oliwa

I think getting to that point could take a very long time, potentially years. During that time, I think it's impractical to prevent such situations from ever occurring. Especially with most people living busy lives, the time needed to get to that point is somewhat unrealistic.

I totally agree with you and like the PR techniques better, but I agree with a previous post that talked about degrees of aversives. My one brother has his Border Collie on a shock collar fence, my other brother smacked his Labs over Thanksgiving when they fought over a bone. I am very much against this sort of treatment and think these sort of corrections hurt more than they help, but a "milder" aversive could work in certain situations.

I think a very important thing to remember is if you are going to use any aversive correction, if it doesn't stop the behavior after 1 or 2 tries then it's not working and should be stopped otherwise it's basically abuse.

wvasko

It was meant to be general as I am a Negative Reinforcement type trainer with 95% of dogs trained with a prong collar. I don't use a lot of treat rewards as I prefer verbal praising and petting.

Dogs are in and gone in 30 to 45 days. I don't give online prong collar training advice or actually any aversive advice on dogs that I personally have not eyeballed myself as that would be irresponsible .

II agree and it disturbs me that there are many trainers out there offering 2 to 3 week courses. I have never had a client mention Cesar to me so I guess I have been lucky not to have run into his fans. I have had to work on some dogs that were enrolled in positive type obed. classes and owners were either confused or had too much dog for them to handle.

Criosphynx

I have been eating/sleeping/living dogs dogs dogs for three years now and I barely got there with my newest dog. I agree, this stuff is certainly learned and alot of it is management. Fortunately I have alot of control in my situation (own my own FENCED home lol) not everyone has the same amount of control, or the same amount of motivation.

personally tho, as long as the idea is there, that it is possible thats a great thing

Mikey

I'd say we are on the same page for the most part then I don't think it'd take years but it's your dog and you know the situation better then me




If your cool chatting friend to friend I'd love to discuss this. I don't want you to think at any point that I am being mean -just discussing. If this isn't cool with you just say so

Ok so-on the prong collar-I have mixed feelings. At one point-I can put on over my jeans and feel it isn't too mean-but at another point I see people abuse them.
So tell me why you use one, what you hope to achieve and why you need to use one=and why there aren't alternatives?
Again-not being a jerk-I'm interested in discussing this I guess my personal feeling is it can be needed but as a temporary thing not an always thing..What do you think? Can you discuss this(we do have disclaimer onsite so you aren't giving advice on using one)


I like that-that way you know it's not being abused.

alfi

IMO training a dog with PR methods and the time needed to succeed it depends a lot in the particular dog.
For example: With Liza all the negative reinforcement was useless! When I started with PR she was doing amazing things in a matter of days! She is very attached with me (with a little of Separation Anxiety-my fault!) and when I praise her it is the best for her so I used that drive and in a few days she was able to do whatever I wanted!

It was not the same with the other dogs especially with my Mals. A few corrections and NR was like "necessary" to control them at first. Of course that may have to do with how I like to train my dogs (Until the age of 8-9months only socialize HUMANS:women and men,young adults / adults, elderly people, disabled / infirm,loud, confident people,shy, timid people,joggers,delivery / wearing uniforms
people wearing hats,people with beards,people wearing glasses, CHILDREN:babies,toddlers,juniors,teenagers ANIMALS:adult dogs,puppies,cats, small pets / birds,livestock / horses ENVIRONMENTS: friend's house, shopping centre, park,school / play grounds,day care country walks, party,slippery floor
bus,bridges,tunnels,elevators,stairs,veterinary practice,groomer,boarding kennels. OTHERS:motorbikes,bicycles,breed related stimuli, wheel chairs, traffic...and starting some training and after I am happy with their character I start training at about 1yo or more). Same with NR with the GSDs except my girl which does better with purely PR

Again with the rotties purely PR methods was the quickest way.

I try very hard to use purely PR methods with all my dogs but from what I've seen with some dogs (maybe breeds????) is faster even from NR and with others is almost inevitable to not use corrections

Mikey

I think that's a REALLY good point. It really doesn't matter how successful a method is-if it's not working with a dog you need to try other methods/ideas. You really need to adapt what your doing for the particular dog and the situation and the goals. Very good point

wvasko

Well there are I'm sure some blacksmiths out there that have only one size horse shoes and make all the horse's feet fit the same shoe, all you end up with is some lame horses. It has to be the opposite, the shoe must be designed/sized to fit each horse's foot.

A good trainer/owner if doing obedience work can be working on the same things he taught his other dogs, heeling, sitting, stay, down etc etc etc. But the training must be adjusted to fit the individual dog, not the dog adjusted to fit the training. I hope that makes sense.

BoxLove

It is only positive training for me. And yes, it helps to have lots of time. I also use food treats and toys for Billy, he is very food motivated. I generally ignore the behaviour that I don't want and show him what I do want. Just like my kids I don't set him up to fail. An example - if when we are out over the fields he spots a rabbit before me, I don't bother with the 'here' shout (we are away from any roads or other dangers), I wait for him to be heading back to me, say here Billy & give him lots of praise. But as I said earlier, I have the time & the patience.