Do both methods of training necessarily contradict each other? I've found it a bit pointless to argue over them because they do have their own purposes, and I train for both (I train agility and under stress. for no reward, I train fast mechanical obedience for reward).
1 - 11 of 86 Posts
I do understand your training methods and the results you get. Believe it or not when I first saw similar pictures, I was a little less than impressed because like you said, I first thought it was simply 'putting' the dog in such a position. However I did try it out, or at least a semblance of it--working with my dog to overcome strange and often embarassing situations, and I've seen a certain improvement towards parts of his behaviour. One example is we cross horizontal logs above ground that, on his own, he can't traverse because he would slip and fall--he has to lean on me to be able to crosss it. I also help him up trees and direct him to cross certain difficult ledges in order to get to a certain location. Unfortunately there is a limit to what I can do with him, being I live in the middle of the city with only manicured lawns and playgrounds to play in, and I'm not strong enough to help him in some situations. Next month I'm taking a trip up the mountains and we'll see how far we go. There's a hanging bridge there too. 
I think the point here is I see dog trainers often arguing down to semantics or having an "I do this so I'm better than you" mentality. What people fail to understand is that dogs, people, and goals are all different; hence there is no one training method that is the best for all situations. My head hurts when I see someone put it down to having 'psychic' training abilities or that *their* dog obeys them because they love them. Again, different methods for different situations for different trainers for different dogs. As an example, I've always liked the 'problem solving ability' that clicker-trained dogs are supposed to gain, in other words they start 'throwing behaviours' at you in order to see what it is you want them to do. I do a similar type of training with puppies just for practice, however, I'd be damned if I start carrying a clicker around in the field or 'shaping behaviours'. I just don't have the patience for that. As another example, I can get away with correcting my current shepherd and in fact corrections make him 'faster' and more efficient--my other dog? No way in hell. She would shut down if I do anything apart from tell her "No".
The fact that you can even reach a certain point in training a dog, i.e. I can tell him to go there, sit there, wait there, come here, look for that...is amazing by itself already and showcases the bond between dog and man. I can teach a dog with food until he is overweight, but by the end of the day, he will still follow me to the ends of the earth, which is more than, say, a cat would do, even if said cat has also been trained with treats. I can also train the dog by beating him into submission (though obviously not enough to make him run from me every time he sees me), and he will still follow me to the ends of the earth; do that to a cat and you get your face scratched off.
Training by itself is a way to be able to communicate with a dog, so I don't see why the method should matter as long as you GET there. What's important is the dog learns to respect you and listen to you. He probably already loves you. That's not the issue here, of course. :wink:
I think the point here is I see dog trainers often arguing down to semantics or having an "I do this so I'm better than you" mentality. What people fail to understand is that dogs, people, and goals are all different; hence there is no one training method that is the best for all situations. My head hurts when I see someone put it down to having 'psychic' training abilities or that *their* dog obeys them because they love them. Again, different methods for different situations for different trainers for different dogs. As an example, I've always liked the 'problem solving ability' that clicker-trained dogs are supposed to gain, in other words they start 'throwing behaviours' at you in order to see what it is you want them to do. I do a similar type of training with puppies just for practice, however, I'd be damned if I start carrying a clicker around in the field or 'shaping behaviours'. I just don't have the patience for that. As another example, I can get away with correcting my current shepherd and in fact corrections make him 'faster' and more efficient--my other dog? No way in hell. She would shut down if I do anything apart from tell her "No".
The fact that you can even reach a certain point in training a dog, i.e. I can tell him to go there, sit there, wait there, come here, look for that...is amazing by itself already and showcases the bond between dog and man. I can teach a dog with food until he is overweight, but by the end of the day, he will still follow me to the ends of the earth, which is more than, say, a cat would do, even if said cat has also been trained with treats. I can also train the dog by beating him into submission (though obviously not enough to make him run from me every time he sees me), and he will still follow me to the ends of the earth; do that to a cat and you get your face scratched off.
Training by itself is a way to be able to communicate with a dog, so I don't see why the method should matter as long as you GET there. What's important is the dog learns to respect you and listen to you. He probably already loves you. That's not the issue here, of course. :wink:
I don't disagree with the quote at all, although I find it has very little relation to the subject matter.
Dogs instinctively recognize eyes and gestures. In fact you can even communicate with cats this way. Thankfully, because of this, I managed to prevent myself from being eaten by stray dogs when I was a child and I ran after each one I saw
. I find it more challenging and more beneficial to teach my dogs words without moving my body (even though using gestures would, in theory, make the learning process faster), because I can throw things at them from a distance and they start to learn to LISTEN to what I have to say rather than taking them for granted. I take it from sports training, which asks for lightning-fast obedience at one word, and you can apply it in other areas. For example, after the first few commands have been learnt, new commands are learnt extremely fast because I can tell the dog the new command, they listen knowing it's not a 'nonsense' word they can ignore, then I mark it with 'good' and it confirms the learning process. Another way to look at this is: if gestures are mixed with commands, the dog may start to look for the gestures AND the command rather than just one or the other, and then you're back in square one. One of my old dogs have been trained to lie down by me showing him how to lie down by pointing at the ground, an old trick that works very well. Unfortunately now I cannot ask him to lie down from a very far distance, or without bending.
...when I am not training and just living with my dogs, I revert back to my old behaviour and gesture to them when I want something. But I still find it easier to just say, "Get upstairs" rather than have to point to the stairs. Especially when I'm on the couch and movie time can't take romping dogs in the living room. :lol:
1 - 11 of 86 Posts
