[QUOTE=Firstlight;2657242] See last reply on 'pairing'.

'Saving a dog's life' is high on the agenda of each and every dog lover in countries across the world. The means of doing it are always going to be debated, but I will never believe that using pain is the only way to do it because I've seen so many dogs turned around that I know for a fact that it not only isn't, rather it isn't necessary at all.

Some people can read books, use and adapt what they learn from them and be successful. Some can't. It doesn't make the person, or necessarily the books they have read, inadequate. It simply means that that particular learning style is not suited to the person employing it

still no reply to my facts given over these barbaric so called training tools, sorry but your avoidance to my facts makes me believe you have nothing to come back with and still advocate these things. people who have posted after me have had replys but nothing to mine. sorry but your not going to convince any of us that there is a place in the dog training world for E-collars, your kidding yourself if you think there is.

You get up at 4 in the morning and spend all day in the freezing cold because you enjoy your sport, so don't try pulling the I don't enjoy myself"

Ofcouse you do, other wise you would not take part in your sport .

Malpeki, there appears to be some kind of glitch in the forum, because this post #258 of yours, in which you "guess I will ignore" Spot's' question, is the fourth one after the one (#254) in which I did indeed reply to Spot's, and several hours later. I makes it appear as though perhaps you are you are not bothering to read my posts before you comment, it certainly seems that way in this case, and I know you would never do something so unreasonable.

Perhaps you should notify admin of the problem?

Welcome Hieronymus. If you read come of my previous posts, you will find that I agree with much of what you say. I am well aware of the power and of the misuse of that power. I would also never punish a dog for not learning.

My point exactly, many people misapply all kinds of methods, which results in varying types and degrees of harm to the hapless dog. But by the thinking displayed by some of the posters here, I should conclude, after witnessing this "misuse" of reward training, that all reward-based training is wrong, all trainers who use it are the devil's own, and food should be banned, no? I just find that logic a bit ummm, odd?

And before anyone (generic anyone Brierley, certainly not aimed you personally) jumps to declare that misuse of the collar is much more harmful than misuse of food training: I know that misuse of reward training does not have the same potential for devastating harm as does misuse of the collar, or of any aversive, for that matter, so y'all needn't even bother going there, because I have my posted my opinions re: this topic several times.

I am afraid I agree with Jackbox, and this is my point. Smokeybear also referred to this earlier, which is that basically you are using aversives so that you can be involved in a certain sport. You must get something out of it that keeps you going, perhaps camarederie or social life or pride in your dogs .. whatever it is, you are using shock collars on your dogs for sport and that does, I am afraid, need defending ....

What is your motivation to be involved in the sport and why do you do it? And why do you choose to use shock collars for it? ok less than some do who use shock, but still you use them on your sporting dogs.



Wys
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I would have called it anticipation if he sat before the flush, e.g., as I started walking toward the target; that is not what he did, he waited for the command (flush). This was very early on in the teaching, like the second session, so there had been little repetition at that point. I did a couple more sessions to ensure that his response was not a fluke, and then we moved on to the next step.

I run into anticipation all the time when teaching and unfortunately it often gets misinterpreted. Bright and willing dogs often give this "wrong" response as they try different actions to figure out exactly which behavior earns the reward fastest. All dogs will tend to make errors at this stage of training, it is part of the learning process as they experiment to sort things out. I don't necessarily want a dog which is mindlessly conditioned to respond reflexively, I want the dog to engage his brain so that he learns to problem-solve by himself, because there are going to be times in life, especially when hunting, when it will not be possible for me to help him figure out the "right" response.

One of the biggest flaws of punishment-based training is that it has great potential to stifle the "try" by, among other things, generating a fear response that either causes the dog to shut down in the case of a soft dog, or engage in an active defense reflex in the case of a harder one. In my case, I would never correct a dog for an error he made while he is still trying to learn; I want him to continue trying, via different responses, because it is very likely he will hit upon the correct response if he tries long enough. If a dog repeatedly fails to find the correct response on his own, and especially if he is starting to get flustered because he fails too often, I read that as my cue to step back and reschool to help him out, because I always assume that his failures at that point in teaching are my fault. Even if there is some doubt about whose "fault" the failures are, I will go back and reschool, because I will make the judgement that errors in the teaching phase are always my fault, until/unless clearly shown otherwise.

My dogs tend to hit on the right response when learning a new behavior very quickly, and on the rare occasions when they don't, I have observed different responses to their repeated failures. My current dog expresses his frustration by planting himself in front of me and barking at me in a loud and "angry" manner, his message seems to be, "Well you stupid human, can't you see that I clearly don't understand, how 'bout some help here!!!!". His "clone" would get very anxious, stuff something in his mouth and run around like a loose wheel, like "OMG, help meeee". These responses were apparently innate, not learned as they both exhibited them right out of the gate. It was the biggest difference in their learning styles.

Fine by me Lucky Star, I'm not selling anything.

As I said, physiological studies have been done. As for the psychological, do you not ever look at and interpret your dog's body language to determine his mental state?

Bullying and abuse have no place in animal training, and compliance in response to these actions is certainly not the only option, it is just the least likely one.

I would respectfully suggest that you have no idea of the relationship I have with my dogs, although you might learn about it if you read all of my more recent posts.