Lokipups

That would be great if you could use Haley as a demo dog! And am I mistaken, or do you have a tripod too? They make wonderful therapy dogs for children with disabilities, it's something many of them can relate to, and helps them overcome that feeling of being "different" :thumbs: . And as for ignorance being contagious, there's a sign on my office door that reads [b]" If stupidity were a disease, you would be quarantined"[/b] :P :lol:

:o I know where that is, I'm not far from there myself.

And really, the saddest part about that? It's that her ignorance is going to be contagious to her kids :roll: , just what we need, another generation wary and afraid of a specific breed. Hey, have you ever thought about giving a talk at your nephews school about pits and great they really are?

Where was the park? I'm in NJ, and I sure as hell would like to avoid there if I can :o !

Sciencedoc, you're right, an e-collar puts out less voltage than a phone wire. The U of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine did a study on them about 10 years ago, came up with the same info. Once again, they are not to be used to teach commands, not to be used in housebreaking (which I've heard of :roll: ), not to be used to deal with aggression problems or guarding issues. Recall is the most important command in my book, it's the one command that can save your dogs life, so I think it's imperative that the dog realizes that there are consequences to disobeying the command, and better a mild static shock than the front end of a car.

[quote]I hope your dog grows up healthy and happy and YOU get worms. [/quote] :rofl: That made me laugh out loud, thanks!

There are two methods that are used with the e-collar. One is the "nick" mode, the other is the "stim". Hard to describe in writing, by I'll give it a go :) . And I'm going to preface this by saying the e-collar should not be used for teaching the command, but rather to proof it. Make absolutely sure the dog knows the command before applying a correction, it's not fair to correct a dog who knows not what he does. Lets take recall, or come. When you call the dog back, if he does not return immediately, then you give the nick. The dog will eventually try to beat the nick, and doing the recall faster than you've ever seen. Most dogs will understand this on the lowest setting and usually only after a few times too. Great tool to ensure total proofing of the dog in every situation :thumbs: ,

Wonderful :roll:

This story was reported on almost a year ago, but it's still a compelling case. Almost every one of those dogs was slated to be put down by the Baldwin shelter because they were deemed "dangerous" :o :roll: by the Assess-a-Pet test. When Warren Eckstein, a noted behaviorist, got involved, they ALL passed the test. And when Kimi Peck of the Chi Rescue wanted to take them all, they had to go to court to get them! For six months!

I myself use any and every training tool in my box, prong collar, e-collar, flat collar, food, toy, ball, and yes, even a clicker on occasion. The only collar I no longer use is a choke/check chain, I find that the propensity for damage is much greater with them than with a limited slip prong. I also have a policy that I will not use any training aid on a dog until I've tried it on myself. And as others here have said, ANY collar can be misused and abused. The Halti collar can be particularly dangerous if you have a dog that "bucks", I do know of one dog that snapped her neck wearing one. Purely Positive training is great if you have a dog that responds to it, but I don't think there is any way to proof the obedience with it. When I give a known command to my dogs, they understand the consequences of their choices, and make the correct one based on their knowledge and experience, but not because they're only going to get corrected.

My females call name is Layla (love Eric Clapton :) ), but when we're feeling goofy, she's Layla Layla Sweet Tater Tot, Tater for short :-? . Coolest name? Cardinal, my friends Irish Setter :) .

:o Dear god, do you have my sympathy! I would have ripped him a new one, and then let the dogs finish the job :evilbat: . Guy has no business working with animals, and certainly no right to mess with yours, they are YOUR property by law, period. Tell him if he touches them, you'll nail his arse for animal cruelty, his employment be dammed.

Siberians, pros, sweet natured, usually very dog social, high intelligence and easy to train, beautiful coats with very distinct masks and markings, very people friendly. Cons, totally unreliable off-leash, prone to the occasional snotty attitude (I have said that if they had fingers instead of paws they would flip you the bird :P ), shed like monsters, prone to CIKS, and very people friendly, which makes them easy pickings to be stolen if left unattended :( , and did I mention the shedding :o ? [img]http://img21.photobucket.com/albums/v62/Lokipup/Dog%20pics/000_0024.jpg[/img]

Folks, there's been a warning from the EPA on black market meds, many of the brands (Frontline, Advantix) are coming in from other countries with a diluted formula, and some are outright counterfeits. [url]http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/b1ab9f485b098972852562e7004dc686/aa19074f36966bd085256e4d0062ceca?OpenDocument[/url]

If you are interested on a career working with guide dogs, I know the Mira Foundation is in Quebec and New Brunswick. [url]http://www.mira.ca/contenta/ap1a.html[/url] I don't know how their program works, but I can tell you the Seeing Eye here in NJ requires a three year apprenticeship to become a full time trainer, but they are always looking for tech support. Best of luck to you!

[quote]Great post loki [/quote] Tater! Where've ya been :lol: ? You're missed at home :wink: . [quote]UGH HER AGAIN [/quote] I take it you're not a fan either :evilgrinblack: :lol: . [quote]I'm curious, what other methods of temperment testing are there? I know about this method, I guess it could be called the Sue Sternburg(sp?) method. But I don't know of any other widely used methods.[/quote] It's called Assess-a-Pet (tm), and it's actually nothing really new, people have been doing similar tests for eons, she was just smart enough to trademark and market it. The biggest disadvantage to the test is that there isn't any leeway for the variables (shelter situations, starved animals, etc.), and there has been no studies done to validate it's predictability, which, as a scientist, I find appalling :-? . Jean Donaldson wrote an interesting article for alternatives to Assess-a-Pet(tm), she's a firm believer in common sense, something that's sorely lacking these days when working with animals. [url]http://www.bestfriends.org/nmhp/forumarchive/qa526to530jd2.html[/url]

I'm posting this as sort of a continuation from the thread "My least favorite phrase from Animal Precinct", re, temperament testing. Another member of the forum suggested I post this topic for all to read, and hopefully I can shed some light on this subject for those of you who may be unaware. Courtnek shares my views on this, to which you have my thanks :thumbs: ! This is an article from Best Friends Magazine, January/February 2004 issue, a publication from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. [size=6]A Dirty Little Secret[/size] [b]Temperament testing. It sounds harmless enough, but it's a method that's being used to sanitize the troubling business of deciding who's "adoptable" and who isn't[/b] [b]>By Francis Battista[/b] This article is just the tip of the iceberg of the subject, folks. If posting links to outside sources are acceptable, I will gladly do so, there are many people outraged over this topic, recues, shelters, and just plain dog lovers alike. It's the latest big controversy at shelters and humane societies. The issue: which dogs and cats get to be labeled adoptable, and will therefore get saved, and which will be deemed unadoptable. At the heart of the issue is the practice known as temperament testing. Applied primarily to dogs, temperament testing purports to separate the doggie wheat from the doggie chaff, recommending the former to the eternal bliss (relatively speaking) of a new adoptive home, and the latter to a rapid demise. The logic goes like this: There are too many dogs in shelters for the number of people wanting to adopt them, so it's better to concentrate on the ones who are well behaved out of the box, since these will be the least likely to cause problems in their new homes ans the most likely to stay adopted rather than be returned. This can be translated more bluntly thus: Identify and kill the potential troublemakers right away, and bring the numbers of dogs available for adoption more in line with the number of people looking to adopt. And the method that has been devised for sanitizing this troubling business is the temperament test. Now, let's be clear. Behavioral evaluation goes on all the time, and we use our own version of testing here at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary - not as a life/death, pass/fail regime, but as a way of learning what areas of behavior need attention or what kind of home would be best for the dog. However, temperament testing is hardly a science and, as used and abused in most municipal shelters, it has become a license to kill. Paradoxically, all of this is being driven by the public demand for humane societies and shelters to move to low-kill or no-kill protocols. The temperament test simply enables the shelter to tell the public that fewer and fewer adoptable animals are being killed. In fact, by this logic, a shelter can actually kill more animals and still declare itself a low or no kill organization. After all, the only dogs being killed are the ones that failed the temperament test and are, therefore, unadoptable. By counting only the so-called adoptable animals in the no-kill equation, such organizations are attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of their membership or citizenry. Don't be fooled by the air of clinical authority that is invoked by the term "temperament testing", especially as practiced in many municipal shelters where the dogs are frightened, confused, and possibly injured or under attack by cage-mates, and the smell of death is in the air. How in the world is anyone supposed to get an accurate reading on a dog's real nature in such threatening and unnatural surroundings? Dogs are often brought into a testing area that is often stained with urine and feces from other terrified dogs that preceeded them. Their ears are pulled and their toes are pinched. And if they have an inappropriate response, they fail. If they are not attentive to the tester, they fail. If they don't let the tester roll them on their back, they fail. In short, if they behave like anything other than a laboratory beagle, they can fail. One of the leading proponents of temperament testing is on record as stating that something like 70 percent of shelter dogs in the Northeast are unadoptable and should be killed. The point of this test given from this mindset is to find reasons to fail rather than pass a dog. Adoptable and unadoptable are very relative, woolly, and ultimately meaningless terms. Some dogs are clearly unadoptable. Responsible no-kill organizations will agree that a dangerously vicious dog or one that has zero quality of life due to illness or age should not be offered for adoption, and should probably be euthanized. It doesn't take a temperament test to figure that out. On the other hand, Best Friends and other rescue organizations routinely find good homes for dogs that have one or more fatal flaws according to the temperament tests. We don't label them "unadoptable". We call them "special needs". And just as a dog with diabetes needs the right kind of home, so does a dog who, because of some earlier trauma, tends to snap at men who wear hats. Communities and organizations that are truly committed to saving lives are moving away from the whole notion of rating their success on percentage of adoptable animals placed. Instead, we focus on the "live release rate", a calculation that includes all off the animals that come into our care. The no-kill movement is not a numbers game or an accounting scam that shifts column headings on the numbers of animals killed to alter the balance sheet. It is a repudiation of the whole idea of using mass killing as a means of pet population control. Instead, it calls for a commitment to the lives of those animals already born, a reduction in the pet birth rate through spay/neuter, and a dramatic change in the way we, as a nation of self-described animal lovers, regard our pets. [b]"Killing animals on the basis of a temperament test is such a horrendous crime that those who do it have to become hardened in their defense of the theory in order to justify their crime. Sue Sternberg is a lousy trainer who justifies her inability by labeling her students as dangerous and uneducable"[/b] - Francis Battista, co-founder, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, 8/11/03[/b]

Courtnek and Hazel, check your PM's :wink: , so I don't hijack the thread. Let me know if you'd like a new one started on the subject 8) .

My objection to the temperament test is not so much the need for a test in and of itself, but Assess-a-Pet in particular, which is used widely by the ASPCA. A test that is arbitrary at best, dangerous at it's worst. Believe me, as a trainer who specializes in aggression cases, and does Siberian rescue, testing is imperative for dogs needing adoption, and it's not something I take lightly.

Mine is "temperament test" :( . Embedded collar is right next to it :evil: .

You're going to have your work cut out for you for sure, remember, sleep is overrated :wink: . The downside to taking a pup this young, is that the pup never gets the chance to learn "dog manners", bite inhibition, pack hierarchy, etc. An ideal solution to that problem is if you could find someone with an older, well socialized female, you'd be amazed at how a tiny pup can bring out the mother instincts in a bitch. Even if the pup was around the dog a few times a week, it'll help. Be sure to mimic as much of the behavior of a mother dog, correcting the pup when it bites too hard by growling and snapping like a dog (I know, I've done it and felt ridiculous doing it :-? , but it does work), cleaning it's orifices with a warm damp washcloth regularly throughout the day, and picking it up carefully by the scruff to move it. Mother's milk has colustrum in it, which is loaded with natural antibodies to fight off diseases, this poor baby didn't get that advantage, so early shots were a must. There is an upside to having the pup this young, she'll be handled by humans much more than a normal pup, and that will in turn make her very bonded to you, and very human socialized, a pretty good thing :) !

[quote]I'm actually amazed at how many people here have been approached about breeding their dogs. Who goes up to a complete stranger and asks something like that??? People are nuts! [/quote] Constantly. I cannot tell you how many people have come up to me telling me Loki and Layla should have puppies :roll: , nevermind that they're littermates. And do you really want to know how many people think that's perfectly acceptable :o ? My stock reply is to mutter under my breath that I don't need pups that wear helmets and go to obedience school on the short yellow bus :lol: .

Shedding started? It's never stopped :o ! Between my own two who blew out their puppy coats over the dead of winter, to the Sibes I have as fosters, I could've clothed a third world nation with the fur from my floors :P !