Over the weekend Swagger got to have his sixth visit with his stand-in siblings the PineBank Labrador Retrievers. It was, once again, a great improvement upon his last two visits this time showing great confidence and less aggressive play with the group. He did more [...]
Mr. Swagger has some new things for you all to count today. Naughtypants! See how many unwanted behaviours you can find in this short clip. You can see where the foundation of a lot of unwanted behaviours starts so young. This puppy could easily grow [...]
Swagger had his fourth play date with the Labrador puppies. It was by far the best to date. Many "firsts" were shown during yesterdays play date. For the first time in four visits he actually allowed the Labs to put him on his back [...]
This is a video I posted to my FaceBook page a couple of days ago. It shows Swagger with his new toy (which is a great confidence building toy for puppies). At the end it shows how I start my puppy's jump training. Swagger turns 5 [...]
Following up on my last post on NRMs I mentioned that the only place I really use one in my training is when the lack of information will create an expectancy of reinforcement for my dog. I mentioned the teaching of weave poles as one [...]
I think I have neglected you blog readers a bit by posting a lot of my updates about Swagger on my new Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/SusanGarrettDogAgility). So today I am going overboard, with this mega- blog post. And yes, I promised to get back to our [...]
Great conversation about non reward punishers over the past week or so. More on that later. For those of you not on facebook I thought I would post a few new pictures and videos of Feature's little boy "Swagger." He turned three weeks old yesterday [...]
Now to answer an unanswered question from last week; when exactly DO I use a NRM? The answer is I only use a NRM if, by not using one, the dog can earn reinforcement. Routinely I can only think of two examples in my training [...]
Feature's puppy has taken over my life. I just can't get any work done he is sooo darn cute, I can just sit and watch him all day long . . . and I do! He is no longer going by his puppy name of [...]
To follow up on a comment written on yesterday's blog; what do we do when we are shaping one thing but our dogs get “stuck” offering something she already knows. My first choice is to set things up in my favor to avoid this from [...]
It seems everyone has a slightly different slant on their application of Non Reward Markers (NRMs) in training. Here is a little more on my approach. First of all, I never use them in training during a value building session (shaping). Actually, I rarely use [...]
I thought it was time to address my thoughts on the use, abuse, misuse and the misunderstanding of the “non reward marker” (NRM) in dog training A non reward marker is usually a word or phrase that when spoken to your dog, lets him know [...]
