[Purley]

All this is really useful and interesting.

It is specially interesting to me because I do belong to the kennel club. I have taken an agility class for years - non-competitive - just for fun - with my youngest shih-tzu and in that class we reward them all the time for doing things right.

However the instructor of that class also instructs obedience. He has a Dobe and he was one of the people who told me that I should be pinning Cooper into submission. It was because of this and because of what I read on this board that I decided that if I was going to take Cooper to a class, it would be a positive reinforcement class.

However, it turns out that the woman teaching the class (she has border collies and Belgians) lost the lease on her last building and only managed to find her present building after some difficulty. It is VERY small. You couldn't do agility in the building. Its about 1/8 the size of the kennel club building and so we are forced into being very close together when training. I think Cooper would be easier to train if he wasn't jeek by jowl with the mini dachshund to the right and the pug to the left. Of course, we could move and be in between the Golden and the Dobe -- but I can't imagine that would be any better!!

If I have a criticism of the class its just that - the room is WAY too small for eight dogs. I guess the rent is probably such that it would not be economical for her to take four dogs. Catch 22 I suppose.

There is another school that believes in positive training. Perhaps I will contact them and see how big their training room is - and go there next time.

I have a super book by Gwen Bailey. She is an English trainer of the positive kind.

http://www.dogbehaviour.com/

I am reading How to Train your Super Dog. Everything we are learning in the class - and more - is in that book. I am going to buy one for my son.

[Dog_Shrink]

Just an FYI... This was an article posted in another forum I visit... It pretty much sums up your whole question with out all the rambling.

Aversive Training Techniques and Fall-out

by Rita Martinez, Clickin Canines

All too frequently, I receive a call from a dog owner who explains that,” out of the blue” his dog has started a new behavior that looks aggressive. Often, this behavior results from fear or stress, but growls, barks, bared teeth, and lunges all carry the same concerns for an owner. How does such behavior arise in a dog who until now seemed friendly and happy?

Let’s first take a look at dogs’ learning style. Since we and our dogs don’t share a verbal language, dogs learn through association. Humans in their pre-language months learn this way also. Simply put, learning by association means that the dog takes in the environmental set-up when he is learning a new behavior or experiencing a specific event.

Aversive training is based on “correcting” (punishing) a mistake to eliminate the behavior. Here is a simple scenario:
An owner/trainer is walking with the dog, doing ‘heeling’ work. The dog – who is probably wearing a choke-chain, slip lead, or electronic collar – is walking along quite well. A woman and small child walk toward them. The dog sees them and, because he is friendly, he moves a bit forward from heel position. The owner/trainer immediately gives a correction (a collar pop or shock) to let the dog know he strayed from position.

In this scenario, the dog is focused on the woman and child and is also enjoying a walk. The association he makes when the owner/trainer gives the painful correction is twofold: (1) that walking is sometimes less than fun, and (2) a woman and child in the vicinity means something bad will happen. That’s associative learning. Couple aversive training with associative learning, and the dog now learns that something in his environment that he found pleasant is now stressful and to be feared. That’s how dogs develop reactive behaviors out of the blue. The owner/trainer thought with the human mind, but the dog learned with a canine mind: through association.

A study in Germany measured the cortisol (a stress hormone) levels in dogs trained with an electronic collar. They received a shock for a mistake while in a room. When they first re-entered the room 1 month later, the dog’s cortisol levels shot up to 300% of normal when going into that room again. A single shock and 1 month later, the association was still powerful!!

In contrast, positive-reinforcement training creates motivation for the dog to offer the behavior that the trainer wants. The dog and the trainer are both enjoying the learning experience and the dog is actually taking part in the process.

Aversive training works fast; the problem is that you often train an association quite different from the one you intended! Training with positive reinforcement can seem slow by comparison. When you use aversive training, however, fallout continues to bring new and unwelcome behaviors that you will then need to address – a process that can take a very long time and that may not work at all with aversive methods. Because aversive training methods work through fear, they train the dog to fear something. Not only are you likely to teach him to fear the wrong things, but also you are by definition increasing his overall fearfulness and stress. Fear and stress lead to growls, barks, bared teeth, and lunges. That’s fallout, and the risk it too great to make aversive methods worthwhile.


Rita Martinez, CPDT

[Dog_Shrink]

And another...

Critics Challenge 'Dog Whisperer' Methods

By Lynne Peeples, Scienceline
posted: 12 November 2009 10:05 am ET

JonBee jumps up at Cesar Millan, his sharp teeth snapping repeatedly. Millan calmly yanks on the leash and pulls the wolf-like Korean Jindo away. This continues for over a minute, with Millan’s face remaining undisturbed and JonBee’s owners gasping on the other side of the living room. Finally, the dog shows a moment of weakness. Millan quickly pins him to the floor and rolls him onto his side. Millan’s calmness seems to be reflected in the dog now lying frozen in submission.

Every Friday night, troubled American dogs undergo a seemingly miraculous transformation on national television. The magician is Cesar Millan, better known as the “Dog Whisperer.” He is the current face of dog training, and he has brought “dominance theory,” an age-old training technique, back into canine conversation and practice.

To understand how to control a dog’s behavior, according to Millan, one needs to look at the hierarchy of wolf packs. Domestic dogowners must confidently carry the title of “pack leader” and assume power over their pets.

But many dog trainers and behavior experts criticize the show, advocating a gentler approach to training that replaces coercion and physical behavior corrections with food rewards and other forms of positive reinforcement. They point to new studies that have placed the two popular dog-training methods head-to-head and almost universally shown positive training to be more successful than punitive methods in reducing aggression and disobedience.

Millan may have the ratings, they argue, but purely positive trainers have the science.

No more crying wolf

Millan’s concept of dominance is based on an old understanding of the behavior of wolves. In the 1960s, researchers observed that wolves formed large packs in which certain individuals beat out others to earn “top dog” status. These were called “alphas.” Millan contends that a dog displaying aggression is trying to establish dominance and attain alpha status, much like its ancestors. He advises humans to take on this position themselves, forcefully if necessary, to keep the dog in a submissive role.

Dog trainers whose practices are grounded in these concepts, such as the late Bill Koehler and Captain Arthur Haggerty, have dominated the business for most of the past half-century. But as Dave Mech, an expert on wolf behavior at the University of Minnesota, points out, the early wolf research — much of it his own — was done on animals living in captivity.

Mech has been studying wolves for 50 years now, yet only over the past decade has he gotten a clear picture of these animals in their natural habitats. And what he’s found is far from the domineering behavior popularized by Millan. “In the wild it works just like it does in the human family,” says Mech. “They don’t have to fight to get to the top. When they mature and find a mate they are at the top.” In other words, wolves don't need to play the “alpha” game to win.

In the 1980s, around the same time that our understanding of wolves began to change, positive dog-training methods slowly emerged from the fringes and grew in popularity. A tug-of-war continues today between dog trainers practicing predominantly positive reinforcement and those using punishment-based techniques.

Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts University, is one of the leading proponents of positive training methods. He believes the source of most bad behavior, especially owner-directed aggression, is mistrust and recommends rebuilding a dog’s trust by “making sure that the dog understands that all good things in life come only and obviously from you.” To get those things — whether food or basic attention — the dog must learn to please you first.

But others see these techniques as little more than pampering borne out of lax and inappropriate attitudes toward pets that have recently come into vogue. “In the last ten to fifteen years it’s become, ‘don’t ever say ‘No’ to your dog; don’t ever punish dogs,’” says Babette Haggerty, who is carrying on her father’s dominance-based teaching at Haggerty’s School for Dogs in Manhattan. “I think people are coddling dogs more than ever before.”

But in 2004, “The Dog Whisperer” — Millan's doggy psych 101 — premiered on the National Geographic Channel, and the momentum mounting in the positive direction was stymied. “In America, we [had begun] using human psychology on dogs,” Millan says in an email. “What was needed was for humans to learn dog psychology.”

Perils of punishment

Many veterinary behaviorists believe punishment-based techniques, like those seen on the show, could come back to bite dog owners. The National Geographic Channel even posts a warning on the screen during each episode: “Do not attempt these techniques yourself without consulting a professional.”

According to a paper in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, attempts to assert dominance over a dog can increase a dog’s aggression. Researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom studied dogs in a shelter for six months, while also reanalyzing data from previous studies of feral dogs. Their findings support those of the Mech at the University of Minnesota: dogs don’t fight to get to the top of a “pack.” Rather, violence appears to be copycat behavior — something borne of nurture, not nature.

In another recent study, around 25 percent of owners using confrontational training techniques reported aggressive responses from their dogs. “The source of dog aggression has nothing to do with social hierarchy, but it does, in fact, have to do with fear,” says Meghan Herron, a veterinarian at The Ohio State University and lead author of the study published in the January 2009 issue of Applied Animal Behavior Science. “These dogs are acting aggressively as a response to fear.”

Dogs react physiologically to stress and fear in the same way people do, with hormones. Two 2008 studies out of Hungary and Japan showed, respectively, that concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol increased in dogs that were strictly disciplined and that levels were linked to elevation of aggressive behavior. What’s more, an Irish study found that physically or verbally reprimanding a dog with a history of biting people was one of the significant predictors of a subsequent bite. The results were published in April 2008 in Applied Animal Behavior Science.

“[All these studies] confirm what many of us have said for a long time,” says Pat Miller, owner of Peaceable Paws dog and puppy training in Hagerstown, Maryland. “If you use aggression in training your dog, you’re likely to elicit aggression back.”

Paybacks of positive reinforcement

Before practicing professionally as a dog trainer, Jolanta Benal of Brooklyn, New York, learned the difference between positive and punitive methods personally.

Her dog, Mugsy, had an attraction to men in uniform. Whether they were wearing UPS brown or U.S. Postal Service blue, Benal's bulldog would lunge at them on the street. So she hired a highly recommended dog trainer to try to correct this behavior.

“He would set Mugsy up to do offending behavior, and then throw a can full of pennies at the dog,” she says. “It was a traditional old school technique. And it worked to suppress the problem behavior — at least in the moment.” Mugsy’s unhealthy obsession with the postal workers, however, did not go away. Even if he didn’t always jump at the UPS guy on a walk-by, says Benal, he wasn’t happy to see him either.

Benal then traded in for a new trainer that brought chicken instead of coins. As the man in uniform approached, Benal was now instructed to distract Mugsy by giving him the treat. And it worked. After several times, the dog would look to her in expectation, rather than towards the uniform-clad men in alarm. “For the last year of his life, he was an angel,” says Benal. “It was amazing the changes it brought.”

Millan argues that using food to coax dogs may be impractical: “It can result in an addiction to treats or an overweight dog,” he says in an email. However, Dodman of Tufts University explains that trainers only give food at the beginning of training. After a period of time, owners should reward intermittently, reinforcing the response. “If every time you played the lottery you won money, then the excitement wouldn’t be there anymore,” says Dodman. “The thrill for the dog is ‘Will I get a treat this time?’” Back-aches from stooping low to feed a dog, or the added cost of extra chicken or doggy treats, he believes, are far less dreadful than the anxiety and altered relationships caused by the punitive alternative.

Dodman has some data to back him up. In February 2004, a paper in Animal Welfare by Elly Hiby and colleagues at the University of Bristol compared the relative effectiveness of the positive and punitive methods for the first time. The dogs became more obedient the more they were trained using rewards. When they were punished, on the other hand, the only significant change was a corresponding rise in the number of bad behaviors.

A series of more recent papers also support Dodman’s theory and Hiby’s results. A study published in the October 2008 issue of Journal of Veterinary Behavior found that positive reinforcement led to the lowest average scores for fear and attention-seeking behaviors, while aggression scores were higher in dogs of owners who used punishment. Another 2008 study, this one published in Applied Animal Behavior Science, found that positive training methods resulted in better performances than punishment for Belgian military dog handlers.

Cont...

[Dog_Shrink]

Cont...

Bridging the differences in dogma

It’s hard to argue that the slow, patient techniques used in positive reinforcement would elicit the same dramatic moments seen on Cesar Millan’s show. “There’s a big difference between looking at behavior as a ‘Stop that’ versus a ‘Here’s what I want,’” says Bruce Blumberg, a professor of dog psychology at the Harvard Extension School. “Positive reinforcement is a different mindset. And it’s one that doesn’t work quite as well on TV.”

Dodman is one of many people who have asked the National Geographic Channel to discontinue “The Dog Whisperer,” consistently one of the highest-rated shows on the network. The American Humane Association issued a press statement in 2006 asking for a cancellation because of what they suggested were abusive techniques used by Millan. More recently, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior issued a position statement in which it expresses concern “with the recent reemergence of dominance theory and forcing dogs and other animals into submission as a means of preventing and correcting behaviors.”

Millan defends his methods, asserting they “use the minimum force necessary to prevent or correct a problem.” According to the dog rehabilitator, he can “redirect the behavior of most of my pack with just my body language, eye contact and energy.” He points to the “thousands upon thousands of letters” he receives from viewers touting “miracles” of restored relationships and saved dogs. “All I want is what is best for the animal,” Millan says.

Despite the controversy, there is a lot that everyone agrees on. Both sides of the training spectrum teach that a lack of discipline or structure is not conducive to a well-behaved dog. “Dogs need direction and boundaries, just like human relationships,” says Haggerty, the trainer from the School for Dogs in Manhattan, which uses dominance theory. “If dogs don’t know what the boundaries are, they will wreak havoc.”
How a dog owner projects those boundaries is also important. “You have to be calm, you have to be clear, you have to be consistent, and you have to make sure you meet your pet’s needs for other things: exercise, play, social interaction,” says Herron of The Ohio State University.

So what does an owner do when a calm and structured environment still breeds a misfit pup like JonBee? Should it be the leash and hand that redirects the dog, or poultry and patience? Current science favors the chicken flavor. But whichever strategy you choose, everyone agrees that the timing must be precise. It is very difficult for a dog to make an appropriate association and learn from the reprimand or reward otherwise.

Of course, if you take Blumberg’s Harvard class, he'll tell you, “If your timing is lousy using positive reinforcement, the worst thing that happens is you get a fat dog.”

I actually saw this episode and was amazed at how stupidly he reacted and expecting those people to do the same, put themselves in THAT kind of harms way in my mind was not only reckless ut irresponsible.

[Cracker]

I am going to ignore the most of this thread, just because I'm too tired to "debate" with our twinkling friend.

Purley,
On alpha rolling a dog:
Dogs are a social species (like many others) and in order to live in a society there has to be civility and compromise in order to work cooperatively. This does not mean that aggression or discord does not occur but that ways to handle it with the least amount of damage come into play. Social species TEND to be cooperative, fighting wastes energy that can be better turned to hunting, scavenging, mating and play. There is also the risk of injury, and in species that live in the wild, injury can mean death.
When you see a dog go to another dog, SNARK at him and see the other dog roll, it can SEEM like the first dog forced it, but really the submissive dog OFFERED it as a way of keeping the peace. For a dog to truly pin a dog AGGRESSIVELY involves an intent to injure the other dog. So...transfer this to us clumsy, badly coordinated humans. If we were to aggressively PIN our dogs, forcing them into a submissive position what do you think the message is here? That we INTEND TO INJURE THEM. Fear and respect are not the same thing...so an alpha roll MAY stop the behaviour we intended to stop (as punishment CAN be effective in reducing a behaviour) but what have we done to our relationship with our dog?
A conditioned "settle" started as a puppy is a very different thing as the behaviour is positively conditioned and so is NOT taken by the animal as an intent to injure.
Now, regarding being firm.
Firm is FAIR enforcement of rules (and they are our rules, not the dog's). I am a softy, but am far from "soft". Priveleges and rewards are removed if the behaviour is inappropriate and the dogs wait, sit, down or otherwise behave calmly before they get anything from me, attention, rewards, play etc. But it is important to understand that we have to TEACH them these rules...for they are HUMAN rules, not canine rules.
I have seen dogs that were out of control, aggressive or reactive etc. respond very well to PROPERLY taught positive reinforcement.

If anyone alpha rolled my dog they would have to deal with MY wild side.

[trumpetjock]

Originally Posted by Cracker

I am going to ignore the most of this thread, just because I'm too tired to "debate" with our twinkling friend.

Purley,
On alpha rolling a dog:
Dogs are a social species (like many others) and in order to live in a society there has to be civility and compromise in order to work cooperatively. This does not mean that aggression or discord does not occur but that ways to handle it with the least amount of damage come into play. Social species TEND to be cooperative, fighting wastes energy that can be better turned to hunting, scavenging, mating and play. There is also the risk of injury, and in species that live in the wild, injury can mean death.
When you see a dog go to another dog, SNARK at him and see the other dog roll, it can SEEM like the first dog forced it, but really the submissive dog OFFERED it as a way of keeping the peace. For a dog to truly pin a dog AGGRESSIVELY involves an intent to injure the other dog. So...transfer this to us clumsy, badly coordinated humans. If we were to aggressively PIN our dogs, forcing them into a submissive position what do you think the message is here? That we INTEND TO INJURE THEM. Fear and respect are not the same thing...so an alpha roll MAY stop the behaviour we intended to stop (as punishment CAN be effective in reducing a behaviour) but what have we done to our relationship with our dog?
A conditioned "settle" started as a puppy is a very different thing as the behaviour is positively conditioned and so is NOT taken by the animal as an intent to injure.
Now, regarding being firm.
Firm is FAIR enforcement of rules (and they are our rules, not the dog's). I am a softy, but am far from "soft". Priveleges and rewards are removed if the behaviour is inappropriate and the dogs wait, sit, down or otherwise behave calmly before they get anything from me, attention, rewards, play etc. But it is important to understand that we have to TEACH them these rules...for they are HUMAN rules, not canine rules.
I have seen dogs that were out of control, aggressive or reactive etc. respond very well to PROPERLY taught positive reinforcement.

If anyone alpha rolled my dog they would have to deal with MY wild side.

Glad I read all the way to the end of this thread, I was going to post a reply very similar to this one.

These are wise words.

[sparkle]

OH MY

Everyone certainly has a opinion.

...from the twinkling ant eater

[Marsh Muppet]

Originally Posted by Dog_Shrink

Because aversive training methods work through fear, they train the dog to fear something. Not only are you likely to teach him to fear the wrong things, but also you are by definition increasing his overall fearfulness and stress. Fear and stress lead to growls, barks, bared teeth, and lunges. That’s fallout, and the risk it too great to make aversive methods worthwhile.

That would be very bad...if it were true.

[Cracker]

But it is true...avoidance of punishment (compliance) is based in fear of the punishment itself..no? Otherwise..why would it work like it does?

[sparkle]

Originally Posted by Cracker

But it is true...avoidance of punishment (compliance) is based in fear of the punishment itself..no? Otherwise..why would it work like it does?

Thing is...based on who's agenda we are considering...it just does not work in that there is no value or benefit in punishment.

[RBark]

Originally Posted by sparkle

Thing is...based on who's agenda we are considering...it just does not work in that there is no value or benefit in punishment.

Nobody said there's NO value in punishment. I, myself, despite being a very strictly R+ trainer, use an e-collar based on R- methods for recall, a life-saving cue, on one of my dogs.

[Purley]

With regard to punishment, I can certainly tell with Cooper that any attention is good. It doesnt matter if its BAD attention ..... its still attention. So therefore I would think that it would follow that if all he gets is yelled at for not doing the right thing, then surely he will continue to be bad just so he gets attention ---- won't he??

I have read all the posts and I can certainly see that whereas the human thinks the result will be one way --- there is a good chance that the dog will not see things in the same light, as in the example of being punished by having the chain collar snapped, for lunging at a child. Before this was pointed out to me, I would definitely have thought - the dog needs a snap to correct him and from that correction the result will be that he will walk by my side. But I can now see how, from the dog's point of view, it might very well suggest that the child is a bad thing because it caused a pain in the neck for the dog!

Of course, not everyone will agree. But its a free world and people are entitled to disagree!

[RBark]

Originally Posted by Purley

With regard to punishment, I can certainly tell with Cooper that any attention is good. It doesnt matter if its BAD attention ..... its still attention. So therefore I would think that it would follow that if all he gets is yelled at for not doing the right thing, then surely he will continue to be bad just so he gets attention ---- won't he??

I have read all the posts and I can certainly see that whereas the human thinks the result will be one way --- there is a good chance that the dog will not see things in the same light, as in the example of being punished by having the chain collar snapped, for lunging at a child. Before this was pointed out to me, I would definitely have thought - the dog needs a snap to correct him and from that correction the result will be that he will walk by my side. But I can now see how, from the dog's point of view, it might very well suggest that the child is a bad thing because it caused a pain in the neck for the dog!

Of course, not everyone will agree. But its a free world and people are entitled to disagree!

Have you taught "look at me"?

This is a good starting command for teaching attention. There are a lot of stickies in the training forum for teaching attention and drive control. The book, "Control Unleashed" is very good in this regard.

But if you're interested in the basis of how your dog thinks, Patricia McConnell's "Other End of the Leash" and "For the Love of a Dog" are both quick, enjoyable reads with amazing insight into your relationship with your dog.

[Mr Pooch]

I hate alpha rolling or any similar kind of physical contact with a dog its weird IMO

Originally Posted by sparkle

And then there is the reality in that some of my vet friends tell about the dogs they terminate/murder because the human refuses to use compulsion conditioning I enjoy sitting in from time to time and watching the dogs go to sleep. NO STRESS AT ALL For the dog.

This ^...WTF! just plain strange and disturbing.
I have been a vet tech and the part you "enjoy" was (along with crap pay) one of the reasons i left,seeing dogs die everyday then going home to my own and knowing it would happen eventually was depressing. Also the owners crying around their dead pet was alot to deal with daily especially when many of those dogs i administered meds and gave food too everyday along with walking them and getting to know them.

[Marsh Muppet]

Originally Posted by Cracker

But it is true...avoidance of punishment (compliance) is based in fear of the punishment itself..no? Otherwise..why would it work like it does?

But it would only increase fear and stress if the dog continued the behavior and continued receiving punishment. Assuming reasonable training protocols (i.e., communicating to the dog what behaviors will result in punishment or reward) they just don't behave that way. Unless they are mentally defective.

A human who repeatedly gets nailed for DWI may very well blame "the !@#$% cops" for their trouble, and grow to despise police officers. I actually know a few people like that. Humans are much more clever when it comes to outsmarting themselves. A dog will just avoid doing the thing that results in unpleasant consequences.

[sparkle]

Originally Posted by Mr Pooch

I hate alpha rolling or any similar kind of physical contact with a dog its weird IMO




This ^...WTF! just plain strange and disturbing.
I have been a vet tech and the part you "enjoy" was (along with crap pay) one of the reasons i left,seeing dogs die everyday then going home to my own and knowing it would happen eventually was depressing. Also the owners crying around their dead pet was alot to deal with daily especially when many of those dogs i administered meds and gave food too everyday along with walking them and getting to know them.

oh yes ...So you know what it is like trying to hit the vein as accurately as possible and then monitoring the heart beat till it fades to nothing. One of my vet friends put up literature conerning her services that her vet practice would no longer perform Euths unless it could be established that the dogs health was such that termination is warrented. It was not worth the business.

Such joy.

[Marsh Muppet]

Forum Advisory: please remember to calibrate your sarcasmometers.

[RBark]

Originally Posted by Marsh Muppet

But it would only increase fear and stress if the dog continued the behavior and continued receiving punishment. Assuming reasonable training protocols (i.e., communicating to the dog what behaviors will result in punishment or reward) they just don't behave that way. Unless they are mentally defective.

A human who repeatedly gets nailed for DWI may very well blame "the !@#$% cops" for their trouble, and grow to despise police officers. I actually know a few people like that. Humans are much more clever when it comes to outsmarting themselves. A dog will just avoid doing the thing that results in unpleasant consequences.

Assuming done properly, yes, punishment won't occur with association. A dog that associates the choke correction with the child he sees has not been taught the correction properly. I don't think that's what Cracker meant to argue. Done properly, a P+ based method will work. But that's not under debate.

Originally Posted by sparkle

oh yes ...So you know what it is like trying to hit the vein as accurately as possible and then monitoring the heart beat till it fades to nothing.

Such joy.

Quit your childish tantrum. Most of us here have had to put our dog to sleep at some point, and your idiocy is not helping.

[sparkle]

Originally Posted by RBark

Quit your childish tantrum. Most of us here have had to put our dog to sleep at some point, and your idiocy is not helping.

You of all people should know and have learned by know that such a aversive approach will not act as a correction in my case.



Why is it that people who against compulsion based training feel a need to resort to name calling?

That would make for a intersting intelligent adult conversation would it not?

[Dakota Spirit]

Is anyone else kind of confused?
This discussion sort of took a weird turn