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I have had people tell me that I will learn more by trying to train Bubby but honestly it’s like pulling teeth!

It sounds like you are happy with things as they are for now. There may be a day in the future where you decide you want to do some training with him. All the things you are doing with Bitty are making you a better trainer...you may well decide to use those skills with Bub one day. For now if you are loving training Bitty & happy with Bub the way he is, then I would leave it at that. There is no reason to feeling guilty about copping out...unless you want more from him, or yourself.

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I am talking about a dog who, even in a low distraction environment, was very disinterested;

Vs now, this was on Monday night.

:thumbsup::eek: :D

WOW! What a phenomenal difference! You must be so proud of her...AND yourself!

I love watching before & afters like this. It just shows you what dedication & determination can achieve :D

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I agree with AD. I think it was good for my training skills to persist with Kivi, but what's more, it's very rewarding to see Kivi just getting happier and happier about training. It's lovely to see him blossom and exceed my expectations for him. I don't know if he could ever be a flyball or frisbee monster, though. :thumbsup: He makes a good cuddle monster. I wouldn't mind giving him a go at agility to see how right/wrong I am about him, but I would have to actually learn what the hell I'm doing, first. I wouldn't expect him to ever actually do well in competition. He's not very fast, even when he's trying to be. :eek:

Anyway, it doesn't matter what he is good at and what he isn't. I'm sure he'd be perfectly happy without the extra training, but he's perfectly happy with it as well, and as long as I'm getting a lot out of it it makes sense to do it.

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I think it was good for my training skills to persist with Kivi, but what's more, it's very rewarding to see Kivi just getting happier and happier about training. It's lovely to see him blossom and exceed my expectations for him. I don't know if he could ever be a flyball or frisbee monster, though. :thumbsup: He makes a good cuddle monster. I wouldn't mind giving him a go at agility to see how right/wrong I am about him, but I would have to actually learn what the hell I'm doing, first. I wouldn't expect him to ever actually do well in competition. He's not very fast, even when he's trying to be. :eek:

Anyway, it doesn't matter what he is good at and what he isn't. I'm sure he'd be perfectly happy without the extra training, but he's perfectly happy with it as well, and as long as I'm getting a lot out of it it makes sense to do it.

As your training skills increase, he may surprise you. What I see in that clip is a dog capable of a whole lot more in terms of enjoyment and ability than you seem to think he is.

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I know loads of people that do really well in competition with dogs of all sorts of drives without depriving them of anything. So no, I do not believe it is necessary. Not based on my experience with Kivi, but based on the experiences of many people. I do think it is necessary with my hare, so it's not like I don't understand what deprivation does.

:thumbsup: How do you train a dog to do anything without some form of deprivation? The very act of delaying a reward is deprivation, there is a heap of this in your clip.

I don't know anyone who competes without some form of deprivation.

I think you just need to find a level that you are happy with.

My dogs may well be better agility dogs if I:

locked them in a crate other than when we train

only gave them food for training and

only allowed them access to toys for training.

It is just not something I am prepared to do and I don't want the benefits of it badly enough to do it.

I feed them treats b/c I love them. They have toys in the backyard b/c they like to play & they have free run of the house.

But I DO use deprivation to train them, we all do.

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As your training skills increase, he may surprise you. What I see in that clip is a dog capable of a whole lot more in terms of enjoyment and ability than you seem to think he is.

:thumbsup: I agree.

When you do 'click' it is just amazing.

CK was one agility trial away from retirement at the ripe old age of 3. Then I had an intensive 5 day Linda Orton-Hill 'immersion' therapy :eek: . It was very full on and involved a lot of yelling (mostly at me for poor training), but it did change the way I train (expect more, get more) and both our competition lives.

Now Boof Man has more ANKC quallies than Xena does (largely because she had 3 months out with an injury, but I won't ruin a good story.). Although Missy will always be quicker at agility and can run harder courses he is at least enjoying at it and starting to do well........beyond all expectations.

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I am talking about a dog who, even in a low distraction environment, was very disinterested;

Vs now, this was on Monday night.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

WOW! What a phenomenal difference! You must be so proud of her...AND yourself!

I love watching before & afters like this. It just shows you what dedication & determination can achieve ;)

I agree, great work! :laugh:

However, my Satchmo is way less interested in training as Daisy in the first video :( He's the kind of dog that, if I get a toy and dangle it in front of his face, dance around, make funny noises, call his name... he just lies on his bed and looks at me, like I'm crazy - doesn't even lift his head. He's realllllllly mellow :rofl:

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:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

WOW! What a phenomenal difference! You must be so proud of her...AND yourself!

I love watching before & afters like this. It just shows you what dedication & determination can achieve :)

I agree, great work! :laugh:

:(:) thanks guys! ;) I am very proud of her.

I don't think it helped that I had NFI what I was doing before I found help :rofl:

However, my Satchmo is way less interested in training as Daisy in the first video :mad He's the kind of dog that, if I get a toy and dangle it in front of his face, dance around, make funny noises, call his name... he just lies on his bed and looks at me, like I'm crazy - doesn't even lift his head. He's realllllllly mellow ;)

Don't get me wrong - Daisy was never totally disinterested. Although, once I took her outside of the house, it was near impossible to get her nose up off the ground for any length of time. She would be totally switched off to anything but a scent. So it wasn't that she lacked drive or energy or interest, it was just all channeled into scenting, and training her otherwise meant teaching her to get drive satisfaction from another source (me). Probably quite different to a very low drive dog who has little motivation or natural drive, but it was still about increasing her drive and motivation and making what I have super interesting and rewarding.

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:cool: How do you train a dog to do anything without some form of deprivation? The very act of delaying a reward is deprivation

No it's not. In this context deprivation is an establishing operation. It increases appetite for the reward. Delaying a reward does not IME increase appetite. It could arguably create a bit of frustration which might result in increased arousal which may manifest itself in the form of greater physical activity and/or motivation. That's a different system afaik, though.

Thanks for the comments. Kivi has already surprised me plenty, and I'm sure he will continue to surprise me. :eek: He's always getting more aroused about training, more reliable and enthusiastic about tugging, and more confident about shaping. He just can't do it on his own like Erik can. Erik's my point and shoot dog. He's fun, but Kivi teaches me more. My expectations of him are my expectations of my own training skills. I'm not instantly good! I think it's unfair to expect Kivi to be a drivey maniac when he's stuck with a trainer that has a whole 12 months of experience and he's a dog that can only be as good as his trainer. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't be proud of how far we have come, which is from a dog like Satchmo who has to think about whether he wants to get up for his meals let alone training to Mr "pleaseplease can you cue me a high target so I can jump!". To get the "is that all" response is pretty crushingly discouraging. I guess I'll just have to be my own cheerleader.

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No it's not. In this context deprivation is an establishing operation. It increases appetite for the reward. Delaying a reward does not IME increase appetite. It could arguably create a bit of frustration which might result in increased arousal which may manifest itself in the form of greater physical activity and/or motivation. That's a different system afaik, though.

Isn't a dog who is getting increasingly frustrated also increasing how much they want the reward :eek:

to get the "is that all" response is pretty crushingly discouraging. I guess I'll just have to be my own cheerleader.

:cool: That is NOT what I said. What I said is if that was all you wanted from him i.e. you are happy to have him working at that level and don't want anymore from him, not because he isn't capable but because that's what YOUR goal is, then you don't need to go to the lengths that others go to.

However, until you do decide you want more you can hardly sit there and make huge sweeping generalisations about what does and doesn't work and what is and isn't necessary in training. How can you know, when you haven't tried it nor have the same goals as others do in their training?

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:) How do you train a dog to do anything without some form of deprivation? The very act of delaying a reward is deprivation

No it's not. In this context deprivation is an establishing operation. It increases appetite for the reward. Delaying a reward does not IME increase appetite. It could arguably create a bit of frustration which might result in increased arousal which may manifest itself in the form of greater physical activity and/or motivation. That's a different system afaik, though.

Deprivation seems to be a sliding scale, to me. Not an either-or thing.

Unless the dog gets free access to your training treats & training games & your attention etc at all times, whenever he desires them, regardless of his behaviour, then you are using deprivation to help motivate the dog. He is deprived of that particular reward unless he co-operates with you.

If I fed my dog roast meat or tugged on her toy with her whenever she wanted it, she'd have no reason to screech to a halt & come zooming back to me when she heard the recall cue. She comes back when she hears the cue since she is deprived of roast meat & tug toy play except when she has the chance to interact with me.

Some people of course take it further, and deprive the dog of all toys, or all attention, except when they are training them. But that is just a more severe form of the deprivation that every trainer must practice to some degree.

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