Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
yeah, i used to think that the click eventually became the reward in itself. but that's not correct. the click is just a marker to tell the dog "that was good, you will be rewarded for it". it marks the behavior with very precise timing, always sounds consistent, and you can take your time fumbling for the treat or toy or whatever because the dog knows that it's coming due to the click. some people prefer to use a short, consistent vocal sound instead of a clicker, but the good thing about a clicker is that its sound is so short & consistent. it's tough to get your voice to do that.
you do phase out clicking AND rewards as behavior becomes more reliable - you never eliminate them entirely, but you give them out at random intervals, and vary the level of reward. jean donaldson sums it up pretty well:
if you put a dollar in a garbage can, nothing happens. people almost never put dollars in garbage cans.
if you put a dollar in a soda machine, you get a soda pretty much every time, unless something's wrong. people put dollars in soda machines pretty regularly.
if you put a dollar in a slot machine, you might get nothing, you might win a little money, or you might hit the jackpot. people get addicted to slot machines. a dog trainer should be like a slot machine. your dog should always know that even if they don't get a reward every time, that they will sometimes get a reward, and occasionally a super sweet reward. but they never know when it's coming. this gives them incentive to do what you want them to do.
timing is the trickiest part of dog training. my dog tends to go for other dogs when she's out and about, and what i've learned to do is to watch her body language to see if she's getting interested in another dog. if i see her staring, i try to distract her *before* she gets too excited. this can sometimes be a matter of seconds so i don't always do it successfully. i happen to have a really strong "this way" directional change command with her, so that's what i do. when she turns away from the dog, i click and treat. i also use this method to defuse tension when she's meeting new dogs - i pull her away, let her go back, pull her away again. i mentioned in another thread that she got into a confrontation/minor fight through a fence recently and i was able to call her away from it without touching her. i was pretty happy with that. ultimately, i'm hoping that when we're out on walks, when she sees a dog her desire to see what kind of cool reward she'll be getting from me will outweigh her desire to smell the dog's butt without me even having to say anything.
to stop barking, first you just wait for the behavior you want (stopping barking for a few seconds, slowly increasing the amount of quiet time), click, and reward. eventually he'll start offering the behavior, then you can give it a name and it becomes a command. you can train a lot of behaviors that way - anything the dog might do on his own. for more complex/unnatural behaviors you use what's called shaping, which i'm sure is covered in pryor's book. it's basically working your way towards the behavior you want by first rewarding a behavior that is close to it and then selecting instances that are closer and closer to what you want. for instance if you want to train your dog to spin clockwise in a circle, first you reward any move to the right. once the dog is offering you that behavior, you only reward tighter and tighter turns, until you have him doing what you want.
oh and it actually is a good idea to mark and reward when your dog is just sitting around being calm. a lot of people neglect to do that because we only notice when our dog is doing something we don't like. we should try to notice, and acknowledge when our dogs are doing what we like as well.
Yup...but every dog is different. My younger dog could care less about the Barkstopper we have (emits high pitched noise when they bark - actually got it for neighbors' dogs, not ours).
My older dog hates it, and that's kind of great, because now she just needs to see that it's out (we don't even have to turn it on) when she goes in the back yard, and she keeps her mouth shut.
Artie is a barker, be it at squirrels or birds in the yard, other dogs that pass by when he's in the gated yard, dogs and people that we pass while walking, the doorbell, etc...
While I can know that I can TRY to correct him, he's LOUD (he packs a loud and deep bark in a 35-pound body -- I call him the Barry White of the canine world), so he can't even hear me when I say "NO!" When we're walking, it's impossible to get his attention when he's on a barking mission, and correcting him on his leash is virtually futile because he's busy lunging too. Sigh...
Today, while we were playing with my neighbor's 9-month old Lab puppies (Artie's only friends), my neighbor tried to correct him with a water bottle squirt. He only tried it for a short time while we were there. It was fairly effective but I can't be carrying a squirt bottle around every time we go on a walk -- between holding Artie's leash, the poo bags, etc..., I've got my hands full.
I was thinking of a collar-type mechanism that would alert him that barking is NOT an appropriate means of communication (well, in most cases).
Of course I could Google these types of anti-bark collars, and of course I'd see the citronella (I think?) spray ones and the "sound" ones too, but I'd just be reading manufacturer's spiels.
Have any of you had any good results from anti-barking collars? If so, what kind?
I want something that's completely and utterly humane, obviously. I hate the idea of "disturbing" Artie in any way.
I'm a big fan of positive re-inforcement training (which clicker training is) but you had mentioned that you've already got your hands full while out walking and a clicker will add to the "hands full" read all the clicker training but find a voice command like "yes", "good boy" to replace the clicker with that way you will ALWAYS have your voice with you and you don't have to worry about having the clicker with you.
I don't use a clicker for several reasons, first; I'm a real clutz and I've got my hand on the lead, another with treats so where and how do you handle a clicker After years and years of dog and horse training with a positive touch, I'm much quicker with a voice command than a clicker, second; my current puppy a now 8 month old Sheltie will one day be a competition obedience dog and you can't take a clicker into the ring but in Rally-O and some obedience classes you can use voice commands, third; by using voice it gives you un-limited amounts of variations, for instance if my dog is offering the correct already learned behavior, he gets a quick very positive "yes", if he's getting a behavior right for the first, second, third etc. time when I'm teaching a new one he gets what I call my "silly yes" and lots of treats, fourth; I have fibromyalgia and somedays even picking up a leash is painful so the thought of doing anthing with my hands is out of the question but...my voice still works.
If Artie is part Corgi or any herding breed they can develop obsessive behaivors quickly and your job is to distract them and ask for a positive behaivor, like a sit command and reward. I've had a Corgi and now a Sheltie and belive me unwanted behaviors can happen quickly and become obessive in a blink of an eye. I'd also suggest taking some basic obedience courses with Artie to help you and Artie get "re-trained" and get Artie focusing on you at all times.
In your post you mentioned Artie is a real barker in the back yard and barks at squirels etc. you might want to start going out there with him to stop that behavior in his own yard - squirt gun. I use one on my sheltie to keep him from counter surfing
You also mentioned that he does this while out walking, to get him to focus on you start changing direction and lure him with treats...don't go out on a walk without lots of treats - get a fanny pack and wear it in the front.
Also, no one has mentioned the "treat value" while training my dog at home, I mostly just use kibble and give him a one kibble treat. If I'm going some place new or out and about he gets a "high value" treat like chicken. I'll bet if you take him for a walk with a pouch full of chicken do some direction changing with chicken lure and if he starts barking you stick a small piece of chicken in front of his face and lure him away he's going to be way more interested in the chicken than barking at something. Do a treat test and get lots of things like popcorn, cheese, chicken, dog treats etc. put them all down and see what he goes for first...THAT's the one you want as a "high value" treat...my sheltie's a "chicken man" my elderly Jack Russell will eat anything so each dog is different.
Retraining and training doesn't happen overnight, an in-grained behaivor like barking at things will take quite sometime to re-train, take lots of small steps.
On another note about e-collar training, I don't recommend it unless it is being used for a very specific life saving event and supervised by a pro some examples are; snake aversion training, there is a guy in the SE that does this for people who live down there and it works to keep the dog from getting bit by a snake and has save a human or two because the dog learns to smell the snake smell and will emit a certain type bark different from any other; I've also seen hunters use it to keep a dog from "running" while out in the field; and there was a very good Cesar Milan segment several years ago (I know many don't like him but he has some good techniques) with a farm dog that ran too close to equipment and had already gotten injured once, and they put the collar on and hid and someone else started up a big tractor, the dog went for the tractor and got zapped, he did it again and zapped again...that was it, it took two zapps to keep the dog from getting too close to equipment and getting hurt or killed. A voice command wouldn't have worked for several reasons...the farm equipement makes too much noise and the driver of the tractor couldn't see him to correct him.
I hope to get my sheltie the snake training when I move back out west, I will again will be living in a very rural environment and will be out walking trails that will have rattlers on them and I want my sheltie and me safe I'd rather have him zapped a couple of times than loose him to snake bite, so yes I will get snake aversion training for my dog.
I wish you the best with Artie, you will find that training can be lots of fun and an opportunity to meet new people and experience new things and best of all you and Artie will develop a whole new level of a relationship. Even tho Artie is a mixed-breed there are still venues you could compete him in or he could become a therapy dog all great things to do with your dog.
good advice, returningwest! especially about treat value.
i know a lot of people don't like the extra gear of a clicker and use their voices, and that's fine. you can even make a "click" sound with your tongue if you want. it just needs to be a short, highly audible, unique sound and as consistent sounding as possible. whatever works, works!
i keep my dog's bags in a container that attaches to her leash, the clicker on one of those phone-cord-like things around my wrist, and treats in my pocket. they also make pouches that go around your waist for treats.
And therein can lie the rub with voice. A human voice can be, easily, inconsistent in tone &/or pitch.
However, and far more importantly I feel, in this particular case there's something else to bear in mind and that is that Artie has tons of experience ignoring voice. His fear/apprehension/misunderstanding of the big, bad world out there is far more deep-seated and far more powerful than his desire to listen to Dawn. (This is not to say Artie's a bully and/or willful. He's just got no self-confidence and he's driven by fear.)
There's also the issue of owner confidence &/or experience. Again, in this particular instance, I feel that it is easier and more productive for the owner to gain confidence using a clicker - an inanimate object that is fail-safe (i.e. you press, it clicks!) and comes with a clear game plan. For people that perhaps have had either little experience or poor results training or modifying behaviour in animals in the past, the clicker is a boon. It takes the mystery out of it and helps build owner confidence (something that is often overlooked) - the positive effect of which rubs off in all sorts of areas.
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
17,330 posts, read 33,023,154 times
Reputation: 28903
ReturningWest -- That's true about not having a free hand. I didn't think about that. Maybe part of it was that I didn't love the idea of the squirt bottle and was looking for an excuse. I figure that I can afix the clicker to the top of the leash, though, and I'll always wear something with pockets so that I can have treats with me. I do know the value ranking of treats (I remember Viralmd talking about that a number of times), and plan to have cheese on me for Artie.
Artie IS actually part Corgi. He's definitely a herder. As for distracting him, once he starts barking, it's difficult. He's the Barry White of the canine world -- his bark is loud and deep -- and my "little girl" voice is no match. He can't hear me. But he can smell those treats, so I'm going to use that method.
Interesting...I used to bring high-value treats with me so that when we passed the Siberian Husky's house (they did NOT get along), and if the dog was outside, I'd start feeding Artie his treats while passing the house -- worked like a charm. I'm not quite sure why I stopped doing that.
I'm so excited to start clicker training. My neighbor/friend and my husband both think that I'll give up on it really quickly, but I'm really tired of the barking and lunging. Those men (them) just don't realize that when a woman (me) is on a mission, SHE'S ON A MISSION TO WIN!
When Artie's in the backyard, I often go out with him. I will bring my squirt bottle. And I will get a fanny pack for our walks. We're on a mission!
Thank you for everything you wrote.
groar -- I'm so psyched to get my clicker! Errr, I mean Artie's clicker.
FiveHorses -- I plan (hope!) to report back with excellent results.
the barking with my dog is bad too, however it is the attacking of my other dog that bothers me (one of the times when she barks), I know the collar is designed for the barking, but do you think it would deter her from attacking my other dog as well? The dog she attacks is much much bigger and I am just worried the little one is going to go too far one day and the big dog might bite back. She never has, but I don't know how she takes it.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,772,371 times
Reputation: 7185
I utilize an electronic collar during training with my dog but I would never put a bark collar on him.
For one thing, you can't teach a dog anything with a negative stimulus. You can only negatively reinforce failure to comply with known commands. There's a process for introducing electronic training devices and it absolutely is not to turn a dog loose with a collar that give him a shock when he barks. If the dog doesn't have a foundation for understanding where the shock comes from and why, it can be a very traumatic experience indeed. Some dogs have constitutions tough enough to take it in stride and they figure it out on their own, but others don't. A neighbor growing up had a dalmation that would bark tirelessly when outside for no apparent reason. They resorted to a bark collar. The dog would hide under the deck, completely motionless, whenever the collar was on. Since the dog didn't understand why it was getting shocked, it completely froze and withdrew from all activity. To me, that was terroristic and brutal. Exactly the kind of people who should not be using electronic training devices and exactly why the same are so maligned.
Never let a tool replace training your dog.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
After years and years of dog and horse training with a positive touch, I'm much quicker with a voice command than a clicker, second; my current puppy a now 8 month old Sheltie will one day be a competition obedience dog and you can't take a clicker into the ring but in Rally-O and some obedience classes you can use voice commands, third; by using voice it gives you un-limited amounts of variations, for instance if my dog is offering the correct already learned behavior, he gets a quick very positive "yes", if he's getting a behavior right for the first, second, third etc. time when I'm teaching a new one he gets what I call my "silly yes" and lots of treats, fourth; I have fibromyalgia and somedays even picking up a leash is painful so the thought of doing anthing with my hands is out of the question but...my voice still works.
