[Kenneth Niles Bora]

How long did it take you to learn to read?


Deer season let me catch up on my reading. Two of the freshly finished books spoke of reading the dog, and being able to read a dog. Here on RTF we talk about it all the time. We have all sat next to that person in every gallery of every test or trial who instantly reads every dog on line and proclaims his/her observations aloud for all to hear. I sometimes think I must be a slow learner. It takes me a while, interacting with a dog to start to read. Some people I regularly train with, with dogs I see all the time I can get to know. When that person and I are on the same page of the same training program I can for example be able and ready for the exact gunner help before the handler asks. Other times, or working at tests dogs will still do something and I will not have a clue as to why and when I ask the grizzled veterans next to me will have such a simple answer ready for example "I could tell that dog never saw that long mark. And you could tell by the way it lined up it didn't want to go that close to those bird crates so it fell off the hill" Come on! Seriously how can you know that at a glance? How long did it take you to be able to know that? How long did it take you to learn to read a dog?

Ken Bora

 

[Matt McKenzie]

I have to fall back on the words of the great Groucho Marx (or maybe it was his brother, Karl). "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read". So there you have it.

 

[blind ambition]

Oh I was a pretty precocious child Ken, I was whippin' through those Dick an' Jane classics in the first week of Kindergarten!

I am barely literate when it comes to "dog" but I know if I want to be the trainer he needs me to be I better learn quick. Right now he reads me better than I read him and that's just not fair...to the dog!

 

[Jason Ferris]

Nice poll Ken. We just had a great seminar with Judy (Jay) Aycock down here and she spoke often about reading dogs. I was left with the same feeling of being a slow learner that you mentioned.

Does anyone have any tips on how to learn to read?

Regards, Jason.

 

[FOM]

Does anyone have any tips on how to learn to read?

Yeah...its called experience

Reading a dog is more of an art than a science.....

What is art to one person may be junk to another.....

FOM

 

[Tim Carrion]

"I can read my dogs and some dogs I work with regularly"

I answered this in the present tense but it is still a work in progress.
This took me many years and many dogs. After seeing repeated patterns in gait, eyes,head, ears,...and comparing these to performance and progress in training I hope I've learn a little bit.
IMHO training requires making "reads" of confusion vs confidence, commitment vs obedience, disobedience vs lack of knowledge,etc.

Tim

 

[Jason Ferris]

Yeah...its called experience

Reading a dog is more of an art than a science.....

What is art to one person may be junk to another.....

FOM

Tell me about it. I have had three dogs and can see the results of my failure to read them at critical points in their training in all of them!

Regards, Jason.

 

[Chris Atkinson]

Some of the most impressive dog reading I've ever witnessed was done by Andy Attar at a weekend seminar in Western PA in '98.

Angie-baby was part of that event. The stuff that Andy was able to decipher, read, uncover and more importantly COMMUNICATE to these dogs that he'd known for all of 30 seconds was amazing. It made a life-lasting impression on me.

 

[RemsBPJasper]

I can't say as I have a ton of experience but I like to think I make every effort to learn from each dog I come in contact with, whether mine or not. I've found that I bond very fast and very close to my dogs, so I feel like I'm able to read them really well. I wouldn't say that I could say "oh that dog's going to do such and such" the first time I looked at it, but I believe I could get a grasp if I spent some time with the dog.

Jason,

A lot can be said for experience, but sometimes if you don't know what you're looking for, how will you ever learn it? If you want to learn body language, I'd seriously check out Cesar's stuff. Just watching his shows has helped me learn when my dog is tipping me off to what he's going to do before he does it. Other than that, if you want to learn an individual dog, spend as much time with it as you can. My pup goes everywhere he can with me. I find out a lot more about him during everyday activities than field training really.

Hope that helps some.

Kourtney

 

[Howard N]

I almost voted I

can read a dog the first time I see it from 50 yards away sitting in the gallery

But I didn't. I can read the dog first time I've seen it.......... BUT!!! ....... I'm wrong a lot.

 

[Guest]

I almost voted I

can read a dog the first time I see it from 50 yards away sitting in the gallery

But I didn't. I can read the dog first time I've seen it.......... BUT!!! ....... I'm wrong a lot.

I think this is a good point and exactly what I was thinking...

I can get a pretty quick read on just about any dog, BUT sometimes things come out over days/weeks that you wouldn't have recognized right away.

You might say "oh, this dog is soft" which makes sense for what is happening RIGHT THEN (a "data point" as my engineering client says). But then when you spend time interacting and training, you realize the dog may be dominant with avoidance issues that LOOK soft, but aren't.

I think EXPERIENCE is the key. Experience with your single dog and experience with many dogs. The more dogs you have experience with, the more quickly you can recognize the body language of a wider variety of dogs.

You have to watch everything: nose (up, down, did it just smell something?), eyes (focused or distracted?), gait (determined or goofy?), momentum (driving out or considering breaking down?), shoulders (possibility that line is about to change), attitude (comfortable, determined, high, confused, nervous?), posture (same as previous)... and maybe a few other things I forgot.

It does take a lot of experience to look at ALL of those things at once and make a split-second decision about what you're going to do next.

-K

 

[TxFig]

I wonder how much this parallels playing poker?


One of my Christmas presents this year (yeah, I peeked) is Mike Caro's "Book of Tells" - basically it talks about different things people do at the poker table that indicate what kind of hand they have.


I strongly suspect that reading dogs is much the same (except dogs aren't trying to hide what they're thinking or try to give false signals).


So if guys can produce a book on reading people at a poker table, wouldn't it be possible to do the same for dogs? Or maybe one of Ceasar Milan's books does that already?

 

[FOM]

(except dogs aren't trying to hide what they're thinking or try to give false signals)

I don't know....Bullet flat out LIES on the flier....he has done it enough that I know he is full of crap....the black [email protected]@rd!

Anyone who has seen Bullet run can tell you, when the flier goes down, he crouches like he is ready and he knows where the bird is....he is clearly indicating by his body language that he knows where the bird is....but I think he has a screw loose and is kidding himself and letting the excitement get to him.

Anyway, I've learned to give him a firm "Sit" and wait for an idication that the fog of the flier excitement has lifted and "Oh yeah, its there....." move he makes with his head.....

So maybe Bullet isn't trying on purpose to give me false signals, but he does due to the excitement of the flier.

FOM

 

[North Mountain]

Just like some books are harder to read than others, some dogs can be harder to read.

Laura

 

[AmiableLabs]

There is a lot of relativity. Dogs are different. Situations are different. People are different. One person might be able to read some dogs, all the time when they are in a certain situation. Another person might be able to read all dogs, some of the time, in all situations. Rare is the savant that can read all dogs, all the time, in all situations.

One thing I know for certain, and to which there is no relativitiy -- I always think I am good at reading dogs until I listen to someone like Mitch Patterson who really is. :?