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25.01.2022 "Daily lives with our ...[animals]...are an ever changing blend of management and training, depending on the individual ...[animal].., our lifestyle, our skill level, expectations, and so many other factors. When a handler knows which mode they using at any given time, they can set realistic expectations for their ...[animal]s behaviour." - Susan Clothier

25.01.2022 Awesome, awesome, awesome!! This is put together by Jo-Rosie Haffenden from the School of Canine Science. I really love the weaving of evidence with experience the SOCS offers with all of their content. The video content is free pack full of absolutely awesome practical evidence based solutions. I have some more insight into herding pup behaviour which is so so sooooo cool!! https://event.webinarjam.com/register/1/oxgxwuw

24.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Days 23-25 Graphing bananas before they're gone. No, that's not really what the last 3 days of challenges have been about. . Fast pace is still the order of the day for both my animals. Josie used the exercises to show me how much her puppy brain is starting focus. She is 'with me' so much more as she realises that I create fun too, not just the cat. ... The arousal exercise reaffirmed why Josie has come to live with us. A fast thinker, with an ability to perform under pressure & she drag me up after her too! Her accuracy & timing just got better and better as we wound the arousal up After a post arousal exercise snooze (for both of us ), she relented to my 'give' criteria of placing her monkey in my hand - a first! She has been tossing her toys towards me with an upward flick of her head for a while now, & continues to do that with the 'outside' toys. But, monkey has gone up in the world, with hand placement & (underscore) able to be sat on Josie's nose without Josie lunging for it Not quite there yet for waiting for the jazz hands monkey to finish..but its not to far off! Isabella is so polite with toys, so random names then marker just didn't float her boat. But, arousal! She's another fast thinker, with an ability to perform under pressure & can match it with the best of them, even at nearly 15 Ha! If I have you thinking this is just a post about how fabulous I think my pups are, you are only partly right! These last few days have combined together to high energy tasks with focused, controlled elements (well this task does include a little bit of melodrama for the humans). I think a lot of the time 'we' forget that our animal's have an autonomic nervous system that two parts, go & rest, & that homoeostasis is a healthy balance in the ebb & flow between these two parts. Which means, for me at least, creating scenarios in which an animal have confidence in their own ability self-regulate those systems & for me to allow that to happen. To have high arousal games, for a BC x kelpie to be introduced to sheep for the first time, to solve odour puzzles, for an assistance dog to deal with multiple stimuli in a public access environment it is fundamental that there is the corresponding use of rest, re-cooperate & assimilate skills. Days 23-25 illustrate the skill development for both aspects in a simple, but heavily nuanced construct. Onto the next few days...before it's hit rewind & have another go!

24.01.2022 #30dayscaninescience Days 26-27 Mr Herrnstein's matching law (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov//P/pdf/jeabehav00196-0083.pdf) experiment definitely needed a BC x kelpie thrown amongst the pigeons to liven things up a bit! In theory, Day 26 was to demonstrate the behaviour of relative rates of reinforcement associated with two options. Josie effectively said after rep 3/10 in the first run, 'There's only two options???!' #crickets Days 27 & 28 are definitely food for thought..., as is the fact that there are only 2 days left in this challenge!! I don't know which I prefer myself, 2-3 secs of or a buh-baawh (my spelling for a wrong buzzer sound ) straight up. In the case of Isabella, I've created a history (before I knew differently) of a sustained low rate of reinforcement during shaping, which lead reliably to a frustrated bark. 2-3 seconds pause followed by an alternative would definitely keep the rate of reinforcement up. With Josie & with Isabella now, I am really aware of the pace at which their brains move & I am finding allowing them opportunities to set the pace is really beneficial, for all of us. I am not so convinced for these two that a non-reward marker would be as beneficial in a. keeping the pace going so as not to frustrate & b. give them as much opportunity to offer further behaviour in the shaping flow. That being said, having two options in regards responses to behaviour other than that being asked thankfully means loads of opportunities for me and not See more

24.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Days 20-22 - Another 3 day catch up. Actually, its a life catch up for me. A couple of theory-in-practice options & some daily events gave me pause to consider the synchronicity of reading Hannah Branigan's words in her new book, Awesome Obedience:... 'It was only when I put the "instructions" on mute (literally or figuratively) & looked at what ...[my animal teachers]...were doing (vs what 'they' were saying) that I started to understand what I needed to do ...but do it my way. I paid attention to the principles that were underlying the methods. The behaviours ...[my animal teachers]...were ...[saying]...were far more important than ...[a]...method... Once I identified...[the behaviours]..., then it became easier for me to work backward & engineer my own methods that were compatible with my philosophy. Sometimes, like a theoretical element on the periodical table, I needed to invent my own ...[way]...entirely.' Today I sat with my BC x kelpie pup & we were just together. Sure, she found the sudden arrival of two big strollers deserving of a bark or three, a young boy needing of an enthusiastic tail wag, cars in the cat park well worth keeping a weather eye on & shopping trolleys fascinating. But, we were together. I took my cues of what next from her, & she from me. Our catch games are constantly evolving as she learns the value of pause, she knows the names of of an increasing number of toys & she is able to target the red ball on the end of a stick when the cat (who is hanging out for a good game) is around. Whether she is feed for position or clicked for movement, it matters not to her, & it should not matter to me. What matters is she happy, are my household of companions happy & healthy. Theories matter naught to a cat (who could be mistaken for a dog in his personality), a pup & a wise one. They matter a little to me if they give me the oomph for really spending time with my friends.

24.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 29 Momentum. The word in physics refers to the quantity of motion that an object has. 30 days tomorrow and the challenge is done! The new challenge is to build frequency, duration & intensity of momentum, which, according to Iso Ahola & Dotson (2016, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01328) is underpinned by having a sense of confidence & competence. My animals have certainly shown confidence in me as I was improving in my capacity to communic...ate with them during the last 29 days. On a slight twist, have you ever stopped to wonder the etymology of the words physic, the art of healing, & physics, natural science? According to Etymology Online (https://www.etymonline.com/word/physic & ../physic), the c. 1300 Old French definition paired the two definitions together. The word physic is also associated with a Greek word, to make grow. Now I have something to work with Maintaining growth with dexterity, like a kitten balancing nonchalantly on a fence, is about poise & purpose. Unlike a burnout coffee run, pushing to the next objective, the next 30 days are going to be just one big stack of balanced bananas thanks to the #30daysofcaninescience :) My new found purpose is to to shape each day with very little need for the occurrence of NRMs or LRSs, but maybe a few DRIs. Photos: Isabella Cat on a fence - erik-witsoe-DkWrYXvkRUQ-unsplash Coffee stack - nathan-dumlao-3kZpELkaxHc-unsplash Stack of bananas - nick-fewings-Cf0UvX2T87o-unsplash

23.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience 30 days in review! Quick Facts:...Continue reading

23.01.2022 An ahhh! moment in my clinic yesterday. The first of my Oshadi Oils restock from Sue Lavell, Oshadi Oils Australia https://www.facebook.com/Oshadhi-Essential-Oils-Australia-1376286669363836/ These oils are the products that started Willow Wise Therapies dispensary in 1998. I am so excited to have such high quality and heart-singing essential oils in my dispensary again.

22.01.2022 Further explanation regarding the additional effects on public health with the removal of natural therapies as a whole from health insurance and a brief mention of the less than thorough research methodology used in recent government regulatory changes in health care. Very interesting the differences in knowledge between the Associate Professor of Public Health and the CEO of the Consumer Health Forum.

22.01.2022 New but old way of drying fumatory (Fumaria officinalis). I don't usually have success drying herbs this way, others do. I use an electric dehydrator, drying in shortish bursts which gives me awesome vitality of the herb in its dried form. Traditionally (that is, in western herbal medicine) a urinary herb, fumitory has now shown in in vitro animal research usefulness in gut parasites management. Just love the adaptability in the beauty of herbs!

21.01.2022 Today it's green salad leaves of chicory, mint and dandelion leaves with the 'wake-up-to-a-gorgeous-morning' orange of calendula

21.01.2022 Two awesome friends delivered this massive tub of superbly crisp mesculun mix to me on Saturday. And so begins the process of transforming it into freezer meal batches for the animals! I've done a base mix which I can then divide on defrosting and tailor the nutrition and herbal medicine needs for one older pup, one younger pup and the cat. And yes,the cat does eat salad

20.01.2022 #30dayscaninescience Day 9 Who shaped who? We had a bit of a 'keep hitting repeat' last night. Josie (the 11mo) had been pushing the life skills envelope to determine why her boundaries didn't undulate in sync with her puppy brain. Isabella (the 14yro) pulled out a behaviour from which I thought she had decided she wanted the fun stuff: obstacle courses, box twirling, pot running, happening on tap. The "all finished" cue I (underscore) decided with the associated change in... environment was not to her liking at all. She (underscore) had definitely not "all finished"! To be honest, I did fall in to the 20:00 trap of brain fatigue and "No, not now" was my controlling go to. This morning, with my awesome friend Steph's past words echoing in my head, I just listened, observed and ask what 'finished' looked like to her, rather than just controlling the outcome. Finish, according to Isabella, starts with a box puzzle and then a search for a greenie chew stick in the lounge room. Whilst I was slowly catching up to the conversation, Josie was avidly watching the goings on. How a wee woolly thing rounds up and shapes a silly human by successive approximations towards the end goal.

20.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Days 17-19 SOCS trainers must have known about my wish for balance Before I could get to carried away down the right brain path, Day 17 stopped me in my training tracks, step by step. Hrrmph, thanks Dean. Then Day 18 said plan those steps ahead of time. Double hrrrmph, Jo-Rosie. I was enthralled in the glow of Day 18 (thanks Nando ) weaving a glorious tapestry of proportions, happily thinking I could throw out analytics for a moment.... I think I must have had a temper tantrum of sorts after seeing Day 17's geek out & skill up. I set up the environment with no paper & pen. Josie & I, then Isabella & I executed the behaviour of the skill up in one swoop. No pause & do. No observations of the individual actions of each of us. Hardly the correct immersion of the skill up! I realised the 'error of my ways' on going back inside & looking at Day 17 again & promptly fell into the doldrums, while I pondered the antecedents to my (underscore) behaviour! And then..my mares, & Danny Woodland, manifested another learning experience for me. I couldn't 'see' the direction of energy/intent that Danny & Mereenie were demonstrating to start. Mereenie was a tad confused to start it seemed too. She recognised the behaviour, but it looked for all the world that she was was in a bit of disbelief as that form of horse band (herd) behaviour had been progressively phased out during the last twelve months in her introduction to domestic life. The lesson was through a whole body rise & fall of energy. The penny dropped with a clunk when I 'saw' how Danny was utilising energy (ie mechanical/kinetic energy) & the space between he and Mereenie to give direction to his intent. My habit of thinking as the (underscore) means to provide solutions & direct intent had inflitrated my interaction with animals as well. I had been relying on my eyes & head to be the primary means of communication & problem resolution. Look at the hind foot or look at the shoulder to emphasis that bit to move. Bodywork allowed me to 'blur' my vision, but mind + body still weren't operating as a conscious unit. Instead of a clear body of energy, Danny & Mereenie offered me a form of 'chaotic' energy that also was a useful communication tool. The question I have now is how do I 'see' & 'feel' in planning when my learned behaviour is very precision oriented, & a behaviour build with inherent antecedents that I don't particularly like anymore! Perhaps there's room form some chaotic distraction in building my behaviour along with allowing the rewards? More to ponder....

20.01.2022 Interesting article reminding me of the simplicity of counting ourselves to know what the number means, rather than just a number on a pedometer. This research gives us a simple guide to the number of steps done in a minute correlating to heart rate intensity.

19.01.2022 Adding lemon balm, chickweed and mint to a portion of the crisp mesculun mix along with quinoa and barley flakes and lamb for the next pups' 'n cat food batch.

18.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 5 Mouth open, brain engaged. We have some funny terms to describe how we interact with animals. I hadn't heard the term 'cooperative care' until recently and, to be honest, most of the plethora of 'Google' definitions challenge me on the basis of who ownership of care. Thankfully, day 5 is nothing to do with my philosophical dilemmas! ... Today's challenge slowed both the 14yro and me down immensely. The 'now-becoming-regular' chats Isabella and I are having, with an equal share in who opens the conversation, have slowed down Isabella's demand for the reward (think wee gnashing teeth) back to her normal, prior to a bouncy BC x kelpie pup invaded HER domain. The fly bys on the vocabulary of Day 4's challenge with frustration have stopped, for the most part. She's still high energy tho', her willingness to engage in conversations is the most rewarding for me. I'm on the way to making my way back into her good books. :) My click timing for this challenged unfortunately took on a slowing of its own :/ A second short rep in the afternoon and it felt like I was light years behind her opening her mouth clicking that button. I tried again briefly in the evening, and I'd deteriorated to being a never ending eternity behind! Those brain synapses definitely needed a reboot before doing any additional reps with Josie! My mares certainly did great reinforcement of my mouth open too, as if they had watched Dean's video too. My baby brumby rounded up the 'more senior' mare out of the stable cantering to her from the opposite end of the paddock after seeing me and they both stood waiting at the gate for halters on and some fun :D Lakota, the more senior mare, even did a shaped nose target on a cone and Mereenie shaped herself into position by the mounting block. :D :D :D So immensely enjoying that we're all coming to the conversation in our own way through this challenge! :)

18.01.2022 Decision-making does not happen in a vacuum. As an animal owner, you can make fair decisions only when you have sufficient information to weigh the possible consequences of various choices: to make informed decisions.

18.01.2022 Yes!!! Less anthropomorphising, more animal individualism!!!!

17.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Days 11&12 Woolgathering & then starting to spin. After my epiphany and subsequent 'bullshit' call on myself on Day 10 , I lost my 'oomph' & woolgathered around in a few university assignments instead. I mean, how difficult could it be to pick something to capture with a high energy pup and a stupendous wise one? Mmmmm....... Eventually, I saw a pup behaviour & decided I could work with it! Finally!! Isabella got her nose out of joint and was barking in disgust. At some point she did her blow out in frustration & I managed to capture it! And she caught on quick smart & proceeded to do the behaviour a couple of times in a row! Then I was seeing 'behaviours' everywhere! So addictive! I remembered that's how I had initially started with Josie, just observing & capturing with going in & out of the crate/back door, sit & drop, paw target, chin rest on my hand. I had allowed myself to really get sidetracked in the last couple of months with recipe searching! This challenge has tweaked my understanding of each of the education techniques (luring, modelling, capturing & shaping) and I'm rethinking how the nuances of each fit with my overall goal of coexisting with animals & my western herbal medicine principles of practice. How many repetitions, spins or 'sitting pretty' is not important to me. What is critical is how I use those techniques to reinforce the independent individual that chooses to participate, or not, and knows I am listening and responding. Day 12 is still a work in progress having got carried away on capturing behaviour. I had been shaping a chin rest on my knees with Josie, so switching to the process of Day 12 wasn't a big leap. I really had to think how I could do a knee target with Isabella give she has ducks disease . In the end, I was on the kitchen floor with legs outstretched and Isabella was trying to contain herself to just her chin, but she really wanted to just clamber all over me!

15.01.2022 Being the champion of your animal's health care means you are empowered to promote your animal's health, interact effectively with animal health services and be active partners in managing health & well being for your animal.

15.01.2022 Crafty kitchen Sunday making some easy to bake salmon training rewards for the pups' and the cat. Simply modify a basic biscuit recipe (grain, oil & egg to bind) & experiment with your pup in the kitchen today. Try some rolled oats, sardines, an egg and some oat flour (buzz a few of those rolled oats in the spice grinder) spread on a biscuit tray and bake in a moderately slow oven (160oC) until lightly browned.

13.01.2022 #howawesomeisanimalbehaviour The art of animal behaviour & training in four days! Conferences are interesting melting pots for thoughts & ideas, some old, some new, some epiphanies & some 'yep, exactly'. The Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) Australia coalesced some greats of the international applied animal behaviour industry in one place for 4 days including Ken Ramirez, Peta Clarke & Michael Shikashio. Attending the conference coincided with me re-listening to a cou...ple of Hannah Brannigan's podcasts. The synchronicity of one podcast in particular (https://hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/31/ ) plus Ken & Peta's respective presentations with a number of swirling thoughts over the last few days was quite profound Turns out I needed to sleep on this post...almost literally (!) before waking up at 0300 for the last four days to properly coalesce in my brain & go "A-HA!!!" As a Veterinary Western Herbalist, my raison d'être is 'to enable'. As it turns out, as much as I thought I was doing a 180 from my previous life in logistics...my raison d'être remains firm in my psyche. 'To enable' is to facilitate, not to dictate. The music of an individual's life is composed by the individual. I, as often a casual observer, cannot say to someone, "Eww, your playing out of tune, let me fix that instrument for you", when I don't know what key the music is written in, let alone what the score actually looks like. 'To enable' was a common thread running through the conference. Behaviour specialists shared their art of enabling, always motivated by the individual's willingness to engage, to proffer some sign, some movement that says "Oh, you're there" & what you have is of value or interest to me. Peta Clarke shared during one of her presentations that, in contrast to dogs, working with marine mammals & other 'wild' species taught her this aspect of being of value most profoundly. (Link from Peta's YouTube page https://youtu.be/8wXmg1LmP4A ) Ken Ramirez framed his art with the search of what is reinforcing to the individual to enable quality of life for the individual in the human world. He relayed that story of the most favourite past time of a beluga whale friend of his was a tongue tickle. (Video ink from Ken's website: https://www.kenramireztraining.com/ https://youtu.be/58-atNakMWw) In my past roles as a leader, I was always pondering (& humbled by) why someone would want to do something just because I said. That sense of wonderment has always been there with animals too, but its only in this part of my life journey that I have the words, the skills, building experience & some fabulous kindred spirits sharing their own word, skills & experience to be better at offering conversation or companionable silence to the animals in my midst, always striving to allow them to speak, if they choose.

13.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 4 Pt 1 & 2 Hit a hiatus on day 4. I painted (!!! now that's been a hiatus...of years!) 4 squares & then my 'I'm-not-a-dog-trainer' internal voice turned up the volume. (I've even paused typing now... :-/ ) ... The fwd momentum I'd generated in pulling everything together for the challenge, sharing in the community momentum, trying a drop down with the cat ( :) ) evaporated. The monologue of I'm not skilled enough to do... was pretty resilient to my, "ok do stick targeting with the 14yro pup & consolidate nose targeting with the 11mo pup to work with the vocabulary of the exercise" and reinforced by my 14yro grumbling at me for mirroring her history of a low rate of reinforcement dry patch in my training fumbles. So Day 4 (Pt 1) passed with the 4 painted squares glaring at me from the sliding door... and me pondering the criteria I'd set myself. I had batted them in a 'walk by' out the door. I'd searched for the easy reinforcement elsewhere. My distance and duration were being confounded well and truly by internal monologue distractions! Day 4 (Pt 2) and the pups led the way. The 14yro asked quite clearly for some conversation patter and the 11mo said can I hang out with you. And there was my criteria met. So onwards and upwards (and round wards!!!) to Day 5! PS: I've just realised the irony (synchronicity) of a racing pigeon getting lost and landing on my back verandah on the morning of Day 4 Pt2 and his/her owner picking him/her up this morning

13.01.2022 Animal health care professionals are one of the most important contact points for the animal owner. (Dis)empowerment in the animal health care professional/animal owner relationship often manifests in both the animal owner/animal relationship.

13.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 8 The Art of Negative Space Betty Edwards has a fabulous exercise in her book 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' in which to draw a chair, you draw the space that chair occupies, not the chair itself. Seeing the space between takes a tweak of the ophthalmology lenses, not dissimilar to the tweak to look at a stereogram image. (And I've just realised I can't see the images in stereograms anymore! :o ) ... How did I get onto Betty Edwards from 'Pot', the exercise to illustrate the challenge of Day 8, specific markers? Revising Days 0-7 and then doing Day 8 was how it started. The space between Nando and Fizz bowing on Day 7 & the distance between Dean, Sidney & the pot on Day 8 suddenly popped out of the screen at me. Dean and Nando were both utilising the space between them and their respective dogs as a means of communication. Dean communicating by stillness & Nando by movement in the space between Sidney and Fizz respectively. The subtleties of moving in and out of the relationship space is, to me, like an ebb and flow of a dance. The somatic nuances of the dance form an important part of conversation that animals are especially fluent. My team have been exceptionally patient in reacquainting me with the dance space and tolerant of the lack of volume control or the toes being trodden on . I started Day 8 hoping to find ways of redeploying old skills (ones that had a number of poisoned cues associated with them). I've reminded myself of what I'm actually looking at, feeling and participate in our dance.

11.01.2022 The American Botanical Council (ABC) as an independent, nonprofit research and education organisation is a fabulous trove of reliable herbal knowledge. The ABC facilitates a number of awesome resources, one of which is the Sustainable Herb Program. Free webinar: Plants, People & Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany on Friday, 18Sep20 at 0400. http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=wats25vnIISMBp8OYES8nQ

09.01.2022 The garden offered up a bounty for the pups' and cat's salad today Adding some colour to your dog or cat's diet can be as simple as finely chopping some mixed green salad leaves, mixing with a little bone broth and put a tablespoon on top of or mix in with your animal's meal.

09.01.2022 Sounds to good to be true, right? Well it is good and it is true! I am really impressed with the quality of everything in this course, the delivery is top notch, the content is as challenging as you make it, your dog knows what its about, if they don't know about you sometimes Awesome international community of people too, all with different goals and expectations, but so generous and giving of their support.... Highly recommend this one, trainer and keen dog enthusiast alike!! This is Day 1 demonstrated by one of the trainers: https://youtu.be/SI4iY0XhDuw

09.01.2022 #30dayscaninescience Day 15 "Look", "Watch", "Guard","Wait" - Interchangeable cues? Day 15 has created some vocab complexity for me. Well, not complexity so much as focusing my attention on the various cues I use & for exactly what purpose? Has some 'training colloquialism' creeped into my conversations? ... A couple of years ago I did a couple of English & Irish lit subjects at uni. Something I hadn't ever had time for before, being absorbed by my 'other' life. I really enjoyed the subjects, but was surprised to find how laxity had crept in to my writing. I've had the distinct impression during the last few days that I have been doubling up on words as cues (for quite a while) & not really paying attention to what the nuances of that laxity meant to my animals. Now, my animals are cluey & have worked me out...to a certain degree, so what's the problem, I hear some people ask. Well firstly, clarity is one of my 30 day challenge goals! I distinctly remember my feelings of dread/frustration/overwhelm in day 3 of a Spanish language immersion course in Guatemala - I was never going to fathom the language to recognise more than two words in a conversation. I did persevere & my ears and brain finally the hang of it. I choose not to have that confusion in my conversations with my animals, whether entire vocabulary or just a couple of words :) I haven't operationalised different definitions as yet for the words "Look" or "Watch" which I had used interchangeably prior to Day 15's exercise. "Guard" as a word does mean something different to me, so its a 'reserved' word - 'til I work out an associated behaviour to my particular meaning (if there is one). "Wait" I definitely operationalise differently, so its about time I used it appropriately in conversation! Josie has just this week found a pause in her excitement to get her toy & we have had an opportunity to introduce a few earlier splits in the Day 15 exercise...hopefully with me now not confusing the game!

08.01.2022 Nosework is a fabulous example of providing environment enrichment tailored to a specific species. Dogs have a phenomenal sense of smell that is so critically integrated into their overall health and wellbeing.

06.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 14 - OMG! Dog conversations unleashed & I thought I talked fast! Every time I even looked like sitting down, Josie, Isabella & even the cat made certain to distract me into yet another conversation. No uni assignment work today & I only just managed to make it out the door to a scheduled appt. That was all that got crossed of my (underscore) To Do list! A perfect example of a double entendre on reinforcement learning, ie the learning perspective o...f individuals in the same environment, the animals had me added back into their conversations , I had my laptop time removed!!! Egad! Nose targets were the feature of the day tho' from ball on a stick & hand target. Thanks Nando for the great vid on building duration. Josie's small duration increments on hand targets have been awesome to watch! Isabella still has a tendency for fly bys as I'm still a bit slow on coming to grips with how she wants to play & I can see Josie's speedy brain processing whether to chomp the red wool ball off the end of the target stick & make a run for it or go for the mark/reward Onto Day 15, and hopefully a day where both animals & humans have more balance in their respective styles of learning reinforcement

05.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Days 0-3 of fun conversations between my animals and me. Thanks to Nando, Jo-Rosie, Dean, Steph & the international 30 day challenge community, bland is banned. The chat topic between the animals and me for Days 0-3 has delved deep into setting new goals to navigate the next 30 days, together. Its been a lengthy chat, dogs, mares & cat enticing me around a few corners & wandering down a few nose snuffling lanes together. ... Luring brainstormed and barnstormed! Edited: I couldn't just leave it at 500 words! After all this has been a busy four days! I've had my observation ophthalmology lenses tweaked quite a bit & the furniture shuffled about in my lounge room as well as in my head! I think my wee Josie (11mo) is quite happy doing the 30 day challenge behaviours...without me. Whereas Isabella (14yro)has been absolutely demanding high arousal luring ...in every activity, and every hour! It is going to be a challenge for me to create good conversation with each of them....that has volume and duration control! Can't wait to tackle Day 4 tomorrow!

04.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 10 Lumpy splits The mental block that jumped in on one of the progressive splits for the Day 9 shaping challenge has given me a lot to ponder, not only with the feedback Josie and Isabella gave me, but also with the subsequent challenge of Day 10. There is one big lumpy, cotton wool patch right in the middle of my task analysis capability. The consequence is that the frequency of the use of the 'modern shaping principles' in my videos from Day 9 i...s really low. I know where the cotton wool lump came from and when it arrived. But, this has been the first time that I have a creative opportunity, presence of mind and some company along, to work with it in a different way. The steps outlined on Day 9 make logical sense, but as I'm finding with Isabella leading the way, for some reason unbeknownst to me, the steps don't look that way to me when I'm engaged with Isabella or Josie. I've mentally made the Day 9 steps into a recipe I'm unable to follow, which is emotionally rankling me. It's the same block I encountered when I first started with Josie. I want to 'shape' our relationship (from a big picture perspective) and build skills in Josie that allow her to participate as Josie, not something I prescribe. Other people's recipes were offered as the 'norm', the 'must haves', and the cotton wool jumped in. So, to quote a game that 'How to Loose a Guy in 10 days' made famous: I call 'bullshit' on myself!! Onto starting Day 11 with the principles of shaping fresh in my mind and not a recipe book :)

04.01.2022 Helen, from Wellbeing for Dogs, writes fabulous tips on how to easily integrate healthy food into your dogs diet. Providing a nutritionally complete and balanced diet can be difficult with all of us having bucket loads of completing priorities in our lives. Keeping a commercial kibble in your dog's diet to meet their nutritional is not doing your dog a disservice. But, there are options to having a sliding scale of how much whole food options you may choose to integrateinto their diet in lieu of, or in conjunction with their kibble. Helen's latest newsletter provides easy, straight forward tips to do just that, enhance the vital force and sustenance of the kibble for your dog's overall well being with whole food options and water. Check it out!

04.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 16 ROR ROI ROE ROFLMAO No pretty Day 16 bar graphs, just some gorgeously tired animals & an open laptop!!! My other concurrently running 30 day challenge involves balance. I have a lovely habit of compartmentalising, self-supported with a healthy dose ( ) of analytical logic, process mapping & databases building. So rather than implementing the Cambridge definition of 'rate' = measure or speed, which would definitely feed my habit (!), I decide...d to use a thesaurus alternative: 'relationship' to enable a little 'left brain about being right brain', ie, the locus of relationship between Josie & me, &/or Isabella & me oscillates in dimension depending on the proportions offered by each of us. Watching & participating in the ebb & flow in the proportions set in motion by moving the reinforcement origin was almost as rewarding as a set to work of 7 data-warehoused individually process mapped & built applications for use by four organisations. Nah! Just kidding! Watching Isabella punch her nose onto a red wool ball on a stick faster than you could say treat & Josie leave her nose at the top of my hand & slip the rest of her mouth down in to a touch (each with the reward prepositioned behind the ball or hand respectively) was by far the more rewarding for all of us! Question for myself is: why didn't I drop/fumble as many treats with them prepositioned behind my hand as getting them out of the treat pot (which I had been doing as I had been dropping HEAPS out of my treat bag & when in my hand away from the behaviour space)....mmmmm

03.01.2022 Australian recall details for specific batch of Hill's dog food.

03.01.2022 How much fun (and easy!) is it to grow sprouts?! Broccoli, Fenugreek, lentils and kale making their way into the world to liven up some salads

02.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Day 13 What have (underscore) I been doing? OK.... I'm one of the ones that hasn't done Day 13's exercise on Day 13. However, I'm also one of the ones that have done part 1 of the exercise previously, prior to thinking. 14 years ago I listened intently & subsequently put into practice guidance from my awe-inspiring dog trainer. The only concept that struck a seemingly discordant note at the time was the assertion that there should never be an occurrence of a negative in training your dog (bear in mind I'm paraphrasing my interpretation 14 years later, Nicole ). The world was made up of binary and all shades in between, so wasn't it being unrealistic to never have a negative in a dog's life? 14 years on & I've attended a number of uni courses, had many conversations with my animals, colleagues & friends & now watched Nando's video. I can see rolling before my eyes the number of times I introduced & consolidated waiting at and moving through the door for both Isabella, Josie & the cat. I thought I was implementing the use of 'life rewards' for Josie (the life reward in this example is going outside), at least, as I understood Suzanne Clothier. I've had a horrible realisation that I have just miss-implemented the use of life rewards without changing what I can know see as a positive punishment construct. "A little learning is a dang'rous thing", wrote Alexander Pope in his 'An Essay on Criticism (1711). It's so true! I've been awake half the night kicking around both the sheets & the dilemma of: if I still believe there are shades of binary, where does positive punishment fit in my conversations with my animals now I have the conscious awareness of what it looks like, from opening & closing the crate or sliding door to deny access & withholding my return to the room until the pup in the crate quiets, to offering & withdrawing a reward. As with seeing capture opportunities everywhere, now I'm seeing positive punishment in all its degrees & the impetuous for invoking alternative positive reinforcements. Nando, Jo-rosie and Dean, you joked that you didn't want to charged for murder by proxy over the battery-less TV remote...how about for a 'dang'rous' lack of sleep resulting from the complexities of taking my values & beliefs out of the cupboard & giving them a good shake????!!!

02.01.2022 Woohoo! 50 people special people are in our collective of like-minded people striving to be the champion of their animal's health care! Welcome everyone, welcome number 50, Victoria! (https://www.facebook.com/victoria.chapman.583)

01.01.2022 #30daysofcaninescience Days 6 & 7 Assistance on clicker 3 Puh-leeeazh! Oh dear! Days 6 & 7 have been pattern informing...my patterns unfortunately. Slo mo' vids tell no lies, and neither do mine show "clear, concise and succinct " communication. :/ What they do show is one very patient, although often frustrated, wee pup (the 14yro Isabella in this case) & a number of somatic patterns that I have imbued myself with over two decades. Patterns that have definite incongruence w...ith the 'ideal', 'normal' ones in my head. The synchronicity of the last few days of training, podcasts listened to, mentoring participated in and increased initiation of conversations by my animals has been phenomenal. In fact, the last seven days of the 30 day challenge have actually been poignant markers of behaviour opportunities. My primary reinforcer is my animal team encouraging me to build my confidence in new areas and making my 'new' behaviour patterns more likely by bridging me between old and new. My goal for Day 8 is to explore with my awesome team markers that are specific to being able to brush off and redeploy my 'old' task analysis skills (skills which I have been actively avoiding using for some reason) so that we can work with shaping behaviour with the somatic patterns I have, not the ones I thought I should have. Which may mean some assistance on the clicker, Isabella, in order to remove the static from my side of the conversation! :)