What's the best training advice you've ever gotten?
 

Our trainer told me to enforce that the dog has only chance to follow a command. She wears a pinch collar, and if she doesn't follow the command the first time, she gets a loud "no" and a quick snap of the leash and she'll follow it then. She doesn't follow commands for treats. She follows them because I told her to. It's made a HUGE difference in her.

I'm Sorry but I have to ask. Are you sure she is following commands just because you told her?. It seems she wants to listen to avoid the 'snap'. My Lab x is not trained really, he knows Sit and Lay down. Sometimes he won't sit and a 'snap' of the collar will make it happen.

I don't work that way though because I dought it's any fun. Treats don't hurt. They can be weaned off them.

well, I can't read her mind, but I know she's been generally much better behaved and more attentive to me in general since we started doing it. I rarely have to snap the leash anymore - she usually responds to the first command. Basically she knows she can't get away with ignoring me - what I say goes. She still gets treats, but usually at the end of a training session or a good walk. She'll also get a treat when she ignores another dog without me having to say anything.

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I think the NILIF was the best training advice I've ever heard and I heard it (read it) here.

yes! I love NILIF. It's so natural too - doesn't really feel like training at all. You want to eat? Sit in your bed and wait while I prepare dinner. You want to go out? Sit nicely while I put on your leash and until I tell you to go through the door.

Control Unleashed and BAT training. Freaking fantastic.

What happens when your dog isn't wearing the pinch collar?

---------- Post added at 03:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

How yummy are the treats? I personally don't like the "do what I say or I'll punish you" type of training because then your dog only does what you ask to avoid punishment and not necessarily to just please you. This may create problems when a strong recall is needed. Your dog may try to avoid you thinking that the longer they stay away the longer they can be without punishment.

we're still training with it right now. Her trainer wants to wait until she's always responsive the first time to start working without it. I'll let you know though - this is new for me because I had been treat-training her but this seems to be working better.

The treats for a great training session or a walk are jackpots - marrow bones, a whole hot dog, a chunk of cheese, etc. For ignoring another dog it's usually a piece of dried duck breast.

I should also add that she gets an enthusiastic "good girl!" and a head scratch for obeying, which is a treat to her because she's very affection motivated. She's not usually very treat/food motivated.

The real test is if she can do it without the prong on. If she can't, then the training has failed



Best advice I ever got was to not expect your dog to be any less or more than the breed it is. If you have a pit bull and you want it to act more like a lab, then a lab is what you should have gotten. Same goes for any of the other breeds out here that people find difficult and want them to act like something they're not

Make training a big game - tug, etc. as rewards. Works fantastically.

Did not realize that Leslie created the class at a facility about 25 minutes from my house.

LOL, there was some Cesar wannabees up training locally last year and that was their big answer to everything, if the dog doesn't listen, yank it's neck off, somebody asked what you do when the leash is off and they said keep the leash on!

OP, sounds to me like your dog still isn't following commands if you have to yell at her and add pain to the situation. Have you ever considered maybe the dog doesn't fully understand what you want, or maybe you are in too distracting of a situation? Because all you are teaching your dog is to ignore you until you add NO! Yank to every command. If the dog knows the command, get their attention and ask for it, if they've been trained correctly they will do it. Most people don't jump when their boss or SO asks them to do something, yet we expect dogs to be robots "because I said so" or "because otherwise I'm going to add pain". Not going to help much when the collar is off. I'm training HEEL right now, sure I could leash up the dog and yank every time they stepped ahead, but it's been a whole lot easier to leave the leash out of the situation entirely and just teach them where I want them to be rather than hope they guess right when I punish them over and over and over. Plus I have dogs happy to go train and not with indents on their necks. Of course lots of people think a well behaved dog is one that just doesn't do much of anything, makes you wonder why they wanted a dog at all.

well - this is what her trainer recommended and right now it's working so I'm not inclined to change it yet. If it's not working, I'll reevaluate. The trainer said it's not to cause pain, but to quickly redirect her attention to focus on me. She is listening without the tug of the leash most of the time, so I'll be moving into taking off the pinch collar soon. Next week I'll take her to a friend's big backyard with lots of distractions and see how she does without the leash or collar.

I'm not pulling this stuff out my ass. This is what her trainer recommended and I'm not sure why it's such a bad idea.

Just curious- If it's not to cause pain and the tug is just supposed to get her attention then why wouldn't a regular collar work?

It's not really a bad idea so much as I find it a hindrance. I'm a huge fan of prongs, but they're a training tool. The end result is for your dog to graduate into not really needing it or the dog has failed in learning the consequences of it's actions, just that it shouldn't do that negative thing while the equipment is on

That's the goal - I'm supposed to be working with her on the prong right now and then graduate very soon into not using it at all.

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:01 PM ----------

the trainer said regular collars can hurt the throat and because this sits higher (up by her jaw line) and gives a small pinch it gets her attention more quickly.

Anyways to answer your first question- CONSISTENCY and lots of positive reinforcement.

if you are causing pain when using a prong collar you are not using the collar right. it is a training tool and when used correctly it is like a mother using bith inhabition on the dog.

"Trainers" recommend all sorts of crazy shit, doesn't make them right. There's trainers who recommend you strangle your disobedient dog, or drown them in holes they dig so they don't do it again. A yank on a prong is meant to cause pain, that's why it works. The CM-wannabees up here also were big on kicking dogs in the stomach and it was the same story, just to get their attention. Why not call the dogs name or make a noise, something that's able to be done on or off leash, collared or not. My problem with it is this breed doesn't care much about pain, they will take a prong or shock or whatever to get what they want and most people just end up escalating the punishment and also that most people are punishing instead of actually training. You have dogs that are either going to get tired of yanked around that redirect on their owner, or dogs that are stressed to the max trying to figure out what is expected of them. That's all that went on at the "training" class here, it was quite sad but most people were impressed at a bunch of shut down dogs not doing anything and they just stopped "training" the mastiff that made clear she wasn't going to let anybody kick her a 2nd time. http://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/no2.gif Just seems like if zookeepers can train whales and hyenas to do tricks and commands without collars on them, it's certainly possible with dogs.

yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking that I would respond well to a Jillian Michaels style of personal trainer; I would probably just shut down completely and would respond much better to a more encouraging trainer. I guess all I can say is that this seems to be working really well for my dog and has made her more attentive to me, especially when we're out on walks. She looks at me a lot to check in with me and I usually just have to say "easy" and she'll ease up on the leash, without having to snap it. But it's an option that's there if I need it. I'm going to be moving away from using it soon; I'll let you guys know how it goes.

First off, prong collars, e-collars, dominant dog collars any kind of correction collar causes pain or for a dog to be uncomfortable. That's what makes the tools effective. If you can't admit that a prong collar is uncomfortable for your dog you shouldn't be using it. I've never put a prong on one of my dogs but I do use something similar to a dominant dog collar and I have used an e-collar. It's uncomfortable and even sometimes painful, that's why these tools work so well.

Corrections/aversives of any kind (even just verbal) are effective because the dog works to AVOID that correction. Hades will work to avoid me giving a no reward marker, your dog will walk nicely on the leash to avoid the uncomfortable feeling in their neck that the prong collar provides. If your dog loved an aversive the behaviour you use it for would never disappear (ie, the dog will always pull because it loves the feeling of the prong pinching it's neck)

There's so many little tid bits that are worth their weight in gold, I had a PR trainer tell me one time when I was "crossing over";

Just because you can, (punish) doesn't mean you should.

Put that way it started to make sense because I've worked with horses almost my whole life. There are plenty of times where the level of punishing a horse to the length that some people punish dogs is just impossible, or downright dangerous and often extremely counter productive. So you have to come up with other, more gentle ways of training. I didn't always make that connection between dogs and horses, but the comment above really made me think about it and ultimately start changing the way I worked with my dogs, my expectations (which skyrocketed once I got the hang of it all) and my overall mentality when approaching training.

ETA - There are plenty of methods out there that will WORK for dogs, but it doesn't mean that it's what's best for a dog. I'm sure rubbing your dog's face in its own excrement might deter it from pooping in the house, but is it really the best way?