Conditioned Emotional Response

BradA1878

This was posted in a FB group. I thought it was a great example of conditioned emotional response, in this case to a Gentle Leader.

Jean Donaldson gets conditioned emotional response while fitting Gentle Leader





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Losech

That's pretty neat. Juneau hates head collars since my Mom didn't get her used to it the right way. I wonder if I can retrain her to like it using this method.

ayk

I had to eliminate training collars and harnesses with my male, and so I'm introducing the gentle leader. I got as far as the end of the video. He's happy to put on the gentle leader and will stick his snout in for fitting. Walking outside is still lots of work though. Lots of pulling and swinging out even with treats on-hand. He doesn't allow tension release of the GL. Give a little and he's like a fish trying to find the end of the line.

Know of a video on how to introduce *walking* with the gentle leader?

I've been having him wear the GL and practice walking inside my house's hallway to at least eliminate the swinging. A combo of "follows" and "sits", moving only 3-4 steps at a time. Out in the open though, it goes out the window.

shibamistress

A digression:

I've been trying with the gentle leader with Oskar, but he hates it, and his lips are kind of droopy, you know (which would make him a "wet" Akita?) it looks like it bothers him a bit if there is tension on it.

So we got aways into him wearing it, but didn't have success with walking (he just runs to the end of the leash and starts twisting his head and pawing at it like he's a roped calf or something). I gave up. We went to the Sensation harness (one of many of the front clip harnesses) and while three other front clip harnesses didn't work on him, this one seems to. Dunno if it's this one is different or if he's older and calmer (he was good as a pup, then hellish as a teenager, and now at a year and a couple of months is ok, except he gets horribly distracted by flies).

Back to subject at hand: the video is good, and It was cool to actually "see" Jean Donaldson. I like the idea of the conditioned emotional response, and can see how this video could be really useful for people trying to get dogs to accept things like head collars, or anything else they don't tolerate well at first. I could have done more of it with Oskar.

What kind of dog is that do you think? She looks like a Shiba kind of but bigger, and that coat....A shiba chow cross? Beyond being a genius dog of course!

Zinja

Her book, The Culture Clash, says its a chow... I can't find my book to be more accurate though.

JessicaRabbit

That's Bunny, she is a chow.

shibamistress

Ha! Now I've got this convo going on here and the Shiba side. She doesn't look like a chow in the face though. her face is way more pointy and not as blunt and wrinkly. And her ears look slightly different.....

{Pretty, anyway. I'd like chows more if they all had faces like hers. Though the chow cross I had years ago was kind of an odd dog....

jan3t

Jean seems to really like the dog. Have any of you tried the Easy Walk Harness? I have heard that the neck/head collars can still cause harm to a dog.

ayk

Yep, I've tried the EZ Walk Harness. My male swings out even more and wacks my knee.

He's a pretty flexible dog. Powerful, too. He's cracked and broke the buckle on one regular harness and sliced the belt on another. He was working on the EZ Walk Harness front loops before I just gave up on harnesses entirely.

I'm still working with the Gentle Leader because he doesn't lunge or jerk per se but gives steady, constant pulls.

shibamistress

I didn't like the easy walk. It's a lovely harness, but my dog pulled like a sled dog in it, and he's 110 pounds, so that was not terribly helpful. I think the harness thing is like anything else....what works for one dog may not work for another, so you've got to experiment, unfortunately. (I say unfortunately, because it gets kind of expensive, you know?)

jan3t

you are so right shibamistress. I have always refused to keep accounts of what I spend on my pets. I dont really want to know!