thanks, yes I am pretty proud my dogs can do flashy obedience having never had a correction of even trained with a leash on.

It can be done!

My older GSD

SAR Cadaver, live find, article work, boat work.

AKC CD, CDX, AKC HT, Schutzhund III, TT, CGC.

He's never had a physical correction and he's now 11 yrs old.

Not to say that's the only way to do things but it was a goal of mine after many yrs of training with "traditional" methods.

It was also a huge deal to have belonged to a club that had faith in the method so always a big thanks to Riverfront Working Dog club. rwdc.org

I believe that most will use a combination of operant and compulsion as in the Michael Ellis videos.

Even those that use a combination will find that the need for corrections and the level of corrections will greatly be reduced if the oporant methods are done correctly.

Actually TRUE oporant DOES use corrections when it's take as Skinner described it. Positive and Negative Reward +R -R and Positive and Negative Punishment. +P -P

Many mistake operant to mean no corrections at all.

I think Eiils videos are top shelf and I've viewed MANY different training videos, books, seminars, etc over the years.

I firmly believe that the connection between dog and handler is key to ANY method of training. Maybe even more so with no leash work.

They have to believe that you, the handler are the bearer of all things fair and good.

To many "trainers" in any and all method don't get that and probably more so in what they see as "no physical correction" methods.

is that club, riverfront, still going?

Yes. I left 4-5 yrs ago due to different things but mostly my FIL living with us the last 7-8 yrs of his life. The last 2 yrs or so yrs were pretty stressful on the wife and I.

Pretty much when I gave up herding also.

Fantastic man. I was closer to him then I was to my own parents.

Live to be 98 and died of Alzheimers at home here with us as he wished.

You can still find the club on the net here. http://rwdc.org/

They have some good video on Youtube also but that didn't start till after I left.

98 is a good run, great he could pass at home amongst family.

apparently that used to be the norm, now old folks die all the time and nobody even knows until the neighbours ring the cops about the smell, so sad, we have become so isolated in the era of instant mass communication and social media.