I'm curious to learn other people's training methods on this forum. I know some people do agility or schutzhund,and what training methods do you use for that? I know a lot of people watch the Dog Whisperer and use his training methods, but I disagree with Millan's methods. Has anyone read Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson? I really like her training methods.

What does everyone else use?

I don't think that one style of training will work for every dog. I will use positive reinforcement (without the clicker) for most tasks (sit, lay down, stay, come), but for heel I had to use a choke chain. I tried other methods for heeling, but I didn't get the result I wanted.

I took my dog to obedience classes. They encouraged positive re-enforcement. However, to give positive re-enforcement there are times where it appears the dog gets negative training. The obedience classes have proven to be very successful in a variety of ways.
There is some training tips that Milan does that I agree with. There are a lot more training tips I agree with on "It's me or the dog".

I train my dog in agility, so I use clicker training. I feel that if you remain positive you get much better results than when you are negative. My dogs work for me because they find it to be fun.
With the clicker you are able to mark the exact instance a behavior occurs, whereas with just your voice you cannot keep it consistent enough or be as accurate. Clicker training (shaping) allows your dog to think outside of the box. Not only is training this way helpful, but it's extremely fun for just mental stimulation. On days where my dogs must stay indoors, we get a random object and just click for random behaviors the dog does to the object. The dogs stay busy, happy, and you get many new ideas for tricks.

I do not like Millan from the few shows of his that I've watched. He's all about pack order, and personally, I don't really believe that pack order affects a dog as much as Millan feels that it does.

I've used clicker training too with my dogs. They love it! My dogs are much more for doing something if they get a positive response back. Positive training is also great for dogs with behavior problems. My beagle mix was abused when she was a puppy, using negativity to train her would have only made things worse.

I also disagree with Millan on pack order. Dogs are dogs, not wolves.

I am not so sure about the statement made about dogs and wolves. Dogs originated from wolves. It was proven on a TV show (could be animal planet) that if a pet dog was left to its own accord that it would not only revert back to wolf like behavior it would start to resemble a wolf in appearance. It was remarkable at how fast the dog would revert. Sorry that is biology argue with that if you like.
Dogs do behave like wolves in ways even, if they are pets. Go ahead and argue that too.
It's we humans that have tried to breed certain qualities in dogs that have changed their appearance and maybe changed some of their abilities. Like Highlander terriers going for gophers and great Danes going for bear.

It would be great if ALL training could be done with positive reinforcement, but my dog also needs to know when she is doing something wrong. If I catch her going in the garbage I'm not going to wait until she steps away then "click and treat" because she stopped. I will clap my hands and yell "NO!, Bad girl!" I won't hit my dog, but I will let her know if she's doing something wrong.
So... there are times when my styles of training may seem contradictory.

By all means, if your dog is doing something wrong and you catch her in the act, get after her. Positive training doesn't mean not getting after your dog, it just means use more positives in training rather then negative.

bocch, dogs did descend from wolves. However, that was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Dogs are domesticated now. For example, I saw some wolf trainers once and they explained a bit about their wolves. The wolves they own are not like our dogs, if you try to show pack dominance over them, they will try to do the same to you, they said they can't treat them like we treat our dogs. If humans disappeared dogs would revert back to their wolf like qualities. Some dogs, like a highland terrier, would probably die out because they are just not built to be wolves and could not fend for themselves. Again, dogs were descended from wolves and will always retain some sort of qualities from them. But dogs are domesticated and are not wolves, which means how they act around us are different in how wolves would act around us. When I walk in a door and my dog jumps up on me, she's not trying to show that she's a pack leader and is attempting to show dominance over me, she's just a dog saying hello to me. And when I take her for a walk and she pulls ahead, again, she doesn't care about dominance, she thrilled about going for a walk and wants to sniff anything. Those are two things Millan argues dogs do to show dominance. And I disagree about that.

As I stated before, there are some things that I agree with Milan, there are some things that I agree with you. I do not agree 100% with either of you.
Think of it another way. As soon as the dog smells something that gets in their nose and pulls, it means the dog wants to go that-a-way. In a small way displaying dominance.
As for the dog, jumping, think of it another way. Can you get into that same door without the dog jumping? It makes you greet that dog first doesn't it?

I use a mixture of positive reinforcement and correction. Especially for obedience, personal protection and schutzhund your dog MUST understand what is NOT acceptable. When you say OUT the dog MUST release the bite.

I use a mixture of a prong collar properly sized and fitted, clicker/bridge training, and ball work.

BKA (Badkittyamy)- Just curious... what is "ball work"?

But if my dog wants to sniff something and goes in a different direction, I don't see that as dominance. She just wants to check something out. Now if I don't want her to check that thing out, and she still doesn't listen to me, that's a different matter. And when my dog jumps up to greet me when I walk in a door, it does mean she wants to be greeted first. If I ignore her, and she's still rude about it, then I can deal with her. Let's say those were displays of dominance. Then I would have a dominant dog who wouldn't listen to me. But my dog listens to me very, very well and I let her do almost all those things other people might see as being dominant towards me.

ball drive you get the dog exited for the toy usually a ball on a string. You coax them into position with the ball or use the ball as a reward. I have never trained a dog with the ball i use it to speed up known commands. You tell them down and they get the ball the second they complete it.

We have a dog now, redwood krest's parker. He will drop on a dime because of the ball work.

I think I saw something similar to that. It was a drug sniffing dog demonstration. Except the reward was a towel. The dogs would go crazy for it, and had a lot of fun. It was pretty cool. The dog would have done anything for that towel.

here's an example, what it requires however is a dog with high ball drive.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ByyBE4M_Ojw&feature=related

My dog also has ball drive I only have an example on a larger ball though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2T59_LDWz4

there's a training video on my account as well with the clicker.

Thanks for the videos. My dog doesn't have a high enough "toy drive". She doesn't even have a high "treat drive". In class, all the dogs want to be behind us because Venus spits out all the treats I give her. The lucky dog behind us gets a lot of extras!
Luckily, Venus works for me even without rewards. She's o.k. with a "Good girl!" and a pat on the head.

I did get in an argument with this blogger. She kept talking about how bad crates were. On the other hand, she liked the Dog Whisperer and saw no problem with using flooding as a training technique. It made no sense to me. Apparently I have no right to own a dog because I put her in a crate while I'm taking a shower?

Yeah all crate haters? They are projecting on their dogs. My dog RUNS in when I open her crate. After I clean it and I haven't put it back together, she will sit in the bottom waiting for me to put the crate together.

I use a positive training methood but don't use a clicker. I have three dogs so the exact way I work changes with each dog.

I use to use chokers for heeling but my youngest puppy HATES thing that slide over his head and chokers so I've gotten very use to working with just a buckle. It works perfectly for the most part. There are some days where his GSD puppy energy gets the best of him and I do need to use a prong collar on walks.

The only time I have raised by voice at my dogs has been when I needed to stop them real quick. Even this it was just a loud no.

I really dislike Millan. The only reasons I don't hate him is because I do agree most dogs need more exerise and the fact he isn't pro-BSL. He really has no idea what he is doing and I don't think he has ever studdied dog behavior. He bases his methoods on a very old disproven study on wolves. It drives me nuts when people seem to think he knows what he's doing.

BSL?

quote:

Originally posted by acdxx009:
BSL?

Breed Specific Legislation

Oh lol - sorry. I didn't know.

I'm a pet trainer at a PetSmart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At the one i'm at, we use positive re-enforcement - with and without the clicker - and i follow some of the guidelines that will allow the graduates - after the advance class - to get certified as CGC. I have had only one dog in one class that needed the pinch collar, because she still pulls, no matter what.