I read it this morning. I think it might be the article Pippa mentioned in a thread I was on a short time ago and was looking forward to reading. It was very good and I enjoyed it very much. Just as an update, Maui is doing very well and has come a long way at almost 5 months old next week. She's happy and well adjusted, not a frightened or intimidated dog in any way. She's doing great on our walks, staying right by my side on a loose lead and no more lunging at cars. She's not jumping up on the counter (although still 'sometimes' on those we might meet on our walks along the way, when very excited, but will respond to 'off' most of the time! ). She is just a puppy after all! She responds to most commands, and she's getting more comfortable in the pool. She also plays very well and respectfully with other dogs and loves it. Maui is a high energy Lab and needs alot of exercise which we provide her with many times during the day .... walks both morning and evening, lots of game playing during the day and throwing of the ball ... when she's not 'resting up' from the previous exercise session that is! LOL! And she loves going to 'Play Care' twice a week where she socializes, runs and plays with many other dogs of all sizes and breeds. Maui is not 'abused' in any way. We treat her with kindness and respect always. She is a member of the family and is loved very much. I think sometimes 'the written word' can be misconstrued. At least I hope that is the case, since I definitely felt from some of the comments on that thread that most posters felt I was an abusive and unkind dog owner and certainly didn't belong on this type of forum. In any event, although it could be true that I don't belong here, I still did want to thank everyone for their input, as well as emphasize once again, as I did in the original thread, that Maui is NOT being mistreated. She is treated always with kindness and love ... and she is doing very well.
I don't think anyone was suggesting that Maui was being mistreated in the slightest. This forum is very pro positive reinforcement, and about discussing how we can improve our training methods through science-based research. These days, the science is telling us that, for best results, using only positive methods results in us having better trained and more emotionally stable dogs. So, most of us here strive to do just that and would bring to the attention of anyone using any type of punishment (as defined in the article) to the facts, that state that punishment, whilst it is one method of achieving results, is not the most effective method. Nor is it pleasant for either dog or handler. That being said, we are all human and we all slip from time to time. As much as I strive to be +R all the time, of course I have snapped at my dogs in frustration, or when they have hurt me from time to time, just as I occasionally snap at my husband! I just try not to be habitual about it because, for my husband as well as my dogs, we all get along much better, have more respect and more trust of one another when we give praise for the good things rather than sniping at the bad. The term "punishment", as the article says and you have obviously inferred from the previous conversation, brings up images of abuse and physical harm, but again, as the article explains, this is not always the case, and obviously isn't in the case of you and Maui. Any type of "correction" is a form of punishment, whether or not it causes any physical or mental distress, because otherwise it simply wouldn't work as a technique. So, I hope you don't feel picked on in any way; your post led to conversation in the way that these things do, about training methods in general and how we can all make ourselves better handlers. No-one is judging you; people were just suggesting that sometimes there may be a better way, and how to achieve that. That's not just for you, it's for all of us. If we didn't question what we were doing and why, we'd still be back in the Dark Ages!
One of the reasons I wrote the article, aside from the fact that I hope to persuade more people to try positive reinforcement training, was to help clear up the confusion that exists about the meaning of the word punishment. Because like you, many people that use some aversives in training, feel very judged when others describe their training methods as including punishment. I wanted to try and reassure those that do use aversives, that it is entirely possible to use aversives without being cruel or abusive to a dog. While at the same time, explaining why many successful trainers are now abandoning the use of aversives in dog training. And I am convinced that no-one here thinks you are an abusive owner, or that you don't love Maui. You clearly love her very much and have her best interests at heart. I do hope you are reassured by this. Please do ask if you have any questions about the article, or if any of it doesn't make sense.
Hey, mmomom, don't feel unwelcome! I am an avid member of this forum and I know it has saved my sanity many, many times. I also feel that I've got many good friends here (and in fact some of us now meet up for walkies with our dogs every now and then). But I know I can't claim to avoid 'punishment'! I know that I use the 'Ah-ah' noise a lot (and it works); and certainly my OH is very quick to use the stern and gruff voice when our darling little angel Pongo (39kg of manic labrador!) goes off on a hooly towards some unsuspecting victim..... On a few occasions Pongo has felt the sharp edge of my tongue, too. I do believe that positive reinforcement is certainly the best way to go forward - I just can't make it work 100% of the time for me. Not my dog's fault, and not the fault of the training approach - I'm just not good enough at it. So I do keep coming for advice to this forum, even if I struggle to follow it all the time. And yes, reading about the successes other people have does make me feel rather inadequate at times....but I know for sure that no-one on this forum thinks I'm cruel or abusive, and I always feel very welcome here. So please, please don't feel unwelcome. There are so many people here who are passionate about positive training that it is possible to feel a bit over-whelmed (I feel that sometimes!), but the main thing that we all have in common is that we love our beautiful labradors in all their mischief, crocopupness, hooliganishness, kindness and cuddles. Please stay and share Maui with us. Pongo sends some extremely slobbery licks to Maui and asks whether she has discovered the delights of muddy puddles yet? Rosie PS I am sure Pongo doesn't feel he is mistreated, but I am absolutely certain that he thinks I am starving him.
What are your thoughts on the use of E-collars and force fetch training techniques utilized by many successful retriever trainers?
I won't presume to speak for Pippa but I think they're utterly awful and there is absolutely no need whatsoever to use E-collars or force fetch in order to train a successful gundog of any breed and certainly not a retriever. I have had the absolute pleasure of meeting a delightful Field Trial Champion retriever that has competed at the Championships twice who was trained using positive reinforcement so there is no doubt in my mind that it can be done. Even though I am unlikely to ever reach those heady heights the promise of that kind of success would not induce me to betray the trust my dog has in me and subject him to pain for the purpose of retrieving a bird and even less so to retrieve a bag of sand!
I stay very firmly inside the positive only gundog camp, and I do not venture out of it (I did once or twice, and didn't like it at all). So everyone I know views E-collars and force fetch techniques with complete horror. I do not know how widely these things are used in the UK (since I train with positive trainers, I have never met anyone who uses either). E-collars of course are illegal in some parts of the UK, with the UK kennel club lobbying for that ban to be extended to the whole of the UK. I think that sounds like a very good idea.
Mmomom, I can't imagine anyone thinking that you're an 'abusive and unkind' owner. The advice you got from your trainer (lead jerks and 'tssst') noises isn't consistent with the approach we favour on this forum, so that's why people, including myself, immediately wanted to describe the alternative. But at no stage would anyone have thought you were anything other than a loving owner who strives to make Maui happy. On the e-collar front....what Barbara and Julie said.
Personally, I think force fetch techniques are absolutely barbaric, with e-collars not far behind. Our dogs run and run and swim and run some more for us, to fetch dead or injured game or to find a sawdust-filled green sack. We should be praising them to the skies and thanking them for that, not subjecting them to painful practices in order to force them to follow commands. When you work with a dog using positive techniques the resulting teamwork is such a joy I cannot imagine why anyone would ever train their dog using pain and fear. Mmomom, you are clearly a kind and loving owner, please don't feel singled out!
I had no idea what a "force fetch" was, so I read up on it. The first word that came to my mind, too, Karen, was "barbaric". I cannot believe that people would subject their dogs to such things. Utterly awful. 100% this.
I think that US retriever trainers have backed themselves into a corner over this. They have turned their field trials into incredible long distance retrieving contests, and in doing so, are trapped into training with pain, or giving up trialling altogether. What the dogs have to do to get to a retrieve is not like anything you would see here, either on a shoot day or in UK field trial If your dog is running eight hundred yards, you cannot afford the smallest error in angle at the point where the dog leaves your side or any kind of diversion along the way. The dog would be so far off course at the end of his run, he'd stand no chance of making a pick up. When he hits the water's edge, or leaves the water, or jumps a fence, or runs through cover, he has to hold onto his line. Unfortunately it would probably be very difficult to train a dog to hold the kind of long straight lines that are required in US field trials, particularly with regard to the involvement of water, with multiple entries and re-entries, without the use of e-collar training. And so a whole system has evolved to support that need. It's all rather sad really.
Yes I have to say I feel that that is a step or two too far. I'm not averse to a few mild adversives with Lady because I think there is a fine line between a recall, a stop or a wait command and the odd Ah! Ah! that I use to remind Lady what she's meant to be doing. I'm pretty sure that in the context I use something like that that she doesn't take it as a punishment. I don't think she thinks that deeply about it if at all. Causing actual pain or fright with an e-collar is in a completely different league so I couldn't contemplate any activity that needed to resort to that training or control aid. I find I get a sufficient boost of satisfaction and pride when Lady bumbles off for the odd long retrieve over maybe a couple of hundred yards tops and stops every now and then and looks back without command for a bit of direction from me to get her to the right spot.
Well, never say never. I went on (an internet) hunt for positive US gundog trainers - there are some. Not very many.....but they do talk of winning Field Trials. It wasn't so long ago that people thought no-one would win a UK Field Trial with a positively trained dog and that's changed now. So good luck to them, and let's hope that when the traditional US gundog trainers are absolutely isolated, having failed to move with the positive times, there will be sufficient pressure on them to change.
Thanx to all of you who took the time to post regarding what I posted earlier in this thread. As I mentioned, sometimes the 'written word' can be misconstrued and/or misleading and maybe that was the case here. There are definitely two schools of thought on training, and that is what freedom is all about ... being able to voice them. Sometimes alot of us are just a little more positive on our particular point of view, I guess you could say. I try in all things to keep an open mind on everything. I think I did finally get across to those of you who took the time to post in this thread, that Maui is loved and NOT abused, as I had already said in the original post. I did feel that way. I've received a lot of very good advice and suggestions from this forum and used some of them. My prime concern is Maui and what is best for her. As long as she feels secure and loved, is not a 'frightened' pup, but instead a happy and playful girl with some good manners, I think she's good. That seems to be the case at present. She's a work in progress and doing very well as I have described. And Rosie .... Maui send back some 'slobbery' licks back to Pogo! I also think most all Labs think we are starving them too! Here's Maui after a fun day playing with all the other dogs at 'Play Care' .... she loves going there!
mmomom - if you look bad at the thread, what happened was people were keen to point out that there was an alternative to some of the training techniques that you mentioned, and said you thought were necessary because of the US environment for bringing up dogs, including that your trainer favoured "Cesar Milan" methods. No-one said you were being deliberately uncaring, or questioned your love for Maui (and that remains the case, as you can see above). I'd say the culture of the forum is overwhelmingly in favour of positive training, and so people will of course be quick to point out and support positive training instead of more traditional force and intimidation methods - I hope this long continues to be the case.
This evening, when my husband returned from golf he asked how Molly had been. I replied that she had been a bit mischievous, pinching things and running off into the garden with them, her tail wagging obviously seeing this as a game. My husband said "I know you wont't take any notice of me, but when she does that she needs a good whack across the bum" with which he left the room. And just how many times has he smacked any of my dogs? Big fat zero. Seems I have trained my husband well
At least he knows you're ignoring him in order to extinguish even the suggestion of giving her rump a slap, as if!
