Bob,

I agree with you that it can be done but I am not there yet, I wish I were but I still get stuck sometimes and revert back to my old ways of training. What happens is rather than put in the additional thousands of repetitions or change my approach because I am obviously not being clear I add a physical correction to emphasize what I don't want. That might speed up the process; but in all honesty behaviors I have taught without physical corrections are like second nature to the dog and more reliable. JMO but for me it is my goal to be able to train the way you do.

I have worked with a trainer who is purely positive but you could let the dog know when it was on the wrong track with a "no" or "start over" or her favorite which worked unbelievable for her was just to turn her head away. She too competes with her dogs and I love watching her work. I agree I would never tell anyone what methods they should use and there is more than one way to accomplish your goals but personally I strive for the purely positive; maybe one day Bob, I'll be as good as you.....well probably not but I can dream

Never said I was any good. I just like what I'm doing!

YOur comment about the lady the "just turns her head away". That's similar to what we do when we give a verbal correction (AHH!)
Then we turn away from the dog an ignore them for 10 seconds. It's amazing how many dogs start throwing behaviours at you. It's like their trying to say "I'm sorry. Please let's try again".

Sorry Bob, I didn't mean to come off as sounding like PP training doesn't work - like Sheila, I only wish I had your expertise. I was just being a smart@ss because the purely positive trainers I'VE met have been just like the woman described - VERY defensive and argumentative about which way is the RIGHT way, without acknowledging that there are in fact ways to safely and constructively use corrections... it's like they're looking for a fight. I've also never seen the PP technique used in the environment of a sch club, which I'm sure brings a lot more seriousness and intensity, and makes the methods all that more impressive.

Thanks for your (always) well informed and level headed input.

~Natalya

I think it all depends on what you consider a correction.

Even the folks that refuse to give so much as a verbal correction, are still inadvertantly correcting their dog- they just don't know it.

Our dog's know when we aren't pleased- they see it in our body language, heck, they can see it in our breathing.

No offence taken! The people like you described are, unfortunately more common then not in Purely Positive. Tree huggers! Did I say that with my outloud voice?
Again, as a long time correction trainer, I know it works when done properly.
As with to many compulsion trainers feeling the need to "control" the dog, to many PP people that feel the need to let the dog get away with to much for the sake of being the dog's "friend". It's like the parents that spoil the kid in order to make sure it "likes" mommy or daddy. That has nothing to do with respect or leadership.
Training with purely positive methods on the field doesn't mean the dog has to be a PIA at home but both are basically leadership issues.

The word correction has been studied and argued by folks lots smarter then I am. To me it just means NO physical correction. Even that can be argued if I comment on using my body language to communicate with the dog. I'm doing something physical to let the dog know I'm happy or not happy.
It's all in how crazy you want to get with wording.
I'm just a nice old granpa that likes to train my dogs!

" If the dog's drive is there and developed correctly, loss of reward to a dog is just as devastating as any correction"

That's a big IF

Bob I am definitely pro positive for teaching and learning, and I hope to implement a lot of positive stuff into mondio using the SATS Bridge and Target method. For a lot of training I think PP is attainable but it requires more discipline on the handlers part and I think that is where people tend to fail. It takes a long time to do something PP vs using even 1 correction and many people are not up to the task and do not want to take that time.

The dog can perceive many things as a correction. Technically speaking being removed from an area is a correction and is enforcement of pack leader status. Only a pack member more dominant than another may move the lower ranking pack member from a space.

Even if you just enforce the sit with gentle maneuvering of the dogs hindquarters into place, or a finger on the back or lifting of the head or stepping into the dogs space as a reminder, that is still a correction. Just a few examples.

IMO "PP" just means no physical corrections(collar jerks, wacking, smacking, forcing etc) but can include body language, verbal warnings, and removing the dog from the area as previously described.

Control... it is not a negative word to me in regards to animals. But Yes indeed some people go overboard with compulsion and their intent is physical control in a negative, coercive way. To me, control is having a dog that will sit when you tell it to, down when you tell it to, etc etc. Could be attained with PP or the 3 phase method. You are still controlling your dogs movements and actions.

IMO Control is not really the issue for most people, it's the unfairness level all compulsion/mostly compulsion has to the dog. I teach with positive and proof with correction and then introduce distraction with more positive. But if a dog only needs a level 1 verbal "No" for a correction then that is where it ends, I don't use a level 10 prong correction if a dog doesn't sit. The correction equals the infraction and takes into account the dog I am working with, where I am working the dog, and what I am enforcing. I love motivational methods and using the dogs drive to teach it what I want, and if the dog never needs even so much as a level one flat collar correction then so be it!

I do a lot of behavior modification, though. Fear and anxiety and whatnot I use 100% motivational, but for aggression, dominance, etc. cookies and balls and crate time don't do a whole lot.

When doing PP it is much easier to do so with your own dog than to try to take on clients with dogs of various backgrounds that don't always follow the rules when not in a session. People do not want to pay for 6 months or a year of training for PP total OB, they want a 4 or 8 week one session a week results immediately using methods that don't require them to rewire their brains.

EEPS I wrote a book! Bad Jenn! Anyhow I am not trying to argue against PP methods in any way. If you can, why not? But I have yet to see a serious handler aggressive pet dog effectively retrained/rehabed using zero physical corrections. Not talking about fear aggression.

I have some questions I will e-mail or PM you sometime as I don't want to clog up the thread with talk of outs and ringsport.

Training dogs 100% motivationally requires a few things.

1. Patience. If the dog isn't doing what you want, you have to be patient.
2. Thought. You have to actually think about how to approach training with the dog, rather than just forcing the dog into the position or behavior you want.
3. Patience.
4. Understanding. Some people don't "get it." That's just the way it is, not everyone is cut out to be a dog trainer. It's the reason why people are so astounded when they go to a dog trainer that has their dog doing everything they want in 10 seconds while the dogs owners have been fumbling around for months to try and get the dog to do those things.
5. Patience.

That said, IMO there are 2 kinds of purely-motivational trainers. All trainers are not equal because of the methods they employ. There are those that have a well rounded understanding of what is involved in dog training, the individual dogs temperaments and experience to back up the dogs training. They're not soft, sissy or anything like that, it's not that they are incapable of training compulsion, it is that they put more thought behind the way to solve a problem with a dog. The dogs are weened off their rewards correctly, the rewards are used correctly to begin with, and the overall results are excellent.

Then there are the know-it-all pansy ass trainers that think it's abusive to use a prong collar. They feel like they are taking some kind of a Moral High Ground. However, when they run into a brick wall they are faced with a dog that doesn't respond to their cookie cutter no-thought methods, leaving the owners standing there with a dog that "can't be fixed" because nobody wanted to beat some sense into the dog with more than a cookie.

Most people I've trained with use a combination of motivational and compulsion. Some of them do both at the same time from Day 1 and skip the entire motivational-learning-phase altogether and jump straight into a black and white "do it because I said so, if you don't you get corrected, if you do you are rewarded" style of training.

The biggest difference I see between the trainers I've spent time with, besides the fact that most of them do it "the way they were taught," is the amount of patience and tolerance a trainer has for the dog to make a mistake and learn the exercise. The second biggest difference I see, is the way the trainer approaches the training.

Most people approach training with the thought of "How can I get this dog to do what I want him to do." IMO the better approach would be "How can I make this dog believe that he wants to do what I want him to do." But this requires thinking from the dogs perspective, not the handlers perspective, and many people truly have difficulty with this. People in general tend to over-complicate things. A dog breaks life down into the absolute simplest form of logic there is, but people tend to think about consequences, ways to work around an issue, ways to manipulate a situation etc, then mistakenly apply this same logic to a dogs thought process.

This is also why stereotypical pet owners say stuff like "he knows he did something wrong," or "he did that out of spite because he's mad that I did <insert something they did 6 months ago that the dog totally forgot about already>" etc.

I don't see there being a right or wrong, just a personal preference. I use motivational methods wherever I can, and I would like to bring that into bitework-control too if I could find someone (a decoy) that was willing to work with me on that. But I also don't treat my dogs like prissy lil foofoo dogs, and I doubt Bob Scott does either