A friend of mine adopted a beautiful male Lurcher puppy around 9 months old. He's a great little chap. Hattie and I joined them for a walk about a month ago and she is whistle training his recall without treats or toys and it's very successful. He recalled away from Hattie when they were playing so he's doing really well considering she has only had him for about 3 months She has owned lots of rescue dogs and has never used treats for any training. I'm just curious why her training is so successful if he isn't getting any reward? Thanks x
I used balls for Oban, threw one north then one south. He had to run by me to get the second ball so learned that recalling to me earned another throw. He loved to run to get the ball. With a lurcher (half greyhound right?) if she didn't at least start with something like that then maybe the run alone is enough reward for him? I don't throw the balls all the time now, hardly ever in fact. Though I do make a point to reinforce it sometimes with both balls.
Maybe interacting with other dogs is not such a big thing for this young lurcher. It is definitely not high on the agenda for any of my dogs. If it were a hare though for example that had crossed their path, now that would be a different story. I guess that's when you would see a different side to the lurcher, too.
Hmmm … yes, hadn't thought of that But she has had many different breeds including a Dalmatian and a Husky cross, same training technique. In fact the Dalmatian never, ever even wore a lead all round our village, she was a smashing girl!
If there are no rewards at all, then dogs will work for absence of punishment. The punishment may be mild - some dogs will find even a gruff tone of voice punishing, but it's a punishment nonetheless. Alternatively, she may be skilled at using environmental rewards - for example, the reward for a recall may be having a jolly good run around, which would be massively rewarding to some dogs. Environmental rewards are very difficult to work with exclusively, though. Maybe you should ask her for a step-by-step of what she does and see what she says?
There is nothing unusual or strange about training without treats. When I was a child pretty much all dog training was done without treats or toys. I didn't use food in training until around ten years ago. I didn't change because I wasn't successful without using food. There is no question that dogs can be trained this way. The question that hovers in the background is how is the dog being motivated. A few (a very few) dogs are so motivated by human approval that they will work purely for that under limited conditions. It is rare though for that motivation to be powerful enough to hold up when distractions are introduced. And of course other dogs are not a powerful motivator for many breeds. Collies, greyhounds, sled dogs, all tend to find other dogs a bit of a bore - that makes them a lot easier at times than our over-friendly gundog breeds As Fiona has said - either the dog isn't motivated to ignore his owner yet and is enjoying her approval. Or she is using some kind of punishment that he is working to avoid. Probably at that age, just a gruff tone of disapproval would do it. And as Heidrun observes, the main motivator for sight hound is a fast moving object.
Thank you for the explanation. I have only been on one walk with her and it was in the woods. Knowing her I would say she could be "firm" not at all how I would train put it that way. She isn't overly warm towards him when he recalls either, no fussing or high praise, it just struck me as odd. I guess time will tell when a Hare shows it's face and I would worry what would happen to him if he did chase it x
