Amax-1

If you remember back to Koehler, the learning and correction phase was attained simultaneously in regards to leash control, as much as political turmoil effected Koehler's leash training methods, it did work remarkably well in achievement of the loose leash walk, in fact it was the foundation of off leash obedience when proofed, you could discard the leash altogether. Distraction factor is huge to a young dog as you commonly see young dogs taking their owners for a walk :laugh:

I agree Nek and have used exactly as you describe countless times with great success even with fear aggressive dogs. The correction/consequence can set up the foundation during high distraction for the dog to calm and accept the initiation of reward and gain value. One milestone was a fear aggressive Rotty after corrective measures turned into a garbage guts you heel through a herd of elephants if treats were on board.....previously the dog was too stressed to eat in face of other animals unless they were 30mtres away.

Do we really have to start an argument that dogs that are trained with aversives don't "love" their owners? The "better" method is the one that gets the best results for the dog and their owner. It is "hog wash" to assume that every problem that any owner has with any dog is best solved with a clicker. There is no doubt that clickers can be a useful tool, just like prong collars can be a useful tool. There is no one size fits all method that works best for every dog and owner. It depends on whether or not you are taught to train dogs or teach training methods....unfortunately people who teach training methods are good at training dogs who support their method.....a good dog trainer can train any dog being open to what works best for the particular dog at hand with the wisdom from experience to make the call of what to use in equipment, when to use it and what for. I have seen handler aggressive dogs born from aversive methods as I have seen dogs that need aversive methods never trained with any reliability using clickers and positive reinforcement. I have seen aggressive dogs rehabilitated with prong, Ecollars and hard corrections as I have seen aggressive dogs of high drive rehabilitated with only toy reward in drive......it depends on the dog and handler's capabilities...no one method is best for all.....that's the bit which is complete hogwash IME. Generally not.....but I have attained obedience from several dogs instantly with prong collar corrections in high distraction after months of failed clicker training and food treats with dogs that best value consequence for the wrong behaviour. I agree that after using prong and Ecollars that the old choke chain is well redundant and harsher on the dog if not used correctly and is more difficult to teach a novice handler to use a choke chain correctly....personally I haven't used a choke chain for 10+ years from advances in new technology in more refined corrective tools. Reward based training will always fall down to distractions unless the dog has enough drive to sustain it where any dog will train to consequence. Take a young dog chasing a ball who slams into the fence a few times learns to put the brakes on and they don't touch the fence...they learn to stop from full speed towards an object whilst in pursuit...how do they do that? Why do some dogs not want to get back into a car from hard braking and falling off the seat etc etc which is all behaviour based on consequence....dogs will train the same way on the same principles using aversion, but applying the right level of aversion to suit the particular dog is the key to success. Fallout from aversion can happen but it's rare and isn't close to the occurrence that motivational trainers make out it is and mostly it's all BS. However take a dog with sustainable drive and use it's drive motivationally, that's a different story :) I agree in grooming a dog in training for specific behaviour in a specific environment you wouldn't apply corrections un-proofed, but I will give you an example taking a dog into a riot situation like gate crashed party that has spilled onto the street.....the dog is ramped big time and wants a bite, anyone will do, in a sea of prey items acting in a threatening manner you have no choice but to correct harshly if things with the dog start getting out of hand.....it's hard to proof a dog with that level of turbulence, some dogs aren't usable in a riot at all, but in some circumstances you have to work on the fly where no other option exists in mass distraction and sometimes if the dog has looped out an air block is the only effective option to take drive away from the dog.

Making "that" decision isn't easy and what I have learned over the years is to put the dog first.....I have in the past as most of us probably have, allowed old dogs in pain which they hide, live on too long....the time is right when they no longer can sustain their normal functions unassisted I believe, but having said that it doesn't make it any easier. In preparation for "that" day.....I start years earlier which helped slightly....one of my puppies a GSD is nearly 7 years old which seems like a couple of years ago we bought him home at 8 weeks old.....how long will he last...8 years, 10, 12 or will his body fail next week?. At the moment he's as strong as ever, no different to when he was 3 years old, but every time now he is aging we do something, we train, we walk, whatever I make it a good one, a memory to cherish spending quality time with an aging dog, to embrace each moment they are here and remain fit and healthy once they exceed the half way mark of their life expectancy. We tend to concentrate a lot on the younger dogs when having multiple dogs who need the work in raising and training and take the older seasoned dogs for granted until it's too late as they are not with us for long. What helped me anyway in preparation for "that" day is taking each great day with the dog and storing that in the memory bank to look back on if that makes sense :)

My dogs don't agress other dogs when on the extender lead. Neither does mine! And people keep commenting how lovely and well-behaved he is. Thank you. Some dogs do aggress onto other dogs and if they do, an extender lead is the wrong equipment for that behaviour type IMHO.

My opinion in these cases is they need to get off this reasoning as it's besides the point when a particular breed is already legislated against.......they need to work at proving the dog is not of a restricted breed, not the essence of BSL which is irrelevant to the case.

Regardless whether or not BSL is effective, unfortunately it's law. It's not about whether or not Pitbull's, Dogo's or Fila's etc are good breeds, it's about them being restricted by legislation and if you get caught with them, you have a problem. Whilst anti BSL activists continue to flaunt the law continuing to own and breed, they will never be taken seriously or seen other than non conformists to have real impact on release of BSL. First and foremost I believe that anti BSL activists need to show they are law abiding citizens to have a chance at overturning the legislation or releasing certain breeds. The listed breeds are pretty uniform globally with countries of BSL legislation. Someone began with a list of certain breeds and rest followed suit for the most part.

+1....the moment a clicker trained dog reliable in a sterile environment meets high value distraction, the clicker training goes out the window.

Excellent post......the best way by to teach a loose leash walk that nothing else compares

Extendable leads dependant on your state legislation are usually too long in extension to comply with a lead meeting effective control and you can actually report someone to council for the scenario described :)

What I would do in a position similar to the OP's to stop a dog running to the fence barking at other dogs which is a behaviour you want to extinguish completely, I would have the dog on leash laying there relaxing and watch for the trigger. The moment the dog from seeing another dog just starts to get up to run at the fence, I would give the dog a good leash correction and tell him/her NO followed by a command....sit, drop whatever then reward compliance with the command. You actually want the dog to avoid correction or fear a correction for behaviour you want to extinguish altogether.......that's when aversives are the most effective. If for example I wanted to allow the dog to run at the fence and bark on command, I wouldn't use an aversive, I would reward the dog for holding command, sit or drop by releasing the dog to bark at the fence when I permitted it. In simplified terms, if a dog has a high value need to run to the fence and bark at other dogs, trying to encourage the dog to receive more value in food treats or redirecting energy to a toy or something may work on some dog character's but if it doesn't work easily with limited progress, the dog needs an aversive to introduce consequence for the wrong behaviour.

That's because the dog has never learned consequence for the wrong behaviour. If corrections were used in conjunction with positive reinforcement, you wouldn't need to settle her down with the mat etc when a dog is trained using methods incorporating double reinforcement. It's my choice, that I don't use correction/physical force techniques in my dog training. So what would you do in a situation like that...bash the dog with a piece of 4 x 2...then give it a treat. For me, positive reinforcement works well & if I choose to teach my dog to lay quietly on a mat while I am instructing a class in agility, it's a win win situation for both me & my dog. I am not actually referring to the mat, it's this: Sometimes when we first arrive at an exciting environment, I have to play the game for a few minutes to settle her down. which sound's like a reliability problem? When I arrive at every job it's exciting for the dog and when getting him out of the van he's pretty much nearing full drive to track and/or apprehend someone....we don't have the luxury of paying games to settle the dog which provides a good test of training methods to determine which methods provide the greatest reliability factor when reliable behaviour from the dog is first and foremost the priority. You don't bash the dog with lump of 4x2, but some depending on their genetic ability to focus will be given leash corrections as a consequence to the wrong behaviour. Well said, I agree

Are training techniques restricted in discussion to Karen Prior/Susan Garrett concepts?

That's because the dog has never learned consequence for the wrong behaviour. If corrections were used in conjunction with positive reinforcement, you wouldn't need to settle her down with the mat etc when a dog is trained using methods incorporating double reinforcement.

Puppy farms and poor breeding is a great place to source unstable temperaments. Do people not know that many registered and dedicated breeders go to great lengths in parental selection and early puppy imprinting to produce pups of stable coping mechanism. Maybe so but I doubt that separation anxiety is limited to cross breeds. Indeed, we have seen recent threads about purebreds straight from breeders that display the same behaviours. Irrelevant to this topic anyway. Sylvie the owners obviously care enough to pay a behaviourist so hopefully things improve with a few simple strategies. OP said pup/dog was a year old which is quite an age to display the behaviour to the magnitude of neighbour compliant so an assessment of temperament would be a desired undertaking don't you think??. Separation anxiety is usually a genetic imbalance expressed as how the dog deals with stress. It's not limited to cross breeds but unknown parentage of similar behaviour is possible commonly overlooked in a BYB breeding.

It wasn't from a dedicated Poodle breeder who screens for environmental stability from years of ancestral knowledge if it's a Poodle X?

Puppy farms and poor breeding is a great place to source unstable temperaments. Do people not know that many registered and dedicated breeders go to great lengths in parental selection and early puppy imprinting to produce pups of stable coping mechanism.

Once they walk away after this type of incident, it's extremely difficult to get a conviction as all they have to do if they are interviewed as a suspect is say they know nothing of the incident and at the time have an alibi they were somewhere else. Once a report of this nature is filed, the filing of it is about as far as it goes. In have had several dog aggressive dogs and it's a real problem when exercising DA dogs on leash in on leash areas for other dogs to be off leash illegally and approach/rush at your DA dog, the worse scenario to light up a DA dog is getting rushed at regardless if the dog is friendly or not. DA dogs are easily managed providing others abide by the relevant laws and don't exercise them off leash unless they are confined to a designated off leash area. I can't believe how people for their own dog's safety allow them to be exercised off leash in area's where they should be on leash and approach other leashed dogs. Although your DA dog is leashed, if the other dog doesn't heed the warning and back off or it wants to fight too, it results in a horrifying situation for the handler of the leashed dog to resolve the conflict. I disagree that a DA dog should be muzzled to protect the dogs of owners who exercise them illegally without effective control.

I think the term "Pitbull" applies in many cases to a Bull breed of some description that acts with strong aggression, but I don't think if the dog in this case looked like a GSD, the OP or anyone else would report it as a Pitbull?. Many dogs of all different breeds can possess serious dog aggression, but unfortunately it's often dog aggressive Bull breeds that the owners don't keep under effective control the most for some reason?

With the Pitbull thing, we need to embrace as stupid as it is, that's it's a law which is no different than countries were Wolf hybrids are illegal where owners of GSD/Husky type dogs if you can't prove they are not Wolf hybrids, they can be seized and destroyed in a similar fashion to dogs here who have a vague Pitbull resemblance. Like the Wolf hybrid scenario, there are many breeds and crossbreeds that don't look like Wolves as there is many that don't look like Pitbulls and we need to be mindful if we do acquire a dog that can fit into an illegal category in a bizarre way, you may loose your dog and be faced with some traumatic dramas to contend with. We can take the attitude that they can get stuffed my dog isn't a Pitbull which may be rightly so, but if they are empowered by law to give you grief over such a dog by appearance then it really amounts to whether or not you are prepared and willing to do battle with the authorities and if not, there are plenty of alternative dogs available that will keep us out of trouble :)

The best tool for teaching a loose lease walk is foundation training in handler focus........that beats any tool and the second best tool is a prong collar and worse tool of all is a harness or anything that the dog easily becomes wise to wearing as the idea is to train the dog to attain handler control, then you don't need a restraining device (leash/collar) at all, save for regulative requirements. Anything bulky the dog is easily aware of creates a condition where the dog learns behaviour whilst wearing the equipment which is a bad habit for a dog because when the equipment is not on the dog, the behaviour changes for the worse. I think someone gets up one morning and decides that manufacturing a tricky harness or head collar will return and income for them as there is no dog alive that needs any this tricky equipment to teach a loose leash walk and more to the point......if you can master the loose leash walk by handler focus techniques on a simple flat collar, you be a much much much much better trainer and dog handler guaranteed :)

If you tested each dog in accordance with the German SV criteria, you will find one dog more complaint with the standard than the other. The quieter one although excellent in a pet role may not have enough drive to complete the required tests which accounts for massive personality and character differences across the breed. Compliant GSD's because of genetic drive are a bit of a handful untrained and take some work in raising to mould them into projecting the behaviour that you are seeking. :)

I am referring to rescue, pounds, dogs home or whatever as a collection place for homeless dogs as an access point for which they can be re-homed and sourced by the community. In that collection of homeless dogs, not all will be temperament compromised, in fact there will be some great dogs in there as I have seen in these places and selected dogs from countless times over the years, and also I have seen dogs who are temperament compromised with issues that need work if ever the work in progress will create a well adjusted pet may or may not be achieved, not withstanding the fact the compromised temperament is often the reason dogs have been surrendered into re-homing shelters in the first place. I believe it to be a green flag in selection of a dog who presents sound in temperament in these environments over a dog with rehabilitation of issues in progress. If you believe that a broken dog under the process of repair for simplicity sake is a better prospect than an unbroken dog I disagree, sorry. As a potential owner of one of these dogs, I would recommend a dog that presents well straight up is a better prospect than one that may present well after the rehabilitation process, in fact it's a no brainer really in my mindset? What I think is bullshit which I have seen so many times is this: The dog has been abused so she is timid. She doesn't like cats or blokes who wear glasses and she doesn't like her tail being touched. She's a bit funny with kids, but other than that she is terrific dog with a wonderful temperament who will make a perfect pet. Sad as it is, there are better dogs than this available to enrich the lives of people's enjoyment of canine ownership. We can't save them all unfortunately

Never mind shelters, what about the family pet that has restricted breed appearance as in Victoria they seize the dog and PTS, a perfectly adjusted pet they have probably had from a pup. That dog if it's assumed be to be a risk to public safety because of it's appearance deserves a temperament test to prove otherwise. If it's a good stable dog, then it deserves to live it's life. It's got nothing to do with a shelter dog's ability to be rehomed, it about the seizure and mindless euthanasia of people's beloved pets that needs to be addressed first and foremost IMHO.

Ok, have you ever seen or know of a vet who can train a dog or assess it's behaviour??.......I haven't in 30 years and the worst I have seen are vet behaviourists, in fact there is an excellent GSD trained in scent detection as we speak rescued from one these fools recommending it was untrainable and should be PTS strung out on prey drive......a temperament test needs to be conducted by people who know what they are looking at, otherwise you end up with the same scenario as the appearance based legislation with the dog's future based on the opinion of halfwits for a bold exclamation. She had a very reputable rescue ready to take her on with behaviourists on board should she need it. Aside from my behaviourst rant.........do you see something wrong with the above? Dog's that need a behaviourist attached to the rehoming process are not stable enough to be rehomed and sadly we can't keep them all and a line has to be drawn. There is too much of this "environmental factor", dogs reacting badly because of abuse or poor treatment in a former life......a dog of strong genetic stability can bounce through this quickly with good treatment and it's the dogs who lack the genetic strength who keep skeletons in the closet and carry baggage from past experience that they can't rise above easily. I have had dogs in apprehension roles stabbed, kicked, beaten, belted with baseball bats and so on.....some have never been able to recover mentally from these incidents and some can and the one's who can is in the genetics of the dog. You can't successfully train or rehabilitate what's not in the dog in the first place and people need to understand this. It's not until working dogs in extreme roles that this phenomena presents clarity, so perhaps the dog in your example wasn't as genetically stable as you assumed it was to have failed the vet test? Amax I agree not all dogs are safe to return to the community and I don't think only genetic factors are at play. My experience has been there is a better chance to successfully retrain, rehabilitate and develop appropriate coping mechanisms with dogs out of a pound environment which is why rescue organisations with behaviourists are integral in the process of saving dogs from pounds. I have been in rescue for 5 years and there have been many dogs that have not passed BA in shelters but have been perfectly fine in home environments. I have never taken a dog out of a pound and placed it straight into a foster home. They have all spent time with me in my home first. That doesn't mean they don't show different behaviours in a foster carers home. One dog was transferred to me after 5 months in a shelter and having access to a number of trainers and behaviourists yet when the dog was transferred to me those behaviours were never in existence in a home environment. I have and will euthanised dogs I deem not safe to return to the community but I will give them every chance to prove they are worthy of a chance first. I was referring more to dogs released into foster homes with behaviourists in tow, that is dogs that haven't reached a adequate stage of rehabilitation. Environmental factor triggers the behaviour, but the speed of recovery in the rehabilitation process when the dog is properly treated in a good environment is the component of genetics. I imagine through rescue you would have also experienced those great dogs too, the one's who ooze stability and soundness of temperament are the good ones to embrace :)