register for free
View our sister sites
Our sister sites
Our sister sites
Our sister sites
JoedeeUK
Dogsey Veteran
JoedeeUK is offline  
Location: God's Own County
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 7,584
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 12:12 AM
OT I know but are you related to Michael & Nancy London from Ontario ?
Reply With Quote
Firstlight
Dogsey Junior
Firstlight is offline  
Location: western NY, usa
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 143
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 02:23 AM
Originally Posted by Wyrekin View Post
Morning Firstlight. Firstly please let me apologise for the rude parts of my post yesterday, I made the mistake of reading the entire thread before replying and got myself frustrated with the way it seemed to keep going round in circles. Secondly, thank you for the detailed response.

I'm not going to quote from the first message as people can read it for themselves. Your assessment of the pup jumping up and biting I agree with. The pup thought the approaching person had hurt it and responded in it's own way.

I used to walk wolves on weekends one of the things you were told prior to handling them is never allow them to hurt or scare themselves, obviously we would do our best to avoid this anyway. My point is, one the walks we did had electric fence on it. If a wolf caught itself on the electric fence it would not stop and blame itself, it would turn and blame the handler, sometimes with dire consequences. I'm guessing your response to that would be that it hasn't been conditioned to accept that it's the wolves fault it got zapped. Now what I'm curious about, having read your description of conditioning the dog, at what point does the dog really seem to start getting it? How many shocks, on average, does it take?

Let me try an example -

For me training one of my dogs to sit, stay. With the dog already knowing how to sit. I'll use Bandit is my dog.

I put Bandit in a sit and give the hand signal for stay. I then move away a few paces, pause, return to him, release him from his stay and reward him with a treat or toy.

If he breaks the stay I return him to the original spot with no reward and start again. Once he starts to get the command I will (and I know some won't agree with me here) introduce a 'ah' sound should he start to break the stay. This means that when I think he understands a stay but is thinking about moving I say 'ah' and he pretty much immediately will slam his butt back on the floor and continue waiting. I can then go back and reward him sufficiently, I will give him a jackpot reward if I don't need to use the 'ah' sound.

Now some would say that if I'm having to introduce the 'ah' then I have not conditioned the sit stay well enough and in some ways they are right but by having the word as an option I can push that bit further and also should he start to break a stay because of distractions in a potentially dangerous situation I have a back up word to really get him focused.

Bandit now has a spot on sit, stay using the giving or withholding of a reward. I have not had to inflict any sort of pain on him and I know if I put him in the middle of a field full of dogs he would still hold that stay because I have spent many hours conditioning it and if worse comes to worse I can use the 'ah' sound to regain his focus and remind him of what he's supposed to be doing.

You could almost say the 'ah' sound is a threat as if he thinks how you say he should he is thinking to himself 'ah' means stay there or don't get a treat.

Prior to using the e-collar do you make a sound? Am I right in thinking that the shock would be given in this instance when the 'ah' sound is made thus making a link between the two?

If I am right then I still see no need for the introduction of the e-collar in this instance. I say this because Bandit has learnt that if I have to say 'ah' he gets a lesser reward (as opposed to a shock) than if he sit-stays perfectly. I'm in someways punishing him by giving him kibble instead of cheese. He soon learns that if he wants the good stuff he has to do a good job.

Out of interest do you use a varied reward system with jackpots? I have found it to work really well with the animals I have trained. If they give me a slow recall they get one boring treat, recall straight away at speed and they get several really tasty treats. It doesn't take them long to put two and two together and they really start to work hard. Then over time I gradually fade the treats out.


Wryekin, What rude parts, I find you to be one of the politest posters on this thread. Take a look at some the other posts if you want to see rude, LOL.

Re: the wolves in the fence: Dogs are not conditioned to "accept the fact" that they are to blame for the shock;
collar conditioning shows the dog that he controls the shock. Most dogs that have been properly schooled via traditional methods get it quickly, all three steps in about 20 minutes with as few low level shocks as necessary. Latent learners generally require two short sessions. There is really no average, they are all different and the sessions are tailored to the individual dog.

RE: training the sit stay (and BLESS you for posting this!), here is how I do it, and what you do that I don't and why:
Stays are compulsive by nature, and I do not use a motivator. When I teach the stay, I engineer the setup so that I am doing everything possible to help the dog learn what "right" is, ie, we are distraction-free, the leash is held up and forward making light collar contact to trigger reflexive opposition down and back, the signal hand remains in front of the dog until I break him. I pivot directly out front and only ask for three seconds of stay before I pivot back to heel, pause, quietly praise, pause, and then break the exercise on command. Part of this finish procedure is to teach the dog to take praise without breaking, so that I can use praise to reinforce in the middle of a longer stay later on, rather than just praising at the end when the dog has forgotten what he did to earn the praise. (you do know the 3 second rule for both praise and correction, no?). There is not a lot of reason for the dog to break this setup, but of course some do, I just give a firm "No" and replace him on the exact original spot, facing as he did at the start. I do not start over at this point, I just pick up the exercise from the point where the dog broke, without repeating the command. I condition the response via repetition until I am sure the dog under stands that he can hold the stay, and that proper response is a good thing. The final step is to show the dog that he has to do what he has been taught. There is a huge difference between "can" and "has to", and lots of folks who think they have a trained dog are quite dismayed to learn, usually the hard way, that they neglected to show the dog this critical difference.

I do not warn the dog he is about tomake a mistake, ever. IME they need to make a clear error and not just be 'thinking about it" to fully understand what is required, it is possible to give the mistime the warning, and, most importantly, warning the dog takes the responsibility for holding away from the dog.

You say you know he would hold in the face of strong distraction, what is the strongest distraction you have introduced so far?

I use treats in the teaching and conditioning stages of training and they have three functions: Focus attention, as a lure, and as a primary reinforcer, which is paired with a simultaneous secondary reinforcer I start with a constant reward schedule and fade to random, which I am sure you know is the strongest schedule of all. And yes, I do jackpot if the situation warrants it.

If you have waded through my prior posts, you already know that the collar has no place in the first stages of my training. When I do use it, the only sound involved is the command. Some of the collars have a warning tone as an option, I have never used one mostly because of the reasons given above. If I were to use a tone, it would not be followed immediately by a shock, because the whole purpose of a warning tone is to give the opportunity to choose to avoid the shock.

Clear as mud? I have tried to be as brief as possible (mostly because my aged fingers are developing rigor mortis!), please advise if you would like more information.
Reply With Quote
Firstlight
Dogsey Junior
Firstlight is offline  
Location: western NY, usa
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 143
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 03:33 AM
Originally Posted by Brierley View Post
Wholeheartedly agree!

There is 'choice' involved in on the part of the trainer who chooses whether or not to press the button.

The dog can choose whether to endure the pain or switch it off. To be honest, I don't see that as conscious thought on the part of the dog, rather a compulsion.

All animals will avoid pain if at all possible and a few repetitions of receiving it would no doubt lead to an association of when it will likely be administered. However, the dog won't make the association of comply with 'all' commands or receive pain, but will have to have the association made on each command the trainer wants associated with it.

Firstlight, which commands do you use the shock collar for? I'm guessing it's not all of them but the ones you feel are important for your sport
With respect, your first statement is dead wrong Wys; the choice is between taking the shock or avoiding it altogether.

Your second observation isn't much more accurate. I believe I have made mention of keeping the dog in behavioral balance by teaching (and ultimately collar conditioning) all commands a good citizen should know, not just the ones I use in "my sport", and that is what I do. I teach them all simultaneously beginning at seven weeks; well, actually earlier than that with pups of my breeding, precocious little devils that they are.

It is very easy to get a dog out of balance. I have clients who have started treat training their pups but only taught a couple of commands, usually sit and down. Well, guess what the pup wants to do whenever it sees the treat, no matter what other command you are trying to teach?? Not real helpful to have the pup insist on downing when you are trying to get him to heel/recall/stand/make eye contact, now is it?
Reply With Quote
Firstlight
Dogsey Junior
Firstlight is offline  
Location: western NY, usa
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 143
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 03:49 AM
Originally Posted by Wysiwyg View Post
With respect, we don't know this.
Science has recently acknowledged that dogs can experience very human like emotions - perhaps one day we will "know" they love us.

I personally think they do, perhaps in their own way. And I think they have souls, not everyone will agree.

I have in fact, I didn't often see any kind of telling off from the dam to the pups (although some of the other dogs might tell them off) but I think the point here is that we as humans really cannot mimic what the dogs do, it is impossible for us. The subtlety, the finesse - we are clumsy compared to dogs and don't live with dogs as other dogs.


Wys
x
Glad to see you said human like emotions because dog emotions are qualitatively different from those of humans.

Have to disagree that mimicry of at least some canine behavior is impossible. I have done it quite successfully in the context of teaching a dog that a correction is not the end of the world (in fact it is how I introduce correction to pups), and people use it in play all the time without even realizing what they are doing. It's not rocket science.

Anyhoo, that is not what I was leading up to in that post. Hopefully I can return to it in this lifetime and make the point I was going for.
Reply With Quote
Firstlight
Dogsey Junior
Firstlight is offline  
Location: western NY, usa
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 143
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 04:01 AM
Originally Posted by Firstlight View Post
With respect, your first statement is dead wrong Wys; the choice is between taking the shock or avoiding it altogether.

Your second observation isn't much more accurate. I believe I have made mention of keeping the dog in behavioral balance by teaching (and ultimately collar conditioning) all commands a good citizen should know, not just the ones I use in "my sport", and that is what I do. I teach them all simultaneously beginning at seven weeks; well, actually earlier than that with pups of my breeding, precocious little ******s that they are.

It is very easy to get a dog out of balance. I have clients who have started treat training their pups but only taught a couple of commands, usually sit and down. Well, guess what the pup wants to do whenever it sees the treat, no matter what other command you are trying to teach?? Not real helpful to have the pup insist on downing when you are trying to get him to heel/recall/stand/make eye contact, now is it?
Oops, sorry all, I forgot that this word means something different in your country than it does in mine. I'll fix it.
Reply With Quote
Firstlight
Dogsey Junior
Firstlight is offline  
Location: western NY, usa
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 143
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 04:12 AM
Originally Posted by tawneywolf View Post
I have a family group here, and also a litter. Very interesting to watch. The dam rarely disciplines the pups, although when they want to feed and she doesn't want them to she does. Otherwise the younger female (1 tomorrow) seems to have taken over the nanny role. She takes no prisoners and one of the male pups who is very challenging shall we say seems to be constantly pinned by her, and also she takes his head in her mouth when he is being a real pain. My other older female seems to be leaving it to her daughter as well.
Interestingly the mother wouldn't let the older female near the pups even when they were 5 or 6 weeks old, the younger female (their cousin)was obviously being groomed for the nanny role in this case. Conversely when the other older female had her pups my other female helped deliver them and looked after them, although finally the mother of that litter got very fed up of the interference and there was a fight.
Strong hard discipline is handed out on a regular basis, at the same time they are constantly being loved and washed by all the older girls. My pups leave me having learnt good manners from a very early age, they are well loved by all of us and respond to that love, however they have also learnt respect within their 'pack' environment.
Welcome to the thread tawneywolf, and thanks so much for your informative post.
Reply With Quote
Firstlight
Dogsey Junior
Firstlight is offline  
Location: western NY, usa
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 143
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 05:21 AM
Originally Posted by Brierley View Post
It's all part of learning theory.



both examples are typical of many who go out and buy e-collars, Firstlight. I'd go further and say that both are typical of how many trainers over your side of the pond use e-collars and probably here too (although we don't have too many e-collar trainers and certainly very, very few who would admit to it) use it. The examples show how easily incorrect associations are made.

You are trying to set up deliberate associations. Am I right in thinking that you use the nick button until the dog complies with whatever request you have made? If so, you are still punishing the dog, but not for doing something you want to stop (although that can be debated), but for not doing what you want at the speed of compliance you'd like.

From your examples of pup behaviour and learning within the litter, you have shown the aversives that take place between animals. You could go further and say that life experiences throw up natural aversives every day of the week. My own opinion is that nature can be harsh so why add to that harshness when there really is no need to do so.

I'm not nature. I'm a sentient being trying to work with another sentient being. There are far better and kinder ways to work things out so that both can reach a happy and reliable conclusion without the need for force on either side
And I have already heartily agreed with your take on many collar buyers and trainers in post 130. The key word is many - many implies not all. I can expand on this a bit if you can tell me what type of trainers you are referring, what discipline and pro or amateur.

Re: my examples: I forgot to include the most interesting example of all, which was that of my Alpha male deliberately setting a male pup which was entering puberty up to violate one of the pack rules; absolutely fascinating to watch.

The point of that post was to illustrate that there is nothing abnormal or unnatural (or cruel, or abusive) in the use of aversives in training in Dogland, quite the contrary; they are actions that are very effective in achieving the goal of pack harmony, by training the pups to abide by the the rules of the pack, as well as showing the pups that aversives applied to them are not the end of life as they know it. And finally, the pups are also shown that when they demonstrate that they have learned their lessons well, and that they are able to apply that learning to future behavior in an effort to avoid making any more mistakes, they are rewarded for their correct responses by being allowed to continue enjoying the benefits accrued to pack members, and with reassuring attention from the one they offended.

I have to hit the hay, do you see where I am going with this yet?
Reply With Quote
Malka
Dogsey Veteran
Malka is offline  
Location: Somewhere
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 18,088
Female  Diamond Supporter 
 
30-01-2013, 07:30 AM
Originally Posted by Firstlight View Post
...[snip]...do you see where I am going with this yet?
What I see is a proponent of e-collars trying to convince everyone that they, ie you, are right and everyone else is wrong.
Reply With Quote
Chris
Dogsey Veteran
Chris is offline  
Location: Lincolnshire
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 8,921
Female 
 
30-01-2013, 08:39 AM
It's early and half of me is still in bed so rather than pick out bits of posts, I'll just go from memory of what I've read so will probably miss loads of stuff

One thing that struck me was how you turned your back on 'dominance' training (for want of a better term). My guess is that, like so many of us, it didn't make sense to you. So many misconceptions based on old observations that were flawed to say the least. Yet, despite having a gut feeling that it didn't make sense, you seem not to have been able to shake off the 'pack theory' completely.

Dogs ain't human - we all agree on that. More importantly, humans ain't dogs so feeble attempts to emulate what goes on between dogs or try to manipulate those observations into something usable in training is a pointless task.

Our methods and training techniques are worlds apart - your's being very hands-on, mine very hands-off and yet we both produce reliably trained dogs which just goes to show how adaptable our furry friends are.

I prefer my way (naturally). My dogs have never sat or downed on seeing food as food has never been used in such a way that the sight of food has become a command in itself. Incorrect applications happen in all styles of training, but shouldn't be taken as typical of that training, but what's worse? A dog who sits when he sees food, or a dog that shies away when the owner lifts an arm?

The 'choice' you mention quite a lot in your posts - although I believe you have misjudged the 'choice' being made - is there in both types of training. I wonder though, which you would find to be the greater amount of choice - the dog who knows discomfort/pain will come if he disobeys, or the dog who has competing rewards on offer (those of the environment and those offered by the handler) when 'choosing' whether to obey a command?

You've also mentioned 'balance' in training. It seems to be a term that is coming into fashion quite a lot these days, particularly over your side of the pond, with trainers advertising 'balanced training' or describing themselves as a 'balanced trainer'. Balance in training of all kinds is there. To steal, if I may, one of Wysiwig's sayings, 'positive isn't permissive'. If there was no balance, it simply wouldn't work. That doesn't, however, mean that balance has to include compulsion and physical consequence.

I doubt we'll ever agree on methods, but the dog training world is slowly changing and evolving. Harsh methods are slowly stopping and harsh tools being discarded. Parts of the UK have followed the lead of the growing number of countries who have banned the use of shock collars and it is hoped the rest will follow.

I have great difficulty accepting training tools that were specifically designed to inflict pain including far more than just shock collars. It really does turn my stomach that someone, somewhere actually sat down and designed them in the first place. What sort of mentality does that?

We 'choose' to take dogs into our homes and lives. Surely, we should also 'choose' to respect them, not hurt them
Reply With Quote
Jackie
Dogsey Veteran
Jackie is offline  
Location: UK
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 13,122
Female  Diamond Supporter 
 
30-01-2013, 09:13 AM
Originally Posted by Firstlight
Jackbox, you and Lucky star apparently misunderstand the meaning of "burn" in this context. I guess I thought that those of you with strong anti-collar opinions knew enough about their use to know the terminology. "Burn" in this context refers to an extended shock, which should very rarely, if ever, be necessary after conditioning, and never at a high level; "nick" refers to a momentary shock, barely a second long.
As far as I was aware the word "burn" has the same meaning in the UK and the US.

Thank you for pointing out the context in which you use the word.............

So you don`t burn a disobedient dog you just give it an extended shock (keep your finger on the trigger)

Sadly they both amount to cruelty (which means the same on both sides of the pond.

Sadly this thread is going the way they always do, round and round in circles..........

The person inflicting pain in the name of training is never going to see the cruelty of it,.

We can discuss till the cows come home and e.collar supporters will continue to excuse their methods, and accuse the rest of the world(who oppose them) as "not getting it "!!

I have no wish to continue to discuss the morality of inflicting pain on an animal (in the name of training)........as they will never get it !

What`s worse of in this case is we have someone who claims they can get the same results without an e.collor but chooses to use one, because its easier .....
Reply With Quote
Reply
Page 16 of 36 « First < 6 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 26 > Last »


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 10 (0 members and 10 guests)
 
Thread Tools


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Training methods and bitey pup Jacsicle Training 15 17-08-2012 04:25 PM
Last resort training methods ... Murf Training 31 16-04-2012 11:51 PM
Your training methods pippam Training 15 05-06-2011 08:23 PM
Training Methods Pita Training 37 28-04-2004 08:07 AM

© Copyright 2016, Dogsey   Contact Us - Dogsey - Top Contact us | Archive | Privacy | Terms of use | Top