pgm

Rusky: these methods are harsh ,cruel and not neccessary. PGM: actually Rusky I agree. Such methods are no longer necessary. An ecollar would solve this problem in no time. Rusky: I said about 12 pages ago your dog will look at you my dog will look at me only the methods of getting the result differ. You said you had no idea what I meant, have you yet? PGM: I am sorry Rusky I don't have the patience to go back 12 pages to see what you actually wrote. But I understand what you are trying to say here, the trouble you don't understand what I'm saying - if you did, you wouldn't infer that the results are the same. They are only superficially alike.

PoodleFan:There are dogs in this world PQM that will NOT tolerate this kind of physical correction. PGM: did I say there was? Please point out where I made such a claim? This is a particular dog - it is not a dog in general - this is a very experinced trainer, who decided on a particular method to deal with this particular dog. Your comment - Other dog's may submit - assumes that this very experienced trainer cannot read the dog she is working. Poodlefan: I wonder how the pointer's water work went after that - I'd have thought she'd avoid it like the plague. PGM: you'd be wrong. Poodlefan: but the absence of retributive thought doesn't change abuse into correction for me PGM: your opinion does not count. The only opinion that counts is the dog's. Which is why you'd be wrong to assume she avoided work after that.

Tess32: I don't think I'd find any joy in sticking my dog's head in a hole but she sounds gleeful. PGM: no offense, but that statement clearly shows that you have not understood what she is doing. Tess32: PGM, as I understand it, you have no issues with HOW a behaviour is taught as long as it still produces results and a happy, well adjusted dog at the end? PGM: that is correct. Tess32: To me, and maybe others, the HOW is important ethically. PGM: yes, I understand that, and that is where I differ. Tess32: PGM, is there a "main" Koehler book out there that I can read? PGM: the 'Koehler Method of Dog Training' covers novice work. There is also a seperate book for open and utility. Note, forget about the second part of the book that covers problem behavior. And if you do read the second part make sure you read the author's note in the introduction: "And it must be remembered that the extreme procedures included herein are advised only in those cases where the alternative is as drastic as being 'put to sleep'.

totally unjustifiable whatever the philosphy behind it. PGM: That's fine with me - but don't accuse me of having a closed mind (I am not saying you are) if you are not prepared to read and come to some understanding of the philosophy behind it. A different dog would have attacked her in defence well inside of three weeks IMHO. PGM: Hearne trained hundred of dogs thoughout her lifetime, not to mention the thousands of dogs William Koehler trained thoughout his lifetime, from which the method is derived. But now your saying that you know better? that a different dog would have attacked her? Look, you don't have to read the book - you don't have to make the attempt to come to understand the philosophy behind different methods - its entirely up to you.

So what DID she do? PGM: read the book. I saw the book on Bandit - that gets very mixed reviews too. PGM: most of the books worth reading provoke strong opinions on either side. Hearne's references to treating dogs with "syrup" is giving me insight into your dislike of food rewards PGM: no it isn't.

PoodleFan: yes Hearne was the trainer. And no this is not what she did - specifically she did not "forced the dog's head under water and subjected her to near drowning." This is a malicious reading. If you want a quick persual of some of Hearne's work and writing, go to www.thesavvydog.com This is a site run by her husband. Hearne is also the author of Bandit: Dossier of a Dangerous Dog. Which is an absolute classic text for anyone interested in BSL.

poodlefan: just reading the archives is worth the price of admission. You don't have to post. As for new ideas, you would be hard pressed to come up with something new that these trainers had not heard, seen and/or tried themselves. There was a clicker trainer on there a short time ago that confidently asserted that a certain breed of dog could not be trained using certain methods. She got murdered with numerous examples of advanced obedience titles achieved with this method. So you can say whatever you like - but expect to be asked for the evidence.

bonniescot, a word of advice for you or anyone else thinking of joining this group. It is a tough group - most of the people on the list have been training dogs for 20 years or more. Think of a whole list of K9 force's. Say something silly and you will get creamed.

Sidoney: I would need for this to be clarified in order to be able to understand it. PGM: no, you would need to see it. But in lieu of my ability to show you, Vicki Hearne will give you a much better and more in depth explanation than I can.

Poodlefan: So approval and feedback can motivate but are not rewards? - I really do think this is a matter of semantics. PGM: no, it is not a matter, or merely a matter of semantics. Though I understand how it can feel to be merely a matter of semantics in these kinds of discussions. But words matter, they shape the way we think. But to answer your question, no, I didn't say they weren't rewards. What I am saying is that the focus on reward obsures from view so much more (and more important stuff) that is going on in this relationship. If you are really interested in what I am struggling to say, then I suggest that you get a copy of Adam's Task: Calling Animals By Name written by Vicki Hearne. Hearne was a dog and horse trainer as well as an academic. vpzn might also be interested in this book as the introduction was written by Donald McCaig, who has this to say: "Adam's Task is certainly the finest philosophical animal study of our generation; and I am beginning to think the best of the twentieth century."

Poodlefan: I'd still be interested in what you use to motivate your own dog for obedience work. PGM: approval and feedback.

Tabata: To any socially-oriented species approval and feedback from others can be a powerful motivator. PGM: thankyou Tabata, I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that approval and feedback are more powerful motivators to a dog than is a treat or game of tug. Tabata: pgm, what makes you think that social reinforcement is excluded from a behaviourist viewpoint? PGM: there are a couple of reasons. Firstly, the tendency of the behaviorally minded to interpret any form of physical correction under the definition of 'positive punishment'. Physical corrections as they are used in the method I employ fall more properly under 'positive reinforcement'. If people understand this, why the hostility to physical corrections so often present in those advocating purely positive who rely so much on theory in order to substantiate their methods? Secondly, insofar as behaviorism is a science, it necessarily adopts the scientific attitude towards the objects of its study. This means that the scientist takes a disinterested, objective stance towards the phenomena. If the scientist's own actions or emotions or judgments were to influence the behavior of the phenomena under observation, s/he would be accused of being unscientific. The scientist stands at a distance from what is being observed. The scientist who became involved in a 'relationship' with what was being studied would be deemed a poor scientist. This is why behaviorism has from the beginning ignored the work of actual animal trainers who work with animals everyday of their lives - in a working 'relationship'.

vpzn you know much more about herding than I do, so I am happy for you to correct me. However I would query your statement to the effect: Their instinct rather is to control them and bring them to the handler. If that were their instinct, what need for training? My dog for instance has a natural instinct for chasing moving objects - bringing the ball back to me however is another matter and requires training. vpzn: They theory (basically) is that you can reward your dog by releasing pressure at the right moment & let them "have their sheep". PGM: yes, I have heard of this technique. But this method is internal to the practice - you let them have their 'sheep' - you don't let them have their tug toy or a treat do you? It is similar to teaching a dog to retrieve, the reward for bringing the ball back to the handler, is that they get to chase it again. The reward is internal to the activity. The activity itself becomes self-rewarding. The argument that I have been having is not how to motivate and teach the couch potato how to do scent work. These dogs have been specifically chosen for their high drive and suitability for the work. What I have learnt on training sheepdogs comes from Donald McCaig (the author of 'Hop Trials' if you have read it). He is a member on a list of professional trainers called 'Balanced Trainers' - it is a yahoo group which you need to join. On this list I mostly read, and post very rarely.

clickingmad, dogs have more than one instinct. The instinct to kill is just one of those intincts - an instinct that has been turned down in many breeds. Bordercollies a have very strong stalking instinct - but their instinct to kill is not so strong. Dogs also like to play, there is no killing in play. Dogs I think enjoy cooperative social activity. I think working in a cooperative activity with humans can be very satisfying. Listening to an experienced sheepdog trainer on another list is quite revealing to the very different mentality that is brought to dogs. Apart from an occasional pat on the head for a job well done sheepdogs are not rewarded in any overt sense for their work. He tells that in training and working his dogs that he has never once stopped to praise his dog - it would break their concentration. The thought of giving his dogs treats would be the height of absurdity.

vpzn, like Sidoney I have a Hungarian Vizsla that I am currently training for obedience competition. I use a combination of ecollar and Koehler methods to train. Have almost completed training for open, and will shortly be moving on to Utility. I dont plan on trialling until all the training is complete.

Tess#2; the theory of OC goes something like this: Positive reinforcement: adding something that reinforces behavior. Negative reinforcement: taking away somthing that reinforces behavior Postive punishment: adding something that leads to a decrease in behavior. Negative punishment: taking away something that leads to a decrease in behavior. This knowledge is implicit in understanding how to train animals in the same way as anyone who can speak has an implicit knowledge of the rules of grammar. The theory is just an explicit description. Useful if you don't know anything about animals, pretty much useless after that. Why? Because the art of training is surely contained in the knowledge of just what is reinforcing and what isn't. Where in the theory of OC does it give you this knowledge? Whether you realise it or not, this knowledge is given to you by the examples trainers use. Every animal is different, knowing what, and in particular, in what context, something will work to reinforce behavior is something only experience will tell you. This knowlegde which we gain from experienced and successful trainers is by far and away the most impotant aspect of training. You can train a dog perfectly well without having any explicit knowledge of OC, just as most of us, myself included, can speak and write without any explicit understanding of grammar. You cannot train a dog however, regardless of how well you understand OC without the knowledge of what works and what doesn't work in terms of reinforcement. Nowhere in the theory does it tell you, in any particular situation, what will work as reinforcement and what wont. And as training always occurs within a particular context, OC, as a very general and to mind, superficial description of behavior, wont help. Tess32: I can't afford to make a huge number of mistakes and experiment without guidance. PGM: if the theory of OC was all you had, then you would surely be experimenting on a regular basis. As I said, the theory doesn't tell you anything in regard to particular situations. The examples that trainers give, is what counts.

Sidoney: Also it gives useful ways of talking about concepts that can be used in training. PGM: well sidoney, as we are both more than aware, I don't agree that talking in behaviorists concepts are useful in training. They are probably not harmful so long as one is aware of their limitations, but I don't agree that what one gains is offset by what one loses in this kind vocabulary. I think you would agree however, that the way we talk about things very much shapes the way we think about things. Eg. 'positive punishment' - adding something adversive that reduces the likelihood of behavior being repeated. I don't use 'positive punishment' in my training, so I don't see how it is of use.

Poodlefan: Can I suggest PQM that you have a more narrow definition of 'reward' than I do. I know of dogs that have never been trained with food but whose handlers use 'positive motivational methods'. The key is to find our what motivates the dog and there's plenty of dogs around who do better on praise than treats. PGM: I am not talking about rewards - my concern is not primarily with motivating certain behaviors, it is with developing understanding. You talk of reward in terms of 'motivating' - but say I have a narrow definition? Shaping behavior is the most superficial aspect of training - which is why teaching a dog to do something is actually (so long as you know what your doing) the easiest part of training. Getting reliability on the other hand is difficult. Poodlefan: Any one who thinks that training occurs outside of a relationship with the dog (be it positive or negative) ain't never trained one IMHO. PGM: really? Rspca quotes a study undertaken by behaviorists (who else?) into the effects of the ecollar. Part of this study involved subjecting dogs to random electrical shocks from the ecollar. Who but somebody completely ignorant of the principles of training with an ecollar would subject dogs to such an experiment? Who but a complete moron would think that the results thus obtained shed any light on the use of ecollars in training? Answer: a group of behaviorists.

Poodlefan: What is the training issue with rewarding a dog for a job well done? PGM: there is no training issue. I have not at any stage suggested that one should not reward their dog in training. But I do not see the point in rewarding a dog in training as a matter of motivating the dog - I see it as a matter of developing the dogs understanding. As the understanding increases, the rewards (in terms of external rewards) decrease and become less and less necessary. Poodlefan: If my dog runs an agility course enthusiastically and accurately, and then at the end of the course, looks to me for a reaction should I NOT reward it because "it should just enjoy the run"? PGM: I don't regard my praise for a job well done as a reward. I regard it as an acknowledgement. I know that you and others can read it as a reward - I don't agree with that reading on what is going on. There is an element of reward involved, I agree, I just don't believe that it is the whole story. When one treats it as the whole story, I am inclined to believe that one ends up with a dog constantly in need of treats. Acknowledgement is something that can only occur within a social relationship. Rewards as understood within behaviorism (the science of behaviorism that is)give no consideration to that relationship.

Sidoney: let us how you are going to do this in the context of a difficult and sustained task that is not tapping into instinctive drives of the dog? PGM: so you are now claiming that distinguishing scent is not instinctive for dogs? Sidoney: As the dog's skills and enthusiasm increase, agility becomes its own reward - BTW this is not the case for every dog, and as I said before, to get that extra effort, you have to (in most cases anyway) give them something back for it. PGM: It wasn't I who made that statement. Sidoney: pgm, I can't be bothered going point by point through what you are saying. I don't find your arguments very relevant. PGM: I realise that.

PoodleFan: I think you need a reward or aversive IMHO. PGM: to train yes. But if I was to claim that my dog was trained as opposed to being in the process of training, and you then witnessed me giving the dog corrections on a regular basis, I suspect that you might dispute my claim that the dog was trained. The same goes for external rewards. Poodlefan: Remove the chance of the kill and you have to provide an incentive to work... PGM: the trainers job, not to mention skill, is in being able to show the dog the reward that is internal to the work itself. Constant reliance on external reward (such as treats and games of tug) prevents the dog from coming to this awareness. Personally Poodlefan I don't really know what you are arguing about, given that you stated in your first post: "My guess would be that you were watching a foundation level class. When the skill is being learned, more positive reinforcement is used "of course". As the dog's skills and enthusiasm increase, agility becomes its own reward." So this applies to agility, but not scent work?

Poodlefan: Herding is, after all, a modified and controlled form of hunting. PGM: what, you don't think sniffing for signs of prey is part of the hunting instinct? Poodlefan: Agility, gun dog work, scent work, detection work all utilize natural instincts but most are not (at least initially) self rewarding behaviours. PGM: I didn't claim that there were 'initially' self-rewarding. I just thought it was part of good training to develop the self-rewarding aspect of work. But apparently I am wrong.

aatainic: I mean really, when the dogs are extremely reliable PGM: you have a very different idea of reliability than I do.

PoodleFan: So an explosives detection dog that works its butt off for a tug game with a towel or a throw tennis ball is somehow frivolously trained too? PGM: in short, yes. A well trained bordercollie is not working for a treat, or a game of tug - the work itself is the reward. We are not talking about dogs that are not bred for this kind of work. We are talking about dogs that are specifically bred for this type of work, just as bordercollies are bred for sheepwork. If you cannot train a dog that has been specifically bred for a specific job to work without external rewards, then yes, I don't think much of the training methods.

Poodlefan: Its all training PQM - its merely the objective that might appear frivolous or immature in the eyes of the beholder. PGM: sniffer dogs working at airports are not to my mind engaged in frivilous work. It is their manner and behavior and the constant reinforcemnt by way of treats that strikes me as being immature. I thought the objective of training was to train the dog to work independently of external rewards? It does not appear to be the case with these dogs however.