The part of your post I highlighted in bold when I answered it was not correct - that only young wolves bark.

Well you either have to be technical or not---you can't pick and choose which bits you are technical with. If you use a lead you are using negative reinforcement.

Me I am not technical at all, I do what works for me and the dogs I have. Sometimes I am sure I get it wrong---sometimes I am in a bad mood and they get in trouble where if I was in a good mood they might get away with things. Thats life!

Specific training for something is different.

rune

I think a problem is that there can be overlaps in these terms in some circumstances. They are not always neatly discrete and separate.

For example if a dog itself lunges at something on a lead, with or without clicker training, doesn't the dog effectively apply positive punishment (lead check as consequence of lunging) itself? Or can you only decide that after you see if the dog suppresses its own lunging?

After all if an owner lead checked it that would be deemed positive punishment by many, irrespective of whether or not it succeeded in suppressing the behaviour.

Likewise if one gave an instruction, the dog didn't comply so lead tension was initially used as positive punishment, and then maintained as negative reinforcement, until it was released when the dog did comply, as which precise point did it change from positive punishment to negative reinforcement?

To go back to Mick's example of the huskies, this is also a similar technique that was used when training wild-caught elephants (while we're on elephants ) - a tame trained elephant would be used either side of the wild one to physically hold it and to give it social reassurance.

I am interested that people see this as ok when the huskies do it, but I think some people on this forum would be somewhat disapproving if a person were describing keeping a nipping puppy gently pressed between their hands and kept it up for what added up to a couple of hours in a similar fashion until it stopped nipping.

I am be mistaken but isn't he the one who proposes "imprinting" the foal with people virtually from birth, with the aim of maximising communication with people?

If so there is considerable concern from others that this is contrary to welfare as it can interfere with the mare/foal bonding.

Here's the links to the elephant training, very interesting stuff and totally helped both the elephants and the mahouts:

http://www.aebc.com.au/common/files/...nt_project.pdf

I like the photo of the young elephant running off No restraints were used.

Wys
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I have no idea, I'd be very suprised if he did anything contrary to equine welfare ...of course there are plenty of people out there who will find fault with anyone trying to genuinely improve welfare of horse, dog or centipede, no doubt!

Wys
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How are they now?

Wys
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I'd think that would be impractical in the extreme to be honest I can't imagine advising an owner to behave like that, and them actually doing it.

Re the elephant, sadly the young elephants are treated appallingly as a matter of course - captured, tied, not fed or watered for many days, beaten etc. It's extremely abusive sadly and hopefully now things are starting to change a bit.

Wys
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But are those not important considerations and factors , assertiveness and confidence, in terms of establishing a hierarchy?

Having had more time to read more of Semyonova's paper I find she says there is no aggression in dogs sorting out their social landscape but she puts the bar for defining aggression at nothing short of "uninhibited bites" (whihc she doesn't define), even dismissing "inhibited bites" growls, "threats" minor puncture wounds in other writing as not being aggression and she redefines dominance and submission as "threat and non-threat behaviour(!!) which she says is what maintains the social landscape.

Sorry but to me a "threat" is very definitely an aggressive act! However dominance does not = aggression IMO).

Further she also says that "fighting breeds" including tosas, staffs, pits, EBTs, akitas etc do not follow normal rules and have brain abnormalities, as do other breeds such as Belgian and German shepherds, according to her, i.e dogs that do not follow her rules are abnormal, it is not her "rules" that are erroneous (my bold):

"
But what about dogs like huskies and German and Belgian shepherds, which also figure significantly in the statistics on impulsive-aggressive attacks as defined here?These breeds are a separate problem.The problem with the husky may well be due to myths about the husky being a close relative of the wolf, which has resulted in some people breeding huskies to wolves to get “better” huskies.It is possible that people buy a husky that possesses non-domestic genes from some far grandparent the present breeder doesn’t even know about, and that this is the cause of the occasional (though still too frequent) maladaptive aggression in a husky.Household breeds (such as the German shepherd and the Belgian shepherd) that are also used for police work suffer a different problem.These dogs are often bred in special guard-dog kennels, where selection unknowingly takes place for the same abnormalities in the brain as in the fighting dogs and other aggressive breeds.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14810086/H...by-A-Semyonova

You might enjoy this article, BangKaew :

http://www.dog-secrets.co.uk/why-do-dogs-bark/

"We know from experiments with silver foxes that breeding together less fearful individuals (those with “reduced flight distance”) results in paedomorphosis: the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. As well as increasing “friendliness”, paedomorphosis has a number of allied effects: floppy ears, curly tails, piebald coats and the tendency to bark."

Wys
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