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Tess

As I've said before, I am so very glad to find this dog forum as the training methods and approach to caring for dogs is so refreshing, seems so "right on" and really aligns so well to my own intuition about my dogs, and how I've raised them.

However, I have to confess that there was a short time when I was duped, into trying some less compassionate methods of training. I think I would like to write a bit about what happened, the resulting "fallout" and recovery for my dog, and myself.

This is what happened. I guess I have to go back to when our female setter Lizzy died 2.5 years ago. She had had a long illness, but a long story short, we were left with just one dog, Cooper, a 75 pound sweet English Setter, who needed a companion. Friends of ours had a lovely little setter so I asked them where they got him. Within weeks, we were on our way, 12 hours by car, to pick up an 8 week old Llewellin setter male, whom we named "Josey" (he has his own puppy photo album!). Llewellins I was to learn are the "field lines" of the English Setter, and therefore, unlike our previous setters, this dog would turn out to have incredible hunting drive.

Neither my husband nor I knew about hunting, but again to shorten the tale, we decided that for HIS sake, perhaps we should be giving him the opportunity to fulfill his breed potential. I learned everything I could about hunting, training hunting dogs and just soaked myself in the "Llewellin culture", getting to know several breeders on line, asking questions about training and so forth. I searched for nearby "bird dog trainers" and found one, whom I "interviewed" at length. You see, Josey is a very gentle boy, and setters, particularly Llewellin setters, (a subset) are known to be "soft" tempered. We had raised him from day one with the utmost gentleness, positive reinforcement, really not even a raised voice. He was an easy puppy, the biggest problem just being finding outlets for his hunting drive.

So I interviewed this trainer about if he had experience with this breed and so forth. I was assured that he did, and that he knew how to handle them, and that he was fair, but firm when needed, etc. etc. The first few visits went pretty well, as the trainer did not handle my dog, but rather instructed me on what to do. I think it was about visit number 4 that I started to get concerned. This was when he started to use the e-collar in a new way.

Now, before you all get mad at me, I have to tell you that when Josey was about 10 months old, he was pretty wild, maximum hormones, minimum self control (think 17 year old boy!). I had always hated the idea of an e-collar, but I myself had changed my mind about them after a couple of close calls with a gravel truck, along a dirt road, where there should not have even been a vehicle. You guys who live in the suburbs and city find it a somewhat strange idea to run dogs off leash extensively, but that's what we folks in the country do, particularly with "hunting dogs". Of course we take our dogs to the safest possible locations, but once in a great while, there is something not anticipated, at which point having a recall is crucial. Now some may say to me "don't let your dog run until he has a reliable recall" but then I would say you have not yet met a hunting dog who NEEDS to run on a regular basis or go insane, so in my experience, you need to start a pup from day one walking in the woods off leash, and he learns always to keep track of his person. Anyway, discussing that would be another thread.

So for better or for worse, I had purchased a very good quality, very adjustable e-collar, that I had tested on myself. Its lowest settings were barely perceptible to my skin. Also, it has a tone function that one can use instead of the stim mode. I had taught Josey a "reinforced" recall with the e-collar, one that worked well enough if he was on scent. This was all possible without ever raising the collar level beyond just barely perceptible to me, so although I still hated the idea of an e-collar, I felt the added safety, should we meet something unexpected I would have the ability to bring him into safety. I never wanted to use the e-collar for anything but recall. Please understand, before you all get too upset with me, that my exposure in the culture of "Llewellin setter" was that everyone used e-collars, this is standard and apparently dogs are not "ruined" by them. Comparatively, I was being extremely judicious with the collar.

Anyway, all this is to say that here I had a dog slightly older than a year, who was used to an e-collar, not frightened of it at all, who would usually come to voice, but occasionally I had to "tone" him and even more occasionally I had to use a very low level stim to get him out of his "prey-drive-trance" to come.

So about visit 4 to the trainer, we'll call him "Bob" (not his name) told me he wanted to "expand Josey's education". By this time I had some trust in Bob, misplaced in turns out, but again, I knew nothing about bird dog training, real working dog stuff, so when you are naive, you are vulnerable.
So the exercise was to teach Josey the word "Kennel", which means to go into a crate and the way it is done is the stim is applied as Bob pushes Josey into the crate, and removed when Josey is in the crate. The idea is for the dog not to just learn the word "kennel" but even more importantly, to learn to "turn off the training pressure." This is very much the same logic often cited in teaching a "force fetch" or as some call it by a nicer name a "conditioned retrieve." Well, Josey caught on pretty quick, but I could see he was confused and stressed by this new method of training.

Well, to cut to the chase, as it were, we were taught a couple other things using the same type of system, including "whoa", but I started to get cold feet about the whole thing. I noticed Josey was having what I would call "bad dreams" from which he would wake up with a start and run about for a few seconds barking. I told "Bob" about this but he discounted my intuition that Josey was showing signs of stress. I stopped "doing my homework" with Josey at home, in terms of the practice we were supposed to do. I just could not use the e-collar as instructed. I mean, I still hated it, and wanted to keep it as only a last resort, life saving recall aid. The thing was, Josey still LOVED going to his training sessions with Joe, because Joe "put him on birds", that is Joe would hide birds out in the grass and Josey would get a chance to do what he loves doing, run his heart out, find and point birds. Seeing a dog doing what it is bred to do is astounding, as I'm sure any of you who have seen border collie work sheep, understand.

Well, about lesson 6 I just called a halt to the whole thing. I felt there was what I now know the term for... "fallout" happening. Josey was not so relaxed and trusting. He seemed "worried" and insecure, and wanted a lot of reassurance. Bob did not believe me, but I no longer believed Bob, I believed Josey. So I took Josey "out of training" and just stopped everything with him for several months, no demands on him at all, just went back to his usual big runs in fields, play with him on the floor, fun retrieves, treat based and clicker based fun stuff, how I had raised him. Fortunately, I THINK Josey fully recovered. He is a very sensitive dog, and he always was, from a young age. I don't know if he would be more confident if he had not had those half dozen "bird dog lessons" with Bob, but we can only live in the here and now.

Josey is now over 2 years old and doing great. He has a best friend, our 1 year old setter named Tessa. They are very happy and both are quite good about recalls. We have not made a hunting dog out of either one of them at this time, but you know what, that's OK by me! Now I've seen Josey "on birds" and Tessa has a fantastic natural point, but now I know enough to realize that they don't actually have to hunt, ie me shoot birds, for them to be fulfilled. We go out every day and "hunt" meaning they can do all their instincts and behaviors, (mostly pointing chipmunks, as there are not many grouse about) and have a grand time. We come back all three of us tired and happy, and no one gets hurt in the process. And besides, I'm a terrible shot, don't like loud gunfire, and most of all, I really like birds and don't want to hurt them!

So that's my story of training gone somewhat wrong, and a little about what I learned out of it. Does anyone else have a story to share? Or perhaps a happy story, of training gone right? Many of you ARE trainers maybe you have stories we could learn from.

Criosphynx

I actually follow a few ecollar trainers... I do see uses for them, tho not on the average dog/pet. Also, using them in the manner you describe to teach "kennel"...that turning the pressure off...is frowned upon even by ecollar trainers generally. The collar is not for teaching new behaviors, its for proofing them..

I'll drop that at that

here is my horror story

chili's first "class"

and here is my most recent happy story, forgive the format, its from my blog

Tess

Crio, I am very interested to hear what you said about e-collars. Without wanting to turn this thread into a discussion of them, I will just add that I also "proofed" Tessa's recall with an e-collar. I suspect I did it "right" in that she always greeted her e-collar with great joy and excitement as it meant we were going for a "hunt." Again I never needed anything but a mild stim and she quickly learned the tone. I have not put an e-collar on either dog for months now though, and they both do very well.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you how much time elapsed between story one and story two with Chili.... and how much training time. Hard to estimate for sure. And did you go back to that class or find another or just work on your own?

Criosphynx

about two months difference...if you browse the early Chili threads, you'll learn he is (was?) a HORRENDOUSLY reactive dog, to EVERYTHING. I have put a massive amount of work into him, all on my own, with the help of books and som' really nice forum posters

My experiences with trainers for hire are as follows....and agility trainer I fired after two sessions (with Emma) a behaviorist I hired who told me I didn't need her help, and that horid class which I never went back to...

I took him to that class to help with proofing, it was not what I expected. I expected 4-6 non reactive dogs in an indoor setting. Not what I found.

Chili's long list of problems is now restricted to barking at bikes and motorcycles, and occasionally skateboards. I haven't fixed those things because they are hard to predict, thus hard to train for. He also barks at strangers briefly when they enter the house.


My take is, anything can be trained and proofed without one, BUT, in circumstances of life and death (such as recall and off lead work where the dog could die due to failed cue) it does (when done correctly) cut the time needed for proofing the recall off leash. One must wiegh the pros cons as there is a fallout potential, as is with any punishment. I also see the merit for things like snake avoidance training and crittering.

I have taught remarkably reliable recalls to two of my dogs using only premack and PR, but it was done methodically, and it took more time than most owners are willing to put into it. I do it that way, personally, to prove it can be done, I don't put timeframes on teaching things (generally)

I have used my own collar twice. Once to teach Scooter (who has now passed) that it hurts to bite Chickens, and the second time to Teach Kiwi the same thing. I did it in a way that the dogs could not associate the stim with me, and timmed it so that they would associate it with the birds+their attacking behavior and nothing else. I also did it because I did not feel everyone in the household (ahem kevin) would comply with my instructions to keep dogs/birds separate, so I felt that fell into the life/death justification. If I felt he would keep them separate, I would have fixed it the PR route. Kiwi did show a small amount of fallout from it on one occasion, where she resource guarded from one of the birds.

ok Iam rambling now

Tess

Thanks for your take on things. That's so neat you did so much with Chilli, in such a short time. What a nice testament to your experience at this Forum, although you seem like you must have known a lot before coming here as well. In fact, I kinda had you pegged as a professional trainer, and perhaps you are one now!

I have a friend who "porcupine proofed" her setter with an e-collar, after 5 major quilling events, enough was enough. That does indeed get to be life threatening. Also, for those who live in poisonous snake territory, some aversive training makes sense.

Criosphynx

Oh that wasn't all accomplished in two months, that was a good year of training to be able to take him in public around dogs/people like that, the class was just so bad because it was such a horendously bad enviroment, I was just sharing the crappy trainer story
this was the "one year later" result

did I mention I don't like the ebbed videos? Heres the text with the video

I just wanted to proof his advanced behaviors around dogs, thats why I took the class, I wasn't aiming to learn anything new. It was like throwing him into doggy hell. It took him over a week to calm back down

he was at a seminar recently, with well behaved dogs, and he did phenomenal.


Iam not a professional, tho lately I have been reconsidering my stance on that


but yeah, your porcupine example is som'thing I'd personally be comfortable using a ecollar on.

pawzaddict

I used to use Cesar's methods before joining the forum. I never put my dog on their back tho, never would. Before this (and mind you I have an uber reactive dog with horrible genes) I would just get frustrated, hollar, make loud noises to stop him from what he was doing and give up on trying to train him from being reactive. I had a chihuahua who would do nothing but go potty inside all the time, I would rub her nose in it, show it to her, spank her (not hard, I NEVER hit my dogs hard ever) I did use corrections before learning about other methods and why those corrections dont work.

Once I joined this forum I learned to control myself, not punish my dogs, use +R, etc etc. My dog is not as reactive as he was but like Crio with Chili it is taking lots of time. I have undoing to do (going from correction based to positive reinforcement) but so far I think I have done well and my dogs are doing better, even Harvick, the crazy boy who I always feared to have around people.

Tess

That's a great story Pawz. So can I ask, did Ceasar's methods give you ANY results at all, or did everything just get worse?
How long have you been using the PR methods?

Tess

I think you should seriously reconsider!

As I reflect on this, I realize the porcupine/snake/chicken thing is totally different from "proofing" a learned behavior, such as recall. For the first, one has to seriously inflict some pain/fear to do the job. For the "proofing" the idea is to use a very minimal stim, never to scare or traumatize the dog. I'd actually have to wonder if a dog can have both experiences with the e-collar and still be happy to wear the collar, as is our Tessa. Josey on the other hand, after his "training" experiences with "Bob", does not want his put on.

Just thinkin'

pawzaddict

Cesar gave no good results, just added to fear. Luckily they continued o give warning signs instead of just snapping. Have been using full on +R for about 6 months maybe? Before I thought I was only using it but realized I still had some +P (pos punishments) in the slightest of ways, but still affected my training.
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