Not quite sure where to put this...decided books was best... I’ve recently committed to training in a positive only way with Charlie – after going to more traditional gundog trainers for a while, but wanting to train using positive only methods, I had developed a bit of a mish-mash approach. So this was part of sorting myself out a bit. I’ve been exploring some ideas around positive only training and one thing that is interesting is whether positive only methods can be used to “cure” a dog from chasing. I do have a chasing issue with Charlie – he is mad for tennis balls, footballs and dummies and I can’t control which ones he chases! I am getting there though. But here, I was interested in more serious – wildlife chasing – behaviour. So I asked some questions on a positive only facebook page. These are people not really interested in debating the pros and cons of positive only training, they are committed and just want to get on with it. There were some interesting points made. I thought the first was that there is a difference between chasing, and predatory chasing. I was referred to a book “Stop!” by David Ryan. I’ve now read this book, and I’m not at all convinced that there is a significant distinction to be made. It just seems to be the degree of the desire to chase. I’m still thinking about it though. I liked the book Stop! It was written by a police dog trainer who will not resort to punishment unless everything else has failed (and he believes it will often succeed). It was interesting that some people on facebook said "that's ok for pet dogs, but not working dogs" - but I don't think they must have read the book before they said this: "The police still take pets that are going stir crazy through not being able to behave like they were working animals…the dogs want to work, and the police want workers. They also take failed gundogs, usually because they are too strong, which is shooting speak for “won’t stop working when they are told”. All of these dogs come with a huge inherited drive to chase, but it is often directed towards birds, rabbits, sheep…." On the facebook page, some people did claim to be able to stop predatory chasing by positive only methods, and some (mainly professional dog trainers) gave real examples of what they had achieved, some linking to diaries and blogs on their efforts. Some people claimed it wasn’t possible, and it was reasonable in a situation where the dog’s life was at risk (livestock chasing) to use shock collars and so on. And this was necessary, positive only methods won’t work. Having weighed all this up, and read the material, books and blogs, I was referred to, I think positive only methods probably will work but perhaps not always. I’m not so sure that’s different for punishment based methods. They probably won’t always work either – and for some dogs, the fall out from the use of punishment may also be drastic. The variables are the strength of the dog’s predatory chase drive, and the length of time the behaviour has been allowed to persist, and the nature of the dog. Plus the skill of the trainer. There was one very interesting thing that I did learn about Charlie: that the behaviour to chase is inherited (why Charlie has inherited a strong chase drive from a long line of show dogs I don’t know) but the target is learned (balls and dummies). And this is the key to controlling predatory chase – not by supressing it, but by redirecting it. That’s in a nutshell, there is a lot more in this in the book Stop! And a detailed strategy set out to retrain interest in a new target. Plus an associated programme to remove sources of stress around the dog (which is important, apparently). This made a lot of sense to me – just suppress the behaviour, by restriction of dog and/or opportunities, and the behaviour will re-emerge as soon as there is the opportunity for the dog to chase. The author of Stop! does not think the behaviour, which is an inherited drive, would become extinct by using restrictions alone (although they are necessary). So, I think that quite a lot of people think that it is possible to stop predatory chasing in some dogs using positive only methods, but there is no guarantee of a good outcome. It does seem though, that it’s worth trying first before jumping to using aversive methods. None of this helps me with Charlie, by the way and controlling which tennis balls he chases…but I’ve enjoyed the reading.
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) I've just read this too Julie!I found it while I was pottering around Amazon and was interested on the subject matter as well as the fact it was written by an ex police dog handler.
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) Oh great! Did you enjoy it? Dex, frisbees instead of cats? ;D
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) I've only just seen this. Looks like another book I will be buying. : I think redirecting is an important point. You can't suppress a natural instinct so you need to make it work how you want. Redirecting perhaps adapting so the dog uses its instinct rather than the instinct taking over. It seems obvious when you think about it that that is how working dogs work. (sorry not sure that sentence makes sense :) . We develop their instinct, whatever that is, to benefit and work for us. In which case I don't see why positive only methods wouldn't work. I think its probably important to find the right motivation (treat) and the right redirection (job that fulfills the natural desire) and that's the hard bit. :-\
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) So would you recommend this book to someone who has a Border Collie puppy who wants to chase their two cats all day long? Know someone in this situation and the puppy has an immensely strong drive to chase (cars, bikes, joggers...).
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) Oh yes, definitely - actually, that is almost the definition of predatory chase behaviour in the book (the dog chases everything - cars, bikes, joggers etc).
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) Julie, what examples did the dog trainers give of their positive methods in succeeding with chase drive? Two gun dog trainers told us that shock collars was the only way, I TOTALLY disagree I wish we could redirect Charlie to chase a ball/dummy anything but he just won't x
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) This is one story that has quite a few of the examples in it: http://manchesterdogtrainer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/controlling-predatory-chase-behaviour.html Other people (similar to this blog) also mentioned impulse control and dog-handler relationship. There were a lot of replies on the facebook page...
Re: Stop! By David Ryan (and predatory chase behaviour) Thanks, Julie, that's great. I will recommend the book to this person
