Positive & Traditional Training Techniques Discussion

[Stacia]

Thanks Pete, look forward to the next installment.

Jelinga

[Naj]

Hi Naj , thats the whole point why would you want to use a method that is obviously far more time consuming and less effective and as regards top trainers changing their methods which planet are you on today spock , I would actually like to know exactly what you percieve or understand to be traditional / mainstream training techniques ? lets pick one piece of training lets say the stop whistle how would you train your dog to stop and sit on the whistle , please feel free to describe any other methods as well as what you term as conventional , I will be of great interest, as I admit I am ignorant to your other methods described, regards Pete

As I said in my previous posts, Pete, I'm not here to convert you, & I'm not here to rubbish the way you choose to train a dog, justify my position or get involved in a pissing competition over techniques. Why do I use a method that you perceive to be time consuming & slower than the norm? Because I choose to. Is it less effective? It does the job. Top trainers changing their methods? You read too much into what I write, for an educated man.

I've been open & honest - I'm sure some would think pedantic & long-winded - in describing how I would go about most training situations & problem solving through numerous threads on here, including stopping to whistle, if you'd care to look them up.

Naj

ps. your 'regime' is what I would consider to be based on standard traditional/mainstream training techniques.

[drumkeen gundogs]

Hi Naj wow so sorry was not trying to offend you at all and I apologise if thats the way it came across just to passionate I suppose for my own good , I would think if you read my regime I'm not mainstream am I ? , I suppose I was implying rather too strongly as why anyone would want to use a different method thats takes far longer and isn't as successful only in my opinion , so please accept my handshake and I would sincerely like to hear some of your methods, best wishes Pete

[Hepe]

I'm sitting here trying to guess where Naj lives and how he looks. I imagine a wiry small short person with ears poking out a bit from wearing a cap even in his sleep.

Helene

Nah, you must be confusing me with Pol.

I'm tall & exceedingly handsome, with a body of an Adonis, a razor sharp wit & the incisive mind of a Vulcan, so incisive that it leaves Pete completely flummoxed, OR a cross between Maggie Thatcher & Ursula Undress. I'll leave it to your imagination - much more fun than reality.

OMG! I' laughed so i almost wet myself.

Helene

[Wendy M]

Pete, dog training using correctional methods work, of course they do, people have been using then for years. The method you describe (using both positive reinforcement (in the form of praise and petting and use of dummy/ball) and correction in the form of lead jerks and scruffing back, is pretty much practiced by most trainers today, I would say.

I have been dabbling in the type of training where the dog must work out for itself what works and what doesn’t. I wonder if this leads to more solidified learning. Instead of being prevented from doing something by the handler through a lead jerk, or being pulled back by the scruff, or even being prevented by going the wrong direction by the stop whistle, the dog learns through experimentation that only the reaction the handler is looking for is rewarded.

Some BRIEF examples of how I train:

Heeling: To begin with as a young pup each step in the correct position is rewarded up to about 10 steps. I use a clicker to tell the dog when it is in the correct position. Then when the dog is proficient at walking 10 steps before a reward, I start increasing the distance and randomly reward so the dog is never sure when it might be rewarded. The dog is only rewarded for correct position. Walking ahead, means the walk is stopped, we don’t go anywhere for 10 seconds. With this method I have shown the dog what I want it to do. The dog finds out for itself that walking anywhere other than in the “correct position” is not worth it. And abandons any endevours to forge ahead.

Sit/Stay: Moving at the dogs pace to increase duration and distance, if a stay is broken, no need to scruff back – I’ve moved too quickly for the dog, so no reward and we start again at a little less duration/distance.

Left/Right/Back direction: I have talked about this in several other posts on here. But briefly, shape the dog to touch a target (I used some old table mats) with its front feet. (easily done by use of a clicker) The dog needs to run out to the correct target, it is then “clicked” and immediately returns for its reward. Traditionally training left and right involves a lot of interrupting of the wrong direction with the stop whistle, but by using a target you have control of the reward, so if the wrong target is approached, no need to do anything, there is simply no reward for the dog. reposition the dog, and start again. The dog has worked out for itself what it needs to do to gain a reward, and soon abandons any endevours to take the wrong direction.

Positive reinforcement training is all about manipulating motivational rewards to get what we want. And I can see you make use of positive reinforcement in your training regime, but why limit it to praise and retrieves. Incidentally praise itself is not really a reward; it is what the praise is associated with that is rewarding to the dog (physical touch).

Anyway all that was to make the point that training can work without the need to lead jerk or scruff back, and that food rewards can serve to motivate a dog even more than praise, it depends on what the dog finds more rewarding.

Wendy

[Wendy M]

Forgot to say as well on the direction work, fading out the mats into longer grass and making the mat smaller means that the dog will eventually go out blind without having to build up to blinds through memory retrieves. Once the mat has been faded, just introduce a previously placed dummy and the dog will run out blind on your direction and retrieve the dummy.

Wendy

[Naj]

Hi Naj wow so sorry was not trying to offend you at all and I apologise if thats the way it came across just to passionate I suppose for my own good , I would think if you read my regime I'm not mainstream am I ? , I suppose I was implying rather too strongly as why anyone would want to use a different method thats takes far longer and isn't as successful only in my opinion , so please accept my handshake and I would sincerely like to hear some of your methods, best wishes Pete

No problem, Pete - I can feel the passion. And my apologies if I came across a bit short on my previous post.

As you will have read, Wendy is also experimenting with training through positive reinforcement methods, & her post will give you an idea of some of the techniques that can be used, although it is a broad church & different handlers will use what works for them. For example, I don't use clickers or target-mats, but that's not to say that they aren't effective. I would say that your methods are based upon traditional training methods, around which you have formulated a logical step by step regime that progresses the dog through training, which is a good thing. The difference between traditional & positive based methods boils down to 'choice'. In traditional training the dog has no real choice in the matter. The relationship is based on an 'I say, you do' tenet where you try to engineer things so that the dog only has one option, & enforce this through use of aversives & compulsion. So in effect you tend to work on the basis of stopping the dog from doing what it might want to do - breaking the sit/stay, chasing, running-in, pulling etc. From the dog's point of view, the reward it would get from chasing or breaking the sit command or whatever, is countered by the ever present threat of an impending correction. Which is not meant as a criticism, and it is very effective. Historically, this approach to training also came about through the belief that a trainer is effectively taking the place of the pack leader or alpha figure, and that is how they would deal with any transgression. This theory has now been found to have been based on flawed scientific observation/interpretation. Wolf packs don't work how we once thought them to do.

With positive based training, the dog is given options from which to choose from, & gets rewarded for making the right choice. It's all based upon how dogs, & all animals, learn from their environment from the moment they are born, basically, through trial & error (operant conditioning - sorry about that ). So behaviours that are constantly rewarded become stronger, & those that remain unrewarded naturally become extinct. So our dog happens to sit down one day & we lob it a titbit. It does this a few times & it dawns on it that this is a good way of earning a reward & so begins to present sits for us, which are then rewarded, so it presents them more frequently & faster, & earns more rewards. And when it presents this behaviour consistantly you put a name on it -'sit' - & teach it to sit on cue. And then it finds that it has to wait slightly longer for the reward, & if it breaks the sit then it doesn't get any reward, so it sits longer etc. & then the same thing with you moving away, so it's now doing a sit/stay. And it all develops very rapidly, and because there are no punishments you can start this with the youngest of pups. You can teach sits differently by speeding things up with luring, with or without clickers, but that is basically the methodology behind positive reinforcement training. As Wendy alluded to, the beauty of the process is that rather than constantly stopping the dog from doing things you don't want it to do, the dog becomes a willing partner in the process & begins throwing different behaviours at you until it finds something that earns a reward, & then you work on from there. So in the case of running-in to retrieve, you are not stopping it from doing this, rather, it learns through it's own trial & error that being steady is the behaviour that will trigger the reward of a retrieve. Having trained traditionally & through positives, I do agree that the mind-set of a dog trained through positives is markedly different & taught behaviours seem to be more resilient to breaking down. We also know that pups do most of their learning in the first few months of their life, so training can start from 8 weeks or younger without inhibiting drive. So far from taking longer, by 6 months they can have most of the basics pretty well done without becoming inhibited as they might be through traditional methods. I know that for a pro trainer who is dealing with clients dogs this would present problems. I think it would also be difficult to bring in an untouched pup at 6 months, or an older problem dog, & switch it to positive only methods, but I'm not a pro trainer.

As I said, I don't do formal training, as such, & am more interested in manipulating behaviours so the dog trains itself, if that makes any sense. Once you start looking at these things it opens up some interesting possibilities. A simple one is if you blow your recall whistle & give the pup a titbit every time you blow it, then once the dog links the whistle with being in front of you to take a reward, when it is running about & hears the recall it will automatically come & sit in front of you for its reward. Similarly with the retrieve. What you did in teaching the dog to 'hold' is called back-chaining - starting at the last element of the retrieving 'chain'. If you teach a dog that 'Fetch' means 'sit in front of me with a dummy in your mouth', (taught by positive methods, of course ) then once your dog has learnt this, if you toss the dummy away & say 'Fetch' it will go & pick it up & bring it back in front of you, to where it has learnt it will earn a reward. I could go on but there are innumerable ways of doing most things, including fetch training. And there are problem areas when introducing learnt behaviours, like the 'sit' command, to the increased distraction of game. But this also applies when you are training by traditional methods. As I mentioned earlier, many trainers in the States start with positive training with young pups, & then switch them to low level e-collar use when they get to the age where they are working under the distraction of game. Some trainers in this country cope with a mixture of positive & traditional methods. Some positive trainers are against any form of negative training, but I don't necessarily agree to that & take a pragmatic approach.

To put things into persepctive, I think everone who is currently using positive methods to train gundogs are still learning as they go along, for they haven't the advantage of having a long history of accumulated experience to fall back on as those who train by traditonal methods have access to. However, my 2 year old GSP will find & point feather & fur with enthusiasm, but shows no inclination to chase after the flush. She does this without any stop whistle or verbal command or any other input from me, so I know that if she bumps or sees game when out quartering, perhaps a couple of hundred yards from me, she will not bother to chase. I have never stopped her from chasing, commanded her not to chase, bowled her over on a check cord, done any formal steadiness training on wild or planted game, shaken her or shouted at her in any way. I've just manipulated her natural behaviours while out in the field. She is still a work in progress, but as someone who came from a background of traditional training, I would once never have thought it possible. Now even I'm impressed with that.

Best wishes, Naj

[beth.james]

Just wanted to say this is a really interesting discussion, long may it continue and for any other experienced guys to join in

I can't quite work out, Naj do you yourself use the positive reinforcement methods of using food treats? One thing that puts me off doing this is I worry about the 'phasing out' stage. At some point you need to stop using the treats, when do you do this? I can't help thinking the dog may then decide that following your commands 'isn't worth it' when he stops getting food, even if phased out slowly. Personally, I'd rather his reward be a fuss and his eagerness to please.

But I'm always interested in hearing other people's methods and how they work with them. Some of us can't afford to be so stuck in our ways, we're still learning

[Wendy M]

I can't quite work out, Naj do you yourself use the positive reinforcement methods of using food treats? One thing that puts me off doing this is I worry about the 'phasing out' stage. At some point you need to stop using the treats, when do you do this? I can't help thinking the dog may then decide that following your commands 'isn't worth it' when he stops getting food, even if phased out slowly. Personally, I'd rather his reward be a fuss and his eagerness to please.

I think this is something that puts people off trying positive reinforcement methods - the thought (and myth) that you'll forever have to carry a bag of treats around with you.

Once the dog has learnt exactly what is required to gain the reward and you have ensured that the dog can perform the behaviour as required through distractions then you can move to fading out the reward and putting the reward on what is known as a "variable schedule of reinforcement". This means that only some responses are rewarded. On variable schedules the dog never knows when the reward might be given so works harder for it every time, in case it is successful. This actually serves to make the behaviour STRONGER.

For example, in training a sit: The dog is now sitting through distractions, for a length of time (as a sit/stay) and can sit at a distance from you. So you now move to rewarding for perfect or exceptional responses. When you get these, then you can change to rewarding say every two or three sits (the other sits may still get a verbal marker and a physical reward (a wee ear rub in my case), then reward at random (only for a perfect response though) so that the dog never knows which sit is going to receive a reward and therefore works harder each time (on the mind set of “maybe this time”).

By this stage of training the dog will also have learned that sitting brings another reward - the opportunity to retrieve for example. So the initial reward is replaced by the possible opportunity to retrieve, or take direction, which will lead to a retrieve, and this is what maintains the behaviour.

Incidentally, you talk about "eagerness to please" this to me is a fallacy - dogs don't want to please you - they do stuff that makes them feel good. Your dog will respond to praise and petting because it makes them feel good - I'm sure they wouldn't care how you "felt" just that they got something good - some physical contact.

Some will also say that training using food rewards and positive reinforcement is not "natural" well this is exactly how dogs learn where/how to find food in the wild, by trial and error. If they make a mistake, they don't receive their food reward and try a different tactic the next time.

Wendy

[Rothievale]

An interesting discussion. What if you have a dog that is not motivated by food/treats and/or their desire to hunt/work is stronger than their desire to eat. I can see that it would work for labs but there's quite a few fussy cockers and hprs out there that wouldn't give a dot about doing something for a treat.