I think treat training is cruel. - Page 43

Nothing wrong with a GSD working for food or for his handler, as long as there is still a willingness to please. And they can still work without the willingness to please, just dont breed them.

*waves* my house is temporarily empty. I recently had major abdominal surgery and do all the dogs are with various sitters while I heal. Thank you for asking :)

BTW, I’d like to add (while I’m thinking if it) that not a single one of us ever 100% fades rewards. We maintain our dogs through continued training. That includes giving them random bits of attention or food or play because they complied with something we told them to do.

None of us work without a reward, either. Some of us have fixed pay schedules, some variable, but we all know that we’re getting paid at some juncture.

Pay your dogs, ya tightwads! It is ego and pride that drives someone to cast off a valuable training tool, not good dogmanship.

looks like someone went to a bart bellon seminair

Personally, I never went to one of his seminars. I'm poor, I can't afford seminars. You don't need Bart Bellon to understand how to use negative reinforcement. My family has been using this way before it was labeled (just without clicker or marker word).

If you mean me, Duke, I’ve never been to a Bart Bellon seminar in my life, nor do I follow him. What I said is common sense.

Well yeah up to a point; but no one should HAVE to rely on the food treat (or other reward) as immediate 'wages' for obeying every command for the whole of your dog's life, should you ? Or what happens when you need them to do something in an emergency ? I am sure, Xeph, you are not suggesting this. Of course we continue to reward intermittently once a command is trained, I would never advocate that all rewards should cease after some certain point in a dog's career. But what I was complaining about when I initially first contributed to Prager's topic, and something no one except maybe Jesse has responded to AT ALL is that presently I am contending with a middle aged GSD who somebody's idea of training was to 'bribe' the dog into a Sit by paying him every time with food, but then not following through on improving the Sit to the extent that it lasted for more than 3 seconds, or on getting a Sit without a food reward. To me that is the opposite of 'training' !

Wishing you a speedy recovery, hope you are back on your feet and have your 'houseful' back with you, soon as.

Prager,

I said stress interferes with initial learning, not that stress is bad when it comes to learning after a dog has begun to learn a behavior.  You read what you want and then come up with a response that is not relevant.  Related to Barenfang's post, I have an almost 11 month old GSD and initially introduced him to the static heel position with food.  After a while, while he was in the front position, I introduced opposition reflex by pulling the leash to the right.  In addition to the food reward in the correct position and opposition reflex/negative reinforcement, he has developed a good awareness of the static heel position and has a fast return to heel.  But I wouldn't introduce the heel without trying food first to give the dog a chance to figure things out. 

Valk,

The idea of using compulsion to determine if you have a tough dog leaves a lot to be desired.  A dog's response to compulsion generally only tells you about a dog's response to compulsion.  It may tell you if you have a really soft dog, but one should be able to do fairly well on selecting a pup by the pedigree and/or seeing the parents work, and with an adult, you can test the dog in many other ways.  Handler hardness does not necessarily infer anything about the dog except for his response to corrections, and that can change as a pup matures.

Well yeah up to a point; but no one should HAVE to rely on the food treat (or other reward) as immediate 'wages' for obeying every command for the whole of your dog's life, should you ? Or what happens when you need them to do something in an emergency ? I am sure, Xeph, you are not suggesting this.

You are correct, I am not suggesting this.  The training you are describing is improper use of food rewards.  That is not the fault of the food, it is the fault of the user applying the method incorrectly. 

Thank you for the well wishes.  I’m eager to get everybody home. 

Duke, just for kicks and giggles, can you give me an example of water which is not wet?

 

 

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