Thank you to Lotsadogs, Rune, and others who do understand where I am coming from....I am grateful as I was beginning to worry!

Do you feel that the media has made you more self conscious of how you train, methods and terminology used etc? in a good way or in a bad way?

Does the media portray a true picture of how trainers actually use different methods?

Have you seen (as I have) handlers who are now limiting their methods in order to "conform" only to end up struggling with undesirable behaviour or worse still letting it go "unoticed"?

....

If for instance you raise the dreaded word "E-collar" you are likely to be PERSONALLY attacked, even if you rasied it in a "what do you think about it?" way - With no intention to use one, touch one, but because you have a genuine curiosity about how it may or may not work! I know because its happened to me on a different forum years ago . Sometimes people see the "outlawed" word or approach and then attach to it a pre ordained response along the lines of "you are evil" - without ever reading the original intention.

It is when views become fixed, that they sometimes become obstructive to new learning, better thinking and a better outcome for dogs in general. Thats my view and it may be Bollo***.

I think that your thread has been a good one and your mindset is sufficiently open for this to be a place of great learning. Thank you for starting the thread. Denise Mcleod

I know I would never do what I am describing below, but in an effort to illustrate my concerns with some distraction techniques I will use this as an illustration.......

If one was going to train a dog TO chew a cable

One would allow the interest in the cable to develop, mark the actual incident with a marker (usually a clicker in my case) then follow that marker with a reward.

If someone is going to use distraction to teach a pup not to show interest in a cable.....

One would allow the interest in the cable to develop, mark the actual incident with a marker (usually a friendly voice, or reacll, or similar) then follow that marker with a reward.

Its the same process. How does the dog know if it supposed to touch the cable or not?

Many apologies, crap eyesight - was Ben Mcfuzzylugs - not sure why I got that wrong. Duh! Many apologies.

I have had a couple of trainers try and use their hands to put my dogs in a sit or a down - my dogs just look confused because I have never done that - and they dont go into a sit or a down because they dont know what is being asked

If they need a gentle reminder I use my hand signal, if they need more then I go back to luring, then hand signal then cue alone guess its just cos I have never taught hands on so it dosent actually make any sense to me to use it at any point - wasnt a deliberate choice or anything I never knew about hands on training

As said, there really is no need in training (in my opinion) for the need for a hands on approach. There are thousands of dogs out there who have been successfully trained to a high standard of reliability without the need for a hands on approach.

To me, it's a no brainer to use hands on. You only have to re-train the commands when the dog is away from the handler as, of course, you cannon push and pull when you can't physically reach the dog.

Its amazing what confusion people have over what is and isn't ok to do.

THIS is what the problem is, it's not the methods themself, it's the way people interpret them. "Positive training" to many people is simply using food as a reward. They'll still yank the dog around, still push or pull it into position, still alpha roll it but they think that because they reward with food it's positive training.

Then you've got the other side of the coin, those who think it means you have to tolerate anything and everything your dog does because you can never let them know that it's unacceptable.

And the ones who think positive training means you just bribe the dog into behaving and then have to carry treats around with you for the rest of the dogs life. And that you cannot use positive methods with a dog who isn't food motivated.

THIS is what the problem is, it's not the methods themself, it's the way people interpret them. "Positive training" to many people is simply using food as a reward. They'll still yank the dog around, still push or pull it into position, still alpha roll it but they think that because they reward with food it's positive training.

Then you've got the other side of the coin, those who think it means you have to tolerate anything and everything your dog does because you can never let them know that it's unacceptable.

And the ones who think positive training means you just bribe the dog into behaving and then have to carry treats around with you for the rest of the dogs life. And that you cannot use positive methods with a dog who isn't food motivated.

if needed like this
but usualy if you keep the pup safely away from them when you cant supervise, distract when needed and make other things more exciting and rewarding the pup sees no interest in a cable that is there all the time and has much more desire to chew the fun things you give them (worked with Mia who chomped my internet cable - she has (touch wood) never chewed anything again since)



again I dont see dealing with an emergency as training, its what happens afterwards where the training is

Get the dog out of the situation - or the situation out of the dog - tell yourself off for putting the dog in a difficult situation that you havent trained him for yet, and then think of a training/manegment plan

for example when I first got Mia I didnt know she was a sheep chaser
I let her off in a enclosed what I thought was a safe field
she got into a sheep field

MY mistake

there was totaly no point I could have punished her until I got hold of her - and then that would have been too late as I would be punishing her for being near me - the thing I wanted
I had to work on managment - making sure she we controled if there were sheep about
and training - socalising her to sheep

and the past month she has trotted alongside a field of sheep with no more interest than if it was a field of grass (of course there is a fence between, there is training and being stupid)

Look, I'm sorry but let's get a few things straight here

I used to use verbal "corrections" (I had very good timing)
I used to physically "correct"
I used to tell dogs off when they'd done something "wrong"

and ya know what? I have far more understanding and control now than I ever did. The same for many of the people I know.

And what are we using now?

Very few if any, ever, verbal "corrections"
No physical "corrections"
Rarely telling a dog off when they've done something "wrong" (because the dogs are trained and so if you have common sense, you can pre-empt or train a Very Good Sit (as Dunbar agrees, this solves a shed load of problems).).


So what is the problem? I think the problem is that most people are NOT TRAINING and DON'T carry on training after their classes. I think there has actually been a thread about this recently on Dogsey

FEW people ever bother to train their dog to advanced levels (by that I mean pet levels, but I mean something like an Emergency Stop or a Chase Recall).

What people are also not doing is laying sensible boundaries but if I can do this, so can they

So let's get rid of this idea that dogs who are reward trained are disobedient, owners are struggling because of the methods, and so on. The only problem I can see is that training is possibly more complicated (maybe?) and so that can mean that owners are less likely to follow it. However, even that I am not sure about, because Lure and Reward (for example) is very simple.

So I dont' know what the problem is, but I really do not think it fair to lay it all on the people who are trying to make it a better world for dogs (and their humans).

Also it might be good if we all looked at the most up to date info by reading that new John Bradshaw book "In Defence of dogs" and then discuss this again

Wys
x

As said, there really is no need in training (in my opinion) for the need for a hands on approach. There are thousands of dogs out there who have been successfully trained to a high standard of reliability without the need for a hands on approach.

To me, it's a no brainer to use hands on. You only have to re-train the commands when the dog is away from the handler as, of course, you cannon push and pull when you can't physically reach the dog.

THIS is what the problem is, it's not the methods themself, it's the way people interpret them. "Positive training" to many people is simply using food as a reward. They'll still yank the dog around, still push or pull it into position, still alpha roll it but they think that because they reward with food it's positive training.

Then you've got the other side of the coin, those who think it means you have to tolerate anything and everything your dog does because you can never let them know that it's unacceptable.

And the ones who think positive training means you just bribe the dog into behaving and then have to carry treats around with you for the rest of the dogs life. And that you cannot use positive methods with a dog who isn't food motivated.