L.
I'd like to think on the same lines as you, but I've had one or two dogs in my life that I always felt could give a rats ass about making me happy. Looking back, I can't imagine, one in particular, that would do anything just for me. He obeyed me because I made him, but he challenged me every time he could. My wife use to tell me Tramp would just as soon eat me if I wasn't so hard.

Dogs are 4 legged narcissists... Probably why I get along well with them...

OldE,
I hear what you're saying. I've got two dogs currently, and I have to say that one of them is extremely self serving and would probably be happy with just about any human. Nothing special about me. But my other dog, I really feel has an attachment to ME in particular. We often gaze into each other's eyes adoringly. I know, sounds sickening, but I can't think of any other way of describing his bond with me, other than "love". Yep, probably me projecting; he's probably just submissive, and doing what he senses will keep the peace in the "pack". What makes me question that sometimes is that I often feel that we are in tune with one another on a very intuitive level; makes me think there is more to it than that.
Oh well, I'd better go fix some lunch before my ramblings make everyone here lose theirs! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Going back to the Inducive training thing. If you are doing it right you never need to use compulsion to proof? That is 100% Bullshivit!

Impossible. . .

Take the psycho border collie example who's only quest in life is the ball. What if you have given the dog a down command and someone else rolls a ball, the same kind of ball, by them? Will they chase it? What about a male BC that is training in your front yard. . .a bitch in heat walks into the yard wagging her tail. Is he gonna be 100% into you or her? No chance he'll break a command, even for a few seconds for a little sniff? But I haven't seen a dog that crazy, maybe they have bred a few BCs that way??

I don't believe it works. I have never seen a dog that is reliable unless it has had some compulsion. It doesn't have to be hard ass corrections, in some dogs it could be just a no-no fido, but it has to have been done.

Fear is the biggest motivator. Nothing else will take priority over saving one's own skin. Fear of correction, or pain/unpleasantness is what we are using to negate the desire to go off to find one's own reward. I don't really like it, but it is a fact of dog training. Especially with high drive dogs that have some hardness, independance, and dominance.

OK, but there is a difference between compulsion, correction, and punishment. We've already established that. In the case of the ball crazy BC, teaching him to ignore another person rolling a ball past him might require some compulsion, and correction, but not neccessarily punishment. If he learns that when he ignores the obvious temptation, he gets a bigger payoff, then you don't really need to punish it into him. When you talk of a dog needing to fear pain or discomfort, that is punishment. I'm not as big on that as I am on building conditioned responses using repetition, positive reinforcement, and only as much compulsion as is required.

And here's a dumb question: Can you really train an intact male to ignore a bitch in heat without abusing him? Seriously, I would think that it would be darn near impossible......of course my ignorance is vast.

 Quote:

Originally posted by L Swanston:

And here's a dumb question: Can you really train an intact male to ignore a bitch in heat without abusing him? Seriously, I would think that it would be darn near impossible..

Yes, it can be done... I think there were about 50 of us that watched it at the seminar, and this dog HAD bred that bitch the night before. Ultimate proofing..

One way of doing it is to let the dog breed as his reward for good OB. According to Ed, it is "better than hot dog training" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Breeding is a great motivator... works on males of just about any species if applied properly <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Yes you can get them to if not exactly ignore females in season to at least hold their passions in check a bit when working. My current male lead dog earned his position when he was one of the only males that would consistently run a good lead with 3 females in season behind him in the team. Two of the other males would lead but did alot of shoulder checking and casting looks of misery and longing behind them. You have to watch who you park beside each other too and it is nice to have a few spayed/neutered dogs to use as "spacers" if required! It is not the running of the dogs in season that gives you the problems - it is the stopping or tangles that can make it kind of "interesting"!

There is a difference between compulsion, correction, and punishment??? I think the different uses of correction and punishment (even though I don't like that word) are compulsion. The three are not necessarilly different.

I was just giving a VERY basic idea of why compulsion works.

I didn't ever say anything about punishment. There are many ways to use compulsion. It isn't a specific thing.

Go back and read SchH3FH2s posts. Everything that she is talking about is compulsion. Negative reinforcement is compulsion, correction is compulsion, aversive conditioning is compulsion. . .

Are we talking about different things? Compulsion in proofing is not an opinion. No dog on the planet, that I have ever seen or heard of, has been reliably trained without using some compulsive methods in proofing. ZERO, even your lab. I'm not talking about bad training, or punishment, I'm just generalizing about compulsion.

Originally posted by VanCamp:
There is a difference between compulsion, correction, and punishment??? I think the different uses of correction and punishment (even though I don't like that word) are compulsion. The three are not necessarilly different. They aren't neccessarily, but they can be.

I'm not talking about bad training, or punishment, I'm just generalizing about compulsion.

OK, I thought we were having a different discussion. No biggie.

To clarify: all forms of correction, or aversive methods, or punishment, or whatever you wanna call it are all compulsion.