Training pup to remain in "down: position - Page 8

Oh geez here we go again.

What you are failing to realize is that a big part of the reason we teach before we train is because we are teaching the dog how to respond to stimuli as well.  We teach not just a command such as down, but also how to moldable, how to react to stimuli in a compliant behavior, how to offer up a behavior (right or wrong). 

When I start, I could care less how fast a puppy or adult learns to down,  what I care far more about is that the animal learns how to learn...  Think about that for awhile.

In Ranger's case, according to SS, he learned everything else fast and easily through compulsion but not the down.  So either the way he learned from her was to resist compulsion until his opposition reflex was overpowered which it couldn't be on the down so he didn't have to comply, or he had prior work on the down through compulsion that his opposition reflex conditioned him to resist to the point that he would pass out from lack of air (kill himself).  Think about that for a minute.  An animal who will resist to the point of passing out from air has no way of knowing that passing out will grant him back his air.  When he passes out, there is a very real risk of him dying.  He would rather die than comply.  That resistance doesn't just appear on it's own.  It's a learned resistance from somewhere. 

And yes, it can start from puppyhood. 

SS,

As an aside, as you stay with your SchH club and get your TD's help, you will learn that your style doesn't work on every dog and that you have to change for the animal on the leash.  The fact that your two rescues learned and Ranger didn't doesn't mean your methods were right for any of them.

As you train and try different things and learn to adapt yourself to the dogs, not the other way around, you will develop what I call your toolbox.  It is the experiences that you have learned and stored away in this box of different ways of teaching the same exercise that will help you grow as a trainer.  Then you will have to learn to read each dog so that you will know which tool (technique) out of your toolbox you need to take out and try on your dog.

As an example, my daughter and I are training three dogs in tracking.  One tracks with only a long line at a medium speed which he sets the pace on.  One has two long lines one on a pinch and one on the fursaver, he's a faster tracking dog who I slow down slightly so that he can problem solve.  The third dog tracks with a long line and an electric collar used on low 2(tritronics collar) and he is a very fast tracking dog.  He tracks at just under a trot speed.  All dogs tracking at an IPO 1 level right now.  I don't have a style, I have techniques that are used as needed for the individual. 

Developing your toolbox is what will enable you to do this as well.  The fastest way to grow your toolbox is to diligently watch all the other dogs train at your club and to understand what is going on in their training as if it were your dog out there.

I attended a training session with the breeder I bought my dog from, who also trains his and other dogs for Sch. Essentially what he told me in how he does it is how Markobytes explained. 

I will say this, the psychology of it is not easy and I take my hat off to those who know how to do it right as Im sure everything falls into place real nice when you understand from the dogs perspective. Boy, do I have a long way to go!

bzcz, try saying that without the exasperated introductory remark, it will probably be received better.

 

I do not disagree that "we teach in order to train";  many people have put it that way.

[Don't understand what  "also how to moldable" means, though! ]

I don't think I am 'failing to realize' anything;  I fully agree that different methods suit different dogs,

we have various things we can do: 'in the tool box';   I am also on record here as saying - many

times - that my current methods are gentler than those employed by some others.  Although I have

always acknowledged that sometimes, for some dogs, in some situations, the older 'harsher' methods

have their distinct uses.  Proviso being, you should always try positive methods first.

 

While I see what Blitzen means, I do not really know about the training aptitudes and temperaments of

Am-line dogs c/f  US or Czech working strains, c/f German imported 'all-rounders', as I am in the UK and

as the latter (German bred) are the dogs with which I am most familiar, along with British-bred 'working

stock' of the older lines.  But I am happy to concede she may have a point.  I certainly think it highly

likely that Win Strickland chose what she wanted to work with, carefully.  For purposes of the general

discussion on training methods, that is all fairly irrelevant, however.

I don't think you can extrapolate from someone talking about using physical pressure to put a dog in a

Down or Sit, that they ALSO use heavy handed check-chain methods that deprive a dog of air, which is

what I think you were segueing into !  Don't assume what you don't know.  'Compulsion' can mean a              

whole range of things to different trainers.

And while we are on that subject, I was surprised to note in your last post your reliance on both pinch

and e collars;  looked at in the light of what you'd been telling us, that seems a bit odd ?

 

 

 

Hundmutter,

I don't assume anything. In an earlier post SS stated that the dog would " ...resist until he was practically passing out from lack of air!" I just have a good memory. 

How does my use of a pinch or e-collar seem odd?  I use what the dog tells me he needs.  None of the dogs are puppies and all the tools are for training a component of the track that I feel they need to master.  That component is different to each dog based on where he is in his training.

A pinch collar or an e-collar is not a harsh piece of equipment (I do NOT advocate them on puppies) it's how you use them.  I use them as finesse tools.  Subtle movements and low level stimuli to reinforce already taught behavior.  Like I said earlier, I don't have a style, I use what's in my toolbox to the benefit of the dog. 

In Ranger's case, according to SS, he learned everything else fast and easily through compulsion but not the down. 

 

Oh, jeez, let me refresh YOUR memory!

"he would just GO FOR THE TREAT right away".... 

I'm done, here. You are just picking holes in my training for the sake of picking holes, and I have had it with your condescending, bullshit attitutde! 

I acquired my first shepherd around 1984 (the 5 year old female). My training, and just about everone else's training, is MUCH different now than it was then, but I still tried to avoid using force, even back then.

Today, our TD often gets on my case for NOT using physical corrections (leash snap) often enough. My current dog is somewhat soft-natured, so I prefer to use a verbal correction, and save the leash snap for serious disobedience.

 

You are just picking holes in my training for the sake of picking holes, and I have had it with your condescending, bullshit attitutde

Amen, Sunsilver. Enough is enough.

BTW, using an e-collar or a pinch for tracking is using compulsion. I have yet to find a dog that required compulsion to force it to track. If it had that little desire to do something that comes so naturally to most dogs, I'd find myself another dog, rather than using force!

Just listening to what the dog tells me...  My first GSD had NO desire or talent for tracking. Yup, there's the odd dog out there like that! 

My current female was initially trained CKC style, and would often air-scent. She's transitioned to schutzhund style just fine, and now tracks with a deep nose, rarely lifting her head from the track. That's all been achieved without compulsion of any sort. I track in a harness, so can't correct her, other than using pressure on the line to slow her down.

LOL.  You misquote yourself SS. 

"he was a very fast learner. Within a few days (with the help of a prong collar, as he had learned to pull against his flat collar) I had him walking on a loose leash as if he'd been doing it all his life. He has never failed to amaze me with how fast he learns new things.    Why he gave me so much resistance with the 'down' I am not sure,"

This is what YOU wrote and I referenced.  He learned to walk with a prong collar on, that's your teaching (learning) as you wrote it.  That's training through compulsion. walk with me or else the prong will get you. You can't figure out why he gave you problems with the down but hell hath fury on anyone who tries to explain it. 

Your whole defensive attitude is what will keep you from learning.  I've made several posts that the point of them was to help you learn.  You see it as picking on you.  You are unteachable because it has to be presented and packaged in a way to keep from offending your sensibilities and your sense of ego. 

You want coddling which is why after over a decade as a TD I left the whole club scene.  I'm not responsible for your sense of well being or coddling your ego.  I tell it like it is, fairly and clearly.  You can't handle that because its picking on you.  Sadly your not alone. 

Too those whose training only scratches the surface (SS, Blitzen and apparantly Hundmutter).

Compulsion is forcing an animal to do something.  Walk on a pinch to stop pulling.  Pinch is on all the time unless he gives up and complies.  How did you teach him to shut the pinch off SS?  I should wait for the answer but I know it will never come because you didn't and you don't know how.

Your skill at tracking I would love to watch, I'm sure you would get mad at me for picking it apart too.  My level of refinement in training is something you clearly have no clue to.

To answer the question you should have asked but lack the knowledge to know is why and I using the pinch on one and an electric on another and nothing on the third.  They are tools to teach discipline on how to problem solve.  The electric dog will check a track off to a distance of about 10 feet before he decides the answer and comes back to the source.  Partially because he is so blooming fast a tracker and partially because he is naturally a PD style dog.  He uses all the tools available to him including air scenting to get to the goal.  He's goal driven and would be a perfect dog for real world tracking.  In IPO he has to decide much quicker.  The low 2 is a tickle stimulation and yes I have put it on my hand so I know what he is getting for stimulation.

The salient difference that you are too ignorant to know and learn is that I'm not forcing him to do anything.  That's what compulsion is and that's what you do.  What I'm doing is signaling him that the choice he made isn't the right one and he offers me another choice. I use electric because he has told me that that's what he understands the best.  You probably will never understand this and I'm ok with that.  Again, I don't care what you think.  \

The dog on the pinch uses the pinch to help him regulate his speed.  He would like to track fast but he can't think as fast as he tracks which then gets him into trouble because he finds himself off the track which he wants to be on and he can't figure out how it happened.  I use the pinch to remind him that his speed is getting too fast.  All the reminder is a slight tightnening of the line, you would probably never be able to tell when I activate it and when I don't.  It's much like activating the snaffle on a saddle seat horse, it's fingertip control. 

Both dog's have tremendous drive to track, your calling it force tracking shows your ignorance and how empty your toolbox really is.