In June last year, I attended a webinar run by ASAP Labratory run by Dr Jacqui Ley on breeding better dogs. I was particularly excited that ASAP ran a webinar as I missed out on a live seminar in Adelaide a few weeks prior.
The seminar was called, “Behaviour = Genetics + Learning + Environment – raising even better dogs“.
Jacqui wanted to challenge breeders: Can we make improvements to the way we breed dogs?
Screenshot from Breeding Better Dogs webinar.
Jacqui’s personal experience with two dogs (pictured above) with anxiety and aggression problems has lead to her being passionate about breeders producing ‘good’ dogs. Continue reading →
The Dog and Cat Management Board in South Australia made a proposal that hit the news this weekend. You can read all about it here, but basically the sub headline sums it up nicely: Every dog will be desexed unless they can pass a test proving they are good natured under a proposal aimed at reducing attacks.
I find it hard to start where this type of proposal is concerning, but I’ll try!
A litter of Brittany puppies, 1 year old, most of them entire (not desexed).
For those who have read my about me page, you won’t be surprised to learn that I have always been into dogs and their training. As a student at school, I always tried to make my assignments about dogs where possible.
I remember doing Stage 2 Psychology in school, and how immensely easy learning theory was. I was doing this already when I was training dogs! We had an oral presentation on three aspects of learning (classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modelling), and I chose to base mine on dogs.
While classical conditinoinng and operant conditioning was easy to talk about, I had difficulty finding examples of modelling in dogs. To this day, I still struggle to find examples.
That’s probably why I was so excited to find this video (shared by PuppyTales – thanks!). It shows a young puppy who is hesitant to go down a small flight of steps. An adult dog walks past a number of times and the puppy eventually follows suit and descends the steps himself:
This video is getting a lot of publicity for the cute factor, but I am more interested in how the puppy demonstrates an understanding of the adult dog’s behaviour, and how it relates to their own. Obviously, there are other factors in play for this puppy descending the steps, as well, but at least part of the puppy’s success is related to the adult dog’s descent.
So, I want to ask, when have you seen a dog model behaviour of another dog? Do you use modelling to train dogs? I look forward to your responses!
In the fifth week, the puppies started to consistently be social and approach people. They started interacting with Benjiman the cat (much to Benjiman’s disgust). They had their nails trimmed again. Most days, they spend the morning and the evening outside for a couple of hours. It has been very hot, so they haven’t been able to spend a lot of time outside.
The puppies have this small outside area with a sheet over the top of their pen, to prevent predation by birds of prey. (Chip visiting puppies on the outside.)
