koehler method of dog training

all i can say to this method is...

youd heel too if you were terrified some maniac was going to beat the hell out of you...

that is untill the day you realive you can bite that heal and bad person falls down

im my closest shelter 5 dogs are currently considered unadopatable because of behavioural issues...
of those 5 dogs, 1 had recived no trainign or socilization at all, 1 had been severly beaten, and the other 3 had been raised using methods like these brutal ones and each one day snapped, the first had been trained with strong leash and "switch" (beat with stick) methods, he was aparently very well behaved untill one day he snapped, removed the switch form his "masters" hand and proceded to take the guy down via the ankles, the man needed over 150 stitches on one thigh alone where the dog had decided he didnt want this person ever getting up again..this person swears that this behaviour was sudden and uncalled for, yet he was the one "tapping" the dog with a bamboo pole!

theres no place for abuse in this world, its outdated and works on FEAR not respect...

personally ive worked with easy dogs, ive worked with hard dogs and ive worked with dogs so bad they were on death row, and never once have i had to resort to leash popping, kicking or half drowning any or them...

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:hail: :hail: :hail: Great post Foxy! You are so right.

Foxy, all I can say is ditto what Doberluv said.

Recently, in our area, a Pit Bull redirected on his owner when the "trainer" who had been working with him showed up at the door. Think he'd had enough, too, perhaps????
This method, especially in view of what we now know about dogs' ability to learn using more humane techniques, should be unthinkable. Period.

To sum this thread into 2 words

Koehler = moron

Case in point. (among vast numbers) Good post.



ROFLOL! I love your economy with words. No better way to say it! Touche`!

Coulda fooled me. For somebody who regards the consensus of the VAST majority of this board as a waste of your far more valuable time, you sure are humping it.

Anyone using his techniques today IS a moron. But to be fair to the late Mr. Koehler, who died in 1993 at the age of 82, our current methods were not around at the time. In fact, pet dogs were generally not trained at all at the time, and were usually kept outdoors. Koehler promoted people having a relationship with their dog, bringing dogs into the home, and showed through his film work that dogs could be trained to do marvelous things. He also supported the use of praise, as well as punishment.

Does this mean that anyone should be using his books today? No, of course not. But be fair. For his time, he was progressive, and his work laid the foundation for the serious study of dog training. Keep in mind also, that Mr. Koehler was a German, schooled himself by methods not all that different from how he trained his dogs. That's how CHILDREN were brought up at the time. And Germany was notorious for having the harshest schools . . .though American schools weren't much better.

We've learned since that there are better ways to teach both dogs and children. But its not quite fair to blame Mr. Koehler for not knowing what we do now . . . especially since most of his books were written long before his death.


As a side note, Purdue, making up statistics about shelter dogs isn't smart. One, on this board, you'll be caught at it. Two, they have a hard enough lot in life as it is without someone advocating that all they need is a choke chain and a swat on the nose.

These current methods were around a lot earlier than Koehler, actually. Pavlov really brought a lot of this to the forefront in the 1890s. BF Skinner actually recommended the little toy cricket to use in dog training as a conditioned reinforcer, just as it is used so much now. There is nothing new about the science of learning behavior or how it pertains to dog training. Karen Pryor of modern times has certainly re-vitalized and plumped up the use of +R training with dogs and other animals. But she certainly isn't the first. In other words, operant and classical conditioning has been around for a long time.

I do not believe that abuse or even extraordinarily harsh methods really belong being labled as "old school." (I know that term is used a lot and I use it myself) There were lots of trainers who may not have used +R to the extent that it is being re-juvinated today, but treatment such as Koehler's, I do not believe was really the main-stay or "school of thought" for many trainers. Maybe it was in Germany. I don't know. And I do buy that harsher methods were probably more widely used. But Koehler's viciousness toward dogs????? No one who loves dogs could do those things he advocated without doing serious damage to their own souls.

I have to agree. My mother was "training with cookies" in the 1950's, although leash walking was, arguably, still taught with a choke collar, pretty much like Barbara Woodhouse did, so not everyone felt good about teaching Fido who's boss in ways that hurt Fido.

Methinks the dog is smarter than the humans give him credit for.

That reads like my last psychology class!

Skinner always made me a little nervous because they used him a lot in graduate education courses. The problem is, they applied his findings to kids and he never studied anything but rats.

But yeah, I am no spring chicken and I went to basic AKC obedience classes with my dog back when I was about 12 (that was acceptable then so long as a parent was there), we did use choke chains. But we sure didn't hang our dogs with them. It was very similar to classes today. I don't recall anyone even suggesting anything like some of the crap I am reading on this thread.

In some quarters, this would be called Poetic Justice.

I stand corrected, then, Doberluv. I was under the impression that although Pavlov's and Skinner's research had been done, they had not yet been applied to animal training in the wider world.

I will confess not to having read, nor to having any desire to read Koehler's books. But I had thought, from other sources, that the man himself was not the origin of the worst abuses of his method (things like helicoptering and hanging) and that he was the first to widely advocate the training of dogs and the integration of them into families in the United States.

And yes, it definately was a German thing . . . he learned his methods from those used to train German army dogs for WWI at least according to what I've read.

The wonderful thing about these boards is I learn something new each day

Okay wow I read some of that but quickly became disinterested. Anyways my brother had a rottwriler that he took to school and everything and when I tried to walk him pulled like a bitch. I tought him to heal through positive reinforcement, but later on after I told my brother what I had did he told me all I needed to do was pull on the dogs ear and he would walk right next to me. Would that pulling on the ear be the koehler method of training?

Whatever it is, sounds like a great way to get bitten to me

Yes Lilavate...definitely. And a good way to erode the trust a human works so hard to get from an animal.......or should work to achieve. Trust and a good relationship with our dogs is the strongest and most powerful tool in the training tool box.

I don't see why pulling on a dog's ear would make him walk right next to you. I know it'd make my female sheltie probably snap at you, though.

But I don't know if Koehler advocates pulling on ears, to answer your question. I haven't seen that anywhere.

Who would ever have thought to see the day where I agreed with Frawley on ANYTHING??

This is true, at least at face value. I know MANY people who have dogs that won't do a thing unless they see a cookie. That is not "positive training" that is "beg, bribe and hope". These might be the dogs Purdue thinks they see in shelters and is so dismissive of. These dogs have never had a single day of acutal training in their life, they have instead manipulated the "coke machine" effect to the utmost, while the owners have not had the knowledge or personality to insist on treat-less obedience.

Many of you have met my dogs. I train initially with treats and then fade them out so that they listen with minimal praise. Occassionaly I'll break out some of the good stuff for a "tune-up" training session. Would those of you who have met my dogs call them "ticking time bombs" or anything of the other ridiculous comments bandied about?

I've trained under Kohler/Most trainers before and I see better, happier results with +R. So if you want to deliberatly cause pain to your dog for whatever reason, that's between you and your dog. Myself, I'm going to go with the method that gets good results and no stitches.