cattle prod - Page 5

Personally, I think there is no place in legitimate dog training for it! I have been on the recieving end of it and it,s not a joke. I,ve seen it used, it will never be used on my dogs.  

Smiley, I feel for you, and totally agree with your post!

None of that crap goes on at the club where I train, or I wouldn't BE there!

We are all pretty new to the sport, but we do have two national level competitors who occasionally come out to train with us. They use some interesting little tricks to get the most out of their dogs, but none of them involve cattle prods or even shock collars! (Though I am sure they both know how to use a shock collar properly!)

It's a real eye-opener to watch them train. A quiet little click of the tongue, a tickle to the dog's ear...their dogs are so focused on them that these very subtle signals get an immediate response.

 

Now, that's REAL training, not all this heavy-handed my-dog's-a-badass-so-I-need-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-him!  [GRUNT,GRUNT...scratch balls] 

 

Lol if they are truly national competitors I would bet good money they use E Collars....  When the dog learns properly through operant conditioning (all four quadrants) then you require a lot less positive punishment down the road. So no they werent always like that..people do a lot of stuff to achieve high levels.  Some is easy some isnt.  Ultimately its the results on the field that speak.

 

Positive punishment is not about making yourself feel tough nor are E Collars SHOCK Collars.  Both of those statements are often used by AR crazies to create responses based on emotion as opposed to fact.

Were I train we have a few people that train with no +P which they are free to do.

Z trained from coast to coast....yr def the hostess with the mostest so you got a big mouth and love to tell everyone how great you are ok here goes gee z you are so full of awesomeness please tell me us all again how great you arei,its your fave hobby, i got my stick and pot, you have a deep love of yourself.

Keep stirring and telling us all about a sport you've never even attempted, nor trained in.  Tell us about all it's deep dark secrets LOL  Keep a stirrin' . 

ROFLMAO....and you guys think us ASL owners need therapy.

By the way....I tried the cattle prod on myself....never again...it was over 20 yrs ago. That sh*t hurt...never used it on a dog after that. 

z tell us all again about yr coast to coast and everything in between adventures - jerk, IRL i pick on guys like you just for shits and giggles, unless yr not a guy then i just say yes mam and agree with whatever yr saying.

Smiley sorry you are having a bad experience with IPO.  I don't doubt your experience but would like to say I've been pleasantly surprised by most IPO people I've trained with.  While I am quite serious about training and titling my dogs (I do half a dozen sports, not just IPO, and compete almost monthly with my GSDs) they are also basically family pets, they are house dogs that are on the couch while I work and on my bed at night.  I've also titled a "black and red" dog in Schutzhund and no one (well at least not people who have seen my dog and seen us train) have given us crap for not being a working line dog.  I club I last trained with had lots of great people, all with something to offer as far as spotting and coaching each other, helpers with various levels of experience but all very committed to EVERY dog in the club.  No one ever hassled me for having a WGSL dog or dogs that do other sports or dogs that live in my house as my companions.  I never felt pressured to use training methods or tools that I don't like or don't find valuable for my dogs.  For example I don't personally use an ecollar on my current dog.  I have *nothing* against them, but it just hasn't been something valuable for us.  I have no qualms about making my expectations known and correcting my dogs and this particular dog seems to respond better to one stronger physical correction he knows is coming directly from me.  He is a dog that doesn't overload in drive and has very natural secondary obedience so I've never had control issues.  No forced retrieve because he loves retrieving and no forced tracking, that is typically his best scoring phase.  Again, don't have issues with using these methods but I use the method that works for the dog and don't feel I have to prove how badass my dogs are by always doing a forced retrieve or thinking articles on a track are not proofed sufficiently unless the dog is using them as an escape (my dog has never lost a point in trial at an article).  Anyway, now I'm rambling.  If you see the value in the training and learning about your dog I hope you are able to find a club that is a good fit.

As for why clubs don't accept new members....again I can only speculate but I've been in clubs or informal training groups that had to cap membership simply due to limited resources.  For example I used to train with a group of people I LOVED and would go back to this group in a heartbeat (now disbanded) but we had one helper, ONE person working all of our dogs and then having to travel somewhere else to get his dogs worked.  That really takes a toll on someone physically even with us being a relatively small group.  We just didn't have enough time or light hours during the day to let people walk in or come to training only whenever they felt like doing it for fun.  Part of the reason I enjoy it is the commitment and the challenge.  When you title your dog it really means something, even if you are just doing club level trials and not breeding the dog.  When I see a new IPO1 I assume on average that person put in at least a year's worth of consistent work.  Unfortunately when working with "newbies" or people that are "just doing it for fun", the 80/20 rule applies, sometimes even more like 90% of the time and energy is spent on people who have a 10% rate of even sticking around for 6 months.  That wears you down after a while and I'll admit I sometimes have the attitude that if someone REALLY wants to be there, they will prove to the club that they are committed and a good fit.

you pick on guys like me huh? You obviously have your life together and serve real purpose, not just here stirring the pot, but in real life too.  LOL  

anyway, nowhere i my coast to coast adventures did I tell anyone how awesome I am, but thanks for noticing.  It was more about having been in many places training with many different people.  You know, having some experience from which to draw a conclusion from over someone that is a has none, but apparently knows all the secrets of all the peole he's never met, let alone spent anytime training with or competing against.  LOL