philospher77

Hi! This is just a general post of a helpful technique that I picked up. My Katie started off quite spooky, and someone mentioned the use of initiator signals to me, so I did some searching on line. The basic idea is that you give the animal being trained a way of telling you whether they are comfortable with the level of pressure that you are putting on them or not. This allows you to adjust your interaction (intensity, distance, numbers, etc.) so that it is at a level that they can handle. As an example, Katie started off very shy around people. Looking at her was a lot for her to handle, much less talking to her or actually touching her. So I taught her to hand target, and then I started using that as an initiator signal. I'd sit by her, put my hand out, and ask if she wanted scritchels. If she touched my hand, I would pet briefly, and then ask again. If she didn't, I'd move away a bit, lean out, give it a little time, or otherwise alter the situation. Generally crowding her less would get her to agree with the idea of being petted. If she ignores the signal several times in a row, I have to accept that she doesn't want to be petted at this time (which sometimes happens, especially if she is sleepy), and NOT pet her. I have videoed an example of what this looks like, for people who may be interested in the idea. It's useful for the shy and spooky hounds, but may also be something to consider with a space aggressive dog, since they will be giving you a signal that it's ok to approach them. Please note that Katie does not have space aggression issues, and I have conditioned her to the idea that lots of great things happen when she is on her bed, and that we have been working on this a long time. In other words, use your judgement about your own dog's level of comfort with the behavior you are requesting.

I will chime in with what little help I can. My first greyhound, Trinkett, presented with a fracture of the femoral neck. After debating the 50/50 chance of it being osteo (amputate) or just a break (FHO), I decided to try the FHO with the thought that I could amputate if worse came to worst. While it's a pretty major surgery, she seemed to come through it alright, and was starting to use the leg and put some weight on it. However, it was actually osteo, and the bone refractured, so I had to have it amputated after a couple of weeks. So I do not know what the long term would have been like. It does make the leg a little shorter, and you may want to look into physical therapy after the surgery to help build strength and coordination back up, but I would do it if I were you and could afford it.

I agree that this pup is old enough and settled enough to start learning some boundaries. I'd start working on a command to get the dog to go to specific spot and wait there while you eat. The way my trainer does this is to get a "spot" (bed, towel, rug, just some sort of visual indicator). Walk the dog to the spot on leash, and when she gets on it, party time! Lots of good treats, scritches, praise praise praise. Then let the dog off the bed and totally ignore her for a minute. Back on the spot, party time. Once she gets the idea, add a verbal cue and keep practicing until the verbal is enough to get her to go to her spot. When you first start doing this at meal times (I'd definitely start some time that wasn't, so there is less distraction for Brees), you are going to probably have to get up several times during the meal to reinforce her staying on the mat. You want her to learn that being there will get her what she wants, being in your face won't. She sounds smart, and food motivated, so she should learn pretty fast! As to learning her name, you need to teach it. Say her name, and when she looks at you, treat. Name, look, treat, name, look, treat, etc., until you get a feel that she knows that it means her, or at least "hey you pay attention to me". I don't know if dogs have enough self-awareness to realize that a name means "them", but that's a separate topic. I would also recommend a positive-reinforcement training class. Dog training can be lots of fun, so give it a try. If you were near me, I know a great one, but since you are across the country, not much help.

My first greyhound hated to be crated. She would happily lay on her bed for hours. Put an x-pen around the bed, and she was on her feet pacing and panting. Since she was a well-behaved dog, I just let her have her bed. Heck, the vets would let her stay out on her bed in the hospital when she was in for x-rays, because she was so good at just staying on it. So it may be that Tripp just doesn't like the crate. Sounds like things are heading in the right direction, and I hope that you continue to see progress. As I learned with Katie, who was a very shy dog, there may be some backsliding, but it's not the end of the world as long as the general direction is positive.

What I find so fascinating is human's sometimes sloppy use of terminology, and ability to allow pre-conceived notions blind us to things that are perfectly visible. There was a show, Meerkat Manor, that followed a gang of meerkats and their daily lives. This group had been extensively taped and followed for 10 years or so. The announcer solemnly informed us that the gang was led by an alpha female, and her mate, the alpha male. And that the alphas, as in most pack animals, controlled access to the resources, and "reserved breeding rights for themselves". But what we saw, time and time again, was that they didn't control breeding. When the young males reached sexual maturity, they would go roving to seduce lower-rank females in the neighboring gangs, and those males would come and have trysts with the younger females in the gang being studied. This tended to be one of the sources of tension in the group, because the alpha female DID control which pups would get raised, by the rather brutal methods of either driving out the pregnant females, killing the rival pups when they were born (and eating them), or just moving the group, thus forcing the mother to either abandon her pups to stay with the group (her best bet for surviving) or try to raise them on her own (in which case the likelihood was that they all die). And, the alpha female was not above mating with a bold rover from another group when the alpha male got a bit lazy about guarding her and driving off the interlopers. But if you listened to the discussions, or read about it on the website, it was a black-and-white "only the alphas mate and have pups". Same thing happened when people started actually studying horse behavior. The established belief was that there was a herd stallion, with a harem of females, and that he jealously guarded these females from other males so that only his offspring would be in the herd. It was often documented that the mares would disappear for a while, but they always came back. One (female) scientist observing this decided to actually find out what the mares did during those disappearances. Turns out, they are mating with other stallions, and then returning to the safety of the herd. Something like a third of the foals in a herd are actually sired during these trysts, not by the herd stallion, as confirmed by genetic sampling. All of which was behavior that was seen by many observers, but never followed up on, because "everyone knew" that of course all the foals were sired by the herd stallion, or why else would he be putting all that effort into guarding the herd? This was also when researchers discounted female involvement in mate selection... a male gathered up females, and once they were in season, of course they would mate with the big brawny male that was there.

It actually sounds, from the ethologists, that feral dogs may have a social structure similar to feral/barn cats, with loose associations for mutual benefit (communal litter rearing being the primary one that I can think of). Which may be based, once again, on the fact that feral cats are solitary hunters, and feral dogs tend to be scavengers. What would be interesting, and highly unethical, in my opinion, would be to take some of those feral dogs, dump them on an island with no people and larger game animals, and see if the need to hunt would drive packs to form and favor development of a wolf-pack type social structure. It would devastate the local ecology, which is why this wouldn't be ethical (in my opinion), but I could see it happening, as those dogs who had stronger social bonds would be more likely to get food, and their pups would be more likely to survive and reproduce. Or, they could all die out. There is a statement attributed to Ian Dunbar (but I can't find anything where he actually states it): "Most dogs don't form packs, but they can make awesome pack animals." In other words, it depends on the environment whether they live in packs, and dogs are highly adaptable.

Got any thoughts why feral dog populations skew towards males? That seems... counter-intuitive to what would make sense biologically, since one male could service many females, but the opposite doesn't seem to have as much survival benefit for the species.

If he is doing them with you holding his collar and walking with him, I would just keep doing that, with treats if possible to reinforce "this is a good thing". With practice, he will get more confident. It took me forever to get Katie to go up and down stairs, and now she does them with no hesitation.

Also, keep in mind that there is no need for your dog to greet every dog she sees. Think of it this way: when you go to a mall, you don't go up to everyone and say "Hi, my name is X, nice to meet you". You're dog is the same way. Now, if you want her to interact with specific dogs, then I'd follow the advice you have been given.

I've seen the instructions for how to train the somersault. (Essentially, get them to target something, and then start moving it between the front legs. They didn't explain how to get the actual roll bit. but I'm thinking a good trick dog would do it naturally at some point.) I don't know if I could get Katie to jump that high, but I watched that and was like "okay... I could probably get her to do that, and that, and that." Not sure I'd ever get them as smooth and polished, but that's partly because I am a lazy trainer! And I remember watching Run Appaloosa Run back when I was a kid at the library summer program.

Katie has liked (so far!): peaches, plums, apricots (a real pain when you have those trees in your yard, because she can't digest the pits, so I get little piles of them during the season... this year I am actually going to use the non-fruit-setting spray!), bananas, oranges, corn, beans, pomegranate (even though it's hard eating those little seeds!), tofu, bok choy, cabbage, kale, carrots, celery, pears, apples, sweet potato, pumpkin, squash, zucchni, snow peas, and probably some other things I can't remember. Since you asked about fruits and veggies, I am ignoring all the bread items and cheese! And the most crazy thing so far: freeze-dried meal worms. I was putting some out for the birds, and she kept trying to stick her nose in the feeder, so I offered her one, never thinking that she would actually eat it! But when I think about it, she does like to eat bugs when she goes out at night, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

The only issue with that is that, according the Donaldson article, feral dogs don't actually seem to prefer living in a multiunit group. As it states, "Their associations with one another are brief and casual: a couple of dogs may hang out together temporarily and then part company. Dogs are often drawn together by a scarce resource like a food source or estrous female but once this magnet is gone, they go their separate ways." The research seems to support that feral dogs only really stay together when there is a scarce resource to draw them together, not because they like the company of other dogs. Very counter-intuitive, which is often what happens when you start looking at real life with no pre-conceived notions.

Interesting article. I think the apparent fact that feral dogs are mostly scavengers would make being in a pack much less advantageous. One of the main reasons that wolves form packs is so that they can hunt cooperatively, while someone stays home and watches the pups. It lets them get more food than they would otherwise. On the other hand, it doesn't take a team to knock over a trashcan, and in that case, having extra pack members around would mean less food for you. So being an individualist, with temporary associations, would make sense.

That may be right, but it is odd that the only dogs that attacked him all belonged to the "regulars" that sit in their lawn chairs in a circle for hours every day. Those dogs were around each other almost every day for months...maybe years. Not one dog out of the many at the dog park joined in. That kind of seemed like a pack to me, but I'm probably wrong. After the fact when I went back to find the cattle dogs owner as she said she'd help with the vet bill as she admitted that her dog started it. The regulars said her dog ALWAYS started it. As far as I know she never went back to the park again, which is probably a good thing. O, I was remarking about my experience, not yours. Yours might have been a more established pack, but in my case, it was every dog in the park, some of whom were regulars, some were first-timers.

Another thing to consider is the impact that having a dog that they can't interact with on your children. One of my coworkers has two very aggressive Jack Russels (as in, leap a 6 foot wall and take the extra 4 foot drop to attack the dogs that live down the hill aggressive, and has been bitten by his dogs), and they have instituted very strict rules about how the kids and dog interact. But the result is that the kids are cautious of ALL dogs... taking a wide berth around them when they meet strange dogs outside, only being willing to pet a dog once or twice before they back off, etc. It's good in one way: these kids are extremely unlikely to ever be hurt by dogs. But they are also not going to grow up to be dog-lovers, since they have been taught that dogs are unpredictable and dangerous. So, could you possibly keep both the baby and dog completely separated and supervised? Possible, maybe. But is it going to be as good of a life for either as it might be if Joe is rehomed? That's something to think about as well.

I will also throw this out there: if we accept that flocks are a lot like packs in many ways, what seems like "pack" behavior is really a lot of individuals acting in the same way. I'm sure you have all seen flocks of birds that turn and circle and wondered how they ever coordinate their maneuvers with such precision? Scientists wondered that too, and did a lot of modeling to try and find out. And the only model that gave the same results was each bird reacting individually to the given variables (wind speed and direction, I believe). If each bird decides to veer west by 5 degrees, the entire flock veers west. Which is an important consideration. When those dogs packed up at the dog park, they weren't acting under the control of an "alpha". They hadn't spent a lot of time getting to know each other and establishing ranks and routines. They are, I am pretty sure, individual dogs acting in the same way at the same time. The same is true about people in mobs, by the way. No one shouts out "we are all going to run towards the doors now" and has everyone agree to go with them... it's just one person makes a step forward, and then someone else does, and someone else doesn't want to get left behind, and suddenly everyone is moving (including people who swear that they would never act that way, because standing still at that point can be very dangerous in it's own way). This is why mobs/packs/herds can be so difficult to stop when they are acting at an instinctive level. It's not enough to stop just one or two of the group and assume that the rest will follow along, you have to get the majority under control.

I remember being at the dog park with Trinkett, my incredibly sweet, kind, non-reactive greyhound, when someone brought in a very fearful dog. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the new dog squealed and bolted under a bench with every dog in the park on his heels, including my girl. I do note that she just sort of hung back at the edge of the pack with a confused look, and was easy to call off the situation, but if that dog hadn't found shelter or if there were no humans around, I doubt the end would have been pretty. And that was a park full of dogs that generally don't know each other. So yeah, even strange dogs will pack up. And it's also why I tend to watch dogs that are at the park together from the same family closely, since they can pack up against other dogs. Or if there are several dogs of one breed at the park, I will keep an eye on them, in case they decide to do an "us against them" thing. Yeah, pack behavior is very real, and you can ignore it if you want, and most of the time you may be ok. But when it happens, it can happen incredibly fast.

If your dog is not a drama queen, you should be able to give the injections yourself. In which case, my vet charged something like 125 for the two vials of Adequan and needles, so about 20 per shot. Then again, Trinkett was a very stoic dog, and would let you do anything to her medically. You may feel it's worth the money to have the vet do it.

I used Adequan with Trinkett, and now with one of my cats. It does seem to make a difference. Giving the injections to a greyhound is ridiculously easy (much easier than the cat... the target area is a lot larger, and they don't have fluffy hair to hide where the needle is). The ultimate goal is to get it down to once a month, but I always started seeing symptoms return after 2-3 weeks, so that was the time they got their next shot.

The token squat! Love it. Katie does that if she thinks we have been outside too long and she'd really like to go in, please. She has really learned "go to the bathroom and you can go back inside".

It does help, I think, if you have taught them a pee command. Katie knows that if we are standing outside in the rain and I say "go potty", if she hurries out there, goes, and comes back she will get to go back inside right away. So she doesn't dilly dally when she hears the command!

Been there, done that. My Katie was pretty agoraphobic when I first got her. I have found, on days that it is REALLY raining, it helps to take her out to the front porch, which has a bit of an overhang, shut the door, and stand there until she decides to dash out in the yard, go potty, and come back inside. I then remind her that she needs to go poop too! She doesn't love it, but will do it, and then she gets toweled dry inside, which she DOES like, so it makes up for having to get wet. The front yard is fenced, or else we would be doing this in the back, without the overhang. It's just that the overhang makes the transition a bit easier, since I can stand out there and only get cold, not wet.

She did get some extra treats when it happened, and let me do the rest of her nails. And she got to sample bok choy, snow peas, and tofu when I cooked dinner. She's acting her normal goofy self, so I figure that I have been forgiven. I'm thankful that most of her nails are white, so the quick is easy to see!

I was trimming Katie's nails, and accidentally quicked one of the black ones. I got the bleeding stopped with some flour, but is there anything I should watch out for long term, or is this one of those things that is like stubbing a toe: painful, but not all that serious? Or do I need to worry about infections, it getting reopened, etc? And I use flour instead of the styptic stuff because that stuff burns, as I found out when I tried it on a shaving cut! The flour stops the bleeding, and the only side effect is that Katie firmly believes that any bowl with stuff in it that is put in front of her is hers to eat, even if it is only plain old white flour!

I'd say it's more likely that dogs and other predators tend to attack the hind legs in order to hamstring and cripple whatever it is that they are trying to take down. It's a lot easier to kill something if it can't run away, and the hind legs are the powerhouse in locomotion. Plus, there is that large artery, which they may be lucky enough to get. In less aggressive encounters, the rear area is trapping the animal's unique scent, which is why other animals tend to be so sniffy back there.