Interesting read on dominance/behavior

Good article, Erica.  Thanks for posting. 

Ditto.

 At this very moment, there is a great dog sitting at a local pound in my area because someone who couldn't bother to follow his vet's advice to take the dog to puppy class when she noticed that he was an assertive pup at 13 weeks, and tried alpha rolling him repeatedly despite a trainer's advice not to use force with the dog once he did get him to class, and did not tell his trainer he was doing that - no one could figure out why the dog was becoming more aggressive, not less.  Fortunately, in a few days, rescue will spring him, and we will all work to find him a home, but it didn't have to happen, and he came really close to dying.  This is a dog that is great at day care, training and everywhere else with everyone except his owners.

Train early, train often, train with no pain.

spiritdogs

Train early, train often, train with no pain

Excellent advice. Advice that is also the central point of Dunbar's mission in life.

spiritdogs

Train early, train often, train with no pain.

Well said! Love it!

 I seem to remember this coming up on the other forum I'm on and being met with a great deal of waryness by professional trainers and behaviourists. Their main beef seemed to be that they wanted to use prong collars and e-collars and felt the APDT were actively discouraging these tools and encouraging gentle leaders and the likes instead, which they all loathe. Prongs and e-collars are barely legal in this country. It's illegal to sell them, but not illegal to buy them, and it seems there are some trainers finding loopholes in order to get these tools to people they claim have been properly trained to use them. Anything that threatens the way they like to do things is treated with mistrust. I am glad that they only represent a minority of dog owners and professionals in this country, but saddened that they have created their own place where they don't have to feel threatened by changing trends. I guess that it has kind of gone that way here as well, with less stimulating discussions lately as everyone mostly agrees. But I know there are people on this forum that are not afraid of talking about their methods even if they are not mainstream at this particular forum, and I think that's a good thing.

Hi Corvus

It is an interesting read

.You said   " Their main beef seemed to be that they wanted to use prong collars and e-collars and felt the APDT were actively discouraging these tools and encouraging gentle leaders and the likes instead, which they all loathe. Prongs and e-collars are barely legal in this country. It's illegal to sell them, but not illegal to buy them, and it seems there are some trainers finding loopholes in order to get these tools to people they claim have been properly trained to use them. Anything that threatens the way they like to do things is treated with mistrust. I am glad that they only represent a minority of dog owners and professionals in this country"

I am fairly sure that training methods are highly variable through out our country. In Victoria the Dogs Victoria Gazette still publishes very tradtional punitive methods of training. You cna visit them at www.vca.org.au and look at he Michael Tucker articles. It is fairy certain to raise a fair bit of venom  to suggest that times have changed. (I know) .Personally my response is not to be involved with training in affiliated clubs until these articles are removed.

I also  know the people that you refer too, and most are legends in their own lunchtime. While most will tlll you that they know all there is about using rewards and prefer to use both, i think the last  doggy rewards most had was when they turned up at the 2000 royal show. I don't think my dog has ever lost to one of these legends or students of these legends either.

I am a xover trainer myself. I am by all standards a very positive trainer.  But i truely detest the kind of nagging unsuccesful training that this kind of carry on that the VCA prints reperesents. I hate walking around the neighbourhood where i live looking at the kind of crap  lives many dogs live because they stick with methods where the reinforcement or the punishment is just not strong enough. What this kind of training does is allow legends about correction to be carried on, poor and prolonged training to be reinforced, and dogs lives ruined becuase they often never develop good off lead behaviour. At least with  the presence of a prong collar it is hard to deny what you are doing.Of course i would suggest you need to use R+. Many of the dogs i see living horrible lives are Labs. To quote a local trainer" Gettin a Lab to heel well using food is like shooting fish in a barrell"...

At the top of the Obedience world in our state and of course the agility and tracking worlds, most people would be strong users of rewards. Some would use a modicom of correction. It is below this level where thing seem  so slow to change. One of my friends says" as soon as the pass card is in sight they all go to hell in a basket". I would say they forget to have fun.

 Mmmm.... Come to think, I don't actually go to any dog training clubs because most seem to be pretty traditional. I tried to find a clicker training class for my new puppy and there is only one in the entire Sydney region. It's an hour's drive away! I think there are some good positive trainers and behaviourists around, but they are hard to find. I'm going to a pretty good puppy pre-school at the moment, but they're still advocating using pressure to get a dog to lie down and I watched someone take a Lab puppy to the "naughty room" for barking every few minutes for the entire hour. Didn't seem to be a method that was working, but they were told to just keep doing it.

It's depressing, but I live in hope that things will change. Someone on that forum recently declared that they were glad you could say you used corrections without being condemned like what happens on practically every other forum. I selfishly hoped that were true! But part of the problem is positive trainers who don't have a good understanding of dog behaviour. They are every bit as bad as correctional trainers that don't have a good understanding of dog behaviour because if their methods don't work people swear off positive training forever and go back to good, safe corrections, despite the fact that these don't always work very well, either! Some people will always want very quick results, and messing around trying to break a bad habit with just rewards seems slow and ineffectual to them and they quit. I can't really blame them, but I think if positive trainers could better communicate maybe they would have more success. 

Hi Corvus!

 I seem to remember this coming up on the other forum I'm on and being met with a great deal of waryness by professional trainers and behaviourists. Their main beef seemed to be that they wanted to use prong collars and e-collars and felt the APDT were actively discouraging these tools and encouraging gentle leaders and the likes instead, which they all loathe.

The APDT do actively discourage prongs and e-collars. They have actually refused membership to trainers who use and promote them.

Prongs and e-collars are barely legal in this country. It's illegal to sell them, but not illegal to buy them, and it seems there are some trainers finding loopholes in order to get these tools to people they claim have been properly trained to use them.

I don't think "barely" legal is the right term here ;) Prongs are only illegal to use in Victoria, they are legal to buy and sell in every other state. 

People are also allowed to sell e-collars as long as they have a license to do so. What do you mean by people "claiming" to be properly trained in their use? Do you think that the trainers and pet owners on the other forum that use them are lying when they say they have been taught how to do so properly?

Anything that threatens the way they like to do things is treated with mistrust. I am glad that they only represent a minority of dog owners and professionals in this country, but saddened that they have created their own place where they don't have to feel threatened by changing trends.

It's depressing, but I live in hope that things will change. Someone on that forum recently declared that they were glad you could say you used corrections without being condemned like what happens on practically every other forum. I selfishly hoped that were true!

If I recall correctly, that poster was me. I'm glad it made you feel good considering you so vehemently told me you don't like to judge how other people train their dogs. I thought you didn't cast judgments on how other people train their dogs and the relationship they have with them, didn't you say it was hurtful for me to even insinuate as such? And yet here you are, saddened that there is a forum on the net where we can come and talk about how we train our dogs without being shot down in flames, and telling everyone that we are threatened by change. How very accepting and non-judgmental of you.

PoodleOwned:

I also  know the people that you refer too, and most are legends in their own lunchtime. While most will tlll you that they know all there is about using rewards and prefer to use both, i think the last  doggy rewards most had was when they turned up at the 2000 royal show. I don't think my dog has ever lost to one of these legends or students of these legends either.

As the student of one of those trainers I can confidently tell you that the program I am using to train my dog involves almost entirely "positive" training, the only "corrections" being a removal of a reward and a vocal no reward marker. I know many other students who have done this program who have top trialling dogs. How do you know who in the trialling ring is one of his students and who isn't? Do you know all of them personally to know who they have been instructed by? Would you like to come and meet my dog and watch our training sessions to see it's built entirely on a reward based method?

 Oh boy, huski's come to the party! Just in time for my latest outpouring of frustration at being thoroughly, deliberately misunderstood in other places. Let's play nice, hmm? Got a problem, PM me (or whoever else you might want to get forthright with). Hope you stay, huski. You'll keep me honest.

I'm always nice :)

Just wanted to clear up the misconceptions you have about the legality of prongs, e-collars and the misconceptions here about "other" trainers and behaviourists. 

 <> 

Sorry corvus, but I was sorta hoping this thread might just die.... I could swear I've been on this merry go round before...

I hate walking around the neighbourhood where i live looking at the kind of crap  lives many dogs live because they stick with methods where the reinforcement or the punishment is just not strong enough.

Just another reason many of us have moved to positive training is that we realize that most owners we deal with would shun the issuance of a punishment severe enough to make their dog discontinue a thoroughly entrenched undesirable behavior for good.  Frankly, by the time most owners are sick of what their dog is doing, and call a trainer, the behavior is pretty entrenched;-)  They may have even been punishing the dog right along, but it hasn't worked because the dog was more motivated to get what he wanted than to avoid the pesky, but not so severe, punishment.  Most average people don't want to hurt their dogs, so it's much easier to teach them to reward what they like and ignore or fail to reward what they don't.

 Never fear, Chuffy. It takes two to tango and I got no interest in dancing just here.

To keep it on topic, I really liked this article. I think it's well written. One of the most frustrating thing is when it's obvious that an article about training methods or philosphy is more about the practitioner than the dog, and that goes for any training method. I stop listening when it sounds biased, even if I agree with it. I thought this article came across balanced and focused on the best interests of dogs.