Aggressive Puppy - Page 13

I often get videos of trainers that warn about positive reinforcement from people who are easily impressed with shoddy results. The videos of their accomplishments show terrible heeling even to the standards I had 37 years ago, their downs, sits, and recalls are slow. I have yet to see a proper picture of a happy or unstressed dog in any routine coming from trainers that feel it necessary to attack positive reinforcement. The trainer that I get the most videos of will use e-collars on eight week old puppies.. Prager, you said Peter Caine uses e-collars on puppies mainly for Positive Reinforcement, how is he doing this? Are we led to believe he is using the tone as a marker only or has he paired the stim as a reward? I try to make the most of training opportunties that present themselves, if food is present, I will use food. My two year old bitch has to do something I ask her, quickly and precisely, for me to mark the behaviour and reward her for every meal. Making the statement that you don't use food in training is as equally stupid as saying that you use positive reinforcement only.
Mindhunt, when you wrote on page 7 that you never heard of positive punishment, one of the four quadrants of operant conditioning, Prager went on to explain the four quadrants. Your next response of changing the word punishment for consequence misses the point entirely. It is not the dog but the behaviour that is either punished or reinforced. The word punishment as used in operant conditioning doesn't equal correction. I wrote this respectfully, but I will also add that I would not spray vinegar in my dog's face and expect to have a good relationship with the animal.
 

Good questions Prager. 

I always learned it as positive methods because the whole mindset is to have a fun environment while training.  Also using positive methods to teach the concepts in an educational and supportive manner.  As I have said before, consequences are introduced once the dog has the concept pretty firmly.  Maybe because positive punishment is called consequences instead of positive punishment?  All about the nomenclature to sell to a new group of doggie people?  Also, I can think of something my son said when he was 10 years old about justice/correction and punishment, "you punish someone because it makes you feel good to do so and it doesn't matter if they learn anything or not, it is about your power.  You correct or give justice in order to teach a lesson and your power never enters into it because it is about teaching." He was and is a pretty perceptive individual lol.

I had one trainer, who used compulsion methods, and for instance taught the sit by walking with the dog, then stopping, giving the sit command and using correction/leash snap/jerk until the dog sat.  That is compulsion, the dog will be punished until it gets what is being asked, at no time is the dog taught what the command means, it is forced or corrected into it (as in pushing the dog down for down or constantly correcting/snapping/jerking down on the leash to down the dog). 

I am no expert nor would I even consider myself a trainer, only been working with dogs and people for 16 years, just a newbie compared to the rest of you lol.  I have learned from a couple trainer friends and my behaviorist trainer friend who have trained successfully each for over 30+ years. 

Does that help???

TEACH, then TRAIN.

One has to remember that molding a dog's behaviour has basically 2 stages - teaching, and training, IMO.

In the teaching phase, we are setting an association between the command and the action we wish the dog to perform. I do not see any need to use correction/compulsion during this phase, and doing so may actually result in a negative association of the command for the dog.    However you wish to do so, the correct response to the command should result in a positive association for the dog. 

In the training phase, once we are SURE the dog understands the command and what is expected, then if the dog disobeys we can use some form of correction/compulsion. IMO, the level of correction should match the disobedience - as a former club member (Wolfgang Gross) used to say "minimum for maximum" In other words, minimum correction for maximum result. It must be clear to the dog what is expected (dog KNOWS command association) and that there will be a consequence if the command is ignored/disobeyed.   The dog should also receive praise/reward for compliance, to help cement the desired behaviour and the relationship with the handler.

Wow , never thought I would learn so much from this posting. Thanks Oh I do believe this is a good thread for newbies like myself to gain some knowledge on different types of training methods.

I am glad you were able to navigate this thread Ladyboss.  But I feel sorry for the newbie trying to get proper information from this thread. Some of the advice from the start has been bad, wrong, confusing, and nonsensical. Some of the advice has come from those that don't understand the basic fundamentals. There has been some good posts but believe only half of what you read.

I agree with you on that one Marko, problem is for the newbie to figure out which half

koots, really puts it well,

 

now people need to understand that dogs are different and need different levels of corrections when triggered to do other than commanded, and im not talking kicking and beating.

now my question for the positive only goeroes , in relation to new, first time dog owners, what would you do, if someone said, my dog is chewing on my shoes, how do i stop it ? now besides from telling them to lock up their shoes, would you tell them to teach the dog to connect chewing shoes to a bad outcome, or would you explain them your four qudrants,tell them to buy a clicker, read theoretical books about it and stay positive.

 

see dogtraining is about more than only teaching a dog to sit, but also to stop unwanted behavier,

oversimplified, you wait till the dog stops chewing the cauch and click,cooky and praise

 

allways amazes me also when positive preachers write on internet that what ceasar millan is fixing, also can be done by positive training now you can go on and debate explanation of interpretation of terminology and say my trainer told me, so its true, I prefer to go with what the dog shows, and take it from there without the theoretical new insights, but need to say that some of those match my approach,

 

now Ive trained dogs to IPO 3 from start, policedogs, patroldogs and personal protectiondogs, cleaned op dogs that bit the owner or everybody else, and you can take my word for it that positive only works, but only so far to finalize a funny one, one positive preacher told me once that it was the fault of breeders, if we just stopped breeding high drive dogs it would all be much easyer LOL

@ mindhunt. Thank you for your post. I will say this. Correcting dog before (i.e. positive punishment=correction) he understands command is not fair to the dog from our human perspective and I agree. But that is different from negative reinforcement when we train the dog for every day life or every day work, where you make communicate to the dog by   gentle but unyielding   mild   pressure in certain direction like down in teaching down - which is an example you have used. Negative reinforcement is basically positive exercise where the pressure is removed when the dog complies.  This  enables us to establish leadership position  which is the most important part of the training obedience for dogs we live with where the dog work for the handler.   In sport dogs who work for them selves by performing for rewards, this is not as important and often not even desired especially if the competitor dogs do not live with their handler and live in a kennel and interact with their handler only during training for competition.  These 2 types of training  are often mixed   to great detriment of the people who just want to live with their dogs   in private ownership or live and work with the dogs in  security and law enforcement and other like S&R reasons.  The  difference between competition training and work of   every day life training of obedience is that in competition the dog is in drive tripped by desire to get reward , where in every day life or work the dog when commanded is almost never in drive.  In competition the dog mainly works for reward and in every day life the dog ought to ( IMO) work for the handler who hen rewards the dog for that. That is why there need to be different approaches of use of he 4 pillars of training if we train the dog for different purposes. ( Sport vs Work)  As an example the dog in competition should probably not be trained down exercise via gentle negative reinforcement  which is done  by unyielding  gentle downward pressure where the pressure is removed as soon as the dog  decides to start going down  and the dog is rewarded when he completes the command successfully. . Where in situation where we must make dog understand that the dog should work for us as a pack leader the same  if used will benefit the relationship between the man and the dog  in everyday situations. 

@Koots, Actually there are more then 2 steps in what you call "molding behavior",  then teaching and training. Actually  all "molding" is  training so I do not get what you mean by "training stage". In my opinion therea are more then 2 stages and thay all are significantly doggerent. These stages of training with dog as I see it as" .

 learning, conditioning , practicing and working.

 Also I will say it one more time . Thre is one thing to use obedience to teacxh comands and other is while you treach comands to establish proper relationship wiht the dog which is waht duke  is talking about. Good post duke . People shoudl read it.