stags14 said:
Give me a break. Dr and Dober (the tree huggers) do not get it - they never will... The positive only gang has humanized their dogs.
Police dogs.... dogs that must obey commands in life and death situations are not trained using positive only.
You have definite blinders on, I'm afraid. Where in the heck did this "tree hugger" concept come from? I'm far from a tree hugger and I use nearly all positives in my training. You sound like a petulant child when you resort to attempted insults like that. Why SHOULD anyone give you a break? *L*
I don't see them humanizing their dogs nearly as much as others do. In fact, they are quite honest that their dogs ARE dogs and NEED to be dogs. What they do say is that we need to think like dogs because dogs can't think like humans. They can't understand an improperly used correction - and if you aren't dead-on in your timing, you can easily mess up a dog with corrections.
It's part of human nature to correct and because of that, corrections do happen in nearly all dog/human relationships. So some of us promote the other side of it in hopes that people will try to use LESS correction and more positives in their training. It works wonders for the dog, honestly.
stags14 said:
So what would you precsribe for me and my 7 month old rescue. If I keep her on a short leash in the house, and the leash is always in my hand, what exactly do I do when she sticks her nose somewhere that I don't want it? (edge of kitchen table, top of coffee table, top of furniture, etc... etc... etc...). What do I do?
Well, first of all you need to teach her (TEACH, not PUNISH) that there is another behavior you would prefer. When she starts to put her nose somewhere you don't want, you re-direct that behavior .. maybe you ask for a sit and reward that, or say "here" in a happy voice and bring her away from that spot. Don't keep tempting things in places you don't want this dog while you're training her. That's a HUMAN problem (and I know, you'll say "but the kids might leave something out" .. well, train your KIDS too .. *L*).
You can also teach "leave it" which to my dogs means "stop what you're doing, go to me and get a treat or petting". It's a great behavior and easily taught to the dog.
As you reward an alternate behavior, she'll start to learn that the alternate behavior gets her what she wants and she'll start offering that behavior more than the one you don't want. Remember, a behavior continues to happen because it's rewarded. If there's no reward for sticking her nose in those areas, there's really no reason for her to continue to do so.
This would be the first step. If, down the line and after weeks of kind and consistent training, you feel the need to throw in an "eht!" when she puts her nose on the counter then I could understand that. But starting off with a correction wouldn't be the right thing to do.
Physically correcting the dog for simply doing something very normal (putting her nose up to sniff an area) would be like slapping your child's hand for reaching for something .. I'm not humanizing, I'm putting this into terms that may be more understandable. With a child, you can verbally explain why you don't want them to do something and offer some other activity. With a dog, the explanation has to be in dog language, which is why we set up an alternate behavior that we reinforce.
Good trainers understand how to "explain" things to animals. It's not anthropomorphizing, it's understanding behavior and how it relates to learning in our dogs. There's certainly NOTHING wrong with that and the fact that you choose to mock it concerns me a bit. Why would you mock something that works so well for so many people and definitely works well for so many dogs?
Don't bother to answer unless you really feel you want to take the time .. *L* .. I'm heading out in about an hour to go to obedience trials with my dogs so I won't be by the computer for several days. I have three entered - one is a rescue dog (chow) who has already earned her novice agility titles and is now showing in obedience. You can do all sorts of successful things with rescue dogs if you want to put in the time. It takes persistence, consistency, kindness and understanding. I rarely use corrections on this girl and she just wiggles all over when we do things together. And she was a brat when I got her! *L*
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Melanie and the gang in Alaska
BTW: Doberluv and Dr2little .. c'mon up! It's cool up here!
Or ar you just mad that their answer for everything doesn't involve 'correcting' a dog?
