I think I'm going to apply for a trick certification. Kyra Sundance, who wrote the book I mentioned a while ago, has an application you can fill out after a witness watches you perform the tricks. It sounds fun. Though I think the way it's set up you could teach 5 of the advanced tricks and get all four of the certifications at once with a handful of other tricks. http://www.kyra.com/pages/trickdogtitle.html
I do want to start making my own training videos and need to get a video camera for that.
I started teeth brushing and it's really NOT that hard. Just grab a dog after they've eaten dinner and brush their teeth for about a thirty seconds and that's pretty much it. Why haven't I taken this up before? I almost wish I could brush teeth before dinner since that's how I often get in things I want to practice, paw handling, newest trick, etc. I have to feed them once a day and it's so much easier to be disciplined to do that one thing while I'm already doing stuff with them. Oh well.
Still trying to figure out a way to go to Clicker Expo.
I have in an email to Kathleen to figure out a way to take classes. Finding a time and getting a ride is the hardest part. This is my big motivation for getting my driving hours in and my license: being able to go to dog classes without worrying about the parent's schedules.
The Cognitive Dog class is going well. Interesting subjects. We've picked a few of the common dog experiments apart. For instance with the pointing one, the wolves that were tested were from Wolf Hollow and being stressed around people could easily have affected their performance. I really like the discussion board. It amuses me that Bruce, the professor, praises people for good points and the like. Very obvious positive reinforcement, makes me giggle.
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Try the Trick Certification! I don't know if you looked at it but at least half of the beginning tricks are the basic obedience Ike already knows and when you include agility and rally you probably only have to teach a couple new tricks.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know. I was thinking that I needed to write more about the Cognitive Dog.
Have you read Ray Coppinger's book? It's called Dogs: A startingly new understanding of canine origin, behavior, and evolution. That's pretty amazing, a very easy read, lots of stories, and it might give you a good start on some of the topics I hope to bring up here.
The BBC Horizons video (available on youtube) mentioned on Patricia McConnell's blog has several of the studies we're talking about. You might find it interesting to look at that.