What training method do you recommend....Why?

Liesje

They were originally bred to be a versatile working dog, either herding or police/military.  They are not an LGD, they do not guard/protect lifestock.  They move and control the sheep, which is why they need to be correct size and structure, agile, and have a soild, courageous temperament (in order to run into 1000 sheep and bite one to get them all moving).

GSDs that are too guardy and barrier aggressive are generally just GSDs that are bored and somewhat neglected, often they have nerve issues and are fear aggressive.

This is interesting. I guess I just haven't done enough reading and research on guard dogs. I looked up "LGD" to see what you meant and I notice the Great Pyrnees is listed among the LGD breeds. I've seen several programs with these dogs in action. They are very amazing dogs! I mean, to fend off mountain lions?! Wow!

But... she was saying guard dog... probably in the sense of guarding a human. It is true that German Shepherds are often the chosen breed to be professionally trained to be a guard dog (for a human) right?

ShelterDogs

But... she was saying guard dog... probably in the sense of guarding a human. It is true that German Shepherds are often the chosen breed to be professionally trained to be a guard dog (for a human) right?

Well, yes and no.  First, Schutzhund is a sport.  The training and applications are very different than other forms of "protection" (like UKC Dog Sport, ring sport, PPD...). In SchH there are three phases and they all carry equal weight - tracking, obedience, and protection.  Protection is sort of a misnomer I guess, it is not that useful as far as training a real PPD or law enforcement K9.  It is to test the drive, soundness, and courage of the dog, not train the dog to protect anyone or anything.  I have only been doing SchH, and I am somewhat familiar with UKC Dog Sport but not familiar with ringsport or PPD training.

Obviously I am a huge GSD buff but I have never known anyone personally that has trained a GSD to be a "guard dog."  I think what happens is that people who haven't actually trained their GSD to do much of anything excuse a lot of behaviors that indicate temperament problems as "guarding" or "protective" behaviors, or just get a GSD, chain it in their yard and call it their "guard" dog.  The GSD can be a great PPD but it has more to do with their drive and intelligence than any inherent guarding behavior.  I have seen my MIL's 13 year old cocker spaniel "guard" her better than my bitework trained GSD guards me (ie, barking and growling at me, circling her, reacting if anyone moves to quickly toward her).  A good GSD has a clear head, a sound temperament, and is courageous, so they are easy to train to do specific behaviors/tasks.  For example, my 8 month puppy knows "pass auf" which means to get in front of me and bark.  I pat his side, whisper "pass auf" in his ear and he barks incessently until I have him stop.  So it may appear that he is "guarding" me, but this is just a behavior I trained in prey drive and have now named and enforced so that I can turn it on and off when I want.  He can "pass auf" at a perceived threat or "pass auf" at a tennis ball just out of reach.  The key is that *I* am making the decisions, not my dog.

So yes, GSDs can be trained to "guard" humans but I am not sure of how popular this really is.  I know plenty of people (including me) that like having just the visual deterrence that comes from a GSD, but I am very against allowing my dogs to guard anything, myself included.

Yes, a Great Pry is an LGD, their job is to guard/protect livestock.  They are typically raised with livestock and bond with them rather than a person.

Both Belgians and GSDs were multi purpose dogs at the time of their developments. Briards were the French development. I think the multi is the part to focus on. 

They did work as guardians as they were often given a boundary within the common grazing areas and kept the sheep maintained within the area while the shepherd/farmer went off about other tasks.  That is essentially the origin of the description of the dogs as living fences.  The large flock French trials require a demonstration of behaviors found in herding and ScH/FR etc.  At the highest levels the dogs must move the flock along roads, maintain a strung out flock during the passage of traffic.  They must deal with water crossings putting the sheep over the bridge and take the wet path themselves.  There is also a graze without the shepherd's support.  There is a second requiring defense of the shepherd and defense of the flock.

 As to what training style (to keep it a bit closer to topic , it started with breeding.  It included early work with experienced dogs. Most of all it requires M and M.   Miles and miles.

http://www.kuymal.com/The%20First%20Continental%20Herding%20Trial.doc

http://www.herdingontheweb.com/french.htm

Kim_MacMillan

Premack's Principle basically states that a less desirable (or probable) behaviour can be reinforced by a higher, more probable behaviour. Basically, you are using a behaviour to reinforce other behaviours (rather than treats, or tug, or petting). For instance, I have used this quite a lot with Gaci's loose leash walking and focus. Gaci's "focus" on me is generally the less desirable behaviour compared to hunting in her environment. So I can teach her to pay attention to me, with the reward of "going free" to interact with her environment. At first I might only ask for a second of attention before releasing, but now I can ask her to focus on me for the entire length of the yard (1 acre!) before releasing her. She has learned that doing what I want (focus) gets her what she really wants (environmental sniffing).

Or, Gaci's contacts in agility. She has a contact trainer that she loves. basically it's a yellow plank on two steps that she practices her agility contact on. It's her favorite thing to do, and she will elect to do it on her own if she is able to. I have used the behaviour of "contacts" to reinforce some lesser-known or lesser-fun activities by getting her to do a certain set of jumps, and then sending her to the contacts to do her behaviour  there.

It works very well, and it's a little lesser-known than the typical reinforcement of food, treats, and social interaction. Getting to perform another well-liked, well-known behaviour can be very reinforcing for dogs.

I don't have time to respond to the rest, as I'm headed off to work, but I will get back to you on why I choose not to use that television show as a guide or reference in what I do.

This is very interesting.  I have used it too - Max "likes" being asked to "speak".  I don't know, he gets all worked up and wiggles and barks and howls and looks really pelased with himself.  When I was working on his recall and one day found myself fresh out of treats, I tried asking him to "speak" as a reward, because I had nothing on me to offer him, and he is not a dog that is all that keen on petting or praise or whatever.... I was so surprised how well it worked.  I have asked him to do it several times since, and it has helped to keep his recall "sharp", because it makes it more fun for him.  I have believed for a long time that dogs like the feeling of "success!" as much as humans do, they LIKE doing the stuff they know they do well at..... it's why I always try to finish a training session on something that the dog can do well and likes doing.

 I don't use anything that has Capital Letters, per se. I borrow from a lot of things I read and see, from working trainers I admire, to performance trainers, to behavior modification experts.

What I don't do all that well is absorb a single method or theory from end to end because I tend not to like extremes that any method is carried to, in an attempt to apply it strictly. What I mean by that is, I don't find it practical to use 100% "positive" methods helpful when training a dog for working livestock.

I don't even train all my dogs the same way though. I've got a foster dog in recently that I HAVE gone 100% positive with. She's not destined to be a working dog, so it's lots of fun to play with. From there, I worked with my puppy until recently using the same methods, with one small difference - I did train him to recognize one gentle verbal correction.

For household manners, I tend to use R- a good bit. Time is much too short around here to fool with clickers but my pockets are always full of treats and I "mark" things I like, verbally, and treat. Or in Gus' case with a verbal signal. :)

For instance, Sam recently started busting through doors when they were opened. Very bad habit for a stockdog. As soon as I'd grab the knob, he'd press his nose against the doorjam, ready to charge. So I'd walk forward, touch the door, then backed slowly up into the room. He looked at me the first time like I'd lost my mind. Then he followed me until he was walking behind me, but "ahead" of my motion. Immediately I walked forward and praised him, but the second he charged past me, I backed up again.

We repeated this until he decided the best thing to do was to stand about two feet from the door and wait for me to open it.

But to train him to stay in a crate with the door open until given permission to exit, something we are starting this week, I open the door and then shut it quick if he sticks his head out. That's slightly aversive - P+ - but he can elect to avoid it next time around. Many smart dogs take the above lesson (at the front door), and hesitate at the crate door, so the door closing randomly isn't a surprise.

Then the dog learns that if they hear the cue releasing them, the door always stays out of the way. It takes a couple of rounds of the dog standing there going, "Really? No kidding?" but this sort of thing happens while working livestock too, so it conditions the way they learn to accept this type of lesson. Ie, "Pressure won't kill me." Also, to think before doing stuff and not blast around like a reactive idiot.

If I had any overall philosophy in mind, I aim to help my dogs develop a sense of being a part of the team and working with their natural  inclinations - usually along breed lines.

I've worked with people who got into the dominance thing and it was really ugly. It's possible to "get away" with applying it to the limited demands of companion animal behavior. But when you start warring with high powered instincts, well, I witnessed things that were pretty close to abusive and I'm sure most here would put them squarely in that category.

But even so, here again you can't dismiss a methodology 100%. I used to get dogs that were horribly spoiled and before anything could be done with them, they did have to know they couldn't push people around. I don't think dogs naturally seek control but a clever dog can learn to manipulate its surroundings the way it likes. These are great dogs with loads of potential but the first thing they have to learn is that they can trust me to make the decisions.

In general, I use extremely passive methods to convey this, but I've noted discussions here that indicate that even those would meet with disapproval. "Being a tree" just out of reach while a dog I'm walking throws a tantrum trying to reach me to bite me, for instance. I use collar corrections to train certain types of sulky/aggressive dog.

But 90% of what I do is providing dogs with expectations, a regular way of life and something do do with themselves. I have a strong belief that most behavior problems stem from the dog feeling out of place. Dogs love routines and our modern chaotic lives don't do them any favors.

 I know what I don't use. Any theory or idea that has been debunked in science circles, anything that disregards established facts and anythign that seems self-contradictory.  This includes almost all of what Millan, Pattison, teach, as well as the approach of Khoeler, it also means that I discard the whole wolf/pack/dominance approach as outdated and simply wrong.  Behavioral modification is a science and the application of that science is the art. I integrate the findings of psychology and ethology into my training methods, this has worked well for me with various dogs in multiple dog disciplines from basic obedience, to field trials, tracking, agility and schutz.

Corinthian

 I know what I don't use. Any theory or idea that has been debunked in science circles, anything that disregards established facts and anythign that seems self-contradictory.  This includes almost all of what Millan, Pattison, teach, as well as the approach of Khoeler, it also means that I discard the whole wolf/pack/dominance approach as outdated and simply wrong.  Behavioral modification is a science and the application of that science is the art. I integrate the findings of psychology and ethology into my training methods, this has worked well for me with various dogs in multiple dog disciplines from basic obedience, to field trials, tracking, agility and schutz.

Yes, this.

I simply see absolutely no value in using flooding and physical coersion to "train" my dogs.  For one, it just doesn't work (not for Kenya - flooding makes the behaviors worse, brings her into the "fight or flight" stage faster, and physical coersion intensifies the undesirable behavior, the dog gets scared and confused and learns nothing).  For two, I have seen dogs on the Schutzhund field trained using a lot of coersion and compulsion and it's very very obvious even to an inexperienced person and also painful to watch.  I'm thinking of when I took my mother in law to watch protection tests at the Sieger Show and she kept asking why some dogs were slinking on their bellies.  That was the first time she'd ever been to any sort of show or dog event, let alone seeing SchH dogs perform the courage test and she called a spade a spade.  Every once in a while you get a hard, sound dog that you can wail on and the dog comes through with as much power and drive as any other, but you can't count on that when training the dog.

I use a lot of different stuff from various people.  Clicker training is great for teaching new, more "difficult" behaviors.  I love it.  And I think they learn so much faster because they have to think it out on their own instead of being "shown" by us luring them to do this or that.  I love watching my dogs think and work things out for themselves.  I also use a lot of prey drive in my obedience work to make it more "showy."  They're always a lot more watchful and peppy when using a tug or ball as a reward than just food.  

tex123

How do you introduce/teach the out command to a puppy as opposed to what you do get him off the sleave? also do you use both halter and leash?

 If you're still wanting info on this, this is how I taught mine (and it worked wonderfully...I've never had to ask him twice, and he has been 100% reliable so far).  This would only work for schutzhund, though, as it sort of teaches them to let go and bark when the helper stops moving.  I started with various tugs.  I would tug with him for a bit, then just hold the tug still as possible.  Of course he'd still tug on it a little, but it wasn't as fun so he'd let go pretty quickly.  As soon as he started to let go, I'd say "aus" and then when he let go completely I'd jerk the toy away and the game would begin again.  When he started getting the hang of that I started adding in the barks before he got to play tug again.  It transfered beautifully to the sleeve.  I would definitely get with an experienced trainer/handler before teaching this, though, because teaching a bad out can really hurt a dog in the protection aspect.  Some people use a lot of compulsion to teach this, but I find that isn't necessary and sometimes makes them bad biters (as in, almost afraid to bite, because they're unsure of what's going to happen when they do).  You also want to have a dog who is very confident with his bite and has a good bite before teaching an out.  Usually dogs don't learn an out until late in their protection training.  I don't know of anyone who outs puppies.