Who said anything about making a hard correction? The correction only needs to be motivational or in lay terms enough the dog will avoid it. This depends on the dog.

E-collar or leash it doesn’t matter. I posted once how it is not required to harm the dog for him to want to avoid your correction.

IT is NOT OC.

The answer is: Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning forms an association between two stimuli.

Stim. 1 & 2
1. Dog hears the word SIT and 2. thinks a correction is coming so he avoids it.

Under this type of systematic approach the dog is not getting it wrong and then being corrected. He is getting corrected from the start. Yes it is a form of avoidance training but if you jerk or shock the dog in any way so is that.

The thing a person will find if they can get over the auto correction is the dog wins and likes to win and be rewarded.

The random 1 correction for being wrong is a slower way of reinforcing the dog must do it when told and thus it is more stressful approach to training.

The faster you can get past correcting a behavior the better off the dog will be. You will do well to take your time and establish the tools you need to train like developing an associative marker for positive reinforcement.

I like to teach the dog “good” and later use the eye-to-eye game for reward before I teach the sit and down. What you get is a dog who understands rewards and that good really means good job and payday.

But after those two things are out of the way teaching a reliable One Command Only sit and down in such a way creates clear headed dogs focused on their job and not just move for reward.

Still both ways will benefit by using OC and targeting the correct behavior coupled with a marker identifying the behavior. Be it GOOD or click-clap.

I have not trained with Ivan personally but I know a few that for months and have read as much as I can find concerning his approach. I think David Morris who is failure with what I am saying has also trained with Ivan and perhaps will speak on how things fit together more effectively then myself concerning him.

I will point out 3 times and a freebie is not new but has taken dogs into the winning circle on more then one occasion. It is not about corrections it is about a balance of theory as I have and others have mentioned before. Those who can effectively read the dog they are training and use the tools the dog needs will be better off in the end. Even if the dog not national level material you can still go out have fun and have a well behaved animal anyone who loves dogs would want.

Originally posted by Dennis Hasley:
I think David Morris who is failure with what I am saying has also trained with Ivan and perhaps will speak on how things fit together more effectively then myself concerning him.

Opps..sorry David NOT failure...Familiar!! lol

Dennis,

What you are describing is not Classical conditioning (Pavlovian Conditioning), it is by definition Opperant Conditioning (Skinnerian Conditioning). The difference is that Operant conditioning involves a behavior that the dog has a "choice" about, or emitted behavior. Classical conditioning involves a physical reation that occors in reaction to a stimulus (salivating in response to the presence of food, a knee jerk in the response to a tap on the patellar tendon). The reaction is physically "hard wired" to the stimulus, and then paired to a stimulus that wouldn't normally cause the response (a bell, light, or opening the refridgerator).

For an even longer description try this wed site:
Operant Conditioning and Behaviorism - an historical outline

Unfortunately (or fortunatly) the definitions for the different reations are very specific in terms of the types of behaviors they govern. Some of the terms have been used by different authors prior to Pavlov and Skinner "defining" the terms as they are used now, and that can lead to some confusion in the terms. So wether you are using a reward or punishment/negative reinforcement, you are talking about operant conditioning. The differance is that the desired behavior is not a physical reation that the dog can control.

One of the reasons that most people find the aversive side of the equasion easier o use is that it is more "active" for the trainer. This makes it less frustrating for the trainer because you can DO SOMETHING to get the behavior you want. In additon this side of the equation is faster to get a response. If you are using the Positive side of the equation or extinction (denying the reward that maintains a behavior) you have to wait out the behavior before you can do anything as a trainer. That can get frustrating. It does make the behavior stronger. A balance of combination of both the aversive and reenforcement sides can increase the speed of learning and the stength of the behavior.

One of the things that people tend to forget is that a renforcer is something that increases the behavior. Based on that definition the reward may not be something that you think is positive to the subject (different stroke for different folks). As a pack animal dogs will seek the "approval" of the "leader". This is why praise will work when training. The dog is going to seek that apporval. In other words it is a reward or reinforcer in the operant equation. The use of the correction will also be less frustrating for the trainer and therfore make the actions of the trainer more consistant and therefor much more efective. In addition the timeing of the reward can be problematic because it can be difficult to get the proper palcement. If it isn't quick enough you will reward the wrong behavior, which can also lead to the frustraion for the trainer. That is the reason that many people have better success with a clicker or verbal praise as maker prior to actual reinforcement.

Not all trainers can use the same techniques with equal effectiveness. A lot depends on the temperament of the trainer. That is why there are so many effective "techniques". You have to ba able to make what ever "system" you use effective.

Dennis, your confusion over classical vs operant conditioning is one I went thru in my first year or two as well. I thought that if the sit or down was taught with compulsion, then the "sit" was the CS, the pop on the butt was the US and the sitting behavior was the UR. This is NOT correct. As Richard said, CC applies to involunatary behaviors and also emotions, which is a big factor in dog training (at least to me). Emotions are classically conditioned. But overt, volunatary behaviors such as you described are taught thru OC.

Windus wrote: "Ivans method teaches that the opposite of reward is not a harsh correction but withholding of the reward.
I am hoping someone who has trained a hard dog this way will jump in the post and offer training
stories or tell us how it worked."


Ivan's "method" as you state it, is 'the opposite of reward (positive reinforcement) is not a harsh correction but withholding of the reward (negative punishment). Which is true and is what these guys are talking about. . .kinda. Ivan's method in this case isn't Ivan's method, it is operant conditioning.


The definition of a hard dog is a dog that can experience a lot of bad stuff and not loose spirit or go down in drive. So why do you think the "method" will not work?

It will depend on the setup, the actual training taking place, how the "method" is applied, and the drive of the dog.

I have seen many many hard hard dogs that worked very well for a ball reward on the field because they had a lot of drive for the ball.

You just have to realize that negative punishment as your correction isn't going to work in every situation.

You are walking onto the field and have Sparky's ball. Sparky sees a nice looking bitch that is in heat walk by. Sparky takes one look at you and your dumb little ball and leaves with the pretty bitch. Withholding the reward in that instance isn't going to get you anywhere. The dog's desire for tail outweighs the dog's desire for ball.

In that case you had better use a physical (prong the hell outta him) correction. (i.e an aversive)


For teaching the out, I think you can use some of Ivan's techniques with very hard dogs. I had an imported ZVV2 Czech dog that came to me with more than one training issue. He was a HARD dog, who was also a little handler aggressive. He was very handler aggressive when corrected off a bite. We worked with some of Ivan's suggestions on the out and they worked to clear up some of our issues. This was a dog that already understood the out, but didn't out. Also for him the actual fight on the sleeve or suit was generally of more importance than possesing the sleeve/suit. So by (the decoy) not fighting the dog, and using tie outs to eliminate the ability of the dog to self reward on the sleeve by thrashing he learned that to out on the still man was the best way to start the fight over. He also learned that absolutely nothing happened till he released. He didnt' like sitting there all day, and he wasn't a prey monster who would sit there most of the day on the sleeve. So that technique worked for us in a limited capacity. We still used aversives to continue out training in some different areas and under different conditions where the techniques didn't work at all (such as outs on NON-passive decoys, decoys that were actively fighting the dog).

We tried to use what techniques worked for the dog in any given training situation. Techniques where we avoided using compulsion as much as possible because that is my personal training rule.

Get it? Negative punishment success will depend on the environment, the drive for the reward, and the application. Not necessarilly on the hardness of the dog. If he is dummy would be more of a concern in that regard.

And Ivan does use aversives in some instances, he isn't a 100% "purely positive" no compulsion trainer.

What is voluntary about the dog conditioned with an auto correction? The dog has no choice but to move (emotion/positioning) and finds himself safe in one postion. If the dog has no choice how can it be OC?

CS = voice command
US = correction

Not the sitting behavior.

Seems pretty classic to me.

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Dennis,

But the behavior isn't a physologic resopse. If the behavior CAN be don by the dog on it's own, like a sit or a down or a stay or anything else, it IS operant conditioning. The force involved is an aversive used to get the dog to elicit the response.

Again in clasical conditioning the response is a physiologic response. There is never an option. You may not always see the stimulus, but it is there.

 Quote:

Originally posted by Richard Cannon:
Dennis,

But the behavior isn't a physologic resopse. If the behavior CAN be don by the dog on it's own, like a sit or a down or a stay or anything else, it IS operant conditioning. The force involved is an aversive used to get the dog to elicit the response.

Again in clasical conditioning the response is a physiologic response. There is never an option.

Right. The dog has an aversion to the correction. Thus he moves away from it. Later he learns the command (CS) is associated with the
correction (US = correction)

The UR is to move and escape (if it can)and that movement is like hot stove and hand involuntary emotional reasons.

Because it is a directed movement (pure construct on our part), people think the position of safe i.e correct sitting postilion is the CR response. Nope. It is the movement UR that got him there in such a situation.

The targeting (with a reward) once the dog is correct is OC however.

This makes a very large and easy to understand "safe window" that is not only safe but also rewarding.

Later, (very fast I might add) when done correct the dog learns to move on command to "beat the US" to avoid it... Later learns by OC to not only avoid a correction again but to also receive the reward for the targeted behavior. (Correct position)