Steve said
"My guess with the cupboard surfing, you didnt make the right association in her head because you havent been as consistant or timely as you needed"


With out that consistency and timing everything else is a moot point!

I also think it depends on the dogs temperament and the situation but also your goals, are you training a companion house dog or a competition Schutzhund dog.
I use pinch collars corrections for certain commands not heeded or more so commands broken but only after the dog knows the command 100% not in the teaching phase of new behaviors. I'm at the point now where a verbal command is all that's needed, like ah ah or ahh or no. The level of corrections used on Zoey when I do are minimal, it can be done with two fingers pinching the leash.

I use food and toys for motivation in training but sometime there's competing motivations and the food or toy isn't going to be enough to hold my dogs attention where a correction can.

The cupboard situation leads me to believe you are trying to avoid having to correct the dog. Its a natural response to not want to correct the dog but it can lead to confusion if you are correcting later.

In this situation if I found the dog going into the cupboard I would simply walk up (calmly, don't come at the dog alarmed they are in the cupboard and just scare them off) say no and jerk the pull tab and lead the dog away.

I use no over leave it here because in my training leave it is a temporary command and no is a thats never allowed command.

I like seeing the opinions and critiques on my example, but it's not what I was looking for, what I'm looking for is what do YOU do with YOUR dogs. Tracy Collins gave an excellent post with what I'm looking for, and there were a few others, but hers stood out.

Obviously everyones dogs are different with alot of different factors. I'd just like to hear from all kinds of different people, with different dogs, in different situations about how they correct their dogs. The more the merrier!

It depends on the dog totally. I'll compare 2 extremes, there's Sport my chow/setter and Logan my dutchie. Sport was very shy, afraid of loud noise very very soft dog. Logan is confident, not afraid of noise and very hard...complete opposites.

A correction for Sport could be anything from a NO, a slight twitch on her buckle collar or a squirt bottle. Anything more than that for her would hurt her feelings really bad and make her afraid.

A correction for Logan can be anything from a "nope, sit" for trying to pull, he hates that more than : correcting him with the prong collar real hard. He has seen a rabbit before on a long line, I didn't see it and he took off hitting the end, flipping around maybe a small yelp or nothing and then right back looking for the rabbit but slack lead, that was a long time ago. A squirt bottle works real good for him too, I used it at the chiropractor because he wasn't cooperating on sitting still.

I think for most training corrections they don't have to be physical if the timing is correct.
Like others have said, if I know the timing has passed I won't give a correction because I know that it won't mean anything to the dog except have him probably saying in his head WTF was that for???
The timing for the cupboards should be that you are correcting her as soon as you can see she's going towards them.
Will she stop what she's doing if you just give a verbal correction? If she starts toward the cupboard and you say no, will she stop or keep advancing?
When Tucker even looks at a squirrel I give him a verbal "hey" which means "don't even think about it buddy!"
If you catch the dog the second you see they're thinking about doing something unacceptable things will sink in quicker.
I know I sound crazy when I say "correct when you see they're thinking about doing it" because really we can't see what they think. But I mean by body language. I KNOW when Tucker see's that squirrel and is thinking of chasing it off, he stops, stares, lowers his head,tail up etc..thats when i verbally correct him and get his attention back on me.
So try watching her a bit and you'll see some cue's about when she's "thinking" about those cupboards.
However, for more serious offenses (teeth on me) I will resort to a physical correction in order to get the point across that his behaviour is out of line.
So it all depends on what the situation is

You are so right about not being able to discuss this topic online. I made the mistake of posting about my fairly harsh correction after my dog reared up and bared his teeth at my wife, and 2/3 of the replies sounded like they were ready to call PETA on me.

Still, nobody could shake me in my belief that there are certain (very few) behaviors that warrant a strong correction. Aggression toward the family is one, as previously noted. Another example: I typically use his ecollar on the lowest possible setting; however, on the rare occasion that he takes off after an animal and doesnt respond to my first recall, I'm not afraid to turn that thing up to about level 60 (of 128) to make very clear that type of dangerous behavior is never acceptable.

For most other stuff, simply denying him a reward is enough.

To echo everyone else, it depends completely on dog and circumstance. You might read 1000 comments on here and 0 of them might be appropriate for any specific dog.

CW

 Quote: Ben McDonald

For example, with my dane girl she gets head strong sometimes and doesn't like to listen to a simple command that I know 100% that she knows, yet she is choosing to ignore me. Such as when she is getting into the cupboards. I'll catch her looking at me out of the corner of her eye while she's doing what she's not supposed to, and even after I give her a command. I'll walk over and poke her in the ribs to get her attention, then tell her what I want her to do. If she listens, great, if not then I'll snap on her drag leash and she gets a flat collar correction if she does it again, which usually does the trick. If I have to give her any more of a correction over that, then she gets to wear her prong collar, and 99% of the time that solves the issue right there. I've used the three strikes and your out rule with her and it seems to work pretty well. She is a submissive female but will rebound from a correction fairly quickly (usually minutes). Once in a while I'll go from a verbal correction to her prong collar for the same infraction just so she doesn't learn that I only mean it when I tell her the third time.

I think your correction protocal is well thought out and if it's working 99% of the time ... well, there you go.

As for the cuboard situation, I would opt for management, ie. put inside latches (baby latches) on the doors. I find it to hard and time consuming to teach my dog to not do something when I am not in the room. For instance, my dog goes into my office and takes my glasses or pens off the desk and brings them into the living room to chew on. There is no door on that room, and it is the only thing she does "wrong" in the house, so it doesnt warrant having her tethered or confined.
So I simply make sure I don't leave pens or glasses out! And if I forget, and she takes them I just retrieve them and don't correct her.

I suppose this makes me a lazy trainer, but I don't thimk there is anything wrong with opting for plain, simple management once in a while

Wendy and Cindy make escellent points that also apply to my dog. I am able to anticipate certain faux pas, such as a motorbike coming around a corner. I know she is getting ready to herd it, so as soon as her ears come up and she looks in that direction, I give her a verbal correction ("No!"). She will still prick up her ears and ease forward (possibly hoping that I will release her to herd the bike), but she will not break. Inside, she is very well-behaved, but I avoid as many possible pitfalls as I can by keeping certain things picked up. For the most part she is very obedient, so I feel it behooves me to not put her in a position to fail, and thus avoid having to make countless physical corrections.
I would NEVER watch my dog behaving badly and try to convince her not to do something. I'm the boss and what I say goes.