They are adopting out a dog who bit!!! Irresponsible rescue!

[Nettle]

It is easy to think because one type of dog does something, so will all the others.

There is a world of difference between lure chasing with a sighthound and with any other breed of dog. There is a chasm of difference between "drive" as stated in dog-talk, and as witnessed in a dog bred to do a job for centuries, which it is now doing.

I have a stud dog who has won many obedience championships - these are field obedience, not walking round an arena with head glued to owner's leg.

I can call him away from a ***** that is on heat and ready to stand.

I can call him away from his food when he is really hungry.

He will not look at any of the wide variety of animals he is not permitted to chase.

There is no way on God's earth he can be called off one of the animals he IS allowed to chase once he has launched, because THAT is "drive", to be precise "prey drive" true prey drive and there is no reward that can equal or come anywhere near the joy he has in doing his job, therefore no reward that can be withheld and cause him a moment's hesitation (oh dear if I chase this I won't get a piece of frankfurter).

Hunting dogs can only be proofed to animals they are NOT allowed to hunt (sheep, cats, other dogs) by the use of aversives. Usually a raised voice for one word is sufficient. Withold a reward and you might as well whistle Dixie.

Theories are great, but they should never be allowed to stand in the way of practical experience, observation and knowledge.

[DoggoneGA]

"The only reason one would choose to cause discomfort/pain when not necessary would be that one gets off on lording over their dogs. Having that power and control rather than a working partnership. "

So you are making the assumption I cause pain to my dogs without actually know me, or my dogs, or reading what I have stated SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY: that I have dogs right now that have never even been corrected by the mild correction of the word NO.

"Why anyone would willingly want to inflict pain or discomfort when the same ends can be met by more humane methods is definitely worthy or some study. WHy do something you don't have too?"

and yet again: you are assuming that I DO cause pain or discomfort, that my methods are not humane...despite my assetions that my teaching methods involve NO CORRECTIONS. And yes, I do use corrections once the dog has shown me he knows the commands he has been taught.

I do not accept your assessment of MY dogs and MY teaching and training methods, since you have never actually met me or my dogs. Especially within the context of a forum that belongs to a trainer who ALSO uses corrections. The corrections I use are no stronger and no worse than any that Victoria uses. Do you accuse her, also, of causing pain and discomfort?

[Missymay]

The word psyche itself refers to self awareness and I have yet to encounter a doggy Descartes barking out "I woof, therefore I am".

I will say that in the past, I did not recognize the harm I was doing to my relationships with my dogs by using P+. Had anyone said anything, I would have testified to what a wonderful relationship we had and how my dogs loved and respected me. I just had no clue what I was missing.

Punishment is not just about pain and even the mildest form of punishment is suceptable to the pitfqalls of punishment.

And while I do not lure course my dogs, it is uninformed to think that all aobedience and agility is performed at the handlers side. My dog know very well how to work away and are capable of doing much more at a distance than simply chasing a lure.

I don't train my dogs for lure coursing. I come from a state that only recently shut down greyhound racing and that is not something that interests me.

Cranz, I try to keep things clear by calling myself an R+ based trainer, and I agree that many traditional style trainers are in denial as to the effects of that type of training.

Mostly, I think it is because they don't know what kind of a relationship really is possible. The other night at a Rally Match, a friend of mine tried very hard to get my dog's attention. We were sitting, waiting our turn and he was quite focused on me. She called him many times and he did not even bat an eyelash, so intensely was he staring, ready and waiting to work.

That is waht I have managed to build in my dog. A dog who can't wait for my next cue, ready to go at the drop of a hat, single minded when given a task and loving the work beyond belief.

Personally, I hate trialing, but I do it because I have two dog who love it and love the work.

[ckranz]

Wasn't it Descartes that pinned dogs up on a barn and inflicted torutre to prove dogs don't feel pain?????

All I can say is read "On Talking Terms with Dog: Calming Signals" by Turid Rugaas. I would venture a good speculation there are things your dogs are telling you that you are missing.

You mentioned using a prong collar. You advocate a whatever works methodology and CM. These are not the types of things a +R trainer does or even looks at.

The best +R trainers are able to deal with the severest problems by breaking things down to the minutest problems and building up a new foundation and relationship.

[DoggoneGA]

"Mostly, I think it is because they don't know what kind of a relationship really is possible. The other night at a Rally Match, a friend of mine tried very hard to get my dog's attention. We were sitting, waiting our turn and he was quite focused on me. She called him many times and he did not even bat an eyelash, so intensely was he staring, ready and waiting to work."

And I would not at all desire that sort of relationship with MY dogs. Each trainer/teacher must use whatever techniques suit them, their dogs, and the end result they desire. I want my dogs to be aware of me, but not so focused on me that they will ignore everything around them. To me, that seems counter to the nature of a sighthound - even a Whippet - which is probably (almost certainly) the most people oriented of all the sighthounds.

[DoggoneGA]

"All I can say is read "On Talking Terms with Dog: Calming Signals" by Turid Rugaas. I would venture a good speculation there are things your dogs are telling you that you are missing."

Yes, I've read that book and found it very interesting. I don't know why she felt the need to come up with a new term, though, for actions that already have a name. What she is describing and illustrating are "appeasement gesture" - different name, same actions.

As with most books, I found a few things I disagreed with, but on the whole I did find it very informative.

[Nettle]

It is good that we can debate these matters in a healthy style

It is my take that dogs do not have the mindset to register a 'negative reward' ie to deduce that they might have had a worthwhile experience only they didn't do something fast enough/well enough/at all and so they didn't get whatever it was they would have got if they had (with me so far?) not knowing what it might have been except that it would have been better than the thing they chose to do and so didn't get it.

The floor is yours - agree, disagree, convince me develop.

Is negative reward really a negative experience to a dog? If so, can the dog foretell it? And why should the dog even care?

[DoggoneGA]

"It is good that we can debate these matters in a healthy style"

I agree!

"It is my take that dogs do not have the mindset to register a 'negative reward' ie to deduce that they might have had a worthwhile experience only they didn't do something fast enough/well enough/at all and so they didn't get whatever it was they would have got if they had (with me so far?) not knowing what it might have been except that it would have been better than the thing they chose to do and so didn't get it"

If I am understanding the term "negative reward" correctly, I do not agree that dogs don't understand that. The most common example I can think of (I think this is what you are talking about) is using an ear pinch in retrieval training: you hold the dumbell in front of the dogs' mouth, and you pinch the ear to the point where the opens it's mouth to complain, you insert the dumbell and at that same instant you release the ear pinch and hopefully you praise the dog.

This isn't a training tool I would use, because I have doubts about my ability to get the timing exactly right on both the pinch and release, plus retrieving is WAY down on my list of training priorities - like non-existent.

But I *think* this is what you mean, and yes I have seen dogs successfully trained using that technique - so clearly they can understand it and learn from it.

"Is negative reward really a negative experience to a dog? If so, can the dog foretell it? And why should the dog even care?"

Yes, I think it is a negative experience...but properly done by someone with good reflexes and a thorough understand of what they are doing, I don't see that's it's much different from the "if you stop biting me, I'll stop biting you" type of correction that dogs DO use on each other when necesssary.

[thistledown]

Nettle, that would be expecting a dog to be able to find a causal link between two negatives - which is pretty advanced reasoning and IMO unlikely that a dog can make that link.

I was discussing this with OH and he says most of his co-workers can't make that link either. I did not work hard linked to I did not receive a bonus is a concept that baffles them.

If you find such a dog OH says as long as he is flexible in his hours and can use a computer he's hired

[Nettle]

No, my mistake what I should have put was 'negative punishment' ie the dog expects a reward and doesn't get it. My idea is that a dog's mind does not work on abstracts ie what it might and might not have received, but on actuals ie what it did and did not experience.

An example being that the dog does not perform the task satisfactorily so far as the trainer is concerned and therefore does not get the reward that the trainer assumes the dog anticipates.

It has been implied during this discussion that this would be sufficient to stop a dog displaying a natural behaviour eg hunting.


My assumption is based on the dog being a predator and therefore programmed to absorb failure and not lose any (metaphorical) sleep over it, because the dog does not always catch what it hunts. When the dog 'fails' it does not dwell on it, but proceeds onwards to the next experience.

Your example - a good one - seems more to me like direct punishment, because if the dog had opened its mouth it would not have had its ear pinched. When in future it opens its mouth it is because it expects to have its ear pinched if it does not.

Please note that like you I am not condoning this as a training method.

[Nettle]

Thistledown, I have worked with people like that also no wonder we find dog training easier.

[DoggoneGA]

"No, my mistake what I should have put was 'negative punishment' ie the dog expects a reward and doesn't get it. My idea is that a dog's mind does not work on abstracts ie what it might and might not have received, but on actuals ie what it did and did not experience."

Yes, I can agree with that. That is why I differentiate between "correction" and "punishment." To me, the difference is that a correction happens at the moment the dog does something not desired. A punisment is a current negative action for a past action by the dog...a concept they can't grasp.

So it stands to reason that they also can't grasp that an action now will result in the witholding of a reward in the future. And also, bribery doesn't work on dogs...not if you define bribery (as I do) as a reward now for a future action.

"An example being that the dog does not perform the task satisfactorily so far as the trainer is concerned and therefore does not get the reward that the trainer assumes the dog anticipates."

I think, though, you'd have to refine this thought to mean a reward the dog does not see - ditto for bribery. I'm not sure if a presented reward, that is withheld because the disired action is not forthcoming qualifies as a negative punishment.

I think in the case of a presented reward, but no command, the dog would work hard to alter the situation into one of positive reward by going through any actions it can think of until the reward is given.

"It has been implied during this discussion that this would be sufficient to stop a dog displaying a natural behaviour eg hunting."

I doubt it, but it's also easy to misinterpret what is going on if a dog stops hunting. Once a dog has learned hunting behavior there IS an anticpation of reward...but that anticipation is based on stimuli already present, such as scent, sight, known commands, etc. But if you present the dog with hunting situation often enough - say by commanding "find it" (as as an example) - but the learned scents and/or sights are never present I think the dog WOULD eventually stop "obeying" that command because there is no reward. But that would not be negative punishment, it would be positive punishment (I think!)

"My assumption is based on the dog being a predator and therefore programmed to absorb failure and not lose any (metaphorical) sleep over it, because the dog does not always catch what it hunts. When the dog 'fails' it does not dwell on it, but proceeds onwards to the next experience."

Yes, but if a dog has a poor result often enough, he might stop hunting in a particular area and try a different one.

"Your example - a good one - seems more to me like direct punishment, because if the dog had opened its mouth it would not have had its ear pinched. When in future it opens its mouth it is because it expects to have its ear pinched if it does not. "

Not quite. It's two different sequences. If a dog knows the "take it" command as a command to open it's mouth and take the presented object, but he doesn't, and you pinch his ear that is positive punishment. This would be: present object...command "take it"...no response...ear pinch...pen mouth...place object in mouth...praise

The scenario I'm talking about is a dog that is not familiar with obeying the "take it" command. So the sequence is different. It would be: present object...ear pinch...open mouth...place object/command "take it"...praise

So in the second scenario you are starting with the ear pinch BEFORE any command is given. In fact, in that scenario there are actually 2 rewards: the release of the ear pinch for opening the mouth and a second reward for "taking" the object on command.

[Nettle]

I'm not explaining very well tonight - sorry -

Re: the hunting - it is self-rewarding even if it results in failure, because the dog is programmed to deal with that failure - otherwise it would starve. But one post here indicated that in the poster's opinion, reward offered by the trainer would be sufficient to stop the dog hunting, or stop it hunting the 'wrong' quarry (right to the dog but wrong to the human) and the thought of reward withheld by the trainer would be enough for the dog to perform the action required by the trainer rather than the behaviour desired by the dog.

And I disagree.

Not only because I do not think a dog can consider abstracts, but also because there is no reward a trainer can offer or withhold that would make a difference to a dog that desires to hunt and is bred specifically to do so (acknowledging that all dogs desire to hunt but most have not been bred to do so for several hundred generations).

Such dogs, in the main, have little or no interest in toys, games or food treats, and certainly not if the alternative is hunting. It is difficult to see how a wholly reward-based method would succeed with such dogs. Correction (not punishment) however is very successful, and results in a biddable, confident dog that knows its task limits and sticks to them.

Hunting is just one scenario. Other breeds have strong drives to do other activities, and my opinion is the same for their training.

You can train general behaviour with reward only - I do it all the time - but drive - that is different. Not the 'drive' that is being misused as a term and bandied about for dogs playing, but genuine drive that has been bred into the dog for a specific purpose.

That is my opinion and I hope we can discuss.

[DoggoneGA]

I'm not explaining very well tonight - sorry -

Re: the hunting - it is self-rewarding even if it results in failure, because the dog is programmed to deal with that failure - otherwise it would starve. But one post here indicated that in the poster's opinion, reward offered by the trainer would be sufficient to stop the dog hunting, or stop it hunting the 'wrong' quarry (right to the dog but wrong to the human) and the thought of reward withheld by the trainer would be enough for the dog to perform the action required by the trainer rather than the behaviour desired by the dog."

No, you're second message explained quite well. Yes, I agree with your assessment. You could train a dog not to hunt a particular quarry by correcting him whenever he does - such as by using bottled scent, so you KNOW what he is hunting. But as long you allow the dog to hunt, yes that will be a self-rewarding experience.

"Such dogs, in the main, have little or no interest in toys, games or food treats, and certainly not if the alternative is hunting. It is difficult to see how a wholly reward-based method would succeed with such dogs. "

The only way I can think of, just off-hand, to use reward based training with SOME hope of success would be, again, to use bottled scent and give the dog intense experience of hunting just that scent, with may be "super reward" at the end of the trail. You might, or might not, end up with a dog that won't hunt something else...though you might quite well end up with one that will ONLY hunt that scent...which maybe amount to the same thing.

"You can train general behaviour with reward only - I do it all the time - but drive - that is different. Not the 'drive' that is being misused as a term and bandied about for dogs playing, but genuine drive that has been bred into the dog for a specific purpose. "

It's been my experience that you can enhance drive, or you can kill it...but you can't create it...even in dogs that SHOULD have it. Basically, since I do lure coursing...if the dog won't chase with enthusiasm on his own, you can't MAKE him be enthusiastic. But if he's mildly enthusiastice you CAN work to increase his enthusiasm.

That is my opinion and I hope we can discuss.

[WendyM]

There is also a movement to train gun dogs using positive reinforcement based methods. Here in the states, most gun dog and protection dog training is done with shock collars and it has been one of their strongest bastions, but clickers and bait bags are successfully invading even gun dog and protection dog training.

Poking my head in again. Missymay, at gun dog trials you'll see a lot of the P+/P- training, but the majority of sustenance hunters will never use P+/P- methods with their dogs and continue to use the pre-WW2 training approaches. A dog that is anything but rock steady and loyal is a real liability, and punishment based training does not consistently produce those qualities in a dog.

These old guys that I share the woods with, they can't tell you anything about learning theory or classical conditioning or ethology-- but they know their dogs. "Lure and Reward training" or R+/R- training is referred to as simply "training" and anything else gets the lovely euphemism of "that German feces" (I paraphrased the last word) You won't find any choke chains or shock collars in their field bags.