Ms_Sunshine

Great material RuralPug. After my experiences I feel that in certain situations, philosophical and ideological differences need to be put aside in the interest of preserving human or animal life, and evidence based training needs to be employed. The evidence for DELTA is very worrisome & appear to rely on alot of pseudoscience, like psychiatric drugs for training which is not indicated, ie evidence based, researched & legal, for use in this manner. If I prescribed psychiatric drugs for an anger management problem I would be in court for malpractice. I have been able to rehabilitate my dog with 99% positive reinforcement and relaxation techniques, its the 1% of the time when he tries to bite someone that he gets a correction. Because I trained him out of his bad habits using a check chain, now I only need to rattle the lead clasp on the D-Ring on his collar as a correction and it works reliably. I agree with what you said about using a variety of methodologies dependent on the situation, rather than being firmly in a respective camp. Although I am concerned about the 'cult' like aspect of DELTA when it comes to dogs at risk. Also when I read an RSPCA article about 'Dominance' they contradicted themselves by saying dominance theory is redundant and cruel, and that dogs actually use aggression to control their environment. Yet this is exactly what dominance theory is about and its the same with humans who use intimidating behaviors to dominate others, or speak over them to dominate a conversation or a meeting. The DELTA Cult appear to be very confused about what their philosophy actually is. Thanks again

Hi Everyone, I have been spending some time looking around the website while researching training methods and I have question about training with People Aggressive Dogs or Dogs at Risk of being Declared. After yet another recent incident of a People Aggressive Dog trained by DELTA attacking its handler and having to be euthanized, I am looking for some opinions on this method of training with at risk dogs. My dog was originally trained by his first owners by putting him on his side, but he hated it and thought it was a game that he was winning, it had no effect for whatever reason. He was then trained with DELTA methods and bit 3 people including a child, which was initially hidden from me. DELTA made him very badly behaved and quite a risky animal to own. My trainer explained that this method actually reinforces negative behaviors like biting people. He was working with a number of dogs from the same org with the same problems as mine when I contacted him for help and described DELTA as a dangerous method for people aggressive dogs. Now yet another dog trained with DELTA has attacked and needed to be euthanized. I am also interested if NDTR collect data on these issues. The most recent case may end up in court, which may not be such a bad thing as it would legally demonstrate this method as risky for these dogs with specialized needs. I understand the RSPCA is also a big fan of this method and depend heavily on multiple high doses of psychiatric medications (not indicated for use for training issues, anywhere in the world) and multiple sedatives to be able to use DELTA with people aggressive dogs. The multiple sedatives used for these dogs to be able to train with DELTA are a major overdose risk & I seriously question the training method if it requires heavy sedation to be used and frequently fails with regular dog attacks and bites. Any information is greatly appreciated, thanks