Quote: Mike J Schoonbrood

 Quote: Rick Miller

 Quote: Mike J Schoonbrood

At the end of the day it is just a sport, whether the dog believes he is getting a ball at the end of it is entirely irrelivent. I wouldn't compare it to eye gouging in football, but I would sooner compare it to a basketball player wearing better shoes, or being offered alot of money to play their best game, or a wife who ... er... ok maybe not appropriate for this forum Is it unethical for a basketball player to know that he will get paid alot for playing his best game?

Depends, do the rules say the player is allowed to recieve money?

Now you're just nitpicking.

Mike, you know I respect your opinion. And your posts regarding this topis have been very informative. But I don't feel that I am nitpicking here. The rules say you cannot bust out a toy, but you all figured out that you can trick your dog into thinking you have it, and this sharpens the performance of the dog...so, I think it is a valid criticism considering the stakes for the breeding stock.

I guess I am not understanding your point. Can you elaborate on how you think the rules are being bent? Also, can you give me some specific examples of how this has negatively effected breeding stock?

 Quote: susan tuck

I guess I am not understanding your point. Can you elaborate on how you think the rules are being bent? Also, can you give me some specific examples of how this has negatively effected breeding stock?

I'm honestly not getting it either.

You can't correct on the field either .... But that doesn't mean that people who train with compulsion are bending the rules (I don't think)......

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

You can't correct on the field either .... But that doesn't mean that people who train with compulsion are bending the rules (I don't think)......

Does that include a verbal correction? After all, if the dog goes into drive from the mere sight of the toy and performs better...can you not give a verbal correction on the field. If compulsion is used with a verbal correction in training the dog associates the verbal with the physical and you technically can give a correction without touching the dog. Just wondering.

Howard

 Quote:

Mike, you know I respect your opinion. And your posts regarding this topis have been very informative. But I don't feel that I am nitpicking here. The rules say you cannot bust out a toy, but you all figured out that you can trick your dog into thinking you have it, and this sharpens the performance of the dog...so, I think it is a valid criticism considering the stakes for the breeding stock.

Rick,



Let us use the example of the ball/toy to sharpen performance in Sport and decide if it is cheating by compairing it to my SAR work in avalanche rescue.

Our reward for finding human scent under the snow is a bite/tug reward with the victim or the handler. This is acheived by a progressive association of the rag reward and searching as well as by repetition. Rest assured there is ample praise included with the tug reward.

When we train, a person is buried in the snow and they have the dog's tug/rag reward. The dog associates finding human scent with that prey driven reward, and is keen to find it to attain the reward. The will dig to the person and then play tug with the rag.

We also used buried human scented articles (like sweaters) to simulate deeper burials not able to be done safely with people. The dog will alert by digging, driving to the article in the anticipation of being able to tug it out of the snow and rag with the handler.

So now lets talk about real life. I am called out to a search. The buried avalanche victim does NOT have a rag/rag or a tug to play with if they are found. (Just like the sport competitor does not really have a hot dog in it's mouth or ball in his pocket) But my dog does not know that. He hunts his little heart out to get that prey reward and locates the human scent and digs and digs to try and get to that rag. I use my equipment and hit the victim with my avalanche probe and dig the person out.

Now a person buried in an avalanche has a limited amount of time to live before suffication (if they have not died of trauma). Is it cheating to use the motivation of the toy reward if it helps the dog to work more quickly under adverse conditions and heavy distractions? Even tough on our big day, there will be no toy buried under the snow?

You could use praise alone for this avalanche dog but I guarantee the results would not be the same for the VAST majority of dogs.

It has been said you may not care in obedience if a dog sits very quicky just because it thinks a ball or hotdog is coming. In my case I want the dog that will perform this search task with a such a speed and intensity that I want the EXTRA motivator of the toy/rag reward. Just in case right?

Do you want the prey monster or the dog looking for a pat on the head looking for you or your family in an avalanche. I want the prey monster.

Sorry I am not as eloquent as some other posters. Just wanted to provide a real life example of how motivators other than praise can come in handy. Using a lot of compulsion for searching does not a speedy search dog make either.

JMHO.

More on point I have seen many episodes of "At the end of my Leash"

I agree that many pet owners I know are impressed. However the show actually shows very little dog training. It is also about mending human relationships that are strained because of disobedient dogs.

He can get away with not using motivators like food and toys because he trains no complex behaviors. He is really showing people how to do dog groundwork and be a pack leader to their dogs. This does not require food and toys persay.

He is huge into teathering, and just being consistant. He teaches a sit by poping the leash and snapping his fingers.

I do not agree with his overall philosophy, but do think that many pet owners could get learn a thing or two from him on the groundwork front and not treating your dog like a spoiled child.

That said there are many dangers to his show as well. He is big into forcing dogs to submit to him, (which could be very dangerous for the uneducated public). I have never seen him deal with a truely agressive or dominant dog on the many episodes I have seen.

He calls prong collars cruel. I think he is big into martingales.

To answer the question in the subject line. I will use all the tools available to me in my toolbox. I use food, toys, and praise as motivators and will continue to do so, regardless of the flavor of the month dog trainer on TV in Canada at present.

That's what I see as well on the show. I wonder how he would train some of the dogs owned by people here..not your average couch potato quick walk around the block pet dogs! I'm going to his seminar in Ottawa and if I get a chance may just ask how he would go about training a working dog.

Jennifer, thankyou for posting that, I hadn't even thought of that scenario but it is exactly what I am talking about: The dog thinks everything he does is a game, but at the end of the day, he is doing what he is supposed to do, so what does it matter? Would the dog be equally effective if he "knew" that he was saving a persons life? No, because a dog doesnt really care about that. As I said, dogs are selfish

The same goes for narc dogs and bomb dogs. The dogs associate the scents with a toy reward. You can't compulsion the dog to locate narcotics, nor "ask" the dog or "show" the dog what he is supposed to do. A dog that is not driven is a dog who will give up when there is no quick success. There is very little to zero obedience done during scent work. I watched a bomb dog working in the city center of Brussels a month ago. The dog was a young Malinois. He was as wild as wild can be, the handler put absolutely no obedience on the dog. When she was standing around talking with other officers, the dog was bouncing around on the end of the leash ready to work. The handler motioned to all the areas the dog should search, and the dog very intensely went around every single building in the main square looking for "his toy".

HOward, in Schutzhund a verbal correction would loose points. It could be considered a second command.

So, it seems that the method used to train the dog is weighted somewhat by how one plans to employ the dog?

Example: compulsory training may work fine for some scenarios, but motivational (whether treat/toy/ect)methods would be preferable for others?

I tend to agree with Jennifer and Mike - I don't think my dog would trail if I had just told her to...the rewards seem to have really built up her drive, reinforced her desire to work and kept as much negative connotations out of it as possible - and I don't really care if she does it to please me or herself so long as she does it reliably and well.

Note that I am a know-nothing on SCH, but does it matter if the dog is working for the toy? What I have seen in SAR selection is a dog lacking in drive WON'T jump through all those hoops to earn their reward - they go searching for butterflies. They lack the Prey Monsterness (thanks Jennifer) needed to do the job.

Isn't it reasonable to think a dog with poor working drive wouldn't do well no matter WHAT you promised? There's not much there to elicit one way or the other...