An acquaintance of mine recently had her dog trained by one of these "positive pet" trainers. You know, all treats and no chokes or prongs.

Needless to say the dog is not at all trained. I suggested they get a prong and briefly showed them how I taught my dogs to sit and down. I told them to try that first and let me know how things went and then we'd go from there.

Well, the next day I got a call from, let's just call her, "Beth". Beth said that the dog went nuts when she tried to put the prong on the dog. In fact the dog bit her but not so hard that it broke any skin. Once she got the prong on the dog she began to work with him. Upon giving him corrections, however, he stood on his hind legs and again bit her on her arm. Again, it was not a hard bite. She stopped the training.

Now I'm starting to think that maybe telling her to use a prong was not such a great idea. I did show her a prong and showed her how to put it on my dog. As well, without actually correcting my dog I did give her a visualization of how it's supposed to work. I probably should have spent some time working with her and her dog rather than just telling her how to do it. So now I'm feeling a little guilty and would like to help her as I do have some experience.

This dog has growled at children. This dog is supposedly animal aggressive. This dog does not listen at all to its handler. This dog has bitten before. This dog is only 9 months old. This dog was rescued from a shelter a few months ago. I'd like to help this lady but more importantly, I'd like to help the dog.

I have an idea on how I'm going to approach this. I'd appreciate your input.

I intend on trying to keep things positive. When the dog does something well, even for a moment, I intend to lavish a lot of praise on him. However, the soley "positive" method of bribing the dog did not work before and so I'm also going to use compulsion, thus the prong. However I don't want to get bit. I intend on tying the dog to a post on his flat collar. And then I'm going to train with a prong and a lot of praise and maybe some treats too. But if the dog decides to turn on me he'll be restrained by the tie-off. And if he does a nano-second later he's going to get a level 10 correction. My hope is that he first learns that biting the handler is NOT an option. My second hope is that he actually learns to sit and down when told to do so. My hope is that if we can accomplish these things then we're probably going to be ok. Of course the handler is going to have to earn the dog's respect; that's not something I can give her nor is it something she can buy.

What do you think? Am I on the right path or sort of close to the right path or am I going in the wrong direction? I will appreciate your advice and will let you know how it turns out. Thanks.

Hi there Patrick.

1. Why are you going to tie out a nine month old PUPPY and use a prong for obedience work?

2. Why do you think that correction is necessary at this early point in the dogs bonding process with the new owner?

3. What type of environment do you think the dog came from before he went to the shelter? Do you know why the dog is bitting?

4. Does this dog have a high rank drive? Is he a nervy dog? Fear bitting? Things one should know about the dog if you are going to train him. It will dictate how you go about it.

5. There are plenty of ways to induce the dog to learn obedience and manners. Very few things can be solved with compulsion in a scared pup. It will also screw up the bonding process and building of trust.

Reading this and some of your other posts today makes me wonder about what you think is good training. I'm not slammin' ya yet, just curious?

Why don't you ask, someone that is good at it, what they think positive training is and how it works. And if it will work with any type of dog(including this one).
Vince P. and Richard Cannon have some interesting posts that have dealt with it before. I am willing to bet that most people will think a prong is not the answer.
(I'm one of those people.)


<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Oh yea, what kind of dog is this?

Patrick This dog has growled at children. This dog is supposedly animal aggressive. This dog does not listen at all to its handler. This dog has bitten before. This dog is only 9 months old. This dog was rescued from a shelter a few months ago. I'd like to help this lady but more importantly, I'd like to help the dog.

Whos children has the dog growled at. The dog has bitten before.Is this info. the shelter gave Beth from the previous owners.Most of the time shelters have a history of the dog.Was this dog rescued from a abusive house or was it a turn in because the previous owners didn't take the time to train it.VanCamp is right take it slow.I would put the prong collar on walks so the dog gets used to it.In time you could give it corrections. Remember in Ed's video the dog has to learn the command before being corrected.I'll leave the rank issues for others to answer.

Milt

Excellent post, VanCamp. Couldn't have said it better myself... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Milt, I wouldn't worry about the rank issue yet, unless the pup is out of Mink <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

No "slam" taken Van Camp. If I'm wrong I'm wrong. I asked the question so I have to accept the answers.

With regard to the dog's history I don't know anything more than that he came from a shelter. I didn't ask Beth what the shelter told them. I don't think they would have adopted out a dog that was biting them, would they? So it leads me to believe the problem wasn't evident until they got him home.

I'm not sure what type of dog it is. It may be a mix between a black lab and something else.

Van Camp, let me try to answer each of your questions. This 9 mo. old has already bitten Beth more than once. This dog has growled at small children it sees out in the yard. IMHO this dog should learn now that this behavior is not an option. Tying it off would allow the dog to be worked without the handler being bit and would teach the dog that combatting the handler is not going to succeed. Since the "positive" only method apparently failed I think a firmer approach is needed. As for corrections in the early stage of the bonding, my personal belief is that one should correct their dogs when necessary, at any age. A pup of any age should not, again IMHO, get away with biting its handler. To do nothing condones this behavior to the dog. I don't believe in ignoring bad behavior because of worries about bond and damaging drive, especially when the dog is biting people. Bonding does not happen unless there is also respect. Earning respect sometimes means having a firmer hand with the dog.

I don't think he is a "nervy" dog and I don't think he is scared either. I think it is a matter of rank. I don't believe this dog respects Beth. However I do believe it is entirely possible that this dog did have a bad experience somewhere. But before Beth can begin to address these issues the dog has to respect Beth.

My feeling is that Beth should be bonding with him through play, food and lot of hands on love and affection. And I believe she's been doing this. But again, giving bribes doesn't buy respect. So I think she should continue with this but she has to make her point to this young dog that biting her is not an option. I think that once this dog realizes this she'll be able to get him to sit and down. And from here she can move forward to the bigger issues and more advanced obedience work. Certainly she has to teach the dog that children are not a threat, but she has to first work out her own standing with the dog.

My idea of good training is one of excellent communication, lavish praise and rewards for desired behavior and an admonishment and correction for an undesirable behavior. Faithfulness to the training through consistency and putting everything in simple black and white terms for the dog.

Of course the dog cannot be popped if it does not yet understand a command such as sit. But this dog understands and obeys this command when someone is holding a cookie in front of it. Without the cookie the command is ignored and when this happens I think a fair correction should be given, followed by the praise/cookie/reward after he sits.

What do you folks think? I don't care if you slame me, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> the main thing is I want to help Beth and this dog. If you say I'm wrong then please tell me what else I might try and what I should be looking for. And Vince and Richard, where are your posts on this subject that Van Camp referred to? Thank you all.

Come on Jason what's wrong here! Don't tell me that my 20 posts are to go in vain. That's right. Postive training does not mean correctionless training. It just means that the correction phase is left for proofing.

Patrick,

There is a significant difference in positive training and dragging the dog around by the leash and feeding him treats. The biggest difference is RESULTS. If the dog doesn't learn you aren't training positively, you are dragging and treating. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't put a correction collar on this dog. I am at work now so I can't go into detail, but I will describe the procedure I would use when I get home tonight. I think you are on the right track, I would just handle portions significantly differently. This sounds more like a fear based aggression rather than a dominance/rank issue.

Vince,

Nothing you have given this board has been in vain!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My head is still spinning from Ellens article about her experiences with Manfred Heyne and stuff, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> some education can be found there. There are fishermen and then there are fly-fishermen, all kind of fishing rods too. Thanks Ellen! (and yes you too Vince!) If selection and technique is propper, I suppose this type of training/education can be used for many different tasks. Imagine a dog correcting himself. I'll be damned

P.S. I did not read the original post. I am only responding to Vince who for some reason( <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) brought our conversation on line.
http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/herding.htm
and http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/genetics.htm

Hey there Troops- Just wanted to add something. I am not saying that you can't use a prong or corrections. Just that a foundation of training should be in place before you go into Captain Correction Mode. I think the best way to bond with a new dog and build that foundation is with positive methods. I didn't make that clear in the first post.

Richie, bingo. RESULTS There is positive training and there is positive TRAINING . . .