WCS puppy - how to accept collar/lead?

Moi?

 

Among others but you may travel furthest

 

That's interesting to know about Helen Phillips. My pup is from working parents and I do intend to train her as a gundog (though she's not KC registered - some springer spaniel in the maternal line, so not full cocker pedigree - so I will be aiming for shoots rather than working/field trials). I'll pick up Helen Phillips's book and keep an eye out for further lessons/courses once the pup is a bit older. I've also heard that there is a gundog instructor at Fillongley in Warwickshire - does anyone have any advice or recommendations there?

In terms of my original problem, the pup - Jess - has had a really good run around in a garden (not mine unfortunately) over the last couple of days and we have both enjoyed the freedom of being off-lead at last. She is tolerating the harness now, with the help of very high-value treats, but it's still a bit of a struggle and an off-lead space is still the best solution if I can find one. (Thanks to Newbie Lab Owner for the web link - there is nothing listed currently within 10 miles of my house but I'll keep an eye on that site in case new spaces are added).

Thanks all!

 

I very much doubt Helen will care if your dog is KC registered or not so I wouldn't worry about that

 

She definitely won't give two hoots! From what I've seen, she's more interested in the practicalities of working than trialling anyway.

The good thing about Helen is that she's completely positive reinforcement when it comes to training, which is very rare in the gun dog world. I can't say about the other trainer who is closer to you, but I would suggest it's unlikely (just because there are so few +R gun dog trainers) and so you should be very clear about what methods you are happy to use to train your dog before embarking on any training.

 

Yes, I know that gundog training is still pretty old school in its methods. My dad has kept and worked gundogs all his life, so I'm a bit familiar with the scene. He is quite soppy with his dogs - and they adore him - but he would certainly see a place for physical correction in training. And he's baffled by the clicker/treats approach. I tried explaining it but he wondered 'why can't you just pat it on the head and say "good dog"?!

The curious thing is that his dogs do work just for his approval and for the joy of working and I don't think his training involves harsh methods as a rule - only in a very exceptional case, maybe if an adult dog absconded. Now that I have the pup and I'm asking him lots of questions, it seems that a lot of his training is instinctive and that the dogs respond pretty instinctively to him. He even claims that his dogs train themselves - that the adult dogs show the younger ones what to do! He doesn't work them competitively and they are far from field trial champions. But they do what he wants, more or less, and they do it with complete joy and delight. He's kept a pup from the same litter as mine so it will be very interesting to see how the two sisters develop. Though he won't start formally training his pup for several months - old school methods again!

 

This probably isn't entirely the case. He is probably using something called 'premack' without ever having heard of it - traditional trainers do this a lot, I think. They use rewards in the environment very effectively.

It also might be the case that the dogs he has are very keen on human approval, dogs choose their own reinforcement. But anyone that trains with any intimidation at all can't know whether their dogs are working because they 'want to please' or are afraid of getting it wrong. These things look pretty much the same to someone that isn't looking for the differences.

I have a very bold dog, a dog that is not at all sensitive to human approval. He basically couldn't give 2 kibbles whether a human approves of him or not. My dog walker has a very sensitive dog, and when Charlie ran off with a football, she tried getting cross with him. Her dog would have been instantly cowed, would have come back, very upset. Charlie took one look at her, said 'bugger off, you're no fun' and made for the horizon. There is nothing like working with a dog that couldn't care less what you think of it to appreciate the nature of punishment - I'd have to escalate punishment far above anything I'm capable of for it to be effective with my dog. But the mechanism is the same - regardless of whether the dog responds to a frown, or a beating.

 

You might be right about premack - as I said, my dad's not very good at explaining his method! I'm not sure how to interpret the dogs' motivation/state of mind. They certainly seem happy rather than fearful, and to genuinely love him rather than to be afraid of him. I think it's true that the human-approval trait in working-bred working dogs is exceptionally strong - that sounds like much the same thing as biddability, and that's one of the key characteristics that working dogs have been bred for over many generations. And I agree that totally changes the effectiveness of types of punishment.

Approaches to dog training have changed so much in the past 50 years, it's like parenting. What we think of as acceptable and effective today is very different from in the past, particularly in relation to physical punishment. And that's a very good thing as far as I'm concerned. I have no intention of using physical punishment with my pup (though I am a bit tempted to strangle her at times!) and have been relieved to find growing support for positive methods in gundog training. That said, I don't think ALL children who were belted at school or smacked by their parents were irreparably damaged, and I don't think all dogs trained with traditional methods were cowed into fear. I suspect it depends on the balance of love/punishment that the dog receives. Lots of love with occasional punishment might not be so bad. Repeated harsh punishment would be a very different thing. But since I've only actually owned a dog for 3 weeks, I'm not exactly an expert on any of this!

 

I don't see it that way - although, who knows, for sure. I think the outcome is the outcome - a dog that learns something by punishment always associates that thing it learned with the punishment. I don't think it ever goes away, because the dog has learned what the outcome is, and so that affects how it forever feels and the reason it acts as it does.

So, what I think is that it is a cop out to say to oneself 'I only had to punish the dog once' and then 'now I give it treats when it does what I want'. Nope, if your dog learned a behaviour through punishment, then that is there forever.