What my dogs teach me
Bold claim, eh? But almost 10 years later, I think I am safe making it. Clara learned other things, like how to be around people other myself, that were more important. But those things were either trained directly by or supervised by my phenomenal trainer. This one I thought up and executed myself, and it has paid off ever since.
Continue reading “The Best Thing I Ever Taught My Dog”
When I filmed Summer barking using the slow motion function of my video camera, I was mostly curious in an analytical sort of way. What could I see when I slowed everything down?
I didn’t realize that I would find the footage so touching.
Slow motion filming is helpful because dog body language is so very fast. A dozen things can happen while we are just trying to process one. Much of it is so fleeting that we never see it at all.
Summer has a very expressive face, and she’s a worrywart. When you see her two little barks in slow motion, the extent of her anxiety is clear.
In day-to-day life with dogs, this is the kind of behavior that can be annoying. You are trying to read, watch TV, or go to bed, and the dog starts fussing because, for instance, the neighbor dropped a board on his back porch. You almost feel like the dog is doing it to annoy you.
But seeing something like this makes things very clear. No, she’s not a princess. No, she isn’t attention mongering. She’s just worried.
I’m glad I have been able to start working with Summer again. I’m afraid her anxiety took a back seat during Clara’s first couple of years in the household, since Summer could function in the world and had people and dog friends, and Clara had only me. Now that Clara is doing so well, the pendulum can swing back. I have been working on some of Summer’s triggers at home and already seeing progress. I’ll be writing about that some more soon.
In the meantime, you can check out how expressive two little barks can be.
Link to the video for email subscribers.
What do you see when your dog barks? Does it vary?
Dog body language posts and videos
© Eileen Anderson 2015 eileenanddogs.com
Classical conditioning examples of dogs and other animals on YouTube are rare. And there’s a reason. It’s because the process is generally comparable to watching grass grow. The creature being conditioned isn’t necessarily doing anything. The action is often off camera. And you have to do many repetitions to see any results. Continue reading “Classical Conditioning: Creating a Positive Response to Barking”
Here is an “almost Wordless Wednesday” (except my videos have a lot of words in them!).
I have been working with Clara since she was tiny to make sure she didn’t “catch” some of Summer’s reactive behaviors, and to help her cope well with distractions by reorienting to me.
In the future I will write a real post about what we did, but today you just get to see a movie.
You can also skip forward in time to see how the behavior helped develop her habitual self-interruption and reorientation to me when in intense situations as an adult dog.
And you can skip way forward in time to see how the conditioning fared 10 years later.
As usual, comments are welcome, and feel free to ask questions. Enjoy!
Sorry for all the vertical videos in there. They are from before I saw the light about that.
Thanks for reading!
Copyright 2012 Eileen Anderson