positive only training.

[Trekmoor]

I recently saw a young lab with terrific drive and a lot of natural ability at a training class. Her owner has done well with the dog in agility and in obedience by using "positive only" training methods. The dogs previous training is however insufficient to keep it steady or to have it stop to whistle when training her as a gundog. The classes trainer is stumped as to what to do to turn this bitch into a gundog as her owner point blank refuses to correct the dog in any way. The dog was C.T. trained but , rather surprisingly to me, this has proved insufficient to overcome the bitch's retrieve drive when dummies are thrown in situations other than obedience halls or on short grass parklands of the type obedience competitions are held on.

I don't know nearly enough about clicker training to be able to help but I am 90% sure I could very quickly sort out the training problems using more "old fashioned" methods ! This bitch makes my mouth water, she is so keen and so good at finding dummies wherever they are thrown . I'd have loved to have owned her.
How do you persuade a would be gundog trainer that "positive only" training is not necessarily the best way to train all gundogs ?

Bill T.

[AZ Brittany Guy]

Training the trainer is the toughest job. You may need a couch and a psychiatrist.

[DonF]

haven't worked with a retriever in years so here's for what it's worth. What a dog won't do next to you, it won't do three feet away. That's why God invented the check cord. When the dog is 100% next to you, let it out a bit on the check cord and start over. Each increase in range should come easier. Once you've reached the end of the check cord, don't remove it, let the dog drag it. When the dog is there, lose the check cord. Just my thought.

[AZ Brittany Guy]

haven't worked with a retriever in years so here's for what it's worth. What a dog won't do next to you, it won't do three feet away. That's why God invented the check cord. When the dog is 100% next to you, let it out a bit on the check cord and start over. Each increase in range should come easier. Once you've reached the end of the check cord, don't remove it, let the dog drag it. When the dog is there, lose the check cord. Just my thought.

Much better answer than mine. I just don't know how you can train a dog with no correction.

[Nutmeg247]

Is the owner coming from the "movement" side of R+ training, where she's not concerned with results so much as her aesthetic views of different training methods? And, does she really want a gundog, or is this just a fun thing to do with her dog?

Some people on the "movement" side of things can be a little like vegetarians as regards meat -- they might acknowledge the benefits and still not want it. I assume she's seen happy, driven dogs trained well with more-traditional methods? Would she view even a check cord or a tab as unacceptable?

I'm not a retriever owner and not a trainer, but do use and read up on a lot of positive training methods.

[aulrich]

To a certain extent it sounds like a “place” issue, there has probably been tons of rep’s in the short grass, and area type settings so in those places the dog knows what is expected. But I bet the field was/is still a place of fun where OB is optional , a lower level or the excitement level of the field is taking over. I would think they need to redo whatever program they did in the field at least as a start.

But to date none of the positive only has been able to explain to me how they get over distance and high distraction environments. I always think of it this way my dog is 200 yards away chasing a deer I can click, say there name in a nice way and wave a milkbone no dog with half decent prey drive will turn around without correction.

I think positive training has a solid part of the teach/enforce/re-enforce continuum but at this point I think it’s too limited for real precision, for the whole job.

[Neil]

I am very much a no pain trainer these days, I do you some force and even the e-collar, but I work to use a very light hand. So I think her way could be done, but it is way more work and perhaps even harder on the dog in the long run.

It is her dog and only needs to please her.

[Sharon]

There's lots to be learned from both methods, I believe.

[crackerd]

Is there a "positive-only" method of training a retriever? - never heard of it and d*mned sure never seen any quantifiable results that would promote it.

Note to Bill: Your comments on the "other" gundog forum about p*ss-poor delivery and what a problem it can be to overcome with a hand-shy dog should quantify my telling you that force fetch ain't about forcing a dog to retrieve, but binds together all the other complementary things that have to do with retrieving.

MG

[DoubleBarrel GunDogs]

There are very few gun dog trainers who consider click and treat a valid training method. Far fewer even consider positive only methods.
The answer to your question is pretty simple. The owner makes the final call, and if the level of training their dog has attained is acceptable to them, little more can be offered by the instructor mentioned. The owner will need to sort this out on their own.
There needs to be a balance in formal training of positive reinforcement and correction. As long as the dog understands the reason for the reward and the correction it can handle it. Its the owner who typically can't discern the balance.

Nate

[EvanG]

Is there a "positive-only" method of training a retriever? - never heard of it and d*mned sure never seen any quantifiable results that would promote it.

MG

Thanks for asking directly. The answer is "No". If someone believes they are training a retriever without any pressure they are kidding only themselves. It does not exist.

EvanG

[Swampbilly]

How do you persuade a would be gundog trainer that "positive only" training is not necessarily the best way to train all gundogs ?

Bill T.

Well...'Trek, to be quite frank- 'ya don't. And that comes from someone whos'
had the opportunity to train both ways.
You've got to pick and choose your "battles". There are just as many sticklers who are closed minded to Pressure Conditioning and Collar training as there are sticklers closed minded to Pos.Re-.

There's an old addage that suggests that if 'ya can't train a reliable retriever without forcing it, you'll have a hard time using pressure. Don't mind saying I subscribe to that.

Most good non force trainers I know have no reason to do otherwise- there's different goals set forth for the dog in the" end." The "end" being a good, reliable Gundog trained for utility that eagerly and literally pick up thousands if birds in their retieving life.

What a lot of "closed minded" folk don't realize is that although you're not pinching an ear, there's still a lot of pressure (indirect) and negative re-enforcement involved just the same in training.
And it creates pressure
It's really about goals if 'ya ask me.

[ezzy333]

years nago they did some research on this and it was pretty well proven that 70 % positive and 30% negative seemed to work the best and fastest. Seemed to be best for our kids also but times change and people always think they can find a better way. Don't see any evidence that the old method isn't still the best.

Ezzy

[polmaise]

does she really want a gundog, or is this just a fun thing to do with her dog?

It is a growing trend becoming popular as an activity with many who have a gundog breed who have not or never will go shooting or Gun dog activity in the field.

Bill mentioned that this owner already had success with the dog in Agility and Obedience but this success does not translate 'outside' when the dog is competing (honouring) other dogs . The trainer doesn't have the necessary tools in his tool bag for this handler,and the difficulty is the communication between trainer and handler.

This successful dog and handler in Agility/Obedience Ring perhaps requires the dog to show the handler the real level of what it has achieved?.I would suggest a lovely walk off lead in a rabbit pen and a send away from one end to the other

[birddogger]

Positive only does not work for dogs or children, which I see evidence of on a regular basis. Times do change, but principles do not.

Charlie

[Doc E]

years nago they did some research on this

Ezzy

The famous "they".

.

[Trekmoor]

Thanks for all the replies folks. They pretty much confirm what I already thought .You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs ! Luckily it isn't up to me to deal with this dog's owner. I tend to be not too "diplomatic" at times . I just don't like seeing the dog's potential going to waste but I don't think it would ever be seriously worked anyway.

Loved the idea of that bitch in a rabbit pen Robert ! I think you'd need a "Catch 'em alive" bear trap in order to get hold of the bitch again !

M.G...... the class trainer suggested that to obtain a better delivery from one of the other dogs in the class the dog's owner should teach the dog a "hold" command. The dogs owner said he was not going to F.F. his dog no matter who told him to ! Both I and the trainer tried to persuade him that training a hold could be done gently and was certainly not a full F.F. style trained retrieve. Our words fell on deaf ears . That's the trouble with having a class with too many pet dog oriented owners in it.

I took a small training class of H.P.R.'s last Sunday, I had a very easy day of it because everyone in the class really wanted a working dog . Two of the dogs were inclined to drop the dummies at the handlers feet. I demo'd how to obtain a "hold" and the owners and the dogs responded very well. It was down to the difference between a class of folk trying hard to have gundogs and a class of folk half of whom only want a nice day out in the countryside with "Rover."

Bill T.

[Winchey]

You can teach hold and delivery with shaping techniques and PR. If she has competed in agility at a high level succesfully she need only go over the steps of FF and replace the NR with the shaping techniques she employed in agility.

[crackerd]

..... the class trainer suggested that to obtain a better delivery from one of the other dogs in the class the dog's owner should teach the dog a "hold" command. The dogs owner said he was not going to F.F. his dog no matter who told him to ! Both I and the trainer tried to persuade him that training a hold could be done gently and was certainly not a full F.F. style trained retrieve.

Bill, I was alluding to the "Possessiveness" thread, not the positive-only malarkey. Believe you were decrying a "possessive cocker," and the dog's turning away from you with the retrieve so as not to relinquish it by avoiding delivery.

If the dog were trained to come to heel at your side with the retrieve, as our competitive retrievers are, you could simply loop your far arm over the dog's head and take the bird or bunny off the dog from a direction that the dog isn't expecting. Meaning if the dog sits at your left side, and turns to its left in order to retain the retrieve and avoid giving it to you, by turning to its left, the dog puts the bird cleanly into your left hand. Aha! Pretty soon the dog will realize that you're going to get the bird or bunny one way or another with it sitting there, and will provide a clean delivery from your side. Simple really, but again a by-product of a sequential training program including force fetch.

MG

[Trekmoor]

Thanks for the explanation M.G. . The cocker I referred to was my own dog "Charlie." For him the head ducking and diving with a dummy in his mouth has become a great game .....my fault I agree. When I ran him in tests I trained him out of doing this for a couple of weeks prior to the tests but after the tests I relaxed my training and he went back to his old ways of dodging the hand I put out to take the dummy. He never drops dummies or birds so it isn't a huge problem and his "Give" command is perfect. When I get my hand firmly onto a dummy or a bird and say "Give" he at once gives it to me.

It is a form of "possessiveness" but I have learned to live with it ....he is seven years old now and still mad keen to work and as mad as a hatter in other ways too ! Charlie has always managed to make me laugh. :roll:

Bill T.

[polmaise]

The classes trainer is stumped as to what to do to turn this bitch into a gundog as her owner point blank refuses to correct the dog in any way.
Bill T.

Positive Only or Purely Positive is often misunderstood by trainers handlers and public . Just for a little clarification have a look at the statement from APDT on Dog friendly and especially the parts about 'the tools trainers use in their programmes' and the parts about the 'levels' in their vision/mission statement http://www.apdt.com/about/ps/dog_friendly.aspx
It may well be that this handler has been 'led' without a leash into the abyss of myth often and disturbingly growing trend of training classes and groups of so called trainers teaching the fluffies what they want to hear

[RickB]

1) some of the comments made lead me to come to the conclusion that there is come confusion as to what "positive only" means. This comes from those who advocate positive only. What these people are trying to say (I believe) is that they do not use any aversive techniques in their training. An aversive is anything painful or unpleasant that the dog chooses to avoid. Shock collars, prong collars, ear pinches, toe hitches, etc.

2) There are 4 quadrants of training. Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment, and Negative Punishment. Aversive techniques fall in negative reinforcement and positive punishment. That leaves Positive reinforcement and negative punishment. Notice that punishment is in the name. These folks do not avoid punishment...they avoid aversive techniques.

3) Positive reinforcement goes way beyond "click and treat". I use a lot of positive reinforcement, but very little "click and treat". It is a matter of definition. Example: I've got a pointing breed. When he was young, I would not shoot a bird unless he handled (i.e. pointed) the bird correctly. This is an example of positive reinforcement. Positive means adding to the situation. Reinforcement means increasing the likelihood of a behavior. A shot bird was added and the likelihood of pointing increased. When the dog did not handle the bird correctly, there was negative punishment...the bird was removed from the scene and the behavior of busting birds became less likely as a result.

4) There are those who are training retrievers, for hunting situations, without the use of aversive techniques. http://www.fetchmasters.com.

RickB

[EvanG]

"Positive - only" is a myth. It's just English. There are no hidden words. No pressure means no pressure, and it's a myth. The absence of certain type of pressure? Okay. The lack of any pressure, mental or physical? Not so much.

EvanG

[crackerd]

4) There are those who are training retrievers, for hunting situations, without the use of aversive techniques.

Yeah, like the whole of the British Isles.

You'll notice I didn't include your link to "Fetchmasters" because beyond their shilling (and the considerable shillings they charge), they've got nothing new to say or quantifiable results to proclaim insofar as what their training accomplishes. Trust me, we've heard it all before about "positive" retriever training, and to put it in British terms (without using aversive language), it's all codswallop.

MG

[polmaise]

Yeah, like the whole of the British Isles.
it's all codswallop. MG

Sobering thought could be different come 1st September ..I would hope not .
The internet scene in gundogs or field trials in the British Isles is far removed from what and how it is accomplished on the ground
I concur, ..with codswallop

[DonF]

I was talking with a horse person years ago and we were talking about dressage horse's. According to this person, dressage horse's finish mush later in life than say reining horse's, cutting horses ect. Reason it they train them with the attitude that the horse never makes a mistake, only the rider does. Takes a lot longer to train the horse but it's the end result that count's. The dressage horse and the dog have one glaring thing, they are both animals that don't speak english. Now if they can do that with a dressage horse and get the finished horse, why not the dog?

The dogs previous training is however insufficient to keep it steady or to have it stop to whistle when training her as a gundog. The classes trainer is stumped as to what to do to turn this bitch into a gundog as her owner point blank refuses to correct the dog in any way. The dog was C.T. trained but , rather surprisingly to me, this has proved insufficient to overcome the bitch's retrieve drive when dummies are thrown in situations other than obedience halls or on short grass parklands of the type obedience competitions are held on.

I don't know nearly enough about clicker training to be able to help but I am 90% sure I could very quickly sort out the training problems using more "old fashioned" methods ! This bitch makes my mouth water, she is so keen and so good at finding dummies wherever they are thrown . I'd have loved to have owned her.
How do you persuade a would be gundog trainer that "positive only" training is not necessarily the best way to train all gundogs ?

Bill T.

I don't know what CT training is. But, the reason the trainer know's the dog won't stop to the whistle is because the trainer hasn't insisted on it. If the dog won't plant itself next to you, it won't do it at ten feet. if it won't do it at ten feet, it won't do it at twenty feet and so on. I suspect that the dog was taught to do it next to the handler but where did it go from there? Twenty feet? Did they skip right over ten feet? When we train pigeons to home, we don't take them out fifty miles and just turn them loose, we start a whole lot closer and then start moving out. At some point rather than moving out a few miles more we double or triple the distance out. Now the birds that don't get taken by hawk's ect. learn to come home. Same idea works with teaching the bird to re enter the loft through the bobs. what we don't do with the pigeon is put pressure on it. What we do is move it out slowly to a point where the bird knows how to do this and then the range starts doubling. Pigeons and dogs have something in common. First neither speak or understand english. And next, both want to do things that give them pleasure. Neither could care less how much pleasure they bring you. Bringing you pleasure is simply a by product of what they do. We know a dog will respond to pressure, shoot we've all seen that. At least we think we've all seen that. But is the dog responding to the pressure or has it finely discovered doing something a certain way brings it pleasure?

I think your positive trainer simply needs to find the way to show the dog how to get what it want's. If the dog is never allowed to retrieve until it is under control and especially one that has so much retrieve drive, it will stop for no other reason than to get the retrieve. I think we are all guilty of one thing in particular. We ask to much to soon. we have the idea that this, that or the other, we'll get back to later and fix it. so you teach a dog it can do this, that or the other then down the road change the rules and then you need some pressure to teach the dog you don't want it to do today something you accepted yesterday. Dogs don't do things to make the owner happy, they do things to make themselves happy. Show the dog how to make itself happy and it will do it. Do it enough times and it becomes habit.

[birddogger]

RickB, You and polmaise are correct about the true definition of "positive" and I am well aware of it. But I just wanted to say that my posts on this thread are using the term "positive training" as it is meant in the context of Bill T's OP. I also agree with Evan, that with any method of training, there is some pressure (mental or physical) being used, whether the trainer realizes it or not. But again, my posts refer to it in the context of this thread. Just wanted to clarify this.

Charlie

[polmaise]

I was talking with a horse person years ago and we were talking about dressage horse's. According to this person, dressage horse's finish mush later in life than say reining horse's, cutting horses ect. Reason it they train them with the attitude that the horse never makes a mistake, only the rider does. Takes a lot longer to train the horse but it's the end result that count's. The dressage horse and the dog have one glaring thing, they are both animals that don't speak english. Now if they can do that with a dressage horse and get the finished horse, why not the dog?

The dogs previous training is however insufficient to keep it steady or to have it stop to whistle when training her as a gundog. The classes trainer is stumped as to what to do to turn this bitch into a gundog as her owner point blank refuses to correct the dog in any way. The dog was C.T. trained but , rather surprisingly to me, this has proved insufficient to overcome the bitch's retrieve drive when dummies are thrown in situations other than obedience halls or on short grass parklands of the type obedience competitions are held on.

I don't know nearly enough about clicker training to be able to help but I am 90% sure I could very quickly sort out the training problems using more "old fashioned" methods ! This bitch makes my mouth water, she is so keen and so good at finding dummies wherever they are thrown . I'd have loved to have owned her.
How do you persuade a would be gundog trainer that "positive only" training is not necessarily the best way to train all gundogs ?

Bill T.

I don't know what CT training is. But, the reason the trainer know's the dog won't stop to the whistle is because the trainer hasn't insisted on it. If the dog won't plant itself next to you, it won't do it at ten feet. if it won't do it at ten feet, it won't do it at twenty feet and so on. I suspect that the dog was taught to do it next to the handler but where did it go from there? Twenty feet? Did they skip right over ten feet? When we train pigeons to home, we don't take them out fifty miles and just turn them loose, we start a whole lot closer and then start moving out. At some point rather than moving out a few miles more we double or triple the distance out. Now the birds that don't get taken by hawk's ect. learn to come home. Same idea works with teaching the bird to re enter the loft through the bobs. what we don't do with the pigeon is put pressure on it. What we do is move it out slowly to a point where the bird knows how to do this and then the range starts doubling. Pigeons and dogs have something in common. First neither speak or understand english. And next, both want to do things that give them pleasure. Neither could care less how much pleasure they bring you. Bringing you pleasure is simply a by product of what they do. We know a dog will respond to pressure, shoot we've all seen that. At least we think we've all seen that. But is the dog responding to the pressure or has it finely discovered doing something a certain way brings it pleasure?

I think your positive trainer simply needs to find the way to show the dog how to get what it want's. If the dog is never allowed to retrieve until it is under control and especially one that has so much retrieve drive, it will stop for no other reason than to get the retrieve. I think we are all guilty of one thing in particular. We ask to much to soon. we have the idea that this, that or the other, we'll get back to later and fix it. so you teach a dog it can do this, that or the other then down the road change the rules and then you need some pressure to teach the dog you don't want it to do today something you accepted yesterday. Dogs don't do things to make the owner happy, they do things to make themselves happy. Show the dog how to make itself happy and it will do it. Do it enough times and it becomes habit.

Great stuff! especially the horses . CT =Clicker Training ..
Now here is a positive thought?...The dog in question /and handler has an issue with a high drive retriever who loves to retrieve but 'runs in' , ie breaks before the command is given , so we have a 'steadiness' issue ,and in the company of others we have an 'honour' issue,with the handler not wishing to 'reprimand' the dog for doing something wrong ! and a situation of not setting the dog up to 'fail'?......How about No words said and a helper drops a dummy/bumper some 20 feet away while the dog is at heel next to the handler and says nothing>? ..if the dog breaks the helper picks the bumper and the handler says nothing! ..dog gets no reward of retrieve. Start again, until dog figures out that the only way it gets that bumper is it '''waits'' , handler commands dog and helper allows the dog to collect the bumper?...No words , other than the command /trigger . EVEN the dumbest dog in the world would figure that out .....surely?...The handler is not correcting the dog , the dog is correcting itself !...Then you after repetitions and conditioning you can FF the dog

[DonF]

If the dog is at heel on a cc it can't break. I'm going through that with my Stormy right now. Little turd loves to play fetch. Doesn't come right back and doesn't like to wait to be sent. He's on a 20' cc and he doesn't get to go fetch until he quiet's down and is still. He has no choice and all I do is hold the cc. Once he's quiet and standing still, I send him. Her get's to go every time but not until he's quiet and still. His buck at this point is never thrown beyond the reach of the cc and he'd really like to go off and play with his prize. He doesn't though as he has no choice on where he can go, I reel him in and then tell him he's a good boy. I never have to fight him for the buck, when I tell him "leave it" he gives it right up. Everything I'm doing with him is to get him to get what he wants and make him successful in some fashion. I have a reason to praise him every time back because he has no other choice. Stormy is only 8mos now and a lot of puppy in him. Let the puppy be a puppy and let the high drive dog be a high drive dog. Just make sure they don't fail. Now this high drive dog may take longer than they might like but, it is them that let him get away with it inn the first place. All those one's he did wrong and got away with have to be overcome. Imagine had the dog never learned those things in the first place!

[polmaise]

If the dog is at heel on a cc it can't break.

Direct and in-direct pressure ?...the situation described by the OP requires no cc.

[Trekmoor]

There are 4 quadrants of training. Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment, and Negative Punishment. Aversive techniques fall in negative reinforcement and positive punishment. That leaves Positive reinforcement and negative punishment. Notice that punishment is in the name. These folks do not avoid punishment...they avoid aversive techniques.

RickB

I have to admit that an awful lot of modern dog training phraseology goes right over the top of my head. I get a sore head trying to remember it all and understand it. I call a correction a correction and praise in whatever form it takes , praise. If the bitch were mines I'd begin again with it on a lead and "bleep" well make the dog do what I wanted it to do and not what it wanted to do. I'd praise for the least sign of compliance from the dog and as I said at the very start of this thread, I don't think it would take long for the dog to stop running in. I'd very probably also "threaten" the dog with my own body language once I took the lead off by standing to one side of the dog in a narrow space then tossing the dummy to the side away from the dog.
There are all sorts of ways to sort the dog out ....sorting out the dogs owner is the real problem.

I cannot remember who said it on this thread but I agree that the stop to whistle should be taught in small distance increments and I also agree that this lab has been allowed out too far for the stage it is at. I haven't asked the dog's owner about this yet but I have a feeling that she has been trying to get the dog to stop during retrieves . There is no chance of that dog stopping if it thinks a dummy is somewhere around ! The stop needs to be completely separated from retrieves for a while in order to gain the dog's attention. If the dog will not sit/stop when at heel when a dummy is thrown there is no chance at all of it stopping at even a few yards distance.

I wasn't at the last class training session so I didn't see for myself but I'm told the dog's owner still will not correct the dog . She must have noticed by now that some of the other dogs in the class who came to the very first class knowing nothing are now leaving her dog behind when it comes to steadiness and to stop to whistle. I'd still love to have that bitch and no doubt her owner is a very nice person ....but I am glad she is not my pupil..... I'd probably lose my temper ! :roll:

Bill T.

[mountaindogs]

Some gun dogs can be trained without aversive techniques. I use as few as possible, but here and stop are musts and most of my dogs get some form of immediate correction if they refuse.
But with six tons of patience and the right dog, impulse control, and delaying gratification can be accomplished. If restraint is not considered aversive to this trainer then the dog needs to learn that it can only go and only play when behaving, restrain thru all ALL activities until the dog is crazy reliable. Restraint is actually a correction in its own way, especially with super motivated dogs that take off flying and hit the end of the leash. But ignoring commands is so self rewarding and so much better to the dog than what we can reward with that the ideology needs to be switched in the dogs head. The dog needs to believe that the fun and games only happen when the rules are followed, and breaking the rules ends the game. The rules need to start easy and increase in difficulty slowly, as temptation increases. The reward will be the game itself. No food will be enough for most hunting dogs, although I can use treats to correct small things at times when the dog is very close and most of the action is over. Some dogs, but for most the reward is getting to play again. Google "positive training impulse control" for some ideas. Message me privately and I'll give you my contact info if they wish to email for more ideas relating to specific problems. Also check out Lorie Jolly at Rosehill retrievers. She trains motivationally and knows her stuff!

Some dogs just will never be reliable enough with positive methods. There is a service dog trainer who was working with positive methods only and the dog was not able to resist chasing birds reliably, and had to quit the program. Super smart dog and I always wondered if they had just done some trash breaking work, if that dog would have had a successful career. Never will know.

[polmaise]

I have to admit that an awful lot of modern dog training phraseology goes right over the top of my head.

sorting out the dogs owner is the real problem.

I'd still love to have that bitch and no doubt her owner is a very nice person ....but I am glad she is not my pupil..... I'd probably lose my temper ! :roll:

Bill T.

Rather than getting hot under the collar' which does no-one any good .Perhaps this really nice positive only handler would be best advised to read this?.(It's a bit long,but a very good piece of writing)
http://www.planethund.com/eng/modern-do ... -2005.html

[Trekmoor]

Thanks for posting that link Robert. I thought the article was very good. What I will have to beware of now is of thinking it was good because it happens to agree with my own point of view !

Bill T.

[chrokeva]

To me any type of pressure is a correction. I have had dogs that if I took 1/2 step towards the dog the dog felt the pressure and I considered that a correction. I had one dog that was so soft that I constantly had to take pressure off her or she felt she was being corrected (a very difficult dog to train but she had a ton of talent). I am curious if most people agree that pressure and a correction are one and the same?

[EvanG]

To me any type of pressure is a correction. I have had dogs that if I took 1/2 step towards the dog the dog felt the pressure and I considered that a correction. I had one dog that was so soft that I constantly had to take pressure off her or she felt she was being corrected (a very difficult dog to train but she had a ton of talent). I am curious if most people agree that pressure and a correction are one and the same?

No, I don't. Certainly pressure can be corrective. But in modern methods it is also compulsive depending on application, i.e. Force to Pile and/or Water Force for example.

EvanG

[Nutmeg247]

Rather than getting hot under the collar' which does no-one any good .Perhaps this really nice positive only handler would be best advised to read this?.(It's a bit long,but a very good piece of writing)
http://www.planethund.com/eng/modern-do ... -2005.html

The article starts with a pretty bad distortion of how R+ training would deal with things like resource guarding. Imagine if an article described the same scene and said that the kid Kevin who had his bucket taken was then shocked so badly he urinated and screamed, and then ever since has hated Jackie and trembles at the sight of a sandbox? That second type of gross distortion of the use of e-collars also is used, so the first type of distortion should also be noted. There may be stupid people out there who misuse both types of training, of course, but that shouldn't define either type.

Very interesting thread here overall. Particularly the discussion of pressure.

[Nutmeg247]

To me any type of pressure is a correction. I have had dogs that if I took 1/2 step towards the dog the dog felt the pressure and I considered that a correction. I had one dog that was so soft that I constantly had to take pressure off her or she felt she was being corrected (a very difficult dog to train but she had a ton of talent). I am curious if most people agree that pressure and a correction are one and the same?

No, I don't. Certainly pressure can be corrective. But in modern methods it is also compulsive depending on application, i.e. Force to Pile and/or Water Force for example.

EvanG

I think I understand this, but have had trouble with it because in terms of the OC quadrants it doesn't pigeonhole neatly. To take an extreme example, assume a dog that is trained on a very strict R+ regime, so no outward "force" at all, but the dog is crated for several hours before training and only gets unstructured play time after a good training session, and also the dog's entire caloric intake is only given for performance in training. I.e., work to eat.

So, water force in that case would be raising training criteria to the point where the dog has to have a good water entry to get rewarded and therefore food in its hungry belly? That's an extreme example, and I don't know of any gun dogs trained on that strict a regime, but I do agree that work to eat can be a lot of pressure if I am understanding this right.

[RickB]

I have to admit that an awful lot of modern dog training phraseology goes right over the top of my head. I get a sore head trying to remember it all and understand it.
Bill T.

Most of the training theory is just a categorization of stuff that animal trainers have known for centuries.

Force Fetch? Negative reinforcement (R-). Shooting a bird for a dog? Positive reinforcement. Picking up a dog that is playing the fool in the field? Negative punishment. Zapping a dog with a shock collar when he doesn't come when called? Positive punishment.

Some of it gets hard to categorize...Think of the whole click and treat deal. what happens when the dog doesn't comply correctly? He doesn't get a treat. He is now being punished for not complying. Think of that this way: if you screw up at work and they dock your pay...isn't that a punishment? All that to say that this stuff is hard to categorize.

I got no problem using any of this stuff. I do use all of this stuff. I'll shock my dog for non compliance. I used negative reinforcement to train my dog to come. But, for me, aversives are the last resort. A real and valid option, but still the last thing I will turn to.

RickB

[RickB]

I think I understand this, but have had trouble with it because in terms of the OC quadrants it doesn't pigeonhole neatly. To take an extreme example, assume a dog that is trained on a very strict R+ regime, so no outward "force" at all, but the dog is crated for several hours before training and only gets unstructured play time after a good training session, and also the dog's entire caloric intake is only given for performance in training. I.e., work to eat.

So, water force in that case would be raising training criteria to the point where the dog has to have a good water entry to get rewarded and therefore food in its hungry belly? That's an extreme example, and I don't know of any gun dogs trained on that strict a regime, but I do agree that work to eat can be a lot of pressure if I am understanding this right.

All force fetch is negative reinforcement (N-). The pain is turned off when the dog complies. The dog is stimulated before sent to pile and it is turned off as the dog is going.

Correction, as frequently used here, is positive punishment (P+). Discomfort is added afterwards to make noncompliance less likely in the future.

Categorization of these things is hard. During force fetch, we apply stim before and turn it off when the dog complies. N-. The "reward" for compliance is the cessation of pain. But, at the same time, there is a punishment or correction of non compliance. So, is it N- or is it P+? Well, both, really.

[h&t]

Bill, this issue has been debated ad infinitum.
We (and dogs) leave in a world filled with positives and negatives, both shape our (and dogs) behaviour.
One cannot train a dog w/o 'aversives' however mild they are (and matched to the dog).

Another point is a dog needs to learn about the balance of 'good and bad' early on, otherwise the dog might collapse under pressure if 'negatives' applied later in life. JMO

[kninebirddog]

If a dog is bred to hunt that is Awesome stuff when the drive for the bird is worth far more then a biscuit

[Nutmeg247]

I think I understand this, but have had trouble with it because in terms of the OC quadrants it doesn't pigeonhole neatly. To take an extreme example, assume a dog that is trained on a very strict R+ regime, so no outward "force" at all, but the dog is crated for several hours before training and only gets unstructured play time after a good training session, and also the dog's entire caloric intake is only given for performance in training. I.e., work to eat.

So, water force in that case would be raising training criteria to the point where the dog has to have a good water entry to get rewarded and therefore food in its hungry belly? That's an extreme example, and I don't know of any gun dogs trained on that strict a regime, but I do agree that work to eat can be a lot of pressure if I am understanding this right.

All force fetch is negative reinforcement (N-). The pain is turned off when the dog complies. The dog is stimulated before sent to pile and it is turned off as the dog is going.

Correction, as frequently used here, is positive punishment (P+). Discomfort is added afterwards to make noncompliance less likely in the future.

Categorization of these things is hard. During force fetch, we apply stim before and turn it off when the dog complies. N-. The "reward" for compliance is the cessation of pain. But, at the same time, there is a punishment or correction of non compliance. So, is it N- or is it P+? Well, both, really.

Understood the way force fetch is normally done. I don't know that there's a formal term for the process of training a reliable retrieve with negative punishment and positive reinforcement, though I know some trainers use a generic "trained retrieve" to denote the difference between this chain of behaviors and a dog that just retrieves when it feels like it. I also understand that the record of R+ trainers at retriever games is rather limited and that most R+ trainers will concede that their approach is more difficult in this area.

As regards pressure, I my take (which could be wrong) is that pressure is a positive way of articulating stress. If you limit yourself to positive reinforcement and negative punishment, but the dog's reality is that failure to perform means that it doesn't get the bird or bumper, doesn't get to eat, and may get crated, that's both stressful and motivation at the same time. Whether it is any kinder to the dog than a setup where performance by the dog avoids a mild buzzing and likewise gets the dog a bumper or bird is not clear to me.

[chrokeva]

This whole topic is very interesting. For the most part I consider pressure as something that I create with my body or my voice but from reading this topic it is clear that there are many other ways to apply pressure to a dog. I personally have found it very difficult to train dogs that are pressure sensitive (i.e. soft) as I have found myself putting pressure on these dogs without even realizing it. Some people would not consider 1 step towards a dog when the dog is 100 yards away from you as a correction as really it is just pressure but the very soft dog seems to take it as a correction (the same can be said with a soft verbal correction). I still do believe that a very soft dog with a desire to please its handler would have the best chance of being trained with the positive only training assuming you do not consider pressure as a correction.

[ezzy333]

Y

years nago they did some research on this

Ezzy

The famous "they".

.

Yep the one and only "they"

[polmaise]

For the most part I consider pressure as something that I create with my body or my voice but from reading this topic it is clear that there are many other ways to apply pressure to a dog. I personally have found it very difficult to train dogs that are pressure sensitive (i.e. soft) as I have found myself putting pressure on these dogs without even realizing it.

Curiously or not. I have found personally that ''soft'' dogs or dogs that are more sensitive to pressure (which ever way it is applied-understood by the dog) have been easier to train to a higher standard. I've also found that in the majority these 'sensitive'/'soft dogs' are harder Hunters ? Handlers/Trainers who don't have a balanced approach with these types ( I personally ) have found the Yard drills are where they move them on.Trainers/Handlers (In my experience) who progress with this type of dog past yard drills usually find their level shortly after. It's in no way a scientific result ,just the findings over the years and hundreds of dogs and handler types. (In the UK)

[Swampbilly]

Tell 'ya - I'm a poor man, but would pay real good money to know what Codswallow is

Polmaise (????)

[chrokeva]

For the most part I consider pressure as something that I create with my body or my voice but from reading this topic it is clear that there are many other ways to apply pressure to a dog. I personally have found it very difficult to train dogs that are pressure sensitive (i.e. soft) as I have found myself putting pressure on these dogs without even realizing it.

Curiously or not. I have found personally that ''soft'' dogs or dogs that are more sensitive to pressure (which ever way it is applied-understood by the dog) have been easier to train to a higher standard. I've also found that in the majority these 'sensitive'/'soft dogs' are harder Hunters ? Handlers/Trainers who don't have a balanced approach with these types ( I personally ) have found the Yard drills are where they move them on.Trainers/Handlers (In my experience) who progress with this type of dog past yard drills usually find their level shortly after. It's in no way a scientific result ,just the findings over the years and hundreds of dogs and handler types. (In the UK)

I found by my experience with a particularly soft border collie that she challenged my training and handling skills like no dog I owned before or have since her and I feel she made me a better trainer because I finally began to understand that vague thing called pressure. This dog was a trial herding dog and had a amazing amount of power and confidence on livestock. As soft as she was to the handler she was confident and powerful when working. I imagine that is the same as you saying the majority of sensitive/soft dogs are hard hunters?

[Neil]

Tell 'ya - I'm a poor man, but would pay real good money to know what Codswallow is

Polmaise (????)

If you think about the words that make it up, I think you can figure it out. Hint, a codpiece covers the groin area of a male, and I think you know what swallow means. It usually not used it polite company.

[polmaise]

Tell 'ya - I'm a poor man, but would pay real good money to know what Codswallow is

pm your zip code and I'll send an Invoice