Clicker = training???

I had a dog who should have had SA, among other things. She had been abandoned, nearly starved to death, had lost her hair, and had been shot to boot. She was, however, bombproof (and I mean bombproof) when it came to people. She had other issues that worsened when she became my grand "old lady houndie." One of them was ripping up the comforter or blanket on my bed when I left her (to go to work, run errands, etc). I think now that she DID have some SA issues. She also became on-leash dog aggressive. She had been attacked by the neighbor's Golden a few times (weird but true) when she was tied up outside.

Background: When I first got her, my landlord freaked out and told me I had to take her back to the pound. And I turned on the waterworks, but I meant them. I told him no way could I do that to her. The first night I brought her home, I gently bathed her, fed her, and then she slept, hard, for about 12 hours. No way could I take her back. So, he said I had to leave her out during the days (when I was at work--just out of college, got a managerial job about 100 miles away, so I moved there, rented out a farmhouse, and acquired that hound). She learned how to get out of the dog run (surprise surprise) that he kept there, and I bought her a dog house and tied her up. And that's where she was attacked. After my landlord got to know her, and see that she was learning some manners, he said she could stay inside and things went on from there.

We were kicked out of the training class, but it was a Scotch Pines class and looking back now, I'm so glad. (Her barking was impossible, they said--which, duh, was why I wanted in to begin with.) I bought some dog training book and went from there. It was Koehler-based and that's how she learned. When we'd walk and she wouldn't loose-leash it, I'd pop her. When she didn't sit when asked, I'd pop her. When she didn't come when called, I'd go and get her and pop her all the way to where I wanted her. When she wouodn't stay on command, I'd take her back to the spot, say "No" as sharply as I could, and then make her do it again. When I wanted her to be quiet, I'd squeeze her mouth shut and say "quiet" until she she was. When I was tired of her snooping on walks, I popped her until her nose came up while saying, "Keep your nose up." When I wanted her to retrieve, I pinched her ear while I shoved the ball in her mouth.

My point is that this took years for total reliability and that only happened in certain instances. She always wore a "training" collar of some type. I'd have a buckle on on her (for looks) and then I'd have her training collar on her. It took me years to teach her to be quiet with a hand signal that mimicked what I did to her muzzle. It took me years to and lots of reminders/pops to teach her to sit and stay. She learned to loose leash it when we walked, and she loose-leashed walked when other people took her walking, too. She learned to be quiet on a hand signal. But not when she was in the very back of the car, kitty corner to me, where she knew she was "safe" because I wouldn't/couldn't follow through.

When I look back on our relationship now do I wish I'd tried more of what you're trying with Marvin? Yes. Absolutely. When I loosened up some with my hound, and I said, "Let's go find it," she was thrilled. She was right there with me. She was my best buddy who would wander around with me hours afterward. Had I been a better dog owner to my hound, I would have done what Houndlove has been doing. Only later, after going through situations with these two terriers I have now, have I been able to really reflect on what I did right AND wrong with my hound. I wish, now, that I focused more on "what to do" instead of on "what not to do." By that I mean, Don't pull, don't stand up, don't walk off, don't ignore my recall command--things like that. I wish I had been able to build a better, tighter, relationship between us so that she would have run straight to me when I called, would have sat with a smile when asked to, etc. But, my focus was on the "don't do" things and not the opposite.

That said, I do say things to my dogs now. No popping, no body blocks, none of that--but I say, "eh eh" (annoying sound) when they're about to head into somebody's yard. With my hound, I anticipated and I got ready for a pop; with my terriers, I anticipate and I either change the subject (I say "Let's go") or I say "eh eh" (if I'm too late for the other timing-wise). I no longer touch my dogs physically except for loving pats, strokes, etc. No more. No more "training" collars. No more muzzle holds, no more leash pops. No more yanking and popping if they've broken a loose-leash walk. Period. I have been known to take one treat outside and then call them and the first one to me gets it and the other gets nada. I have done that. So yes, I do some "mild aversives," if you can call what I'm currently doing that. I have said, "Out" when I catch them in my garden beds. I have said "Out" when my male puts his whole head in the fridge. What would a ostive-only trainer say? She'd say that I need to focus on giving him something to do when I go the fridge (like "sit on your rug" or something), but we're all human and we all get busy, and I'm not a perfect handler.

I'm getting better and my dogs have really bought into what I'm doing. I wish I had been this way with my hound. 

BTW, should you compromise? Absolutely not. Can Marvin handle a "eh eh" from you or an "Out" or a "Leave it" when he needs it? Only you know how that would affect him. My female can be more affected by an "aversive" than my male and so I have to work harder to be more proactive with her than my male. I can say "Out" to him and he backs out where she stands there, super still, flicking her ears around, seemingly trying to take it all in. Does that make sense?  
 
Edited to add that I wish I would have done some counter conditioning with her leash aggression, too. I managed it and made sure she was safe but I never made sure that she felt safe by working to eliminate the fear she had when she was on leash and around dogs.

Just a quick answer to DPU's thoughts re: positive vs. negative punishment with the added element of time.

If I understand you, you're saying the -P might be more damaging since it lasts longer than many +P techniques - correct? I personally use -P lasting about 5 to 10 seconds w/ puppies (stand up and ignoring for mouthing for example) and up to a few minutes for adult dogs. Many times, the -P I use is ignoring with me still in the room or the loss of a toy for a few minutes. Time outs are generally announced in a neutral or even happy tone: "You won the prize!" followed by leading to the crate or another room and given a chewie - the loss of attention and opportunity for rewards is the punishment of sorts, rather than the specific location of time out.

I see a lot less stress/conflict in dogs using negative punishment vs. positive punishment even with the difference in duration. I wonder if part of it is that the dog never sees the punishment in a fearful light (I don't use timeouts on anxious dogs that would find it very aversive btw) - it's not a harsh aversive by any means in my experience and many of the dogs I've used -P with generally come back fromt he ignoring or isolation with much improved behavior. The use of -P seems to decrease "bad" behavior more quickly than many versions of +P ime as well, yet the dogs don't show the conflict/stress that they do with +P. Sorry, but I don't know why this is exactly.

ORIGINAL: nfowler

BTW, should you compromise? Absolutely not. Can Marvin handle a "eh eh" from you or an "Out" or a "Leave it" when he needs it? Only you know how that would affect him. My female can be more affected by an "aversive" than my male and so I have to work harder to be more proactive with her than my male. I can say "Out" to him and he backs out where she stands there, super still, flicking her ears around, seemingly trying to take it all in. Does that make sense?  

Newfowler,
Thank you for sharing.  You now have a loving and great relationship with your dogs.  But, boy what you had to do get there.  Hopefully by your message others with skip the beginning part and go straight to the end.

Should I compromise?  My committment to this particular dog was "pure" positive training, no negatives.  I sought and selected a behaviorist/trainer from the Truly Dog Friendly group.  Sounds like "pure" positive  does not exist because Clicker Training unintentionally introduces negative punishments.  The compromise as I see it is to lower the reward instead of upping reward for remarkable behavior.  Thats going to make the training that much harder.  Please keep in mind that my concern is the dog's psychy and that is why I am going through this consideration for the dog.   

Newfowler, I did like Buster the show dog's post, do you agree?

One more thing on that, though. The more you work with Marvin, the more trust he'll have for you so that a "mild aversive" (as Buster and others call it) won't break him psychologically, like it might have a month ago, even. Murphy was really anxious, very nervous, and very concerned about his well-being. He's come a long way, and can trust a little "eh eh" from me, and even a couple of "time outs" that I've had to give him (In the crate with the door closed) for the few times he's worked himself up and can't calm himself down. If I were a better and more experienced trainer, I'd do things differently, I'm sure. I'd be more observent, quicker to react, and I'd be lots better at anticipating. I'm getting there, but I'm not there yet.
 
My motto: When we know better, we do better. I know better now than I did 10 years ago but I don't know enough to do even better than I'm doing now.
 
Okay, now I'm kind of freaking myself out here . . .

ORIGINAL: Kim_MacMillan

So if your child was talking loudly in a library, would you repeatedly smack her (or Pssst! her, your choice) every time she did it,just to "stop what you don't want"? Or would you show her what the appropriate voice level was to speak at in the library?

First of all smacking is not even remotely close to "ssshh", second i would tell the kid to stop and thats it, the kid then can look around, stay seated, read a book, etc THATS letting him make his own decisions

ORIGINAL: stardog85

Think of it this way: if you tell the dog not to do something but not what *to* do instead, he has about a million other things he can choose from to do, and without knowing which behaviors are "good" and which are "bad" the dog might choose another wrong behavior and get another punishment/correction, still not know what to do, try again and may or may not do what is "right" for the situation. Dogs don't speak "human" unfortunately and thus I find it much easier to show the dog the right thing to do in a given situation (i.e. set up for success) than to let him try and try and try and possibly fail numerous times and thus get stressed.

Disagree, before i continue i suggest to take the word "punishment" out of the "punishment/correction" estatement, because they are not the same, like in the past example, if a parent tells the kid to be quiet then the parent is only correcting, not punishing

Regarding this example, if i correct the dog from jumping (lets say with a sound like "hey") the dog might stop what he was doing, IF you know what you are doing then you know that you not just correct, forget about it and say hi to the guest, no, you correct and stay there to make sure the dog has taking his attention out of the guest and gives his attention to you, a simple redirection of his attention

Lets say that the doy jumped, i corrected and he starts growling, i correct again, now the dog starts learning which behaviors are good and which ones are bad AND with wich situations, the dog wont be "afraid to move" because if we are outside playing, he jumps and i do not correct, THEN he knows: jumping during playing =good, jumping during meeting a guest = bad

The dog, just like us, learns when and which behaviors are allowed with which situations and when they are not

It seems that some people forget how smart the dogs can be and they treat them like mantally challenged animals that are not allowed to figure things out by themselves

To stick with the jumping on people example, some trainers are successful in teaching a dog not to jump on people by teaching him to sit instead. But I have had many many people in my training classes who have failed using that strategy. What quite a few are actually successful at is teaching the dog to sit immediately after he has jumped on someone. So, they've been terrifically successful at teaching the dog what to do, but they've failed to teach the dog what not to do. To use the child talking in the library analogy, yeah, I might first offer the chatterbox a coloring book to work in instead, but if she continued to blather on, you bet I would tell her to hush. My first warning would be not unpleasant, but if she continued to babble, my tone of voice and overall demeanor would certainly project to her that continuing her behavior would result in unpleasantness (and no, I would not "smack her", and yes, I too am tired of the frequent exaggeration that accompanies any discussion of the use of aversives)...

...Maybe I've just been lucky, but it does get tiresome to have the occasional use of a collar correction, verbal correction, or poke in the neck equated with cruelty, abuse, and physical violence, and to have training to curb certain behaviors characterized as repressing their sentience and ability to make decisions on their own.

I am confused about the exaggeration that accompanies any discussion of the use of aversives as well. Of course nobody here would slap a dog or a child!

To continue with the talking in the library example, you also would not poke or pull on a child, no matter how frustrated you got or how loud she was talking. And for that matter, you wouldn't squirt your kid with water, and you wouldn't just shout "No!" without explaining why (ie, you scared me because you were near the street and streets are dangerous).

And yet we punish kids all the time. We ground them, make them go to their rooms, withhold dessert. We also set limits and expectations for our children. And this strategy works really well as long as parents are consistent.

And when parents are not consistent and kids exhibit bad behavior, we still don't condone poking, shoving or yanking on a child, or even yelling, although we understand that it happens sometimes. We certainly don't expect yelling to work--we expect to have to talk rationally after the yelling is over.

In other words, we expect parents of children to follow through on good parenting without resorting to even fairly benign forms of positive punishment like poking or pushing or yelling. We also see that there is no need for it--that it is counterproductive, that it creates more problems than it solves.

With that in mind, there is absolutely no reason to exaggerate aversives by substituting the word "slap" for "push" "shove" "poke" or or even "collar correction." They are equally invasive and bullying in a human-to-human context, even if they are less painful. I would even go so far as to call a relationship in which I was routinely shoved and poked and yelled at "abusive."

Disagree, before i continue i suggest to take the word "punishment" out of the "punishment/correction" estatement, because they are not the same, like in the past example, if a parent tells the kid to be quiet then the parent is only correcting, not punishing

Well actually punishment and correction ARE the same in my world - assuming the correction is an aversive and decreases behavior then it fits the definition of "punishment" perfectly. Remember I think of "punishment" in the strict "behaviorist" definition: punishment is anything which decreases the behavior.

I know when my mom shushed me I found it aversive - if I hadn't I would've continued the behavior and the shushing would've been ineffective nagging rather than either a punishment/correction.

Lets say that the doy jumped, i corrected and he starts growling, i correct again, now the dog starts learning which behaviors are good and which ones are bad AND with wich situations

PLease do tell me how the dog learns all this from two corrections for different behavior?! Unless your corrections/punishments are strong enough to supress the behavior on the first attempt and your dog is an exceptional generalizer (which most dogs are not) he hasn't learned anything other than "jumping = unpredictable owner" and "growling = bad things continue to happen" (= possible fear and escalation).

ORIGINAL: stardog85

... ineffective nagging rather than either a punishment/correction.

 
Ineffective nagging is not harping.  Ooops, wrong side of forum.  Carry on.  [sm=blush.gif]

ORIGINAL: fisher6000

...Maybe I've just been lucky, but it does get tiresome to have the occasional use of a collar correction, verbal correction, or poke in the neck equated with cruelty, abuse, and physical violence, ...

I am confused about the exaggeration that accompanies any discussion of the use of aversives as well. Of course nobody here would slap a dog or a child!

...

... I would even go so far as to call a relationship in which I was routinely shoved and poked and yelled at "abusive."

[sm=huh.gif]

Stardog: Unless your corrections/punishments are strong enough to supress the behavior on the first attempt   

Perfect. Perfect! That's why Koehler was "effective" and that's why his method stayed on. He truly believed in going to the extreme (as I'm sure you know) so that you only have to do it once.
 
Gives me the heebie jebbies to read through his stuff. And there I was, a Koehler girl myself for such a long time, believe, like a goof, that if I meant it then the undesirable behavior would stop.

So if your child was talking loudly in a library, would you repeatedly smack her (or Pssst! her, your choice) every time she did it,just to "stop what you don't want"?

 
I was raised with the smack, belt, peach tree switch, wooden stirring spoon, whatever was handy.
 
To answer why would we have to offer another behavior at all requires understanding dog psychology. Dogs do not have the level of abstract thought that we do. They are doers. They will decide something if it is not clear to them what to do. Can some dogs be trained with corrections and behave? Sure. Odd things can happen, like the tornado that hit Salt Lake City, Utah a few years ago.
 
Do feral dogs correct each other? Yes. Is that necessarily the way we should always train our dog? Doubtful. For one thing, the correction is good for the moment, but it can be challenged later. Just watch any wolf pack or feral dog pack. Even CM's well-balanced dog will fight back if attacked by a misbehaving dog. He will not simply lie down and take it just because CM does not allow fighting.
 
The other advantage of clicker training is that the dog is always motivated toward your way of doing things. That makes them more likely to listen to you, as opposed to shutting down and not offering anything, including desired behavior because they don't know that they won't get punished for the next thing or rewarded.

From Ron2: Do feral dogs correct each other? Yes. Is that necessarily the way we should always train our dog? Doubtful.

For another, we're not that good with our timing and corrections when it comes to dogs. Not like a feral dog (or, as many like to point out--the wolf) would be. It takes a long time and a lot of training to get the correction to to work just like it should.

First of all smacking is not even remotely close to "ssshh", second i would tell the kid to stop and thats it, the kid then can look around, stay seated, read a book, etc THATS letting him make his own decisions

 
Okay, but that still doesn't answer my question of how you teach your child what the appropriate behaviour IS (which is talking quietly). It appears that even with the child you seek to suppress the behaviour, not show the child what an allowable alternative is.
 

  Do feral dogs correct each other? Yes. Is that necessarily the way we should always train our dog? Doubtful.

Not to mention dogs tend to understand other dogs's corrections, because it's what comes natural to them. Of course there are the odd dogs that either give inappopriate corrections or none at all, but most dogs know how to tell another dog to buzz off. We can't even begin to make the types of corrections that dogs make with each other.

I was raised with the smack, belt, peach tree switch, wooden stirring spoon, whatever was handy.

So, ron, now that you know what you know about clicker training, do you think the principles of positive reinforcement might have been a better way for your parents to have gone?  We often hear the arguments for spanking, etc. from the "I got spanked, and I turned out ok" crowd, but I'm curious about your current perspective on this, having seen such dramatic results with Shadow.  Do you wish now that it had been different?  Do you think you would have achieved more in life, or been happier in any way?

I don 't know if that is a fair question to ask a cross-over.  Afterall they all seem to be in a state of penitent.