Yes regardless of how it makes nice it makes you, feel it will cause some stress for the dog.

Adam

No it wont

Toy and treat training is an effective method of learning but will cause some stress (mental discomfort).

Tis an interesting theory - how do you know this? .

Why, because the dog is motivated to get the toy or treat and wanting the toy/treat but not getting it while being lured/shaped or simply experiencing the delay between command and reward will be frustrating and stressful.

Why? - when you have trained a dog in a positive way - training is not stressful. If it was - they would choose not to do it - that is the beauty of positive training. The dog has a choice. I have to be very careful with Zeff or he will just walk away from a training session - again - his choice, but as soon as he makes it I know I have done something wrong - made it too hard, or too long. However - I am learning more about his thresholds.....and it is always his choice.

No matter how quick your training reactions are or how skilfully you setup the dog there will still be times when the dog isn't rewarded. Even the period between one trial and the next will be dead time in terms of reward to the dog and thus stressful.

You do not think that being with the owner or the exercises themselves are rewarding?? Do you have such a limited idea of rewards?

With an e collar anytime your not stimming your rewarding the dog! So in a training session of 3 or 4 reps the dog might experience 3 or 4 secs of stim but several minutes of reward. In a food reward situation the dog will experience the opposite.

If you have trained your dog to fear a shock...then no - there will be major stress when the dog is not being stimmed - as it will be anticipating the next one. It may feel brief relief when the stim stops....but experience will tell it the next one will be along soon. Poor sods.

If you watch this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKee0rTjZ2U Jacca is experiencing total reward from the stim (not even wearing it) but has to wait for the toy until the behaviour is over. A dog that is experienced can cope with this but in the early stages will find it slighly stressful/frustrating, unlike e collar.

The frustration of toy/treat training (used on its own. its mitigated by the addition of e collar) can have a fair degree of fallout. Many dogs will checkout of the training and perform self rewarding behaviours. Others will try and speed up the reward by throwing behaviours at the trainer, this may look cute but is an indecation of the stress the dog is experiencing as the more behaviours it throws the more stressed it is. Certainly this would be frowned upon in circus animals, why not dogs?
Other dogs may learn to perform unwnated behaviours to re engage the trainer in a behaviour the dog can do easily and reward.
Often the fall out is less obviouse, the dog becomes less self assured and increases the amount of general appeasment behaviours it performs to obtain feedback from the owners. Some dogs will increase behaviours such as counter surfing in an attempt to achieve the food reward feedback that the owner has made ''special'' during the training session.
Others may try more extreme behaviours in experiments to see what is rewardable, this may include aggression or sterotypic behaviours.

Adam

Its stressful because the dog wants the reward enough to try for it and that produces stress. When they stop trying thats when the stress of it out weights the benifit of the reward. They will continue to try when stressed as long as the payoff is enough.

Being with the owner/being out and about is rewarding, but isn't specifically rewarding the behvaiour your training, just rewards being there.

They don't fear the stim, if you knew anything about it you would know that. If they anticapated another shock they would never perform behaviours other than staring at the handler, as you can see my dogs perform lots of behaviours.


Adam

Its stressful because the dog wants the reward enough to try for it and that produces stress. When they stop trying thats when the stress of it out weights the benifit of the reward. They will continue to try when stressed as long as the payoff is enough.

I am interested in how you know this? Is there specific research you are referring to or just your own personal observations

Being with the owner/being out and about is rewarding, but isn't specifically rewarding the behvaiour your training, just rewards being there.

My dogs like being with me - do yours not? My dogs will choose to be with me - will instigate training sessions.

They don't fear the stim, if you knew anything about it you would know that. If they anticapated another shock they would never perform behaviours other than staring at the handler, as you can see my dogs perform lots of behaviours.

It is obvious you know as little of reward based training as you feel I know of e-collar training based on your responses.

Adam

We saw how they performed them as well.

rune