Clothier - And One of the Best Blog Posts Ever...

Yes, I wish more trainers here were aware that with classes it isn't a "one-size fits all" deal. Unfortunately, we don't have reactive dog classes in NZ (things are rather slow to get to this side of the world) so as a reactive dog owner, I had to choose between either risking all the hazards and overstimulation of a regular dog training class or training alone.

spiritdogs

I think the key is to figure out what the DOG really needs, rather than what you, as the human, want. 

That is one of the most valuable lessons owning a sensitive, reactive dog has taught me- it was hard to accept that Pocket wasn't going to be the star of her agility/obedience class or the type of dog that can go down to the dog park and be best friends with everyone in there, but once I could do that, and adjusted our activities/relationship accordingly- both of our lives got SO much less stressful and more enjoyable - and I believe Pocket's reactivity actually got better, even though we weren't actively training to improve it.

AgileGSD

spiritdogs

AgileGSD

spiritdogs

 

Why would it be considered wrong to hunt with a hunting dog?

Not that all hunting situations are bad, but I think that many rescues would find some of their funds drying up if they placed dogs in situations where they could be injured, subjected to electronic collars, or made to live outside. . That's the reality of life for many hunting dogs,

 

It's also the reality of life for many pet dogs...

 

Sadly, you are right...

 

 

 So why defend shelters/rescues having policies against placing hunting breeds in hunting homes? It's just one more example of how shelter policies (intended not to screen homes but to push someone's agenda) end up preventing dogs from finding homes.

I think it's a very individual thing.  I would be willing to bet that your average BYB lab or golden (what is commonly seen in rescues) is not going to end up being a steller hunting dog.  A dog that retrieves isn't going to automatically be a good hunting dog.  Therefore, if the person wants the dog specifically for hunting, the rescue has to make a decision--refuse altogether or place the dog when odds are that it's not going to do what the owner wants.  Then what happens to the dog?  Honestly, I don't think most retriever rescues would give a rip if you requested an energetic dog who wants to retrieve 'til he drops as a pet, then took him through some hunting training and hunted with him.  But to go looking primarily for a hunting dog, considering how many hunting dogs are kept?  I can see where they might have some reservations.

sillysally

A dog that retrieves isn't going to automatically be a good hunting dog.  Therefore, if the person wants the dog specifically for hunting, the rescue has to make a decision--refuse altogether or place the dog when odds are that it's not going to do what the owner wants.  Then what happens to the dog?

 BC rescues very often test their dogs for working and performance aptitude - seems like a good way to have more potential adopters looking at your getting a dog from your group. It wouldn't be too hard to test a dog for working aptitude/instinct and they could offer to allow the potential adopter to come out and evaluate the dog(s) or bring a trainer to do so. I doubt someone wanting a "stellar" hunting dog will be looking at rescue dogs, more than likely a person looking at rescue dogs is just looking for a dog who can be a pet and work a bit on the side. I would bet that there are dogs capable of that sort of work that show up in sporting breed rescues.

  Dogs who have the instinct to work actually like to work, so finding such a home for such a dog should be considered ideal. But sadly, many shelter/rescue policies aren't aimed at trying to find dogs ideal or even good homes. The purpose of the policies is often aimed at weeding out homes, even good homes that don't do what the shelter/rescue has deemed the one and only right way of having a dog. In a way, these policies allow the shelter/workers to be able to "punish" potential adopters for their supposed wrong by denying them the dog they want. No fenced in yard? No dog door? Have children? Have an intact dog at home? Looking to actually do something with your dog? No dog for you!!!

sillysally

But to go looking primarily for a hunting dog, considering how many hunting dogs are kept?  I can see where they might have some reservations.

  Considering there are more pet dogs being neglected and poorly cared for than hunting dogs and that there are people in every crowd that poorly care for or manage their dogs, I suppose none of us should ever be trusted with dogs.

AgileGSD

spiritdogs

AgileGSD

spiritdogs

 

Why would it be considered wrong to hunt with a hunting dog?

Not that all hunting situations are bad, but I think that many rescues would find some of their funds drying up if they placed dogs in situations where they could be injured, subjected to electronic collars, or made to live outside. . That's the reality of life for many hunting dogs,

 

It's also the reality of life for many pet dogs...

 

Sadly, you are right...

 

 

 So why defend shelters/rescues having policies against placing hunting breeds in hunting homes? It's just one more example of how shelter policies (intended not to screen homes but to push someone's agenda) end up preventing dogs from finding homes.

I don't defend shelters/rescues from placing dogs in hunting homes IF they simultaneously adopt procedures that will protect the dogs from abusive practices.  Unfortunately, a lot of hunters don't want to abide by those procedures.   Many rescues have no problem with adopting to hunters, but they do have objections to the dogs having to live chained outdoors to a dog house, for example.  I think you have to take these things on a case by case basis, and it is the inability of rescues to do this that is problem - I have found rescuers to come in all shades...everything from the "save them all" to the "you must have a fenced yard" to the "who cares as long as the dog gets a home" types.  Common sense is never a bad thing...

spiritdogs

I don't defend shelters/rescues from placing dogs in hunting homes IF they simultaneously adopt procedures that will protect the dogs from abusive practices.  Unfortunately, a lot of hunters don't want to abide by those procedures.   Many rescues have no problem with adopting to hunters, but they do have objections to the dogs having to live chained outdoors to a dog house, for example.

How is this different from adopting to pet owners?

AgileGSD

spiritdogs

I don't defend shelters/rescues from placing dogs in hunting homes IF they simultaneously adopt procedures that will protect the dogs from abusive practices.  Unfortunately, a lot of hunters don't want to abide by those procedures.   Many rescues have no problem with adopting to hunters, but they do have objections to the dogs having to live chained outdoors to a dog house, for example.

 

 

How is this different from adopting to pet owners?

In a lot of cases it isn't different, and rescues often refuse prospective pet owners for similar reasons.  It pretty much comes down to the person's responses on the questionnaires.  You may disagree, but I think some rescues avoid hunters (and pet people who have no fenced yards) because of the shock collar issue.  But, let's not go down that road again.  Just sayin' that it happens.   

My number one requirement in training obedience is that my dog LOVES to do it. One thing I hate seeing in the ring are dogs who look like they are just going through the motions and/or are clearly not enjoying themselves, especially when the handler cracks it and loses it with the dog for their lack of enthusiasm.

I get asked all the time why I would want to trial with a Beagle, and I get told all the time that it's a waste of time/not worth trying because they can't do it. Often we'll go to training and my dog will work better than dogs who are labs, GSDs, BCs etc and it's not about the breed she is but the way I make training fun and exciting.

huski

My number one requirement in training obedience is that my dog LOVES to do it. One thing I hate seeing in the ring are dogs who look like they are just going through the motions and/or are clearly not enjoying themselves, especially when the handler cracks it and loses it with the dog for their lack of enthusiasm.

I get asked all the time why I would want to trial with a Beagle, and I get told all the time that it's a waste of time/not worth trying because they can't do it. Often we'll go to training and my dog will work better than dogs who are labs, GSDs, BCs etc and it's not about the breed she is but the way I make training fun and exciting.

Hey, you said a mouthful there.  I know there's a person around here doing agility with a Beagle, and I trained mine to do all kinds of tricks.  She did like to follow her nose, but she loved playing, and, to her, tricks were like playing with me:-)  Training is all about relationship - and the "perfection" you see at some obedience trials isn't perfection to me unless you also see the pizazz - the look in the eye that tells you the dog in the ring is so happy to be there that he almost can't stand it.  The ones who just do it so they won't get corrected don't have the same presence as the ones working with joy.  JMHO

spiritdogs

Hey, you said a mouthful there.  I know there's a person around here doing agility with a Beagle, and I trained mine to do all kinds of tricks.  She did like to follow her nose, but she loved playing, and, to her, tricks were like playing with me:-)  Training is all about relationship - and the "perfection" you see at some obedience trials isn't perfection to me unless you also see the pizazz - the look in the eye that tells you the dog in the ring is so happy to be there that he almost can't stand it.  The ones who just do it so they won't get corrected don't have the same presence as the ones working with joy.  JMHO

I like to see the pizazz too :) 

But I don't think it's as simple as whether the dog gets corrected or not, because I see some clicker trainers who don't get great work from their dogs - and the excuses that some people come up with for why their dog didn't work well (or at all)! I think the number one important thing in obedience training is knowing how to motivate your dog, and recognizing how that might be different from dog to dog.

My beagle has a VERY high scent drive but she's not really interested in scenting when she's "working" with me. I did train her to do the scent discrimination exercise for fun, though, and in less than a week she had it nailed. Funny that, LOL.

spiritdogs

Hey, you said a mouthful there.  I know there's a person around here doing agility with a Beagle, and I trained mine to do all kinds of tricks.  She did like to follow her nose, but she loved playing, and, to her, tricks were like playing with me:-)  Training is all about relationship - and the "perfection" you see at some obedience trials isn't perfection to me unless you also see the pizazz - the look in the eye that tells you the dog in the ring is so happy to be there that he almost can't stand it.  The ones who just do it so they won't get corrected don't have the same presence as the ones working with joy.  JMHO

  Some of the dogs who lack pizazz have been trained with "all positive" methods. Often the stressed, worried, "shut down" dogs in obedience ring stems from incomplete or poor training. I have known dogs who have never even worn a training collar that most people probably were convinced were harshly trained when they saw them in the obedience ring. These dogs lagged, looked sad, tried to leave, etc. Poor training, regardless of methods tends to produce stress in the ring.

 As for breeds, it goes both ways. If you have a breed people consider to be "easy", everyone has an attitude of "well of course your dog can do it, he's a __________". One of my 4H girls has a rescue BC and at judging last year our judge admitted she scored her harder because "she has a Border Collie, so it's easier for her". The judge also admitted to scoring a kid with a Mastiff who did almost none of the behaviors and kid tried to man handle his dog into position much easier because he "has a big, hard headed dog". The girl with the BC still won and very much deserved to but her dog worked beautifully for her and there was only a 5 point difference between her score and the kid with the Mastiff who literally fought his dog every step.

AgileGSD

Some of the dogs who lack pizazz have been trained with "all positive" methods. Often the stressed, worried, "shut down" dogs in obedience ring stems from incomplete or poor training.

This is true, although it goes beyond hat as well to take into account overall temperament.  Shimmer has been trained in one of the most positive ways you can imagine.....she can tolerate no corrections, not even an "ah ah" or "wrong". And she still can act laggy, dull, and unhappy in some situations.

She is quite stressy naturally, and she gets stressed out quite easily. It is a challenge because I do want her to find it fun, as I won't push her into something she cannot handle (or I try not to....she has found ways to let me know we've gone too fast) and she finds it fun in most contexts, but not in all. It's partly why we haven't trialled up until now. Now that she is mature, and is learning to handle stress better (she'll always have a ceiling, but we keep pushing it slowly, and she's coming around!) she's entering her first Rally trial this summer, despite the fact she's known all the behaviours since six months of age. In context A, she flies through it with tail up, happy grin, and wiggle butt. In context B she will do it tail down, or do it slowly. In context C she might not do it at all. That has been our challenge, although I'm proud to say we are getting there, especially now that she has reached maturity, and we are doing Rally-O and agility and she's having a lot more fun.

But it can happen, regardless of teaching method.

Kim_MacMillan

AgileGSD

Some of the dogs who lack pizazz have been trained with "all positive" methods. Often the stressed, worried, "shut down" dogs in obedience ring stems from incomplete or poor training.

This is true, although it goes beyond hat as well to take into account overall temperament.  Shimmer has been trained in one of the most positive ways you can imagine.....she can tolerate no corrections, not even an "ah ah" or "wrong". And she still can act laggy, dull, and unhappy in some situations.

Sooo... the dogs in the ring, lacking Pizzazz.  Were they trained "positive only" (urgh, shudder, hate that term!) BECAUSE of their temperament.... or is it that their training has never put them under any "stress", so the stress of the ring is not one they can work through with confidence?  Or is it that the training was poor, regardless of the method?  Or is it something else?  And CAN you really tell, by looking at the dog (and not knowing he background) what is causing the lack of pizzazz?

I don't think an outsider can really tell why the pizzazz is lacking. Somebody could look at Shimmer on a "bad day" and think I use heavy methods, or that she is sensitive, or _________. People can say all kinds of things. Without knowing her in depth, knowing how she acts in different situations and watching training in action, no one can really make a statement on the "why" of anything. The only statement one could make is that regardless of the reason - the dog is unhappy with the situation. And that should not be ignored.

I too hate the term "positive only", but it's a term that most at least understand here, which is why I think it is used. I use the same principles to teach Shimmer that I would any dog, but her stress level and her temperament does affect the context in which we train. I don't ever put her under so much duress that she cannot cope, while at the same time try to expose her to a sufficient level of stress in which she can work through it and come out confident and learn from the experience. It is often a fine line, because a small move can either make or break a training session, so it takes active observing of her body language and what she is telling me. She's taught me a lot about working under threshold, while slowly exposing her to ever-more-complex environments.

I don't really separate poor training from "not putting dogs under any stress" - they are often the same to me. Training in situations that never puts a small bit of social stress on a dog (the simple act of increasing distractions is a stressful event - we need to differentiate good stress from bad stress though) is poor training IMO. Inadequately preparing a dog for the stresses and high-activity, high-strung environment of some trial/show environments is doing a dog a disservice and setting the dog up to fail, just as much as undertraining the actual behaviours. But with any dog you have to know its limits and work within them.

Every dog has a limit to which is cannot handle, coping strategies are (I believe) as much genetic as they are environmentally nurtured. It is epigenetic - it is not solely environment, or solely genetics, but how the two interact that make the end result. Within the genetics you can only work so much, but within those genetics too you can also nurture great things. That's where being a good trainer really comes in to play, because to me a great handler not only teaches the A-B-C's of the sequence of behaviours, but does so in such a way that prepares the dog for the actual event so the dog will endure the right level of stress (very few dogs can be said to be stress-free at these events), and be able to work through it.

Which is why I have not forced Shimmer, for example, into trialling until she was ready. To have thrown her into that level of stress, would have made me a poor trainer to ignore the fact that at that point in her training, it was too much stress. Now she is able to handle that level of stress, so we proceed. I know personally every dog I work with, is worked only at the pace that will most benefit the dog. Gaci was able to trial in agility at the end of her first year of training. Shimmer will take another several months before I would consider placing her in an agility trial, although she will enter a Rally-O trial in July. But, in the meantime, Shimmer comes to agility trials and we do training there, use the practice equipment, and I will walk her on the grounds to let her absorb the "atmosphere" - the smells, the pheromones (human and dog), let her observe dogs running and the noises that accompany it. I work with her levels to see how I think she is doing, as if she finds the general environment stressful, then she will find the actual event even more so (as it has the added effect of my stress as a competitor).

Kim_MacMillan

I don't think an outsider can really tell why the pizzazz is lacking. Somebody could look at Shimmer on a "bad day" and think I use heavy methods, or that she is sensitive, or _________. People can say all kinds of things. Without knowing her in depth, knowing how she acts in different situations and watching training in action, no one can really make a statement on the "why" of anything. The only statement one could make is that regardless of the reason - the dog is unhappy with the situation. And that should not be ignored.

I too hate the term "positive only", but it's a term that most at least understand here, which is why I think it is used.

  ITA, unless you know the dog/owner you can't assume dogs acted stressed at a trial must be trained with harsh methods. You also can't assume dogs with up attitudes were trained with "positive only" methods. (I know "positive only" rubs a lot of people the wrong way but it is the easiest way to say a trainer who isn't using physical corrections to get behaviors.) The dogs I mentioned were trained that way because that is how their owners choose to train, not because of a temperament issue the dog has.

ITA, unless you know the dog/owner you can't assume dogs acted stressed at a trial must be trained with harsh methods.

That's right, and I'm sorry I didn't say that at the get go.  I would not presume to comment on a dog's pizzazz, or lack thereof, unless I knew the dog and handler, and how they operate.  Sorry to have started a bruhaha on that one.