Dont Say No To Your Dog?

[Diva]

If we ever do meet how will you know it's really me?

I'll ask poodlefan, she can figure out who anyone is.

[OSoSwift]

Aidan, I have no idea what gender or age you are, but sometimes I think I need to either adopt you, hire you or arrange to have you marry into my family! You almost always say what I believe or know, but so much more succinctly and wisely.

(note to self, never meet Aidan in real life, now too embarrassing )

Was thinking the very same thing!

Having said that, click on the link in Aiden's sigi to get to see a picture

[MrsD]

Wow, so many posts since I last posted.

Absolutely! The same could be said of the herding breeds doing what they are bred to do. You don't see farmers handing out tit bits for the dogs when they round up the sheep! They don't need to as the work is inherently rewarding to dogs that are bred to herd.

I would imagine that the dog being allowed to actually do the bite work could be seen as a positive reinforcement to the dog performing it? Therefore it would be reward enough and no other treats/toys would be necessary especially for a highly prey driven dog.

I don't know much about police dogs but I would have thought similar, it's harnessing a drive & is self rewarding just like herding. A bite sleeve & the way a dog latches onto it & uses it strongly resembles something that I use with my dogs all the time - a tug toy. Even if they are trained purely with adversives to start with, I'm not sure how you can think that the dog hanging off an arm like a giant tugtoy isn't really a reward.

As has already been mentioned, obedience, agility, DWD, Schutzhund, SAR, tracking - the list goes on- nowdays are mainly trained using positive methods & get fantastic results. So why have so many people stopped using adversives & no reward systems in favour of clickers, food & toys? Because it works! You keep bleating on that schutzhund people aren't allowed to take toys or food on the field in competition, well guess what Sunshine, neither are people competing in obedience, agility, DWD etc, & the dogs trained positively are up there winning most of those trials (& in the case of DWD every trial as no one uses adversives when teaching DWD) so what is your point? No one has said you can't train a dog with a check chain & only praise, but by god I reckon I can train a dog faster in any of those disciplines using a reward based system than you can with a check chain - remember if you want to take me up on my challenge about the hindleg work the invitation is always there .

Selection played a very large part. Well bred dogs who perform the tasks that they are bred to perform are getting a TON of reinforcement. And if they didn't perform, they didn't get to hang around.

Good point!! The rest were dubbed "dumb" or "untrainable". We now know that to be far from the truth, we were just too "dumb" to work out how to motivate them!!

Yep, if you look at any of the "old days" dogs & handler combinations in obedience they were almost exclusively working dogs like GSDs, Dobermans etc. How many scent hounds & spitz breeds & toy breeds & sighthounds & the list goes on where out there competing? Bugger all, because the methods of training did not suit most dogs. Back then, as Aiden said, if someone got a dog & it wouldn't work well, the handler got rid of it & got a new dog. Happened all the time.

Nowdays all sorts of dogs from every group participating & guess what? They get qualies & titles etc & they enjoy doing it!

Anyway I think I have finally had enough of this, Aiden is doing a fabulous job of explaining things alot better than me & Longcoat is still not answering most of the questions directed at him, so I will sit back & watch from the sidelines.

ETA - Bedazzled, I'm sorry I meant to mention earlier in the thread, congrats on your marvellous trial resuts with your dogs on the weekend, fantastic work .

Edited April 6, 2010 by MrsD

[Prydenjoy]

Aidan, I have no idea what gender or age you are, but sometimes I think I need to either adopt you, hire you or arrange to have you marry into my family! You almost always say what I believe or know, but so much more succinctly and wisely.

(note to self, never meet Aidan in real life, now too embarrassing )

Not if I beat you to it

[Staranais]

My girl does "round the house" obedience such as drops, stays, off leash walking, etc, for just praise/correction. I refuse to shovel treats into her for easy, routine requests. It's just not necessary.

But I can't imagine training her for her SAR work with no extrinsic rewards. I have never seen, or heard, of a SAR dog working for praise alone. All our dogs get a huge play and praise reward when they find the victim or end of the trail (except for the few dogs who prefer, and get given, food and praise instead). We reward because we want them working extremely enthusiastically for long periods of time. It's not sufficient to have a dog working half heartedly, going through the search routine just because the handler says so. We want dogs who live to work, and that requires huge rewards.

It's the same with all the schutzhund dogs I've seen - all good schutzhund dogs I've seen work in either prey or food drive in the obedience phase (and food drive in the tracking phase). They do not work just to avoid correction, or gain praise.

I will be very interested to see a video of your schutzhund dog trained using praise/correction alone, with no toys or food, Longcoat, if you would care to post a video of the trials you compete in? It will be interesting to see if you can gain results, and scores, comparable to those teams using food and toy motivators.

You have just confirmed that a "few" SAR dogs are rewarded with food obviously not all which is the point.

Yes, the rest are trained with toys. None are trained with praise/correction alone.

I start my trailing dogs off with food,and every now and again i 'Jackpot them" to keep them motivated.None of mine have been play driven except for the one in Sydney with another trainer,and his reward is his tennis ball.

When they associate the "victim" with the food/praise reward,i start to use more basic food rewards like dried liver etc,and at the end when they are back at the car-they get their ultimate-a chicken frame,roo tail etc,bu ti still jackpot them occaisionally to keep them motivated.

I want my dogs to be motivated,enthusiastic and food seems to do that-you cant have a half arsed search dog.

Most of our trailing dogs are started with food on the track & a bite or tug at the end, then for most dogs the food is ultimately faded until it's just random drops (or gone altogether). They toy reward always remains, however.

This is how the police dog trainers who train with us also start their dogs trailing. Ultimately, it's just like a hunt, the dogs are working in prey drive, the only difference is that they get to bite a toy or sleeve instead of a live animal at the end of the trail.

We don't have any blood hounds though, mostly border collies and german shepherds, so I wonder if our dogs are just naturally more play/prey driven than yours? No point using a toy reward if the dog just isn't into it.

Our airscent dogs are almost all rewarded with a toy upon finding the victim, but I did hide for one a few years ago who worked exclusively for food (yes, it was a Labrador!)

[Tassie]

Absolutely! The same could be said of the herding breeds doing what they are bred to do. You don't see farmers handing out tit bits for the dogs when they round up the sheep! They don't need to as the work is inherently rewarding to dogs that are bred to herd.

I agree. Positive training is all about using rewards that the dog finds rewarding - not just food. My dogs all love their food and I've used treats to teach sit, drop, come, stay, loose leash walking and a whole range of behaviours but I wouldn't dream of getting between my dogs and a sheep with a piece of food. They just wouldn't see it. I love ice cream but if I was about to serve for a match in tennis and someone asked me if I wanted an ice cream I'd tell them to get lost.

Having taught my pups all the above behaviours I've then been able use them when working stock but working sheep has always been the reward. I've used a clicker when teaching contacts in agility where the reward was a tunnel or another jump. The dog would get to the correct position and be quivering with excitement waiting for the click and release to race off to the next obstacle. I used food when laying tracks for my old dog when I was teaching him to track. In a very short time he would track over the top of the food without pausing to eat any. I would lay the track and leave some toys and food at the end but he wasn't particularly interested in them. He was following my scent but wasn't finding me as I was behind him when he was tracking. The only reward here seemed to be the sheer joy of tracking. It's impossible to know exactly what dogs are thinking but it seems to me that rewarding my dogs helps them to learn that it's worthwhile being around me and co operating with me because good things happen when we're working together.

Beautifully said, 4Kelpies.

My little show/performance bred food and toy trained BC bitch had the opportunity to learn to do some sheep work. While she was never as good as the working bred dogs, she also would not even consider looking at food while she was working. I'm sure you're right in that the work is the reward in those situations.

I also usually train my dogs with a reward out at the end of the track (which I have laid), and sometimes food on the track - and have had the same experiences - once the dog 'gets' the game, it will often track straight over the food - and it always amuses me that the dog doesn't turn round and say 'found you' when I on the other end of the lead - the game/job is getting to the end of the track.

[centitout]

My girl does "round the house" obedience such as drops, stays, off leash walking, etc, for just praise/correction. I refuse to shovel treats into her for easy, routine requests. It's just not necessary.

But I can't imagine training her for her SAR work with no extrinsic rewards. I have never seen, or heard, of a SAR dog working for praise alone. All our dogs get a huge play and praise reward when they find the victim or end of the trail (except for the few dogs who prefer, and get given, food and praise instead). We reward because we want them working extremely enthusiastically for long periods of time. It's not sufficient to have a dog working half heartedly, going through the search routine just because the handler says so. We want dogs who live to work, and that requires huge rewards.

It's the same with all the schutzhund dogs I've seen - all good schutzhund dogs I've seen work in either prey or food drive in the obedience phase (and food drive in the tracking phase). They do not work just to avoid correction, or gain praise.

I will be very interested to see a video of your schutzhund dog trained using praise/correction alone, with no toys or food, Longcoat, if you would care to post a video of the trials you compete in? It will be interesting to see if you can gain results, and scores, comparable to those teams using food and toy motivators.

You have just confirmed that a "few" SAR dogs are rewarded with food obviously not all which is the point.

Yes, the rest are trained with toys. None are trained with praise/correction alone.

I start my trailing dogs off with food,and every now and again i 'Jackpot them" to keep them motivated.None of mine have been play driven except for the one in Sydney with another trainer,and his reward is his tennis ball.

When they associate the "victim" with the food/praise reward,i start to use more basic food rewards like dried liver etc,and at the end when they are back at the car-they get their ultimate-a chicken frame,roo tail etc,bu ti still jackpot them occaisionally to keep them motivated.

I want my dogs to be motivated,enthusiastic and food seems to do that-you cant have a half arsed search dog.

Most of our trailing dogs are started with food on the track & a bite or tug at the end, then for most dogs the food is ultimately faded until it's just random drops (or gone altogether). They toy reward always remains, however.

This is how the police dog trainers who train with us also start their dogs trailing. Ultimately, it's just like a hunt, the dogs are working in prey drive, the only difference is that they get to bite a toy or sleeve instead of a live animal at the end of the trail.

We don't have any blood hounds though, mostly border collies and german shepherds, so I wonder if our dogs are just naturally more play/prey driven than yours? No point using a toy reward if the dog just isn't into it.

Our airscent dogs are almost all rewarded with a toy upon finding the victim, but I did hide for one a few years ago who worked exclusively for food (yes, it was a Labrador!)

I dont do food drops like footstep tracking,(well,that was one way i was told to do it from a GSD trainer)as i trail mine-totally different style for the hounds!!!

They follow the scent particles shed by the skin,and will move up to 40 or so feet from the trail depending on wind,rain etc wherever the scent particles get deposited-they also air scent a lot,particularly when closing in on the victim.

Food works best with my guys,and a lot of praise,sometimes a toy at the end,but most times they just sit there with a pained look on their face as i jump around and try to get them to play with a toy,ball etc!They sort of look embarrased.

Would be interesting to learn about tracking and the training methods for it,the other problem we have is that now ES wants all SAR dogs to be able to do obedience off lead,where i want the dog to be basically responsive to me,but use his own initiative to keep on the trail.They are not like Border Collies,GSD,GSP ,Labs ,they are wilful and stubborn,and this is what has made them far above other breeds for cold trailing ability,and is something i dont want lost .

[m-j]

you cant have a half arsed search dog.

Yes you could end up with a dead person, this is one of the reasons positive training is used as it is tried and true by the people with working dogs, in real life situations with a huge variety of distractions that are intrinsically rewarding or terrifying to the dog.

If Kohler's method was effective, it would still be used in these situations where the end product of the training is about reliability and endurance, not about being a nicer handler.

cheers

M-J

Edited April 6, 2010 by m-j

[Staranais]

I dont do food drops like footstep tracking,(well,that was one way i was told to do it from a GSD trainer)as i trail mine-totally different style for the hounds!!!

They follow the scent particles shed by the skin,and will move up to 40 or so feet from the trail depending on wind,rain etc wherever the scent particles get deposited-they also air scent a lot,particularly when closing in on the victim.

Food works best with my guys,and a lot of praise,sometimes a toy at the end,but most times they just sit there with a pained look on their face as i jump around and try to get them to play with a toy,ball etc!They sort of look embarrased.

Would be interesting to learn about tracking and the training methods for it,the other problem we have is that now ES wants all SAR dogs to be able to do obedience off lead,where i want the dog to be basically responsive to me,but use his own initiative to keep on the trail.They are not like Border Collies,GSD,GSP ,Labs ,they are wilful and stubborn,and this is what has made them far above other breeds for cold trailing ability,and is something i dont want lost .

Oh no, we don't do formal FST either - we like to find lost people before they die of hypothermia. I have been told to try to get my trainee girl to follow reasonably close to the line of footsteps though, instead of fringing the scent cloud as she prefers to do. The theory behind that is that as we age the track still further, the trainers figure it will mostly be crushed vegetation scent and not skin raft scent left behind, so teaching her to scent mainly the disturbed vegetation from the start is setting her up for future success when we're working tracks that are many hours old.

I'm interested in your experiences working very old trails, since it sounds like your guys are still able to follow skin raft/body scent many hours after the track is laid, and often follow this in preference to crushed vegetation scent? That conflicts with what our trainers tell us, that it will mostly be disturbed vegetation scent left behind after several hours (especially in hot dry conditions/sparse vegetation etc).

We don't get obedience officially assessed, but are expected to be able to control the dog to a reasonable level. Much easier with a herding breed than a hound, I'm sure! One handler told me that her philosophy is, when the dog isn't in scent, the handler is the boss of the team. When the dog is in scent, the dog is the boss of the team. She reckoned that the dogs could understand that OK.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Staranais

[angelsun]

I also agree with 4Kelpies post. Well said and I wish more could fully understand how you can train without noticable reward such as toys or food and still get the job done.

If you think you can train your dog using nothing but verbal praise can I ask you to go out with your dog & teach it to walk upright on it's back legs around you in a circle at a distance of 5m from you? In fact, what about you teach him any behaviour where your dog stays on it's back legs for more than 10 seconds. When you've done that using nothing but verbal praise can you come back & let us know? And tell us how you did it & how long it took & I will tell you how I trained my dog to do it & how long it took & we can compare .

I have a dog I'm working with at the moment and he has NEVER had any food or toy reward for his work. He is ready for CCD and will be soon ready for CD, as well as Novice Rally. He works for praise and a pat and is focused. I could if I wanted to, teach him 'pet tricks' I choose not to, however my other half uses only praise to teach the German Pinscher pet tricks. No collar, no food, no toys....just 'good girl' and a head pat....in a very short time, she's learned a variety of tricks and will perform them without fail upon command. One trick in particular took about 45 minutes to sort out. (High Five with whatever foot he asks for based on his hand position)

So you see, it can be done. Now remember, this is from a person that is old school training....he was shaping behaviours without even realizing he was doing it, because the dog was having fun, and so was he in the teaching!

I've clicker trained dogs to do many pet tricks over the years, and before clicker was 'fashionable'. Many methods have changed over the years....for good or bad...but they have changed. We don't generally use an ear pinch anymore.

[Prydenjoy]

One trick in particular took about 45 minutes to sort out. (High Five with whatever foot he asks for based on his hand position)

So you see, it can be done. Now remember, this is from a person that is old school training....he was shaping behaviours without even realizing he was doing it, because the dog was having fun, and so was he in the teaching!

Probably would have taken 5 minutes with a "proper" reinforcer... Pats are OK, but not something many dogs would work their absolute hardest to get.

For those who want to talk about reliability, try not giving a dog a reinforcer it considers valuable, asking it to perform over and over again, then see how reliable it is.

[Staranais]

If you think you can train your dog using nothing but verbal praise can I ask you to go out with your dog & teach it to walk upright on it's back legs around you in a circle at a distance of 5m from you? In fact, what about you teach him any behaviour where your dog stays on it's back legs for more than 10 seconds. When you've done that using nothing but verbal praise can you come back & let us know? And tell us how you did it & how long it took & I will tell you how I trained my dog to do it & how long it took & we can compare .

I have a dog I'm working with at the moment and he has NEVER had any food or toy reward for his work. He is ready for CCD and will be soon ready for CD, as well as Novice Rally. He works for praise and a pat and is focused. I could if I wanted to, teach him 'pet tricks' I choose not to, however my other half uses only praise to teach the German Pinscher pet tricks. No collar, no food, no toys....just 'good girl' and a head pat....in a very short time, she's learned a variety of tricks and will perform them without fail upon command. One trick in particular took about 45 minutes to sort out. (High Five with whatever foot he asks for based on his hand position)

I missed this, and just wanted to say that my girl also does many tricks simply for excited praise too. Her favourite trick is probably balancing on things with all four legs, we're gradually working on making the things smaller and smaller. She will also down happily on request, sit, go find my keys, etc. She doesn't get food for these things, just a marker word and her owner jumping about and praising her excitedly and basically acting like a clown. I could probably teach her to balance on her hind legs with just excited praise, if I had the inclination and time to do so.

It's not at all that I'm a particularly great trainer - my old dog certainly wouldn't have focused for very long on learning tricks if there was no chance of earning food or something to bite. It's more to do with her personality, and that she finds an excited owner reinforcing.

But my girl still works best where a prey item is involved, so we use that for actual work.

[huski]

No one is saying that some dogs aren't extremely motivated by praise. Some dogs love to simply work for their handler and bend over backwards for praise. However to assume that can be applied to all dogs, with the same results, is simply short sighted. I use verbal praise with my dog in every training session even when I'm also using food, I also use praise solely when I don't want her in drive and totally excitable. Just because someone uses toys/food doesn't mean they also don't use praise.

My dog however is the kind of dog who wouldn't look twice at a person we walked past (with the exception of if they smelt interesting) and couldn't care less if someone wanted to pat her. On the other hand, I have friends dogs who do an instant body wiggle and get incredibly excited if I so much look like I am thinking about patting them.

Edited April 6, 2010 by huski

[The Spotted Devil]

No one is saying that some dogs aren't extremely motivated by praise. Some dogs love to simply work for their handler and bend over backwards for praise. However to assume that can be applied to all dogs, with the same results, is simply short sighted. I use verbal praise with my dog in every training session even when I'm also using food, I also use praise solely when I don't want her in drive and totally excitable. Just because someone uses toys/food doesn't mean they also don't use praise.

My dog however is the kind of dog who wouldn't look twice at a person we walked past (with the exception of if they smelt interesting) and couldn't care less if someone wanted to pat her. On the other hand, I have friends dogs who do an instant body wiggle and get incredibly excited if I so much look like I am thinking about patting them.

I think I have your dog with a Spotted Coat on My ACD would do ANYTHING for a glance or a pat or praise - she won a state top trick dog competition with multiple tricks including back flips and speedy leg weaving. Ziggy would give you a look of disgust and wander off - probably lift his leg on something actually. He responds to verbal praise now but only because I have paired it with rewards he values.

[huski]

I think I have your dog with a Spotted Coat on My ACD would do ANYTHING for a glance or a pat or praise - she won a state top trick dog competition with multiple tricks including back flips and speedy leg weaving. Ziggy would give you a look of disgust and wander off - probably lift his leg on something actually. He responds to verbal praise now but only because I have paired it with rewards he values.

The problem with Daisy is that it's also very easy for her to self reward. Scenting is very very rewarding to her and she can do it anywhere. Being exciting enough to get her nose off the ground is not necessarily an easy task. I can get her excited simply by revving her up with my voice and her drive command but like you, that is largely because I have paired that with a food reward and she knows how rewarding training with me can be.

[centitout]

Hi Staranais,

if you watch a bloodhound work,you will notice that they only drop their head every 10 strides or so,totally different to what i've seen with some of the other breeds that keep closer to the trail.

The oldest urban trail i have done is in the middle of Forbes,so heavy contamination,started in the carpark,2 road crossings ,through an arcade(2 changes of direction) and about 900 mts all up-in under 10 mins.I had 2 other people walk the trail with the "victim" the 72 hrs prior,and was witnessed by 2 of my SES mates there.

The oldest bush trail i did was with one of the kids,and that was nearly 5 days old over 2 kms,he also smothered himself with aeroguard at the drop off point.Going from the cold trail to the hot trail at the end confused him for around 5 mins,he repeatedly circled the area where the victim was let out of the car to go to his hiding spot-turned out he decided to hide up a tree,covered in aeroguard and under a blanket!!

Also did a fast 2 km trail(1/2 hr old) with the victim on a bike all the way.

He also trailed a thong from one of the kids who lost his thong going across the flooded culvert i had sent him through,i wondered why the dog insisted i do a right turn in the middle of this crossing,which was around 20 ft across,but that was a hot trail of only 15 mins and i didnt know about Ryan losing his thong till i found him!

I was just getting back into the training when he developed cancer and was pts,i think with an experienced trainer he would have been awesome,i just stumbled along!!!

How do your dogs go with highway crossings etc,do you do all your training in bush,or do you train for urban as well?

Baylord also do trailing,and Craig Murray in QLD had 2 hounds that were used sucessfully on searches after the other ES avenues etc failed to find them.The argument i have heard for not using them is that they cant be trained to be a multi purpose dog in the police force,they are specialist trailers.

I also did one 24 hr trail in forbes-the bloke laid it for me from the pub when he left,3 road crossings and 3 changes of direction,and he was found easily at the taxi rank sitting in the taxi,this after there had been a torrential downpour that morning.He trailed along the bricks of the buildings at his nose height,he only put his head on the ground twice over that 800 or so mtrs.Hope his son i s as good,but we are only just really getting back into it again now,work and kids makes it hard to fit in the time required for this.

[Staranais]

Hi Staranais,

if you watch a bloodhound work,you will notice that they only drop their head every 10 strides or so,totally different to what i've seen with some of the other breeds that keep closer to the trail.

The oldest urban trail i have done is in the middle of Forbes,so heavy contamination,started in the carpark,2 road crossings ,through an arcade(2 changes of direction) and about 900 mts all up-in under 10 mins.I had 2 other people walk the trail with the "victim" the 72 hrs prior,and was witnessed by 2 of my SES mates there.

72 hours is very impressive stuff! On those very old trails, where are your dogs finding most scent (or does it depend on the terrain and weather conditions etc)?

Yes, my girl trails with her head mostly down, she will lift her head to take a breath regularly, but sounds like she has it down far more often than your guys do.

We don't generally train highway crossings or hard surface urban tracking (or at least we don't need to for certification), we focus on training for local conditions and as we're usually deployed on farmland/wilderness areas that's what we're trained for. The certification trails are around 3 hours old only & a few km long, but teams are expected to keep training to higher levels of proficiency after they are certified, certification is just the level you need to prove you are at before anyone is allowed to use you on any real life search.

[Prydenjoy]

I was just surfing the net and came across this comment that remined me of the original post

"In my opinion, both the overly cookied-dogs and the positively punished dogs live in a life of frustration (but perhaps the ones that never get punished enjoy their frustration slightly more:))."

http://susangarrettdogagility.com/2010/04/...s-and-cons.html

I think one thing we can all agree on is that without the correct timing you wont make progress with any method. At least the idea of the bad timing of positive reinforcement and the dogs "enjoying" their frustration appeals a little more than the problems that can come with bad timing of punishments

[Lablover]

In the last couple of weeks i have "sat in" on some dog training classes around my area just to see what others do.

I went to three actually.

The first thing i found surprising was that they had chairs and cute little mats for the dogs to sit on.Nice and comfy i thought.Cant see how one can train dogs sitting down but hey ill keep watching.

The dogs and owners began to arrive .EVERY dog was pulling the owner by their harness not one was walking/heeling.So they sat down in a circle on the chairs (the owners that is). Most dogs had calmed down by now still a few jumps up to the owner.Then a late commer arrived.A boisterous loud large breed.Immediately the owner was told to sit out of the circle as the dog would disrupt the class.So owner and dog are now segregated from the rest of the class.

Now i thought came the strange part.

The trainer went on ...Here we never tell the do NO,we dont use any harsh tones in our voice and we dont use anything which will hurt the dog.If it does something we dont want it to do we ignore it or distract it.Immediately i had visions of a dog its teeth around ones ankle and ignoring it mmmmmmm as i scratched my head.

But for behaviours we like, we give them a treat.This reinforces the good behaviours and the dog shouldnt do unwanted ones as it doesnt receive a treat.Mumblings of "spoilt lil Sh*ts" from my better half.

Through the hour lesson i noticed a few things.

Maybe im cynical ... but it seemed that some of the dogs had the owner trained? They would walk around a little then sit.... get treated.get up walk sit get treated.No command to sit just sit and get treated.It seemed like to me the dog knew that it could get treated by sitting in front of the owner on its own accord?Not because the owner told it to sit..just because it did.

On recalls ...a 10 metre lead let the dog wander/run off call it and pull it back treat it.Yes i thought seems good to me ..Until the trainer/teacher walked past and instead of the dog going to the owner it went to the trainer.Dog sat in front of trainer and she treated it !Not once did this happen but numerous times.I couldnt help but chuckle at getting a treat for doing the wrong thing.I was lost.

As it was getting late we thought we would amble home which brought us ohhh 15 metres from the dogs when walking.They were still doing recalls.One dog its owner holding the lead with two hands trying to stop the dog ,calling it to come to her,decided that we were more interesting that its owner it was actually pulling the owner towards us.

As we left with the words ringing in our ears ..."it was unfortunate that those people walked past as you were trying to recall him"

I am going back to watch the progress of this class as i am quite interested in how long and it takes dogs to be trained this way.

This is more of an observation/statement rather than a question..

But the question i have is how does the dog know its done something wrong if you dont tell it?

can they work out something is a no no just because they dont get a treat?

Its ok to reprimand a child when it does something wrong yet not for a dog?

they say they treat their dogs humanely yet us humans say no and reprimand humans yet cant to dogs

seems almost a little unbalanced?

Dark Angel,

This thread is too confusing for a computer dunce, like myself, who remains unable to multiple quote.

I am all for teaching with positive training. Normally people loose their temper, and correct their dogs harshly due to frustration, after multiple (dog/pupil) mistakes. Very poor teaching.

[angelsun]

Probably would have taken 5 minutes with a "proper" reinforcer... Pats are OK, but not something many dogs would work their absolute hardest to get.

For those who want to talk about reliability, try not giving a dog a reinforcer it considers valuable, asking it to perform over and over again, then see how reliable it is.

What do you consider 'proper' food perhaps? This is the jist of the debate...that yes, we could use food...but we have chosen not to....sure it takes a bit longer in some cases, but in some cases....not. It is only your opinion that pats are 'ok' and that some dogs won't work their hardest to get. I will disagree with you heartily on this in reference to my Shepherd I"m training who will spit out food and won't lower himself to play with a toy, but gets absolutely orgasmic for pats and back scratches.

I can RELIABLY ensure that both dogs will perform tasks asked without food or what you might consider a 'proper' reinforcement because to them, the praise and pat on the head is worth more than any steak dinner. Food is something we give them to keep them alive. They know they are going to get it, because it's in their bowl at suppertime. Praise is something they don't need to keep alive, but we choose to reward them with as we feel with THIS particular group of dogs we're dealing with at the moment, it's a far higher reward than a bit of sausage. We are not discouraging the use of food, or should I put it in the current politically correct term, promoting drive work through food, we believe that these dogs work well without that. We are not saying that this method is more right or wrong, in spite of what some seem to have twisted around to beleive I'm saying, but that for these dogs, this works. Will it work with all the dogs in my future? Possibly not, but food rewards are given when actions are performed and not to build a so called drive in an attempt to get a dog to work better or faster as is often the belief.

I am all for teaching with positive training. Normally people loose their temper, and correct their dogs harshly due to frustration, after multiple (dog/pupil) mistakes. Very poor teaching.

You are right about people losing tempers and harsh corrections. The key with this discussion is simply the definition of positive training. I teach positively, however I will correct when needed. I am positive with both dog and handler, as you can not just single out one side of the training team. If the dog/pupil are making multiple mistakes, you are correct, it means the teacher is not doing their job and giving them an alternative to come around the task and end with success (positive) The definition of positive reinforcement training however, has become very blurred with those that teach that you should never correct a dog, wear a choke chain or not walk around with a food pouch, and yes, I know of too many club/schools/instructors that insist the ONLY way to get the dog to continue to perform as a good example to society, is to always pack the food pouch, even when going for a walk to the park.