Actually, I think the confusion is in your head

I described a problem whereas we'd initially been told not to confront our dog when he growled. We were later told that we should confront him when experts concluded that the growling was due to 'acting up' rather than fear. We were told to be firm with him and let him know who was boss.

For some unknown reason you saw fit to ask me what what negative techniques/punishment I used (presumably because you made assumptions about what the trainers had in mind when they told us to be firm?) As you correctly concluded from my answer I don't use any negative techniques/punishments that aren't used by the majority of those that teach positive methods. In fact, as I made very clear, it was the positive training teachers that recommended this course of action. It just so happened that we found CM's teaching on this kind of thing to be better. We used his recommendations and our trainers were very happy with everything we were doing when we reported back.

As I keep stressing, NOTHING that we've done with our dogs goes against what our strictly 'positive methods' teachers approve of and use. Their emphasis isn't quite right for us and our dogs and we found at times that led to problems or just wasn't adequate. But the actual methods used are the basically the same and they have no problems with anything we're doing.

The weakness that we stumbled across in what seems to be the typcial approach to teaching positive methods is that there is a bias towards too much focus on reward/positive. The reasons for this (as explained to me) are sound, but that doesn't help the owners and dogs that fall foul of this.

I very much like to 'temper' everything that I'm taught/read/learn about 'positive methods' with CM's approach. I find the two approaches to be extremely compatible. The nice thing is that they tend to 'temper' each other and help prevent wandering too far down the wrong path.

The fact that I use ideas from more than method/trainer doesn't reflect badly on either one of them. It's just a question of discovering what works for you and your dogs and what doesn't.

ooh- and Kath Hardman. I`ve been to a few of her HTM workshops and like her approach. It`s all about the dog enjoying the work, masses of rewards, very positive feedback - and using what the dog is naturally good at.

It was me who asked you what negative/punishment methods you used. The reason I asked is that you seemed to be saying that positive training wasn't working so you tried alternative methods which worked. You therefore seemed to be suggesting that the alternative methods weren't positive based, so I was curious what they were.

Basically it still boils down to the quality of your individual trainers; you are judging unsuccessful 'positive' training on only half of the principle.

The biggest problem I've found with trainers is that they don't know WHY they are doing something. They tell you to do something and when you ask why they have no idea and label you as 'disruptive' for asking questions.

In a number of the classes I've been to you feel that you are talking to the monkey rather than the organ grinder. They have a technique, which may work on the majority of dogs but if it doesn't work on a particular dog then that dog is labelled "difficult" rather than the trainer trying to come up with a new solution.

Many of these ideas do have a solid foundation or basis, but that gets lost as one trainer after another parrots it and the ideas get lost in a list of Chinese whispers.

Personally I want to know why I'm doing something.

No. What I was saying is that the approach recommended by all positive training teachers/fans was not to confront the dog. It was the positive trainers themselves that realised that they'd made the wrong call when the problem got worse. They then recommended taking a firm hand with the dog. But as I stressed - these methods were absolutely in the toolkit of the positive trainers in question.

As I explained, the trainers in question told me that they are both taught and choose to push a very positive 'first do no harm' approach with students. This is because this type of thing is less likely to result in problems when in untrained, inexperienced hands. They don't always teach people to do what they think is best, but rather to do what they think is on balance least risky.

In the case of my dog I think it's highly likely that the first time the little seven week old pip-squeak tried it on THEY would have made it clear that his behaviour was not acceptable if they'd been there. But they weren't. They handed out their 'safe' advise based upon my explanation of what had happened and their guidlines to always teach people to take the statistically less risky line.

No suggestion that positive training methods don't work. Just an example of how things can go wrong.

And in my opinion this links in a little with fi's comment:

The waters are often muddied by what she describes as 'chinese whispers'. My experienced trainer knew exactly why she was recommending a 'softly-softly' approach with my pup. Not because she thought it was the only or the best way. But because on balance she considered it to be the safest approach given that she hadn't witnessed the problem first hand.

A big risk with ANY training approach is that there will always be very many people that reel stuff off parrot fashion without understanding. The excellent teacher might recommend a given approach but fail (for numerous valid reasons) to explain it in great depth. The students fill in the gaps in their knowledge on discussion forums and similar and somehow come to the conclusion that the teachers suggested approach is the ONLY one that should be used....ever.

I guess that's what happened to us. Our teacher never said 'don't ever use confrontation under any circumstances'. THAT embellishment actually came from discussion forums. The teacher was actually in favour of corrections and to some degree punishment - IN THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES. Had I known this from the outset I'd have been much more insistent about getting her to rethink her advice as it always seemed to us that our boy was taking the micky!!! Ultimately she drew the same conclusion.

Discussion forums aren't really the place to get advice for that sort of problem----it would be irresponsible to tell anyone to confront their dog without seeing what is happening.

If a trainer had told you to confront him and then you had got bitten that would have been wrong as well.

rune

No that was the advice given by the trainers you went to. How many was that? One? Two?
There are more trainers than those in your area. There are as many opinions as there are trainers. In many circumstances trainers would confront the behaviour - this is very different to starting a fight with the dog.
I don`t understand why you expect us to throw up our hands in horror at a trainer not being able to wave a wand and `cure` your dog. We`ve all been there. Trainers are human beings, not Gods. The decision to follow advice has to be taken by you. The implementation of the advice was down to you. Personally, if I saw it wasn`t working I`d have gone and argued or found someone else, not damned the entire species of trainers.

Anyway- back OT
Anyone else been to Andy at Brentwood`s Aggressive Dog Class? This has now moved to a different club (pm me if you need it) near Grays.
The method there for truly scary dogs was very safe, very slow and very gentle. I`m not going into details because you need an experienced trainer present, but I`d totally recommend it.

Out of interest, I am going to read your posts again if I have time, to see if I can clarify it for myself; but on reading your posts, you basically said that you were told to not use confrontation, then you did - but what you described was not confrontation.

I'm trying to clarify it because i was quite surprised at your post that I recently quoted, as it was not confrontational at all, but your whole post suggested that you thought it was. Your next post then referred to some CM techniques such as claiming space.

What do you describe as confrontation? That was what was meant I believe, when you were asked about what methods you used, because further back you'd used such terms. You then described the methods such as ignoring, etc so no wonder there is confusion, and it's not just me. Anyway! I will have another read later to de-confuse myself

In what way do you think they would have done this?

Wys
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The trainer/behaviourist I sometimes work with has recently set up a Grumpy Growlers class. She does the first week wit no dogs, and explains techniques and procedures, to ensure owners know what to do and how to handle it when the dogs did react.

She then did 5 weeks out of doors and the dogs were much improved.

CandD, any chance you could PM me the details? I suspect what was done was similar to what some of us do anyway (DS and CC?) but am always up for learning more to add to the old toolkit. Do they have a website at all?

Wys
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