sefi: practice makes perfect! you keep working on the english, i'll keep working on my dog training.

 Quote: connie sutherland

I also might reduce the treat's value as the command gets more solid, using the excellent treat once in a while and medium treats the other times. (Excellent treats are very good at the beginning, in the first instruction phase, I think.)

i have no idea how to tell the "value" of treats in my dog's eyes. both of them go crazy over absolutely ANYTHING that's given to them. if i'm out of hotdogs (which i cut up into very small chunks), i use chunks of the stale bread that none of the kids ate. if there's no bread available, i can use a hand full of their kibble! all have the same response.

 Quote: connie sutherland

It's excellent that you are fixing what your relative did wrong.

yeah, i can't completely blame it on him though. when we first got them, as i said, i had some bad training habits, and i figure he picked up on them. as i started working with more positive training, i neglected to update him. i didn't realise how bad it was until about a month ago when i was watching her, i was a bit grumpy, and i called in a not-so-friendly tone, and she hit the ground, tail tapping. i walk over to her, and she started peeing - i was mortified! (this is a potty trained dog). i was gonna make a whole new thread about her, but this one will do.

slowly but surely though i'm undoing the damage that's been done to this dog. :|

I cannot express how angry that cowering-and-peeing-in-fear reaction makes me. No point in going there, except to say that this kind of "training" is not only inhumane -- it's also the least efficient training there is. JMHO.

I'm very glad that you are undertaking to remedy it, and very glad that the dog is responding well.

As you have seen, motivational training is so much more efficient and productive than your relative's method that it isn't even necessary to add how much of a bond it creates between the handler and the dog and how satisfying and pleasant it is for everyone involved.

Good job. Keep it up!

 Quote: jamie fraser

... i have no idea how to tell the "value" of treats in my dog's eyes. both of them go crazy over absolutely ANYTHING that's given to them. if i'm out of hotdogs (which i cut up into very small chunks), i use chunks of the stale bread that none of the kids ate. if there's no bread available, i can use a hand full of their kibble! all have the same response. ...

If they really have the same response to all the treats, then I'd consider a jackpot treat to be the highest value. All dogs will differentiate between big and small, I think.

But I do think that as you go along, you will see that a piece of hotdog or other strong-flavored meat is received more enthusiastically than kibble.

Fry or nuke some bacon and drain off the grease and cut them up into teeny tiny pieces. Bacon is smelly, strong flavored, and easy to manage once crisp and degreased. Use it as a major, awesome treat that only comes for one or two awesome completed tasks. I don't think it's all that healthy but if it would make your dog come running regardless of whether he's in a gravy-coated cat convention then use it; use whatever works.

You can also try: Jerky, fish, shrimp, cooked bits of meat, cheeze, can cheese, tuna, I've heard some people use kitty treats, cheesy poofs, just cycle around until you find something your dog would sell its soul for. You'll know when your dog likes a treat. If you're not sure, you haven't found the right treat or you're trying it when he's not hungry enough!

 Quote: Jamie Fraser

i had some bad training habits

I know that feeling all to well.(Then I found Leerburg) I had to just take a long break from training. Luckily, within a matter of months most of the effects of my crappy training were gone.

I thought of a story that goes along with Connie's recall advice. I never put 2 and 2 together and thought of a way to incorporate it into my training. I talked to an older gentleman that came into my store. I had my dog with me and we started talking about training. He had deer dogs, and I asked him how he trained them to come back to his truck while they were in the middle of hunting. Remember these dogs are trailing deer. He said that he honked the horn to his truck everytime he fed them at home. Over a period of time, they associated that honk with feeding time and would come back to his truck even in the middle of a deer chase. He also said he was sure to feed them everytime they came back and that he never had a dog that wouldn't come back. Just thought that was a good story to add to Connie's advice.

 Quote: connie sutherland

I cannot express how angry that cowering-and-peeing-in-fear reaction makes me. No point in going there, except to say that this kind of "training" is not only inhumane -- it's also the least efficient training there is. JMHO.

oh i wholeheartedly agree. especially when it's to the point that the dog locks up when you ask her to do something - it would seem pretty obvious that getting her to do anything but lay there is out of the question.

 Quote: connie sutherland

If they really have the same response to all the treats, then I'd consider a jackpot treat to be the highest value. All dogs will differentiate between big and small, I think.

i have two theories about why they act like this. the first, being that because it comes out of my hand it's somehow magical.. . this is somewhat unlikely. the second being that they wolf it down too quick to taste it. it's not that they have a "ho hum" reaction over everything - it's that they'd sell their soul for everything. in the early training of things like "sit", i would hold the treat in my fist before giving it to them (a fist is now my hand signal for "sit", which works out nicely), their gaze would be locked on my fist as it comes out of my pocket and the instant i drop it to reward them it's gone.

haha.. once, when it was required that they took medicine, i actually used this exercise to get them to take their pills. make a fist with the pill in it, ask them to sit (if they hadn't already), then drop the pill in front of them. before it hits the floor, it's in their stomach, and they're happy puppies.

again this morning i took a few pieces of bread out with me (i break them up in my pocket so the dogs can't see them) and your advice is definitely working... just from yesterday to today, the increase in the response time for their recall brings a smile to my face. so i think the mistake i made (re: my earlier post) was stopping the rewarding too soon.. i should have been still rewarding to bring down the response time, instead of just phasing out the rewards when they did it consistently.

i'm definitely going to keep working on it.

The jackpotting of treats should be used sparingly and used to signify major breakthroughs in your training or to get out of a bad training situation, in a good way. Either way, use it sparingly or not at all is my suggestion. You will only see short term effects using the Jackpot method and in the long run could set your training back or create a slower response.

Wow, I wish you were kidding about this. My sons have all owned paintball guns and if I ever saw them shoot anything with a pulse, I'd take it away for EVER. That's extraordinarily cruel. And, I'll be diplomatic here, to hear you say you "painted" them is quite the euphemism.

Regarding the title of your thread, poor doesn't give you the right to be heartless .

Sorry people (and Jamie), somehow I read only the first page and thought it was the end of the thread. I didn't see where Jamie changed things around until after I posted. I guess it's my bedtime .

judy, did you read the entire thread? or just skim some bits and form an opinion?

the way in which i did it, is no more cruel than a swat on the butt with a leash. everyone has a right to an opinion, and unfortunately there are people who think all remote collars are cruel.

the only issue people had with it was that it mightn't be quick enough. i believe i was within 1.5s of each infraction every time, but upon better advice i've changed the direaction of my training anyway.

inefficient? probably. bad idea? maybe.

extraordinarily cruel and heartless? not a chance.

No I didn't read the entire thread . My fault. I just edited my post to say that. I guess we were posting at the same time. Anyhow, I've been hit by a paintball gun and they hurt! I use an e-collar and have no issue with it because it's more exact. I also have a prong collar and use it and I have an electric fence and use it. I'm sure the e-fence hurts as much or more than the paintball gun but there's no timing error on the e-fence and no way for the dog to loose an eye. But, like I said, I had somehow missed all 4 or 5 pages of the thread when I posted so sorry about that.