My little Savvy girl's session from today And yes, terrible top 40s music is REQUIRED for all 5am training sessions XD

http://youtu.be/yIAtiSbdM4c

Great progress!

Looking great age wise, when would you expect her to be 'mature'?

 Quote: Jamie Craig

My little Savvy girl's session from today And yes, terrible top 40s music is REQUIRED for all 5am training sessions XD

http://youtu.be/yIAtiSbdM4c

OMG, that's the savviest critter ever

She looks wonderful!

Have you found you had to spend more time on socialization? The Coyotes here aren't scared of much and are not naturally weary, not like the wolves. The foxes here will make their home in the dog house and play with the dogs if not kept in check (Not on my property, the Leonberger makes sure all wildlife keeps a safe distance).

 Quote: Niomi Smith

She looks wonderful!

Have you found you had to spend more time on socialization? The Coyotes here aren't scared of much and are not naturally weary, not like the wolves. The foxes here will make their home in the dog house and play with the dogs if not kept in check (Not on my property, the Leonberger makes sure all wildlife keeps a safe distance).

No matter how much socialization i do, she still won't be "people sound" like dogs are. However I've managed to restrict her neophobia to people specifically and mostly as it relates to where their eyes fall. She can walk through the petstore and do her OB....as long as people aren't trying to stare her down, we have a system of moving around public areas that's usually her smoothly weaving in and out of things and staying out of sight and in general, she's so quick and smooth and well timed with her movements people won't notice her, for as long as she does that, she's okay. I you want her workable around people in general it takes about 15-20 times of careful work (less if the people have dogs, she'll read the dogs and make an opinion on the people). For example at agility class she can work on her OB around the regulars with dogs she knows and likes, but she'll still "bunker down" under a table and watch when a new person comes in and it takes her at least about 5 minutes to form an opinion on them (for example, if you have a happy dog with you, her opinion is you don't eat canines....if you don't have a dog it's assumed you do eat canines until proven otherwise, and if you come in correcting your dog hard and it's giving appeasement and calming signals she won't go near you.

Keep in mind this is after 6 months of 24 hour on person contact (I would even bring her on errands to walmart and the tucked in a specially modded mini cooler as a puppy, it was designed for complete stealth so that she could openly people watch and listen and no one could see her or know she was there. Plus I will never complain about dog fear periods again after the hand holding through her first couple....we literally had weeks where she would be fine then without warning in the middle of a session it would hit and last a few days and to even get out of the area we were in it would be 2 hours of sitting in the corner doing click-treat and touch work just so we could pack up. Thankfully she's through those kinds and has come out of them more stable each time...but I've never seen anything like it...

Perhaps you should consider work with autistic kids, Jamie.

I think maybe you could change some youngsters life forever. You have a tremendous gift.

Great job.

I think they are way ahead of dogs when it comes to basic /intelligence/learning but I've always heard they can't be trained like a dog.

I guess no one tried markers.

I think "fear periods" are much more normal to the wild canids simply because it's a survival tactic/gene that we've bred out of "most" dogs.

If a wild canid investigated unfamiliar objects with the enthusiasm we expect a good dog to do the wild canid would quickly be out of the gene pool.

Interesting Jamie! Thanks for sharing the info!

I will say, I have never seen a young coyote around, or following us on the trails. It is always an adult.

From your description, most likely the young coyotes probably stay far away while going through their natural maturation stages, then become more confident with age. I would be interested to know if Savvy follows that same progress. Please keep us updated

Amazing! You have some incredible abilities, Jamie.