At Last A decent TV programme on Dog Training - The Dog Academy

[IngGenius]

With qualified trainers and behaviourists....

It's a miracle!

Really enjoyed that last night. I love anything Victoria Stilwell is in or on though.

I really liked it. I thought it was pitched well for the public. I loved the stooge dog too. So well chosen and they showed training progress isn’t linear with the chihuahua. The Twat in a Cravat just uses random dogs. Badly. I’d have liked them to look more at the resource guarding of the poodle cross but they did point out he was generally anxious and how aversives damage relationships and that was well demonstrated. Loved the fact the mouthing was deemed to be communication and not attention seeking and he needed a better way to do it /glares at the 7 month old puppy 😉

Ive tried to explain learning theory to my ‘pet’ agility people and they aren’t interested so pitching it with enough science but not too much behaviour speak is hard!

I loved it, but then I'm a huge fan of Victoria Stilwell.

I loved it - never knew the sniffing releases dopamine!

I love Victoria Stillwell. I need to watch this.

I though Kamal's Sugar was awesome - her tail did not stop wagging

Loved the fact that they repeated dogs emotions need to change to see a change in behaviour.

Not just a yank or a jerk of the lead!

You cant train out an emotion. Change the emotion and the behaviour will stop eg resource guarding in the poodle cross.

I agree I enjoyed it a lot. I am surprised how little people read up or even Google dog behaviour and training. We have our first dog, he's 2.5 and I research the shit out of everything he does, everything we want to teach him, train out of him etc etc...

We adopted our first dog in 2003. An adolescent with fear aggression to people. I tried punishing her. She bit me. I got more harsh. She bit me harder. I am a scientist by profession so thought there had to be another way. Fast forward, I’ve now got a canine behaviour foundation degree, have been teaching agility for many years and now can’t recognise the punishment and dominance ‘me’. She taught me so much and we loved the bones off her despite the challenges. She did go on to lead a relatively normal life after I found a better way to grow her confidence (agility mostly as it gave us a way to bond without having to handle her directly as she had severe trust issues, even with us). Also scentwork. Now there would be even more as it’s developed further.

We’ve tried to make sure the pup has the start she should have based on what I know now.

Victoria Stillwell started the same. She’s admitted mistakes, learnt and is now a totally different trainer. I like her a lot.

Victoria Stillwell started the same. She’s admitted mistakes, learnt and is now a totally different trainer. I like her a lot.

This is why I'm a huge fan of hers - she's not afraid to admit she got things wrong when she first started "It's Me or the Dog" - the difference between the first lot of shows and the new ones is huge.

I think I need to watch this on catch up! We have a dog with mild resource guarding which I'm researching and working with a behaviourist to solve. Sounds like the programme might be interesting!

I enjoyed it also and it was a welcome release from the yank and shout of the other trainer. However I'd have loved to see it a little more in depth as although the scent training for the little poodle cross was useful it would have been interesting to see what they recommended for the guarding.

The lady with the chihuahua was so worried about it all bless her.

Are you Bishop Burton Alumni?

Very similar story for me started with foundation degree ended with an MSC in Animal Behaviour.

I had a highly aggressive and reactive dog and noone could help her we were only offered the punishment based training which made things worse.

So decided to do the learning how to train dogs myself. She went on to compete at high level in agility.

Now I teach Scentwork to pet dog owners and detection dogs

Which channel was this on? I’ve just tried to find it on catch up but it’s not showing

Channel 4. I had to search for it though, it wasn't on the main page or under "recently added".

Brilliant thanks - will do another search

I recorded it so will watch it shortly soon as the kids have gone to sleep.

I binge watched The Doghouse. And learnt so much (I have never owned a dog so doing as much research as I can before we do get a dog/puppy)

So I'm looking forward to watching this and learning from it!

Just caught up with the first programme. I would have liked to have seen more of the training.

I would have liked to have seen more of the training, as I can’t quite believe that little bit of scent work led to such a dramatic change in the dog and how the couple react to it.

For the chihuahua, they were giving it treats when it was still barking. I thought the idea was to treat when as a reward for being good, ie, not reacting.

Re. the scentwork, they did say they did some work with him before so it was more than was seen on screen. It can have a dramatic effect on a stressed and anxious dog though. People underrate building a dog's confidence generally with games which include sniffing games.

Re. the chihuahua, look at click the trigger or LAT. The idea is you treat when the dog sees the scary or exciting thing. You ideally use a marker word, or clicker to mark the exact time but you can do it without. Over time, the dog then learns to look and engage with the thing as it predicts good things but then disengages and looks at you. The next stage is they see the big scary/exciting, then look at you for the treat. When they treated for barking it was just poor timing. We all do it.

We use engage/disengage for training our pup to be calm around the cat. It teaches her to engage with us when she sees him and not him. It naturally calms them around the stimulating thing and over time she now sees him and trots to us for a treat. She is generally much calmer in his presence although she is still a puppy and it has regressed a bit during adolescence which is normal. She has now applied this to other things she is not sure about. She met her first cow last week on Dartmoor and looked at it, then looked at us so we treated her and she walked on. She has done the same with sheep (she was on the lead) and other things she is not sure about.

This is a nice explanation. We have certainly found that doing this with our cat (who doesn't give a stuff about the puppy as he has lived with our last dog) has really improved her focus generally when out and about, and also her self control. She is a terrier and they naturally have poor impulse control and also high prey drives so do need some extra help with not acting before they think!

https://www.preventivevet.com/dogs/engage-disengage-dog-training-game

@Newpeep sorry, what’s LAT?

Look At That :) It's the same technique it just has a few different names. The most common I think is engage/disengage.