"Raining" is certainly positive if the soil needs it Rune

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)

Love that video, it's a good one for sure

Wys
x

With respect WYS...... I deal with dog aggression cases most days. That is what we do. For a living. Fights are extremely rare but it is my belief that you can not resolve issues with dogs who can not communicate effectively without using other dogs, and this enevitably runs the risk, that some aggressive symptoms will arise. As I said, if they do, I wont break the fight up with a sausage.

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)

With respect, in my view using distraction methods can encourage the dog to focus on other things for sure. But it wont necessarily discourage the dog to not want the original thing. Apart from in helping the habit not to form - which is indeed a great way of doing things!

The problem though with some distraction techniques as used by some people as I see it, is this. . . .

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?

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

Wow. I'm stunned by that. Maybe I have misunderstood your point?

I think that what happens in the first few seconds of a dog performing a new behaviour is the absolute OPTIMUM time when training should occur. There is no habit, there is no previous experience, there is a dog with its mind very much OPEN to a new experience to learn from. I agree later training may be necessary, but those intial seconds are crucial. In my view.

If my dog looks like it might put its paws in a camp fire say, I want to make sure that it really thinks that is not a good idea. I dint want to have to "train" it over a long time period. Dogs commonly (though not exclusively) learn, as we all know, by what happens Very soon after an event. If you dont train immediately after an event then the dog can learn, sometimes permanently, the wrong thing.

Denise, not sure why you are directing this to me?

I've not commented on any fights as far as I recall...

I don't know what you are saying, sorry.

Wys
x

Note on that book - if it is the one I am thinking of, then I really didn't see anything very "new" in it. Though I could be thinking of the wrong book. Im a bit dopey like that at times.

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