Martin Richling Q&A

You carry Kharma?? Doubt that.
See you're full of lies!
*points finger*


The proper method would be to carry a 'stave'. Duh.

I still haven't seen an answer to my question.

Mr. Richling, how would you deal with a severly food aggressive dog that is boarding with you and you DON'T have carte blanche to do whatever you want...how do you go about handling that.

LOL! Well, in a manner of speaking I have on a couple of occassions. Like the other night when a phenomenally stupid jackass pulled up beside us and started to make a suggestion. I had to pick her up using her harness like a suitcase handle to keep her from going through his window after him, lol! And she's taught several to not slow down and then gun the little engines on their little riceburners for attention She seems to think it's great fun to frighten them.

Do you have a a problem with hearing from Martin' students??

You have been very quck to call us many derogatory names, and terms, and yet you have never met me, or many of the other people you have choosen to ridicule, and insult.

Perhaps it is easier to conduct a slander campaign if the rest of the lynch mob stays somewhat ill informed of the facts.

You were there for how long, one class, or a part of a class,???
But you have entered an internet campaign to slander somebody you barely know, and have almost no experience with, over a subject you have little applicable knowledge of.
Worse yet, you have spent more time on your vendetta, than you actually spent in class

You came to the class to check into the training, and did not like what you saw, although you do not know the context of what you saw. That is pretty much the sum of your whole angry internet crusade.

I find it odd that you consider yourself expert enough to even make these accusations, and judgements about dog training, when your knowledge base of dog training is so limited.

What truly surprises me is that so many people who do not know either you or Martin are so willing to lych the person you accuse of so many horrible things without having anything but a one sided, somewhat uneducated, and obviously distorted view.

Had you been a longer term student, who participated in the training, and did your best, and then had negative results, you would have at the least a reasonable bit of credibility.

But you did not participate, and only saw a couple of instances of things you do not like, but yet do not have the knowledge base to understand the context of what you saw.

I think hanging and choking a dog on a prong collar is evidence for even the world's most ignorant person to recognize what this man was doing was NOT right.

Excellent Post !! Darn it .. I can't stop Chazin'.

You just like throwing fuel on the fire.

This sounds very very fishy.

No, actually it is the accusation of a person with an agenda, unfamilar with dog training techniques, who may well not know exactly what she saw.

Perhaps due to distance what she calls "hanging" was not hanging at all,

You guys have been very quick to take a single accusation from a stranger, and newbie to dog training, with an agenda to discredit, and smear someone, and proceeded start a lynch mob, and stoke up the fires for good ole lyching.

Do any of you actually know this person "SBWILSON" personally????????
If not, what gives her the credibility to ride herd on this particular lych mob???
I believe she signed on to the list, and immediately fired up the kill martin campaign.

I have read the post on these two threads, and I see little more than a single posted accusation, followed by a "Mobbed up pile on" based solely upon the accusation of a stranger to the list with an agenda to harm somebody.

Does nobody on the list even see this???

Does this list regular subscribe to the witch burning mentality??????

Notice that his writings were quoted a few times?

Good perspective, Dutchie. And welcome.

Dutchie, I think what most people are objecting to is the fact that he admits to hitting dogs in the name of training. There is NO reason to ever a hit a dog. And yes, striking it with a stave is hitting.

No, we haven't seen MR training dogs. But I have watched the videos posted here and that Dobe is certainly displaying some clear stress signals. She ain't a happy gal. Does she do what is asked of her? Yes. But sometimes the ends don't always justify the means.

I'm not saying the clients of MR who posted here are bad dog owners. I can understand exactly where you are coming from. When I was starting out as a dog trainer I worked with a former police K-9 handler. Hearing MR discuss his methods is almost exactly like hearing her talk. I will say she never hit dogs, but she was certainly very strict, harsh, used no food, and believed in harsh collar corrections and alpha rolls.

I worked with her for a long time and I believed exactly what she told me. I didn't know any better, she was the trainer, and she was very good at convincing me, and her students that this was the ONLY way to train. That any other way would leave us with disobedient dogs.

If you had asked me then if I was abusing dogs by alpha rolling them, and giving harsh corrections I would have been offended. I wouldn't ever have believed it. I didn't see the body language being displayed by the dogs I trained and the dogs trained by her students as fearful or submissive. I only saw trained dogs. I didn't know any better then.

But as time went on, I learned about different ways, and I saw the difference between a dog who was trained the usual way, and one trained using a balanced approach, with ample positive reinforcement. The difference is like night and day.

I encourage those of you who are currently taking classes with him to just consider that it's possible there's another way. I'm not saying you should all hop on the clicker training bandwagon, but I am saying that you shouldn't allow yourself to get stuck. No trainer is perfect, and no trainer's words should be taken as the gospel truth.

I have never regretted the day I left my former mentor and struck out on my own, to form my own methods that didn't involve using harsh treatment. I'm not a "purely positive trainer", but I'm not stuck in the old german way of doing things anymore either. I have found a balance that produces happy, willing and obedient dogs. I hope that some of you will be able to do the same with your dogs one day.

And no, I'm writing this post to be part of the "team" here. Heck, I don't even like half the people in this forum so you can rest assured I'm not saying these things to get brownie points.

I hope you'll be able to forget for a moment that people here are critizing you (it happens often don't take it personal) and realize that being on one end of the extreme is never a good thing. Weather that's the "traditional german way" extreme, or the "purely positive I won't even touch my dog during training", extreme.

There is a middle ground. And those of us who live there have obedient dogs too.

And now I'm off to head back to my corner...chow.

Good post, Ann.

The one and only time I've worked with a trainer it was with someone like you've described. Purdue (my GSD) was four years old at the time and her harsh methods didn't set well with him at all. She even went so far as to tell me I should have him put down and refused to allow him to participate in most of the class exercises even though the one time he'd reacted strongly to another dog was when it snapped at me as it walked behind me.

At the last session, where we were being graded and the dogs were to go through all the exercises and be judged by a trainer who had not been at any of the classes everyone figured we would fail. She had us last on the list.

So I spent the entire class sitting there with Purdue talking to him about what we needed to do and why. Just sitting on the ground, nose to nose and eyeball to eyeball.

When it was finally our turn, we went through every single exercise, including walking around the other dogs - the one who had snapped at me as well - and Purdue was letter perfect on every single one. He'd never even DONE most of them before.

And that was when I realized that there are a lot of better ways for a dog to learn than by harsh, militaristic training.

I have been training/teaching all night and apparently missed a lot, including Mr Richlings return and neglect to answer my question. Again, I'm not here to debate methods, his or mine. I feel that would be a waste of everyones time. I also feel it's quite reasonable that his students defend him. Mine would certainly support me, in an instance like this. Having said that, I feel an answer to my question about background is important and I look forward to your response Mr Richling.

Perhaps...
But MR has offered his book to some 'regular' members. Some of us have seen his website. Even one member called him. We are not going on a single source here. His 'book' is far more insulting of me and my training methods (which do work) than I have ever been to him. I never said you can't train a dog using harsh corrections. I have simply said its unnessesary, and that it is contraindicated in some situations.

MR also has neglected to answer legitimate questions, and has changes his 'story' a few times just within this thread. This does seem a bit fishy...if you didn't know him, wouldnt you agree?

So no I am not taking just a new posters word for it, I have been doing my own research..straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Is there something wrong with that? I for one, will welcome hearing what his clients have to say, just so I can understand the full picture, not your one sided view and continual sniping.

Good post Dutchie. I still think it's funny how the entire forum has jumped on this after a single post by a brand new member who apparently only joined to set this guy on fire, yet when other people join to defend him, it's somehow not ok in the original poster's eyes.

I haven't made it through the whole thread yet, so this is just what I have to say after the first couple pages.

People keep bringing up the police dog training and that he can't use those harsh methods for pet dogs. There's yet another aspect to this:

Now for Mr. Richling, I've done some police dog and personal protection work in the past. Of course not nearly as much as you have done, but I have a small background in it. I have spoken with many different trainers of different venues of bitework. Some more extreme that you (hopefully) who will tie a dog's neck to a pole in the middle of a table, throw an e-collar on him, and whip and fry the dog until he bites the sleeve in front of him out of fear and frustration. That to me is extreme abuse coming from a trainer that many I have met in the bitework world hold in high regard. I am hoping that you're training does not border on that level of abuse.

I have met many who train as you do, most train your way but also will use a tug or a ball as a motivator. I trained with a guy who used far more positive methods. Yes, there were still leash corrections and such, but in addition to that we used toys and food. In personal protection competition you could see a huge difference in how our dogs performed compared to the ones who were beaten/choked/fried into their positions.

The police dogs that we trained left the facility ready willing and able to take on the world. But we had one police officer ask us not to say that he had his dog trained by us because it was an embarrassment to have a dog that was trained using rewards such as food and ball. I found that to be a very sad statement.

So I just wanted to let you all know out there that you can train police and protection dogs with motivators in addition to some correction.

Mr. Richling, I'm sorry that your experiences with positive reinforcement training did not go over well. The facility I work for now is purely positive and it makes me want to rip my hair out everyday I go to work (luckily I train at a different facility, I just run the daycare at this one). I understand your frustration with that aspect. But I do think you could learn a lot by speaking with trainers who use both motivators and correction and how there can be a happy marriage between the two

One of MR's students

I to am new to this forum but felt compelled to post based on the accusations that have been made on this thread. Dutchie summed it up pretty well...good post. I have personally been to four different type of trainers over the past 20 years, positive reinforcement, clicker, Martin's class and one in which I was required to "drop" off the dog for a week's worth of training only to have the dog returned to me with basic skills but no knowledge of how to reinforce what had been taught. I have been enrolled in Martin's class now since March and have not seen a dog "beaten" with a stick, choked by hanging, etc... Yes, he does teach to utilize a choker collar to give corrections to the dogs when they break a command or a stave to "spank" the dog but the level of correction depends upon the dog, as mentioned in earlier posts. These type of corrections go away with the conditioning of the dog through training and more time is spent praising the dogs then using these corrections. My 10 year old that attends the training with me enjoys the training and would be totally against it if she felt our pet was being abused or harmed in anyway. His training methods does include strong praise and rewards...not treats but loving hugs, petting and praise. How many dogs have anyone seen that will run directly to their owner when called from over 100 yards and not stop for a moment to check out other dogs or people that are placed inbetween the two. Martin trains his students and their animals along others to ensure proper socialization and to train the dogs to react to their owners when numerous distractions are present. I would personally place any wager in pitting Zadok (Martin's dog) against any posivitve reinforcement trainer in real world situations. Don't mis-understand me, Pos. training does work with some dogs if conducted correctly but not to the level of MR's methods.