The Argomutts

Join the Barkside

2012-01-20T11:21:00.002+01:00

they ~~have~~ had cookies!

Origins of the domestic dog

2011-11-24T20:28:00.000+01:00

Origins of domestic dog in Southern East Asia is supported by analysis of Y-chromosome DNA .

Three weeks after Tari's CVS/CVD.

2011-11-14T15:19:00.000+01:00

This was taken about three weeks after the first symptoms of canine vestibular syndrome. Not bad for a senior dog who had to learn how to walk all over again, right. At 15 and a half, still going strong.

Autumn is here

2011-09-20T15:20:00.000+02:00

And that means more hiking too!

Hiking pei


Our city (ish)

And, hopefully, the end of drought as well.

This is one of the sources of river Ljubljanica. It's completely dry.

Mocilnik

This should be full of water

Just a trickle

Learning is best done by challenging old mythologies

2011-09-11T16:04:00.000+02:00

I find this extremely interesting, especially since there's more and more talk about pet overpopulation here as well.

Debunking Pet Overpopulation Enter? 8 M Savable? 7 M Saved? 4 M Killed (Savable)? 3 M Need homes? 2 M Looking for pet? 17 M

The earth is flat, pet overpopulation exists and other myths we've been told

WHERE ARE THREE TRILLION CATS AND DOGS? (PDF)

The Great Spay-Neuter Fallacy

Seven False Premises of Mandatory Spay-Neuter Laws

Rethinking Spay and Neuter

PS: The title of this post is a quote from dr. Coppinger.

Interview with dr. Schultz

2011-09-09T08:03:00.000+02:00

How Often Should You Vaccinate Your Cat or Dog?

The Alternative to Re-Vaccinating Your Pets Annually...

The Vaccine that's Mandatory in EVERY State in America...

Does Your Pet Really Need That Rabies Shot?

Eurasian Wryneck

2011-09-02T19:35:00.000+02:00

Another morning of bird ringing, another present (even though it wasn't my birthday). Eurasian Wryneck (Jynx torquilla). :)

Found this video on YouTube:

My birthday present

2011-08-30T14:21:00.000+02:00

Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

A new blog

2011-08-29T15:08:00.000+02:00

While I was away (chilling out near Lake Bohinj), Kay Laurence has started a blog. I like her books more than I like most books on clicker training, so I look forward to reading it.

A must read for sure

2011-08-02T22:01:00.000+02:00

A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum

Will write some more tomorrow.

Dog Rabies Vaccine Investigation by FOX

2011-07-29T17:45:00.001+02:00

Investigators: Vets, Vaccines and Vagaries: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Unfortunately, we still have to vaccinate every year. :(

A Dance With Dragons

2011-07-29T13:52:00.002+02:00

Finished. Now the (hopefully not long) wait for The Winds of Winter begins...

Clicker training articles and some other stuff as well

2011-07-22T19:23:00.001+02:00

The goal is to finally sort through 1000 + articles in my archives. Wish me luck. :)

Can a Dog Learn a Word? (Paul Bloom)
Clicker bridging stimulus efficacy (Wood)
Clicker increases resistance to extinction but does not decrease training time of a simple operant task in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) (Smith, Davis)
Considerations for shock and ‘training’ collars: Concerns from and for the working dog community (Overall)
Dog training methods: their use, effectiveness and interaction with behaviour and welfare (Hiby, Rooney, Bradshaw)
Testing the social dog hypothesis: Are dogs also more skilled than chimpanzees in non-communicative social tasks? (Wobber, Hare)
The behaviors of theories of mind and a case study of dogs at play (Horowitz; dissertation)
The effect of feeding enrichment toys on the behaviour of kennelled dogs (Canis familiaris) (Schipper et al.)
The effects of structured sessions for juvenile training and socialization on guide dog success and puppy-raiser participation (Batt et al.)
The effects of training and environmental alterations on adoption success of shelter dogs (Luescher, Medlock)
The efficacy of a secondary reinforcer (clicker) during acquisition and extinction of an operant task in horses (Williams, Friend, Nevill, Archer)
The Human Dog Relationship: Human Visual and Acoustic Cue Affects on Dog Behavior (Krim)
The Interaction of Cognitive and Stimulus–Response Processes in the Control of Behaviour (Toates)
The pet dogs ability for learning from a human demonstrator in a detour task is independent from the breed and age (Pongracz et al.)
The prevention of undesirable behaviors in dogs: effectiveness of veterinary behaviorists’ advice given to puppy owners (Gazzano et al.)
The relationship between number of training sessions per week and learning in dogs (Meyer, Ladewig)
The relationship between training methods and the occurrence of behavior problems, as reported by owners, in a population of domestic dogs (Blackwell et al.)
The Relative Efficacy of Three Procedures for Reducing Canine Responding (Maxwell; dissertation)
Training and maintaining the performance of dogs (Canis familiaris) on an increasing number of odor discriminations in a controlled setting (Williams, Johnston)
Training dogs with help of the shock collar: short and long term behavioural effects (Schilder, van der Borg)
Training methods of military dog handlers and their effects on the team’s performances (Haverbeke et al.)

Cesar Millan and zakgeorge21

2011-07-13T10:13:00.000+02:00

While I don't necessarily agree with everything zakgeorge21 posts on Youtube, I really like these two (recent) videos about Cesar Millan.

GRRM's book signing and Susan Garrett's webinar all in one day

2011-06-24T17:15:00.000+02:00

Well, almost. The book signing was at 18.00, and the webinar is actually tomorrow at 2.30am.


A large turnout

We arrived at the book signing at about 17h, and were done at around 19:30. The "hooman blogger's sidekick" only took one picture of George and me and even there you can only see my back... But at least I got to see his ring (with an amethyst no less, symbolises power) and he signed my book. Unfortunately I didn't know that I could bring all the books for him to sign (it did say he'll only sign one!), next time then-I'll bring A Dance With Dragons (have it on preorder at Amazon and can't wait to start reading).

George R. R. Martin

Signing

Signed!

Thank you George!

As for Susan's Webinar...well... I almost overslept and got online just 3min before it would start only to find out, that it was recorded and that I could watch it in the next 24h. So I went back to bed and watched it today. It was nicely done, informative and well worth the wait.

Why the argomutts?

2011-06-22T15:54:00.000+02:00

We live in a city, that (according to the legend) was founded by Jason and the Argonauts on their journey home. They stopped here, at the source of the River Ljubljanica, to dismantle the ship Argo, and carry it over the hills to the sea. Argo is also the emblem of our city.

So, that's why I decided to name this blog The Argomutts. The mutts, of course, being my dogs: Tari, Shenzi and Momo.

Tari is a 15yr ~~old~~ young (neutered!) tibetan terrier, very spoiled, stubborn. We call him His Holiness Lama Tari. He prefers pasta to any other food, loves to sleep on silk cushions and loves long walks through the city.

Shenzi is a 4.5yr old shar pei (not spayed!). She's the clown of the family, and... not really the brightest dog in the world. She loves to learn (now) and she's good at it too! We call her (among other things) Forrest Gump. She loves food, any kind, loves to run and play and chase. She does NOT know how to look up, so whenever there's something flying over her head (a bug, a bird, a helicopter, firsbee, toy,...), she won't look up. Instead, she runs to the fence and looks at the neighbour's garden.

Momo is a 4yr old shar pei (not spayed either!) and the smartass in the family. It's scary to see just how smart she is. She's also known as the cute one. Even though she's Shenzi's cousin, she's not as lovable. In fact, she loves me and herself the most. She knows she's cute and also knows how to use that to her advantage.

Picture taken from Wikipedia http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slika:Ob%C4%8Dina_Vrhnika_grb.gif

What should I feed my dog?

2011-06-07T21:10:00.000+02:00

The question I get asked most often is what should I feed my dog. The answer is fairly simple: whatever works for both. Getting there, however, can be tricky. Especially nowadays, with so many information available, and so many "feeding philosophies".

Here's my view of the whole dog feeding dillema and options.

1. Kibble – the simplest and easiest way

Since there are lots of different brands, the hardest thing is choosing the right kibble for your dog.

What I look for when choosing kibble:

meat content (the more, the better); even though dogs arent't strict/obligate carnivores like cats, I still don't feel comfortable not feeding them meat (which means-no vegetarian kibble for my dogs).
ME (kcal/kg) – (metabolisable energy) – the more energy per kg, the better (how much is too much - depends on the dog). I prefer foods with higher kcal/kg content (I think Acana Sport and agility has the highest, not sure though, haven't checked in awhile).
different meats, grains, veggies etc. – the less, the better. I prefer kibble with one or two meat sources. Less is more.
little or no fish/fish oil. I prefer to give fish and/or fish oil separately. Don't like either in kibble.
no potatoes, tapioca or sweet potatoes in kibble; especially potatoes are easily available and I would like to keep my dogs' exposure to this protein/carb source at a minimum-in case they need an elimination diet. I'm not anti-grains and actually prefer rice to all other carb sources.

Here's an interesting site about various brands of kibble. While I don't necessarily agree with the ratings, I still find it very useful (mostly because I can look through different kibble brands at once and don't have to google around).

Last (but not least) IMO there is nothing wrong with feeding your dogs kibble. I do not believe that people, who feed their dogs dry food, are bad, lazy, don't care about health etc.. I believe each and every one of us does the best that s/he can for our dogs and sometimes, other ways of feeding are just not possible (too expensive, not enough time to prepare food, not enough room to store home made food,...). It doesn't matter. If the dog is doing great on kibble, I say stick with that. Your dog's health comes before any philosophy.

2. Home prepared raw food diet

There are a couple of different ways of feeding, I think theres are the best known:

BARF - bones and raw food or biologically appropriate raw food (Ian Billinghurst DVM)
RMB - raw meaty bones (Tom Lonsdale DVM)
whole prey (sometimes also called franken prey)

I find the whole raw feeding movement rather interesting and have been following its progress for about 10 years. So far, their arguments have yet to convince me to start feeding raw food. I'm not against raw feeding, but I'm not supporting it either. To anyone interested in feeding their dog(s) raw food - read as much as you can; pros and cons. If your dog does well on raw food, great.i In the end, that's all that matters. The dog is the one that is important here, not the philosophy. Why don't I feed my dogs raw food? Because they're thriving on what they get-kibble and homecooked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

PS: I would never feed raw (or cooked) bones. Never. All bones my dogs get are huge bones that cannot be swallowed and have lots of meat and other soft tissue on them. Chicken necks, wings, turkey necks etc... are out of the question. Even if I was feeding raw meat, I would not feed raw bones and I don't recommend it to anyone.

3. Home prepared cooked food diet

My favourite and IMO the best choice, if you have time, space and the will to learn as much as possible. I prefer "the excel version (crunching numbers)" to determine how much food I must feed. Some feed 1/3 meat, 1/3 veggies and 1/3 carbs (mostly grains), with supplements. Some feed only meat and veggies. There are lots of different ways to feed your dog, all you have to do is find what works for you and your dog and stick with that.

4. A compromise : home prepared food (raw or cooked) and kibble

For example, kibble 5 -6 days/week, home prepared 1-2 days/week. Not suitable for picky eaters, though. My peis eat everything I give them, be it kibble or homecooked, they're not even close to being picky. As for Tari.... well, he's just a spoiled little dog and gets special treatment.

My dogs

My dogs get both kibble and home prepared food. Tari (my golden oldie) has been eating homecooked food since he was 3 months old (or so). Every now and then, he gets some (senior) kibble as well. The peis get 1 kibble meal and 1 homecooked meal. Tari usually gets homecooked with some kibble mixed in. He used to be on a 100% homecooked diet that I made by using an excel spreadsheet. All three also get various supplements, like fish oil (fish BODY oil), vitamin E, CoQ10, glucosamine, chondroitine, MSM and vitamin C. Not all the time or all at once, of course. Their diets are NOT grainfree, reasons being very simple:

A. They don't have problems with grains (no allergies etc.) and

B. I don't believe grains are bad for all dogs.

I love winter

2010-12-19T18:58:00.000+01:00

here's why:

-14 degrees C + 38cm of snow = no mud, no horse-flies and no mosquitos (we live near a wetland), happy people and happy dogs. :)

Wetland -> Snowland

Momo

Shenzi

Tari

PS: Winter is coming in April 2011!

Snow snow snow

2010-12-18T09:17:00.000+01:00

Momo

Tari

Shenzi

We have

2010-10-10T15:29:00.000+02:00

wild boar, roe deer, red deer, wolf, lynx, jackal and bear!

Bear den

Bear den-again

Claw marks

Forest all around us

Foggy forest

RIP red deer (killed by wolves in winter 09/10)

Training wisdom

2010-08-06T09:12:00.000+02:00

Training the chicken to cross the road...
(author unknown)

Pavlov:
...we fed the chicken on the opposite side of the road
each day at 4-pm until the chickens autonomic system
actually began causing the chicken to cross the road at
4-pm without even questioning -why-.

B.F. Skinner:
...on prior occasions when the chicken voluntarily crossed
the road, this behavior was followed immediately by a
reinforcing consequence.

Cesar Milan:
I bullied, chased, poked, and intimidated the chicken
until it raced across the road, because I am a strong
leader!

Barbara Woodhouse:
You just say *Walkies* with the right accent and place
a crumpet on the other side of the road.

Karen Pryor:
...by associating R+ with road crossing and P- with
standing still, with a VR schedule, and offering a reward
in keeping with the Premack principle, we increased the
intensity and frequency of the road crossing behavior.

Bill Koehler:
...a few well-timed pops on the choke chain and the chicken
was happy to cross the road.

Nicholas Dodman:
I gave the chicken fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine,
carbamazepine, and azapirone and then it was happy to
cross the road.

Patti Ruzzo:
I crossed the road, pausing every step to spit a treat out
of my mouth like a human pez-dispenser, and the chicken
followed along, catching the treats.

Electric Collar Advocate:
...whenever the chicken does not cross the road I give it
an electric shock. But do not worry, the shock is no more
than you would feel if you walked on a carpet wearing socks
and it does not bother the chicken at all.
The feathers standing up and the smell of burning flesh mean
nothing. In fact, they are happier having nice clear
communication than they would be otherwise.

Yuppie:
...chickens are just like little people in feather jackets,
and if you love them and give them diamonds and feel sorry
for them all the time, they will be happy to cross the road
for you.

Paris Hilton:
Because I put it in a Gucci bag and carried it.

Shelter director:
Any chickens that do not cross the road will be euthanized
for their own good; the others we will adopt-out tomorrow
for only $200 each. Please send us money so we can keep
doing more of this important work!

HSUS member:
I do not know anything about animals, I have never been around
animals and am not really fond of animals, but we passed a law
mandating that chickens be kept without cages because animals
belong only in the wild and cannot be happy coexisting with man,
so now they are walking wherever they want.

PETA member:
...chickens have the right to live in world without roads.
Any chicken that lives within a hundred miles of a road is
suffering an inhumane existence and might eventually be hit
by a car, so we should kill it today to ensure that
it does not die tomorrow

Under construction

2009-08-31T15:14:00.000+02:00

Too busy to write.