m-sass

A lot of motivationally trained by either food or toy reward are not actually "trained" and are still at training in progress stage. Worse case I have ever seen was a Belgain Malinois trained in toy rewards, balls and tugs, great dog, super drive with excellent rountines however, the dog couldn't be walked without either a ball in his mouth or a short obedience routine for the ball or tug reward. Dog drops ball down a drain 5km from home leaving owner/handler without a reward. Dog went over drive threshhold taking it's own reward, leg of the handler's pants voilent shaking and crazy behaviour and handler lost control of the dog in anger gave the dog it's "first" hard leash correction, dog came back up the leash in protest and bit the handler on the wrist causing a nasty gash. Handler ended up taking off a shoe to use as a bite reward to get the dog back home and attend to her injured wrist That was the "worse" case I have seen with dogs purely trained by motivation and reward only, but I know of plenty that are difficult to handle without food and toy reward as a behaviour controller and without that reward system in place their behaviour isn't good at all and far from what you would call "trained". The reward system was never weaned off to achieve a "trained dog"??

Looks like a Victorian Pitbull

I have to agree, too many people get too carried away with the perception of working line dogs bouncing off the walls without mass stimulation, most of that I think is nonsense. Having said that, I don't agree that any dog's life should be fed and stuck in a backyard, all dogs need companionship, play and most of all "training" and the only thing different I have ever found with working line dogs is that they are easier to train with faster response. If you like interacting with your dog and you enjoy training your dog, working line dogs are a lot of fun. You can get "extremes" bred in working lines in GSD's Malinois etc where extreme aggression is bred into the lines or hectic prey drive bordering on OCD behaviours, tail chasers for drive release etc, you need to mindful of those in litter selections but a good solid working line breeding can still be great pet dogs just with a bit more get up and go when you need it, they are still just a dog who respond like any other dog but just do everything better and faster training wise :)

withholding a treat is a correction. m-sass Anecdote - I saw an owner trying to catch his dog a couple of weeks ago. The dog was clearly terrified of him. I stupidly helped him catch the dog, and before I handed it over - I told him not to punish it. But he immediately shoved a choke collar over its head and yanked it around - told the dog "not to play games", and then he pushed the dog on the ground and hit it. In my best growly voice - I said "I will NEVER help you catch that dog again". And he grovelled - smiled and waved at me and left. Next time I see that dog - I will get its id info off its collar and report him for abuse. Some people should not be allowed to own dogs. But this is classic fallout. Ie the punishment is getting the opposite of what the owner intended in a way that treats never would used in the same situation. I accidentally trained my dog to go off big time at the lawnmower man. But so many (badly timed) treats were involved that she is always really pleased to see him and licks him to death if she gets close enough. I've stopped using treats and started using blocking with more success. Sigh. But at least I didn't use a technique that would likely cause her to blame the lawnmower man for her pain and lead to her attacking him. So the science - it's already been proven somewhere that reward based training is more effective, faster and lasts longer than aversive based... I think it would be straight forward to split new comers in dog clubs into two streams - old school yank and crank and new school reward based, and see which group graduates more dogs faster - with the same criteria and assessors who don't know which group is which or even that there is a split in the training techniques - though it might be obvious to them if they're doing an assessment. Another anecdote - watched a GSD club training. Watched tonnes of aversives - scoldings yanking, shaking, alpha rolls!!! being dished out, and no rewards, no pats, no praise, no fun, no treats. All the dogs looked sad. Heads were low, they were making calming signals at their owners and the instructor. The instructor stopped during class to punish his dog for failing to hold a down stay. My dog holds down stays for longer than his could, and my dog wags her tail the entire time. Mrs Rusty Bucket, these are not "methods" you have described, just people abusing dogs which is not even close to using an aversive where required in a balanced training system??

The video quality wasn't good, but it looked like the dog ran past the woman, perhaps one the little dogs was lagging behind, then video appeared to stop and restart at the scuffle.....I didn't hear about injuries to people like the lady had her ear torn off or anything that effect??.

Nonesense, you can tell easily at what level of character and temperament a dog has by working with the dog on leash. You missed my point. Fallout is not just shutting down or redirecting on the handler. Those are just the most obvious examples. The effects of punishment have the tendency to bleed. It makes perfect sense given negativity biases are adaptive. But how do you judge an acceptable level of bleeding? It's completely subjective, and you have no way of measuring the emotional effect on the dog. So 'fallout' is not a measurable thing. If it's not measurable, how can you identify how much is acceptable? How do you know it is always expressed in the same way? How do you know you are identifying all negative effects? How you define a negative effect may differ to how others define it. I think it is far more common than you think it is. So who is right? Either someone is making Type I errors or someone is making Type II errors. I know which I'd prefer to be making. I also know what I'd rather people screw up their timing on between rewards or punishments. Cosmolo made a very good point about that. If they don't have the skill to deliver rewards properly I don't think I'd want them trying to deliver punishments properly. Sensitivity changes from moment to moment. If someone skilled tells someone unskilled what punishment to use based on how the dog behaves in one circumstance, there is no guarantee that same punishment will be appropriate a few days later in a completely different circumstance. I think there is some buffering from these effects in using reinforcement. Crappy timing in reward delivery is pretty harmless. You can mess some things up if you're really awful at it, but if you're that bad your potential to do damage with punishments is huge. Punishments become non-contingent. That's a recipe for extreme stress. Your timing only has to be off by a second to make the association really hard for the dog to form. I understand where you are coming from......I don't know that a science can prove the difference, all dogs being individual you can't undo a training method already applied to the same dog easily to try an alternative for a definitive answer??.

Physical correction will work on any dog to gain obedience.....it's not that in the Koehler days that dogs trained in that method were not obedient, they were obedient with excellent off leash reliability, but judging trends with a liking to animated performances from motivational training methods were scoring higher than the Koehler trained dogs is where it began, it was nothing about aversive methods lacking obedience or reliability results, but, motivational methods doesn't work "easily" on all dogs.......if it's going to take 2 years to get a loose leash walk in motivational methods or 20 minutes on a prong collar with a particular dog, what's the point other than saying "I have never corrected my dog", well that's excellent of you have got 2 years to mess around I guess?? "Balanced" training IMHO is a balance of all methods applied either singally or in combination with, dependent upon the temperament and character of the dog??. Any trainer who won't correct a dog when required or motivate a dog with reward are as bad as each other I think, you need to apply what ever method works best for that particular dog I think.

Not necessarily. Take a 60kg dog that hasn't left it's backyard in a year because the owner can't hold it back. Sure, we could put it on front attach harnesses and spend weeks to months trying get the owners timing right for when to stop and not move forward (thats if they can stop at all!), when to reward, how to reward, how to reward quickly enough that the dog associates it with the behaviour we want to reward, all the while expecting the owner to be unbelievably patient and go on walks where it takes them 20 minutes to move 10 meters. Would we get there in the end? Sure, if the owner was really patient, and picked up the many different concepts involved and the timing. But it the owner wasn't any of those things, and wasn't willing to spend weeks to months on it, and/or simply couldn't physically hold the dog back, we could introduce a prong collar and just carefully and clearly ensure the owner understands that this took is NOT for cranking and yanking, and a lot of the work is done by the dog anyway. I find that prong collars LOOK so harsh (much more harsh than they actually are) that most people are very ginger and careful with them, and very very soft with corrections. People figure out very quickly that they don't NEED to crank the dog on a prong, and therefore they don't do it. With a prong collar we can usually go for a nice walk first go. Dog gets exercised adequately which means other behavioral issues start to improve very quickly, and the owner doesn't have 5 different things to think about when teaching the dog how to walk. +1 excellent post :D

I think it would be more realistic to see trainers handing out head halters to dogs who need a prong in most cases. I don't know of many trainers who use prongs let alone hand them out like lollies.....over exaggeration perhaps Cosmolo? was positive that did not workvery few people dedicated enough to their dog to train it positive or not are the last people who will surrender them, they usually just accept the dogs behaviour and manage the dog accordingly.

There are two problems with this. 1) How do you judge what is "too much fallout"? How do you measure it? How do you predict it? 2) How do you tell what's 'best' for an individual dog? This is a statement that drives me crazy. There is NO WAY TO TELL. You can't compare methods on the one dog and unless you find dogs that are clones with exactly the same upbringing and training history, comparison between dogs is meaningless. And even if you could do that, can you take into account the skill of the trainer? There is no measure for trainer skill at this point. Success is not a measure of trainer skill. I find it very telling that some people on this thread seem to think there is just one way to apply, say, dicking around just under threshold doing watch me exercises. Er, it's a fair bit more nuanced and subtle than that, people. I love when folks are quick to cry ignorance when someone disses their favoured methods, but in the same breath show their ignorance by dissing other methods. D'ya think no one notices the hypocrisy? Most methods are effective to some degree. I expect all methods are effective if applied skilfully. Nonesense, you can tell easily at what level of character and temperament a dog has by working with the dog on leash. A very soft dog can show avoidance to the rattle of a chain collar for example........you watch the body language through subtle tests, a very hard dog will show absolutely nothing to collar pressure even to a harsh correction the dog takes it in their stride...........so fallout level from an aversive isn't hard to predict, the harder the nerve of the dog, the more aversive the dog can handle and vice versa. The recovery time even a soft dog takes after a rattle on the chain is indicative of what fallout if any is likely. Fallout occures from my experience at the extreme ends of temperament which is not common in the average dog, you can shut down a very soft dog with aversives as you can cause a low threshhold to fight dog come back up the leash with aggression........yes fallout is real and a possibility but it's not guaranteed across the board, in most cases fallout is unusual in the average temperament of most dogs.

You can get "fallout" with too harsh an aversive for the dog's temperament so a trainer who won't apply a correct level aversive to suit a particular dog from fear of fallout isn't a good trainer who can read a dog properly. Fallout and all that crap is a cover up of the trainer's lack of ability and experience. There is no "one method" that fit's all IMHO and each individual dog needs a method suitable to it's individual temperament, good trainers can supply that, method pushers can't is my point. 100% correct :D

Probably yes, but the harness may be easier for some handlers, especially inexperienced ones like myself. A harness does a brilliant job of getting the leash out of the way completely. My old girl usually wore a harness because she was usually dragging a long line. What happpened if she dragged a long line from a neck collar?

I think incorrect use of any tool is a potential problem. I have seen cringing dogs from incorrect use of aversive tools and dogs constantly pawing at the nose straps on head halters, both situations I don't find inspiring. I have however found a prong collar far less threatening to a dog's comfort than a head halter when used properly as the prong has no conditioning time for the dog to get used to, no nose straps etc etc to contend with or limited head movement, dog doesn't know the difference between a prong and any other neck collar on a loose leash and if you introduce prong correction gradually which I have done with two collars and leashes intitially to avoid the dog receiving a massive prong correction suddenly to spook it and cause collar fear, I have actually transformed cronic lesh pullers in this method within 20 minutes, dog's that have been on harnesses and head halters for two years without success. Having said that, it's something I can do but it's not something that is easily taught to newbie dog owners with little handling skills juggling two leashes and collars intially, but I have transformed strong dogs, my best effort an Amstaff with 3 years of learned behaviour of violent leash pulling in a short period of time with a prong collar, a tool that no other tool used with dog would come close to creating successful rehabilitation :D

An aversive stimulus is one which an animal will work to avoid or escape (but may learn not to). Basically, it's something unpleasant. M-sass' comment tries to justify the use of one piece of aversive equipment by making an apples to oranges comparison with another. I never saw a dog delight in receiving a prong collar correction, either. Nor would I use a head halter on a dog who couldn't be quickly conditioned to wearing a head halter comfortably. The dog with the halter was suffering a constant avervise simply by wearing it. Have you seen a dog suffer a constant aversive simply by wearing a prong collar Adian? I certainly haven't.

If the dog is trying to get the harness off, it's causing discomfort. An "aversive" is an uncomfortable or painful application. You know what I think Kavik....if a dog does work well on a harness given the fact that a harness doesn't provide any corrective control, the same dog would work "super" on a flat collar if it was being trained properly??

How dreadful, but I don't see what BSL has to do with this? Poor lady, and RIP little doggy It has everything to do with it. BSL is supposed to protect the community from dog attacks. Victoria has the strongest and most draconian BSL in the country, with hundreds of dogs being seized and killed because of their appearance within the state. Yet horrible, horrible attacks continue to occur. This is a perfect example of how BSL targets dogs that may never be an issue, and misses dogs that are. BSL is designed to eliminate fighting breeds that can potentially cause harm to people.........I don't think the GSD here bit any people here did he?

Not all dog's drive and character are the same. I love the way trainers of high drive dogs that have instinctive value for the handler with good focus where motivational training works on these dogs like a duck to water claim that you don't need correctional collars......sure you don't on dogs like that, but dog's who's drives are in the wrong place for ease of training need some consequence for the wrong choices. These method bashers who can't see the dog in front of them through the cloud of positive motivational training concepts that they spruke, take on the wrong dogs that don't suit their methods and they just dick around for months upholding a method in cult fashion getting nowhere and talking theoretical bullshit, they have no idea and can't even read a dog??. One good example are handler submissive reactive dogs which doesn't take more than 15 minutes to see what the dog is about if you know what you are looking at but the poor dog and owner end up with a method pusher and a bloody Halti and they dick around inside the reactivity threshhold with watch me exercises and garbage that works on high drive easily focused dogs. What these handler submissive reactive dogs need is a couple of good corrections and an old fashion "NO" and often within 20 minutes, the dog pulls it's head in and starts to learn the consequence of bad behaviour. It "doesn't" work on all characters, but it works like magic on some, so to piss around with a positive trainer peddling methods at all costs with a character of dog that needs a damn good correction for the sake of the dog and the handler, trainers with only half a tool box of tools peddling one method fits all with the inability to read an individual dog's character IMHO shouldn't be calling themselves dog trainers??. Yep, usually done to take the drive away from handler aggressive dogs and often dogs most suitable for apprehension of offenders can be handler aggressive when the have a low threshhold to fight.

What pulse is delivered from the collar......it's not just a vibration collar is it??. A adult dog high powered Ecollar would fry a 6 week old pup, there is no way he would just be sitting there absorbing a constant shock. Does the puppy squeal in pain and ran away in the collar's switch on zone, if not it doesn't sound too aversive to be worried about?

Tell's me if she wants the head collar or what ever the gadget is off, then it's an aversive. Funny I have never seen a dog wanting a prong collar off like they do with head collars I wonder if some clubs have the policy to use stupid equipment that doesn't teach the dog anything of value so people keep coming back and spending money on lessons/memberships whatever? That would be too sensible to fit a dog up with a prong or Ecollar who needs it for the best approach to successful training or rehabilitation hey?

That's bullshit. Lack of socialisation is the excuse given by breeders of especially guardian breeds for producing fear biters. A genetically stable dog of sound nerve doesn't need socialising. Dogs that react aggressively in non threatening passive environments are spooks. The one's who can't get over a bad experience and react from a learned behaviour are genetically weak in nerve strength. An unsocialsed dog will project it's true character unmasked by the effects of socialisation. There should be more breeders not socialising some of their breeding stock to be better informed of what they are actually producing in raw character and temperament IMHO.

I didn't say all the attacking dogs are BYB's, but most are by a considerable margin it appears.

Kind of blows the BSL supporters theory that only Pibull attacks are published, this one now a Rottweiler probably another BYB Rotty X bred by an idiot and sold to an idiot?. I have a problem with the concept of breed what you like and sell to who you like and the common factor in all of these horrific attacks is BYB's owned by irresponsible people. Lets see one of these idiots who's last dog was euthanised by irresponsible handling get passed the ownership requirements of a good breeder of papered dogs, these idiots for one would be lucky to afford the price of a papered pure breed or be willing to pay 1K+ for a good dog and secondly, most wouldn't qualify the breeder's requirements to supply them with a dog.........I have the dream of making it difficult for idiots to buy dogs.......at present, you get another one from another BYB and start the whole irresponsible ownership cycle all over again. Maybe people need to hold a licence to own a dog could be more effective than the dog holding the licence. More so than breed/size issues to reduce attacks, targeting and tightening up on people breeding crap dogs and the idiots who buy them with legislative measures is a better alternative?

Duds in my opinion in any breed required to perform a task is reliant largely upon good breeding practices. Too many people throwing anything together in hope where I am sure there would be as many dickheads breeding racing Greyhounds as there are people trying to breed show winners when they don't really know what they are doing? I think Greyhound breeders need to be limited, if they can't breed a decent dog out of a couple of litters, bad luck........not keep breeding and culling until they crack the the right dog

That's true too. He could have redirected onto the owner. It's hard to tell without seeing the incident. We don't know what the owner did to the dog to trigger a reaction or whether the dog just ran up and took a bite? Sound's to have a low threshhold to a defensive response or the dog is a bit spooky?. Had the owner taken his two dogs to someone elses place, or did the dog's owner not live with them and was a visitor in their territory?. Perhaps he owned the dog but didn't know the dog well?..........comment above is a bit strange?? Did the dogs live with the bloke who didn't get bitten and have a bond with him perhaps?

I thought they only reported Pitbull attacks.......another good BYB crossbreed it appears. Don't know where the erect ears came from out of Lab X Ridgeback