New Dog Owner - Looking for Advice

[DCforever]

Originally Posted by don6170

There is a lot of research and many recognized experts in the field that disagree with this style of training.

There are many who endorse leadership training and have great success with rehabilitating troubled dogs using it. BTW there are more quack experts in the dog training field than you can count.

[DCforever]

Originally Posted by Jumpindogs

You assume too much. Perhaps 12 starts right off the bat with a no-pull harness or a head halter in order to prevent the dog from ever learning that he can pull with her. That's smart management. And I don't remember seeing a post from 12 or anyone else that claimed one "can take an aggressive dog and resolve all it's issues with just positive reinforcement". But maybe she did post that. That would not surprise me since I know a few behaviorists who have done precisely that with some truly aggressive dogs and quite a few behaviorists, along with savvy dog handlers, who have done that with many, many reactive dogs. That is not quack medicine. It is scientific behavior modification.

Force-based training can certainly deliver results but typically does not create the kind of awesome relationship between dog and handler demonstrated in dogs trained using positive methods...that engaging, happily willing attitude of joy and initiative...unless the dog is so high drive that nothing can squelch his desire to do stuff. Correction has many connotations: restraint, leash guide, leash pop, leash jerk, loud "NO!", soft "uh-uh", alpha roll, gentle collar hold, walking into the dog, pushing the dog into a down, sneak away and so on and so forth. Force is not the same as correction. Gentle, respectful corrections teach/manage the dog in a non-confrontational way. Force is always confrontational since it requires a physical manipulation to overpower/convince the dog to do something he doesn't want to do or shock him into stopping what he is doing.

Positive trainers use management to prevent undesirable behaviors and reward based learning to teach desirable behaviors as well as counter conditioning to change the emotion of the reactive dog in response to the fear stimulus from fear to pleasure. Once the dog learns a new way to process the fear stimulus he no longer feels the fear nor the urge to react since he now feels pleasure when presented with the stimulus. But the dog who has been intimidated by correction to stop reacting still feels the fear. He knows his reaction is wrong since he has been corrected. He knows the right reaction if he has been rewarded for it. But he still has the same feelings...he is just trying to control his actions. He may be able to stop reacting by successfully controlling his actions until a particular situation arises in which he can no longer control them and has no choice but to act out his fear...often to the complete surprise of the unprepared owner who thought his dog was cured. Perhaps that is the process behind your dog's sporadic regressions.

Not all assertive leadership training is based upon instilling fear in a dog but IME (20+ years of obedience, behavioral and competition agility training/teaching/advising/competition) the majority of it is because so many people use it incorrectly.

True aggression in a dog should not be addressed by anyone less qualified than a certified behaviorist IMO. That said, true aggression in dogs is fairly rare. Most reactivity in dogs, often mis-characterized as aggression, is actually fear-based.

An interesting article for those inclined: Force-Based Training Methods and Some Unintended Consequences - Whole Dog Journal Article

You mischaracterize the training I am endorsing. The only thing I ever forced a dog to do, was to stop attacking another dog. Hold out a treat at that time just seems like such a silly approach.

I don't dispute that given an infinite amount of time virtually any dog can be retrained, but a large aggressive dog that has bitten other dogs and/or people doesn't have much time before it is put down. In my experience the dog needs to have boundaries established immediately and the first is that the dog must follow the instructions of the leader. It doesn't take fear to teach that, it take firm leadership. The only time I ever endorse pinning a dog is when it attacks another dog. The exercise is to break the physical contact, get the dog under control, and then to get the dog calm so that it can absorb a lesson. It's not "dominating" the dog and instilling fear, it's rescuing a dog from an out of control situation and getting it settled back down.

Other correction can be as mild as snapping my fingers, or a finger poke in the shoulder. They redirect the dog's attention back to where it belongs, the leader. My current dog can still lose focus when walking and I use a trick I saw Caesar Milan use which is a behind the back kick in the butt. It works great because the dog never sees it coming and it totally refocuses his attention. Calling it a kick is probably something of a misstatement, it's more of a push against his hind quarters.

None of this stuff is foreign to a dog. If they are in a pack with an alpha, the lead dog enforces pack discipline all the time. Pretending dogs are little people that will always respond appropriately to a reward of milk and cookies is just silly ideology. Not even people respond that way. Positive leadership is ultimately what produces the results we all want, but correction, especially in an early training stage with a poorly behaving dog, gets the dog to the state of mind where positive reinforcement can be effective.

[Jumpindogs]

Originally Posted by DCforever

You mischaracterize the training I am endorsing. The only thing I ever forced a dog to do, was to stop attacking another dog. Hold out a treat at that time just seems like such a silly approach.

I don't dispute that given an infinite amount of time virtually any dog can be retrained, but a large aggressive dog that has bitten other dogs and/or people doesn't have much time before it is put down. In my experience the dog needs to have boundaries established immediately and the first is that the dog must follow the instructions of the leader. It doesn't take fear to teach that, it take firm leadership. The only time I ever endorse pinning a dog is when it attacks another dog. The exercise is to break the physical contact, get the dog under control, and then to get the dog calm so that it can absorb a lesson. It's not "dominating" the dog and instilling fear, it's rescuing a dog from an out of control situation and getting it settled back down.

Other correction can be as mild as snapping my fingers, or a finger poke in the shoulder. They redirect the dog's attention back to where it belongs, the leader. My current dog can still lose focus when walking and I use a trick I saw Caesar Milan use which is a behind the back kick in the butt. It works great because the dog never sees it coming and it totally refocuses his attention. Calling it a kick is probably something of a misstatement, it's more of a push against his hind quarters.

None of this stuff is foreign to a dog. If they are in a pack with an alpha, the lead dog enforces pack discipline all the time. Pretending dogs are little people that will always respond appropriately to a reward of milk and cookies is just silly ideology. Not even people respond that way. Positive leadership is ultimately what produces the results we all want, but correction, especially in an early training stage with a poorly behaving dog, gets the dog to the state of mind where positive reinforcement can be effective.

DCforever...you obviously know nothing about positive training. No positive trainer would hold out a treat in an attempt to stop a dog from actively attacking another...why would you even think that? A positive trainer would *manage* the reactive dog so that he/she never got that close to another dog while teaching the reactive dog to associate strange dogs with good things instead of with fear.

Of course a nasty scenario can develop suddenly without warning in uncontrolled situations and in that case there are effective methods that can be used to safely separate fighting dogs. How to Safely Break Up a Dogfight - Whole Dog Journal Article

You are taking your own safety in your hands if you use pinning to break contact between two fighting dogs. Pinning can control the dog physically. Some dogs might eventually calm while being pinned I suppose but the act itself is confrontational which generally does not instill calm but merely submission once the dog realizes that you're not gonna let go. Some dogs react to pinning with more aggression which is another huge safety hazard for the human.

Your comment "Pretending dogs are little people that will always respond appropriately to a reward of milk and cookies is just silly ideology." demonstrates again that you know nothing about positive training. Our dogs...one of whom is a reactive dog who many people thought would never be able to run in an agility class let alone compete...perform highly skilled behaviors of long duration and behave appropriately in the complete absence of food rewards after being trained using the positive approach.

Personally, I have no problem with a gentle shoulder poke to get a dog's attention. Nor with a gentle hindquarters push.

But on general training methodology we are gonna have to agree to disagree. Before we could have a constructive discussion you'd have to actually familiarize yourself with positive training. I am already very familiar with Koehler and Millan.

Your dogs may not fear you. I hope they don't. But please know that your understanding of positive training falls immeasurably short of the actual method.

Many people feel that a large, aggressive dog that has bitten people should be humanely euthanized. Count this dog and people lover among them. However that doesn't prevent me from appreciating your devoted commitment to this dog.

Sincere apologies to NYC2RDU for hijacking your thread. I'll stop now.