ready for something new, and I'm wondering about a new training method I saw on a German blog today. It's called 'longieren' in German and my dictionary translates it as "lunge" training.

As I understand it, you put up a circle of stakes and join them with a line of tape that is lower than the dog's height. You start off by walking around the circle with the human inside and the dog outside, on a normal lead. (Maybe a dog like Penny, who's used to working off-lead, wouldn't need the lead). You reward the dog every time she as much as glances at you. So I guess it's like "heel", but they say to use a different command, because of the fact that you are doing special work. The dog is only rewarded if she is outside the ring.

Next, over a series of training sessions, you use a longer, very light lead and you move towards the centre of the circle, thus having the dog further from you. The aim would be to get rid of the lead altogether, as the dog realises rewards only come when she is outside and you are inside.

I'm a bit fuzzy on how the treats get to her. Maybe you throw them?

It looks great for training a dog to work at a distance, something Penny can do well in the kitchen or the training venue, BUT NOT IN THE PARK!!

All the information says it's great for increasing the bond between you and your dog, and for giving exercise at the same time. But it says to be careful not to let the dog over-exert herself, because she will be having lots of fun and might not notice how tired she's getting.

Eventually you could be doing hand-signals for sit, drop, reverse direction of movement, even adding in jumps or whatever your imagination offers.

On one site I read the circle could be between fifteen and thirty metres in diameter, depending on the size of the dog (and, I guess, how much exercise you want them to get in the session).Hmm... could be a problem finding a place to set it up.

I've tried searching the Net for English sites but all I find is stuff about stopping a dog from lunging at people. Maybe there is another English word. I'm certainly going to keep my eyes open for information, because it looks good.

banknotes and dogs in funny pictures for competition

The Pet Museum has a great link to a Photoshop competition where people create a meld of a banknote and a human portrait. It's hard to explain, but if you go here you will see a great dog-human picure.

found objects as agility equipment for dogs

Because Penny and I have so much fun doing agility at K9 Kompany, I'd forgotten about collecting weave poles for home agility sessions. But yesterday I noticed this lovely pole sitting forlorn on the nature strip, just waiting to start life once again as a useful object. (Presumably it used to have a rich and satisfying career suporting an electric lamp, or maybe even a fan.)



So, I grabbed it and added it to my collection of weird weave poles.

Which reminds me to mention a wonderful group I belong to, called Darebin Freecycle. It's part of a world-wide movement called Freecycle.org, which aims to to keep stuff out of landfill. The idea is that you give away what you don't need and ask for what you do. It sounds simple, and it is. I've given away things that are cluttering up our house and it's good to know someone is using them. As we all know, one woman's junk is another woman's treasure -as the above photo proves!