malsrock

What are you trying to achieve with the dog, Fiona? Will you be competing or working in a particular discipline? I train round the house obedience rather differently to how I train competition/work stuff, although as Bedazzled says there is always some bleed through (if you reward the competition stuff heaps, the dogs are keener to do the same behaviours around the house even if they know no reward is likely to be forthcoming). We have been doing foundation training for Schutzhund, drive building, tug work and he's doing quite well. It wasn't until we went for a casual walk and had no toys or food with me, reached the corner of the street and commanded sit.........he just stood there and I was actually quite shocked ..........his sits are lightning when focused on the tug or a ball I held a clenched fist in front of his nose as if I was concealing a reward and he sat. The next corner, same thing, just stood there, did the fake concealment............nup, he wasn't falling for that one again, no reward, I am not sitting Fiona

Sorry, malsrock, I am afraid you are incorrect. The bite statistics in this country, both before and after BSL featured the same breeds - Cattle Dogs, Labradors, German Shepherds, etc --- "pit bull terriers" were far down the list. Unfortunately, like most of "the public", you believe what is presented to you by the media, which is that "bull breed" dogs perpetrate the most attacks. Certainly, the dogs which head the list are the most popular, but pitbulls are under represented by numbers. And when you consider that 10,000 "pitbulls" have been euthanased in Qld, and there has been no change to the bite stats, or the breeds which head the lists, you have to wonder exactly what good have the bans done? Except make a lot of people believe the pitbull is some kind of implacable land shark. The attacks serious enough to make headlines have been mostly Bull cross breeds over past couple of years. The next one the media publishes will be a Bull breed, wait and see :D Fiona

Back in the '80s I lived with my boyfriend Scott that had a white bull terrier (Max). Max was kept in a small courtyard and Scott only let him in once a day, in the evening. He was so excited when he came in he used to jump up and snap and Scott would punch him in the head to try to make him stop. I would tell him not to do it but to no avail. Max was manic for quite some time, and it took a long time till he settled. Scott went to see his folks in Qld for a week, so what did I do, I let Max stay inside the for the whole time Scott was away and guess what, the dog wasn't manic at all. I liked Max a lot and I thought that Scott was cruel to leave the dog in the courtyard by it's self 22 hours a day. When Scott returned, Max was put back in the yard and his manic behavior returned. It turned out that Max was actually deaf, hence why he didn't listen. I ended up leaving Scott due to his violent tendencies. Does this sound like someone that hates bulls? NO. It's the thugs that own them and don't know how to treat them that get up my nose. And the breeders that sell the thugs the dogs that need to be accountable. And yes, I'm sick of hearing, it the deed not the breed whenever there's a dog attack. So what's your solution? What would you do to fix the issue if focusing on deeds isn't the way? The "deed" should be punished which I totally agree, but for a "deed" to be punished means there has been an attack and someone or some thing has suffered. Deed punishment takes a while to sink in if ever in the community...........people are still drink driving after all these years of RBT's and drink driving campaigns and many have been caught multiple times, so although the deed system has theoretical merit, how many people and things suffer in the mean time from the "deeds" with a system likely never to work efficiently. There is a substantial difference between a bite and a maulling where a dog snaps and where dog makes a meal out of it and as much as some hate to acknowledge the situation, the maullings are consistantly at a high ratio of Bull type breedings. They are not Golden Retrievers or Labrador based breeds that regularly feature nor are they GSD's or Rottweilers, most are Bull something cross breeds for the most part and where do they come from???..........BYB's and puppy farms essentially. BYB's and puppy farmers don't screen for genetic predisposition for aggression or any other traits and their breeding knowledge amounts to merely a male and female dog means puppies :D I don't buy the excuse that the dogs featured in maullings were lovely dogs that just snapped and I have know a couple over the years who were genetically aggressive mongrels by nature with a history of aggression and fighting drive and the owners know that. Dog's like that IMHO shouldn't not be so readily available to the general public who don't have the ability or inclination to train, handle and look after them properly. Fiona ;)

Skye I'm curious, you say your dog is high drive but is not interested in rewards, what do you do to use the drive the dog has? I train in food drive which means if I want the level of drive and reliability I desire I need to have food so I can reward with it, but obviously my dog can work without seeing food or without me luring her at all otherwise we couldn't compete in obedience. Training my dog on a check chain did nothing except teach her to switch off in training... there is a huge difference between food exchange and actually getting a dog to work in food drive. There is no way I could have gotten the level of reliability/drive I can now get out of my dog using 'the choke chain method' and not using drive. Sounds familiar Huski, some dogs have drive in unworkable areas, like drive to bite the postman or chase skateboards I think someone mentioned earlier. You can't very well use the postman as the reward to train in drive as silly as it sounds :D My Mal has incredible toy and ball motivation that seems endless, but my GSD didn't to that degree, so it depends on what motivates the dog and if food and toys doesn't, it's much harder to train in drive than with dogs who genetically go nuts over it unless you have conditioned the dog to it as an ongoing process I think. Fiona

I remember a similar situation 15 to 20 years ago when every second serious dog attack was a German Shepherd or Rottweiler when BYB and crosses of these breeds were plentiful. Fortunately many of these breedings were met with serious health issues and people wanting these breeds began to aquire dogs from experienced breeders who produced a much finer and healthier example of the breed. Nowdays, it's rare that GSDs and Rotties feature in vicious attacks because the quality of these breeds in the pet market are so much more superior in their breeding quality and temperament base. There are still GSD's and Rotties bred of working quality that have a predisposition to aggression and could be dangerous in the wrong hands, but the breeders won't sell them randomly to inexperienced homes and they are expensive to buy and the morons can't get hold of them easily if at all. GSD and Rotty breeders have done a great job IMHO with the type of animal they breed today for the pet market that fit nicely into the society and the same applies to the experienced Bull breeders which are not an issue, it's the crap on the boundaries we need to eliminate for the good Bull breeds to no longer be unfairly tainted. Fiona

That's true to a point Crisovar, but that's not what the serious attack reports are representing is it??? Fiona

Dogs that have a genetic predisposition to aggression can attack and bite and need an experience owner to train and handle them. Those type of dogs in the wrong hands are disaster waiting to happen. Some Bull breeds do have aggression issues and when they are randomly backyard crossbred by people who have no idea what effort and research is involved in breeding a quality dog of sound temperament and nerve, dogs retaining aggressive traits continue to surface. Fiona :D

The problem as I see it unfortunately, 95% of the time a dog attack features in the media, it's a Bull something, you can bet your bottom dollar on it almost as soon as you read or hear the headlines the dog involved will be of Bull breed origin. There has been some occasional reports of unrelated bull breed attacks, but not many here in Australia in comparison. So, how can the Bull breed statistics be reduced???, Personally I think there are too many Bull crossbreeds peddled around of unkown quality and I doubt many featuring in attacks are papered pedigrees or genuine Pit Bulls either. Of course responsible ownership will eliminate all attacks for the most part, but dogs with aggressive dispositions in the hands of the irresponsible is a nasty cocktail. Not all the dogs who attack are great dogs made vicious by irrresponsible owners, some are just crap dogs of poor temperament bred by morons with a predisposition for aggression that irresponsible owner have attained. I think we really need to look at the big picture and flush out these types of dogs and get rid of them. There are plenty of ethical Bull breeders producing fantastic dogs where I am sure if the irresponsible had dogs of stable temperament and quality procured from an ethical breeder, the majority of these Bull breed attacks IMHO would disappear. Fiona

Hmmmm, What I used to do to teach the sit was physically (gently I might add) place him in the sit position Koehler style through repetition, with the command as the trigger. This time, I didn't it with a food lure above his head then let him eat it as the reward....it's got me thinking now Fiona

Make the sessions SUPER short. Even with the first session just that one "good" sit .... out comes tug/play; win; and finish (whilst he still REALLY wants it). Push for two if you think you can achieve it. But finish on that. You can return to it later. "Lick of the ice-cream .... " . Let the dog's gambling addiction build up first, before you go for more. That's what I'd suggest, anyway. I feel a bit humbled given K9 Pro's presence in this thread. No doubt, he'll have a better suggestion :D. Thanks Erny, I will try

We have those trigger words too :D My older GSD will go out into the garage and sit by the car with a rattle of the keys, I know what you mean. Fiona

Taking into account that my training background is aversive methods, so I am relatively new to positive reinforcement methods and I have never used a clicker, my 12 months old Malinois has terrible sits without a reward. His sits are perfect with a toy or food reward to follow and without, I get one maybe two sits, in other words unless he sees what's on offer, he won't work for free Disobeying a known command like he does, I would have in the past administered a leash correction, I can train the behaviour I need, but without using an aversive which he has never experienced to date, where do I go from here, how do I fix it without an aversive to get a reliable sit without a reward on offer:confused: Fiona Hi Malsrock - you directed your post to Bedazzledx2, I think .... so I hope you don't mind me throwing in my tuppence . One of the ways I would work to "fix" this problem is that I would have a tug toy on me, but not in sight. I would ask for sit and if I did not get the response, I might correct the dog to the sit. But once corrected to sit, I would then release into the tug reward. Or it might be that I got sit, but it was crappy, but I'd still reward with (then) hidden tug. What I'd be teaching here is not the sit, but that the possibility of reward with the tug is still there, even if the tug is not seen to be on offer. Once your dog realises this, I think you would find the 'gambler' in him would start having him work better for you and you can then begin to use this 'gambling addiction' you've created, to produce better sits. I tend to randomise with my boy with regards to whether his tug is hidden or not. ETA: Kavik posted whilst I was typing . Thanks to both Kavik and Erny, much appreciated I will try those suggestions..........I can get one good sit without a reward in sight and work on that. I have done a lot of command and release for reward work with him which that part is going well with food and toys but it's when trying to wean him off that system is where I am struggling a bit. I did get four sits yesterday with hand in pocket..........and then without rewarding, he packed it in :D I will give the suggestions a try, thanks!!. Fiona

I don't see the purpose in saving a dog the experience of learning there are consequences to an action good and bad. Behaviour reinforced with positives is good, but behavior reinforced with positives and negatives IMHO is better and amounts to increased reliability. Fiona I assume we're talking about behaviour that is rewarded when performed on cue and punished when not performed on cue rather than a single behaviour that is reinforced with positives and negatives? What's the difference in reliability between rewarding a behaviour when it is cued and rewarding a behaviour when it is cued... and then punishing whatever behaviour the dog chooses instead of the original one when it is cued? Ok, I will give an example: I teach my dogs a "stop" command. We walk along on leash and the dog is out front for instance and I say "stop", the dog stops I catch up in a footstep and reward which is working well in low distraction atmospheres and the dog knows the stop command well. We up the distractions where the dog moves forward on the leash focusing on another dog. We say "stop" and the dog ignors the command, I will then correct him and the dog stops, catch up and no reward. The dog from my experience learns that unless he obey's the stop command a correction follows and has the choice of which action he wants to take. Stop and be rewarded, don't stop, get a correction and no reward. Im my way of thinking, there is a "double" reinforcer in place, a correction and no reward for disobeying, no correction and reward for obeying. Does it work??? ABSOLUTELY, my 8 year old boy's "stops" are bullet proof off leash even with my OH calling him at the other end although it was 7 odd years ago I trained him to do this Fiona Ok an interesting alternative to the situation you just described . . . walk on leash and dog is out in front, I stop, give dog no command, the dog stops and looks at me, I click/treat, I stop and the dog comes back to me and looks at me, click/treat. Up the distractions to where the dog is focused on another dog. I stop, the dog stops and looks at me, click/treat, I stop and the dog comes back to me and looks at me, click/treat. The dog has the choice of which action to take. :D Same result Kind of the same result, but will your's reliably exhibit the behaviour off leash without a clicker and treat??? Fiona

Taking into account that my training background is aversive methods, so I am relatively new to positive reinforcement methods and I have never used a clicker, my 12 months old Malinois has terrible sits without a reward. His sits are perfect with a toy or food reward to follow and without, I get one maybe two sits, in other words unless he sees what's on offer, he won't work for free Disobeying a known command like he does, I would have in the past administered a leash correction, I can train the behaviour I need, but without using an aversive which he has never experienced to date, where do I go from here, how do I fix it without an aversive to get a reliable sit without a reward on offer:confused: Fiona :D

Thanks Malsrock, I do quite a lot of training for competition, working dogs and Government Departments etc, and because I am trying to muster every bit of motivation I can find, I dont use any corrective measures as far as physical corrections go, its absurd to think pumping out leash corrections is all I know, but when a dog has learned how to use its drive for evil, well some of them need to be redirected and slowed down and taught that there are limits, and sometimes, the prong is the right tool. There are very few tools I dont use, we have everything from Prong collars, stabilisation collars (AKA dominant dog collars) to clickers in stock, I use them all, I will use bread and butter if it works!!! There is such a focus on methods and tools, it is almost disrespectful of a trainer or behaviourist to group them because they use one tool or another. I say find someone who can help, who cares how they help as long as they do... Well said K9, your approach is IMHO a balanced approach with a large box of tricks.....EXCELLENT :D Fiona

I don't see the purpose in saving a dog the experience of learning there are consequences to an action good and bad. Behaviour reinforced with positives is good, but behavior reinforced with positives and negatives IMHO is better and amounts to increased reliability. Fiona I assume we're talking about behaviour that is rewarded when performed on cue and punished when not performed on cue rather than a single behaviour that is reinforced with positives and negatives? What's the difference in reliability between rewarding a behaviour when it is cued and rewarding a behaviour when it is cued... and then punishing whatever behaviour the dog chooses instead of the original one when it is cued? Ok, I will give an example: I teach my dogs a "stop" command. We walk along on leash and the dog is out front for instance and I say "stop", the dog stops I catch up in a footstep and reward which is working well in low distraction atmospheres and the dog knows the stop command well. We up the distractions where the dog moves forward on the leash focusing on another dog. We say "stop" and the dog ignors the command, I will then correct him and the dog stops, catch up and no reward. The dog from my experience learns that unless he obey's the stop command a correction follows and has the choice of which action he wants to take. Stop and be rewarded, don't stop, get a correction and no reward. Im my way of thinking, there is a "double" reinforcer in place, a correction and no reward for disobeying, no correction and reward for obeying. Does it work??? ABSOLUTELY, my 8 year old boy's "stops" are bullet proof off leash even with my OH calling him at the other end although it was 7 odd years ago I trained him to do this Fiona

K9: There is also a great difference when training a dog for obedience or rehabilitating a family dog that is aggressive, and the use of tools sometimes is determined by the end goal and the starting point. All aversive tools should at some point be faded out if the training is being done correctly in theory. YES.......I think K9's post provides the perspective that many of us are missing. There is a massive difference IMHO between the two scenarios of obedience training and the rehabilitation of behavioural issues which most importantly I think needs to be determined before a method of training and/or tools are decided upon. Fiona

it's not always feasable to do it this way, particularly when some dogs are so habitually explosive in their reactions. The owners still need a way to get the dog to settle before they implement the redirection of attention back to them. Also some owners give you time limits and ultimatums. Yes, I do agree Nekhbet. Teaching the dog focus skills and conditioning them well enough for an explosive dog not to react can be very long drawn out process. Sometimes with an explosive dog, a couple of air blocks is all it takes for the dog to settle in order for focus exercises to take place......other wise, good luck Fiona

I don't see the purpose in saving a dog the experience of learning there are consequences to an action good and bad. Behaviour reinforced with positives is good, but behavior reinforced with positives and negatives IMHO is better and amounts to increased reliability. Fiona

Hi K9pro, I don't quite understand your meaning of impulse control, but wasn't corrected for lunging on the prong. When the dog had the impulse to lunge wearing a prong, unless you dropped the leash, the prong would have applied an aversive and consequently a correction as such on the basis of learning that pulling or lunging towards another dog doesn't feel nice around the neck, so the dog re-think's it's choices, otherwise you could have achieved the same result on a flat collar if the aversive action of the prong wasn't a relevent factor in rehabilitiation. Fiona

I really wish you could have seen him the way he was before Corvus. I understand that you don't like Steve and you don't like his methods but if Zero even thought he saw another dog, he would stop and stare for less than a second before he was at the end of his leash trying to attack them. The first trainer we saw described it as "explosive unprovoked aggression". The second looked at him and told me she'd never seen a dog that she believed would happily kill another dog if given the chance before but that she thought Zero would do it in a heartbeat. At that level I could have screamed at him, waved a big juicy steak under his nose, used any toy in the world and he wouldn't have cared. He was conditioned to the click and to a marker word but he didn't want a treat, he wanted to go and attack another dog. There was no interrupting him with anything where his brain actually had to compute something other than DOG. His problem was that he was never under the threshold when there was another dog around. What do you do in that situation? He's not even registering a click, or if he is, he's sure as hell not looking for a reward. I get that you think you could have "fixed" him with positive methods and maybe you could have - if you'd been around at the time I would have happily handed over his leash and let you try. As it is, I used a different method that worked quickly, effectively and without (IMO) negative repercussions. You've seen what he's like for yourself! Does he look unhappy to you? Is he afraid of me? Unless you're seeing something different to what I am, I'm inclined to think no. Nowhere is anyone saying that this is a method that should be applied to all dogs or that this tool should be used on all dogs - the point of going to see a qualified behaviourist is for them to assess the dog and decide what they need and what that dog can handle. The vast majority of people I know would choose a positive method over a correction based one (in fact, I can't think of anyone I know who wouldn't) but I also believe that not everything can be solved using rewards - I tried positive, I tried it for 18 months until it got to the point where I couldn't watch Zero go through life like that anymore and then I looked at the alternative. The alternative worked for us - it worked quickly and effectively which meant I no longer had to watch Zero work himself up to the point where he would throw up on walks or leave him sitting in the backyard while I went to places he can now go without a problem. You have no idea how heart breaking it was to see - I hope you never get to see anything even close to it. Always remember Shell, with Steve's help you rehabilitated Zero's behaviour and actually got the job done with excellent results Regardless of method, you acheived the result, not the others who believe you did it wrong. Actually achieveing the result and thinking you can are two different things Fiona

For the sake of argument, what really depends on the individual dog? What I'm getting at is a prong might be too strong for some dogs and just right for others, but what of the effectiveness of the aim behind using a prong, assuming it is to suppress behaviour? Suppressing behaviour is a sound approach if that's what is desired, and choosing to use a tool is no different to me deciding what reward I will use, except if I use a reward that is too hot it will be easier to fix than if I use a punishment that is too strong. If the prong is to be used as an interruptor, isn't the approach of interrupting the behaviour equally effective regardless of whether a prong is used or a clicker, for example? Providing they respond to the interruptor I don't think it matters what it is, but not all dogs will respond to an non physical interruptor all the time. Say the dog responds to a clicker as an interruptor most of the time anticipating a treat reward which is fine, except when they don't respond seeing a cat dart across the road..........chasing the cat is a more valuable reward than the treat and the reliability isn't there. Fiona

Suffice to say that is not my motivation. There are plenty who do have that motivation, and I have had a few warm discussions with people on that subject a few times, especially trainers who have failed to correct a behavioural issue that I have fixed with terrible things like using prong collars, or air blocking aggressive dogs etc etc. Personally, if you can transform a bad dog into a good one regardless of method used, is good for the dog and the owner at the end of the day Fiona

But is it the flat collar that is ineffective? A flat collar could just as easily be conditioned to have a positive meaning to a dog as a negative or neutral meaning. I clicker train and I'm loving how versatile that little clicky box is. The power it has over my dogs is pretty impressive. They hear a click or a marker word when they are too distracted to notice me calling their name, and they respond by going into training mode and coming over to wait for me to tell them what to do to earn a treat. It's quite expedient IME. It's a different circumstance when training a dog from scratch than for instance correcting behavioural issue as the OP has shared with us, and it depends also on the individual dog too I think. My Malinois who is 12 1/2 months old and trained from an 8 week old puppy, only wears a flat collar and to date has never experienced an aversive correction.........thought about a couple of times , but I am not training him in aversive methods at all. But if for instance I had a 2 year old dog to rehabilitate for aggressive lunging, I would use prong collar on that dog straight up with aversive methods as my immediate choice, again depending on the dog and the behaviour. Fiona

I haven't used a check chain for 9 years. Are you saying Aidan, that the use of a check chain prevented the light's coming on with the dog you mentioned as an example, or did you feel that using an alternate tool or method would achieve a better result...........just interested to hear you thoughts on this. I personally haven't used a check chain for a while either and prefer a prong if a flat collar is ineffective. Fiona The check chain did nothing on it's own, and I'm sure a more competent trainer could use one effectively. It is not where my competence lies, however. My competences lay with aversive training, where coming from the other side of the fence, I see too many IMHO trying to avoid aversives and what it seems like to me, is messing around for far too long to achieve the desired behaviour, but I don't understand a "valid" reason why avoiding the use of aversives provides a supposed better result other than from the political correctness of a humane aspect to say that "I have never corrected my dog in an aversive manner". Fiona