Aggressive Puppy - Page 11

I like all the posts centered on the point :

training a dogs ... " it depends" ....... on several variables ... there is no such thing as 100% positive / negative . By definition positive does not exist without negative also existing. That is like saying 'outside' exists without such a thing as an 'inside'. People who train positive only , they in the very least , also have a form of a negative. They simply don't realize it. For example , once you say "No" , or "Wrong" to the dog , no matter the tone , the volume , THAT spoken word , although positive , has a negative component to it in behavioral terms !! No , Wrong are negatives . Moreover, your body language and movement , without a word spoken , can be a negative. Taking a step toward a dog , leaning toward the dog ... can possibly , depending the context, be a negative too .
The biggest problem i see as I have written on the PDB , is the verbiage in communication ideas . The fact of life and and what i now write , is the reality that exist in behavioral term. In everything we do there lies either a positive- negative , a negative -positive , a negative -negative and a positive -positive. We all experience this daily , raising children , teaching dogs ,and our individual experiences etc . Learning pivots on those behavioral principals.

Whispering "no", is a Positive Negative, Why because the whisper is a positive act and the 'no' is an aversive / negative verbalization. So , people that train so call "positive dog methods" , you mean they never ever have said no to their dog ? Or made a negative body gesture to their dog ? ... Not true if they say they never have !! Same as driving a car .. a red light is a positive negative. the light positive , but the action required to cease is negative , because if you don't kaboom. By definition positive does not exist without negative also existing.

Not only the combinations of negative and positive but we can also consider the degrees of each within the pair too. Harsh severe Negative -negative is most often categorized as PAIN .... that is in essence , "punishment" , which is ABUSE!! Punishment causes pain and usually happens after the fact of an unwanted behavior. That is why one can so c, ' correct' a dog a thousand times and the dog continues to do the same unwanted behavior over and over .

No theory or method in dog training is new. Not one !! The execution and presentation may change but the universal learning formal / informal theory is decades old .[ and according to history , as old as the sun , sort to speak ].

So , in reality what we do in training dogs boils down to those four things that I listed : Interact and teach via a positive-pos , pos-neg, a neg-pos and a neg- negative combinations. The art of training a dog is to know , how , when , where and why to implement each of those in teaching on a given individual dog in order to attain within the dog a specific understanding resulting in a specific behavior / performance goal . I have had many ... many ... gs dogs that i never ever put a collar on to teach them . Then again i have had dominant, independent , strong willed gs dogs doing police work that required a much different tack to communicate the desired lesson. As I wrote in teaching dogs many factors come in to play with people sharing their many experiences. Let's realize , Truth lies within them all . Some topics cannot be fully be realized in a 5 minute discussion or thread. Teaching different children and dogs is not a one way, this is how approach . Different children , different dogs ... different ways to teach and learn ..

different ways agree, but several basics are same for all , clear boundries, yes means yes, no means no, etc, so so many people making their approach unclear for dogs, humanifieng them, allowing them things they also forbid them
( dog is allowed to eat old shoe but not the new ones,LOL puppy can come on the cauch, but when big it is not allowed anymore and so on

Good post duke black and white there is no grey areas with a dog

Simply ignoring them / their behaviour or actions can be negative reinforcement enough for SOME dogs, in some situations. Then you don't even have to say "No". I am sure this gets negatively reinforced among humans as "Positive-only training is crap because the trainers
won't allow you to tell your dog 'No!', ever".

The best trainers I have met this last 45 years or so have been the people who READ your dog; teach YOU to read your dog; and are prepared to use every "tool" (method) in the box to enable owner and dog to communicate effectively. Even if it takes a bit longer. [IME it does not usually take much longer anyway. Sometimes those in a hurry can in the end be slower, cos if it goes wrong somewhere it always takes longer to correct than to teach in the first place.] The worst trainers I have met have been those who insist the way they always use is THE way (and everyone else in the game is therefore wrong, and will ruin the dog, or be unable to control it). Not 'worst' just because they argued that, but for all sorts of reasons.

The sheer numbers of Trainers has risen exponentially, and the more there are, the more of them are going to be poor at it. It isn't so much theory that is wrong as the practitioners of it - whichever method you're
talking about.

Add to that all the increasing number of people who nowadays are determined they have the 'right' to keep a dog even though they are out all day, who feel they must have a big dog, that it must 'protect' them,
and that it must be trained and qualified even though they have no time
or skill to do that for themselves, and you get a disaster waiting too happen if they send the dog to the wrong establishment. c/f Some other
threds about neglect of dogs by fraudulent trainers.

Some on here still believe that "positive method/training" is purely positive lovey dovey treats all the time, no harsh words, no prong collars, no negative anything training.  WRONG. (please educate yourself on PROPER CORRECT APPLIED BEHAVIOR driven positive/motivational training before bashing it). 

Treats, toys, praise are used to TEACH CONCEPTS of obedience and once the dog/pup understands the concept, corrections are introduced if the need arises.  Corrections are based on parsimony, in other words, only enough correction to get the desired result.  Same with the 4 pillars of training, only use enough to get the desired result.  Overly harsh punishments used as coercion or force training creates in many cases, more problems than it solves.

My friend who is a behaviorists/trainer uses just enough to get desired results.  Thankfully my doctoral program teaches behavioral techniques and uses the latest research to back up evidenced based intervention.  That said, much of psychology with people is also studied using dogs/canids.  Dogs have similar brains to humans, right/left specialization, neurotransmitters like dopamine (reward) and oxcytocin (bonding) to name a few that are similar to humans, they feel emotions similar to ours, they have cognitions similar to ours.  I know some on here do not want to hear about the latest research or believe that dogs are similar to bright children in their cognition and affect.

Research shows that positive methods (that include appropriate consequences) work better than compulsive methods over the long run and with more permanent results, especially if rewards like treats become random rather than every time.  Praise should be used EVERY time and consequences must be immediate, firm, fair, consistent, and once completed, forgotten as in not constantly there for the dog like citronella collars or spraying vinegar water in the dog's face.  I prefer to use the latest research to inform my training methods as does my behaviorist/trainer friend.  I also like to keep up on the latest research.

Remember back when dogs were thought of as instinct driven beasts without feelings or even pain receptors like people and without any self awareness?  Remember when training was harsh and painful with hanging the dog and beating or shocking it?  So glad some of us have come into the 21st century with training and beliefs about dogs.........

@Mindhunt Those are the kinds of posts we need more of.

mindhund, interesting approach, now do you think in humans, the kids that grew up in a time with harsh regimes on schools up till lets say the 70ties , grew up to be better or worst people than the ones that go to school today with the more "positive " approach

I think there is a huge difference between corrections in training and beating and shocking and hanging the dogs, this is the problem with many people to allways mention the exesses as being normal to prove a point, not only in the dogworld

if a dog or child doesnot have his boundries set out clearly and is not aware of crossing those boundries result in a correction, this dog or child will push and overstep its boundries everytime to see how far he can overstep these boundries

simple examples for both dogs and kids

if you tell your dog to SIT and he doesnot do it you can repeat command as seen often till he sits and praise/reward, or you can make the dog SIT straight after first command and praise/reward,, see that is my difference between positive and compulsive training

in kids a real example that happened in a restaurant on my table
A young kid was misbehaving (like he usualy does) while eating and his mum said if you dont stop it I will put you in the car, kid kept on misbehaving and I asked her, are you really going to put him in the car
her answer: nooo, of coarse not that would be cruel.

the kid knows that he can push boundries and is just figuring out how far he can push it

reflecting this whole "soft approach" we grown in to in both people and dogs in the last few
decades is the reason we are were we are today

I started dog training about 30 years ago at martin gaus, were he , before you could start training your dog he showed you videos of correctional behaviour in wild dogs, wolves etc in the wild, and copied that into his training methodes and it worked really well, many years after, martin gaus found out he could get more clients/money by switching to "positive only" and switched and became rich, but dogs from my breeding went to his schools and got in trouble becouse the soft approach didnot work on these dogs/people

even martin Gaus said he was going to train a policedog with positive only to prove his point in soft approach, he tried but didnot succeed,

to finalize, boundries are needit and setting those boundries and keeping them by correctional training is something different than hitting, kicking and abusing your dog,

@Duke, which teaching method did the architects of the Holocaust, The Great Purge in Russia, the Cultural Revolution in China, and slavery, the genocide of the Indians, and Jim Crow laws in the USA, learn under?

We all like to think that the latest generation is so much worse than the ones before.

Q noitsyou could you explain the similarities between dogtraining and facism, genocide,slavery and tiranny

@Duke, i totally agree,

However as i recall Dick Staal has succeeded in training a police dog with a clicker so it is not impossible. But what most don't realize is that they carefully selected the dog for this purpose.

We humans like to take all credits for our own achievements when it comes to training. The truth is, it is all about the DOG.

For what ever chosen venue, you will need the right DOG to succeed period. Trough the years i have learned that at the end, i am just as good as a trainer as the dog i am training.