My understanding of flooding is, for example, with a phobia of spiders, immerse the person in a room full and let the spiders walk all over them. Rather than, introduction to a picture of a spider on screen, getting them to look at it for a few seconds, building up to longer time, looking at a picture in a book, looking at one in a glass in the far corner of a room, bringing it closer over time, holding the glass, touching the spider, holding the spider. This may all take place over a number of weekly sessions.You might always have a certain nervous response but can deal with one in a room without freaking out. This process is a bit like LAT to me, LAT is not flooding!
The thing is, surely (following her theory) if you tell your dog to sit and stay you are also giving the dog 'no option in their environment' until released. In this case, I don't see any difference between 'sit until I release' and 'sit, stay until I release'. Both are telling the dog to remain in position until released or given another cue. Anyway, good luck with the course. Hopefully it will prove valuable to you and Vanilla. I don't think it matters if they have a few opinions that you don't 100% agree with, as long as they're not ramming their opinions down your throat
I wonder if the trainer is thinking about a 'settle' rather than a 'stay'. In a stay I would expect Molly to remain in the same position until released, whereas in a settle (for a longer period -sometimes 30 minutes if I'm teaching a class) she is expected to stay in the same place (on her mat) but it's ok to change position during that time.
Sit/stay also means stay until I use my release cue, I also use hand signals. LAT is the best thing since sliced bread and has helped my crazy Charlie a lot If LAT had 'flooded' him he wouldn't progress so I totally disagree with the trainer. xx
I'd never heard of LAT until I joined this group...probably the best work I've ever done was introducing Ariel to absolutely everything in a calm, controlled yet interested voice of "look at that". It even calms me down a bit when showing her new things when I'm somewhat unsure what her reaction will be. Our trainer has taught us to only use sit, not sit/stay together. The expectation is that the pup will stay in position until released. Stay is reserved for other things, such as long distance stay, etc. Being from the old school, we've always used sit and stay together, so it was a bit of a chore to change it.
I really don't see the relevance of that comparison. Human babies are human babies, dogs are dogs. On the one hand we are informed that dogs don't experience emotions like we do etc, and yet comparisons such as that are made. It's beginning to be a bugbear of mine I'm all in favour of scientific methods of training, modern methods are so much better than the dominance approach of yester year, but I'm not sure we do our dogs a favour by using human analogies. Just my thoughts, of course
As a trainer I would have to surely the cue should be the same for the sit at distance as any other sit if you are meaning sit until I release you - the distance between you and the dog is irrelevant. Or are you using the stay for another position?
Why wouldn't dogs have emotions - they are sentient creatures with a brain and pretty much the same nervous and endocrine systems as us. We know they can show fear, an emotion, they like or dislike other dogs and people. They are affected by adrenaline in the same way as us etc etc. I'm not saying they have the 'same' emotions as us but they definitely have emotions. There is an interesting chapter on canine emotions in John Bradshaw's book in Defence of Dogs.
I guess a good example, also I think in John Bradshaw's book, is guilt. That current evidence suggests dogs don't feel guilt. So, we can't assume they have all of the same emotions/responses as us, or assume that they interpret events/situations the same way we do. They focus on different things, for example smell, so their feelings in a particular situation might be different to what we think or expect from a human perspective. Back to the baby example, physically restraining a baby's head isn't the same as asking a dog to wait in a position until released... I think it's fine to not listen to everything the trainer says - I've worked with two trainers, both using positive reinforcement, and I've picked the things that I like and worked well for me and my dog, and ignored the things that didn't really work for us. Every owner and every dog are different - so I don't think there is a one size fits all!
My understanding, limited as it might be at this point, is to use the sit command only when we are right with the pup, and she is to stay until the release cue. Eg. Throwing a ball, etc. We were taught when we ask the pup to sit, and we move away, we are to remind her to stay, whether it be voice or hand command, and only do it once. Not sure if I'm explaining it clearly or not?
I did not think LAT was a form of flooding. When I looked into 'flooding' a while back it was very much throw someone into the deep end 'and a sink or swim' mentality. Which is why I was surprised about the comment regarding this. Sometimes I think your gut instinct is better, even if you are not the qualified person
@Sven, are you training LAT to help Vanilla train around distraction? I am teaching this with Cassie, not because she is reactive or fearful, far from it, but because she has the Labrador I'm-everyone's-friend gene by the bucket load. It seems to me to be very useful. She too gets labelled as "hyper" and "bonkers", it does frustrate me because I know she's not really --- just young and very, very enthusiastic
No unfortunatly it is not. This was a 'Luring Sit' excersise. OK for Vanilla not a luring anymore, but I used it to train the release cue (quietly). I thought I might aswell take the opportunity, think in future just kind of stick with the program.
Yep exactly, which is why I could not understand her comment. After further thinking about this, I think the other aspect is that I have been doing all the training and reading the books at home. My wife gets involved, but not that much due to her job (education). So when we had the trainer come round, this raised question with my wife if I was doing it right. Will find the chapter re:LAT and about 'flooding' and then let her decide. Also agree re: labeled as hyper. I was not impressed when it was mentioned, yes she has some of the tendencies, but also look at the breed (IMO). I was going to say something, but got that look. If you saw Vanilla at 3,6 months and so on she has settled/calmed a lot.
If you want to show your wife what flooding looks like, you can find Cesar Millan videos on youtube. The videos are very hard to watch. To be completely clear - I am not endorsing his methods. From the videos you can clearly see from the dogs body language how scared they are, which is totally different from that of a dog trained using something like LAT. If you're training because she's excited by things, I'm pretty sure you can't flood her with something she likes! Maybe the trainer meant that it is stressful for her - which might be true, but the goal is to reduce the stress by increasing distance if the dog is finding it hard. I had a quick look on youtube, don't want to post the links, but some of the Millan videos with examples of flooding are: Fear of Loud Noises Cesar 911 Fear of the Uniform Dog Whisperer (where he does use food rewards... but also a lot of pressure on the dogs) Scared Willie Get in the Car Dog Whisperer
I would give your new trainer a bit of time to explain her own training ideas and show you her techniques. LAT is just one trainer's concept, just one game in a book, but to other trainers that concept might sound counterproductive if they haven't read the book or are familiar with the concept. As for training duration during sit, different trainers will have different methods. So I would just go with the flow. If you practise the release at the same time as others are training for duration it might be distracting to the others. Usually one dog breaking the sit means others will do the same. I wouldn't be too miffed by the label 'hyper'. All of my dogs are hyper, if they weren't I would be worried. To me it just means they are lively, interested and wanting to do something. It is just my job to channel and shape that 'hyperness'.
@heidrun thanks that is pretty much how I am going to approach the training, go with the flow. We will do our own things outside of these sessions to continue our journey. This will just help us along the way.
