Donegal

I believe that it was blackmagic dismissing the topic as pointless not poodlefan ... I personally always find these topics interesting. I was referring to both posts really, probably should have highlighted Poodlefan's too. I think these topics are good to hear so many different views and experiences, I like them ;)

Totally agree with this post. also wanted to add that I think these topics are a bit pointless. Why are these topics a bit pointless, so that newbies can remain totally in the dark???. Who has to consider the owners personality Poodlefan, who is responsible for that consideration, who undertakes that role when a newbie is considering to get a dog???

The first dog of my own was a Golden Retriever, a breed that I wanted because I loved the look of them and thought they were a delux version of the Labrador with their beautiful wavy coat and found one in a petshop as a newbie knowing no better at the time. He was supposed to be a pure breed GR, looked like one except he was a little taller and leaner than the average Golden male???. He was a great dog who taught me heaps, how to train a dog, manage a dog and how to raise a puppy from my own mistakes too. He lived healthily to 15 years old. My next and present dog is pure breed registered Amstaff male, who was better than my Golden as a puppy, but due to raising him more effectively from my previous experience I was able to mould him more easily. My Amstaff presented a new challenge developing dog aggression at 8 or 9 months old which is a behaviour I didn't have to contend with or evern think about with my GR who was friendly towards everyone and everything, so I was very much back in the newbie scene with this dog aggression I had no experience in handling and training better behaviour. What I wouldn't recommend to a newbie is a breed that could have a predisposition for aggression or bloodlines in those breeds that do, like working line German Shepherds from security backgrounds or Bull breed lines that have those tendencies. Now that I have learned a lot of how to deal with and indentify the early onset of aggressive behaviour and how to reshape that before it gets out of hand which happened to me, I could own a working line dog now more effectively I think, but aggression is devistating and really hard to live with having no experience how to shape and manage it. I met up with a few people in my shoes with GSD's, a Rotty and a couple of Staffords that were like my boy who were battling the same situation. But I found being inexpereinced, that no naughtiness and bad behaviour is as hard to cope with as aggression is and I really shudder when newbies say they are looking at a GSD litter for example because their ancestors were police dogs or something like that From my experience, anything remotely bred that could have aggression in their genetics for a newbie is best avoided until they gain some experience.

My mum taught me never to approach, pat or interfere with a strange dog unless the dogs owner was present and you asked them if you could. The girl's mother should be locked in the pound for a few days and taught some basic animal safety. There is no way my mum would have let me do that at any age let alone 12

Yes, EXACTLY how I felt, and are pretty normal feelings for the average person I think.

You don't want to come over as a cocky cow and peeve the trainer/behaviourist off when you are requiring their help. Unless it's something obviously dopy, as the consumer, you don't know. You don't tend to call in a professional and tell them how to do their job kind of thing

I did complain that what we were doing wasn't really helping, but they told me we had to get this bit right and it takes time and blamed the severity of the situation on me for not hiring a behaviourist early enough and allowing my dogs behaviour to escalate. Ok, I don't know and I can't really argue about it, I have hired a behaviourist because I don't know how to deal with the problem and I thought my role is best to shut up and listen and trust that they know what they are talking about, even though they were idiots in the end, I didn't know that either. Nekhbet, I agree with your thoughts on this, but when they bulldust to you, you can't really argue as the inexperienced party against a supposed professional and you take their advice as being correct

Thanks guys for so much input into my thread, there has been some really good perspectives. I do hold a bit of resentment towards the 3 behaviourists I hired to help me with my Amstaffs dog aggression which went for 10 months and $1050 I spent all up for little improvement. Admittedly, 2 were franchise behaviourists and I didn't really know much about them other than websites and what they told me which sounded good at the time, but I also didn't know many people who recommend anyone either. The last one told me that I just had to really keep my boy away from other dogs and avoid them as his brain is now training saturated and that's the best he will be???. My gripe was that I mentioned prong collars and E collars to all 3 after doing my own research and they all spewed over it saying they were cruel training tools and it would agitate his aggression and make him worse, so I am trying what they told me clicker in one hand, treat bag which worked when no dogs were present, but if he saw a dog, he would ignore everything. In the end, a friend told me about this K9 trainer, he wasn't a behaviourist and I booked an appointment and we simply went for a walk. He told me that his leash manners were not that good, he did pull and dart around a bit sniffing etc and he recommended we try him on a prong collar which we did. It was an awful looking thing but he ensured me that the prong won't hurt him and off we went for a walk again. Within minutes, my dog was heaps better on the leash, it was magical, I was wrapped totally, and after a couple of session and the homework he gave me, we ventured to seeing dogs. When my boy focused on another dog, he got a "leave it" command and slight correction which developed as we got closer to other dogs, well to cut a long story short, I use only a martingale collar now and he does not react to other dogs at all. I wouldn't take him to a dog park and let him loose or have dogs jump at him, but I can walk him anywhere, sit and drop him and talk to people with other dogs on leash no problems. Previously, he was a nightmare, and would almost rip my arm out of it's socket and had to avoid other dogs like the plague. What I felt was the cause of the behaviourist problems, is that they refused to even think about aversive tools as they all said that is not the best way to train a dog, but the K9 trainer said it was the only way to train my dog and his methods worked a treat and the others failed. I am not saying that every dog needs a prong collar, but if these behaviourists used all the tools available and were not hung up so much on positive methods only, I am sure they too could have trained my dog properly also. From my perspective now, I would never ever use or recommend a trainer who only does positive reward based training as IMHO, they provide half the tools and knowledge to train selected types of dogs only, not any dog as I think a good trainer should be able to do. Thanks Lisa

Can someone tell me what a Dog Behaviourist actually is???. The title appears as a higher qualification than a Dog Trainer, but from what I have researched there is no formal qualification for either, so it seems like anyone can open a business and call themselves a trainer/behaviourist, is that correct???.

If you read Steve's post on how to raise a pup, it is not unlike what Susan G says, any good trainer knows this stuff. Good dog trainers are open minded, they put in the hard yards with pups, building motivation and drive, it's not that hard, no matter what breed. It's sad you wont ever get to chat to SG personally, you would be very suprised and inspired. But how is Susan garrett a good open minded trainer when she is involved in action groups condemning prong collars and correction type training. Steve is an open minded trainer, he even sells prong collars, there is a big difference. Susan Garrett peddles her own methods and is anti everything apart from her own techniques, I just googled her and read about her and she is very closed minded in training methods big time!!!!. She even blogs about humane stuff and how she doesn't do correction training and critisizes trainers who do. What Chevy said she was about is true, so what's the big deal??

Technically I am off topic, sorry you are right, but your response to me doesn't answer vickie's question either, so what's the purpose of your post Adian2 other than to try and make me look dumb?? I was dumb listening to motivational trainers and what 55chevy is getting at, if the likes of Susan Garrett had her way, no correction type training would exist, so what happens then to my dog with dog agro, he gets put to sleep then.

I have mentioned this before with my dog that after three motivational trainers who won't do corrections and say how cruel it is couldn't fix my dogs behavior, they were useless and cost me a lot of money and time trying. The last trainer could see straight up my dog needed some corrections and completely sorted out his dog agro in two sessions. How many motivational trainers are you supposed to hire before one can show that their methods work on all dogs. From my experience, I would never hire a trainer again that bagged out prong collars and chokers as the three I had, didn't know what they were talking about and couldn't fix my dog at all. I understand how motivational training has its place and on some dogs and is really good, but on dogs like mine for his problems it didn't work, but they refused to try anything else because corrections etc didn't fit with their image, but too bad about my dog

I agree with what 55chevy says about political correctness. My previous trainer was like that, really got into bagging prong collars and that stuff and all the inhumane methods that she wont use, like to make out she was all for the best interests of the dog. She went on for an hour about her humane methods before she even looked at my dog and I can vouch first hand that there are trainers out there that are more concerned about methods than thay are about training a dog. I was only interested in knowing if she could fix the dog agro he had

Let's imagine that this is an extreme dog (it isn't, or the handler wouldn't have got away with what he was doing), and that this is his last chance to stay on earth. The simple fact is that it isn't working. Repeated punishment that doesn't work is abuse. How do you know "it's not working" when no one really knows what behavior they are trying to fix. The dog didn't attack the handler, so perhaps the next level of arousal previously was attacking the handler then in that case, it may have worked???. Although it looks bad, I would like to think that police dog training was professional enough to use those methods for a reason assuming that the trainers do the job for a living???

That would depend on numerous factors, Donegal. How the dog was trained in the first place (too much too fast ???); what and how much the dog receives by way of drive satisfaction and so on. If the historical training can be faulted, then IMO that needs to be re-addressed first, before addressing the actual mouthing which does seem to be re-direction out of frustration. There is so much assumption in the watching of that video footage, but I saw a dog that was not balanced and I do strongly suspect that to be the result of training fault. So rather than singling out the mouthing, I'd be inclined to back up with the training a bit. Making sure the dog received drive satisfaction and making sure the dog knew the rules of the game to achieve drive satisfaction would be one of the things I'd like to investigate. If all checked out and/or was re-addressed and fixed, but the re-direction continued, I'd probably use any one of "correct" and/or "quit the dog". This would depend on the dog and how it responded to one or the other. Don't know if Jeff would agree with me and he does have far more experience than I in the training of protection work (of which my experience is fairly close to nothing other than observation and a smidge of practical), so my apologies to him for stepping in here as I see your question, Donegal, was addressed to him. Great post Erny. I have no problem with you stepping in. I would do exactly as you have said. Redirected aggression occurs because a dog is over stimulated, you need to take the training process back to step one and slowly build the dogs confidence in working around the trigger. The handler should not be attempting to undertake training with the dog in such an aroused state. I would have ended the training session with the dog after it first mouthed my arm. ETA: The problem is the handler lacks the experience, knowledge and competence in completing an effective correction / alpha roll to the dog. The trainer who is instructing the handler has put him in a dangerous situation with a dog that is known to redirect its aggression. This is not a smart training choice and not one I would use on a dog in such a high state of arousal. Thanks Jeff and Erny. So basically when a dog is behaving in that manner it could be the result of training errors along the way and the correct way to deal with it is not correcting the symptom (mouthing) but retraining earlier stages that have not been done effectively. So really, the dog in the video is not trained properly up to the right level for the work that the guys need from him???