operant conditioning - i am a believer - Page 7

It´s the background - people are able to join a club over here without problems  - they are able to see and able to learn.
In your country it´s difficult to find experienced people willing to teach you and your dog. And if you do find somebody, you have to pay a lot of money...
I think that´s the main reason why these people try to learn out of books or are joining workshops - better than nothing, but not very helpful...

I agree with Steve1 on the fancy talk - but I don't think anyone owes him a "whos who" of who they have trained with nor a resume of what they have done.........Take it or leave it Steve1 everyone has their opinion - and you have a mighty bark as well as alot of barking you do on this board as well - fancy talk or not - it is all the same........  off to training....

Yogie

Susie
Thank you, you have explained it probably better than i have. i do not read books on dogs or do i look at videos appertaining to the training of them in the long time i have had them i just get on and do what is needed ? but saying that when i moved to Belgium i had a lot of advice on the then sport of Schutzund, and it was far different than the normal dog heeling and the normal stuff you do to have a dog which is trained in obedience and all that there was much more to it this prescision training and i was in the right place to pick it up so in the IPO sport i was lucky, all the rest prior regarding the handling and the Sheep Herding and indeed the Blind Dog help i taught myself which needed a totally different sort of training. having had livestock all my life and having spent 100,s of hours at night getting the Badgers and fox cubs to come and take food from me as i sat by as they came out at night to play and forage helped me understand animals a lot more and indeed the Pigeons also a life time keeping them for me you have to try and think like the animal you are training or studying, that way you can do a lot more silly as it may sound. even now if i were to grade myself out of 10 in the art of training and handling Dogs i would give myself a 7 so still a way to go to a huge amount of Guys over here where i live.
Yogi Bear
Yes, of course everyone has there opinions and rightly so even myself and i was told that if i did not like what was said not to post on the thread that is why i reacted by asking those people to say what they had done they chastised me so what is good for me is the same for them of course they do not have to answer but why not it does not mean anything and whatever they said i would have applauded them for but certainly i would not mock them if they had not.  But reading the above comments it is certain that what i contribute falls on deaf ears anyway, not that i am always correct but i am not wrong in everything i contribute,.i only came back to this Forum because of Beetree letting a few know how my Female was getting on in her work so i decided to post a few times for the two or three interested in how she was getting on, however she will take her IPO 2 in two weeks time and her IPO 3 in early December then the Belgian National Trials start next March, however i think it time for me to stay off the Forum if it is going to cause unrest among the People on here.
Steve1

much lols

"Vk4gsd and VKGSDs are different posters."


if steve has trouble keeping up with that, i can understand why he tripped up on on the "fancy" words.


VKGSD, the other one, with a big avatar and uppercase and no numeral, please don't leave cos of this, i have enjoyed yr input on this and other threads.

You don't have to know how an engine works to drive a car, but I think having an understanding of it helps you get better performance from your vehicle. Your average driver may not know a piston from a spark plug, but the best drivers will understand everything about their cars. Likewise, you can teach a dog something without really understanding the mechanics of why it learned, but to have an understanding of the way dogs (or people) learn can better help to learn more, faster, and with more retention. IMHO
Exactly!  Just because one doesn't know or refuses to recognize the terminology doesn't mean it's not happening.  I doubt there's a person on this forum who has trained a dog anything other than "sit" that has not use operant conditioning whether they call it that or not.

Susie, as far as cultural context goes, operant conditioning is something one would learn in any high school or entry-level college psych course here, so I guess in our defense, it's something most teens and young adults know about whether they've ever owned a dog or not, so it's generally not offensive to reference it when talking about animal or human behavior.  It is not intended to make other people feel stupid or over complicate training.  I was not a psych or even a science major in college but remembered about operant conditioning when it became relevant to dog training. 

FWIW it has never *changed* the way I train, it just helps me understand why the training methods are actually working.  I don't sit here and think, "OK my new dog needs to start retrieves so I will review operant conditioning and then make sure I do this, this and this....."  No, I have a method that I use to train retrieves because I like it and it has worked successfully for me in the past earning multiple dogs' SchH titles.  I will use my method regardless of what it's called or the actual science behind it.  Operant conditioning would help me understand why it actually works, but I already know it works because my dogs retrieve and earned SchH titles.

I don’t know, I think knowing it as a formal theory it does affect how I train, but not in a conscious way. I don’t sit there and make a mental map of it or anything, or a checklist.

For me it helps when I'm stuck or dealing with something new.  Am I trying to capture and reinforce a behavior, or cease/extinguish?  But like I said earlier, most times that's when dealing with the rescue dogs and some of the weird stuff they either refuse to do or won't stop doing.  The sport training I do almost exclusively marker training and "nepopo" (I don't really follow Bellon, but taking my own advice that's basically what I'm doing on my own and that's what he calls it).

Yes, same for me. Really helpful for novel situations, dogs with severe behavioral problems, or when I'm going back and forth between multiple dogs and need to clear my head.

fwiw, a lot of sport people i seen follow a system told/showed to them by the other guys that they have had success with previously. all good but when a dog does not fit the system the trainer usually has nothing to fall back on except try the system harder, until they eventually decide the dog is no good. the theory at least gives you something to reflect on and try make sense about what is actually happening.

of course some folks are naturalls and have a lot of experience, they just see and adapt to the dog, most could never explain what they are doing. for dumb folks like me some background theory with the "why's" helps. each to his own.

i don't care what you do, be consistent, and have good timing.  you'll be able to train your dog to do about anything.