Lindy , I rehomed a little dog three weeks ago , and discovered that she is deaf . Now , anyone who has rescued, knows that this in itself can be a challenge, but chuck in the added problems of a deaf dog , not easy I can tell you ! However , she is responding so well to positive methods , to kindness with no force or punishment, heaven forbid ! The bond between a dog and its owner is a joy , and should be something to embrace , to have a happy dog is a treasure x
I think this is a very key point. The impact of training on any dog is not just about their ability to do those particular tasks. The training is a full-on experience (whatever method is used) and it will have an impact on the entire dog and all of its behaviour.
One of my favourite quotes about the relationship and responsibility we owe our dogs - "The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being. The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth can ever be" - Konrad Lawrence Some may call me a sentimental young fool but I totally agree with the above quote.
Any trainer that relies upon the use of force, choke or check collars, eCollars, Force Fetch techniques and the many other horrific techniques employed are not worthy in the 21st Century of the title of 'trainer'. Unfortunately owners are just as much to blame for continuing to employ these so called trainers when there are choices to train using positive re-inforcement that helps to develop strong bonds between dog and owner. No dog should be trained using force, punishment and fear.
Reading the description of what FF ks has really angered me. I'm a very laid back person, but feel so angry that anyone would do this and really angry at people who allow this to happen to their dogs. It's horrendous and in my opinion, should be against the law.......its abuse
Hi Lindy, and welcome . Here in the UK gun dogs are also sometimes sent away for training, and that can certainly last for several months so the time scale is not surprising. In the USA puppies are given access to birds at a young age and then steadied up later. That's why British trainers find the age of your dog surprising. Here in the UK we rely on natural 'birdiness' and steadiness is instilled fairly early in retriever training, though some hunting dogs with low drive may be allowed to hunt and chase before being steadied. Also, in the UK steadiness is highly prized whereas in the USA accurate marking is the greater priority and dogs need a huge amount of drive to complete the ultra long retrieves in American field trials. If you want to train the American way you are almost certainly going to have to train the dog yourself, or accept that he will be force fetched. Because FF underpins e-collar training and accuracy over extreme distances is extremely difficult to achieve without e-collars. However, there is a growing group of enthusiasts in the USA using British training methods (regarded skeptically by mainstream Field Triallers there). Some of them are members of my Positive Gundogs Facebook Group and you might find it helpful to join that Please be reassured that unless you want to trial your dog in the USA you most certainly do not need to Force Fetch him. Dogs in the UK are very rarely Force Fetched and many reach incredibly high standards of hunting and retrieving.
With regard to bonding I don't share the concerns of some other posters. Many gun dogs are trained by someone other than their owners, and those dogs have bonded perfectly well with their owners again afterwards. So I personally don't think that the time spent apart is a key issue. You will however, miss your puppy terribly, and he will take a while to re-attach himself to you when he returns.
Hi Lindy I've been reading the posts on this, and I had never heard of Forced Fetch before and yes I am horrified by the description and could never, ever do that myself or allow it to be done to any animal, let alone my dog. I do not say this in judgement of you or what your future plans are for you dog, it is my personal feeling on the matter. I would miss my boy too much to go three months without him at home - I hated the one night he was staying at my sisters for the night last year (and he's going again in two weeks as I have to work through the night for an event at the club where I work and I'm dreading it). but again that's me. I guess it depends what your future plans are for your dog - will you be hunting to that standard? If you are, are there any Positive trainers near you?
Thank you, Pippa, for the excellent explanation. My main question was in regards to the bonding... time spent away and others experiences. I do hunt often and have fairly high standards. Nobody could love my dog more than myself. I trained my last lab on my own and was absolutely crushed when she died last year. The only reason I am considering not doing 100% of the training this time, is again, I have two small children who also need my attention very much and I do not want to neglect my own children for the sake of training my dog. My dogs are very happy members of our family. They live a full life by using all the capabilities they were born and bred to do. Having said all of that, I am not a positive-only trainer. I do use positive reinforcement often, but believe on occasion a dog needs a correction. Dogs need clear signals of what is acceptable and not. No different than giving your child discipline.
Even if you do believe that (which I do not) then, surely, training is still not the appropriate place for it? You should be teaching the dog (or child) how to do something, not punishing it for not already knowing how. That's like punishing your child to make them learn their times tables. Let's look at how ludicrous that is: "Two times three is?" "I don't know." ZAP! "Guess" "But I don't know!" ZAP! "Not good enough! Guess!" "Um, four?!" ZAP! "Nope! Guess again!!!" In the end, the child will guess the correct answer, and will probably never forget it again. Job done. But, he has learnt that every time he makes a mistake, he will be punished for it. Is that child more or less likely to try problem-solving, should he need to in the future, knowing that making a mistake brings punishment? Madness. Just ... madness.
That analogy is ridiculous. We train first with no punishment whatsover. The dog needs to be clearly shown what you are asking for first. It is only after weeks and months of showing the dog that you would even consider a correction. Basically if the dog know what you are asking for and then chooses not to listen. Secondly, by correction I don't necessary mean using an ecollar. It could be a stern voice, a clap to scare them, or a time-out in their crate. Thirdly, I strap the ecollar on my own neck to ensure there is no pain. It feels like an uncomfortable tickle at most. I am sure there are people who misuse the ecollar, just as there are people who whip horses or abuse their children. You are barking up the wrong tree.
Consider this scenario...... A Mother dog with her puppies. The puppies chew and bite and climb on each other. What would Mom do if a pup bit her and drew blood?? You know the answer. You'd hear the pup yelping in pain and shock running away from it's Mother. Later it would carefully slink back into the pack so as to draw as little attention from its Mother as possible. Its Mother taught it not to bite her because when it did, it had a consequence it absolutely did not want again. She did not kindly request it to stop. She might have given him one warning growl, but when he indicated to her that was not working, she immediately upped the ante to a level he would clearly comprehend. This is nature. Like it or not.
Nope, my analogy is not ridiculous. It's what people do all the time with using lead jerks (or e-collars, or whatever other punisher) to teach a dog to walk at heel, among many, many other applications. Secondly, if the thing you are doing is not punishing, it won't work. Behavioural science 101. The dog chooses what is punishing, not you. If the dog chooses not to do something, then it's because he's not sufficiently motivated to do it - so why should he? Oh, yes, because you command it. Right. It's the dog's fault, not yours. Got it. You can't possibly believe that mother dog analogy can be translate to human-dog interactions, surely? Firstly, the mother dog does not escalate to physical retribution immediately. There would be a huge number of warning signals first, the same in any dog-on-dog interactions that we can't possibly mimic. Because, get this, we're not dogs. If you try to be, you'll fail a million times over and confuse your dog along the way.
Okay - I'm going to ask posters not to get into a debate about e-collars. There are many opinions and many facts and in every debate I have ever read, the two always get confused. Here are some facts though. Fact - dogs can be trained without corrections The belief that dogs cannot be trained without some form of 'correction' Lindy has been completely debunked. Completely force free dog training has a growing following in the UK and beyond, and is pretty much mainstream in many dogs sports. And while there are challenges involved in training gun dogs without force, they are gradually being overcome. Please read the link below for more information on this topicThe Forum RecommendsInformation About Force Free Gundog Training The reason that training without force has not made much headway in the USA is due to the nature of your Field Trials which as I explained in a previous post have developed into long distance retrieving contests. Holding a dog to a line over great distances is difficult without the use of remote corrections and only the use of an e-collar can fulfil that purpose effectively (before then trainers would run dogs down and beat them, or shoot them with cartridges filled with salt. If you are not going to trial your dog you don't need to use an e-collar and you may well be able to train your dog with minimal if any corrections - if that is what you want you'll get help here and in my FB group. Fact - most USA retriever trainers use e-collars and force-fetch their dogs But you are in a catch 22 situation if you want to send your dog away because unless he goes to one of the very few British style training kennels in the states, he's going to be electrocuted during training. So naturally you want to believe it is not going to hurt very much Fact - e-collars hurt I am very interested in American retriever training drills and have spent probably hundreds of hours talking to top level American retriever trainers - I am a member of the RTF - American retriever training forum and the Refuge - hunters forum. I have dozens of American videos of retriever training and I know exactly what is involved. I can tell you that e-collars hurt and no USA field trailer that I know would deny it. Dogs scream and pee themselves when these collars are used by inexperienced handlers - that includes owners who get the dog back from the trainer and don't properly understand how to use it because they didn't train the dog themselves. Sometimes dogs scream in fear and pain when shocked by experienced trainers too, though this is less common During training by an experienced handler the collar will be used at low levels at first, but increasing levels of stimulation until the required response is achieved. For some dogs this is extremely painful. I have a video by one of the USA's top trainers which shows a young Labrador in training literally dragging it's belly along the ground - touching the ground - in fear. You might not want to believe that this could happen to your dog, but sadly it is true. Fact - force fetch is a painful process Force-fetch involves applying a pain severe enough to make many dogs scream, either by digging a fingernail into the dog's ear (the ear is pressed against a collar or hard object to make the nail more effective) OR by using a toe-hitch which is a string tied to a dog's toe and pulled tied until again, he opens his mouth to yell or gasp in pain. At which point the dummy is put in his mouth and the pain turned off. This will happen to your dog if you send him away from training Fact - Force fetch is entirely unecessary if you are not going to collar train your dog and the entire retrieving process can be taught from scratch using positive reinforcement. Fact - there is a small but growing contingent of non-collar trainers in the USA There are American trainers that can train your dog without electricity - and others dog owners like you that want a hunting dog but that have decided not to use pain in training. You can hook up with them in my FB group but bear in mind that you will not be allowed to promote or discuss ecollars there - the purpose of the group is purely to support those that have already decided to train without force. The challenges for those who are trying to modernise gundog training are great and for that reason I have created a few 'safe havens' on the internet for people to discuss positive reinforcement training without having to keep justify it and without having to combat those who have not yet been convinced of the virtues of training without aversive. That group is one of those places, and this forum is another. It is hard to go against the grain and do something differently from everyone around you. I hope you'll stick around and learn from the many people on this board who control and work their dogs without using electricity and in some cases without ever laying a finger on their dogs. I'll unlock this thread now and will ask the mods to lock it again if necessary
Yes, dogs absolutely can be trained without corrections. They are not human. Human children think things through and often disobey simply to test the boundaries. They love to ask 'why?' With no boundaries they push and push and push until they find them. Some kids have to push so much the first boundaries they find are prison walls . But hurting children does not teach them where the boundaries are, hurting children teaches them not to trust adults. There are other ways to punish children, as there are with dogs. By removing something from them - rather like time out for pups. It doesn't take long for 'time out' to start to work. But many, many positives are needed if the child is going to be nurtured properly, far far outweighing the punishments - then the time outs will work. One negative after another will be very counter productive. Dogs are far more willing and receptive than children. Once they have practiced a new behaviour well enough and been rewarded for it (proofed) the behaviour will stick. They don't have a 'why should I?' question in the way children do. Yes, they need motivation - but it isn't in the form of answers, it's in the form of rewards. .. ...
I just had to watch a video of this force fetch to understand what everyone was speaking about. I really wish I hadn't now - first of all, it was of a black lab - error 1. But he was hurting its ear and forcing a big stick in its mouth and the poor thing was crying no way - I can tell you where that stick would've been shoved if that had been my little Stanley!
I can't find the words to express how nauseous and ill that makes me feel. I could really cry -- lucky Cassie sleeping peacefully by the fire. It never ceases to me why humans have dogs or any animal and use such cruelty, just where is the satisfaction and enjoyment?
Nuff said on this thread now I think! Thanks Pippa for the tone of your post, clear and calm. Another reason I love this forum.
