Question:
Hello M,
Continued:
You should learn to focus more. Hence the term "IDIOPATHIC RAGE." Moore professional dog trainer talk in a language professional trainers can easily undertand but impossible for them to define… That’s why they hate me so and I don’t blame them one damn bit. Yeah, I deserve it. Thanks Gang.. Yeah.. I admit it.. I have a problem with language.. Never my best subject..
I’ve always been interested in the etiology of language, even done some work on ancient languages and discovered some errors and made some corrections to the alphabet of one ancient script. (was maths actually).
Yes’m. Math is pretty consistant and kind of rules our physical world. Anyway.. It don’t really matter to the dog, unless he understands it, does it. ?
Yes and no. Dogs don’t need to understand anything at all. I’ll bet that strikes you funny, that coming from me, the guy who’s always talking about dogs thinking and learning. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there – You got that straight. j;~}
We’ve got a very complex mix of things going on in this equation. Lots of emotion, apprehension, folk lore, and ineffective methods, with a backup of help consisting of shelters and rescues that perpetuate the defective system. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – this fear of the ’sit-sound’ could be transferred to anything pup may associates it to in the future. Yes, I just addressed that, I should have read ahead. For instance, say the next day… pup hears dad walking up the path, gets excited as he opens the front door, and I say ‘ok Ruffus, it’s only dad – SIT’ (just as the door opens). Instead of a warm greeting and THEN a request to sit. The pup only wants to say HI!, and like a little kid, they’re not going to lay off till they’re acknowledged and satisfied. It only takes a moment, but they learn they are not being rejected or ignored, that they are a member of the family and that satisfies them. They have no further need for attention, their needs have been met. Yes, you’re right..
That’s a big sticking point for some folks here… They think that effecting a compromise is compromising their effectiveness and weakens their status as being in control. Hey, that reminds me of some of the ‘jumping up’ training methods.. So easy to do the wrong thing and fall flat on our face
Any time we become involved physically or emotionally in a dog or child’s behavior problem we unwittingly become player or competitior, and lower ourselves to peer status. But when we attempt to restrain the dog, their desire continues to pique till they’re in a rage of hyperactivity screaming for attention. Can that be FEAR of rejection? Pure frustration, I’d say..
Right. That causes another out of control behavior to maifest as we quash the out of control behavior we’ve allowed ourselves to be taken in with. So what’s so wrong in saying hello anyway???
That’s the fly in the ointment. As a dog trainer I can’t tell my students to live or adjust their lifestyles in an uncomfortable manner to accomodate their dogs. That’s why they pay me the big bucks, to make sure they are handling their dogs as proficiently and expeditiously as possible. My job in this instance is to find a way for the owner to greet the dog which does not take his time or effort or concentration or distract him from his route, yet satisfies the dog’s needs for direct attention. Our efforts to control them now become confrontation, causing insecurity with their most favorite people.
That’s my primary concern. We shoot ourselves in the foot right from the git go. I can always retrain a behavior, but rebuilding trust is an entirely different matter. That’s why the use of distraction and praise techniques will effectively extinguish a behavior by simply not allowing fulfillment of it several times in succession. The behavior is not repressed, but driven to distraction, so to speak j;~), thus avoiding replacement or transfer behaviors as anxiety relief mechniasms. Utopia? About as close as you can come to it in this realm of existence. Yes, well I’ve been putting a lot of thought to this lately.. some people I teach find it difficult to understand how important it is to ‘immediately praise’ after an interruption,
Because they want to wait to see if tthe dog has "earned" the praise. They do not understand the nature of conditioning a behavior. They are thinking they need control, and not seeing it happen, are unwilling to do the prerequisite praise in advance, to make it happen. They refuse to pay for services in advance. So, they fight with their dogs instead. but not so difficult to do so after an instruction…
Maybe because they see the result immediately, whereas when breaking a behavior we may not see the effects of the conditioning the first couple of times we try it, because the technique needs to be conditioned, hence the term "conditioning," eh? That requires payment in advance. It’s kind of a matter of trust, wouldn’t you agree? Why don’t people trust their dogs to do the more appropriate action when they distracted and praised them? Why are they more afraid of not correcting a behavior than properly extinguishing the idea of the behavior by following the scientific techniques? Are they afraid they’ll encourage a behavior problem? Not a problem at all, as we can easily exitinguish that problem too. Or are they afraid of failure or losing control? That’s only because they don’t have a record of success and established control. So I’m compromising a little – It’s an experiment. (More on that later)
That’s all well and good. Our professor lyingdoc dermer was quite impressed with gary wilcox’s (a prominent clicker trainer) discovery of delayed punishment. Kind of the same idea we’ve got, just exactly opposite, using punishment after a prolonged period of time Vs prolonged praise till the behavior is effected. Some progress, eh? the fear of the ’sit-sound’ could be coupled with the action of a door opening. If Ruffus were to yap at the door everytime he thought it was going to open, and I continued to give him cause to believe his concern – by reprimanding him, I could end up with an adult dog that attacks people coming through the door. EXACTLY. That’s what got that little dog in "interested in hearing" and that’s what killed Sampson and that’s what’s gonna kill stephie’s and liea’s dogs… Canis55 calls that superstitious behavior, I call that a "flashback." Yes, and it can be any door, not just ours..
Right. That’s why knowing the background on some dogs is helpful, we can focus on deconditioning triggers we know are laying there waiting to be tripped. It can be any sound resembling that of the door (knocker, bell, squeak etc) – I call it ‘Automatic Learned Behaviour by Association’.
Right. Now take a dog like that who wants to do something like take a steak off the counter. Set it up to trigger the bell when he thinks of stealing the steak, and as soon as the bell rings, praise the dog for fifteen seconds, or until he thinks of taking the steak again. Then, you got to do another kind of sound distraction, or you will render the doorbell INEFFECTIVE. So, you could make a click or toss a can with some pennies in it and praise as soon as the sound is made, and the dog will be distracted again. Let the dog be. Let him think of going back after the steak on the counter and as he thinks of reaching for it ring the doorbell again, and praise like Helle. Then, the dog is going to THINK. He’s going to know that the next time he reaches for the steak, another distraction is going to prevent him from doing that, and you’re really pleased that he’s just standing there figuring this out… So he’s thinking of taking the food, but restraining himself momentarily. That’s a learning plateau, and that requires praise. And we know the dog is going to repeat the attempt one more time, just to be certain this distraction and praise technique is going to be consistant. That’s it. Now, all we got to do is generalize the idea by putting the bait in another section of the counter to represent a different area. Repeat the exercise and you will probably have generalized the idea quite clearly, but to be sure, go on to two more areas of the counter, perhaps using different baits. The behavior will be broken in less than one hour of work… But you’ve got to learn to use praise as a motivator for prolonging the distraction. The distraction itself must be brief and non physical, in order to allow the thinking process to fullfill it’s work. The differences between distracting and praising Vs distracting and replacing a behavior are vast. Distraction and praise and allowing the dog to attempt to resume the behavior will quickly extinguish that behavior from his thoughts. Distracting and replacing a behavior will keep you needing to address the behavior till it is a long ingrained habit. My dogs barked at a doorbell sound on the tv the other night – it resembled a door-bell sound of mine, 3 years ago.
Right. It might be impractical to carry a door bell in your pocket, but you could put it into a grocery sack… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It’s very similar to PTSD we hear about with veterans. But what our Einsteins’ can’t fathom is that it’s not the degree of force, fear, or confrontation. ANY confrontation or barrier or restriction or force can trigger anxiety which will cause out of control behavior forcing an untenable situation. That’s traditional dog training, folks.
… read more »
Response:
wooooooooooo freakin hooooooooooooo my main man Jerry is back!!!!!!
Response:
wooooooooooo freakin hooooooooooooo my main man Jerry is back!!!!!!
Thanks #1 Fan, I been out doin a little Carp fishin… Anybody seen a #6 goldfinished Carp hook laying around in any of our Thug’s lips? Seems to me the last thing I remember was janet boss was going to tell us all about that little incident with the dog who was made vicious by the two shock containment devices she overlooked in her thread in "interested in hearing." Seems to me she was going to explain HOWE a representative of her shelter organization can come over to a person’s home and miss the cause of the aggressive behavior and tell the folks to jerk and choke their little dog to make it friendly with the strangers she’s become aggressive towards because of getting shocked everytime they pass by. Seems to me she was going to tell us HOWE jerking and choking a little dog on a pronged choke collar who bites people because he is frightened of getting hurt because that’s what happens when visitors come over, will learn to love and trust family friends by getting jerked and choked and confined to a crate everytime someone visits? Seems to me she was going to tell us HOWE jerking and choking a little dog on a pronged choke collar who bites his people if they reach for his shock collar because that’s where the hurt comes from, is going to restore confidence in that little dog when his owner reaches for his shock collar and the dog flinches and then he gets jerked and choked on his pronged choke collar to make him less hand shy? Seems to me, she was going to tell us what she would say as a professionals dog trainer sent over by the rescue organization or humane society to the little dog’s family’s children, when they ask why she says she’s going to kill their little friend? Maybe that last question will be answered by our expert grief conseller ed w of pet loss dot con? Any suggestions for a tear jerking eulogy? j;~}
Response:
Hello eddie,
Maybe that last question will be answered by our expert grief conseller ed w of pet loss dot con? Any suggestions for a tear jerking eulogy? j;~} Seems to me that jer has likely been taken to task after his failed attack on me & my website.
What the hell are you talking about, ed? Nobody gives a damn about you or your "website." That was his last mass posting before he went silent.
Silent? Not me eddie. There has been no more "Bait & Switch" and no more Spam from jer since he has returned.
Are you going to talk grief, eddie? Are you going to tell us what a koehler trainer is going to tell his kids about HOWE COME the dog didn’t come home from the vet because he chickend out at the part that says he’s got to hang his dog or kill it? It will be interesting to see if it lasts.
You gave us all those nice book reviews of the koehler method. You know, the ones I missed? If you start backsliding to your old evil ways of scamming the newbies jer I WILL be blowing the whistle on your scam once again.
Tell us what you’d tell a koehler trained dog’s family children when their dog bites them or gets DEAD, eddie? EdW http://Petloss.com/inthenws.htm
You tell people to read koehler and then deny it. You spam our dog groups and never talk dogs. You tell people not to listen to me because you LIKE to see people HURT dogs, because it makes dogs DIE young and leaves their families with lots of guilt, and that means you can beg money off them and tell them to get another dog and abuse it the same way, and maybe get a double header, eh? YOU are a bona-fide IDIOT, BEGGAR, LIAR, and MENTAL CASE. YOUR WORDS, ed: "Here are the Amazon.com reviews jerry ninnyboy DIDN’T tell you about. Decide for yourself" So where do I say to read Kohler jer?
Like smegma, it doesn’t belong to you if you deny it??? Or like telling us to read koehler, and saying you think he may be the world’s greatest trainer, and denying you endorse koehler??? Here’s MOORE, ed: Your words, silvertonguEd: "jer, You really ARE an obnoxious, petty, self- important, lying piece of smegma!" EdW Nice talk for a family news group…, huh? Here’s more of your words, you sleazy, lying, beggar: And worst of all Jerry posts this gem daily: "nathran STILL wants to know what to tell his kids about < rude word deleted ."
Pssst! Smegma isn’t slang, ed. It’s a FACT of LIFE. and "nathrans’ kids still want to know what’s < rude word deleted ."
Why are you so scared of smegma? I would suggest that you avoid ANY contact with Jerry Howe.
Smegma’s not catchy, ed. Do you know the meaning of the word? You did use it in a sentence as an adjective. Do you know your words ed? Seems our pal ed w is AFRAID of a little smegma. But he’s not afraid of HURTING dogs and recommending koehler… nathrans’ kids STILL want to know what’s SMEGMA, ed. Nice talk for a family news group…, huh? Here’s more of your words, you sleazy, lying, beggar: "Your help is now needed to support this website. Since it began as a simple homepage in the Spring of 1993, Petloss.com has grown to become the most visited pet loss grief support site on the web. The hours required every day to maintain the website’s resources & services have escalated so dramatically in the last year that I finally had to make a choice between my regular job & the website. I have chosen the website. To keep up the current level of support and continue to increase the website’s ability to help others, I recently gave up my job and made this website my full-time occupation. For this to work, I must ask for financial support from those of you who believe in this website’s mission and want to be a part of it. Your donations & the Rainbow Bridge Prints are now my only source of income. Please help with any amount you can, payable to "Petloss.com". All donations are greatly appreciated. Send to: Petloss.com Ed Williams P. O. Box 517 Roseland, NJ 07608 Any donation of $50 or more will receive a beautiful laminated Rainbow Bridge Print as my way of saying "Thanks"." END QUOTE, ed w. And THANK YOU ed, we APPRECIATE ALL your HELP. Some of our people are afraid of what I have to say, and are forging my posts to get everyone to killfile me. There are at least two imposters posting as Jerry Howe. However, in the best interest of our readers and their dogs, those I have labeled as Gang Of Thugs members like cindymoron, janet boss, john richardson, or liars, like lynn kosmakos, amy lyingfrosty dahl, lyingdogdirty, MUST be relentlessly pursued till their information is improved, or until they are thoroughly discredited and ridiculed off of the board by YOU… Here’s the lowdown on our ”EXPERTS,” the LIARS and DOG ABUSERS of r.p.d.b: Nope. That "beating dogs with sticks" things is something you twisted out of context, because you are full of bizarro manure.
LIAR. I’ll just copy a direct quote or two or three or four or five or six… HOWE many direct quotes would you like??? Amy lyingfrosty dahl LIES with a straight face and says: "I don’t beat dogs, twist ears, or pinch toes. For the benefit of anyone who is in doubt, and who chooses not to read the article (SHE’D REALLY LIKE IT IF YOU DON’T READ IT!), there is NO mention in it of "twisting ears (INDEED, SHE PINCHES THEM WITH SPIKES). I would never slap a dog (SHE TEACHES PEOPLE TO BEAT DOGS WITH STICKS TO MOTIVATE THEM). I would never advise anyone to slap a dog (SHE’S A PROVEN LIAR AND DOG ABUSER, do you expect her to ADMIT THE TRUTH???). I do not believe there is a single circumstance, ever, where slapping a dog is anything but destructive." RIGHT. She PINCHES, not twists… and chin cuff doesn’t mean hit, it means slap. amy lyingfrosty dahl continues: "Get a stick 30- or 40-inches long. You can have a helper wield the stick, or do it yourself. Tougher, less tractable dogs may require you to progress to striking them more sharply. With your hand on the collar and ear, say, ‘fetch.’ Immediately tap the dog on the hindquarters with the stick. Repeat "fetch" and pinch the ear all the way to the dummy. Repeat, varying how hard you hit the dog, Now you are ready to progress to what most people think of as force-fetching: the ear pinch. Make the dog’s need to stop the pinching so urgent that resisting your will fades in importance. but will squeal, thrash around, and direct their efforts to escaping the ear pinch You can press the dog’s ear with a shotshell instead of your thumb; even get a studded collar and pinch the ear against that Say "fetch" while pressing the dummy against its lips and pinching its ear. if the dog still does not open its mouth, get out the shotshell. Try pinching the ear between the metal casing and the collar, even the buckle on the collar. Persist! Eventually, the dog will give in" AND HERE’S THE REST OF THE ROUNDUP, the posters our own respected lyingdoc doermer, assholeciate professor of behavior at U of Wisc., who RECENTLY endorsed the koehler method: Diane Blackman, Yes, diane… She’s as confused and deceitful as they come. She knits cover-ups for pronged choke collars so she can train dogs illegally on akc showgrounds, and so that people won’t SEE the prongs and think the less of her… She twists words better than you can, BECAUSE SHE HASN’T GOT BAGGED FOR LYING, LIKE lyingdoc dermer DID. She’s got a dog who’s been a chronic puller for five years, and she day boards her dogs because she can’t trust them at home alone. Her links page has lots of lousy advice, but diane won’t edit the lousy ones that teach HURTING dogs, because she says she doesn’t know enough about training to discern good from bad information… Whaddaya thaink of that? Janet Boss, Jerks dogs around on pronged collars to make them friendly. She’s as incompetent a creature as G-D could possibly create. I’ll be throwing THAT in HIS face when I get there… She has no business telling people to kill their dogs because their only option is to jerk the dog around and keep him confined for the rest of his life. See the thread ”interested in hearing” and you’ll see for yourself HOWE you bums mishandle and kill dogs because you don’t have any IDEAS, and can’t outwit a puppydog… Take a look at the thread "interested in hearing" where your pal janet boss overlooks TWO SHOCK CONTAINMENT DEVICES, and tells the people to jerk and choke the dog on a pronged choke collar, and lock the dog up at any time he can’t be jerked and choked…. The consensus of opinion of our "EXPERTS" here was to KILL THE DOG TO BE FAIR. Susan Fraser, susan twists and pinches ears and toes and shocks and chokes dogs on pronged choke collars. But she doesn’t hurt them. Avrama Gingold, Our Professora… She got her damned teeth knocked down her throat when her dog finally figured out HOWE to hurt her back, and make it look like an accident. That’s called allelomimetic behavior. avrama had a habit of jerking him to make him heel or come, but always made it look like the dog did it to himself. Dogs are smart. Don’t take my word for it, that’s in the Wits’ End Dog Training Method manual. Lynn Kosmakos, Our pathological liar? She jerks and chokes and hangs dogs according to the koehler method. She justifies force because there are so many dogs to HELP and such little time to HELP them all, at the shelter she kills dogs at. lyinglynn writes: For barking in the crate – leave the leash on and pass it through the crate door. Attach a line to it. When he barks, use the line for a correction.
A CORRECTION? You’re going to JERK and CHOKE the dog out of being AFRAID… that’s CORRECTION? lyinlynn says: "I LOVE KOEHLER," and in the next breath denies being a ‘koehler trainer.’ Is that because she ALSO shocks dogs, and koehler never had a shock collar? Pity that … read more »
Response:
Maybe that last question will be answered by our expert grief conseller ed w of pet loss dot con? Any suggestions for a tear jerking eulogy? j;~}
Seems to me that jer has likely been taken to task after his failed attack on me & my website. That was his last mass posting before he went silent. There has been no more "Bait & Switch" and no more Spam from jer since he has returned. It will be interesting to see if it lasts. If you start backsliding to your old evil ways of scamming the newbies jer I WILL be blowing the whistle on your scam once again. EdW http://Petloss.com/inthenws.htm
Response:
Hello M,
Continued: (Also posted as new thread – ‘cos it’s so old now)
You really should develop your concentration, don’t you think? If it’s hard for us to fathom, don’t you think it should be likewise for the pup? Actually, it isn’t at all more difficult for the pup. The pup responds to circumastances of his environment. It’s automatic, natural, reflexive responses and actions, not thinking as we know it. While we’re ‘TEACHING’ pup, let’s forget about ‘Commanding’ .. EXACTLY. Commands challenge the dog to rebel… That’s why we hear our "experts" talking about "adolescent unruliness." I believe ‘instructions’ are ok – once the dog’s ‘learned’ the meaning of the word,
We build up to that by working series of commands quickly in succession and motivating the dog to want to do everything we ask. Sounds pretty easy to me. And only then, if the ‘instruction word’ (command, if you like) has a ‘do this’ meaning, and not a ’stop that’ meaning. But ‘teaching’ the behaviour, in a forceful ‘command-like tone’, I now feel is confusing and unfair.
What’s wrong with it is it is counterproductive to eliciting all of the dog’s capabilities. A dog cannot function to our best advantage if he is under duress of fear of punishment for making a mistake. We want to encourage the dog to participate in solving problems, not just follow directions. Sometimes we call that learned disobedience, say with a Guide Dog being orderd into an unsafe situation, he breaks the command because he either knows better, or because he’s been conditioned to respond to the layout or traffic pattern. Which dog do you think will be most proficient in negotiating that obstacle, the dog who thinks and understands the problem, or the dog who’s been conditioned to wait until the conditions present themself to negotiate the obstacle or another command is given? and think about ‘Recognition’. Recognition Training – We start by making a list of all the things we would like our dog to do – we don’t concern ourselves with what we don’t want him to do – I don’t believe they understand what’s not there.
They can understand what was there, HOWEver. Dogs know their environment just as we do, only better cause they’ve got senses we don’t and they don’t get distracted with the thoughts we have. If we find a dirty spot on the floor, the dog can pretty well GUESS what it is and where it came from and what we’re doing about it. That’s why I don’t fall into their negative attention getting devices. I’ll ignore it temporarily, not let the dog know he’s pulled my chain. Exactly. We can teach our dogs to do anything we want, if we are smart enough to outwit the puppy dog. Yep. the list can go on, and on.. Adding any words (associated with ‘do-this behaviours’) that the individual feels useful. All it takes, is a little planning – to associate the word-sound with the behaviour.
That too is another dichotomy we’ve got here. The clicker trainer guys are not using everything they’ve got available to them, and when food bribes are introduced, the process becomes even less worthwhile, because we’re lowering the dog’s level of consciousness from thinking and problem solving to the gut level and the associated bowel movement, rather than appreciation of the handler/senior partner in the man/dog team enterprise. In other words we can’t identify what not to do with
anything – Right. But we can easily teach them to ignore something, like chewing on furniture or stealing food from the counter or getting on the bed. It would be more difficult to teach the dog to chew only on certain furniture or take only leftovers laid on the counter or to lay under the covers in bed. But whatever we’d like to accomplish can be achieved rather easily with most dogs and handlers. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Right. Dogs don’t understand "don’t do this or that." They have no problem understanding DO do this or that, but "don’t do?" That don’t compute to their terms of thinking. Agreed. That’s why our "experts" fear me and you and Canis55 and dougDogmanager and Master_222 and Parker and Aspiring Trainer and Ray the Vet Tech and Ray the RSPCA guy and Colette the trainer from UK and Jeremy and Paul B and even their own, long time FORMER favorite poster Robert Crim, who learned the HARD WAY that Jerry is right. Ask Fritz. Ask Sampson. Ask that little dog in the thread "interested in hearing." Or you could just ask me… and I’ll tell ya to learn about training dogs in the FREE Wits’ End Dog Training Method manual, or your excellent book at http://www.soundplaydogs.com we need to prepare ourselves – I’d say most of us have a lot we need to learn before even looking at or speaking to our dogs again… Yes, all of us.. just look at how things have changed in just the last 30 years. What I believed was a brilliant way to train dogs in 1968, is way off what I believe now. Some things are the same though – instant prolonged praise after every instruction except Stay and Wait.. and showing verbal and physical emotion while praising. (Physical, as in face and body language, not necessarily ‘touching’ to praise).
Right. Because touching triggers positive thigmotaxis and inhibits the dog from thinking of the behavior we want him to dwell on. design a versatile vocabulary Yes, I read the list (deleted below to avoid confusing this next point). Okey dokey whereby we can distract and interrupt behaviours we don’t want and immediately introduce an alternative behaviour that our dog already understands –
That’s our bone of contention. NOPE. Slight disagreeement there, M. I do not want to DISTRACT the dog with another behavior, or physical contact, or a food treat until the dog has fully EXTINGUISHED HIS DESIRE for the behavior we were addressing. Once we commence to address a behavior we should work on it untill it is properly extinguished or discontinued because of complications that may require a little more ingenuity instead of a heavy hand. I absolutely agree with no: ‘food treats’, and physical contact, yes. (I rarely use food in training) – However, I’m still interested in testing the concept of ‘altering his desire’, rather than extinguishing it.
You can do that, but it’s going to take incredibly more work and still leaves the inital out of control or inappropriate behavior lurking underneath. The idea of behavior modification is to remove the cause of inappropriate or undesirable behaviors. Let’s say we teach the dog to go sit on his bed when the doorbell rings. The dog still responds to the anxiety of the bell, but because he follows through with the command "go to your bed and sit," he meets our needs for peace of mind, but does not really transcend his own stress related to the bell. If corrections were used to make the dog respond like that or to be quiet, the more he represses his desire to bark, the more anxiety brews under the surface. Sometimes that anxiety comes out as other, seemingly non related behavior problems. That’s why we’ve got to be gentle and subtle when breaking behaviors, because we don’t want to complicate things by creating an aversion or phobia or instigating a replacement behavior. For example, a dog punished for barking at the door may learn to bite the person at the door responsible for his punishment. That’s what happened with the little dog in "interested in hearing" and with lia’s dog Cubbe in the thread "1 step forward" when they began snapping at visitors. Of course, this couldn’t work unless the dog can clearly understand and identify the alternative behaviour with the word-sound used at the exact time of sound-distraction, and immediate prolonged praise still applies.
Right. That’s why I don’t ask for an alternate behavior. Besides, we want to break the dog’s anxiety response behavior, not just change it to another less obvious anxiety behavior. Ground work and recognition training would be essential before we could expect to see success here.
Right. That’s why the Family Leadership Exercise and the installation of the come command as a conditioned reflex should be properly done to insure the behaviors we need to address will quickly cease. It’s worth the extra fifteen minutes or hour of work, to have a dog that will do anything you ask. (I’m still working on the conditioning aspect of this too).
What we do is rely on the dog’s process of elimination. I’ll give you an example of this with four family members who visited me one day with their Lab puppy about seven months old and totally out of control. The dog made a jump attempt onto the lap of each family member lined up in seats along the wall in turn, as I interrupted the action using sounds and having the family members praise each sound. The dog broke off of each member in turn, went down the line of chairs they were seated in, and went back to the first chair and attempted another jump, and went down the line again. Went through this a third time but this time, waited in front of each member without jumping, looking for his praise, and went down the line of seats just looking at them for the praise he’d associated with thoughts of not jumping… Then, he went back to the first chair and made a final jump attempt, got his sound distraction and praise, and went to the rest of the family each in turn down the line. Finishing his fourth and final attempt at jumping on them, he walked around the room once and found a spot to lay down till we were ready to address him. The family was … read more »
Response:
Hello M,
Continued: (Also posted as new thread – ‘cos it’s so old now)
Yeah, they hate it when I bring up old posts around here, it’s so embarrassing to them. Nothing’s changed. What was wrong two years ago is still wrong today, only proven all the moore so. While we’re ‘TEACHING’ pup, let’s forget about ‘Commanding’ ..
Right. Nobody likes to be ordered around. Sure, it works O.K. in the military on account of they might shoot you if you don’t follow orders so they want to make it real clear you know what they just mumbled at you from three hundred yards away. But they have a protocol for giving and accepting and challenging orders, so in the big scheme of things there are appropriate controls. Dogs don’t have a clergyman or an Inspector General or Judge Advocate Officer or the Uniform Code of Military Justice to cite or voice his grievances to. He’s only got his instinct and reflexes and his training. EXACTLY. Commands challenge the dog to rebel… That’s why we hear our "experts" talking about "adolescent unruliness."
But then, people seem to think because we’re not being commanding, that we don’t expect the dog to follow through with our requests. This is exactly opposite of what actually does happen. The dog working willingly as a partner in a hunt or in play is much more versatile than the dog working by rote or under fear of corrections. It just takes a little more ingenuity to motivate the dog to want to comply with every request we have, because that’s then Nature of the Beast. HOWE anyone could beat a dog with a switch to make them dig in for a retrieve is beyond my comprehension. If I wanted that dog to dig in and make him race for the biridie, I’d jump in and race him to it before twisting his ears or lashing him. I believe ‘instructions’ are ok – once the dog’s ‘learned’ the meaning of the word, And only then, if the ‘instruction word’ (command, if you like) has a ‘do this’ meaning, and not a ’stop that’ meaning.
I don’t believe in asking the dog to do things that aren’t intended to be followed. Even a vague command like "go lay down" gives the dog ample opportunity to make his favorite choice and knows it means to do it. So, not complying with a request to ‘go lay down’ requires using a "correction" of some sort. But ‘teaching’ the behaviour, in a forceful ‘command-like tone’, I now feel is confusing and unfair.
We’re talking semantics again. That’s only the aesthetics of it. Go stand in a line of military recruits and see what it feels like to be given a command by someone who is dumb as a rock but has been that rock long enough to be able to share everything he knows with you, one to one. I can simplify that real EZ for ya. NO negative connotations to any interactions is the only acceptable methods of training a critter or kid. Even the language and discipline a boot camp instructor uses has strict limits protecting the trainee’s rights and considers infringement a serious matter. Life is tough enough without our best pal or parent lousing up even one moment of one day, because they didn’t bother to learn the most effective ways to negotiate behavior problems and teach by demonstrating appropriate control. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? and think about ‘Recognition’. Recognition Training – We start by making a list of all the things we would like our dog to do – we don’t concern ourselves with what we don’t want him to do I don’t believe they understand what’s not there.
Once we call our attention to a behavior problem, we’ve taught the dog to command our attention through that behavior. The question becomes who’s side is the trainer on? Seems to me most of our traditional approaches to behaviors are triggering other behaviors and complicating the process. They’re getting exactly opposite of what they want. They start off with a willing puppy, and before you know it, they’ve got everything out of control because they mishandled him trying to force control and restricting access to learning opportunities. Exactly. We can teach our dogs to do anything we want, if we are smart enough to outwit the puppy dog. Yep. the list can go on, and on.. Adding any words (associated with ‘do-this behaviours’) that the individual feels useful. All it takes, is a little planning – to associate the word-sound with the behaviour.
And if we anchor it with a conditioned sound cue, we can make any command a reflexive behavior in just a few minutes. In other words we can’t identify what not to do with
anything – Right. We could teach an alternate behavior for when the dog is uncertain of what he is supposed to be doing, like going to the bed to sit at the sound of the doorbell or coming to the handler when he makes a mistake to be re directed to work. That is the same process our friend freaky frantik fraud die uses with his sadoelectric shock collar. He burns the dog till it figures out what’s right and learns to shut the burn off by chancing onto the correct behavior. You mentioned some of your students have been hesitant to allow their dogs to attempt to repeat the undesirable behavior. I guess having a nice shock collar makes it more bearable when you don’t have to get up and go across the room to jerk the dog on his pronged choke collar for doing something bad, eh? But it does make it seem like we’re doing something appropriate about the behavior, and all the "experts" recommend it at some level. But that doesn’t make it correct. To motivate a dog to want to work for you requires much encouragement and allowing the dog to begin to make a mistake or inappropriate action, and simply distracting and praising until the correct behavior is selected through the process of elimination. We never need to tell the dog NO. All it takes is to learn some basic handling skills so you are not pulling on the leash or otherwise restricting the dog or triggering the opposition reflex or putting yourself off balance, and of course the techniques for conditioning a command and installing the come command as a conditioned reflex during the Family Leadership Exercise. This is all taught in the FREE Wits’ End Dog Training Method manual. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Right. Dogs don’t understand "don’t do this or that." They have no problem understanding DO do this or that, but "don’t do?" That don’t compute to their terms of thinking. Agreed. That’s why our "experts" fear me and you and Canis55 and dougDogmanager and Master_222 and Parker and Aspiring Trainer and Ray the Vet Tech and Ray the RSPCA guy and Colette the trainer from UK and Jeremy and Paul B and even their own, long time FORMER favorite poster Robert Crim, who learned the HARD WAY that Jerry is right. Ask Fritz. Ask Sampson. Ask that little dog in the thread "interested in hearing." Or you could just ask me… and I’ll tell ya to learn about training dogs in the FREE Wits’ End Dog Training Method manual, or your excellent book at http://www.soundplaydogs.com we need to prepare ourselves – I’d say most of us have a lot we need to learn before even looking at or speaking to our dogs again… Yes, all of us.. just look at how things have changed in just the last 30 years. What I believed was a brilliant way to train dogs in 1968, is way off what I believe now.
That’s because you’ve learned through experience and observation over your thirty year career. Some things are the same though – instant prolonged praise after every instruction except Stay and Wait.. and showing verbal and physical emotion while praising. (Physical, as in face and body language, not necessarily ‘touching’ to praise).
Right. That’s why I mentioned that story about the guy who couldn’t praise his dog as I asked him to because he only spoke baby talk to her. Like I care? He can say anything he wants, as long as it gets the dog thinking like I need them to be thinking. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – design a versatile vocabulary Yes, I read the list (deleted below to avoid confusing this next point). Okey dokey whereby we can distract and interrupt behaviours we don’t want and immediately introduce an alternative behaviour that our dog already understands – NOPE. Slight disagreeement there, M. I do not want to DISTRACT the dog with another behavior, or physical contact, or a food treat until the dog has fully EXTINGUISHED HIS DESIRE for the behavior we were addressing. Once we commence to address a behavior we should work on it untill it is properly extinguished or discontinued because of complications that may require a little more ingenuity instead of a heavy hand. I absolutely agree with no: ‘food treats’, and physical contact, yes. (I rarely use food in training) –
Yes, but I’m afraid you’re missing the point of distracting and praising. It’s not a correction. It’s intended to extinguish the behavior by triggering it and deconditioning the trigger mechanism. It’s EZ to do, but you’ve got to understand HOWE to do it. It’s a difficult concept to understand, because we’re looking at a reflexive behavior with an analytical mind. We’re looking at correcting a behavior that hasn’t even begun yet without being corrective. We’re looking at getting total control without taking action. That’s why our "experts" can’t fathom the concept, there’s nothing MAKING the dog work, except our motivation and his desire. However, I’m still interested in testing the concept of ‘altering his desire’, rather than extinguishing it.
You may find that effective to distract the dog from a very difficult behavior, but I’d be … read more »
Response:
Hello M,
Hello Marilyn, Nice to hear from you today. Hello Jerry, and yourself
Any day we wake up is a nice day, no matter whomever we hear from… I hope you’re not going to waste our time again with more of your Purely Positive training crap. Purely Positive? I call it communication with kindness.
Yes, but we don’t all agree that positive communication and kindness alone are sufficient or appropriate for teaching our young and dogs. The words punishment, reliablility, and responsibility for actions are MISSING. Where is the enforcement? You can’t just let them run amok because you’ve got a hands off policy. HOWE can you expect everyone to live under those conditions? You see it all the time with out of control children and the ignorant parents saying kids will be kids and then you got Attica or something going on…look at the crime rates. That’s all cause parents don’t disciplin their children. Life isn’t a bowl of cherries. WE want methods that make the dogs do as we tell them, not wasting months trying to mollycoddle dogs into actually learning something. mollycoddle? – is that what we do when we teach a child their ABC, before expecting them to write an essay?
Well, there’s always a test after the class. You want to tell every student they got a good grade so we don’t hurt anyone’s sensitive feelings? That’s what our "experts" here want. They want to be recognized as having valid and effective methods regardless of HOWE backwards they are, because we don’t want to offend anybody’s sensibilities… after all, we’ve got careers and reputations at stake here, don’t we? Seems to me, the welfare of our dogs is taking second place to a bunch of lightweights who don’t have the intellect to outwit a puppy dog and don’t want to improve themselves, and don’t want to be criticized when they kill a dog they can’t train. But that’s just on man’s opinion based on thirty eight years of observation in the field. j;~} – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi, this isn’t for the experts…. Is that because the "experts" won’t understand it because their exprtise gets in the way of their thinking and reason, or is it because our "experts" are unable to learn new information? I think there’s more to your statement than meets the eye. No, it’s because the ‘experts’ would have already adopted a similar strategy. Okay, they may have slightly varying views, but would most certainly appreciate the concept. ‘Teach, don’t force’ – Depends what you mean by ‘experts’? it’s for anyone who has a new puppy and needs help… HOWE about if they’ve got a real old puppy and still need help? Yep, them too Forgive me, I’ll have to come back to the rest later in the day. Best regards, Marilyn Teaching my Puppy before he comes to school Marilyn Bergeman
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