Most of the people who follow this blog and train dogs, work with the positive reinforcement method. I train this way because I want my dogs and I to have a bond and I believe that is achievable through positive reinforcement training.
A couple of years ago I stopped at a tag sale a couple of streets away. I was very impressed with a woman and her dogs, they stayed calmly in the yard and followed her around. I told her how I was struggling with Delilah.
The woman went in the house and brought out a postcard stating she was a dog trainer along with all of her contact information. She asked if I would like to walk with her sometime. I told her I would love that.
I waited a day or so (I didn’t want to seem TOO eager) and contacted her via facebook. She asked if I wanted to walk and I said yes. I then gave her my schedule for the week.
I never heard from her again.
In retrospect, this was a blessing in disguise.
This is the same woman I mentioned in my Passive-Aggressive post.
The same woman who deliberately left her dogs for seven to ten anxious, panicked filled moments, while she taught them a lesson about traveling with the wrong pack.
The same woman who thinks dogs have the capability of being passive-aggressive.
The same woman who lets her dogs roam all over the woods with no regard for anyone else or their dogs.
The same woman who has no identification of any kind on her dog.
As I stood there in the woods last Saturday listening to these two women talk about the archaic methods they use to train their dogs, I took a moment to say a prayer of thanks that I don’t travel in her pack.
Can’t believe that was the same woman. Who knows how differently things would have went for you and your dogs had you joined her back then!
Oh Donna! I’m so grateful, I’ve seen such progress with Delilah. 🙂
Ugh! Yes. I am glad I am not running with her pack either.
She’s something else. I’m so glad we never walked together.
Isn’t it great how “fate” steps in and saves us so many times from ourselves? You would NEVER have been happy in that pack! 😀
I imagine some head butting would have been going on Laura. She’s a sandwich shy of a picnic. 🙂
Yikes. It’s nice when things work out exactly as they should 🙂 Dogs that are trained with those methods always seem nervous to me – I like happy, relaxed dogs!!
Agreed Julie! Sometimes I am so grateful the things I wanted never happened. 🙂
Our very first Golden (and our first dog) and I took private lessons from someone who didn’t use positive reinforcement–I didn’t know about that in 1996, and the result was that my sweet Golden Retriever puppy started to fold up on me–I stopped taking the lessons when I saw how defeated he seemed each time and because I thought the corrections were too harsh for him–I will always be thankful that I recognized what was happening, and for the person who taught me about positive reinforcement training, and letting the dogs be themselves!
I’m so glad you recognized that it wasn’t working for your pup Kim. Even when I was doing the ‘traditional’ training I wouldn’t do something that I wasn’t comfortable with or that I didn’t feel was right for my dog. I do not want my dog to cower when I approach or call, to me that is failing my dog and myself.
Besides allowing for better dog-human bonds, positive reinforcement is also the best way to train a dog. This is why police dogs, sniffer dogs, service dogs, etc. are overwhelmingly being trained that way.
But this requires time Jan and most people don’t want to take the time. It makes me sad but there is nothing I can do except keep blogging about it!
You are right… it was a GOOD thingy that she did NOT contact you..back then.
Yup Frankie, sometimes hind sight is better than foresight. 🙂
Thank heavens she didn’t get back to you. I’m amazed old school training still happens when the benefits of positive reinforcement are so clear.
I think a lot of it is the time, people don’t want to take the time to work their dogs. They want the quick and easy. It has taken me a long time to get Delilah to this point, and I probably could have gotten her here fast if I’d had the collar, but it’s not how I want to train. 🙂
A few years ago when I thought about E-Collars the visions in my head were pretty horrific; but then I saw how it was properly used and my opinions changed on this method of training. The E-Collar is a training tool just as is a leash, clicker, treats, etc. and in the wrong hands any training tool can be used improperly.
My belief is that there is no one way of training a dog, they are individuals and training needs to be tailored to meet the needs of the dogs.
I don’t disagree with you Misty, I do believe the e-collar has a purpose and if it is used properly it isn’t a bad tool, it just is not my thing and I prefer not to use that. I also feel this woman is NOT using the tool properly, which in my opinion means she will not be training her dog and he won’t really understand what is going on.
I absolutely agree with you Jodi, I hope you didn’t take my comment as meaning you should use the collar. I was kind of responding to some of the other comments that sounded like positive reinforcement was the only way to train, but you know how that is with the written word sometimes it gets a little misunderstood 🙂 And yes by the way you have described the situation with this women it sounds like perhaps she is not using it correctly.
Nope Misty, I didn’t take it that way at all. 🙂
It’s always endlessly fascinating to me how such seemingly small things, like an unreturned email, can have such wide implications later on. If this person had gotten in touch with you, your life would have been so much different than it is now. And if I hadn’t been at the shelter at that exact moment, Shiva would be living somewhere else. It’s crazy when you think about it.
Wow small world. Goes to show that not every one is cut out to be a dog trainer. I am constantly amazed at the people who claim to be “dog trainers”.
I wish you did not live so far away so that I could show you the proper use of ecollar. I mean how it is used and is not used in training. There seems to be this idea among positive only trainers that ecollar is a quick and easy fix. That is so far from the truth. We have spent hours and hours and hours training our dogs to do what they do. If ecollar is such a quick and easy way, somebody owes me a lot of hours. 😆
I do hope you know that I am not referring to you! LOL I know how long and hard you work with your dogs. So many people don’t understand how the e-collar works and simply use it as a quick training fix. Those are the people I am referring to. 🙂
Actually whenever this topic comes up I always seem to read it in comments. Not just here. I really don’t understand where the notion comes from. There really is no quick fix for training whatever method you use. Well you and I both know that. 🙂
You don’t have to have any specialized knowledge or wisdom to print up a business card that says “dog trainer.” Unfortunately.
Good thing she didn’t give you her cell phone number. 🙂