I think this is a brilliant method for teaching heel/loose leash walking. I used this sort of thing in combination with the "be a tree" method (when the dog starts to pull, you stop and go nowhere until the leash is loose). She walks great on leash, no pulling and I can instantly call her back to me, even with no treats present.

Thanks to the OP for posting these two videos. The first is great for showing the stress signals dogs often throw when going through punishment based training. My next door neighbor uses a choke chain now (after my trying so hard to get her to use positive training) and we recently met them out on a walk. Her dog was licking his lips, whining, yawning. It was pretty horrible to see. Even MY dog reacted to her jerking on the choke chain with stress signals (Dahlia is a very sensitive dog -- one of the most sensitive I've ever met).

The second video is just beautiful to watch.

We started out training both of ours to walk to heel by popping treats in their mouths as they walked along beside us. In fact, as ours were so little I remember putting peanut butter onto a wooden spoon and holding it a little above her nose. Every time she walked nicely and looked up i'd flip the spoon down so she could have a lick. It worked well. They'd walk to heel beautifully. Gradually we weaned them off the treats and people would comment on how nicely they walked to heel.

But it all went pear shaped if our two valued something more highly than the treat that I was offering. The youngest in particular was a real problem if he decided he wanted to go somewhere fast - he'd be oblivious to anything I could offer. We later had much better success simply stopping everytime the dog pulled - or even going a step further and turning on our heel and walking the other way.

This came up on another thread, and I think we concluded that the latter approach - a very popular approach - was actually punishment based. Yes, it's the dog throttling him/herself as it desparately tries to move forward and not you doing it to them. But as someone pointed out, would it work so quickly if you had the dog on a harness? And certainly it's punishment to stop the dog from going where it wants to go (or force it to walk in the opposite direction) every time it fails to do what you want (i.e walk nicely to heel).

So in the case of teaching a dog to walk to heel *RELIABLY* a combination of punishment and reward worked for us where reward only failed.

It seems to me that the natural way of things is to learn from both good and bad experiences. It seems strange that so many people are hell bent on using one or the other in isolation. Punishment doesn't have to be cruel or harsh. Sure, my youngest got very cross when I stopped walking when he pulled too much. But he soon learned and when we could go anywhere without him pulling, yelping, and arrfing everytime he saw something that interested him we started going to a lot more places and having a lot more fun.

As has been said on many threads positive training isnt just treating - most people mean positive reward/negative punishment
I taught my dogs to walk on a loose lead by stopping every time they pulled, not pulling them or anything
v quickly they learn that their behaviour effects me moving, they want to move forward but they learn that by pulling the things they want are taken away and if they want to move forward again then it only happens when they pay attention to you
the added bonus is the dog v quickly learns to turn back to you every time the lead gets tight so you dont have to keep stopping

I kept the treats for a nice heel position cos that is something more difficult than just keeping the lead slack

Remember the terms
Positive - something added
Negative - something taken away
Reward - something that makes the behaviour more likely
Punishemnt - something that makes the behaviour less likely

So positive reward, negative punishment means you reward when they are doing the thing you want them to and the reward stops when they do things you dont want

Punishment based training tends to focus on positive punishment, negative reward- dog pulls lead gets yanked, dog walks in position lead yanking stops
Not only can this hurt the dogs neck but it isnt really all that effective - you often see people continualy yanking the lead as the dog hasnt really figured out what is wanted and so just sees the yanking as part of what happens when you are out walking

My point really is that not everyone would agree with you that this approach to heel work is negative punishment - especially if you have your dog in a collar rather than a harness or turn and walk the other way (this was more effective for us).

There seems to be an implication that negative punishment is kinder than positive punishment. I don't think this follows. Whilst this approach worked for us our boy was very unhappy about it! He went frantic and we'd often be standing on the spot for half an hour while he went balistic. Remember the CM example where some people felt that CM was 'strining up' the dog? Well, that's what it would have looked like with our boy. He went CRAZY if you stopped moving when he pulled. It wasn't a quick fix - he's got staying power and held out for several weeks.

Now *IF* a quick jerk on a choke chain, a slap - any kind of positive punishment that was 'short and sharp' would have the desired effect then I firmly believe that it'd be more humane than the approach we used.

What matters really is how the dog feels - I think we're deluding ourselves if we think withdrawing what the dog wants is kinder than doing something to the dog to make it less likely to repeat an unwanted action. So much will depend upon the nature of the dog, the situation....

I think it's best to center your training around getting the dog to WANT to do the things you want it to do. But I wouldn't rule anything out. In extreme situations even very harsh solutions can be kinder than allowing a distressing situation to continue. I've got nice little dogs - the biggest problem we have is off-lead control but they aren't going to be a menace to anyone else. Yet we're researching the use of a shock collar as we're hearing so many good reports from people with similar problems to us - people that *claim* that by startling their dog just once they solve the problem and as a result the dog has 1000% better quality of life. I won't pass judgement on people with dogs that have serious, even dangerous problems. It's good to raise awareness of the drawbacks of ALL approaches (and punishment - both positive and negative does have more scope to go wrong). But the dog's wellfare must take precedence over the owners preferred training method.

Yes but , but , but....... the training HADNT failed , you stopped the treats completley?

Gradually we weaned them off the treats and people would comment on how nicely they walked to heel.

How else did you reward then?

If they were distracted by other things you should have realised you need to "back" up your training abit.

You then needed to train FOR Distractions.

Training is training it never stops, its on going.

No, we didn't stop the treats completely. We worked with top-notch trainers so everything was done properly. But with our boy in particular we made better progress when we tackled the problem from another angle too (at the suggestions of the trainers that initially suggested the rewards only approach). But we still use both approaches.

I don't doubt that we could have succeeded using the rewards only approach had we been determined enough. But when a dog values something in it's environment very highly - more highly than it values anything that you can provide - then it becomes very difficult to build up the dog's ability to behave correctly in the face of distractions. Every time the dog pulls you towards the object of his desire he's self-rewarding. If you don't have a valuable enough reward to make him focus on you instead of self-rewarding then you are re-inforcing the problem. One option is to avoid the distraction until you've built things up gradually to the point where the dog won't missbehave - in some cases that might mean avoiding walks altogether for years. Some dogs can never be reliably trained to override strong instincts. Often it will be a far more sensible solution to simply stand firm and not let the dog self-reward. Even if this means he gets stressed, angry and unhappy. You've got to figure out what's worse for the dog - a bit of discomfort/stress/frustration for a while or perhaps years of missed opportunities, fun and socialisation while you avoid distractions that your dog isn't yet equipped to cope with. I think there's a tiny minority of people out there that are very gifted and able to read dogs and choose the best approach from a very diverse toolbox. They are capable of succesfully using techniques that are potentially harmful in the wrong hands. There is also a huge manority out there that *think* they have this skill but don't! The difficulty for us pet owners is separating the wheat from the chaff.

Getting the dog to a place where it can enjoy a stress-free, full, happy and safe life is the goal. On face value it might *seem* kinder to get there through reward and encouragement only. But many (most?) people find that the dog is more balanced if it learns about consequences too. It may seem that if you plan to use consequences (or punishment) that it's kinder to stick to negative punishment (withdrawal of reward) but I think it's important to really try and understand your dog and think about how things look from his angle. What causes him the most distress - putting him out of the room and taking away your company? shouting at him? A short, sharp jerk on his lead? The answer to that question would differ for each of the three dogs that I've owned. I think if you hit a sticky patch over training with a dog it's so valuable to get input from someone highly expderienced and trained in dog behaviour - a behaviourist rather than a trainer. But the difficulty seems to be finding someone that's open minded and not on a crusade to convert the word to their pet theories without genuine regard for the wellfare of the poor dog!

What "top" trainers were helping you?



Explain how you "weaned" them off treats but did not stop completly?

it could be that you relied on treats TOO long & failed to transfer the treat reward thorughly to some other rewarding behaviour.

& then failed to consildate the training, by building up of training through distraction.

Its not the training its that you havent done it correctly & havent seen it through

if the dog was getting enough momentum to hang himself then the lead was too long

if he was taking too long to 'get it' then perhaps you were asking for too much before rewarding the dog with moving on
in this instance you are shaping the loose lead behaviour so to start with the tinyest bit of reorenting to you gets a step forward, then a tiny bit more
the dog learns to use its mind to figure out to manipulate you into walking forwards
and there is no conflict of your treats not being as interesting as what is out there because getting to see what is out there is the reward for keeping the lead slack

I didn't say 'top' trainers. I said 'top-notch' trainers. Highly regarded and experienced trainers in my area. I doubt you'd know of them unless you're familiar with my area (Glasgow)? But one club in Barrhead, another in Clarkston taught me to use this method on my dogs - and then suggested we try something else when we ran into difficulties in certain situations. My point wasn't to imply that these are the best trainers (I personally would favour behaviourists over trainers as a rule), but rather that we worked closely with people that are trained and experienced in these methods.

Certainly

When teaching a dog through use of rewards it's common to start out rewarding the dog every time it gets things right - or even nearly right. You've got to make it worth it's while otherwise there is no reason for it to do what you want rather than continue to do what HE wants! In the case of walking to heel a common approach is to start out by constantly stuffing food in the dog's mouth. Gradually you wean the dog off it's dependence on food/reward by increasing the interval between treats or only treating the dog's best efforts.

Partly it's about making the desired behaviour habit - in many cases it'll become second nature to do certain things that you ask without the need for rewards. Perhaps just a bit of reinforcement now and again. Some things will always need a lot or reinforcement or the dog simply won't be willing to do what YOU want rather than what HE wants. A lot depends upon the individual dog and it's not an exact science. Lots of room for error.

Well of course that's possible. But if two very experienced trainers and my husband and I (who were very dedicated to training the dogs and researched things at length) couldn't get it right then that itself is a flaw in the approach - too difficult to do well. A good reason for considering supplementing with another approach that you find easier to implement (or even changing approach completely).

Yes, as I've said this was a concious decision. We did an awful lot of distraction training and our dogs learned to walk nicely in the face of lots of distractions. But their instinct to sniff, roam...and the boy's desire to stay out in front of his sister proved to be very difficult to cope with. Our choice was to pretty much avoid walks outside until we'd had the time to build up gradually enough (perhaps years) or to complement our training with another approach that would allow us to make progress whilst giving the dogs the exercise, stimulation and socialisation that they needed.

Yes. That's exactly what I explained. No point banging on with an approach that isn't working well when there's another way of doing things that will get results with less hardship to the dog. As I've said, I'm sure it would have been possible to make this work but it wasn't in my dog's best interest.

This is the case with virtually ALL training techniques. In the right hands with the right dog and right situation they can work very well. In the wrong hands/wrong dog/wrong situation they can fail terribly and perhaps even cause big problems. It's all about choosing the techniques that work best for you and your dog in each individual situation. And if necessary finding someone with the expertise to either make the approach work or advise an alternative if you're struggling. That's the tricky bit in my opinion - getting the right expert help. Too many trainers seem more focussed on making their 'pet' techniques work in all situations and less focussed on the welfare of individual dogs. It's like being caught up in the middle of a battle when all you care about is the welfare of your dogs!

Yes Ben, I'm sure your approach can be made to work with all dogs in all situations too. But as I said to myshflyn, why bang on with an approach that you're struggling with (for whatever reason) when there's a way to do things that work better for you?

Myshflyn seems to prefer a rewards only approach. You prefer negative punishmennt in conjunction with rewards. You both feel that you've got good results so in my book you're both right and you're both doing well with your dogs Proof positive that there's more than one way to skin a rabbit (assuming you're both telling the truth).

Concentrate on what's best for your dogs - not on silly battles over who's training methods are best.