So-called 'positive trainer' held puppy on it's side

[sparrow1024]

Is this ever acceptable? We brought our 3 month old puppy to 'puppy playtime' and it was playing with a older puppy, having fun. Both were getting just a little rougher, but no growling, lunging or snapping. The trainer grabbed my pup, pulled her harness, my pup was trying to get away, so she nipped her lightly and the trainer first tried to get her to sit, and when she wouldn't she held her on her side! I immediately went to her defense and she told me she had to do it, because she was yipping and trying to get away. She claimed my pup would take out her anxiety on other pups. I said 'bullshit' and that I would rather remove her if she was upset than have her treated like that. She released her and there was no problems. Am I wrong to feel that way? This is where we were going to take her for obedience training, starting next week, because they were supposed to be just positive training based....

[emmabeth]

That is not positive training and I would be demanding a refund and not going back there!


Scruffing and pinning are not training methods, the only reason a positive trainer would use them would be to end an emergency situation if they were appropriate (and thats extremely rare!)

I conclude, this trainer is not really a positive force free trainer!

[gwd]

Is this ever acceptable? We brought our 3 month old puppy to 'puppy playtime' and it was playing with a older puppy, having fun. Both were getting just a little rougher, but no growling, lunging or snapping. The trainer grabbed my pup, pulled her harness, my pup was trying to get away, so she nipped her lightly and the trainer first tried to get her to sit, and when she wouldn't she held her on her side! I immediately went to her defense and she told me she had to do it, because she was yipping and trying to get away. She claimed my pup would take out her anxiety on other pups. I said 'bullshit' and that I would rather remove her if she was upset than have her treated like that. She released her and there was no problems. Am I wrong to feel that way? This is where we were going to take her for obedience training, starting next week, because they were supposed to be just positive training based....

good for you for questioning the methods. and good for you for being your puppies advocate and stopping the trainer. with two puppies that are ramping it up a bit, the appropriate thing to do would be to remove the one and let it calm down a bit.......basically interrupt the play.

as emmabeth says, I wouldn't go back if she considers holding a puppy down on their side as 'positive'.

[jacksdad]

GOOD FOR YOU for standing up for your dog.

NO, as emma already confirmed, this was not positive training.

[sparrow1024]

Thank you, Emmabeth, gwd, jacksdad! I really do appreciate the replies GWD and Emmabeth, Thank you also for replying and expanding your answer to my previous thread! My Husband thought I was really over-reacting to this so it is *wonderful* to hear I wasn't! I'm at a loss, because we DO need to teach her how to sit, come, and stay down when there are NO treats involved! She does great if she can smell/see the treat, otherwise no way Our computer's volume isn't working and we cant get it fixed anytime soon, so I'm stuck with the written word, or trying to find a different training class. I really want to do what is best for her, and have her be sociable... feel like a huge failure with my last furbaby (not for lack of interest or trying, really) and don't want to repeat my mistakes with her.

[DianeLDL]

I'm at a loss, because we DO need to teach her how to sit, come, and stay down when there are NO treats involved! She does great if she can smell/see the treat, otherwise no way Our computer's volume isn't working and we cant get it fixed anytime soon, so I'm stuck with the written word, or trying to find a different training class. I really want to do what is best for her, and have her be sociable... feel like a huge failure with my last furbaby (not for lack of interest or trying, really) and don't want to repeat my mistakes with her.

Sparrow,

First, I congratulate you in recognizing that putting a dog down as that trainer did, is wrong. We also had a trainer who said he was positive and as soon as he did that to our dog, we knew something was wrong. We lost our money, but saved our dog from increasing harm.

Now, I do not understand why you do not want to use treats. Treats given correctly are a part of positive training. You have a baby and using treats are good not bad. There are ways to use them that are good and helpful at this stage in your puppy's life. Starting out using treats is great. If you are worried about weight gain, the treats are tiny and counted as part of your puppy's diet. We have been using treats for training and have seem miraculous results. There are different types of treats including natural ones and high value treats like chicken or liver, etc.

There are many discussions on the forum on how to use treats favorably, and as Emmabeth, gwd, and Jacksdad can tell you, treats are an integral part of Positive training and even with clicker training.

It would be helpful to all of us to help you more if you could give us more information on what typical day is with your puppy. In other words, when do you go for walks, what and when do you feed, what type of treats have you used in the past.

Start out in the morning and go through a typical day. We love details. The more you can give us, the better. From there we can help you learn to train your puppy and what more to expect.

Diane

[jacksdad]

.. I'm at a loss, because we DO need to teach her how to sit, come, and stay down when there are NO treats involved! ...

just real quick because I am feeling like crap...well actually felling like crap would be an improvement. Others will chime in, and I will add more later.....

the reason you are having problems with treats is you are worrying about "step 100" (not needing food rewards every time you ask for something) while still at step 14.

you have to build up the behavior first, really make sure your dog know for example sit in the living room, then sit in the back yard, then sit at the park, then sit at the local beach etc, etc. all those are "different" "sits" to the dog.

I will be honest, you will NEVER get away from having to in some way reward your dog (would you continue to work if your boss never ever paid you? ), but there is NO reason you should need to reward your dog for every sit, down, stay etc for the rest of it's life. not only is that not practical, but actually eventually getting to the point your dog never knows what type of reward (petting, praise, food, a toy, a game, a change to sniff deer poop etc, etc) or when the rewards will come is actually FAR more powerful then always rewarding or never rewarding. but again, that is like "step 100". right now you need to build and make solid the fundamentals.

[Nettle]

Also at 3 months old you are trying to train a baby. FWIW it is better to train stuff like pottying outside, coming to call, being nice with the mouth and not biting, four feet on the floor when greeting, and so on, rather than expecting the kind of self-control that goes with down and stay. You would not ask a toddler to stay while you walked away.

It is NOT failure or lesser dogmanship to reward. As Jacksdad says (hope you feel better soon, Jacksdad) we all work better for reward. Phasing out treats comes a lot later in training, and it is always good to use them now and then even when your dog is tip-top standard. My dogs are 9, 10 and 5 and I still reward randomly to maintain our standards.

[emmabeth]

As the others say - sure, eventually you do need your dog to comply without there being a treat in your hand, or pocket, but this is University level compliance. You are at kindergarten level, where everything is fun and easy!

So you work like this - first there are bribes, we can phase those out pretty quickly once hte dog has the general idea that they can rely on you to have rewards available. So for each behaviour you teach, once you can lure that behaviour in a number of locations, lets say its 'sit' and you can lure your dog into a sit with a food treat in the hall, the car, the living room, the kitchen, the back yard and the front yard and the park, then in each of those locations you can begin to do the same luring motion (which will become your hand signal for the cue 'sit') without the food in your hand - now the food is in your pocket.

But - just because you moved the 'sit' behaviour from 'outright bribery' to 'Ill pay you when the car is clean', doesn't mean any OTHER behaviour is at this level yet, you ahve to teach and then proof all the behaviours you want!

So the next step on from luring or outright bribery is the food in your pocket and doggy gets a treat when he complies with a cue he already knows.

The next step after this is that doggy learns the food reward might happen after one behavioru, maybe two, maybe four, maybe three - you start to have him do a number of things before he gets his treat - but he knows there is a treat and you don't make it too hard, switch back and forth between 'treat for everything' and 'treat for a bunch of things'.

After this, you can make things more random, but pay attention and make sure your dog knows hes going to get paid for the really good stuff - so a superfast recall, a recall away from somethign awesome like playing with other dogs - thats going to earn a bunch of treats. A sit in the living room at home when theres nothing going on, thats probably only going to get him a 'good boy' (but occasionally it might get more, keep him guessing).

So - its realistic to thinkt hat at some point in the future you won't need to have a treat under your dogs nose for everything you ask him to do. Thats completely fine.

However it is not realistic to think that you will reach a stage where your dog is trained, you stop training, you stop rewarding him and he just carries on doing what you want. Thats as realistic as me suggesting that now you have been in your job five years, and you know your role inside out and back to front... your boss will quit paying you (hey cos you are good at this now!) and you'll carry on turning up there every day!

So no you won't always need food - but plan on generally having food (or if some other reward floats his boat, that instead) rewards available much of the time - they should be considered a part of your kit, the same as carrying poobags or yoru dog wearing his tag!

[Mayume]

Being a dog trainer for a company that is well known, and getting ready to start puppy playtimes, (which are free from us) a trainer does NOT PIN A DOG. If a trainer pins your dog, you go find a manger. If a dog is getting too rough a trainer may pick the dog up and see if the other pups are coming back for more, and if the pup continues the behavior, the trainer may bring the pup to the pet parent and have the pet parent keep hold of the pup. As a last measure, a trainer may 'reset the brain' and do a time-out (as it remove the puppy entirely from play for a minute or two) just to calm all the pups a little more.

For being a trainer, and a pet parent, I would have done the same as you, but taken quite a few more measures, as in insisting to talk to the general manager, and perhaps even district manager.