About orcas or dogs?

 Quote: Mike J Schoonbrood

Corrections can be replaced by better handling.

So true! Funny thing about better handling and management; I have found the behaviors I've managed have turned into the desired behavior. Don't under estimate the power of the management tool especially with a puppy!

I choose positive training as much as possible from puppyhood straight through adulthood. If I were the trainer I would like to be, I would never have to resort to physical corrections; but I am not there yet, so I do what works to obtain a happy, secure, steady dog.

Natalya,
I've sent you a PM to a trainer not far from you who is purely positive. If you have a chance check her out. She is great and I loved working with her. LOL! I think she might be able to train a Mal in Mondioring.......

Vanessa,
Again, her techniques work for her and might not for someone else, I think you need to take a look at what works for you and your pup and make a decision based on that but stay away from trainers who have no flexibility or willingness to consider other options. Sound like someone you met recently?

I assumed it was a sarcastic comment. My rant wasn’t directed at your specific comment. I did not mean to come off as combative It was a general rebuttal of the many “positive reinforcement only” arguments I hear. The “they don’t use it with orcas” argument comes up frequently in my experience and it irritates me. How often do cetacean trainers deal with chasing cats, leg humping, escaping the backyard and peeing on the carpet?

I should just let it go...

My personal training technique is very similar to what Melissa described. I would love to never correct my dog, but my dog does not click/treat off chasing squirrels/rabbits and I guarantee a correction from a prong collar is less damaging than getting hit by a car.

 Quote: lynne barrows

I think you have to use common sense and your own judgement. (which it sounds like you are doing! )

That's a value that is seen less and less nowadays or so it seems.

 Quote: vanessa dibernar

She said that if you tell a puppy "no" for peeing on the rug he will think that he'll only get scolded for peeing on that one spot so you should never tell him no.

If you tell a puppy "no" for peeing on the rug all you teach it is that you make a loud noise when it pees. The loud noise however is distracting enough to make the puppy stop peeing. At that point you take it outside where it finishes peeing or it poops and you give it a positive reward. This teaches it that something good happens when it goes outside. It's even better to not wait until it pees. All puppies I've seen give some cues when they are looking for a place to pee.

All positive training is great. It's always the first place to start. Most dogs don't need anything else but some dogs do. They are just plain hard headed, very much like some people including a few dog trainers.

From Orcas to Organizational Psychology (this thread is really going downhill. :grin. In an Org. Psych. class we had a lecturer who was a business consultant. He talked about what he calls a "hammer". Lots of consultants have a hammer. It's a technique that they know very well. It's what they recommend to fix every problem. They have no or very few other tools to use so they think the one technique will cure everything.

Dog trainers are the same way. They will get one technique down to an art form and refuse to even consider anything else. It's their, "hammer". In instances where it works it works well but when they run into a circumstance where it doesn't they are lost. The lecturer's point: Never use a hammer for everything. You need a whole tool box if you are to be successful.

On another forum, I've had people calling themselves dog trainers tell me that if a dog ever needed even a mild correction for something that couldn't be achieved by PR training the dog would be better off put down. These people will try the PR techniques. If those techniques don't work and since they refuse to go further they just write the dog off as not trainable or tell the owner that they will just have to work around the dog's issues. Just read a post here on these forums where someone was told that by a trainer after working with her dog for four months.

Forum: Dogs that are Too Aggressive to People

99.9% positive
0.1% correction

So i'm told by my late grandfather

I stand by it, and it works for me

Greetings

Johan

I think it's funny that orcas were mentioned. I actually had a conversation with a former dolphin trainer about how purely positive training works with dogs...I believe the conversation started around my prong collar. I asked her what SHE used when she had to manage her dolphins out on a public street, but she didn't really have an answer .

I think a LOT can be done with positive means. I have used positive methods to teach my dog to look at me instead of chasing squirrels, instead of lunging at other dogs, instead of chasing bikes, etc. It takes a LONG time, but it can be done. I did it this way with this particular dog because corrections wind him up more than they take drive out of him, even with an e-collar. I used to believe that it was the food or toy that had to be more appealing than the distraction, but it's more about operant conditioning; the dog learns to behave a certain way in a certain circumstance and it becomes a habit. I started with minimal distractions and gradually worked up to some pretty chaotic circumstances.
I LOVE positive training because it's fun to see the dog really enjoying himself while he learns new behaviors, and to see that 'ah ha!' look on his face when he knows he did something great. And, selfishly, if he's having fun so am I. I think the more that can be done positively and motivationally, the better. HOWEVER, corrections most definitely have their place. I think that the all-positive folks are contributing to the growing problem of aggressive dogs. As somebody already said, common sense needs to be applied here.

I only observed a puppy class and I liked what she did as far as teaching the dogs to heel and sit and that stuff with the clicker. I just can't wrap my mind around NEVER telling a dog "no" when you're living with them in a day to day situation. There were two puppies in the class who would bark and lunge at other dogs while the trainer was talking (of course these are puppies so they're half playing, half being obnoxious and maybe a little dominant, I dont know) but the trainer would give them bones to chew on so they would have something to do and not worry about the other dogs.

Now, at what point is the dog going to get a correction for acting obnoxious? Never? These puppies were 5-6 months old, not 8 weeks. And at what point is the dog going to learn that if I bark and act obnoxious I'm going to get a bone? And how is that going to work on the street?

She teaches heel by walking with the dog on your left and the moment the dog steps in front of you, you stop, as soon as the dog looks at you you click the clicker, give a treat and walk backwards. Then repeat over and over and over. So if you're practicing heel on the street you're going to be taking two steps forward and 10 steps back.

What do you think about this?

And my questions was, "what do you do when the dog wants to run and act like an idiot more than it wants the treat?"

These training classes work because they are puppies.

People take their puppies in for this "obedience" class, and their puppies learn to follow the commands. Puppies have a high level of biddability (desire to please their owners), and food drive.

Eventually though, dogs hit puberty and decide to test boundaries, pretty much like human kids. But by then, the dogs have been out of obedience for 6 months to a year.

And the horror story begins.

IMO