operant conditioning - i am a believer - Page 9

VK4 - a real woman wouldn't need a pinch collar to make a man do what she wanted....Only a man would have the thought  that a pinch collar would make a woman "conform".....lol

Steve1 you are on point.....  But really I don't think these trainers sit back at the field and decide on which method would best fit - I think it is a philosophy  inside of them - not really a spoken word out on the field with the dog...........it just becomes a way of life in training......just my opinion though - correct me if I am wrong.

Yogie

Yogie, the training is just the application of the theory.  These theories explain WHY the training works, how the dog actually learns.  You can train and never care for the theory because obviously you know on the field whether your training is working or not.  If the dog is doing what you want in the attitude you want, your training is working regardless of the theory behind it.  It may or may not matter to someone why the training is working, ie how it's processed in the dog's mind, as long as they get the desired results.  For example I use a microwave to melt cheese and I don't really care WHY it works as long as it does, but I'm sure some people out there could explain why it works.  Just because I don't know the theory behind it doesn't mean there isn't one.

Susie I don't think most people here care about the theory either, especially since I have seen people who are paid a ton of money to travel around and give SchH seminars use the theory and the terms incorrectly.  My point was that here, most people learn about these theories in school, not in dog training.  My mom has never owned or trained a dog in her life, but the phrase "operant conditioning" she has heard before.

"VK4 - a real woman wouldn't need a pinch collar to make a man do what she wanted....Only a man would have the thought  that a pinch collar would make a woman "conform".....lol"

VKGSDs
Let me first say this. i left school in 1954 at the age of 14.6 years or so give a month. i never went to college etc in those days, so i learned really enough to get me by at the time, specially as i did not like school anyway to many canings etc
But i know you are talking about the modern day folk on here. But my question is Why do not the Guys over here train with the same thoughts of these theories you mention because they certainly do not; a lot have been working with these dogs for 20-30 and 40 plus years they do not use theory to get the dog to respond to what they want and i can name easily around 12 top trainers over here in Belgium that have won the WUSV one many times 4 in fact, or taken several dogs and scored well in that high competition. plus a lot more very capable people and as i said i have trained dogs from Pups for the Blind folk Dogs in Sheep Herding Competitions all different animals and i have never used any theory training the way you speak off and still the others people i mention are at the top of there sport not local not country but in the World, When i took up the IPO sport when i moved over here i was helped by these same people and never once was anything ever spoken as you have? for me a dog only knows two things BLACK and WHITE; and most catch on very fast. There are Dogs that listen to you there are dogs which do not listen well. Gina is a Dog which is very quick to catch on. i have never owned a dog that listens like she does and that is what i applied when picking her out as a Puppy. since then many people have asked me to find a Puppy for them and even one for another job plus a different breed than the G.S a Border Collie in fact which i used myself for sheep herding competitions. I and other of my era specially those you have done so well are not going to change a winning method only fools do that. You yourself will not change what suits you, However you talk and say you have a dog to go to the highest level in what ever sport it may do IPO Fly ball Agility etc but until you get the dog to that competition or at least the prelims you will never know we can say these things but until it happens.
I said 3 years ago that Gina would get to the Selection Trials for the WUSV selection of Belgium; and this will happen in 2014 and i think i said it on this forum at the time.. i cannot say she will gain a place to represent Belgium in the WUSV  France of 2014 but we will be giving it every thing we have. I do not run down these theories you talk about it must work for those who apply and stick with them you cannot chop and change things that is no good for any animal. My reason for intervening in this thread was mainly the OP. and yet i asked him a question which he has not answered, if he had done then i would explain why, but it seems he declines the offer so i take it the answer is NO that says everything i need to know
Steve1

Steve, I'm happy for you and Gina, really, train the way you like, it sounds like it works great for you.  It's no biggy, k?  And yes, I competed in a National event last month (and yes, we also had to compete and win a qualifier), so I know what that's like.

Why am I not surprised that steve1 has no education beyond a High School and didn't even finish.  We've been having a cross argument between this thread and another thread about Operant Conditioning and he FINALLY admits HERE what I said he was, in pretty much my first reply to him.  There's nothing wrong with the path he's chosen in regard to education, but please steve1 stop trying to obfuscate you lack of background in ANY kind of academic setting from here on out because without your boot-on-the-ground-expereince in ADDITION to having put a butt-in-the-seat in higher education, you are simply talking out of your butt. 

These trainers you have known over the years are definitely using the theories being discussed here, they just don't know they are, nor are they able to recognize and label them.  It doesn't mean for ONE SECOND that they "don't exist".

So with that lets just call steve1 & YogieBear out for what they are, vehement anti-intellectuals, due to a lack of exposure to actual academics.  NO ONE here said there was anything wrong with traditional training methods, not grounded in science.  EVERYONE HERE, knows this kind of old school training works, but the "tool box" is significantly bigger for trainers TODAY, than it was 65 years ago.  All some of us did was EXPLAIN what operant and classical conditioning were.  Then folks like steve1 & YogieBear went off on a tangent claiming it all to be a "bunch of hooey".  These guys have some serious reading comprehension skills and I would be terrified if either theses guys worked for me in any capacity that required such a skill.  steve1 & YogieBear should consider themselves VERY LUCKY that those whom have employed either of them, haven't found this HUGE deficiency in their day-today jobs skills.  I'm sure its already cost someone employing them hourly wages paid, a project, a contract or all three for that matter.  As I said earlier steve1 has indirectly confirmed that he "could" have some reading comprehension skills.  Once again, NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, but the tone of authority he has taken in this thread you'd think the guy personally debated with B.F Skinner when he was still walking the earth. 

But back to topic, I would cite Auburn Universities Vapor Wake training and breeding program as the perfect example of an APPLIED animal behavior program run by a UNIVERSITY, providing WORKING dogs to the Law Enforcement and the Military, showing measurable RESULTS.  This program employs many types of people in this program, INCLUDING non-degreed animal trainers.  They are in effect using the whole "tool box", from people with doctorates, down to folks who honed their skills in war zones and as K9 Law enforcement handlers.  Lackland AFB breeding and training program being another example of "egg heads", "pro trainers" and "instinctual animal behaviorist" working together to produce something beneficial in the dog world, within a scientifically measurable program.  THESE KINDS OF PROGRAMS EXIST AND ARE MEASURABLY SUCCESSFUL, WHETHER steve1 & YogieBear WANT TO BELIEVE OR NOT.  The more comments they make, the deeper they dig their holes, showing nothing but PURE, unadulterated, ignorance of the world that has evolved around them.  We're looking at two modern day, real life, Rip Van Winkle's here.

AND NO these programs don't use all positive-only, cookie training.  But Operant Conditioning is certainly PRESENT in these programs.

BTW steve1, the University of Gent has been pretty active in canine behavior research, go pay them a visit, hopefully you'll learn something, IF, you can muster up enough humility to then go eat some "humble pie" from an "egg head".  Please END your anti-intellectual ways, HERE AND NOW!

momosgarage
You really think you know about me and what i have done and have not done. You are a million miles away from the truth. You are not mocking me when you refer to my education. I never went to High School it was called Secondary School in those days, Plus at the age of 15 years old that was your school time UP Smart Pants, the reason i finished just a few months short was that i would have gone back after the normal summer break for i think around 6 weeks and as we were still at that time using bloody Ration Books after the War ended to live on it was more helpful to the family if i started work a little early. Now i will not tell you or anyone else on this Forum any more about my life from there on for part of a time even my family did not know and still does not know. But it was a hard and hectic one at times; specially for quite a few years when i did my bit for my country and i did it damn well. when i settled into work again i did that well also  until i retired so you are out of order mocking me, because you are mocking probably your parents or grandparents if they were born in the same era that i was and the date was 1940 June with Bombs hitting the house we lived in. and i will add you did not have a lot of chance to learn much during the next years? Plus a so called Snob :like yourself who probably went to college, and stayed on at the Tax payers expense to keep you going when younger less privaleged youngsters of your age were out earning a wage. Man or Woman think yourself bloody lucky you were not born in the time of War, and thank your lucky stars that you were not in the thick of it or participated in the thick of it. Your logo sounds like a woman,s so i guess you have done no national service for your country. a great shame because though a woman it would have done you a world of good specially if you were thrown into the deep end of it and had to use your brains to get back safe again that would have made you a real live person with a bit of common sense and not the drivel you have spouted out.
The Guys i have mentioned DO NOT use the terms in dog training that you Guys outline on here, I have said i have never heard any one ever mention the things spoken about on this Forum and it is these people who helped me when i started training a dog in the IPO sport, They simply have the born ways of handling dogs without the theory side you talk about in other words they are BORN STOCKMEN and i am in that bracket myself it is an infinity some people have with animals etc not only with dogs but wild animals and birds in my case proven to many who have seen it and that is not boasting but the truth, But those Guys will leave you way behind momosgarage when it comes to handling and training dogs and they are simply among the best in the World. and it has already been proved for unless you have competed in the WUSV and Won it or got very high postitons in it you simply cannot match there excellence. Still you have not had the Guts to say what you have accomplished with dogs, yet you talk the talk now put it up in print, I would think you have done great things with all this knowledge of fancy terms for dog training and the way you talk. if your deeds with dogs can better my own which are not to be laughed at, or get close to the best over here to whom i am not in the same class of then i will bow to you, so speak up with the truth of what you have done in the world of dogs.
Steve1

@steve1  Trust me I know your story, my grandparents lived the same way, in the same period.  I know you're in Europe so the situation may have been different, but my grandfather came back from the war used the GI Bill and went to college.  Same goes for the "significant others" family after the Vietnam war.  They came over here after having lost everything and also somehow went to college and built careers that required higher education. Some people get careers that require higher education, others don't, NONE OF THAT IS THE POINT OF THE DISCUSSION HERE.  You keep trying to obfuscate.  People here know EXACTLY what you are talking about and describing, but you don't have clue what they are trying to explain to you in return.  The thread was about what OPERANT CONDITIONING is.  People gave correct answers and you and YogieBear chimed in claiming it was all a "bunch of hooey".  No one here said that traditional "gut instinct" training wasn't real, so why do science based training get such a backlash in return from you two?  I still don't understand why, so the only possible explanation is that you are an anti-intellectual, who doesn't know how to articulate an argument in TEXT FORM.  

Then you try to belittle my accomplishments.  Not all training is done in the same venue, thats just more ignorance coming from you.  Is a IPO3 more difficult than a UDX?  How about a HGH versus an HCH?  Do you know which is more prestigious? I sure as heck won't claim such.  But you, in your "big boy pants" keeps spouting superiority.  I simply pointed out what you don't know, not that you are not good at what you do.  THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. If you weren't in Europe I'd call you a hillbilly, your last post sounds like a gunslinger in the wild west, "lets see who's, YOU KNOW WHAT, is bigger".

Momosgarage
 I have never said that any kind of methods used by others was a load of hooey. i said why do people use those terms or phases nothing like you say i have said. I also said that these techincal phases do not help the new starter understand. I did never say that they would not work at any time only that they are not used by the best in Belgium but you fail to accept that fact and say they are still working the old methods. i trained partly by those methods when i was young but never used the crank and yank system as some did. i try and think as the animal does again it sounds stupid but true. You probably know nothing of Pigeons but one day i took a basket full with me when i went to see a mate some 30 miles from my house for a training flight. We stood in his front garden talking and i let the birds go one at a time, a few circles to get there bearings and each one went for home after about 6 had gone i let one go it circled and was getting higher when i said to my mate. i will bring it back down he looked at me as if i was mad no chance he said. i shouted twice the pigeon dropped lower circled again and landed at my feet i picked her up and put it back in the basket i had never done this before and i have never tried it since that was back in around 1958. He said i know how you get on with animals but that takes the biscuit? it suprised me as much as him. However later i picked her out of the basket again and said home she circled once and was gone. That is what i am saying if you have that afinity with something you can do a lot more.  You say i have tried to belittle your accomplishments with dogs, how can i belittle what you have done when i keep asking you to tell me and once again you have replied without saying what you have accomplished. Still if you say you have then i will have to go back through the posts to find out.
 For the record i do not read books on training and i do not look at training video,s? i look at some videos of competitions of IPO and that is all.
I may be what you call a hilly billy but i am an honest one and certainly not a stupid one, I am never frightened on print or face to face to say what i think is right if you or others do not like it then that is up to you. Words on a forum means nothing it is what you do in real life and how you have applied it is what counts nothing else matters, and on that count i think i can rest easy
Steve1

steve let it go man, you are making a right git of yourself and i am sure in real life you are a nice guy.