Having to have food with you all the time is a complete myth that is compounded over and over by trainers who don't understand how marker training works. As Bob says, it's a result of bribery, and bribery is one result of failing to wean off of 100% treat rewards.

But back to the mystery method of training in the O.P. There should be no mystery about training. I'd be very very wary about anyone with a "secret method." I'd be even warier when the trainer with the mystery method thinks that proper marker training results in having to have food with you all the time.

All JMO!

 Quote: Bob Scott

When it comes right down to it I'll take a good truck dog any day.

At the end of the day, this really resonates with me, Bob

I totally get the fact that so many great posters here are devoted to doing high-level K9 competition work of various kinds...

And more power to 'em, for sure!

But then there are those of us who are "just plain ol' PET owners" who mainly & simply

want our dogs to: Do As They're Told, Be House-Clean & Not Act Up...

IOW, basic manners & fundamental OB

Back in the early '50s my parents managed to succeed in the above without any fuss,

without heavy-handed means, without using treats,

without professional help,

without post-doc degrees in animal behavior & canine psychology,

without anything besides:

love for dogs, common sense, gentle discipline,

and training that was seamlessly integrated into the daily household routine.

HOW did they DO that ??? I dunno, it was never a "big deal":

Get a dog from the pound that someone else had thrown away...

Treat it as part of the family...

Expect it to understand us & learn our rules & know which side its bread is buttered on

The dog ALWAYS figured it out FAST -- But everything is more complicated nowadays, LOL.

Never had "just a plain ol' pet" once I found obedience and that

was even before I bought the Koehler books in the early 60s.

I guess we just grew up expecting our dogs to obey us.

Nothing fancy or secretive about it.

I just don't think folks were as apt to look at dogs like they were their kids. Part of the family for sure. Just not kids.

I probably told this before but one of my very early dogs was a farm type Collie my uncle owned.

Uncle got tired of Queenie chasing cars down the road so he gave her to six young nieces and nephews who lived in the inner city. Go figure!

Queenie chased a neighbors' big old 55 Buick and caught it at the wrong end.

That's what made me get REALLY interested in dog behavior and training.

The next dog was Taffy, a GSDxCollie and started my dog journey.

Thanks Duane for your explanations. Ah, that's very interesting. I thought he was marker training too but with other means. I can easily be mistaken about this, as I have only begun to try out his use of games and his method of heeling, which goes with games too.
I will try to be aware of all this. However it is, Balabanov seems to have reached high goals with his method. Of course training for competitions is not the same thing as training just a family dog. And of course, a man with his experience with dogs will from the start choose very consciously the puppy with whom he later on wants to go into competitions.

What impresses me a lot about him is the attitude he has, the way he builds the relationship dog/handler developping the game skills of dog and handler and that for a long time, he doesn't use the games as reward for obedience exercises.

Doing this to early, - so his opinion - the game too as a reward will somehoow become a bribery. I've just begun to interest me for his way of working, so I don't really know enough.

But to lay the fundamentals with games (of course with the according rules) and letting game be game and not abusing it for other purposes, has convinced me. This doesn't exclude obedience and doesn't exclude using the games later on within obedience, but then every obedience skill will be like a game too.
Always very happy to hear your meaning!

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Edited by Connie Sutherland (05/28/2016 10:39 AM)
Edit reason: delete duplicate post

Sorry, wrong click and doubled the answer!

Hi Cathy, thanks for your answer. For me it is great to exchange opinions and experiences. I estimate Duanes elucidations much. Gives me a lead to be aware where might be a pitfall in other methods and to observe and compare them thoughtfully.

Also my dogs - except one - don't have much high drive. I had when they were puppies not played in the right way with them. (Just thrown balls etc.) They are my first dogs and I had experience level zero.

That's what makes me now regret that I have missed the best time of them to teach them to play or better: not to have used that phase of their lifes, where they know playing very well.

Now I'd like to make up for this and maybe this is the reason, why I bought Ivan's videos and why he impresses me so much. So for me it is exactly the other way round than for you. You are waiting because you think they have not enough drive and I think I've waited too long,because they have not enough drive or because I have neglected to further it.

It seems to me, that I'm already having some little success with Ivan's method, but of course in that early stage it might still be a coincidence.

Until now I have watched more the Possession Games than the Competitive Heeling, and I find it is very good, very illustratively explained, though differently structured than Michael's DVDs I have. I like him very much too. I have not yet the ability to decide whom I find better.

But I think, if I could begin again, I'd do it like Ivan. He somehow convinced me with how he puts weight on the interaction in his whole training. But perhaps I will speak half a year later differently.

100% certain is for me only that dog training is something extremely fabulous and that those animals are even more intelligent and fascinating as I had always anyway thought.

 Quote: Bob Scott

I bought the Koehler books in the early 60s.

And I got "The Lassie Method" by Rudd Weatherwax, then later on, "Family Dog" by Richard Wolters

Oh, and I mustn't forget dear ol' Barbara Woodhouse !!!

She helped me live with all my BASENJIS (Oy vey ist Mir)...

Then getting my AKITA brought me to Leerburg...

Next adopting my rescue Dobies brought me to MARKER Training !!!

 Quote: Bob Scott

I guess we just grew up expecting our dogs to obey us.

Yes we did !!!

But some neighbors kept their dogs outside & never trained them at all, so I was doing it for them by 1956...

 Quote: Bob Scott

I just don't think folks were as apt to look at dogs like they were their KIDS. Part of the family for sure. Just NOT kids.

AGREED, neither my folks nor anyone we knew EVER called pet dogs their "fur-babies" or KIDS...

As a child, I looked at dogs like they were my FRIENDS, and now consider them my "Partners"...

I also freely admit to preferring the companionship of virtually ANY animal over that of Many people, LOL.


Edited by Connie Sutherland (05/27/2016 12:02 PM)
Edit reason: Fix post; had extra bracket

Delete duplicate post


Edited by Connie Sutherland (05/27/2016 12:04 PM)
Edit reason: delete duplicate

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Having to have food with you all the time is a complete myth that is compounded over and over by trainers who don't understand how marker training works. As Bob says, it's a result of bribery, and bribery is one result of failing to wean off of 100% treat rewards.

But back to the mystery method of training in the O.P. There should be no mystery about training. I'd be very very wary about anyone with a "secret method." I'd be even warier when the trainer with the mystery method thinks that proper marker training results in having to have food with you all the time.

All JMO!

YES! I immediately rejected any idea of contacting that trainer. I'm excited to have found a trainer who uses marker training and has a great puppy class that is the gateway class to Canine Good Citizen - you earn an AKC STAR certificate, which is the first step to CGC. We start in a couple weeks. The classes are really small - only 6-7 dogs. And she offers support after the 6 classes are over if you ever need it. She says she teaches how to wean off of using treats all the time.