Gundog Training Forum

Naj wrote:Is that proceeds or precedes??

Thanks Naj ! Precedes is right.

How old is the dog?

shamykebab wrote:How old is the dog?

Dog will be 4 this Summer.

Thanks all....some really useful suggestions and comments so far....interesting reading.

Here is a short article on whining by Tom Dokken :



http://www.wildfowlmag.com/dogs/retriev ... g-whining/

Didn't polmaise have a video of a whiner he cured, I seem to recall a fox red lab that he did a before and after of?

Mine started whining when he first saw the dummy launcher and I was insisting on steadiness, I have no doubt that when the season starts he will whine at first...

With the launcher, he no longer whines, but in the real situation, I think it's going to take far more exposure than I can give!

RM

I have only just had this thought, this is not something I have tried, so don't shoot me down too quickly, and I offer it only for dogs that haven't previously been clicker trained.

The problems with dogs giving an occasional whine or bark is that it is random and it's very hard to make the dog understand what he's done that has made you cross. The clicker is an excellent tool for 'marking' specific behavior that you do like, so could you use it to 'mark' behavior that you don't like, followed by a 'verbal' telling off, would the dog realize that it's the whining that is making you upset? it would be possible to have the clicker ready in your hand in 'dangerous' situations, you would have to be tactful with the telling off' and not turn the dog into a nervous wreck before he works out how to avoid being told off.

Luckily I haven't got a dog that whines, so it's over to someone else to try out.

I think the clicker is used to mark the behaviour you like, not the one you don't! However, your thinking was 'outside the box' and I rather like that I

Just the 'No' marker does the same thing and you have it with you always. Whining comes from anxiousness that can be overwhelming for the dog which leaves punishment or reward that are outside of the dog's focus to be disregarded and ineffective. To me, the best approach is denying the dog what it wants, either by waiting it out, removal, or the combination of the two before being rewarded. The highest reward being what the dog is focused on getting.

I agree that many trainers already use a conditioned marker to tell the dog that the handler isn't happy & correction/punishment is on its way - usually an angry 'Oi' or 'No'. Eventually the dog associates the unwanted behaviour with the marker or just with the handler's body language & demeanour and stops doing it. The marker can eventually stop the dog in it's tracks and then it has become a conditioned punisher but, just as with a clicker, it needs frequent association with correction or it will lose its 'power'. This is what building aversive control is all about. This is an effective tool in modifying behaviour but whining isn't a behaviour but the outward manifestation of an emotional state, and emotions can't be trained like behaviours. So if you try to modify them by using corrections there may be an escape/avoidance response to the handler but the underlying frustration is still there and that's why the whining doesn't respond to correction. And if you're correcting your dog & it isn't changing behaviour, then you're stepping into the realms of abuse. The only way to get over an emotional response is to take away whatever is causing that response &/or desensitise & habituate the dog to it. Easier said than done.

Naj

Yep. I've heard that some fools actually take gundogs to shoots.

Wullie