m-sass

If you "knew how to use them" you would understand that there are many different ways of using them than old fashioned positive punishment, "the dog has done wrong so shock it!" mentality, in fact I have never seen one used as a positive punishment. Most of the e collar training that I have seen is to train a dog to repeat a desirable behaviour, not to take an undesireable one and teach the dog not to repeat it. but as I said i have never seen one used as a positive punishment. Also, whilst on the subject of "pain and discomfort" do you not think that most training has a level of discomfort and possible pain (depending on the sensitivity of the animal?) Pain and discomfort can be far more than physical. Just putting an animal under pressure to learn a behaviour for a treat exerts a level of discomfort and yes "pain" albeit mental :) hence why IMO you need to have a strategy to relieve the pressure should you find the animal stuck. An e collar used correctly would exert no more measurable "pain or discomfort" than any other method, Have a look in to e collar trained dogs that have been trained correctly, an awfull lot of them don't look like they are suffering discomfort to me. In fact I have seen most dogs display a much higher avoidance behaviour to an e collar on vibrate(which is much like a mobile phone vibrating) than they do to a correctly set stim. Basically the wrong tool, applied to the wrong dog, in an incorrect manner, and the wrong situation will at best not work, and at worst damage the dogs long term development, alternatively the right tool, applied to the right animal, correctly, in the right situation willl work! The trick is to be open minded enough to know when the tools at your disposal, in this situation are the wrong ones, for the animal your dealing with and consequently the knowledge of what to do is outside of your current knowledge. (please note that this last sentence is not "aimed" at anyone in particular just a general belief that I hold IMO This is also very common, "e-collars hurt, but so does everything else so it's ok". "Everything stresses the dog, so may as well use an e-collar". You've never seen one used as P+? That's weird, because that's how they do snake avoidance training. I know it can also be used as R-, but it's still aversive, that's why it works. To use R- you must first apply P+. I'm not saying I'm against the use of positive punishment or e-collars. Used correctly they're fine. I hate how reward training zealots first say "punishment doesn't work" and then produce some story of this person they saw using a prong collar incorrectly as "proof" that P+ is horrible and useless. And they ALWAYS do, they NEVER use a story where the aversive is being used correctly. I don't understand why you'd use aversives for obedience/sports/everyday manners training though. These things are SO easy to train without any aversives, and the golden rule of dog training says to use the least aversive method possible. But of course now you will tell me that withholding the treat is equally aversive to a low level stim, so I might as well just use an e-collar. I guess you have method peddlers and dog trainers and I think people worthy of being call a dog trainer with a vast enough experience of different types of dogs and behaviours will have a prong and Ecollar in their tool box along side the clicker and treat pouch. I think any trainers staunch on views that they don't use prongs or they don't use treats for the good of the dog in a marketing spiel is the warning sign to find a proper trainer who can use the lot and cater for every type of behaviour in the most effective way is my general opinion.

So are you saying you'd use them on a higher setting only? Either on a higher setting or with the full expectation that I will have to turn it up should it be necessary. If I could genuinely use only the lowest setting, I would use +R instead (and mostly that's what I do, I will use an ecollar but almost never do). Yes I agree. Escape training on Ecollars at low settings causes in my experience a lack of drive focus.........dog is expecting stim, becomes confused, waste of time really IMHO over +R. However as a punisher high level stim short sharp duration, an Ecollar beats a choke chain by a country mile and doesn't place anywhere near the physical stress on the dog as the old traditional yank and crank.

I think this has more to do with the size and/or capacity of your card. I did buy a Sandisk Extreme Pro 16g card but it didn't help much in 14 bit raw where I can only get about 5 or 6 frames before it slows down to like 2fps or stops completely? A friend's 7D I shot with reeled out 15 frames at full speed easily in raw, the longer buffer and 8fps of the D7 was noticable over my D7000. I could have a setting or two wrong also still learning my way around the camera? Are you shooting in JPEG or NEF? JPEG is ok with the smaller files it's in NEF where mine really slows up......the Nikon manual says it should do 14 frames in NEF on continuous burst, but mine won't come close to that??. I have 2 cards in it, one is JPEG and one is NEF. I'll give it a better go later though because I think I have only used continuous earlier on when I only had the one JPEG card in it. Please, give your's a try on continous high in 14 bit NEF and see how many frames you get? Mine is about 6 frames then it slows dramatically, it only runs at full speed 6fps for a one second?. I could have the lossy compressed settings wrong perhaps in NEF as I have played around with that a bit too?

I am merely sharing my opinion on the situation........should I just agree with what other's are saying.......sorry I don't

Yes, that's what I mean........I didn't understand the buffer thing when I bought the camera, but researching the situation I found that the D7000 is short on buffer compared with the 7D......in fact I think the 60D is larger in the buffer than the Nikon too??

I think this has more to do with the size and/or capacity of your card. I did buy a Sandisk Extreme Pro 16g card but it didn't help much in 14 bit raw where I can only get about 5 or 6 frames before it slows down to like 2fps or stops completely? A friend's 7D I shot with reeled out 15 frames at full speed easily in raw, the longer buffer and 8fps of the D7 was noticable over my D7000. I could have a setting or two wrong also still learning my way around the camera? Are you shooting in JPEG or NEF? JPEG is ok with the smaller files it's in NEF where mine really slows up......the Nikon manual says it should do 14 frames in NEF on continuous burst, but mine won't come close to that??.

Three mix breed dogs apparantly.........I can just imagine what the breed mix will be

I know I don't have to worry about my dogs being scooped up by the ranger mis-identified as Pitbulls so that bit of research I did right :D

Default beahvior..? it depends on the situation, you can't say that a dog that has never done anything wrong or displayed aggression has a default behavior, if it did then it would've shown it many times!! Hunting dogs do not have blinding aggression, i have no idea where you get your ideas from from?! Unbalanced dogs of any breed are a problem. not just bull breeds, you need to get your head around that. My reference to default behaviour is aggression of unsocialised dogs which some seem to think is the case, nothing to do with situations either all unsocialised dogs are aggressive or they are not?? Yes, unbalanced dogs of any breed are a potential problem in the community I agree, but there is difference, unbalanced pure breeds by the standard are duds, unbalanced dogs with no standard to follow as in cross breeds could be just that, a poor genetic combination of breed mixtures.

I have a D7000 which is a good camera, except the buffer fills too quickly on action shots.......a 7D absolutely smokes a D7000 in continous bursts and has a faster auto focus, but some of the full frame cameras are not too flash in speed either for capturing doggy action like the 5D mkII and D800.........it's hard to find better I think for action than the 7D or D300S unless you go top of the range in full frame......ouch on the price of those!!!

The problem with Delta IMHO is that they are method pushers ignoring the latest tooling or even the check chain for that matter making claims to be able train any dog successfully in their methods which are false claims. No dogs requiring extreme reliability are trained without compulsion, police dogs, guide dogs for the blind, gun dogs, etc etc, the Ecollar took gun dogs to incredible levels of reliabilty and work ethics........Delta don't have the sensibility to learn how to use one, but they sure take a stance against them.......where are the Delta trained gun dogs, police dogs, etc. Reward based methods are good to train dogs to do things and also work well with high drive dogs in repetitive routines, but they are not so good at stopping a poor behaviour, balanced training takes all quadrants if addressing all problems in all dogs is the desired acheivement.

I know of 2 dogs in SA that were recommended by Delta trainer's inability to provide adequate behavioral solutions to have them PTS........Mark sorted it by all accounts and quite easily +2 for Mark :)

I think they look more at the statistical data with the level of injury sustained by resticted breeds when involved in incidents over frequency. Your GSD sounds like a great dog of good character.......enjoy :)

Sorry but that is ridiculous. Completely laughable. Maybe your "ideal" dog is like this, but most "real" dogs will have something or other or certain situations that they feel uncomfortable with or are even afraid of. They are dogs, not robots. Yes I agree in a perfect world that should be the case, but on the other hand I can see why the type of dogs who fall victim to a lack of owner control and management posing a danger to the community become targets for irradication in the stance for saftey. If we eradicate the type or breed of dog that they like to use now they will simply move onto something else. German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Dobermans, these are all purebreds and they have all previously been in the same situation as the Pitbull is in now. Labradors have not had their reputation marred by lowlife owners as these breeds have, however, they still have fairly high numbers in most bite stats I ahve laid eyes on so far. Where does this leave your argument that purebreds don't ever bite? Pretty sure I've read a news article about a pomeranian killing a baby before and even my breed of choice, the Weimaraner, has caused fatalities. Not so long ago a toddler in the US was bitten on the neck by the family's Wei and died. None of these dogs are even bull breeds at all. I also don't get the feeling that you like dogs in general very much. Maybe you should just stay away from them, you miht feel a lot safer... I am speaking "aggression" in my comment of stable dogs not needing socialisation, do you think the default behaviour of all unsocialised dogs is aggression...........it's not trust me?? GSD, Rott's, Dobe's etc are not hunting dogs with blinding aggression, the reason they don't use them for those roles, big difference between guarding instinct and killing machines. Morons won't use herders to provide the aggression they are looking for because they have to train them or find fear biters and what breeders of constantly hard herders trainable in defence and attack will sell to morons??. Pure breeds have a recognised standard..........unstable aggression is a breed fault in the major working breeds, there is a defence to their existance if the odd one does bite someone, but what's the standard for a Bully crossbreed which may be killing machine who knows, where is the defence in the standards of a crossbreed??

Scholars In Collars are method pushers not dog trainers IMHO, I would recommend Mark Singer in SA who uses a proper balanced approach in training methods and tooling for successful behavioural modification. :)

Do you know that good stable dogs don't need to be socialised at all, aggression in most cases is a reaction to insecurity, good dogs don't feel insecure with new sights and surroundings, they are comfortable in their own skin. Socialisation routines do help to desensitise crap dogs but the belief that a reactive dog behaves in that manner is not because of a lack of socialisation, what you see is the raw genetics of the dog's character unmasked by socialisation/training. So how do you duplicate your dog from a breeding perspective when the temperament of the sire and the grandparents is unknown.......how do you choose a likely stud if you wanted to breed your dog in a BYB situation? In a "good" breeder's program, they would know the bloodlines and what different sires produced, if there was insecuirity in your dog masked by training and socialisation and the desire was to produce greater stability in the progeny, they would use a sire from a line that produced extreme stability in the progeny is the basis of how they alter particular traits in breeding. It's not the paperwork that makes the dog, it's the known history in papered bloodlines that enables breeder's of pure breeds to make better choices of where their lines are heading over the BYB who know's nothing of the history make up of a particular dog. It means if no one else is in apparant control of the dog the owner is liable, like if a dog digs under the fence and gets out whilst the owner isn't home. If someone else is in apparant control like the son left the dog in his father's control in his absence, the son as the owner isn't liable in that case as per subsection 3 of that law. Then there is usually a defence clause about third party responsibility, like a lawn mower man for example left the gate open and the dog gets out can reduce the owner's liability also. Yes I agree in a perfect world that should be the case, but on the other hand I can see why the type of dogs who fall victim to a lack of owner control and management posing a danger to the community become targets for irradication in the stance for saftey.

So you are using playing with other dogs as a reward for a sit behaviour..........releasing the dog in drive to go play?? I wouldn't be doing that to train reliable obedience because as it puts a value into the behaviour of dog play, but that's just my opinion as I prefer dogs to be neutral to other dogs.

The only valid qualifications I am aware of is a veterinary behaviourist, that's not me, experience training 38 years........what comments are you referring to here??

I definitely don't think that dogs that aren't neutral can't work well, I am sure they can. Though I would wonder if a dog who has just played with another dog outside the ring immediately before going in to compete is really going to give 120% - not aiming that at you specifically obviously as I don't know you or your dog but it would be something I would be asking myself. It really comes down to personal preference, I don't have a need or desire to have a dog that wants to play lots with other dogs, and I don't think raising a dog to be neutral is lots of hard work. Certainly IMO no more work than teaching your dog other dogs have a high value then having to also teach them and reinforce that you are always of a higher value. I don't think people who let their dogs play with others have anything to prove, I'm just not interested in raising a dog that way myself. Where extreme reliability in working roles are desired, they tend to neutralise dogs towards everything other than a trained task including males instincts towards a bitch in season, I am not aware of any performance advantages gained from dogs having a value for other dogs and is usually the opposite of that is what mostly is sought after. Wouldn't it be more desirable to release a dog for reward of something that involves a training goal or handler provided reward than releasing to play with other dogs as reward?

I don't think there is a right or wrong, just doing what you want to do and what works to achieve your goals. Lots of people take their dogs to dog parks and allow free play and end up with a dog they can't control because their value for other dogs is so high and I agree a huge part of that is their failure to build value for the handler, but why create more work for yourself if you don't need to? I could socialise a puppy to value other dogs but then I'd have to put the work in to ensure their value always stays higher for me. If you have a neutral dog it makes it easier because there is little to no positive value there to begin with. I'm not saying it's for everyone, I just find it easier for me to reach my goals. I often work long hours too and my dogs are home alone for a long period of time during the day (and then when I come home I spend more time working at night) but I don't need free play with other dogs to wear them out or make them happy. To achieve behaviour where a dog has value for other dogs with handler over-ride is the least common achievement I have seen the average dog owner ever master, whilst not impossible, it's difficult without having exceptional training skills generally beyond the scope of average. The best behaviour I have seen from average owners are dogs sensitised neutrally towards other dogs and the worse by far are the dogs allowed to freely run amock at dog parks from my observations over the years. Genetic handler focus is a sought after trait selected in 8 weeks old pups by many performance/working dog owners, the pup who retrieves and wants to work with a person over playing with litter mates are not hard work to neutralise to any distractions as the trait of focus seems to carry through into maturity in most cases. Easily distractable dogs are hard to neutralise and success either way I think depends on the individual dog to a certain degree.

Whoa! This place is full of genetics deniers. (I'm responding, not to m-sass, above, but those who have flamed m-sass) No question that the problem of dog attacks has genetic component. I don't mean breed-specific . . . I mean pedigree specific. Breeders of any sort who don't put temperament high on their list of priorities, or who deliberately breed for low bite threshold and high drive, produce dogs that are more likely to do harm. These days it's almost harder to find a goldie who is a natural retriever (and I don't mean tennis balls) than it is to find one who has deep problems with resource guarding. I've met more than a few dogs from 'herding' breeds who would be clueless faced with a flock or herd, but have loads of drive and are inclined to nip. You don't have to look too hard to find a conformation show breeder who will overlook unstable temperament in a dog with good show prospects. I know a show breeder who pts'd an imported show dog (titled, to boot) because the dog maimed a puppy. How many breeders would do this? I doubt it's more than one in five. It's unfortunate we can't know more about the dog who killed Ayen Chol. Who bred him? What were his lines? What happened to his littermates? I'm not saying that heredity caused this attack, just that the possibility should be considered. If some idiot breeder is placing mean, powerful dogs with owners who are not in a position to manage them, said idiot at least deserves to be named and shamed. The other side of the coin is that the management capabilities of the average pet owner have declined. Yards have gotten smaller. The number of homes with an adult at home during the day has gone down. Walking the dog has ceased to be a normal kids chore. Excellent post, my sentiments exactly, thank you :) Another factor I see often having a trip down memory lane of past dogs, as the training systems improve with evolution and the behaviour of poor quality dogs are improved with dedicated training places more blame upon the owners of poor quality dogs who didn't follow the strict training and socialisation routines that other owners of poor quality dogs have. I remember an old school trainer I attended classes with in the mid 70's used to tell us if a dog shut down to a hard leash correction the dog had no nerve and was essentially a problem dog in the making? If a dog spooked at something scary and didn't recover within 15 minutes to face it's demons, a dog like that was no good either and were definitely not breeding quality? Same with aggression I recall a few Dobermann's at the time and a couple of GSD's with active aggression said to be protection dogs, this trainer could have those dogs cowering in 5 minutes and they would run away, he termed them fear biters that had no heart, again poor examples of the breed? I remember when good Labs and Retrievers were bullet proof especially with kids, they were renowned for great nerve and stability and were very hard to initiate an aggressive response from them virtually no matter what you did, at worse they would walk away unphased although HD was a problem health wise but the temperaments of most were awesome. Then the resource guarder in especially Goldies surfaced where a few Goldies bit kids ........we used to say the same thing as the Pitbull supporters do today........must be a crossbreed, Goldies don't bite kids, but they were Goldies with cronic resource garding traits and food aggression and of course some of great comformation in the show ring, they were bred with the trait of resource guarding increasing in the progeny and were actually temperament faulty. Then there were moves to cover up the fault and blame the owners of these faulty dogs for not teaching their kids how to approach a dog when eating.........Lab's and Retrievers are soft mouthed dogs in their rightful working roles, how do you get a duck out of the mouth of a resource guarder?.......a gun dog owner would have shot a dog like that in the old days let alone breed it??. Genetics does play a major part in all sorts of undesirable temperament traits, better dogs can be bred but firstly we have to accept the fact that crap dogs do exist and it's not all about the owner. Crap dogs only makes the owners job harder, no "good" stable dog should go out on a killing rampage in the owner's error of dropping the leash unless it's trained to hunt and kill, or it's bred with the traits as a default behaviour, the saying of mnodern times "there is no bad dogs just bad owners" is absolute bullshit and where bad dogs don't fit into community living is that they are so damn hard for the average dog owner to handle safely and one slip up on the owner's part can result in devistation, we don't need pet dogs like that and dogs like that shouldn't be bred for the pet market and the people who do need to be accountable for their products as far as I am concerned.

Because the Amstaff is an ANKC recognised breed with a recognised and established breed standard, hence heavily protected and is the perfect precident to the counter the "your breed will be next" hysteria from the anit-BSL crusaders. That is sadly true and they need their prefixes pulled along with the BYB's who breed crap and use unethical standards. Correct..........so who bred this thing, where did it come from??. I am sure if a car's brakes failed and killed someone turning out to be a genetic factor, the manufacturer's would be getting a please explain, but in the case of the dog, the dog gets euthanised, the owner cops a fine and legally it's all good..........what about the brothers and sisters of that litter in the next street with the same traits or the other litters the same breeder has bred which needs investigating IMHO, the cause needs to be addressed. Bloody vets, they have the cheek to blame the govermnent and express how disgraceful the BSL laws are with the destruction of innocent pets and they are in the box seat to put life back into that innocent pet and most lack the spine to put pen to paper..........if they are so concerned beyond lip service certificate them all as Amstaff's who cares, they are only dealing with box tickers anyway who wouldn't know what they are looking at in terms of whether a dog was is an Amstaff or not. It's ok for them to misdiagnose a health issue, what's wrong with mis-identifying the breed of what is essentially a good dog??. Instead of blaming the laws, how about blaming the vets who won't sign your dog off to keep it alive and safe?? Because the owner wasn't in control of the dog or the premises that the dog was kept, the owner (the guy's son) didn't commit an offence. No, it's not about the potential for aggression, it's about dogs that fit the restricted breed standard and can't be proven otherwise to the satisfaction of the legislation don't comply with the laws. They have rightly or wrongly already established that Pitbull's pose a threat to community safety and scooping up Pitbull look a likes is enforcing that law. Scooping up good dogs that look like Pitbull's and whether Pitbull's should be a restricted breed are two different topics.

What people haven't learnt from any of these incidents is why it happened. M-sass your clearly blaming everything on genetics and BYB's, but it isn't as simple as that. People aren't learning why attacks happen and how to avoid them. The plain truth is any dog can and will bite given the right situation, regardless of how incredible you or anyone thinks their dog is. I have never owned a dog not knowing exactly of what it is capable of and it's triggers, it's about knowing your dog, its traits, its signals, what it needs to be a happy dog and how to avoid putting your dog in situations that will invariably provoke unwanted reactions. Some dogs will never encounter a situation that may provoke a biting reaction, but that doesn't mean they're not capable. It is as simple as genetics, some dogs have a predisposition for aggression and some don't. If a dog is so fixated on the chase and slaughter factor as a natural instinct as Ayen's killer was, it's not fit and stable enough to be in the community as a supposed family pet, wrong type of dog for that environment. Saying that all dogs are capable of biting as an excuse for what Ayen's killer did is a big difference with a dog biting in defence of having a kid stick it's finger in the dogs eye when cornered than dog shooting across from the other side of the road to "get em" then barging into the house after someone else then redirecting onto a poor little girl hanging onto her mum's legs in fear and killing her...........get with it please and admit that the dog was a piece of crap and accept that it was a landshark at all levels. Who can seriously say their own dog slipping under the roller door would do that, and I am damn sure it wasn't trained to that either??

Pitbull's and look a likes are a restricted breed with the same houing requirements as declared dangerous dogs, they are supposed to be muzzled in public to begin with so if they are biting someone to death there is a muzzle breach could be a justification for jail where non restricted/dangerous breeds don't have muzzle requirements? Are you serious?, you think the BYB's put in the same efforts to breed a quality healthy dog as the dedicated registered breeders

Personally I would remove my dog if another dog started snapping at her. Its my job to protect her- even from SWFs. I take my dog to the offlead park for exercise, not to be terrorised. Your dog is maturing & you need to start watching him & reading his body language. If he shows signs of not tolerating another dog's bad behaviour, then remove him. Or even better, avoid rude dogs. His response might have been appropriate, but you don't want it to become a default response through regular practice. Dogs who react to rude dogs is generally caused by the reactive dog feeling insecure that eventually triggers fear aggression...........confident dogs can take a playful scruff and rolly polly and know the difference between play and fight, the dog that gets nasty in play is the one that needs watching in my experience.