How to Train Your Dinosaur

This is where I will show how I train my dinosaur, Yoshi (hint: she's a dog). I've had her for awhile now and my goal was to eventually pass the CGC test. It still is, but we have a long way to go. Right now we're just getting back into taking manners courses at a school in Seattle, with eventual hopes for that CGC and also dog sports. I use positive reinforcement training with Yoshi. I have a burgeoning (and rapidly increasing) interest in all things animal behavior and immensely enjoy the training community here on Tumblr. I've learned more here than I have anywhere else. My personal blog Intro

[gligarr]

hey question for dog owners

I just switched (well, am in the process of it) Monty to blue buffalo. I used to let monty free feed because Chris and I have odd schedules, so it was easier to just let Monty eat when he wanted. He absolutely loves the blue buffalo food, more than his...

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Yoshi used to free feed - as a result, she would eat all her food one day and then not touch it for two days. Since I switched to feeding twice daily, she now eats almost all her food (sometimes she'll skip a meal but she's always been finicky) and I no longer have to worry if she's getting enough to eat. I also used to sometimes forget when the last time I fed her was, since she had food in her bowl all the time. Now I don't worry since I know when I fed her last. It's better for the both of us. 

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

This dog is REALLY making me not want another dog.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Oh dogs

I'm watching a friends' dog (a 10 month old Corgi) at our home for the next 2 days and she and Yoshi are not getting along. Poe (the corgi) is resource guarding - I was warned she would get that way about food, so that's not a problem, I just feed her in a different room from Yoshi.

She's resource guarding me, though, from Yoshi - at least I think it's resource guarding. She keeps snapping at Yoshi when she gets close and staring Yoshi down when she tries to approach. It's rather funny - Yoshi is much bigger, but she's always a timid girl and walks away rather than come close to me. 

I got fed up with Poe snapping at Yoshi so she's in her crate now and will probably be in there a lot of the time. Yoshi isn't blameless I think - she keeps trying to engage even when Poe is staring her down and isn't really listening to when I tell her to get to her mat. >.>

It's frustrating since I've never had two dogs at once and I'm a little overwhelmed with how to deal with the both of them, other than separating them, which is probably the best solution since this is only a couple of days together. 

Ugh. Dogs.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Slight tangent

I'm finally watching Blackfish and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Will any of my animal behavior friends tell me what they think, or link to some rebuttals/critiques/analysis of what's in the movie, if you have it? I'm looking at you specifically, trainingisteaching! :)

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

20 Ecstatic Shelter Dogs On Their Way Home For The First Time

All of these dogs came from the Chicago Animal Care and Control , and LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY ARE TO GO HOME! Visit the One Tail at a Time Dog Rescue to learn more!

I don't think all of them look that happy...

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Cold weather wear

I'm an Arizona native and Yoshi and I have been in the Seattle-area for a year now. It's colder this year than last (this week has been between the 20-40s F). We don't normally get snow where I live but sometimes we get a dusting.

My question is at what temp do you think I should get her a warm coat? She has a light raincoat for when it's raining, but that's mostly just to keep her dry - it doesn't really provide any real warmth. She's got a thick coat naturally. She doesn't show any real signs of being cold, at least not that I can tell - she doesn't shiver or shake when we're outside. When we go to the park I've been using her boots because the ground and grass are pretty frozen.

The rest of the year it's usually between 50-70 F. 

Thoughts?

[weloveshortvideos]

You want some Mountain Dew?

[turburr]

i,mm fucking sobbing

[baby-youmu]

I laughed hysterically omg

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

This puppy doesn't look happy at all.

[doggydayjob]

I just signed up for Relationship Building Through Play (silver level) and Dealing with the Bogeyman (bronze level) at the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. I’m not sure how we’ll keep up with both of these courses on top of our agility class and rally-o training, but I’m super excited to get started!

(Is anyone else taking a class who wants to compare notes?)

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

I'm not but you should definitely share your experiences! This seems so cool.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

So uh. I left a burrito on our really low coffee table to go to the bathroom and when I got back it was gone and I found the torn up wrapper.

Damn Yoshi, that must have smelled really good. This is the first time I can think of her actually taking food off the table.

I hope it doesn't upset her tummy too much. :/

Sorry, puppy, my fault. I shall be more careful with my burritos next time. 

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

You should post more pictures of Yoshi. He is ridiculously adorable!

I should! I'm just terrible at remembering to take pictures while we're actually out and doing stuff, so most of my pictures are just when we're being lazy around the house and I figure those are only interesting for so long. Because man, I could flood this site with pictures of Yoshi just sleeping all over the house all day long. ;)

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Researchers have provided the first empirical evidence that the way in which dogs relate words to objects is fundamentally different to humans.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Separation anxiety help

But not for Yoshi! Yoshi is, thankfully, quite fine when left alone. :)

My friend has a 9 month old Dachshund-chihuahua mix who isn't crate trained, but has a dog door that's left open when my friend is away. He's been using the floor of her house as a toilet - I'm not sure how long this has been going on.

My first thought is that if it's just started happening it might be a medical problem if there's no prior behavior like this.

Second thought is that it seems like separation anxiety - and I mean, obviously I'm not a trained vet/behaviorist/trainer or anything, but she did throw around the idea of her pup doing this as "revenge" for leaving him alone, which wouldn't be the case, so I'd like to give her a different perspective.

She leaves him all his toys, so I recommended leaving only a Kong or similar food toy where he would have to work to get the treats out. Also exercise & mental stimulation before she leaves and I gave her a link to a video on how to make a flirt pole if she needs quicker exercise before she goes to work (a tiny dog chasing a flirt pole sounds amazingly cute). And starting to crate train him, if she can, with some links to crate training info. And seeing a qualified behaviorist obviously.

Any other ideas that might help?

[psychology-studyofthesoul-blog]

[psychologistproblems]

Hallelujah! A fabulous description of what the different types of reinforcements and punishments actually mean.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

We went to the dog park today and a dog that looked like a cross between a pitbull and a Mastiff tried to start playing with Yoshi a little rough, which isn't normally a problem, but the dog had a prong collar on. So I took Yoshi aside, sat on a bench, and waited for them to pass and the guy asked if I was afraid of pitbulls. 

Of course I'm awful at confrontation, so I just said no, your dog has a prong collar on, and he was confused, just said okay, and walked away. I wish I had been of the mind to tell him exactly why I didn't want my dog playing with his. I saw him later having a really hard time recalling his dog when his dog was trying to start rough play with another who wasn't having it. 

In addition I saw two other dogs with prongs on trotting around but they didn't come near us.

I hardly ever see prongs on at this dog park and I wonder if it's because I went at a different time than we normally go. Normally we go during the middle of the day when people are at work or school and today we went at the end of the day at the beginning of the weekend.

I wish I'd been able to tell this guy why I didn't want his prong collared dog playing with mine. I need to start practicing my confrontational skills.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Victory in pill taking

Yoshi takes Trifexis as her heartworm and flea medication. It's a pretty big tablet and apparently smelly as all get out, because I have the hardest time to get her to eat it. I've tried cutting it up and hiding it in cheese, hot dogs, chicken, pill pockets, peanut butter, her Kong, and meatballs. Until this month I was going through a package of lunch meat and wrapping the tiny pieces in layers of meat.

Today I browned some ground beef (her only protein now), cut the tablet into the tiniest pieces that I could with a pill cutter, and mixed that in with a little of her kibble and some water. She went to town and left nothing in her bowl, so a tablet down the hatch.

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, I feel really stupid for not. 

Is there a way to positively reinforce pill taking? My girl's not very food motivated to begin with and I can't really think of how to use food or a toy to get her to digest something she doesn't want to eat. 

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

Tomorrow's the day we switch to a non-chicken based food. We're going with Merrick Beef and Barley. 

I'm cleaning Yoshi's ears once a week and it seems to be helping to keep the yeast at bay. She's starting to lick her paws more and more and I'm not sure why - the weather has changed, so it could be a seasonal allergy. With her problems with yeast though, I'm going to start soaking her feet in the solution described in this video (gallon of water+1 cup of hydrogen peroxide+1 cup white vinegar or lemon juice) to see if it helps. 

For two months she won't be getting anything but vegetables and snacks with beef as the base - I'm going to be dehydrating a lot of things myself, since I want to keep the ingredient count low.

For training treats we have freeze dried liver, cheese, and I'm looking into maybe Vital food rolls (anyone have any suggestions?).

Should be a fun couple of months. I'm actually looking forward to dehydrating treats for Yoshi more than I am for myself.

[doggydayjob]

Maulkin’s first run at Labrapalooza today. He’s running the “baby dog” course, because the other course had too many weaves. Look at him completely ignoring those barking dogs. What a good boy!

[kinseypie-blog]

That looks like SO MUCH FUN! I’m thinking of getting Mila into it, but first, reactivity. :D

[doggydayjob]

Coincidentally, one of the dogs who ran in the event is reactive. I think she usually takes private lessons or is in a small group for “reactive dog” agility. There are actually several reactive dogs in our agility programs, including a few in the small dog class. Getting into a sport might help Mila’s reactivity towards moving dogs and just in general (if the classes are organized well). Maulkin’s been taking agility classes since he was a tiny puppy, but I think all the exposure to moving dogs minimized the reactivity’s severity when it manifested and has helped with overcoming it.

(If only you could drive, so you could study with our instructor!)

[kinseypie-blog]

Yeah, that’s makes perfect sense and classes could be a great teaching experience for Mila too (while other dogs run the course)! It’ll be a nice place to do set-ups since dogs are pretty contained. :)

I wish too! The only place that offers agility classes here does balanced training and I feel like it will won’t be as good of an experience as compared to if my training style aligned more with the instructor’s.

Would you recommend your place for reactivity issues? I’m already shopping for places to take her when I’m ready. :) I’ve narrowed it down to 2 places and one of them has a humongous waiting list! Will be learning to drive after I graduate so I can take her to awesome places.

P.S. I’d love to see more Maulkin agility stuff. He’s kinda really absolutely super duper awesome at it. :D

[doggydayjob]

I would absolutely recommend my place for reactivity issues! In order to take an agility class, you’d actually be required to do an obedience class to ensure Mila can focus and work around other dogs. LAT and BAT are both built into the curriculum for intermediate obedience and up (LAT is included in baby puppy classes, but not BAT since there’s no leash walking). Often, we’ll have one reactive dog in a normal intermediate level class just to get them working around non-reactive dogs, which really helps keep the situation calm. (Where special reactive dog classes in other schools tend to put several reactive dogs together, and one episode of reactivity could potentially start a chain reaction with all the dogs.)

Our school is also the best in Toronto for agility. And I’m not just saying that because it’s where I study. We often get dogs from other schools transfer in to our agility or obedience programs. And those dogs are TERRIBLE! They tend to have horrible focus, and the agility students often have very sloppy handling that should have been corrected at a lower level. And most of them are constantly barking “No, no, no!” at their dogs, because they don’t know how to handle their dogs after they’ve pushed them over threshold (or how to keep them under threshold in the first place) or lead them through an incorrect obstacle. We also have the largest facility, which lets us break the classes into smaller groups. That way one dog can run on each side of the room, which gives you an opportunity to build focus around a moving dog AND lets you run twice as often. AND class sizes are limited. We usually only have six dogs maximum per class which allows our instructor to work one-on-one with every student. And price-wise, it’s only a little more expensive than PetSmart training. (I’ve also emailed our instructor about a million times for advice on weird, not-remotely-class-related issues, and she always gives really detailed advice for free.)

Anyway, I absolutely recommend you come in to watch an obedience and agility class before deciding to sign up. You won’t really know how well you mesh with the instructors until you watch them work. If you could come out for a couple of hours, we have puppy obedience and advanced agility classes back-to-back on both Monday and Tuesday, so you could kill two birds with one stone. On Tuesdays, we also have a special “Never Too Late” class, which is obedience designed for older dogs who haven’t taken classes or took puppy classes at other facilities. It’s the class Mila would probably have to take before agility, so it might be good to sit in on that one. We generally have a wait time of about six weeks in the fall, but summer classes tend to close more slowly. The website has more information (and definitely check out the calendar to see when classes generally run), and you can let me know or email the office directly if you have any questions.

And thank you! I think Maulkin’s super duper awesome, too! (If only I were as good….) You should see him run with our instructor; he’s flawless and super fast and just crazy good. I’ll bug my cameraperson to try to get more class video to share.

[howtotrainyourdinosaur]

I want to move to Toronto just to hang out with you two cool people. (and get Yoshi the best training ever haha).