Please accept my apologies....Hello

I have only joined the forum today but I have been a follower for a long while, I've wanted to join the debates on here for some time...

I agree totally with ClaireandDaisy but my concern is the rise of this Media/Celebrity involvement in Dog training and its impact on both the dog trainers and average dog owner alike. Believe me, in my work I come across this confusion all the time. this is why it concerns me, I am not an "evangelist".

Even in the "professional world" I feel the Controversy surrounding Cesar Millan has influenced the code of practise for APDT members, now banning methods such as training discs, water sprayers etc which under the right circumstances can be very effective and completely harmless to the dog.

Its the middle ground I am talking about. Don't get me wrong...Purely Positive methods can be fantastic, However, I feel we have swung from one extreme to another. I now see people rewarding their dogs for inappropiate behaviour in the belief that they are being "kinder" in the same way that I saw people alpha rolling their dogs in the belief that they had to "dominate" them!

Possibly the harm done by too many titbits at the wrong time is less than by an electric shock at the wrong time.

Personally I use all positives when training with NRM's but for some 'life' situations I get cross. Like if they are getting OTT with each other.

there is a time and a place for the word 'no'---as with children!

rune

In all honesty I think most of us who use positive methods also use SOME sort of aversive if it's really necessary. However, we look for behaviour to reward rather than behaviour to punish AND we set our dogs up to succeed so aversives tend to be few and far between.

I've run across people who think positive training means you never say no to your dog, you never set boundaries and have to allow the dog to do whatever it wants whenever it wants. That can be a problem.

Then they don`t understand how to train a dog. Which really isn`t that hard once you strip away the anthropomorphism and psychobabble.
I think people have lost touch with animals and how to handle them. Would Joe Public, for instance say a cow was dominant if she kicked you? Or say a goat was `being deliberately naughty` if she ate your roses?
A lot of what people get their nickers in a twist about becomes manageable once they look at the dog as a confused animal rather than a hairy human.
JMO.
I do find it quite telling that the Celebrity Trainers are qualified in human-based skills, not animal ones.
J Fennel - Human Psychology; V Stillwell, Drama and Theatre Studies; C Millan - er....... excellent dentistry? .

I have only ever used reward based training with my puppy. It works so I dont see the need to use any other type of training.

I personally do believe in praising/rewarding good behaviour and it has worked brilliantly on my two 6 month old boys (TTs). However, I don't hesitate to shout 'NO' or clap my hands loudly if they are doing something which is totally unacceptable. They do know the word 'No' and when they have stopped doing whatever it was that caused me to shout 'No' I will then praise them. I don't believe in smacking a dog as this can make some dogs more aggressive. I also think that the 'dog training' programmes on TV are good as it makes people realise there are other ways of training dogs other than brute force. A neighbour of mine suggested I rub my dogs noses in their wee to get them housetrained She hadn't owned a dog for 30 years and maybe that was how it use to be done. My two (littermates) are excellent and I think really happy little chaps. An interesting topic.

Hallo and welcome to Dogsey

DT does lean towards promoting more reward based training but that's partly because of their "growing up" - the ed. knew or knows many of the quite well known trainers who use reward methods during the "growing up" of the mag. For example Sarah Whitehead worked with her in the office above a takeaway for a while, and they both knew John Fisher

However DT has also had the odd article or advert for Cesar and also Barkbusters.

Dogs Monthly is I believe one that tends to promote more of the other way, although it gets on my wick because some of their featured trainers, who do speak some sense at times, never stop criticising other organisations and I find it very irritating and non professional.

Your Dog used to have a few articles in that used things like Pet Correctors or spray collars.They also had fab articles in by - oh forgotten her name - Derbyshire trainer who has a GSD... can't think!

I've only read the first few posts, have you elaborated on this? Using rewards is really important. Not sure if I've got what you mean, though?

I think that's fair enough. No other body does this as far as I am aware, therefore it's up to them. Plenty, such as for example the BIPDT, tend towards the other way...

I think it depends on what you mean . A good trainer may use "punishment"(negative punishment) but it will be instructive, non harsh and effective, in a way it is under the "reward based training" banner (which is where I see it).


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I loathe most of the dog training shows as they usually promote bad training, or pretend that problems can be solved in 3 seconds flat...

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Wys
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Just did a post re. the VS example of distracting and it went Pete Tong

I wanted to say that VS was no doubt using "classical conditioning" method, it can appear strange but is a good way of altering a dog's emotion. It's different to "operant" training, which is about "rewarding"...

Wys
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(just said in 2 sentences what I had previously typed in about 20 ).

Sheila Bailey?

Yes! I did like her articles, they were really good

Wys
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