Are you a crossover?

interesting...

Well, my first experience traning a dog was about...I want to say 11 years ago, with my very first dog, a Spanish mastiff, at the time, we did it with a choke chain, which we used only ocassionally and never to the point of hanging the dog, and no food rewards, strictly praise. We took sort of a class that was basically an ongoing thing, we got together every saturday and worked for about an hour or so, all under the supervision of a guy that made his money as an investment consultant or something and training dogs was his passion. We got fairly good results, I had a great relationship with my dog, the one thing I LOVED about that "class" that i haven;t seen ever since is that at the begenning of each class we would havea "socialization" time, wehre we all stood side by side, about three or four feet appart with our dogs sitting by our sides...and we would take turns heeling with the dogs "weaving" thru the other oweners and dogs. THAT made my dog incredibly tolerant to other dogs, to the point where he basically didn;t care about them. That dog actually looked forwards to saturday mornings..he would get all excited about it, even though we did use some +P and there was no food involved during the whole thing. We did that for a while then I left my parents house and the dog's traning came to a stop.

I got my own dog a little less than a year ago, a Fila pup, first we enrolled him in a puppy class at petco, with great results. Then we took a clicker traning class, which was ok, but I was truly dissappointed, mostly because the actual trainer never showed up, she always sent her "assistant" to teach class, and as nice and attentive as the assistant was it struck me that she didn;'t have enough experience nor knowledge about the whole thing to do it on her own. But nevertheless we got some results out of it, and reading on our own we understood what this person was doing wrong and we corrected it on our own. Right now we went back to our petco trainer, so far we've done everything with "possitive methods", we use food as bait and to get the dogs attention but seldomly as a reward, and we're getting great results.

The common ground I have in training these two dogs is that even though the methods are different, I spent a lot of time working with them. I believe that at the end of the day, our dogs WANT to be with us, so I figure that that's why my dogs look forward to the training sessions.

I'm a convert.
 
When I first got Maddi, at 4 months, I knew that I wanted to spend the time training her but I really had no idea how to do it.
 
I looked online for malamute specific training. I cam across the article and one of the references was the Monks of New Skete. This, in the entire reference list, was, of course the only book my library carried. At about 5 months, I began traditional training with a choke and also some treats. Anyway, I was always concerned that I was doing it wrong. I was constantly having to "roll" my dog and snarl at her because she "knew" she'd done wrong... etc, ect.
 
Entire I-dog and, slowly, a switch in mentality.
 
Then: I had a misbehaving dog that I always had to correct. She did not like training one bit. She was constantly nipping as well.
Now: Still misbehaves but can be redirected. Eager to learn and enjoys training sessions. She no longer nips unless we're playing (and, yes, I'm working on it).

*Raises Hand* I think this is going to be a bit of an epic, so bare with me.
 
We trained our first two dogs (an Akita mix named Ananda who sadly met with a tragic end after only one year of living with us, and Conrad) with the usual dominance-theory, choker collar, aversive methods. Granted, neither DH nor I really has the heart to do something like hang a dog, so we never went that far, but we definately subscribed to the old theories of dog behavior and training. We had to show those dogs who's boss and we really felt like doing so was in the best interests of the dogs.
 
We trained them both in basic household obedience. We never took classes because we figured we could do it ourselves. Both dogs got a solid sit and down and a bag of other commands (go to your spot, back up, go home, scram, that kind of stuff). Given where we lived, loose-leash walking was never important and recall, while important, would have been difficult for any dog given the cornucopia of distractions available (we lived on a peninsula in Sothern Maryland, with a beach on one side of the house and woods on the other).
 
I think the thing that comes to mind most when I think back on how we did that is frustration. It was really frustrating because dog training turned into a battle of wills almost instantly. Ananda was a very self-posessed dog and he'd be quite happy to just walk right away from you if he didn't feel like complying. And then he'd run if he could. And then it would be a big game to him and then I'd feel all pissed off that my dog didn't respect me. Conrad, on the other hand, is a bloodhound mix and very sensitive and passive-aggressive, true to his breed. With him it really was like staring down that 3 year old who won't eat their vegetables but instead just clamps their mouth shut and sits there in silence. It was just incredibly frustrating and it made me irritated at my dog, and that's not a fun emotion to have.
 
Certainly I didn't ruin either dog and my relationship with them was on the whole good, and they learned their basic obedience and manners in a fairly timely manner. They each had a couple skills that they were never really able to get and eventually we just gave up and with Ananda, it proved to be his downfall. Neither dog ever learned good recall and Ananda was struck by a car after backing out of his collar while we were visiting my parents in the city. We tried to train Conrad for recall by the New Skete method of yanking him around on a long line, but it never happened. We just figured he was a hopeless case and moved on.
 
The shelter I volunteer at has a very small little lending library and I borrowed "The Culture Clash" right before I adopted Marlowe, when we first started considering getting another dog.   I've never had to start totally from scratch like we did with him and I kept that book on my bedside table for way longer than I should have had it out and re-read various parts of it multiple times, trying to figure out just what the living heck I was supposed to do with this dog. Ananda and Conrad both came to us with house training and at least "sit" to a moderate degree. They'd both lived in houses with families before. Yes, they were unsuccessful in those houses for various reasons, but they had some basic pet dog skills. Marlowe had none, aside from his natural rock-solid temperment and a stoic, serious working dog ethic. It was all up to me, and that was really terrifying.
 
When I began to clicker train with Marlowe, it was just....  Well, it was just amazing. It ceased to be a battle of wills and started to be a cooperative process that we both enjoyed. Honestly, I should have known better because I am trained as a teacher of human children and I have an advanced degree in that for gosh sakes! I know that to facilitate learning you provide clear and immediate feedback (we were just talking about this today at my work--I'm a research assistant in a psychology department doing educational research), and you focus on what the student does right, not what they do wrong. So why was I trying to bully and brow-beat my dogs into compliance? I'd never do that with my students.
 
When I read "Bones Would Rain from the Sky" it all just clicked in for me. That is the relationship I want with my dogs, and a positive orientation in training is how to get that. My relationship with Conrad has also changed and I definately notice things about him that give a big heads-up that he was a primarily compulsion-trained dog. He shuts down when confused and because we trained him leash manners with a choker, has a hard time keeping it together when on his martingale (he has a thick neck, but the martingale is not tight enough when cinched to actually act as a choker, though it may supply some sensation of tightening to him). He has less ability to control himself than Marlowe does which becomes really apparent when we come across a prey animal on our walks.
 
So basically my beliefs about training have done a total 180, based on the research I did and the evidence of my own dogs before me that I have. Marlowe and I have a bond that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to have with Conrad, as much as I love him to pieces. When I go out in public with them, everyone always remarks about how they can tell that Marlowe loves his mommy because he just gives me amazing focus and attention when we're working. He wants to be with me and he wants to work for me, and I really couldn't ask for anything more from my dogs.
 
I'm going to start to cross Conrad over in a more formal way soon. I wanted to get Marlowe his CGC before really going back to Square 1 with Conrad. I'd like to get Conrad CGCed too this year and I used to not think he'd ever be able to do that, but now I know we can work together and make it happen.

Excellent thread, Anne.

When I was a kid, people potty-trained their dogs by rubbing noses in it. But I was raised not to tug or pull on a dog or hurt a dog. I kicked a dog once, when I was about 5. I reason now that I was acting out due to the stress of having to stay with this particular babysitter, who's dog it was. I don't think I hurt the dog, per se, though he was startled. By the time I was finished getting spankings and lectures, I never, ever hit a dog again. The way I was raised, if you hit someone, you got hit, and you would no what it felt like, so, don't do it again. Other times I got hit and punished for telling the truth and psychologically abused for being a 13-year-old without a job, but that's another story.

Even though I've been around dogs here and there, I didn't really know anything abou training until I got Shadow. Then I started reading sites on training, especially for Siberian Huskies. Pretty much everything I read worked, and much of it was what one would call +R, except for the scruffing, which worked to, but it is only suitable for certain circumstances and doesn't, as you might point out, correct the behavior, it just stops the current one. Even though Shadow would respond to it, done wrong or with the wrong attitude, it could cause a dog to "shut down." So, I haven't hardly used it anymore. I rely more on +R for training without trying to "rehab" him or presto chango dog into human. He thinks and behaves like a dog and I try to use that rather than fight it. That, and the realization that training, no matter what particular style (treats, clicker, wiggling your nose like "Bewitched") it all takes patience and simple repetition. Since he can get bored easily, I work on obedience at random. During play, or before play. No force, no punishment for disobedience, simply recalling and when he arrives, praise, a treat, or play, and again, and again, and again. Until that action, itself, becomes a habit. Not magic, just persistance and I have that by the truckload. I could give stubborn lessons to mules. Even in the midst of excited play, if I have the ball, I can issue a "down" and he will, and then I toss and he's off like shot.

I understand better his drives and nature and that changes my expectations and training goals. For example, when we visit the in-laws, he will go after their dog at least once during the visit. She is top dog in that house. She is also old and ailing. He's either trying to claim top spot or change her attitude away from alpha bitch. The behavior is unwanted. So, unless I find a better way to train the behavior out of him, he will have to stay home when we go to visit. And that will a day shorter so that he is alone in the yard for only one night. He can handle that as we have been out late at a friend's house before and he was by himself for 3 days when we went to New Jersey with just our neighbor checking on him. As for trying to stop that behavior with the in-law's dog, scruffing worked one time during one visit. Later visits proved that the correction didn't work. He will except it from me because I am his leader but he may think that other dogs should be no more than equal to him and not higher. (Too many chiefs and not enough indians, so to speak). At home, the yard is domain and the neighbors have dogs with which he can visit.

Recent discussions are very interesting in trying to exactly surmise the psychology of a dog. I think the actual answer is a combination of several factors. There are pack dynamics but we are a different species than they are. I have learned some good things recently. Such as things as the sensory differences between dogs and humans. Some of how dogs communicate with each other and how we can use that to better get a point across.

And truth be known, there's not a lot of violence in a wolf pack and a group of dogs will eventually find an order or balance they can deal with. But it is there. And it must be handled, somehow, some way. There are some differences between wolves and dogs, and some similarities. If it were a perfect world, all dogs would learn manners from the time they could walk and all owners would be seeing that this is done. In the same breath, genetics is a murky subject and some are just born to be bad and it can't be helped. In which case, if we are to be good in our animal husbandry, we would have to cull the lost causes, allowing more time for the good dogs that just need some help. But I don't know if I'm qualified to judge which is a lost cause and which is the Dog of the Ages. In the shelter, they all just want love.

Another thing I have learned is better, closer observation. To divert a situation at the onset before it escalates into something wrong. Momma dog will divert or correct, not for rough playing but for playing so rough that it would upset the pack dynamic. That is, she corrects toward doggy survival, not perfect sits and downs and recalls. And she may have to do it several times, which means it's not actually a correction but a re-direction. Otherwise, dogs train themselves. They learn where to find food, how to keep it, etc. We, OTOH, expect these other things from them and they won't learn it by just a correction. There has to be an instruction to do something and a reason for doing it (motivation.), ad infinitum, until obedience becomes as habitual as breathing.
 
ETA:
I have been assimilated. I am borg ...[]

My snapshot learning experience was when we rescued Sassy.  I can remember walking thru the yard and her trying to mouth my arm or ankle.  This was no pup, at least not in size.  She was a 2 y.o. lab and her "mouthing" hurt.  I would turn and sternly point at her and say "no bite".  Her ears would flatten, she'd squint like I was going to hit her and then she'd chatter her teeth in a sort of snarl.  It was frightening and I thought we'd made a mistake in bringing her home.  I had no experience with reactive or fear aggressive dogs.  Mostly out of desperation, I decided to try a different approach.  I knew she was trained to sit, stay, down, etc., so I began using what she knew to my (and her) advantage.  Anytime she'd try to mouth or nip me, I'd ask her to sit, which created the distraction and then I was able to praise, which went a long way towards earning her trust.  I've used that style from that point on and it's worked like a charm []

I think I've always used a combination. I trained our family dog with treats when I was 9 years old after watching a show on TV which showed the use of fish and a whistle to train marine animals. But I also was the only one who could handle this dog during her first baths when she would snap. I also used praise when she would do a behavior I wanted and use a word I wanted her to associate with the behavior. I taught her to "bow" and a lot of other tricks this way.
 
My neighbor introduced me to traditional training with his lab pup when I was twelve. This was not harsh training, but there were no treats and I did use a tug on the leash and the word "no" to set boundaries. This lab pup became my best friend.
 
I learned to deal with fearful animals through the rehabilitaion of a few ex-racehorses fresh off the track, and to this day use some of these same techniques with dogs.
 
30 years ago I studied with a very "old school" Koehler trainer for a couple years and helped him do obedience work with the young working dobermans he bred and trained. This method was definately too harsh and I never embraced the philosophy. But certain parts of it were similar to NILIF (believe it or not!) and I still use some of the leash work.
 
I studied operant conditioning and the benefits of positive reinforcement 15 years ago and use a lot of positive reinforcement when teaching commands, tricks, and tasks. But also felt this was only part of the "whole" picture.
 
At this same time I started adopting messed up shelter dogs and read the book "How to be Your Dog's Best Friend" by the Monks of New Skete. Here was the beginning of finding  the missing puzzle pieces - scruff shakes and alpha rolls aside.
 
I continued to discover more about interacting and communicating with dogs, rather than simply conditioning them.
 
Then, I discovered Cesar's show and put it all together. I took everything I knew, added Cesar's "stuff" to it, and have just kept going.
 
I use it all. To me it's not just about which method is right for each dog, but when it is appropriate to use a method or philosophy depending on what you are trying to achieve. I only throw out what I've found to be brutal, whimpy, or counterproductive to the relationship between dog and owner.
 
 

Great post Angelique.  I find that being somewhere in the middle is the best way to go.  You should be able to give yourself room to slide either way depending on the dog and situation.    

I have trained and bred dogs for years, I gave up breeding when I became a vegetarian, and realized how many dogs are already on the face of this earth, and since then I have been involved with rescue programs and have taken in 3 rescues, 1 German Shep. I purchased.
I love working with large dogs, and I have adapted training methods out there to fit what would work for me. I use a little of everything, cruelty excluded. I have found dogs love to work, and if they can't work they need plenty of exercise. I never attempt to get into serious training unless the animal has been properly exercised, that gets rid of high energy which can be a problem during training. I also don't use food for reward because  I use praise and gentle touch. I know I will get hammered for this one, but I use some of Cesar's methods because they work for me. I haven't rolled my dogs because I haven't found it was necessary. A touch or a bump with my thigh and "shhh" has worked wonders in this dog world of mine.

Great thread Anne!

I'll keep this one pretty short, I hope.

I grew up with all kinds of dogs mostly trained with choke chains and negative reinforcement.  I learned a bit about dog psychology from our family's akita...more about how to get your dog to respect you, really-and how to communicate with him/her.    I also worked at a pet store and learned how to train, or more appropriately, how to encourage and reward normal behaviors, and assign a command to them.  All very positive and very rewarding.  I ended up with a atoo that I loved and was loved by in return.  (And she was a great big ham too)

There are the techniques I used, at first, with my first pharaoh hound, Xerxes.  They worked to a point, but I wasn't too happy with the results.  So I tried a combination of treat-training. verbal bridges and play-training-which worked and I had a very, very happy dog.  Then I come onto I-dog and learn about clicker training and other positive techniques, which reinforced the idea that I had about my training methods. 

Athena is a crossover dog.  I used most of those awful techniques like choker pops, rolling, and other harsh training methods.  As everyone knows[] it seemed to be working with Athena, but, what I didn't realize was I had broken the bond between owner and dog.  Athena didn't trust me and only did actions due to avoidance techniques I had taught her.  She is a rescue with an extremely high prey drive with no socialization, her problems with aggression were offensive, predatorial and very reactive.  I learned the hard way that harsh training only suppressed her problems and made her into a danger with no warning signals.
 
Once I learned about positive only training, rewards in the form of treats first then praise later.  I saw a completely different dog start to emerge.  Athena started to enjoy training instead of just going through the motions.  Before when passing strange dogs I had to keep the choke up the top part of her neck for control...it may have looked like I had control...but, I was only choking the poor thing.  Now, I can walk past another dog and just lure her into a look at me command...that was not possible with harsh training.
 
We now mended the bond that was broken and she is my heart dog.  To have gone through so much with a dog they tend to get closer to you.  I really kick myself for putting Athena through all the choke pop's/corrections, for all the times I may have pinned her.  I'm glad she was confident enough to not be tramatized by it all.   

I didn't know anything about dog training when I got Wesley...  DH and I both grew up with what it turns out were just stellar dogs with great temperments that were able to live very peacefully and happily with their famililes with their only training being to do tricks (which at least in my house, we tought with treats and praise - there were never any aversives (other than my dad yelling sometimes if the dog ate the entire roast LOL)...
 
Enter Wesley - our first dog as adults...  We knew that the right thing to do was to immediately enroll him in an obedience class (which turned out to be a very +R class although we didn't know what to look for, so it wasn't on purpose) and I read some books. I thought we were ready.  Then we realized that Wesley had some issues with reactivity and aggression and were at a total loss.  I went online and started to research agression in dogs.  I found the Leerburg website and got the videos and read all the material and was terrified that the only way to help my dog was to slam him into walls, hang him and bully him into accepting that we would kill him if he stepped out of line.  We got a behaviorist who told us to quit our +R class and recommended grabbing Wes by the collar and shaking him, rather hard, as a correction each time he exhibited the kind of bad behavior that he said showed rank insubordination.  He tried to sell us a shock collar and told us that was the only way to a reliable recall.  I have to be honest - I was really terrified,  I didn't think I had it in me to do these things to my dog - but was also terrified to live with a dog with aggression issues... He growled at the behaviorist who shook him, and how could I blame him, the man grabbed him by the neck and shook him violently??!! So, I kept researching.  I found a whole bunch of other resources including idog and was referred to another behaviorist who confirmed that there was more than one way to do things and then, I found a trainer who has really turned everything around.  I was sold from minute one, when he walked in, put Wesley on a leash and just had him sit by him while he talked to me about Wesley, it was amazing - Wes respected from the getgo!  He listened to what was going on and told me that I could work with Wesley to fix this problem without ever hurting my dog.  He showed me that using whatever motivates a dog to work with you, makes a dog confident, happy and want to work with you.  We have been working with this trainer since.  He is not against tugging on the leash or shaking a can from accross the room to redirect Wesely's attention, but a tug or shake is followed immediately by a command Wesely knows, and compliance earns immediate rewards.  He explained to me that there is no point in a correction that makes your dog afraid to do the behavior again - it is more about, nope, that wasn't something I appreciated - look to me and I will tell you what I DO appreciate, and once you do it, I will immediately reward that excellent behavior.  Now, which do you think the dog will do, the behavior that got him nothing good at all, or, the one that got him the praise, treat, playtime...
 
I can see a marked change in this dog - and other people are seeing it too.  He isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he looks at us for guidance now, he wants to be petted by us - a huge step for him; he is calmer and happier. 

I remember Wesley, and I'm glad to know he's doing so well.  It really is all about the dog understanding what the heck we want!  Good for you, and I'm glad you didn't give up.

I trained my first dog twelve years ago using the Monks of New Skete, and then my second and third dogs with clicker training.

The Monks still have my heart--they are sane good people who love dogs and do a lot of work with positive reinforcement. They are great and subtle with formal obedience training. But behavior issues kind of put me at a loss--I hated having to punish the dog in a theatrical way and it didn't seem to work.

I like clicker training better because it makes more sense as a way to build a relationship with my dog. I like the idea of training incompatible behaviors instead of correcting bad behavior. I am better at giving a dog a time out than scruffing down or yelling at a dog. It works better, I like doing it better, and there is less conflict.

Traditional dog training seems to embrace conflict, while clicker training actually tries to make conflict go away.

Dogs in my family were trained with force and a choke collar.  They were trained to come, sit, go lay down, leave it, stay and walk on a loose leash.  My Grandfather and Great-Grandfather were/are very physical in their approach to training (they trained war guard dogs when cruelty was normal and "necessary").  Of course, this destroyed the nervous/terrified pup they brought home from the pet store. My Great-Grandfather dragged her down the stairs repeatedly as a puppy because she was too afraid to go down them on her own.  Years later and thanks to the bond we developed as we grew up together finally saw her make the triumphant move to come down stairs to me.  It breaks me heart to think of what it took for her to overcome her fear. Anyway, as we grew, I still loved her but I was disappointed not in her personality but in her "lack of training".  She didn't have the confidence to figure things out on her own or learn new things.  I managed to teach her to sing and shake but she was completely damaged by the physical "training" she received.
 
The day I found Dodger my first thought was there is no way I am letting my Grandfather anywhere near him. We started obedience school when he was 4.5 months old and it was by pure luck that it was a clicker training school.  I "scorned" the clicker because Dodger already knew the basics and I didn't see the point in it (what was I thinking?).  I was even more discouraged when it took Dodger 3 days of C&T before he understood what a clicke meant!  So I didn't touch a clicker again until he was 10 months old (I had been trying to teach Dodger to circle for weeks, since everything else had failed I tried the clicker as a last resort, Dodger knew circle by the end of the evening and that was it!). 
I trained Dodger in as positive a way as I knew how as a first time dog owner/trainer. I did go through a prong and leash pop phase when I changed training schools. However, he's had his share of physical punishments when I was too weak and uninformed to stand up to my Grandfather.  One incident in particular has stayed with me and is the driving force behind my "clicker training only motto".  As a 3 month old puppy, Dodger had his 2nd and last accident of his life (so far!).  My Grandfather found the wet spot first, yelled at me to bring the dog and told me to rub his nose in it.  At first I refused but since I was just as afraid of him as the dogs he's trained I "submitted".  I balled my eyes out as I rubbed Dodger's nose in his accident, I can still remember him struggling - completely beweildered at the force and punishment he was receiving.  I became my Grandfather in the moment and I vowed never ever again would I be that weak. Dodger never had another accident after that so my Grandfather has the satisfaction of knowing that the "old school" methods prevailed.  NEVER AGAIN.