UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

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Nutmeg247
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UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Nutmeg247 » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:02 pm

http://www.thegundogclub.co.uk/ My sense is that this is a reasonably small charitable trust and training scheme, similar to hunt tests here perhaps, so may not be a big deal. They seem to be moving to requiring "force free" training. Just wondering if anyone on here from the U.K. had dealt with the organization or thought that this move would have meaningful impacts.

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Meller » Wed Mar 21, 2018 9:41 pm

This might work right in with what Brad Higgins is doing, by letting the dog teach its self to make the right decisions. (Hope I am not misconstruing what your doing Brad)
Tell me if I've got it wrong!
Last edited by Meller on Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Trekmoor » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:40 am

Might not be as good a thing as some might think. The " Head Honcho's" of that club are also the people in top positions on the "Positive Only" forum I joined about 3 years back. I only lasted about a month on that forum and then had to leave it before I got kicked off it. I was not permitted to even talk about any method of training that involved any use of corrections at all . They even insisted I must call a correction a "punishment." ------ I know that what I call a correction is far from being a punishment but I was not allowed to explain this on the forum. They even did not like the use of words like "No" and "Leave" when training a dog.

I had several arguments with those people and received a few bits of hate mail from the most rabid of them.
I.M.O. they are doing a big dis- service to beginners who cannot get a balanced viewpoint from people wearing blinkers.

I happen to know that few of those P.O. Forum members could train a dog to find it's dinner in a dish ! Some of them win in tests but in trials where real, live game is being hunted for they do not do well at all.

I am also aware that one of their trainers a few years back was a man who carried a section of hose in his jacket pocket when competing in trials and then had the cheek to advertise himself as being a "Positive" trainer !

Bit of a rant there but that lot get right up my nose ! :roll:

Bill T.
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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by polmaise » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:08 am

Trekmoor wrote: Bit of a rant there but that lot get right up my nose ! :roll:

Bill T.
I'm running for office , so I'll just say they are very nice people :lol: :lol:

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Trekmoor » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:49 am

:lol: :lol: :lol: Remember never to say "No" or "Leave" and definitely no two finger prods as wee reminders ! :lol:

When I joined that forum it was with the idea of broadening my range of training skills/knowledge . That particular forum is doing the opposite. I felt really sorry for the newbies that joined it in order to sort out a training problem . They were presented only with ideas of how to cure the problem using P.O. methods. Those ideas were not always the best options.

No other options were permissible ..... I left the forum just before I got booted off ! :lol:
Right, I'm away to take the dogs out now.....Where's me electric collars, check cords, heeling stick and fings ? :lol:

I like the idea of Positive Only training in theory but in practice it just does not work .....not when you add game to the mix anyway.

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by crackerd » Thu Mar 22, 2018 11:12 am

Robt., Bill - is this still Pippa M.'s piece of the gundog pie? Crikey, advocating "force free" - and with a Chessie :mrgreen:

Nice lady. But...Lord (Lucan) help me, cloud cuckoo land has just opened up another pressurized compartment and this 'un pipes in laughing gas!

MG

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by polmaise » Thu Mar 22, 2018 12:00 pm

I think it's allegedly some Lobo with a Law unto themselves with a Wire that hooks them to the Unknowing public.
Apparently the Business is good.

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Steve007 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 12:11 pm

Image

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by ezzy333 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 12:49 pm

I know little about society on the other side of the pond beyond what I hear and see and that seems to be less than a stellar influence of many of the givens I have experienced over maybe too many years. From my first time with pets and children, it was pretty well accepted that if there is a standard that works as a basis for quick and efficient training fell into the area of 70% percent positive and 30% negative. For the 100 % positive group, how do you teach "HOT"? I am yet waiting to see comprehension of these negative terms with out the experience of feeling it which certainly a negative experience. And we may just chalk that one to immaturity in our children but then how do we account for myself and the rest of you senile people to having to touch the bench with the sign 'WET PAINT" before you are properly trained? And is it really training for our pet to find that complying is more enjoyable than ignoring when we ask for something to be done? In my mind this all fits into the modern category of governing by feelings rather than being responsible for all that are involved. The dog does what it feels like doing while the trainer tries to teach by what the trainer feels like doing and calling it his method while neither side of the equation alloweing responsibility tp play a part in the act we call "TRAINING".

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Sharon » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:49 pm

Trekmoor wrote:Might not be as good a thing as some might think. The " Head Honcho's" of that club are also the people in top positions on the "Positive Only" forum I joined about 3 years back. I only lasted about a month on that forum and then had to leave it before I got kicked off it. I was not permitted to even talk about any method of training that involved any use of corrections at all . They even insisted I must call a correction a "punishment." ------ I know that what I call a correction is far from being a punishment but I was not allowed to explain this on the forum. They even did not like the use of words like "No" and "Leave" when training a dog.

I had several arguments with those people and received a few bits of hate mail from the most rabid of them.
I.M.O. they are doing a big dis- service to beginners who cannot get a balanced viewpoint from people wearing blinkers.

I happen to know that few of those P.O. Forum members could train a dog to find it's dinner in a dish ! Some of them win in tests but in trials where real, live game is being hunted for they do not do well at all.

I am also aware that one of their trainers a few years back was a man who carried a section of hose in his jacket pocket when competing in trials and then had the cheek to advertise himself as being a "Positive" trainer !

Bit of a rant there but that lot get right up my nose ! :roll:

Bill T.

Hilarious and I hear you. But I also believe there is a place for SOME positive training , especially with young dogs initially.
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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Trekmoor » Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:54 pm

MG ---- Pippa is far from being the most rabid on the P.O. forum ! She is , I think, a pretty good trainer and some of her methods have helped beginners. Some years back she asked me about becoming one of her "area trainers" but I had no land suitable for taking a local club out on and I certainly had no intention of being positive only in my teachings.

I think it is a balance of correction and praise that makes for good gundogs . I like the balance to lean heavily towards the praise/reward side of things but correction is still needed at times.

There are one or two people down in England who have won in trials who claim to be positive only trainers . Personally, I think working only in that way might be possible with a very easy to control sort of dog . Give a P.O. trainer a really hard going "flying machine" though and to judge from what I have seen , either one of two things will happen.

Either the dog goes out of control or it gets the stuffing trained out of it and becomes a bit of a plodder. I train in a more "instinctive" way than the P.O. folk ...... I ain't got the time or the inclination to read the appropriate chapter in some "How to train Positive Only" book when a dog I'm training goes off the rails.

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by Higgins » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:36 pm

I don't believe "positive only" is the way to go. Nature is not "positive only". I also think that in most cases, there are better ways to get things done that "force". I make it simple. I believe punishment should be no more than the lack of success. That's the nature of things and it's how dogs (predators) learn. So, if a young dog gets pushy on a bird and flushes it, the bird punished the dog. It's not my place to "whoa" and punish him. The bird teaches him to be steady and patient in order to increase his odds of success (the bird in his mouth).

Higgins

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by polmaise » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:43 pm

Some could write a book on here. :roll:

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by gundogguy » Fri Mar 23, 2018 4:38 am

Correction and laziness go well to together. I find that the only time I'm using a correction is when a dog gets lazy about a known behavior and try's to short cut the process by being lazy about his work.
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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by crackerd » Fri Mar 23, 2018 6:34 am

polmaise wrote:Some could write a book on here. :roll:
Robt., Haitch is for Higgins when it comes to the "trust" and crime genres https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes ... -obit.html, but I know an agent who might pair up our Haitch-man with the spirit of my old Bostonian buddy to turn out a "potboiling" mashup about gundog corrections. No "capital Haitch punishment," of course...

MG

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by KCKLH » Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:38 am

In my opinion there simply is no such thing as a “best” training method. Each dog is an individual and needs its own unique combination of positive and negative feedback. Softer dogs need more positivity and stubborn dogs often need more correction. That said the positive only sect seem to be made up by the type of owners that view their dogs as surrogate children rather than well...dogs. And dont get me wrong thats probably better than the opposite end of the spectrum. Ive seen a guy that would whip his dog every time it didnt immediately run back to check in when called and he couldnt seem to grasp why it didnt want to come back in the first place. But the opposite end of that is frankly a stubborn animal that wont respond to its owner and that can be dangerous. Im honestly not surprised that the people that follow this philosophy are being described as rabid. Mental midgets tend to migrate towards the more extreme ends of any philosophical spectrum.

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Re: UK "Gundog Trust" to go to "Force Free"

Post by polmaise » Sun Mar 25, 2018 11:52 am

Any one with marketing skills can dress up anything and make it either look good or sound good. When you add in emotion and care or welfare ..it appeals to those types (of people) . When you throw in the mix of terminology of Force,or Drill, or correction ,it appeals to those types (of people) .
All the time , all people are communicating with different types of people , and the dogs ?, well they have to 'Fit in' .
On the whole they do a pretty darn good job ! ..In spite of all of us .

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