Before You Get Your Puppy, Ian Dunbar Options

[Root Beer]

Blue, Kristine. The sky is blue.

Wow! Thanks for the education!

[dracina]

I don't have anything brilliant to add that would come close to matching wits with the professors, behaviorists, doctors, and theorists (real or imagined) amongst us, but I do want to mention the excellent posts by both Denise and Mr. McCaig.

Those straightforward, clear, and concise bits of wisdom are what really make these Boards great. Seriously- should be required reading for inexperienced/wanna-be/new handlers like me. Awesome stuff- thanks!

Karrin

[rushdoggie]

It is NOT negative reinforcement. The target behaviour is putting feet up. The aversive is applied (positive)...and the consequence is feet removal (decrease target behavior - punishment). If you consider the removal of aversive to be a desired 'consequence' rather than the behaviour itself, I say you are not going to be a very effective trainer in this particular circumstance.

...oh and I still hold that my earlier example of removing food to reduce counter surfing is negative punishment. Regardless of if you want to put a modern name on it (which is fine...theory changes all the time) but under the operant conditioning model it IS absolutely negative punishment (technically) or at the very least an attempt at extinction...

*yawn* it is getting boring

Actually if you go back and read what I wrote in one of my umpteeth replies, I said that I was a bit confused about the behavior as it was described, seeing a different picture and therefore it might indeed have been punishment, but that was irrelevant because that wasn't the point of my post. My point was good training is good training regardless of method, trying to dispel the notion that all dogs trained with positive reinforcement are out of control and poorly trained.

Isn't that a little abusive? Wouldn't it have been better to prevent it from happening at all?
My dogs find that a bit hard to do from their crates.
Cool! What a great idea! Maybe I should go buy a fire hydrant and put it in my living room and reward my dog for not pissing on it! Or I could walk around with my leg stuck out to the side and throw him treats for not humping it! He'll love that!

I will choose to not respond to the snide, condescending tone of your reply by answering you truthfully: yes, I feel now my actions crossed a line but at the time I was frustrated of having a sick dog who would eat anything food related including wrappers and be sick. She was a rescued dog who had been excessively crated as a pup and could not be safely confined in a crate as she would attempt to break out of them and in fact once got her head trapped between the 2 halves of a varikennel and nearly strangled. She ripped out 2 canines dismantling metal crates. She could also open interior doors in that house because they were lever handles and she was smart. The house was a rental with no garage and I was not allowed to leave the trash outside (got fined by the community when I did. My problem was solved when I moved into a home that I could modify so I could safely lock up the trash.

The last part of your post is so sarcastic that I can't find a polite response except I guess you have never 'proofed' a behavior.

Regarding training stock/sheep work, IMO:

It is not possible to train a dog to work sheep in a proper relationship with the sheep and the trainer without using what are technically aversives, however mild.
...
So many people say the sheep are the reward - you give the sheep and take the sheep away like a treat depending on the behavior of the dog. I'm not going to say it's more complex than that because that statement even undermines what is really happening. The intrinsic reward is not just the sheep. The intrinsic reward is the proper relationship that the dog understands in its genes. The dog doesn't need to learn specific behaviors. The talented dog is learning a proper attitude and once it has that, its actions are correct, or it will seek correct behaviors on its own or with reminders from the sheep or trainer.

You just can't break that down into specific behaviors.

I worded that very poorly because of my lack of real understanding of how that training is accomplished, thank you (and Julie, and Donald) for your detailed and thoughtful replies as they are educational.

Kristine,
My post was a *direct response* to Rushdoggie's comment that some dogs are too soft to take corrections and that a simple "No" would devastate such dogs.

I will assume I was less than clear, but I didn't mean that some dogs could never be corrected...what I meant is that for some the word No would be a much bigger correction than something else, my point being something is only an aversive or a reward if the person/dog you use it with finds it aversive or rewarding. I could condition a dog who never heard the word to think No was a reward if I wanted to.

I thought I did just that in post #190 above. At least I thought I addressed the idea that you can't really work on one discrete behavior involved with working stock during a particular training time.

If someone has specific questions, I can certainly try to answer them, but I don't really want to repeat myself. Any more than I already have.

J.

I see that post and Donald's posts and I feel again as if we are all speaking a separate language because I don't see an inconsistency with what I am saying its very frustrating but this is a crappy medium to talk about some things I think. At this point I will assume that I am being unclear because I don't understand the terminology and skills involved in training on stock very well and go on from there. Thank you both for taking the time to try to explain.

Here's something for all you Skinner et al. followers. I've learned from this thread and others like it that some folks will twist another's words to suit their argument and then deny having done so. They will refuse to clarify where they got the ideas they've inferred from another's comments even when that other person has clearly denied having said any such thing, and in the end they will heap the blame for misunderstandings on the other person because certainly they have been clear and consistent all along and are really just being victimized. In turn, someone else will decide that it's really not worth joining in these discussions, even though a part of them says that in fairness all sides should be heard because folks who are lurking might otherwise conclude that the most vocal person on the board must therefore be the correct person.

This totally works in both directions.

I too believe I am done here, I had hoped to dispel some of the thing I read about how "positive training results in out of control dogs who cannot handle stress and must have their environments modified as to never allow a bad decision" as its not correct, but its not happening. Maybe its a result of my poor communication, I don't know, but its time to move on.

The sun is shining and I would like to take my dogs for a walk in the woods (off lead, with no cookies ) and enjoy the evening.

[Journey]

Closing in on the magical 250 - Julie P. your efforts are to be commended. I'm not sure though if it's a negative reinforcement or a positive that kept you going Thanks!

[Root Beer]

Before the thread is closed, I want to say thanks to Pippin's Person. I really appreciated the way you shared your point of view, while taking an opposite point of view into thoughtful consideration. I truly enjoyed discussing the difference in our perspectives, and finding some common ground in spite of those differences.

I want to thank Eileen, too, for letting us all have a chance to debate these things openly, and for allowing discussion of different points of view when it comes to training our Border Collies.

[DeltaBluez Tess]

I train my dogs for sheep and cattle work. Prior to that we did dog frisbee. We also did some obedience.

We quit obedience as that instructor used the prong collar and pinched the ears of the dogs. She got one pinch with Shiro and after that Shiro greeted her wiht a snarl. We finished the class but never used the prong collar or ear pinching again.

We then did dog frisbee and did quite well with Shiro. Getty and Shiro placed quite well. Since he was not a dog trainer, he used "good girls" for Shiro. If she something wrong, he would say "No", stop the action and reset it up again. Shiro figured it out quickly.

I've been working with my dgos in sheepdog training for over 14/15 years. The first few years were wiht negative training (clubbing the dog wiht long pvc pipes and keeping them off stock, throwing bottles wiht rocks). After I saw the "light" I learned "pressure on, pressure off" or "Make the right east and the wrong difficult"

I have never looked back. I think I have done quite well.

I am not sure what title you would classify all of the various training methods above but the last one is by far the best. Getty (spouse) also did excellent. His dog worshipped the ground he walked on.

[Eileen Stein]

What we have here is a difference of opinion. Don't take it too much to heart, folks.

Thanks and good night.