Aroura

I've heard about clicker training in the past and never really saw much point in it... well not until today in my psych lab where we were training "Sniffy" the computer rat to push a lever for his food. Before training him to push the lever we trained him to associate a noise with food, so that in shaping the behavior every time he got something right he realised right then and there that what he was doing was good without waiting for the food. So I get it now, it sounds like a really good idea.... so has anyone here had any experience in clicker training before? Any pro's and cons?

Glad you found us!!! I think that one of the best things about this bord is that most of us can put forward our arguments, give our evidence etc without just calling names and saying that everyone else is wrong with no facts about it other than that they are just being stubborn. I just joined a BARF mailing list and someone posted about feeding veggies and the whole group pounced on them and wouldn't let up about how you shouldn't feed veggies with absolutly no reasoning or evidence that veggies are bad etc. I feed veggies, always will, but didn't find the point in posting their benefits as every body on the board seemed to have their minds set. Needless to say, I left the mailing list! I'm sure that if you think the people in this board are nice, over time you'll grow to love every last one of them! One of my fave bits on this board is ndr so we can all get to know everyone alot better, the people in dogo are like a second family to me :wink:

I'll second Hazel on the BARF thing. Although Lily isn't on a 100% BARF diet at the moment, she is alot calmer than she was only just dry food - the higher the ratio of BARF to commercial food, the calmer she gets. Tessa has been switched to BARF also, and since the switch its like I have a new dog. She's alot happyer and no longer shy like she has been for YEARS now - she will actually come up and play, wagging her tail now, whereas before when I tried to play with her, no matter how much I tried to psych her up, she would just sit there, to shy to play. I'm having a look around for some of the sights where I innitially read about BARF reducing aggression problems with all the proof - but I can't find them!!! In any case, if Zebra is on medication for allergies BARF may help with that too!

I wonder how Lily feels about me posting her love life all over the net??? I just think its so cute!!! I hope it all works for her better than my love life ever works for me, otherwise I might just end up with one super miserable puppy!!! :o

I think Lily's missing her true love :cry: She's been at my side all day. All she did when I first took him away was cry, now she just looks so lost :( I'm going to take her out on a big long walk though to cheer her up!!! :D

I just finnished bathing my dogs just then :wink: Tessa looses too much fur to go in the shower, so she has to be done outside no matter what. I could take Lily in the shower but it didn't occur to me today as mum would never had let me take her in the shower, but I should have today cuz dad doesn't care :D If dog washes were only $8 here I'd be gettting mine done every fortnight!!! :o The doggies are good in their baths though, they just stand there. Tessa looks annoyed usually and Lily just stands there licking herself. I used to have one of those mitts, but it, along with my boots, half my clothes, jewelry, even my fridge, all got stolen when I left my old house. The people I lived with say they don't have any of it (except the fridge) and theres not much I can do about it! :-?

He's gone now :( We took him to the vets to get scanned and the first thing the lady said before she even scanned him is "oh, we had some people ring up about him this morning". I left him with the vets, said my good byes and told the vet to give the owner my number if she ever needs a play mate for him. Sure enough this afternoon I got a phone call from one very happy lady!!! She was ringing to say thanks for bringing him in and taking care of him etc. She sounded like a nice lady so I told her to give me a call any time. I'll post those photos when I get them so you can all see why I miss him so much!!!

Thats actually a really great idea Marble. If things don't settle down you might consider joining a yahoo group called "Canineaggression" - it would really be worth it and if you don't have a yahoo email address already its easy enough to get one. I posted about Lilys problems in there and although a few of them say to go to a behavioralist (they are 90% of them trainers themselves, guess their trying to make their business rich!) you still get alot of good advice. They know what they're talking about. One thing that I found really interesting is that apparently if you lower a dogs protein intake studys have shown that it reduces aggression. Interesting huh? Well, good luck and as I said, if things don't get any better come and join the group!!! :D

Oh he's definately not a stray!!! He's the biggest sook, and the fussiest eater.... he refused to eat some dry food I gave him last night, prefering instead to eat chicken wings with egg and yoghurt. He's really healthy and really obedient. He wouldn't even sleep in the sunroom with Tessa last night and had to stay in the house. I don't want to find his owners!!! :( He's the sweetest thing, him and Lily are in love. She doesn't even attack him when I'm outside with them and THATs an acheivment!!! I just got a heap of photos of them hugging and kissing (yup, they kiss - its so cute!!!) which I'll post in here when they're developed! All good things must come to an end though and I'm taking him to the vets shortly. I really want to meet his owners and hopefully we can work out a visiting schedual or something. :angel:

Thats great Marble, isn't it wonderful to see a dog you thought you'd never see so happy with another dog playing to their hearts content??? Its the next day now and I'm still stoked!!! Last night they play for like 5 hours, well into the night. We would have brought them in earlier but they were having so much fun!!! The amazing thing to me is how Lily would even let this dog push her onto her back and play like that!!!! She's such a dominant dog and it was so amazing to see her play like that with a dog she hardly knew. Another amazing thing was that when dad finally did let them in last night Lily didn't get all territorial over the house and attack him then!!! :angel: And still better, I slept with Lily in my room last night as I didn't want to leave them alone for a whole night unsupervised. I was worried she might get aggressive when they re met this morning, but I let them both out and they are fine!!! After a few hours I built up the courage to add a third dog to their play team (which is something that worried me as they could gang up on the poor boy) and I let Tessa out. Tessa doesn't usually play, she's just not one of those dogs - as I was saying earlier.... but she's loving it!!!! The three of them are running around and there's nothing but tail wags between them!!! :angel: Who's a happy mummy today??? :angel: :D :bday:

Oh I can't remember when I was ever so happy!!!! :BIG: :klacz: :laola: Mum just brought a Boxer home that had been lost near her flat... because she's in a flat she couldn't look after it until its owner was located. ANYWAY!!!!! I knew that if I went out and put Lily in the yard with this dog she'd get possessive and attack it, so I watched this dog out the back door and mum let Lily out the side door and guess what??? Well at first she had a stand off and just stared at the dog for about fifteen minutes, then, out of nowhere she started PLAYING!!!! :angel: :banan: :thumbs: I can't describe how happy I am to see Lily play like this!!!! You probably all know how upset and depressed I've been because of Lilys aggression, but having another dog IN OUR YARD and to see Lily playing so nicely is just A DREAM COME TRUE!!!! :Dog_run: :beerchug: :rocol: :lilangel: And to top it off, since I changed Tessa back to BARF its like its changed her personality, she's so much more confident!!! She runs around and actually looks happy in the first time in years!!! :clown: Yesterday I was on the ground, and for the first time in FOUR AND A HALF YEARS she came and played with me!!!! :kciuki: :eek2: LIFE IS GREAT!!!!! :angel:

Congratulations!!! :bday: I honestly don't know how you do it!!!! I get on here as often as I can and it still seems like I'm getting nowhere!!! :-?

Havn't heard of the diet myself, but it makes sence. A couple of words of warning though, if you add beans to your dogs normal food, you may unbalance the protein etc levels in the rest of the diet. Also, beans are deficient in methionine - if you want to balance it out it is a good idea to feed in combination with corn, which is high in methionine, yet deficient in lysine. Beans are high in lysine so they are best fed together to compliment each other (see, I HAVE learnt something at uni!!! :bday: ). I'd suggest to add some tuna, which is low in fat and high in protein. Sometimes substitute green beans for kidney beans or something also for protein, though they also provide alot of fibre too. Yoghurt is great for so many reasons and I'd also suggest kelp, not only does it aid in digestion, but it is also packed with minerals such as iodine etc. Of course, don't take my word as gospel, what I have done for my slightly overweight dog is taken dry food away from her completely and give her alot of a large variety of veggies each day with chicken meat, which is low in fat.

*Gulp* :o Er, just a few comments I'd like to make!!! Firstly... COOKED CHICKEN BONES!!!! :o NEVER, EVER feed cooked chicken bones!!! Ok, the pressure cooker is one thing, bones that are mush wont exactly splinter, all they might do is add a bit of extra calcium etc and I don't see the harm in that. I know you may have never seen one of your dogs choke on a chicken bone, but the chances, if you keep feeding them, your dog will one day choke ARE VERY HIGH!!!! Please, PLEASE stop feeding cooked bones!!!!! I understand that alot of people don't like feeding raw meat, so I wont push it, though I will say that I personally swear by it myself. Secondly, Pasta is NOT very good for dogs, it provides basically no nutrition to dogs at all and all it does is fill them up with carbs wich they don't even need and which just take up space that could be used for more wholesome foods. Dogs get their energy from fats, not carbohydrates. Carbs may merely lead them to be hyperactive. Thirdly, I'd like to address the "whole veggie" idea. Sure, it looks good to us, but dogs have the teeth and digestive tracts of a carnovore so can't break into the cell wall and get all those nutrients out of veggies. Ever seen a cow or a bunny eat? They chew up their food and grind it, exposing loads of nutrients hidden inside each cell. The only way dogs can access these is if WE blend them up for them, not just chop them, but shove them in a blender so all those cell walls are broken and the nutrients can be digested. Lastly in relation to bad breath, simple - give your dog a raw chicken wing every day!!! :wink: Hope I've helped :fadein:

Try the apple pupcakes and the cassaroles... they used to be Tessa's favourites :wink:

Yeah actually, I just did a search for this recipe sight I used to use and had a recipe I'd made up for Tessa in it, well I didn't actually find the page I was looking for, but instead found a page full of recipes that I made years ago in my old web page and forgotton all about!!! Its at [url]http://www.geocities.com/nooky4tress/Recipes.html[/url] I was just reading through it and remembering making some of these meals for Tessa all those years ago, and I've gotta say my mouth's watering at the thought of it!!!! :o

Tell me about it Malamum!!!! The prices here are ridiculous!!!! If I were to be feeding one of those really expensive dry foods I'd be spending over half my pay each fortnight just to feed the two darlins!!!! Not to mention with the poor variety I get here I'd have to mail order it, ick, so much hassle and so much money!!! Think I'll stick to the BARF!!!!!!

I just switched Tessa back to BARF, after feeding her an expensive dry food for a while and she began to become a little dull in the coat. She doesn't eat much so its easy to prepare. She's already starting to glow again and has brighter eyes than when she was on the commercial food. The majority of Lilys diet is a combination of chicken necks, lamb off cuts, a variety of veggies, egg, yoghurt and some form of offal. She also gets a bit of dry food (Pedigree Principal) of an afternoon. The reason she's not on an entirely BARF diet is because she eats too much and it wont all fit in the freezer!!! Also, it takes forever for me to pulp the veggies - so I guess thats the only con. Aside from that I wont be changing because she'd have to be one of the healthiest dogs in town! :angel: So yes, it has improved her health. Since I got her as a pup she always had stomach problems and had diahreah, I started adding all the veggies and raw meat to her diet and the problem has been eliminated. She has white teeth, fresh breath, a super shiney coat and a good level of energy. :wink:

Yeah, I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I first read it! :lol: Behle, not sure what breed one of them was, but the other it said was a basenji, which made me laugh even harder because I used to have a basenji and its so typical of the breed.... they are so cheeky!!!! I'm SO glad nothing like thats ever happend to my dogs! :o

[url]http://www.dogchurch.org/indexfrm.html?http://www.dogchurch.org/restroom/elk.html[/url] :lol: :lol: :lol:

My sisters mini poodle had really bad teeth, the had like a green sludgy covering on them. We started feeding her chicken wings every day, nothing but clean white teeth after that! :D

[quote name='mydogroxy']i made those peanut butter/yogurt treats for roxy and they gave her the poops. :o[/quote] Maybe you gave her too much and didn't give her time to get used to it? I think the best idea is to introduce it slowly. I give my dogs yoghurt when we have some in the fridge on dog food making days. We make our own yoghurt, so it works out alot cheaper.

[quote name='Kiger']It looks like dirt in case anyone is wondering - expensive dirt. You can add water which then makes it look like wet mulch. Since Kato likes to eat dirt and mulch he naturally went wild over this stuff.[/quote] :lol: :lol: :lol:

Cute diagram Crested :wink: Sounds like a good idea to me :angel: But what type of competition, what type of poll???

Yep, I'd say a pointer mix, maybe with some Koolie??? They're both gorgeous dogs anyway :angel: