Prancing Pony Farm Maremma Sheepdogs and Mini Dairy Goats
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact us
    • Veterinarian's Letter of Recommendation
  • Mini Nubian & Nigerian Dwarf Goats for Sale
    • Kids for Sale
    • Adult Goats for Sale
    • Breeding Plan Goats
    • The Doe Code
    • Our Dairy Goat Herd
      • Mini Nubian Does
      • Mini Nubian Bucks
      • Standard Nubian Does
      • Nigerian Dwarf Does
      • Nigerian Dwarf Bucks
      • Past Kidding Seasons
        • 2024 Kidding Season
        • 2023 Mini Nubians
        • 2023 Nigerians
  • MSCA Registered Maremma Sheepdogs for Sale
    • Maremmma Sheepdogs for Sale
    • Why Choose Us?
    • Our Puppy Reservation Process
    • Available Puppies
    • Maremma Puppies - Current & Past Litters
  • Livestock Guardian Dog Training
    • Livestock Guardian Dog Training & Consulting
    • About Kim Crawmer
    • Family Dog Mediation
    • Keeping Kids safe With LGDs
    • The Perfect Formula for Training Incredible Livestock Guardian Dogs
  • Wether Giveaway
  • Free Goat & LGD Membership
  • Prancing Pony Farm Blog
  • Goat Care Info
    • Dairy Goat Blog
    • Bringing Home Your New Goat
    • Health concerns of your new goat
    • Dairy Goat FAQ's
    • Goat Care Articles & Links
    • Clicker Training Goats
    • Supplies for Goats
    • Feeding Mini & Dwarf Baby Goats
    • Housing Does & Kids
    • Goat Parasites
    • Annual Disease Testing of Goats
    • Goat Hoof Trimming
    • Milking Dairy Goats
    • Milking Nigerian Dwarfs versus Mini Nubians
    • Our Dairy Goat Milking Parlor
    • Disbudding Mini & Dwarf Goats
    • Mini Nubian Ears
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact us
    • Veterinarian's Letter of Recommendation
  • Mini Nubian & Nigerian Dwarf Goats for Sale
    • Kids for Sale
    • Adult Goats for Sale
    • Breeding Plan Goats
    • The Doe Code
    • Our Dairy Goat Herd
      • Mini Nubian Does
      • Mini Nubian Bucks
      • Standard Nubian Does
      • Nigerian Dwarf Does
      • Nigerian Dwarf Bucks
      • Past Kidding Seasons
        • 2024 Kidding Season
        • 2023 Mini Nubians
        • 2023 Nigerians
  • MSCA Registered Maremma Sheepdogs for Sale
    • Maremmma Sheepdogs for Sale
    • Why Choose Us?
    • Our Puppy Reservation Process
    • Available Puppies
    • Maremma Puppies - Current & Past Litters
  • Livestock Guardian Dog Training
    • Livestock Guardian Dog Training & Consulting
    • About Kim Crawmer
    • Family Dog Mediation
    • Keeping Kids safe With LGDs
    • The Perfect Formula for Training Incredible Livestock Guardian Dogs
  • Wether Giveaway
  • Free Goat & LGD Membership
  • Prancing Pony Farm Blog
  • Goat Care Info
    • Dairy Goat Blog
    • Bringing Home Your New Goat
    • Health concerns of your new goat
    • Dairy Goat FAQ's
    • Goat Care Articles & Links
    • Clicker Training Goats
    • Supplies for Goats
    • Feeding Mini & Dwarf Baby Goats
    • Housing Does & Kids
    • Goat Parasites
    • Annual Disease Testing of Goats
    • Goat Hoof Trimming
    • Milking Dairy Goats
    • Milking Nigerian Dwarfs versus Mini Nubians
    • Our Dairy Goat Milking Parlor
    • Disbudding Mini & Dwarf Goats
    • Mini Nubian Ears
Search

Categories

All
Aggression In Dogs
Alpacas
Animal Loss
Bloat
Breeding Candidates Puppy Program
Breeding Decisions
Breeding Dogs
Breeding Rights
California
Clicker Training
Contract Violations
Counterconditioning
CRM
Customer Service
Desensitization
DNA Testing
Dog Behavior
Dog Training
Dreams Come True
Drought
Ethics
Farming
Feeding Goats
Focusing On What Matters
Goats
Goat Training
Health Testing
Hip Dysplasia
How To Choose A Maremma Breeder
How To Raise And Train Outstanding Livestock Guardian Dogs
Husbandry
Illegally Bred Puppies
Karen Pryor National Training Center
Keeping Animals Cool
Limited Registration
Maremma Sheepdog Open Forum
MSCA Code Of Ethics
Orthepedic Foundation For Animals
PennHip Testing
Positive Reinforcement Training
Positivity
Puppies
Puppy Contracts
Puppy Scams
Puppy Training
Resource Guarding
Responsibility
Scam Artists
Science
Sheep Paint
Socialization With Stock
Social Media
Theft
Travel
Umbilical Hernias
Valley Veterinary Services
Voiceover
Zoo Goats

Archives

March 2025
October 2024
August 2024
May 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022

This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings (click inside this section to edit the settings):


Current Number Of Columns are = 1

Expand Posts Area =

Gap/Space Between Posts = 10px

Blog Post Style = card

Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

A Tale of Two White Dogs

7/27/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
This is a guest post by one of my Maremma clients, Violet Qu. Violet owns Cotton Candy (CC), a puppy from my May 2022 Sevro x Polar litter. Violet also owns a Great Pyrenese named Marshmallow. Violet took the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Foundations course before bringing CC home. She has been extremely succesful in training CC and a lot of the reason why is the excellent knowledge and skills the course gave her. I asked Violet if she would write a "review" of the course for my email newsletter and she did such an excellent job that I invited her to do a guest post on the blog. Enjoy!

A Tale of Two White Dogs, by Violet Qu
The big dog on the left is Marshmallow. He came to me as an 8-week-old fluff ball, with a mission to keep my chickens and barn cats from being picked off by the big bad wolves. He was my first dog. I didn’t know what I was doing. I watched a lot of Zak George videos and took a puppy training class over zoom (it was during Covid lockdown) where I learned to manipulate his body by using a lure. For the most part, things worked fine. Marshmallow learned to sit, lie down, stand up, shake, crawl, and so on. He even learned to fetch, which is somewhat unusual for a Great Pyrenees. But sometimes, when I asked him to do something, he would suddenly have this unbearable itch that he had to scratch, and then he would yawn, and then he would give a sideways glance at the ground before performing the task in slo-mo. I coined it “emergency itch” and sometimes asked with a sarcastic tone “really? must you right now?” For months, he was mouthy and I just ignored it. Everything I read said it would stop if I just kept ignoring it.


At the age of 1, Marshmallow’s guarding instincts kicked in in full force. He ran around the ranch barking and chasing coyotes at night, and often looked exhausted in the morning. However, the mouthiness remained. And he was also chewing just about everything I didn’t want him to chew on. Even though Marshmallow was doing all he could to guard my small ranch, I still had 2 chickens disappear without a trace and a barn cat mauled by what I could only imagine a coyote (the kitty fully recovered after veterinary intervention). The coyotes did not fear him. They kicked dirt at him from the other side of the fence. It was clear to me that Marshmallow needed a partner.


A few months later, Cotton Candy joined the family as a 3-month-old from the Prancing Pony Farm, where she had already learned many life skills as a livestock guardian dog. 


In preparation of CC’s arrival, I took the Dog Trainer Foundations online course from the Karen Pryor Academy. It turned out to be more helpful than I expected. Throughout Marshmallow’s puppyhood, I had been ransacking the internet for positive reinforcement dog training tips. But tips are exactly that: a melange of “do x” instructions. The DTF course provided me with the structure I needed to internalize the positive reinforcement training concept. I am not known for following instructions. So if a training tip says step 1: wait for behavior, step 2: click, step 3: treat, I’ll more than likely mess up the timing or order or skip a step. But if I understand the building blocks to positive reinforcement training, then I can “derive” my own instructions time and time again and always get it right. Other than the science and mechanics, I also found the chapter on understanding dog language really helpful. Marshmallow’s “emergency itch”? That’s stress. His yawning? That’s stress. Mouthiness? Yup, still stress. That poor pup! The whole time he’s been gently telling me that he could use a bit more support, and I’ve been an idiot trying to wait it all out. What also dawned on me, is that a lot of what I thought / was labeled positive reinforcement, wasn’t reinforcement at all. Dangling a piece of bacon to get a dog to sit is bribery, or non-contact coercion, if you will.


Now back to CC. She has received positive reinforcement training at Kim’s since the day she was born. By the time she arrived on my ranch, she knew how to mand and target really well. And that gave me plenty of opportunities to reinforce her and quickly build a trusting relationship. Eventually I taught her to shake, only because she looks incredibly cute doing that. But by golly she was so polite and never pawed me for attention like Marshmallow did when he was a pup. She knew that manding gets her attention and treats, and giving me her paw only when I ask gets her praise and treats. I haven’t intentionally taught her to come, but she figured it out because every time she comes to me she gets pets and she might even get to lick my face. She has a pretty good “go to bed” from a single training moment. It was her birthday and I had a serrano ham bone for her. I wanted to let her have it in the kennel without being bothered by Marshmallow. I walked towards the dog bed once we entered the kennel and she hopped on it. On the spur of the moment, I clicked, then gave her the ham bone. I later put it on cue, but really, the “go to bed” action was learned in just 1 event. 


She’s been here about a year now, and CC has never had an “emergency itch”. Now isn’t that interesting! More interestingly, Marshmallow’s “emergency itch” and chewing all but disappeared after CC’s arrival, which roughly coincided with the beginning of proper use of positive reinforcement on my end. Was it me? Was it CC? Only Marshmallow knows. What I do know is that with 2 happy relaxed dogs, my life has gotten easier. And we’ll just end the story here and live happily ever after.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Hi I'm Kim. I have been an avid animal lover all my life but goats and dogs are my favorites so I built a business around them, breeding registered Mini Nubian & Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats and MSCA registered Maremma Sheepdogs. I love sharing my passion and knowledge of these amazing creatures with others.

    RSS Feed

    Subscribe to Our Blog

​"Above the arch there was a lamp, and beneath it swung a large signboard: a fat white pony reared up on its hind legs. Over the door was painted in white letters:
​The Prancing Pony by Barliman Butterbur."
~ from The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings.

Picture
Reserve My Maremma!
Reserve My Dairy Goat!
Picture
Contact Us
We are located in Lemoore, California.
Get Our Free Maremma Buyers' Guide!
Picture
Picture
Visitor Policy
Picture
Amazon Disclosure: Prancing Pony Farm is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact us
    • Veterinarian's Letter of Recommendation
  • Mini Nubian & Nigerian Dwarf Goats for Sale
    • Kids for Sale
    • Adult Goats for Sale
    • Breeding Plan Goats
    • The Doe Code
    • Our Dairy Goat Herd
      • Mini Nubian Does
      • Mini Nubian Bucks
      • Standard Nubian Does
      • Nigerian Dwarf Does
      • Nigerian Dwarf Bucks
      • Past Kidding Seasons
        • 2024 Kidding Season
        • 2023 Mini Nubians
        • 2023 Nigerians
  • MSCA Registered Maremma Sheepdogs for Sale
    • Maremmma Sheepdogs for Sale
    • Why Choose Us?
    • Our Puppy Reservation Process
    • Available Puppies
    • Maremma Puppies - Current & Past Litters
  • Livestock Guardian Dog Training
    • Livestock Guardian Dog Training & Consulting
    • About Kim Crawmer
    • Family Dog Mediation
    • Keeping Kids safe With LGDs
    • The Perfect Formula for Training Incredible Livestock Guardian Dogs
  • Wether Giveaway
  • Free Goat & LGD Membership
  • Prancing Pony Farm Blog
  • Goat Care Info
    • Dairy Goat Blog
    • Bringing Home Your New Goat
    • Health concerns of your new goat
    • Dairy Goat FAQ's
    • Goat Care Articles & Links
    • Clicker Training Goats
    • Supplies for Goats
    • Feeding Mini & Dwarf Baby Goats
    • Housing Does & Kids
    • Goat Parasites
    • Annual Disease Testing of Goats
    • Goat Hoof Trimming
    • Milking Dairy Goats
    • Milking Nigerian Dwarfs versus Mini Nubians
    • Our Dairy Goat Milking Parlor
    • Disbudding Mini & Dwarf Goats
    • Mini Nubian Ears