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Since the beast has awakened from its coma, I am curious how the no corrections/no verbal interuptor crowd handle 1) a blown 2o/2o contact in agility and 2) a blown start-line stay (or start line creep) in agility? Let's assume that the dog already knows the correct behavior, but blows the contact/ stay due to overenthusiasm. And this is a training session, not a trial.

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I cannot for the life of me figure out how you raise/train anything without correction. By correction, I mean something which starts with the idea of "no" or "not allowed".

 

Honestly, I have thought and thought about it and I do not think I could do it.

 

Which, of course, does not make it wrong.

 

I am thinking that a number of people would find my methods positively frightening.

 

I have had timid and reactive young dogs - but this never carried to adulthood. I never had one who was afraid of me or exhibited anything other than normal submissive behaviour to me. And I say "no" a lot, I raise my voice sometimes (as voice modulation is a training tool I use extensively) and sometimes I throw my hands up, utter some sort of nsfw phrase and walk away from a dog who is being ridiculous.

 

It does not settle into a logical lump in my brain. But clearly it works for some people - as much as my methods work for me. I suppose it's of no matter at the end of the day - as long as everyone and their dog is happy.

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Since the beast has awakened from its coma, I am curious how the no corrections/no verbal interuptor crowd handle 1) a blown 2o/2o contact in agility and 2) a blown start-line stay (or start line creep) in agility? Let's assume that the dog already knows the correct behavior, but blows the contact/ stay due to overenthusiasm. And this is a training session, not a trial.

I do not maintain that I never use a correction while training, but let me try to elaborate on the above. A NRM is used only if the continuation of the incorrect behaviour would be self-reinforcing. Otherwise, the withholding of reinforcement should be enough to communicate that the behaviour is incorrect. So, if a dog misses her weave entry, you say "whoops!" and she exits the weaves and returns promptly and enthusiastically to your side and awaits the prompt to retry. Since agility is almost entirely about chaining reinforcement, you must interrupt progression.

 

If a dog blows a contact or a start line stay, the idea is to pack your bags and go home. Quietly exit the field with your dog and carry on as if it were business as usual... only no agility run. I believe that, as in the weave example above, you would provide a NRM, but I could be wrong. Assuming the dog has been properly trained, it will understand that its choice resulted in the withdrawal of potential reinforcement. The basic idea is to allow your dog all the freedom in the world to make its own choices. Where you come in is as the controller of all reinforcement.

 

I'm aware that this feeds back into the issue of NRM vs interrupter vs punisher vs whatever, and the distinction is muddy. Again I will reiterate my belief that training should be clear, kind and should focus on building relationship. I don't fret about whether my "whoops!" might have been vaguely punishing.

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Since the beast has awakened from its coma, I am curious how the no corrections/no verbal interuptor crowd handle 1) a blown 2o/2o contact in agility and 2) a blown start-line stay (or start line creep) in agility? Let's assume that the dog already knows the correct behavior, but blows the contact/ stay due to overenthusiasm. And this is a training session, not a trial.

 

I would guess ignore it, no praise but no correction. Keeping in mind that I don't label myself either way, I train in a way that builds on relationship and understanding and takes the dog into account to find what works best for the individual, and corrections and no reward markers are in my 'toolbox'.

 

For me, it is one thing to train a stay or a stopped contact, and it is another thing to train a dog to work through arousal. So even though the dog may know those two behaviors, it may not actually know how to calm itself down and listen, in which case I would be hesitant to correct and would probably end the session and go back to the techniques I use to work on the dog learning to bring itself down from over-stimulation and listen to me even if it is 'high'. If in training it is breaking the contact or stay and it's not an isolated oops, you are asking for too much too soon.

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Well, then, this is a semantic argument. I would charactorize marking the behavior and removing the dog from the field as a correction.

 

I pretty much train in the same manner as Sekah, but seldom remove the dog from the field. Because agility is self-reinforcing to my dog, simply stopping the fun and asking the dog to repeat the behavior correctly before proceeding makes the point.

 

I most definately would not ignore a blown contact/ stay because by allowing the dog to proceed, it has been rewarded.

 

My dog has never blown a contact in competition. As for startline stays, I release before the dog can break, although this past weekend I decided to test the waters a bit. So, he started creeping as i walked out and I growled at him. And guess what, he stopped creeping and waited until I released him from my modest leadout position. Ofcourse, I wasn't going to set nhim up to fail by taking a two jump lead out...

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Well, then, this is a semantic argument. I would call charactorize marking the behavior and removing the dog from the field as a correction.

 

I pretty much train in the same manner as above, but seldom remove the dog from the field. Because agility is self-reinforcing to my dog, simply stopping the fun and asking the dog to repeat the behavior correctly before proceeding makes the point.

I train similarly. However, keep in mind that asking the dog to repeat the behaviour after being incorrect on the first attempt can create a reinforcement chain that can result in an increase in first-time mistakes. I see it often when a dog leaps an A-frame contact -- they may back up and try to find it again, or they may get it on the 2nd or 3rd attempt, but is the handler really being clear to the dog about what the consequence is of incorrect performance? Getting to play on the A-frame 2-3 more times may be pretty fun.

 

Here's a blog entry which I think is a good illustration of NRMs/correction and their use in sports.

 

http://susangarrettdogagility.com/2011/02/non-reward-markers-reducing-the-use/

A NRM, although pretty benign, is still punishment. All punishment has fallout. Even if that fallout is mild frustration, over time that frustration will have the opportunity to grow and express itself in ways you may not be able to predict and may or may not be equipped to deal with.

With all punishment I stand by my ongoing mantra;

“You must earn the right to use punishment”

Earning the right means the behaviour you desire has a history rich in reinforcement prior to the application of the punishment.

To paraphrase from the article, say you have a red ball, a blue ball and a yellow ball. You want to shape your friend into picking up the yellow ball. What do you do? Do you place all 3 choices on the table and allow your friend to figure out your goal through trial and error (nope! not the red ball! not the blue ball either!)? Or do you separate the yellow ball from the others, build value in choosing it from a pool of one and gradually add the distraction of the other balls back in when it comes time to proof the behaviour?

 

Garrett does a great job of breaking behaviours down, building value for them and then testing them systematically and thoroughly. If done correctly, using a NRM should be an infrequent event. What I admire most about her is her ability to acknowledge the onus on the trainer to be correct prior to the onus being shifted onto the dog.

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I guess when the back and forth over who never does what and how their dogs never do that (e.g., "I achieve perfection 100% of the time with MY way!"), then it starts to sound like one upmanship to me and the discussion takes a turn for the worse (or at least a turn to less useful) and that's what I meant about people making a big deal of things.

 

My point is simply that there is no one pefect way and if no harm comes to the dog in the process, then that should be good enough for the rest of us.

 

J.

 

I don't think anyone here quantified it as a "big deal."

 

t was said that in some circumstances it could sometimes create a problem (ie puppy decided to avoid humans displeasure by hiding when he pees) and some of disagreed that it would make house training go better or faster to use a verbal correction.

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It also depends on the dog. I did spent a few years banging my head against the wall with a very low drive, poorly motivated, stressy dog. She could make NO mistakes, so I just had to accept sloppy performance to keep her "up". Ultimately, I gave up on her. Although almost every dog can do agility, not every dog should.

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The point to my post wasn't that I was better. I was responding to someone who said it wasn't possible to house break without corrections. I've done it, so I know it's not true. I use corrections all the time and am not against them.

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Since the beast has awakened from its coma, I am curious how the no corrections/no verbal interuptor crowd handle 1) a blown 2o/2o contact in agility and 2) a blown start-line stay (or start line creep) in agility? Let's assume that the dog already knows the correct behavior, but blows the contact/ stay due to overenthusiasm. And this is a training session, not a trial.

 

I ignore it for the time being and take it to training (either within the same session, following the sequence we were working on, or perhaps at another time). I'm going to refresh the behavior with training games and/or a lowering of criteria/increase in rate of reinforcement.

 

If it's a chronic problem, I am going to use management (sling shot starts, skip the contacts) until the training catches up to the level where the dog is working.

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Since the beast has awakened from its coma, I am curious how the no corrections/no verbal interuptor crowd handle 1) a blown 2o/2o contact in agility and 2) a blown start-line stay (or start line creep) in agility? Let's assume that the dog already knows the correct behavior, but blows the contact/ stay due to overenthusiasm. And this is a training session, not a trial.

 

Depends.

 

If I am pretty certain that the dog knows the expected behavior,if he has had plenty of opportunities to generalize that behavior to many locations and situations, and simply was so eager for the next obstacle that he forgot he was supposed to stay, and if the dog in question isn't one of those wilty types (you know, falls apart if he is wrong) then I would probably apply a "correction" (and yes I think removing the dog qualifies as a correction) of stopping progress towards the next obstacle.

 

A lot of "ifs," there.

 

If I had to do this more than once, then the dog tells me has not learned the behavior yet or has not generalized it well enough to various environments or situations to demonstrate fluency. I would then back track and go back to training.

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Does removing the dog from the course equal a correction?

 

If so, my dog gets a correction every time we finish what we are doing out there, whether it was a perfect performance or a terrible one.

 

In training we will often go out and do just a sequence, or even a single exercise, and then leave the floor. Should I be thinking that my dogs perceive that as a correction because we didn't go on and do more? The dog didn't know how much was planned. If it is a correction, it's a pretty darn ineffective one since they always seem to be plenty eager to get back out for their next turn and no behavior is being decreased.

 

Whether or not removing the dog from the course is a correction or not depends, I believe, on the attitude of the handler upon removal. And that doesn't make removal from the course the correction, but what the handler is conveying in conjunction with that removal.

 

Personally, I don't do the walk of shame. If I were to break off a run because I want to take something to training, I have absolutely no reason to expect that my dog would perceive as anything other than . . . we were finished.

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I guess when the back and forth over who never does what and how their dogs never do that (e.g., "I achieve perfection 100% of the time with MY way!"), then it starts to sound like one upmanship to me and the discussion takes a turn for the worse (or at least a turn to less useful) and that's what I meant about people making a big deal of things.

 

Sure. I get that.

 

Works both ways though. Insisting that someone else's way can't work because you are sure you need to insert the correction or the dog won't understand comes off as not so nice either.

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Sure. I get that.

 

Works both ways though. Insisting that someone else's way can't work because you are sure you need to insert the correction or the dog won't understand comes off as not so nice either.

How it comes off to me is that the person means she herself can't imagine getting the result without a correction - not that anyone else can't. I can't imagine having a chocolate chip cookie taste yummy without milk. But I am well aware that others can and do. :)

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Rushdoggie,

My post applied to both sides of any such discussion. I simply chose not to give multiple examples because I figured people would understand my point without my going on and on with the examples. Sorry if it seemed one sided to you. It wasn't meant to be.

 

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

 

:)

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It also depends on the dog. I did spent a few years banging my head against the wall with a very low drive, poorly motivated, stressy dog. She could make NO mistakes, so I just had to accept sloppy performance to keep her "up". Ultimately, I gave up on her. Although almost every dog can do agility, not every dog should.

 

My low drive, poorly motivated dog taught me a lot about handling. We ended up in a virtuous cycle of smoother handling leading to faster and more accurate performance, and the next dog I trained was a huge beneficiary. I had to train myself to value flow and connection over perfect performance, and that path eventually led somewhere I liked.

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Dear Doggers,

 

Julie wrote: "My point is simply that there is no one pefect way and if no harm comes to the dog in the process, then that should be good enough for the rest of us."

 

Good enough for me. I have seen happy, healthy pet dogs trained by practitioners of several faiths. Perhaps if dogs didn't want to be trained (esp Border Collies) the how would be less trivial.

 

Since I'd like to understand Border Collies (not much time for other breeds now) better, I am curious about how and why they learn. Though answers are all over the internet, I am more often disappointed than informed.

 

Donald McCaig

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Julie wrote: "My point is simply that there is no one perfect way and if no harm comes to the dog in the process, then that should be good enough for the rest of us."

 

This sums it up very well, and I agree with Julie and Donald.

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