[Chris]

Thanks for the informative reply, fascinating stuff. I had no idea that the outlook would be so good for these guys, really glad to hear it! It’s amazing how much dogs can teach us about living life to the fullest. I’ll definitely listen to the podcast, Happy New Year to you both.

[Chris]

I’m just curious, how do dogs cope with only three legs? Is there much of an impact on their quality of life? I imagine there is a deal of extra join strain on the remaining leg on the opposite side of the amputation side. Do they require any specific care? Sorry if these got answered in the podcast, I haven’t listened to it yet.

I think what you are doing is fantastic. Good luck, would love to see updates etc!

[Chris]

I’ve been learning from some of Balabanov’s stuff recently, and the out is a core component of his work. If you’re looking to take this dog to compete I would at least look at the first of Balabanov’s Obedience Without Conflict series. He solves a good number of problems, such as this sort of posession, crabbing on a heel etc etc, with the way he communicates and values the tug as a reward.

In short, he works to devalue the object itself, making play the reward and the tug worthless outside of the context of play. This helps the dog out because the tug is not really worth having if it’s ‘dead’. This is the same as you can see in RC’s videos, but with a lot more depth (no offence to RC, he has to cover a lot of ground and doesn’t really have the luxury of super-focussing on one element like this).

You can access the first of the series on CTS for around 50 bucks. I thought it was worth it to sample Balabanov even for just pet training, the philosophy of reduction of ambiguity in communication was a big piece of the puzzle for me and made me realise where I could improve. It was also immediately applicable and my dog understood it quickly. The lessons RC has provided worked better once I realised my own ambiguity in communication using Balabanov’s insight.

[Chris]

Thanks to Robert’s wisdom, our crazy rescue dog is getting much better on leash. Not only are the leash lessons helping, but his philosophy of ‘fairness’ from the videos on resource guarding – the dog always gets something in exchange for giving something up in a fair way – inspired me to try something new.

I realised our dog could be convinced to walk nicely in exchange for being allowed to be ‘loose’ every few minutes to sniff and pee on stuff. This has reduced conflict (another one of RC’s pearls of wisdom) and walks are becoming fun at long last. We both get what we want and the length of time he has to concentrate is reduced into smaller intervals, allowing him to succeed over and over on a single walk. Now all I need to do practice increasing heeling intervals.

This is also helping with his reactivity, because he’s learning that if I’m walking he’s coming with me if he likes it or not, so he prefers to walk next to me rather than being dragged. It also allows me to easy up on corrections – he doesn’t respond well to too many corrections, he’s had a rough life and doesn’t have much trust, so being able to teach him to stick near me minimal pressure is a blessing.

Onwards and upwards.