I don't care about her bullshit what so ever. I was only laughing at how she treats her animals. I didn't do anything to these dogs if I had thought I had I certainly wouldn't post a thread about it.


Damnit why do I come off so damn wrong on this forum!?!

You can't be someone else's dog's pack leader.

And heeling isn't about being a pack leader. It's about teaching the dog what heeling looks like.

When you're teaching a new skill, you don't start out under distraction, the way you did. You start out in a quiet, familiar spot like in the house.

You don't move outside until the dog knows how to heel correctly in the house. Then you go to the yard until the dog knows how to heel perfectly there. THEN you go on a walk out in the big, wide world.

What you did is called "crazy walking", and can be a good way to proof the heel. But it's one of the last steps in teaching heeling. Not the first.

And it still has nothing to do with "dominance", being "alpha", being a leader or a "boss".

Something you have to understand when you're working with dogs is, your intent doesn't matter one iota. The dog's perception is what matters. You can intend to be the nicest guy in the world, but if your actions aren't fair from the dog's point of view, it won't matter.

It wasn't fair to take a dog that has done things one way for 5 or 6 years of his life, and suddenly change all the rules on him.

Pretend that tomorrow, you come on the forum, and get in trouble for posting a link.
Turns out, that overnight, Leerburg changed its policy and no longer permits links. They secretly told everyone but you, and then publicly admonished you for not following a rule that you didn't even know about, and had no way of knowing about.

Even though they didn't actually *hurt* you, wouldn't you still feel angry and confused when you found yourself being admonished and your posts deleted without explanation?

yeah I understand now and I feel terrible. I've always been told other stuff but I think my father is from the old school of tug and pull the dog into submission. He's had working pointer dogs and used them as such. The dog was a tool. I totally need to reevaluate my training dogs.

To me the dog is a dog is a dog and I love them. My pointer lady was my best friend we both loved each other very much. That was clear.

I think I'll make a introductory thread about me and my family.

This is why we keep linking you to the marker training info.

Roger. I have that in my "list of things to buy" I'm getting it. FYI my wife just put some money aside for the dog! After seeing this thread she sorta freaked out because we BOTH thought I did the right thing. Heck I was "trained" to do it. In my mind the crazy walk was the way.

http://leerburg.com/pdf/markers-clickers.pdf
http://leerburg.com/pdf/treats.pdf
http://leerburg.com/pdf/theoryofmotivation.pdf

John, I'm glad you are open to learning new ways.

I had kind of the same experience as you before taking on the dog I have now. The training I knew wasn't total yank and crank, but corrections were used early and often in training.

Marker training, while still a little confusing to me in someways, has definitely made my training easier and smoother. The dog appreciates it, too.

As Aaron said in the other thread, its hard to tell by a video of someone working with their own puppies. But from what I saw in the video the puppy you are getting doesn't look like he is going to be a super hard dog. He likes the toys and seems to like being engaged with people. Marker training will help build on his natural confidence. He will only end up a better dog for it.

If you use old school methods to train him you might ruin his working ability. Try it out before you go to the old methods with him. I think you will be impressed with how fast he learns.

We all learn as we go.

For any training, before you correct, you have to be 100% sure that you know the dog knows what you want. Correcting them before they know what you want isn't fair.

If the dog has never been taught to heel, it's unfair to correct her before she even knows what "heel" is.

John, I'm certainly not here to beat on you, I'm trying to share what I've learned.

I got these puppies...they were dumped, I was unprepared. I've had one dog in my life, that I was responsible for, before these two. So I sure had a lot to learn.

I did everything wrong in the beginning. Everything. I finally found this site after a bad incident at an off leash park and read and read and read and read and read and ordered DVDs and worked and worked and worked.

Those DVDs? WORTH EVERY PENNY! Get them! I was never taught how to teach my dogs either but now I know how to do it. And the biggest thing I learned, they have to know, 100% what it is you want before you ever think of correcting them. It's only fair to the dog and your bond will build.

I also have to say, clicker training and marking...yes, it takes a long time in some cases, it requires patience, it may take you a half an hour to walk 10 feet but it works, in the end.

Example: Teaching my dogs to walk on a loose leash...first, they have to learn my word. My word is "back". They have to know that word first. In the beginning, all they hear is, "blearhed" They have no idea what I'm saying, they don't speak English.

Once they learn "back" and what it means, through clicker and marker training, we then set out to work on walking with loose leash.

The girl picked it up pretty quickly. We walk, she pulls, I say, "back". She slows down. Perfect. Guess what? Clicker, treat, treat, treat, treat, treat. (In the beginning, how I did it was reward her immensely when she did what I asked. Turned it in to something she wanted to do so badly..stay close to me.)

The boy we are still working on and he knows what I want so only now have I been able to start with any sort of correction however, I do not just up and change direction or pull. He has to hear the word, first. If he hears the word and still doesn't listen, then he gets a mild correction.

We also have worked on focus. Every single time the dog looks at me, I mark it with "YES!", they come back, they get a treat. The millisecond they look at you, mark it.

You'll find that the dog will start to focus on you more than what is going on around them.

And yes, what others said about the alpha thing and the not your dog thing.

Anyway, I've been admonished on this board as well for mistakes I've made. Don't take them personally. People are interested in the dog's well being. If you have an open mind, you'll find these guys to be very helpful. And again, the DVDs, totally change how you look at training and you start to see some results. You also build a strong bond with your dog.

My girl dog thinks I'm about the best thing on the planet, (besides her dinner).

My boy also thinks I'm pretty dang special but he has an issue with focusing so I'm not as special to him as the girl. LOL! We are still working on it. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes a lot of work. It's never going to be done in a day.

Why do you come off so wrong? With point blank honesty - Because you're trying too hard to be tough and cool and you don't yet know what you don't know.

You ask for advice, then you go on to say that you're experienced and have done it before. You go on and on about how you want a tough dog. You talk about "alpha training" with dogs that "don't know who's boss" because you think it's funny. You tell us how much you know, then show us how much you don't. This all sounds like someone who is trying to be a tough showoff.

Trust me your dog isn't going to care if you're tough or cool to people. They want someone who is fun and baby talks to them a bit. Dog people don't care if you're tough or cool (except that it will drive them nuts if you keep reiterating it), they only care about doing right by your dog.

If you really want help and advice, you've come to the right place. But if you keep telling us how macho you are or how you know everything, people are going to tune you out or ignore you altogether.

I know that was pretty blunt, but it was not intended to be mean. You asked why you're coming off wrong, and I think that is a big reason why. So just chill a bit. Don't worry about trying to impress people here. We are only really impressed by people doing right by their dog with a few bonus points thrown in when you post a cool video/story of your dog's progress or as you achieve success with them.

 Quote: aaron myracle

You can't be someone else's dog's pack leader.

And heeling isn't about being a pack leader. It's about teaching the dog what heeling looks like.

When you're teaching a new skill, you don't start out under distraction, the way you did. You start out in a quiet, familiar spot like in the house.

You don't move outside until the dog knows how to heel correctly in the house. Then you go to the yard until the dog knows how to heel perfectly there. THEN you go on a walk out in the big, wide world.

What you did is called "crazy walking", and can be a good way to proof the heel. But it's one of the last steps in teaching heeling. Not the first.

And it still has nothing to do with "dominance", being "alpha", being a leader or a "boss".

Something you have to understand when you're working with dogs is, your intent doesn't matter one iota. The dog's perception is what matters. You can intend to be the nicest guy in the world, but if your actions aren't fair from the dog's point of view, it won't matter.

It wasn't fair to take a dog that has done things one way for 5 or 6 years of his life, and suddenly change all the rules on him.

You know, John, you've been linked over and over to FREE material (including video) on marker training.

It's seems silly to spend the time that you could be using to peruse and learn, on yank-and-cranking two innocent dogs who you are NOT pack leader to in the first place.

Aaron has corrected some of the most egregious crap that you learned from your father (who, like many of us, probably grew up in a time when better methods weren't well-known yet), and has done so calmly and carefully. If I were you, I'd probably re-read what he has posted in this thread, try to internalize from Mara's post why you are coming across as a showoff who has no dog-training knowledge to offer (yet), and learn! You're throwing away the best source on the 'net for the best training and care out there and (I guess) trying to impress a board of experienced folks who aren't impressed by "alpha male" BS or by yank-and-crank stuff from decades ago. You are wasting your time that you could be spending so valuably!

I have no fight with you. On the contrary. Every word is meant to be advice (from an old person ).