Quote: Amber Morris

... 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.

Well, I think of marker training for teaching new things... JMO .... rather than for correcting problems.

From Karen Pryor's book "Clicker Training for Dogs"* in a Q&A answer: "Some people think that using positive reinforcement means you never reprimand the dog or control it physically. That's unrealistic."



*
http://leerburg.com/979.htm

I look at PP trainers as job security. The more dogs they work with, the more aggressive dogs I get to work with. It's a numbers game. I just have to wait until the next crop of "graduates" become adolescent teens and start scaring their parents

I used to live in a village in Africa with cheetahs and helped train the cats. Later, I worked briefly at an aquarium as a helper in training dolphins. The comparisons of training "methods" between dogs and other animals makes no sense and simply does not cross species directly like that. In other words, dolphins/orcas/cheetahs are not domesticated dogs, and do not have the same or even similar pack structure dynamics (especially with cheetahs) or drives.

 Quote: cameron feathers

I look at PP trainers as job security. The more dogs they work with, the more aggressive dogs I get to work with. It's a numbers game. I just have to wait until the next crop of "graduates" become adolescent teens and start scaring their parents

BTW, this was Purely Positive trainers, not Personal Protection

The don't say "no" part is interesting to me. In Ed's videos he says "no" before giving a correction, to let the dog know he is doing something wrong. We started doing that, and now "no" can fix a lot of things. He knows that when we say "no" it means he isn't doing what we want him to do.

So if there are a group of us in a room, and I say "Go see mom" and he goes to my son, I can say "no, go see mom" and he figures out he has gone to the wrong person. Tell him "sit" and he starts to lay down, and often "no" makes him stop and get into a sit, or "no, sit" if that doesn't work.

In these cases I don't consider the use of the word "no" a correction, but a communication to him that what he is doing is not what I asked for, and he understands that.

Yeah I agree, I can say "no" to my puppy and she stops and walks away, tail still wagging. I looked for stuff on Youtube about marine mammals attacking trainers and it was pretty hard to find, I'll bet you seaworld does its best to remove that stuff...

Well, this lady has videos in the local pet stores that are only $10 so I'm going to buy one and see more of what she's teaching. She has one video about how to correct behavior problems like jumping. I'm REALLY curious. I think what was also weird was she was really defensive and a little aggressive about her opinion. I didn't want her to think I was trying to argue so I kept saying that I just wanted to learn but she kept getting really assertive. Her partner actually told me to stick out my hand and then she hit me 4 times and asked me how I liked it......weird.

 Quote: Vanessa Dibernar

Her partner actually told me to stick out my hand and then she hit me 4 times and asked me how I liked it......weird.

??

Seems a little contradictory to resort to that kind of demonstration when you're trying to market yourself as a guru of 100% touchy-feely, calm and positive training. And was she trying to imply that the alternative for her method was to simply smack the dog??

Whether her techniques work or not, I don't think I like the sound of HER very much!

~Natalya

 Quote: vanessa dibernar

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?

I think you are going to eventually step on someone's foot or back into the path of an oncoming car.

I don't know about backing up but I taught Molly to walk loose on a leash by stopping whenever she pulled and saying, "walk". It worked wonders for her but she's easy to train compared to some dogs I've known. Molly is around 10 months old. She showed up here when she was 4-5 months old. So far she knows the basic obedience commands and we are in the proofing stage on those now.

Recently I've had a nasty cold so the last couple days I've taken a one to two hour nap without putting Molly in her crate. So far she's done quite well with the freedom. Yesterday I left her training treats out and slept for two hours and she hadn't touched them when I discovered my mistake. For a dog like that you can do a lot with positive training. I do however believe that some correction is necessary in some instances. Molly understands there is a difference between, "NO!" as in, "Stop that now!" and, "no", "That's not what I want".

Last week I talked to a guy in a parking lot who had a "Dog Training" sign on his van. He was one of the pure positive, never say no trainers. When I mentioned corrections he was strongly opposed to any type of correction. He had two fluffy wuffy designer dogs who were trained to a "T". One thing I've noticed is that many of the never say no trainers aren't working much with large or high drive dogs. Their methods work quite well with the type of dog that is easy to control or train. If this guy's dogs ever stopped and refused to walk further you could pick one up under each arm and continue walking. You aren't going to do that with two fully grown GSDs.

Also when I mentioned "pack structure" referencing Cesar Milan's book and Ed's videos to this guy his face actually turned red in anger. According to him any media (books and CDs) that mentions pack structure should be outlawed and burned in the streets. He claimed that the first reference ever to pack structure was proposed by the Nazi's to justify their world view. This is news to me since I thought pack structure went much farther back in man's relationship with dogs or at least the working concept. It may have been more recently described in literature but even the Native Americans knew about the social structure of wolves. It was actually quite close to the way NA bands and family clans were organized. Or at least that has always been my understanding.

Our club trains Purely Positive. We are a Schutzhund club but our club members also title in AKC obedience, Iron Dog titles and whatever anyone wants to go for. Myself and a couple of others will begin sheep herding in the not to distant future.
With the advanced dogs we do use "No" "AHHH" or whatever verbal word the individual is used to. The pups and young dogs, at worst, get a "Nope", "sorry", "You loose" or whatever we choose to let the dog know it's made a mistake. These words are not used in a negative tone as with "NO", AHH". They are nothing more then a simple declaration of fact. If the dog's drive is there and developed correctly, loss of reward to a dog is just as devastating as any correction AND you haven't created any negatives between you and the dog.Otherwise its NO e-collars, NO pinch collars, NO leash corrections. It can be done!
IF a dog need physical correction, it will be taken care of but that's not been the case up to this point.
"Touchy-feely"? You haven't met our club members. :-) ;-)
We aren't tyring to shove PP down peoples throats as a lot of the PP folks do. I trained with compulsion for almost 50 yrs and it works! For all of us it's a choice and I have no desire tell anyone they are wrong in their methods.
Here's our web site. ALL of these dogs are trained with NO physical correction.A few are retrains from compulsion methods. http://www.rwdc.org
Training a dog is more about leadership then physical control!