I started out appending this to an old English Shepherd vs Aus Shepherd vs Border collie thread, but decided it really was worth a thread of its own.
So, got a nice cup of yer fav beverage? Good, 'cuz this is gonna be a long post! This is about Amy and Andy, who got adopted, for the 2nd time, last August, at age 2 years, 8 mos. They started both adoption journeys at the same agency in Kentucky. That agency listed them as "English Shepherd mix". No matter, some kind of collie mix!
They have about the most complex personalities I've ever dealt with in a dog. And training has been a double challenge. Because of them I now know what a shepherd's whistle is, and I know how to use one! Which is an accomplishment in itself, I garontee! (In case you don't already know this!) I have learned more nuances of training theory than I ever realized could even exist. And, I thought I already knew something more than average on training!
I've got questions out the yazoo about how to deal with them - but I've also got plenty of answers. So I'm not really asking questions, but I would love to hear helpful thoughts and suggestions!
Where to start? I guess, at the beginning. In early August, a rescue agency in north Kentucky got back a pair of dogs whom they had adopted out almost exactly 2 years earlier. They had lived, at least the most recent prior months, locked inside a shed, living with their own waste. Their fur was so matted and contaminated with feces that the shelter had to clip them rather than wash them. The weight of the female, Amy, was recorded as a "2" on the 5-point scale rescues use. As in anorexic type skinny, but not Auschwitz skin and bones yet. Here they are at the intake:
You can see the skinny here:
I adopted them a week or two after that photo, at an adoption agency in Massachusetts, where they had been transferred. In the agency's meeting area, they were friendly, more active by a little than is typical for rescue dogs at such times, and obviously attached to each other. Where one went, the other went.
And, haha, poor poor naive me, I did not foresee what that entailed for training! Of our last two dogs, one was a hound mix with such a strong hound personality that we were lucky to get a recall trained at all, and the other was my buddy, but not the smartest of students. Willing, loving, caring, and well-behaved, but he just had his limits. We'd lost them both within weeks of each other. And I wanted a couple dogs who might be a little more able to do things!
Well, you might say we got that. Andy can, and will, jump from a standing start onto a 36" tall counter with 18" of space to land in. Eat the cat food there, and jump back down. Amy easily clears a 36" gate - and can leap a 48" fence. Which might have something to do with why they were locked in a shed by their first adoptive family. At the rescue center they managed to open slide-lock crates from the inside!
Within the first few weeks, I felt I had some recognition of every training phrase our old dogs had, and more. But they did not feel compelled to respond to the commands if they found something ELSE interesting. Typical adult dog training. When dogs are puppies, you can get solid responses, and then refine the response for new situations. With adults, it ain't the same. It's kinda like arguing with a teenager: you've got to cover everything, somehow, before you get any respect. And these guys were, well, different. Sometimes I would get non-compliance because the dog felt that "they could". Sometimes it was something more interesting. Sometimes they showed that they had never gotten the "compliance" message in whatever early training they had! You know, when a dog is doing one thing, and you say do another, and the dog acts guilty and keeps doing whatever they were wanting to do? They KNOW what the desired behavior is. They know they will get a reward for doing it right. They MIGHT know they will get punished for doing it wrong. And they keep doing it.
Well, hindsight is 20/20, eh? So, obviously, the dog finds whatever they found to be MORE interesting than you, your treats, or your punishment.
So, here is the first lesson these guys coerced me into learning: use what the dog loves doing as a reward for doing the "work" you want the dog to do. Like going for a walk! Or playing together! (I'll tell you something about how these two look at play in a minute.) The dog likes going for a walk - so use it as a reward!
Anyway, life proceeds. I train. They listen. Or not. They have, as I said, complex personalities. They are brave and protective in their element: outdoors, woods and fields, and at "home". Obviously, the concept of "home" is somewhat fluid, given the circumstances. They are devoted, and are more "one-person" dogs than any we have ever owned. They have followed me everywhere possible since about the 2nd week living here. If I am in the yard, and they are inside, they move constantly and nervously, they whine, and complain, to whomever is inside the house. If I take one dog out and crate the other - Andy will bark constantly while they are apart. Amy does not bark so much, but she is a nervous mess. The crate, for them, in such circumstances, is not a safe place. It is a prison. They know this. And their biggest concern is missing the other, and me.
Well, the obvious answer is positive association training for the negative things, and positive reward training for the necessary basic behaviors, right? Yeah, right. The negative things are complex enough that a simple positive association is, well, difficult.
And I'll tell you why I know something about such situations. Our last adoptee, "Klinger", would get car-sick every time he rode in a vehicle. Pretty clearly associated with the long truck ride north from Tennessee when he was a pup. It got so bad he would vomit on entering a car. It took me 3 years of positive association to get him to settle down for a car ride. And another 2 years before he could enjoy a car ride. I've got a little experience countering negative associations.
But, listen. I'm sorry, but it is late, and I can not continue. Next episodes? How the working dog personalities manifest? Like making toys out of apples (they did this - they won't let me do it with them!)?
How about that NILF? It's part of what is working here. Deserves a talk! And there is more. How their prey-drive / herding instinct has manifested, and how I have not yet been able to use that. How their desire for order has manifested, and created issues.
So, enough for today. I leave you with this photo, of the two, today.
So, got a nice cup of yer fav beverage? Good, 'cuz this is gonna be a long post! This is about Amy and Andy, who got adopted, for the 2nd time, last August, at age 2 years, 8 mos. They started both adoption journeys at the same agency in Kentucky. That agency listed them as "English Shepherd mix". No matter, some kind of collie mix!
They have about the most complex personalities I've ever dealt with in a dog. And training has been a double challenge. Because of them I now know what a shepherd's whistle is, and I know how to use one! Which is an accomplishment in itself, I garontee! (In case you don't already know this!) I have learned more nuances of training theory than I ever realized could even exist. And, I thought I already knew something more than average on training!
I've got questions out the yazoo about how to deal with them - but I've also got plenty of answers. So I'm not really asking questions, but I would love to hear helpful thoughts and suggestions!
Where to start? I guess, at the beginning. In early August, a rescue agency in north Kentucky got back a pair of dogs whom they had adopted out almost exactly 2 years earlier. They had lived, at least the most recent prior months, locked inside a shed, living with their own waste. Their fur was so matted and contaminated with feces that the shelter had to clip them rather than wash them. The weight of the female, Amy, was recorded as a "2" on the 5-point scale rescues use. As in anorexic type skinny, but not Auschwitz skin and bones yet. Here they are at the intake:
You can see the skinny here:
I adopted them a week or two after that photo, at an adoption agency in Massachusetts, where they had been transferred. In the agency's meeting area, they were friendly, more active by a little than is typical for rescue dogs at such times, and obviously attached to each other. Where one went, the other went.
And, haha, poor poor naive me, I did not foresee what that entailed for training! Of our last two dogs, one was a hound mix with such a strong hound personality that we were lucky to get a recall trained at all, and the other was my buddy, but not the smartest of students. Willing, loving, caring, and well-behaved, but he just had his limits. We'd lost them both within weeks of each other. And I wanted a couple dogs who might be a little more able to do things!
Well, you might say we got that. Andy can, and will, jump from a standing start onto a 36" tall counter with 18" of space to land in. Eat the cat food there, and jump back down. Amy easily clears a 36" gate - and can leap a 48" fence. Which might have something to do with why they were locked in a shed by their first adoptive family. At the rescue center they managed to open slide-lock crates from the inside!
Within the first few weeks, I felt I had some recognition of every training phrase our old dogs had, and more. But they did not feel compelled to respond to the commands if they found something ELSE interesting. Typical adult dog training. When dogs are puppies, you can get solid responses, and then refine the response for new situations. With adults, it ain't the same. It's kinda like arguing with a teenager: you've got to cover everything, somehow, before you get any respect. And these guys were, well, different. Sometimes I would get non-compliance because the dog felt that "they could". Sometimes it was something more interesting. Sometimes they showed that they had never gotten the "compliance" message in whatever early training they had! You know, when a dog is doing one thing, and you say do another, and the dog acts guilty and keeps doing whatever they were wanting to do? They KNOW what the desired behavior is. They know they will get a reward for doing it right. They MIGHT know they will get punished for doing it wrong. And they keep doing it.
Well, hindsight is 20/20, eh? So, obviously, the dog finds whatever they found to be MORE interesting than you, your treats, or your punishment.
So, here is the first lesson these guys coerced me into learning: use what the dog loves doing as a reward for doing the "work" you want the dog to do. Like going for a walk! Or playing together! (I'll tell you something about how these two look at play in a minute.) The dog likes going for a walk - so use it as a reward!
Anyway, life proceeds. I train. They listen. Or not. They have, as I said, complex personalities. They are brave and protective in their element: outdoors, woods and fields, and at "home". Obviously, the concept of "home" is somewhat fluid, given the circumstances. They are devoted, and are more "one-person" dogs than any we have ever owned. They have followed me everywhere possible since about the 2nd week living here. If I am in the yard, and they are inside, they move constantly and nervously, they whine, and complain, to whomever is inside the house. If I take one dog out and crate the other - Andy will bark constantly while they are apart. Amy does not bark so much, but she is a nervous mess. The crate, for them, in such circumstances, is not a safe place. It is a prison. They know this. And their biggest concern is missing the other, and me.
Well, the obvious answer is positive association training for the negative things, and positive reward training for the necessary basic behaviors, right? Yeah, right. The negative things are complex enough that a simple positive association is, well, difficult.
And I'll tell you why I know something about such situations. Our last adoptee, "Klinger", would get car-sick every time he rode in a vehicle. Pretty clearly associated with the long truck ride north from Tennessee when he was a pup. It got so bad he would vomit on entering a car. It took me 3 years of positive association to get him to settle down for a car ride. And another 2 years before he could enjoy a car ride. I've got a little experience countering negative associations.
But, listen. I'm sorry, but it is late, and I can not continue. Next episodes? How the working dog personalities manifest? Like making toys out of apples (they did this - they won't let me do it with them!)?
How about that NILF? It's part of what is working here. Deserves a talk! And there is more. How their prey-drive / herding instinct has manifested, and how I have not yet been able to use that. How their desire for order has manifested, and created issues.
So, enough for today. I leave you with this photo, of the two, today.
