kylieandpossum

totally sympathise, its so overwhelming at first then one day it starts to click together. i would just add that if you are going to teach a stop that means the game begins again that has to be different to a stop that means we're done now. if you always teach a stop that actually means 'stop for a little while' if you use that same command as a 'leave it alone, we're done' you may run into trouble getting the dog to actually leave because it will be waiting to start again. if you ask for a recall totally off the sheep but the dog thinks you havent done working then it will want to hang behind. i wonder if maybe with a dog that doesnt want to come away entirely, a stop or that'll do is a good way to settle the dog, then when you walk off use whatever your normal recall is to differentiate working from finishing? i know with poss i have to pick my moment to ask for the 'come away' and it means settling her down first... interesting....

thats so true what you say vickie, i very nearly did the same thing because possum WASNT steady, she was going a million miles an hour and whoa, steady or whatever meant nothing, it was just encouragement to keep going fast. i dropped it real quick, when shes working too fast i make no sound at all, anything i say makes it worse, so i just physically block her up and keep her short and then when shes not getting anywhere she slows up and then i can use the stay there, cos thats the behaviour i want. i cant rewire her brain, she will always be inclined to work too hard and too fast so i need to make sure we work soft and short from the beginning. soft starts, or casts have been vital for that, and when they are too fast she gets blocked off from the sheep. as for the recall, what i was trying to say to kavik is that if you have a pre-existing command that means leave it, we're out of here, then you should still be able to use that on sheep. its just that sheep are a much much higher distraction than most of us have had to work with before. which is why the name is so important. when i say Possum i want her to "look at me" then i tell her what we're doing now. Possum come means we're going away from the sheep now and its what i used from the beginning because she had a good recall outside and i had some faith that it would work. it took a while of again, physically getting in between her and sheep before she really did come away but now she comes first time. a caveat to that is when she has gotten away from me out in the paddock and is on the run. the only thing that works there is a very strong Possum that she knows means come here RIGHT now. most of the time the fact that i have to use that is my fault, something i have not done right before then that gave her the opportunity to get away from me, so its really about setting things up so you can do exactly as you say, attach a command to a good behaviour opportunistically and then reinforce it. but like you say vickie, im no expert either. i think its really important to remember there is no one formula to herding, unlike some other types of training. so much of it is contextual and conditional on the nature of the sheep on the day and esp on the nature of the dog. you have to work the dog you have, not the dog you wish you had, or that someone else thinks you should have. all working dogs work differently and so a lot of my herding has been learning how possum works and how to shape that while still working sheep, rather than being on my dogs back all the time. i am trying to learn to work sheep as much as training my dog, after all. in answer to your specific question vickie, ive seen lots of people use 'that'll do' and it works great but it does seem to mean 'we're finished', i havent seen it used to reposition the dog...i suspect if you use it for both circumstances, at some point the dog may become hesitant to leave the sheep because it isnt a definitive 'we're done working here now' if you know what i mean. but then again, they may not....

just my two cents worth - i wouldnt be training any sheep-specific 'commands' off sheep. and i wouldnt be putting WORDS to any of your sheep work "commands" until the dog knows the actual behaviour, whcih is pretty much the same principle as any dog training cos dogs dont speak english so the word means nothing to them until its clear what the required behaviour is. i do use a drop when i want everything to stop completely because a drop is a drop, no matter where. but it stops all the working and she can explode off it, so i need to only use it when everything really has stopped otherwise she will not trust me that that is the correct command (keeping in mind that my dog actually knows better how to work sheep than i do!). i agree re the 'half stop' which i use 'stay there' for - i use it even if we're moving, just a slow and steady stay there, stay there if she is in the right spot and the sheep are moving well or we are waiting to move on again. it keeps her just outside the bubble. (edited for clarification - i taught her this by letting her come around to before where i wanted her to pull up, (note, BEFORE, because i will be slow and she will take extra steps) hold my arm out to block her up so that she is sitting behind my shoulder just in the corner of my eye - and say stay there possum good girl, stay there, in a calm but happy voice, a negative motion with a positive sound, so she doesnt fight against it - if that makes sense!! this is when we are both working slightly behind or to the side of the sheep and moving them in front of us. when i want the sheep bought it into me with her behind them then i still use stay there by holding my arms up in the air, again just as the sheep start to settle down and she is still far enough back. if we are going to move again i use stay there. if we're finished i say drop and move out from the sheep and call her off...) the recall is essential - if you want kaos to come to you off the sheep and the games over, then the same command you use to get that behaviour anywhere else should do the trick. this means 100% name recognition, and i use come like i do elsewhere. that you can train anywhere and train it in the face of other distractions when you have 100% success in a confined environment. if you are asking your dog to come in closer and work near you then i use her name in a nice way and lots of little sucking noises! but thats for a very specific type of job i need her to do when i want miniscule pressure on the sheep so it doesnt mean come away from the sheep it means come here and work with me.... and then to top it all off, it will be different everytime in different places with different sheep! have fun :D

from memory, psychos train sunday afternoons at lidcombe. contact ian, details on website above.

Imagine getting a clicker and clicking it "whenever" - Im sure one wouldnt get great results. Just like with any piece of equipement its the method that goes with the tool not the tool alone. i just went on exactly what you said which implied 'clicking whenever'. i didnt see any ifs in there but i take your point, yes it would be ridiculous and in my experience it is often the case that people who think their dog cant be clicker trained think that because they dont understand how to make the connection between the behaviour, the click and the reward so its just a noise to a dog. i have also seen some people trying to use it as lure, like trying to get the dog to come by clicking from the other side of a paddock. its as frustrating to watch as someone yanking on a check chain.

if you really think this is actually how clicker training works then its not surprising you wouldnt get great results. but i wonder if youve tried it at all? its the height of hypocrisy to have a go at me for dismissing something i supposedly know nothing about, only to do the same thing yourself.

sigh. really, how am i supposed to answer that? is a gun really just a pretty accessory that some idiots use in the wrong way? these collars and things like them are designed to do something very specific. people use them because they do what they are meant to do. you dont put them on your dog cos they look good do you? i mean really, this is ridiculous and im not going to sit here and listen to anymore of this defensive bulls**t. if youre happy with using things that look like medieval torture implements on your dogs go knock yourself out. i tried to be reasonable and made my position quite clear. am i the only person in the world, or in this forum who thinks this way? i think not. everyone else has just given up trying to reason with the unreasonable and i think its time i did the same.

I'm still confused, so you said they were bad and that the prongs were sharp.....so that would mean you think we're doing bad things to our dogs, that you think we're hurting our dogs which means you think we're being cruel to our dogs? I'm certainly not jumping on, I'm just trying to understand your point of view. ok maybe i wasnt clear. i will try and be as honest as possible. i think they are bad because in my experience, what i have seen in dog training world, is that they are too often, i would say 99% of the time, used as substitute for actual training. as a so-called quick fix to problems that could be solved other ways, or as a sign of defeat in the face of too-hard training issues, or by "old school" (i use that term cautiously) obedience based trainers who think that a good dog is a quiet submissive frightened dog, who see these signs in their dog as a reflection of some misnomer called respect, which the dog is supposed to have towards them, which is usually just fear, and can easily turn a dog vicious and aggressive at any moment, or worse, where the actual problem escalates. at the very least i have seen them used as treatments for symptoms of 'real' underlying issues that never get dealt with. the prong collar that was originally posted might not be sharp in terms of a knife sharp but also in my experience, dogs are more sensitive to pain than humans, esp when shocked or startled. so just because it doesnt hurt us, doesnt mean it doesnt hurt them. i understand that you are saying there is a way to use these things properly and i never advocated the idea that all dog training could be 100% positive all the time, but as i said positive does not mean permissive. i dont want to get into a debate about one vs the other, but i only ever get criticisms of positive reward based training from people who have not fully committed the time and energy to do it properly. this is no different to the criticism you would make of those of us who dont use collars like this etc. i also never said anything bad about aversive training, but i do believe if it doesnt stop the dog doing what its designed to stop the dog doing, then its not training is it, it becomes cruel? this is my bottom line issue with collars, check chains etc, that too often (not always) they do not teach the dog anything. they may tell the dog what NOT to do but they do not give the dog options about what it CAN do. a relationship with a dog that is always based on 'dont do that dont do that' is not a harmonious relationship, as it would not be with a child, with whom at least you can reason (to some extent). as for cruelty, you, and others, suggest it is not cruel if used correctly. i have no issues with that. like i said, when its not tho, of course it is cruel. and as for ecollars, they are illegal for a very good reason, and i dont think they should be discussed on a forum that it supposed to be PRO dogs, unless it is with complete condemnation. i dont think i can make myself any clearer, doesnt mean im right of course.

thanks for taking the time to write this. no it wouldnt have been fair at all to continue training methods that werent working, absolutely. i think it was in "the other end of the leash" where patricia mcconnell talked about using an aversive method based on frightening the dog to stop a potentially dangerous behaviour and she said if it didnt work the first time she did it she would never do it again because obvisouly it wasnt going to work, but it worked and the dog never did the behaviour again. i imagine that thats the philosophy that you're working with, and i use something like this myself in herding which is based on making my dog "emotionally" uncomfortable, that is, moving my body to block her to make her go the way i want, which as you say on a 'stress based' working dog can be very effective. (so true what you say about working dogs and stress levels vs hunting dogs) this is a good point about threshholds, i have seen so many dogs on check chains or pinch collars with really high thresholds and theyre getting hurt PLUS not getting trained, so thats my concern really, the training philosophy behind it. in my experience, it is combined with a hostile attitude to the dog based on badly understood dominance theory and the attempt to 'control' the dog, rather than build a relationship to work with the dog. we have used positive reward based methods with both of our dogs for general 'obedience' and stuff around the home and our cattle dog is a top flyball and agility dog and thats all from positive methods, but he walks a very fine line of being just out of control, in terms of the level of independent thinking hes capable of. physical methods mean nothing to him, his pain threshold is SOOO high, we have found food is his highest motivation which has become attached to a 'what do you want me to do' mentality with him - sometimes good sometimes bad. it meant we couldnt really do herding with him because the food for work exchange was too high. with possum, the herding has been the key and i now have a real mental or emotional relationship with her (dont want to be too anthropomorphic) that makes her very compliant, but i went through a real dilemma when we started because the way of working wasnt clicker or food based (still reward based with working the sheep being the reward) but it did make her uncomfortable at first and that was hard to deal with. i understand your point about the way its applied. i guess i just see too many people using them in a 'bad' way that i worry about their efficacy. cheers kylie

oh no i meant to do that, i do think they're "bad" for lots of reasons, but i never said anyone in particular was cruel, as some people have taken the time to explain they use them for particular instances and get particular results. you were the one who started off by calling me uneducated, when you know nothing about me or where i was coming from. you made assumptions that i have never experienced these things and so was not qualified to comment. first of all thats an assumption, secondly do you carry that philosophy to all your interactions? of course not, that would be ridiculous. not that i really want an answer to that question. im just not going to shut up about something that i think is important because some people on an online forum think they know more than someone else and thinks that that gives them the right to shout them down.

why bother with a collar at all? my dogs walk just as well off lead so technically youre right i wouldnt ahve them wear a collar at all except i now live in a city and they have to display their tags. sure is, so a flat collar would be used as an aversive during the "gentle reminder"? i wouldnt know, i trained my dogs to walk next to me using positive reinforcement and i dont have to remind them of anything. and so we avoid answering the question again.

a pleasant walk with a dog is completely attainable using positive reward based methods as well, of course. i dont think its one or the other. but i dont get how "if it doesnt hurt them" it still makes them walk properly? if it doesnt hurt, why bother with it because you would get the same result from a flat collar no? a gentle reminder is possible with any kind of collar. no one can seem to answer that part of my question, which is a genuine training question, but all i am getting are polemical attacks that tell me how i dont know anything, when ive never declared what i do or dont know. that IS hostile, regardless of how i want to take it - and i never called anyone cruel either, interesting that its been made out that i did (re sas's post). is that because we all agree that any kind of training that hurts a dog is cruel?

im not offended - the tone here since i spoke has been pretty hostile so i assumed yours was in the same vein - in my experience speaking against aversive methods only ever provokes hostility (which is perhaps not surprising). i can get fired up myself when i feel strongly abut something. a genuine question then, is what do you think fairly is when using aversive methods. we also have a very strong willed cattle dog who sometimes only responds when spoken to harshly and i would like to use a gentle voice with him all the time. but i think there is a mistaken belief that positive reinforcement training means permissive, and we are not that at all. so i would be interested in what you actually mean by aversive and where you draw the line. i read somewhere that aversive methods are only affective if you use it once and the dog then stops what it was doing and you never have to use it again. what is your experience of that?

so are you a vegetarian because youre so opposed to animal cruelty? im cruel to sheep so its ok to be cruel to dogs (of which i never accused anyone, by the way)? i dont know if herding is cruel to sheep - somedays i think it is. i was brought up on a working farm and it can get pretty harsh yes. wherever there was a way to do things gently it was taken. same with herding. my dog doesnt nip sheep and i keep her away from them when she is too full on by voice or body language. before the sheep get tired we change them over. when its too hot we stop. but we arent talking about sheep are we? deliberately clouding the issue doesnt help.

im not exactly sure whats funny about that or why you would direct it at me - just cos i do herding and clicker training doesnt mean i do both together, in fact ive said elsewhere here that clicker training and herding dont work. and i dont think your "oppology" is genuine so lets not bother with pretending to be nice when youre busy attacking someone. again, i think its interesting that to defend a method of dog training you have to denigrate or personally attack the person you dont agree with. whatever. :D oh and i dont do herding for ribbons., not sure where you got that from

why would i? its got sharp bits sticking out of it. ecollars have electronic currents in them. its going to hurt. dont tell me it doesnt hurt a dog. if it didnt, then why wouldnt you just use a flat collar? what would be the use of it? aversion training only works if it hurts or scares the dog in some way. but continue to defend it till youre blue in the face, makes no difference to me. i was just expressing an opinion.

i have tried not to say anything about this for fear of getting flamed but i dont think i can stay quiet. firstly it strikes me as ironic that a company selling devices to enable positive reinforcement training like a clicker also sells prong collars. i know ethics in business is an anomoly but i dont even buy kramar stuff because they make/import electronic collars. it s***ts me no end that the rspca shops sell their stuff. secondly it bothers me that people think that using things that will hurt their dogs in order to teach tricks and earn ribbons is ok. there is no sort of heeling or other trick training that can not be done without a clicker if the handler works at it properly and long enough.

i agree with jo re herding. done wonders for my supposedly out of control koolie. obviously its hard to comment on the whole situation but i think you have a number of factors happening at the same time. firstly, a working dog who has not been working and suddenly finds out what thats like. secondly, once you stimulate a dog mentally or physically they want MORE of it not less. the fitter the dog the more work out it requires, the more energy it will have. thirdly, your dog is at an age when its 'growing up', she will be pushing boundaries in all sorts of areas. and i dont think an excited dog is an out of control one. it really bothers me when people say they have a hyper out of control dog when all it does is be a dog rather a mute stuffed toy. (not saying this is what youre doing). there was a guy who came to our last herding with a lovely polite calm kelpie that he thought was out of control cos she was friendly and wanted to jump up and say hi to people. after everyone with really 'out of control' working dogs had gotten back off their chairs which they had fallen off while laughing :D it took about 5 seconds to teach the dog to sit instead of jump up. i have heard flyball blamed for all sorts of bad dog behaviour but its as contextual as all other dog trainings. they are hyper when they are doing it because they love it, not cos we keep them wild and out of control, feeding them raw meat through the wire! at home they are all lovely sweet pets but all with the usual dog issues that everyone has, so id be careful about confusing the two. cheers kylie.

oh i just so totally relate! this is exactly the situation i had with poss, she actually really just wanted to play but didnt know how to give the proper signals so it took her getting rumbled a couple of times (in the way you describe which is really just other dogs teaching her to mind her manners) and then she learnt how to play politely and doesnt get bothered by anyone anymore. good luck tomorrow anyway

sorry i just realised that you put your original post months ago so my advice is probably a bit redudant now, but i would still say that it is only in the last 6 months that possum has really improved (she is just over 2) and a big part of that is the work we were doing at herding school, this is where most of her confidence has come from. also MY confidence has improved - i let her go near other dogs all the time now and dont worry about how shes going to react (i try and turn away actually) and she is always fine.

this is probably a stupid comment but i am wondering if you let her off lead with other dogs at all. you say that she pulls against the lead (obviously she is on lead in the park etc) but in my experience, a leash attached causes fear because she cant run away so she has to act submissive, or fight. i have a koolie who was very fearful of other dogs even tho shes from a farm but she is not at all reactive to them off lead because she can approach them in her own time and with lots of space. she was very frightened of groups at first and is still fearful of some dogs on lead. the way we got over it was going to a dog club where all the other dogs were fully socialised and respected her need for space. even tho the dogs your puppy has met are friendly by the sounds of it, sometimes friendly is still scary for my girl, who needs to be left alone until she can approach at her pace. we started with small amounts of dogs in a fenced area, and we moved all handlers right away, if you are hovering, she will cling. they pick up on even the most subconcious of your own stress/anxiety signals. eventually she learnt how to play so we let in more dogs over time, now she is fine in a big group and will run and chase the ball etc and has learnt some manners of her own. it took time tho and the more things i did with her, the more places i took her, the more experiences she had, (and not just with dogs but with everything - possum used to bark at rocks on the side of the path when we were walking she was so scared! ) the more confidence she got and the better she copes. theres no real reason why she wont get better as she gets older and more confident. good luck