Dei

You make some excelent points here.

Once again I will comment there are always going to be differences of opinion on dog training - there are going to be different methods use by one trainer vs another. There is nothing wrong with this.

But there is something wrong with table training. This is not about one persons opinon - this is about bad dog training. If you notice I do not interfear on this dicsussion bboard with differences of opinion - god knows there are enough of them - but this is more than that. This is cruelty to animalss. Where is PETA when we need them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Some interesting points here. With all said, any kind of training where a dog is not given an option to flee and forced to fight is questionable at best. I would think that the table in the hands of Gene England would be fair, but it could go very wrong with people that are not as gifted. I have seen this and it makes me a bit uneasy.
However bad dog training is bad dog training. THere really is no diffrence in this tablew stuff, then placing a dog out and whipping it to get more aggression, nor is there in the forced retrieve. It is a fine line. It comes down to ones morals and what they can live with. the real issues is assholes in dog training that guide people into thinking this way of training is the only way.

Ed writes:

If you want some advice - let your dog be a nice pet. I have talked to some peopel who know your dog !


Ed,

Actually I don't want any advice from you. I'm perfectly content to let you be the "expert" on your list.
An easy goal to achieve when you get to limit access to anyone who doesn't agree with you. You don't have to be around the sport very long, to discover your high opinion of yourself, isn't shared by a lot of other people.

Your unsolicited comments above, are pure BS! You've never seen my dog, you don't
know my dog. The peopel (sic)
that you mentioned are figments of your imagination.
If anyone wants to know if my
girl is a working sport dog or just a pet, ask the decoys who work her every week, not
someone who's never seen her.

Thomas

We are getting a little pissy are we not. I never said I saw your dog - I said a friend saw the dog. A friend who knows more about dogs than you will learn in you life time.

His comment was that if you wanted to train your dog in protection you were doing the right thing in putting the dog on the table and table training it. Of course maybe you do not understand the significance of that statement.

As far as your smart-mouth comment about the board - I have yet to ban anyone from the board - but you are pushing the limit of my patience. You and your buddy Steve Leigh need to spend time on the protection dog list not here.

Tom:

I will not mention his name because one I did not see personally how he did this and two he is not here to defend himself. I love to shoot my mouth off but I also know my place in this sport. Who am I to contradict this trainer? I’ll leave that to people like Ed and Kevin. I take pride in the amount of knowledge I acquired in the amount of leash time I have. You know what my secret is. If I put on a black shirt and Ed tells me that it is red. You know what I say to him. How do you like my red shirt? Now in thirty years from now I might buy him a pair of glasses but until then I will go around thinking I have a red shirt on. Some other people could benefit from my advise.

Ted in reality just about most of the top Schutzhund handlers/trainers in this country,and abroad use complusion to get an animal to perform a certain task, where some might say it is abuse, others say no. I do not believe that the majority of the top dogs that compete in Schutzhund world wide have been trainied without force, and with force comes pain, abuse as some might call it. My example before with the forced retrieve is really no more abusive then the tables with a weak dog that does not have the gentics behind it, but not many people are pointing a finger. The real point again is that there are assholes out there-Period. I think that the tables have come under so much fire because of the fact that it invovles protection training. The same thing with the whipping of the dog. There are not many top handlers that would want a Humane Society person watching thier real training session. It is a fact. Flinks is one of the few people that I have heard of that is trying a different approach with proven results. What I hear about him is he does not show you the happy way to do things then kicks the shit out of the dogs when he is in private. Back to tables, really with a dog that is genticaly capable of defence, has a prey foundation, it is not that abusive when measured next to other exercises. It is abuse to use it when all else fails, or with a dog that cannot perform, but the same goes for whipping a weak dog into biting, it is no different. Whipping a dog that has the nerves and prey foundation, well I guess 70% of trainers that compete at high levels of Schutzhund are abusive to the animals, because that is what goes on all the time. I think the bigger issue is the skill of the person, the real skill not self-proclaimed.
The whip alot of people may not like when dogs get hit with it, or it is abuse, but really this is what protection training is about, but where do you draw the line?

I gotta add my 2 cents worth here. I'm from Australia where high pressure, (no prey drive developement)training is rank. A large percentage of those who make enquiries with me about protection training do not need it, nor do they want to pay for my time to work with the dog through prey drive developement. They can go to a trainer who will show them a video of a dog knocking shit out of a helper, these people wouldn't know a good dog from a bad, so they are impressed with acts of violence such as this. Their training is cheap because all they do is board your dog for two weeks, terrorize it on a table until it defends itself. I have spoken to people who worked with this type of trainer & they left when they saw a dog hit on the back until it bled, it was soaked in urine when the vet turned up to stitch the wound.

The dogs are so scaed when they leave there that they will go anyone anytime.

Put most dogs on a table, beat it & within a day or so, it will act in a way that will make it (un educated owners) think thay have got a tiger by the tail, these people often find their way to me to try & fix a dog with a broken spirit. I have trouble even stopping the urination problems the dogs get!

Im not saying a table training wont work when done properly, but it's too much of a temptation for cheap arse trainers who want quick results to abuse the little good the table "may be able to do"

I have many of Ed's videos, including the one with Tom Rose & the table.

I have used the table in obedince work many times, there is no comparison between the stress put on the dog in table obedience work as there is in protection work, in my obedience work, the dogs dont fear for their lives, only that they may fall off the table.

I have experimented with many methods (not table training) & have found a good solid base in the info that I get from Leerburg.com & Ed's tapes & articles. A lot of other sites charge you to participate in discussions or even read the training articles!
Sometimes it's best to look at the big picture!

After reading all the posts about table training, a terrible question comes to mind. What is wrong with some of these owners? We expect our dogs to lay down their lives for us, but where is the protection of an owner, when a dog is being abusively trained? As for the dog being beaten by a German trainer, PLEASE tell me that this is not done for the sport. The owners and trainers need to recognize fear in the dogs. If my dog was being pushed too far and actually hurt by a trainer, I would rescue my dog, leave the club immediately. The trainer would have ME to worry about attacking him! I know so many dogs who want to bite and it can be channeled and controlled. I can't believe anyone goes to this effort to get bite out of their dogs. I'm disappointed to learn of this training. Where is everyone's innate ethics and morality toward their dogs? Why should they protect us if we let them down? Trust me, they know when we are letting them down. As owners, we become part of the whole experience. Wise up!

Great Debate!

As has been pointed out in several of the posts, tablr training - or a similar form - has been around a long time. It was used exclusively in the 60's and early 70's by guard trainers in this country. When the german/European influence hit this country, this brutal type of training all but disappeared.

However, in the early 1990'2, we experienced a significant drop in the numbers of available GSD's with the working abilities for both sport and police. We all know there are numerous importing kennels that sell a large number of dogs each year, and their livelihood depends on those sales. this is true on both sides of the Atlantic. In all reality, most of the available dogs were pure junk. So, in order to sell this crap and maintain their standard of living, this new and wonderful training technique somehow appeared like magic. And by the way, the table was first being used over there so they could get the dogs biting before they were shipped here. Essentially the Europeans developed the defense table so they could get their junk to bite, and the Americans learned the table so they could keep the dogs biting until they were sold.

Simultaneously, there was a significant number of people unsatisfied with the sport nature of Schutzhund and felt the dogs needed to be more real. It is also interesting that about the same time the now popular prey/defense system of protection training began to evolve. It is clear the defense table and the prey/defense system were developed in an attempt to compensate for poor quality dogs.

It has been my experience that the almight dollar is the usual culprit behind unusual theories or techniques that drastically deviate from the true purpose of training. The defense table is no exception. The dog is biting for all the wrong reasons.