Yeah you see that in OB trained collies sometimes, mostly as by product of overdoing the training (excessive reps) with reward based methods, but hey its kinder lol.

Adam

Actually I meant by fearing the punishment, i.e. the stim.

I expect you will ignore me but have you not been taught about Eustress vs Distress?

Even the most basic human psychology or counselling course delineates a difference between +stress and -stress.

Where have you been? And why do you not think that is appropriate to dogs? What did they teach you on your degree course? (Not a lot obviously, or you chose to ignore it).

FFS Adam... it is possible for people without degrees to learn that much.

Then I think you have missed the point of pavlovian/classical conditioning
The reward makes the dog happy, the dog begins to associate the action of working with the handler with the reward so the actual DOING the behaviour is as nice for the dog as eating the treat
Something I noticed early on in clicker training and I have heard other clicker trainers talk about too that often the animals are so excited by the training and the click that they almost forget about the treat in their desire to win the game again
I have even seen clips of fish doing this (they use a flash of light not a click but the training is the same)

and I remember watching one of the zoo programmes where they had clicker traied a big cat to press her chest against the cage so they could listen to her heart to see if there were any problems there
But the method failed because she enjoyed it so much that they couldnt hear her heart because she was purring so loudly
dosent sound like stress to me!!


I would very much like for you to train for your dogs to look happy, I think you will find training far more rewarding when your dog is just shining with sheer joy at being able to work with you

To quote a very popular and well-loved cartoonist & writer of the 1950's - I read his books when I was young, my mum & dad didn't have a dog when they got 'into' his books but made a big impression on me -

"Dogs are obsessed with being happy."

I think that's all you ever need to know about dogs really on a simplistic level; that's what owners need to understand, and work towards, and if I can make my dog happy every day that's a job well done

PS: If and when he is happy, then it usually gets to me too anhd makes ME happy, which is a big part of the relationship we have with this species.... anything else is degrading that special bond.

That is lovely and just so true wouldnt it be nice if we could be a little more dog like
'walk - great'
'lying down, I love lying down'
'where you going, across the room, I LOVE walking across the room'
and totaly agree, even my x who wasnt a big dog fan used to say the happiest thing in the world is a dog with a ball in its mouth

Well the guy who penned that was James Thurber... I read his books before, during, and after we had family dogs, and I loved that quote to bits, and still do

Too true! Anticipation is often a greater joy than receiving for any species including ourselves. Anticipation and excitement are not stressful - unless, of course, the anticipation is of something bad happening rather than something good.

Whilst I would agree that anticipation of something that is never received would likely cause a great amount of stress (and eventually shutdown because there would be no point in trying), anticipation of something that can be easily and fairly won brings pleasure in itself - hence why, in predominantly reward-based training we set up for success and break behaviours down so that rewards are easy to achieve

OMG is that a dig at me?

Collies love to repeat, trainers get bored before the collies. thats why they are so good at it.

My dogs dont even NEED a reward, the reward is actually been abled to work , but hey they have one anyway!!!! Be it a titbit, a play Or just a fuss.

They are def not robotic, they are Fast , stylish, drivey & work with indiviaul Expression,

well that says it all really. Training DOES require a little thought

If you want them forward then THINK
Throw it forward, but they will obvisley then continue to get further forward, if you would prefer them back abit, then reward them back.

How does allowing dogs to go forward hep with the pulling? its teaching them to be in a position that will have made the lead short