I think treat training is cruel. - Page 26

ok. in given case main motivation for the dog is to take over leader status.

 

I give up... you can't argue with someone that doesn't even have the slightest idea about how dogs learn... 

Here is my 13 month old male from my last year litter.

I imprinted the recall using kibble reward every time he came to me when I spoke his name since he was six weeks old.
Have not used any food reward since he was three months old.
Here he is this am when I turned him loose and let him run and explore deer scents etc.....one time I called his name and here he comes....when he got within twenty feet of me, told him " sit"...which he did imediately.

And this is what comes from marker training using food reward.

Recall is THE most important command a dog must learn thoroughly.

Just enjoying the morning.

Jesse:
Maybe as a....um, ....reinforcement?....to shape a behavior and increase the chance the dog will repeat said behavior?

i guess you can say so too.
i'm not well versed in terminology but what i mean under food/toy as a tool...  is a familiar, drawing interest for dog thing/object, linked to command, meaning to familiarize dog with command and following action.

once the dog have grasped meaning, we don't need food/toy anymore.
decent GSD should retain an interest not for particular favorable thing, attached in first stage, but for a process of performing action, regardless availability or absence of reward at the end.
if dog couldn't comply such simple request, i have no interest in that dog and consider it to be failed specimen in breeding.
necessity to continue draw interest and stimulate the dog to perform acts in exchange for reward other than work itself, is a main reason for  present flood of new methods in training.

Baerenfangs Erbe:
I give up...

please don't do this.
i just tho' to ask you to be my mentor and enrich my knowledge of dogs and how to train them :)

JJ you are still completely missing my point. My example was merely pointing out that clicker training is no Panacea or something new and there are other ways to train the same thing and they could be toys treats or voice and pet. ( you conveniently omitted voice and pet. ) I will refine it for you one more time so that you do not have to read all over what it seems you have never read in the first place. I am saying that every training has a plus or minus. Do you think that there is anything in this world which is just positive?  Is that so hard to comprehend? I guess it is. 

Also FYI . Nowhere but nowhere have I said that we should not use toys and treats for the training of dogs. What I am saying is that we should use it but not solely rely on it.

In my OP I have just described why treats work and it is not all positive or without baggage consequences as some like you are trying to present it. There is no perfect training and there is nothing new in the world of training.  It is arrogant to think that after hundreds of thousands of years man living and working with dog we have suddenly just now discovered a new way to train dogs because of the use of clickers.  And now we can train something which we could not before. I am being called Old School trainers but the fact is that we all are old school trainers and only ignoramuses think that they are some kind of revolutionary new modern trainers just because they do not understand or know past.

 

Also if you read my post which you criticize you could notice that I have said that besides food or toys we can use just voice and pet if we are at that level of relationship. 

 

JJ Valk-
Maybe as a....um, ....reinforcement?....to shape a behavior and increase the chance the dog will repeat said behavior?

Exactly, Valk, that is what some of us have been saying all along!

prager: You are saying all along something with which nobody disagrees. You like politician are talking about B when I talk about A.
It is like I say water is wet and you nay no sky is blue.

So Joan . please tell me why do you think the dog is coming to you now when you have no treats?

Because I taught him when he was a itty bitty puppy and made it stick by using treats. Teach them very young and they don't forget. The recall becomes second nature and they want to do it.
He "learned"...which is the goal of "teaching". The kibble reward was an enforcer for the desired behavior. Once he " learned" the appropriate response, no more kibble necessary. Simple training basics.
Have a it.

!st of 3 posts above from Prager:
That says precisely what I thought he was saying in the first place / in the OP. And that is why I have agreed on here several times that he has a point. [Maybe a bit of an unfortunate "come & get me" title for the thred...]


As to longer-term damage to dogs or their effective Training Performance, (and public perception of the effectiveness of dog training), by the exclusive use of one training method over every other, (it may not be food, & even I thought Prager's initial description of the gastric effects was overblown hype), I do not see anybody here responding to my comments about the failure of many commercial 'positive only' - their ads, not my description - 'trainers' to recognize that 'quadrant' MEANS four areas, and that it is fine to use ALL 4, as appropriate. NOT to just insist they only ever have to use 3, and that the fourth is unnecessary / 'beyond the pale'. Or to follow through on what they initially teach their new dog owning customers about food, OR Clicker, training. [Every bit as shortsighted as that rep. who posts on here on the joys of nothing but e-collar training for every dog, for everything !]

Adding to my answer, one more thing because I know this is what your angling for....when he is engaged in play, for example, and ignores my command, he gets a swift possitive reenforcment.
Every body is happy happy.