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Showing posts from March, 2024

Hard Dogs Versus Soft Dogs

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This Article was originally published in Dog World Magazine Below is my "unedited" version.    More information soft dogs is available in the book  Rescue Your Dog from Fear   Hard Dogs Versus Soft Dogs Arwin was a very reserved dog.  Under Rick's guidance she began her herding education.  That training also helped build needed confidence in the dog.               Abby watches people from her crate, leery. She doesn’t trust them. Human actions, their demeanor, is something her mind doesn’t naturally process. Rick Hardin takes her out of her crate and you wouldn’t believe this is the same dog. Abby responds well to him. They work sheep together and her bold, championship performance leaves you expecting this dog has no reservations about anything. Abby is what Rick calls a soft dog. Through specialized training Abby has learned to feel comfortable working with Rick, even though by nature, this dog has a ...

Adding Power to the Premack Principle

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AWARD Nomination   Adding Power to the Premack Principle was originally published in Chronicle of the Dog's Winter issue 2023, and is presented here with permission of the editor of the magazine,  Devon Hubbard Sorlie. Do you recognize the dog in the picture below? This was the dog known as Eddie in the sitcom Frasier. A lot of people loved the dog's antic in the show. For this dog to successfully be in this series, he needed to be well trained. How ironic that his original owner gave the dog up for adoption because of the dog's extreme bad behavior. And guess what, there was no treat the original owners could offer to get the dog to comply. This article gives insight to trainers who have difficult dog to reform.   Training comment: Not all of the discussion I had with Eddie/Moose's trainer are contained in this article. There is however one question I asked Mashilde years ago and I remember her answer.  I asked how she got "Eddie" to stick out the end of ...