Positive & Traditional Training Techniques Discussion

[cornishman]

At the end of the day you want the dog to want to work with you whether you call it focus, connection or desire to please. Once you have that the rest is easy.

That in itself is difficult for some! others make a science out of it?.or perhaps make it complicated for the human,instead of easy for the dog

Keep it simple read less do more ,not meaning to offend but i think all these different ideas and theorys have more to to with human intellect than training dogs

[Wendy M]

At the end of the day you want the dog to want to work with you whether you call it focus, connection or desire to please. Once you have that the rest is easy.

That in itself is difficult for some! others make a science out of it?.or perhaps make it complicated for the human,instead of easy for the dog

Keep it simple read less do more ,not meaning to offend but i think all these different ideas and theorys have more to to with human intellect than training dogs

So you think it takes more intelligence to reward a dog for getting things right, rather than "correct" it for what it did "wrong"??

You think it takes more intelligence to reward a dog for being in the correct heel position instead of jerking it back into place??

You think it takes more intelligence to wait until the dog gives you eye contact before letting it go for a retrieve or get out of the kennel??

Its nothing to do with making it complicated or needing to be more intelligent to understand it, I agree its a totally different method, that is difficult to get your head round at first if you've been used to doing things a different, but this doesn't make it "above the person of average intellegence"!!

All animals learn by association ( fancy term - classical conditioning) e.g. lead on means a walk. And by trial and error and their consequences ( fancy term - operant conditioning) In traditional dog training the dog leans that the consequence of doing something "wrong" the handler does something to punish them, whereas in "positive training" the punishment for doing something wrong is not getting the reward that they were expecting. That's in in a nutshell - not complicated!

Reading more won't necessarily make me or you a better dog trainer but I like to understand what my dog is learning from my actions and if there might be a fairer and/or more effective way to get the message across to our dogs.

Wendy

[cornishman]

I think you misunderstood me . please dont assume that i train dogs using force or punishment thats not what i was taught , and not what i do .I agree dogs learn by association so why call it classical conditioning or operant conditioning . I think it was polmaise who said , you paint a picture for the dog to see, next we will have some money maker try and tell us that training dogs is an art form . I have owned and trained working dogs for the best part of 50 years and can not remember a time when there where so many theorys and new ways and books written by people with no bloody idea Brian Sod this im of to Operant condition my dogs

[Naj]

Don't be fooled by young Pol, Wendy. He's figured out how to do 'positives' & traditional, & to mix & match with them in his training, and make a living out of it.

[Polmaise]

When an attempt to 'pigeon hole' either a method or person the sight sometimes gets distracted from the 'dog' in front of you.
My background is more 'behavioural issues' and have seen many a type and breed,therefore it is important that many different approaches and techniques are practiced.


The Gundog breeds should be by far the easiest and more simple to condition/train !?, as has been said previous by the vast majority of 'experienced handler/trainer/breeders' ,If the breeding is right,then the rest is easy?

But unfortunately,on a wide audience such as the forum,there are far too many factors involving so varied circumstance and level.

If there was one definitive method to suit all ,then I am sure it would be adopted

[Muirdubh]

one thing i'm uncomfortable with that is prevalent in this thread is the labels positive and traditional... Traditional does not have to mean aversive... positive does not have to mean clicker...

[Tjpippa]

It's also worth remembering that what works for one may not work for another. Ability of the trainer is another. That's the Beauty of dog training....we never stop learning no matter what experience you have...

[Stacia]

I have personally seen positive trainers who appear to never use negatives, really hammer their dogs

Jelinga

[Wendy M]

one thing i'm uncomfortable with that is prevalent in this thread is the labels positive and traditional... Traditional does not have to mean aversive... positive does not have to mean clicker...

I agree, it is all too easy to stereotype!

I began with the clicker as I read about it and wanted to see for myself how/if I could use it and if it was a tool worth having. I began experimenting with it and soon found that my timing was better when I used it instead of my voice - I also found I wasn't consistent in the way I used my voice, and if working with any of our other dogs where both my husband and I do bits of training with, the clicker was a uniform sound that we could both use.

It is not necessary to use a clicker to train, it's just I choose to in certain circumstances because, through a bit of practice I now find it easier than using my voice in certain circumstances.

I, like most of us am still learning how to be a good trainer, and as am always ready to listen to other's techniques. I am trying to use techniques that allow my dogs to use their own initiative and think through a problem for themselves rather than for me to "command" them to do it, as I know in other dog training disciplines this can be done so why not in training a gundog.

I'm sure my ideas and techniques will change over time as I experiment, as we also learn by trial and error!

There are also some that will be stuck in their ways and do not want change, and also want nothing to do with what they perceive to be "new fangled ideas"! but that's not me!

Wendy

Wendy

[Naj]

I think that everybody who decides to try reward based training (is that a better monica than 'positive'? ) starts by buying a clicker. And that's what I did. But a clicker is a bit like the magic stop whistle or lead that Wullie is always trying to flog, the clicker itself is just a tool & only as good as the person who is holding it, & since, at first glance at how to use it, it would appear that any fool can use one to work wonders, you tend to look for a solution for all your training problems in this one little thing & then get disillusioned when it stops working. Obviously this is down to your lack of knowledge, not the clicker. They are good for teaching you the psychology behind them, but I believe that by basing all your training upon them you are limiting your horizons. I found that when I eventually chucked the clicker in the bin & started re-evaluating how I might train my dogs using the concepts behind the clicker, then all sorts of possibilites presented themselves & this turned around my thinking on training.

I train for what I need my dogs for, which is to be shot over by myself, which isn't, perhaps, what other people train for. If I had to train towards working tests, trials or working them on some sort of commercial shoot I would have to alter how I go about training them to suite, albeit by positive methods. I think that the easiest breed to work on would be retrievers, and the most challenging would be spaniels, because of the close quarter work required of them. At the moment I'm training a young GSP, but the way I go about training that breed would, in many ways, be different to how I would train a spaniel or a labrador. Helen Philips (Clicker Gundogs) does use a set training plan, similar to what you would expect from a traditional trainer, that can be tweaked to work on all breeds, and I think many novice handlers would feel more comfortable with this step-by-step approach, but that's not how I go about it.

Naj