Steve K9Pro

K9: DD, lets say you look at this from my angle for a moment, here is a brief insight to how I work... Hypothetical. 1. existing dog. 2. goal, pet, fetch. 3. primary drive (would be tested but lets say) food. 4. owners experience minimal First, increase the dogs drive (desire for food), there are ways this can be done in play for food... excitement etc.. Second, have the dog take the dumbell or similar in its mouth, just a second, then a release command & then feed. Third, the dog can onl buy the food for a prolonged hold, maybe 2 seconds a this stage. then build this time... Now have the dog hold & sit, then step away, add bring command & have the dog come to you, only need two steps, the release & feed. Its this line of thought that will quickly train the fetch with no pinch.. If done in clear steps, the dog will be able to do it reliably... There are of course bridges & markers alog the way as guiders to desired & undesired behaviours....

K9: I am sure you would like me to state the names of the clubs I am talking about, but I see no value in publically devaluing the clubs names. I cannot see how that has anything to do with the FR either.

K9: I think depends more on your eye for detail.. Watch many a retriever take off after a bird, pick it up all done in high drive, then it trotts back to the handler, "trotts back?" why not fly back? Where do most comp dogs wash out? Is it when it comes to handing over the bird? Do some get mouthy, do some fail to give the bird? I have seen a lot of this. K9: I said TRIALLING CLUBS, I didnt mention anything about training clubs...

K9: Training in drive is very safe, very reliable method of training, but like anything I guess you need to know what your doing or like anything it can go wrong.

DD: K9: Most in where? Australia? possibly but I would also say that many trialling clubs arent getting many or sometimes any passes eac year, what does that say? K9: No, but I wouldnt have a "pet", as a retriever. K9: I am not against trialling at all, in fact I spend a great deal of time training people to overcome trialling problems. I am sorry if you think I am mocking you, I wasnt, if & or when I do, you will clearly know it. I have only copied & pasted your sentences, not twisted (altered) them in any way. K9: Well, thanks for the "business" advice, but its going great thank you. I would also like to point out that I am not running a business here, I am posting just like you are. My "business" isnt posting on DOL... K9: well your welcome, I will add as I feel I have something to add. K9: Its comments like these that will get you "mocked" buddy.... If fetching is playing, why pinch the pets ear? It is sort f like beaing our kid if he doesnt win the football game, well I guess that happens... Why is it so important to have a "play" fetch?

K9: A very popular method with the ear pinch is escape training, pinch the ear until the dog holds the dumbell, then when it does release the pressure, when the dog drops the dumbell you increase the pressure. I will be the first to say it works, & it works very well if you can carry out it without emotion. But it also extinguishes the dogs drive so you get a very slow retrieve, the asthetics of the dog look very poor also..

K9: no, it is nothing like the prong collar. Aversives I will use are to stop the dog doing something, eg: pulling on the leash... Motivators I use are for getting the dog to do something eg: fetch a dumbell.. K9: & for a "pet", neither is the retrieve.. I always am fascinated about people who talk about the "real world". The real world is the world that each of us live in, & for each of us its different. K9: if you are out to win a retrieving trial, then keeping a dog that cant win would be a mistake. If your just playing retrieve with your family pet, I would ask you, why would a family pinch a pets ear to get something that is not a requirement? As for whats dogs were bred for, what dog was "bred" to walk in the heel position? K9: no, thats also incorrect, FR was designed in an era of force, there were no motivational methods back then... (Only Dinasours lol) K9: They do because they feel it is neccessary. They might say something like....

K9: I do have serious concerns with those who train dogs by heir breed. Every breed has such a wide cross section of temperaments, you wont do hat with any reliability.. K9: why?

K9: More dependable, thats a possibility, as I said I wont argue that, but.. It takes a much harder dog to work for long periods of time in a FR. Many of the successful dogs are stacked on a mountain of failures... I also think that you will get a high degree of reliability from a high prey driven dog, maybe only equal to or just under the FR dog, but for me thats worth it... K9: there are ways & means... Most start by adding discomfort, & having the dog turn off the discomfort or pain, by holding or fetching for eg... I may even hold a dumbell in my mouth if some one had fishing wire round my toe or pliers on my ear...

K9: using the old training rule, "the command must be seen by the dog to earn a reward" means that if you start with force, the command will be seen as an opportunity to avoid pain, you wont change this association in a hurry. Hence the dog is in avoidance through part of the excercise, ie: not clear headed. K9: No, I havent seen what you do with food but most people dont have a food driven dog. They have one that understands; an action = piece of food, there is no drive, no adrenalin or high state of arousal. This can be acheived with food in some dogs but few go that far... K9: in more advanced excercises we call this freezing... The lack of willinness to do anything in avoidance of pain or the threat of... The dog isnt in pain now, so it keeps this state going rather than run the risk of finding the pain..... K9: I guess I am talking about more than dumbell retrieval in your back yard. Keep in mind he is not fetching in prey drive now either.. Adding pressure or making the retrieve part of some more complicated excercises (ie adding pressure) will usually see a dog like this freeze a whole lot more... Again, when people have a dog the go looking for a sport to compete in, I dont think many of those people change the world. Those that choose a dog for the sport often do. I was at a seminar where a guy was teaching tracking, a suden brought his dog along wearing a botcher. (A device to keep the dogs nose on the ground) The teacher took the botcher off & said, we dont teach Girraffes to track here, if he dont want his nose on the ground, he isnt a real tracker, get a dog that is, he then said he was just saving anyone serious, a lot of time.... I also believe that the true champions of a sport are not switching drives every two minutes from food to prey & back again.... This will not leave the dog clear headed either..

K9: Ok, to successfully train in drive, I believe you need to know the concepts of drives... Your instructor should be able to give you a full explaination but... High threshold to say prey drive means that it takes a lot of stimulation to trigger prey drive...

K9: if your dog has high thresholds to drive it will not be a training method you can use...

K9: First, I dont believe all dogs will make good retrievers, so having that said, if I could not get a dog to retrieve through motivatio, I would choose another dog or give up on the retrieve before going to force. There are many varying degrees of the Forced fetch/retrieve, some can be so barbaric its unthinkable... The say & I dont argue that the forced retrieve is the most accurate & reliable retrieve there is. But I feel the atitude (drive) of the dog can be lost in this part of he excercise, & the stress that can come from it & the fact that you lose your "clear headed" dog makes the forced Retrieve out of my desired training methods...

K9: the dog needs to eat & thats how the TOT works, by the dog offering the Alpha position to the owner... K9: maybe this thread will explain it. http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=13260 Though I will say that he sounds like a dog that would benefit from some training in drive.. He has bee in & out of pounds so he will take some time to feel like this home isnt temporary.

K9: Prong collars are a restricted import & you will not get a permit as a private user. Any time you try & import them, all packages are scanned now & it will be confiscated. If you lable it as something else, you may be charged with fraud.

K9: Its not even a possible occurance..

K9: this is 100% true, so then I guess you would also agree that us "pro cruelty" people are allowed our opinion & it is no less valid either? K9: oh ok, can you name one training tool then? Something that will train the animal without the handler? K9: No argument there, is anyone saying that the collar teaches a dog anything? K9: again, do the collars do this? so my prong sitting next to me is capable of hurting my dog all on its own? I think your giving a piece of stainless steel way to much credit... K9: Oh goodie, here comes the secret to success, I have been waiting soo long... K9: wow, I thought you were gonna tell me something new? K9: Dolphins arent dogs & the same training principles dont apply, so of course you wouldnt use a prong on a dolphin. Nor would I expect the Dolphin to complete field work as I would a dog... I cant see this point having any relevance at all... K9: Ok well lets just leave the flame suit for now, how about showing us your dogs? What about a meet where you bring your perfectly trained dogs & show us all what were doing wrong? Show us "pro cruelty" people how its done? Or how about something easy, I will give you a dog & you can demonstrate some "dolphin magic" for us? How do I already know that this will never happen?

K9: Absolutely.. It was designed for puppies. Jus have a little more patience.

K9: why do you think this is? K9: why? if the dogs primary drive is prey (tug) then you will not over rule that with food... I would start the TOT as soon as possible & feed her without the others there.

K9: Just so you know, its the wrong thing to do... It wont add confidence, rather it may be the source of the current problem.. K9: It sounds like your trying to teach attention in the face of distraction? K9: which drive is high?

K9: Maybe & maybe not, we will never know but, Police officers are not meant to discharge any weapon where they could risk the public safety, this would be no different. This is a training session, with the complete environment being controlled. It is nice to know what the dog will do when your in training. In the end deployment is a balance, risk of public on close proximity vs risk to public if you dont apprehend the suspect, terrorist etc etc...

K9: Totally disagree with this, I have taught hundreds of people to use the e collar for hundreds of different goals, maybe 20% were for what I would call the "extreme end of training". They can be a very reliable solution to unwanted behaviours around the home to off leash out of control dogs to just getting a reliable recall... You dont have to be an expert to use one, with a little guidance you would be surprised how well people can get results with no side effects to their dog... K9: No, the dog is fitted with the collar for some hours of the day or night where it can learn to respect the boundaries. The other times the dog should be contained in other methods or supervised. Just like starting to wear shoes if you previously worn none, your feet would not fair so well in shoes 24/7. I dont advocate people buying any training tool with out first seeking guidance on how to use it...

K9: Sad to say that no workshops being planned right now... I am a bit workshopped out!

K9: Yep I agree, a great day! Was a little curious about the weather when it snowed on me one day, sun burnt me the next lol, but aside from that it was excellent.... Thanks Ish for the venue, very relaxing place to be, comfortable & friendly. Thanks Sharon for organising the people & every thing else & thank you all for coming & listing to K9's view of training in drive...!

K9: Thanks guys for the kind words, I had a great time & the questions asked were very thought inspiring... Great venue, great people & great dogs, Ruffles what can I say about Lokis improvement in only a couple of days? Miraculous! Dont back off on him now...