aw shucks @happiestbarghest - Tumblr Blog

He’s mad

Our one year old, giant schnauzer girl Trassel met one of her friends during a walk the other day.

I try really hard to provide enrichment for my dog but honestly I think she just forces me to play and go for walks and chase her for my own enrichment lets be real

farm-paws

Moodboard but it’s all Bella

gustavowasright-deactivated2022

for my fifteenth take of the night:

people would broadly have much better relationships with their dogs if they stopped viewing themselves as The Boss, and started viewing themselves as The Parent. bc so much of what makes for a healthy parent-child relationship is what makes for a healthy human-dog relationship. i mean it literally is mimicry of the parent-child relationship...

viewing yourself as The Boss sets the stage for a combative relationship with competing interests... where you are an Enforcer, exerting your will. this is incidentally many peoples parenting style, but it certainly isn't a healthy one and sets the stage for a lack of trust and a "got mine" attitude. lack of compliance is viewed as defiance, instead of a communication gap or an issue to work through in a loving way.

vs viewing yourself as a (HEALTHY, GOOD) Parent sets the stage for you to nurture your dog, respond properly to their emotional needs, and develop two-way communication. it creates an atmosphere of trust, not "i will acquiesce because i have to."

unfortunately a ton of people don't even grant this to their kids LOL

i just cringe every time i see a person needing to posture about exerting their will over their dogs... especially when it comes to bitesports ppl because the significance of a person being so proud to have a Big Badass Dog who they can dominate is not lost upon me. like my god... perhaps bring this up to a therapist... instead of interpreting Dog Behaviors as an opportunity for you to posture.

i don't know any real trainers who engage in cesar milan crap, but the idea that dogs must be dominated is still so pervasive in so many ways.... my dog has been biologically programmed to cooperate with me, as all dogs have been to varying degrees. if i have to force cooperation, it's much more likely a Me problem than a Her problem... or a This Isnt Personal problem... not an opportunity for me to crack my knuckles and show everyone how mctough i am in showing her what's what.

deathandmysticism

The Discovery of a London Monster Called the Black Dog of Newgate, 1638

deathandmysticism

In case you were wondering what his profile looked like:

gustavowasright-deactivated2022

i became 100x as good at shaping when i stopped focusing so much on technical correctness (timing mechanics the rate of reinforcement reward placement) and started approaching it the same way i do judging small children's speech and debate presentations. when you are a friendly face, engaged and reacting warmly, it makes all the difference in the world! oftentimes all a sheepish kid faltering through their presentation needs is a little encouragement from their audience to be emboldened. it's SCARY to put yourself out there (and "putting yourself out there" is fundamentally what shaping is) in front of a poker face, a sterile silent Judge. it doesn't take a lot to indicate to someone giving a speech (of any age) that you are engaged and listening, and it can ignite a whole new level of confidence. if a kid is particularly extroverted, or is an experienced presenter, your reassurance matters less. but ime except with the very strongest presenters, who either have obscene drive or gobs of experience (reinforcement history!), just indicating YOU are ENGAGED (despite not being the performer) transforms a performance. RECOGNIZING and REWARDING effort starts with REACTION. jmo

gustavowasright-deactivated2022

like. trainers always describe shaping as "kinda like the hot and cold game" to laypeople. but an INTEGRAL part of the hot and cold game is how YOUR behavior and the directions in which YOU choose to walk or glance or even tilt your head towards can elicit all sorts of reactions in the other person. people don't usually blankly, robotically say "warm. warm. cold. warm." even if they try to have a poker face, their reactions typically burst through like the koolaid man anyway. they might giggle or their voice might tilt more eagerly or their eyes get bigger or they'll even gasp. their reactions provide all sorts of information beyond the skeleton of "hot. cold." and that kind of thrilling back-and-forth that springs from total engrossment is what makes the hot and cold game fun, and hide and seek fun, and marco polo fun. not trying to diminish the importance of technical correctness here, just... due to a few different aspects of my introduction to training, i was overly-focused on technique and not nearly focused enough on being PLAYFUL and ENGAGED myself in training. and i have extensively observed the same thing in others in person and watching videos online. and i think anthropomorphizing in training is good, actually, when it's a means of translating an animal's mindset into something we can empathize with and understand.