My dog simba

leashedForLife said:

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Mr Milan rarely used a shock-collar [however, the 1st time he did, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the H*** was going on; my fellow USA-apdt trainers clued me in - he'd put the remote AND HIS HAND, operating it, into his pants-pocket. He lacked even the fundamental honesty to acknowledge what he was doing, & how he was doing it.].

The simplest way to sum up Cesar's methods is that they're all about suppression - quashing unwanted behaviors. Suppression never works for long - as the dog's feelings about the thing have never altered, their emotional response will merely pop out elsewhere, or the dog will choose a different, even-more objectionable action.
The problem is, the list of unwanted-but-possible optional behaviors is practically infinitely long; what do U want the dog to do, in a given context? - that's most-likely 1 to 3 things.
Teaching what U want, & goof-proofing the process, is far-simpler than crushing all unwanted behaviors. It also takes a helluva lot less time, LOL, & is more enjoyable for all parties.

Before U can begin training, U need control; manage the environs & / or the dog - to prevent the dog easily choosing something else to do, & to make the behavior U want very, very easy to do. Make undesired behavior is as difficult as possible, & desired behavior as close to inevitable as U can - set the learner up to succeed! Then reward their success, get that behavior a few more times, start to pair the behavior with a label, get the behavior a few more times WITH the label attached to it each time, & the label eventually becomes a cue.
Instead of saying the label AS the dog does the behavior, U can say it before they do - & they'll do the desired behavior.

The time-consuming part is that dogs speak no human languages, & are slow to generalize. The idea that "Sit" means "put my butt on the substrate" takes a long time to sink in, as context for dogs is everything; 'sit' on the wall-to-wall in the lounge isn't 'sit' on the kitchen lino, which isn't 'sit' in the vet's waiting room, which isn't 'sit' on long wet grass in the garden, which isn't 'sit' on a gravel beach... So dogs need a minimum of FIVE different contexts, performing the same behavior with the same label, before they even begin to get a glimmer of the behavior being the same, in different places, at different times.
Don't forget to proof - Proofing is the 3 Ds: Distance [from the handler], Duration [of the behavior], & Distractions. Add or increase them slowly, & don't expect the same quality of performance when a green dog is doing something under increasingly-demanding circs, at first - if s/he lags at heel when they're in a busy setting for the 1st few times, don't harass the dog. Let them get accustomed, & polish the behavior, later.

Make what U want pay-off really well, & what U want becomes what the dog wants to do. Simple, isn't it?
Happy training,
- terry

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Click to expand...

Thanks

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this, by the way, is a fantastic written program for training -
Training Levels (originals) | Mind to Mind

Levels Training is unique, as it includes every step [each 'level'] of a particular exercise, plus as each exercise advances in difficulty, the needed "Ds" are also written in.
Proofing is so essential, but it's the area where many dog-owners fail - they don't understand that asking a dog to Sit in a quiet living-room at home, is wildly different from asking that dog to Sit in a crowded waiting-room at the vet's office, with human strangers, random pets of different species, & constant arrivals & departures, or asking the dog to Sit in the woods, with sounds, smells, & sights that are incredibly distracting, compared to a familiar, boring, unchanging home living-room!

Sue-eh is a well-known trainer in Canada, primarily teaching dog sports & helping disabled persons train their own assistance dogs [SDs in the states, for 'Service Dog'].
The biggest advantage of Levels Training is that every dog is following her or his own training plan; they can be anywhere on the spectrum, in each exercise. A dog can be Level 8 on walking loose-leashed, yet be a Level 1 on recall, & a Level 4 on Sit / Stay. Their personal strengths & frailties are supported, all along.

Aside:
I know that in the UK, 'service dogs' are military or police k9s, so the nomenclature can be confusing; our military K9s are MWDs, Military Working Dogs; U-S police or security-k9s are either patrol-k9s or detection-dogs, for drugs, arson, weapons, other contraband, or evidence; then there are PPDs, Personal-Protection Dogs, who bite on cue & may be trained to bite w/o a cue, if someone makes a threatening move.

happy training,
- terry

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