Academy of Canine Behavior are clueless hacks

[highway61]

Warning: Although its a plastic bat, it's still hard to watch this poor dog get abused with it.

https://q13fox.com/2018/07/26/dog-trainer-video-sparks-outrage-owner-of-facility-insists-action-has-been-taken-animals-are-safe/

"We dont have an all clicky approach"   The owner is so intellectually deficient that I'm surprised she wasn't wearing her red MAGA hat for this interview.

[GentleLake]

For me, the most disturbing part of this -- and believe me, it was very distressing to watch -- was this:

"Snohomish County Animal Services says their investigation concluded the behavior of the trainer towards the dog did not rise to the level of animal cruelty, as defined by law. "

[highway61]

Apparently my state has pretty weak animal cruelty laws. https://www.seattledogspot.com/academy-canine-behavior-abuses-dogs/

"This is one reason why, in my experience, some animal control agencies won’t prosecute animal abuse; they don’t want to spend the time and money on a case they don’t think they can win."

 

[GentleLake]

Sadly, your area is far from alone in this.

[Smalahundur]

"pain shuts down the learning proces"?

How come that people believe such utter utter nonsense? Just think about it for one second, what do those people think is the basic function of the phenomenon "pain"...?

[NW_MONTANA_BC]

Someone needs to go to jail for this!! AND the business, such as it is, needs to be shut down!

[JohnLloydJones]

58 minutes ago, Smalahundur said:

"pain shuts down the learning proces"?

How come that people believe such utter utter nonsense? Just think about it for one second, what do those people think is the basic function of the phenomenon "pain"...?

Of course, the dog is learning something from the process, but I'm sure that it is entirely the wrong (i.e. unintended) thing. I have a dog who clearly learned something from his last adopter; an intense distrust of women. I can only speculate what happened. He is safe with me but totally un-adoptable by anyone else.

[CptJack]

Pain (and other unpleasant to any organism) teaches, yes.  It specifically teaches NOT to do a thing.

Reward (positive/pleasant/desirable to whatever organism) teaches to DO.

 

You can use both to get to an end result. I choose to not go down the path of exclusion and just accurately mark and reward what I want in a given scenario.  That said, I don't think not doing that is akin to abuse.  

I DO think beating a dog with any kind of object is.

[JohnLloydJones]

20 minutes ago, CptJack said:

Pain (and other unpleasant to any organism) teaches, yes.  It specifically teaches NOT to do a thing.

Pain teaches that the act  or thing associated with it is something to avoid or react against. The danger is that we don't know what a dog associates with the pain. Aversion therapy is valuable when positively associates the "pain" with the intended stimulus, but what will the dog associate with being struck with a plastic bat? The colour pink? A baseball bat? The person who is striking her? Women in general? Someone wearing the same clothes as the so-called "trainer"?

I don't know.

This is not a practice I could condone in any form. I base all my interaction with dogs on two fundamental pillars; trust and respect. What I see in the video violates both.

[CptJack]

4 minutes ago, JohnLloydJones said:

Pain teaches that the act  or thing associated with it is something to avoid or react against. The danger is that we don't know what a dog associates with the pain. Aversion therapy is valuable when positively associates the "pain" with the intended stimulus, but what will the dog associate with being struck with a plastic bat? The colour pink? A baseball bat? The person who is string her? Women in general? Someone wearing the same clothes as the so-called "trainer"?

I don't know.

This is not a practice I could condone in any form. I base all my interaction with dogs on two fundamental pillars; trust and respect. What I see in the video violates both.

Oh, I am not defending this crap. If your dog doesn't trust you, you don't have a dog - much less the start of being able to teach one.   The harshest correction I use is a no reward marker or a "stoppit" (and they're giving something rewarding for stopping it, because stopping is what I want and is a known cue, though what they get might be a scratch behind the ear) and almost use entirely toys and food to teach.  I absolutely agree with you about unintended consequences and fall out. 

 

I just think if you start saying pain doesn't teach you'll get someone coming along to tell you you're wrong.  It DOES teach.  It's just not how I choose to teach and I don't think it's a very GOOD method of *TRAINING*.  Training for me is about teaching what I WANT, anyway, not a method of stopping things I don't, anyway.

[Ildiko]

Just a sidenote to what the dog associates with what (and I could't watch the video as it is not reachable in my area). 

So once my little puppy approached my horse and they tried to smell each other (I was too far to stop them) and it would not have been a problem as the horse likes small animals, except for the electric fence which was on... I think she might even got into a shock and since then she is really afraid - of the horse. If she sees him or hear him she is ready to flee and if the horse moves she does.

Oh yeah, and yesterday I think I accidentally thaught her to jump up at me to the already known que 'stand'... by revarding just two stand when she lifted her fronts a little which I considered just a sign of enthusiasm at the time. Today came the surprise 

[Smalahundur]

I have looked at the video again, and the dog hardly gets hit by this flimsy thing (call thát pink piece of hollow plastic a "baseball bat", come on!). Yes it touches him, but not with a lot of impact.

Take in consideration that this dog is in training for biting people, and one good bite can, as we all know be a death sentence for the animal, this aversive method may well be justified.

In my opinion no reason for such a hysterical outcry; a prison sentence for for the  trainer, and shutting down of the facility? Absurd.

Maybe try to look a bit better at the context in which the dog got corrected (hey, I don't even mind you want to call it punished), it may well have been justified and effective.

[CptJack]

Maybe look a bit at the DOG.  That dog is terrified out of its wits, isn't learning a danged thing except a deeper need to defend itself and while maybe not biting NOW, a dog 'trained' that way is MORE likely to bite again in the future.  They're not teaching the dog a danged thing here, they're just scaring the crap out of it.  You might get shut down/avoidance now, but you keep pushing - or the world does when it leaves there - you know what's going to happen? It's going to bite.

And frankly speaking if your alternatives are 'hit the dog with an object and hope it teaches the dog to stop biting' or 'put to sleep' both dogs, owner, and general public are better off at 'being put to sleep'. 

This isn't training.  This isn't an 'aggressive' dog who's biting, except in the sense that the dog is fear aggressive and biting defensively.   This isn't going to stop the dog from biting in the future because CLEARLY it's just making the dog more fearful - because LOOK AT THE DOG.  It isn't stopping anything.  This is  an idiot with an ego and no clue traumatizing a dog with a bite history.    Making it more likely to bite again.

 

cut out all the middle steps with the hitting with the hollow plastic thing (and, as a child who was 'spanked' with one of those plastic bats and ended up black and blue with welts that split and BLED, spare me the 'come on, it's not really painful crap) - cut out the hitting, ut out the terror, leave the brief period of shut down and the necessary and almost inevitable future bite if this method is what it takes, and just put the dog down already

Edited July 31, 2018 by CptJack

[Baderpadordercollie]

There are loads of people successfully (emphasis on successfully) working with aggressive dogs and changing their ways without the use of pain or fear or force. Living examples that it can be done. If you don't need to use pain, force, or fear to train animals, than why would you? IMO it's morally wrong to cause an animal pain or fear unnecessarily. Just because it doesn't qualify as abuse doesn't make it right. Besides, as mentioned, the dog is probably not learning what it's supposed to be learning. Most likely it's just learning to fear the handler. 

[Smalahundur]

Sorry to hear about that deeply disturbing aspect of your childhood cptJack. I will not discuss this topic further with you.

[highway61]

3 hours ago, CptJack said:

This is  an idiot with an ego and no clue traumatizing a dog with a bite history.    Making it more likely to bite again.

 

CaptJack, you have crystalized my own thoughts eloquently!

If you watch the video, the news team investigating also speaks with the owner of Ahimsa (Winona is awesome!) who I've taken my own reactive BC to for classes. It's a nice glimpse into what the very worst and best examples of dog training looks like. Any self respecting dog owner who turns their dog over to Academy of Canine Behavior should have their head examined. Strictly amateur hour

[D'Elle]

 

Anyone who thinks that it is justified to hit a dog with something, and I don't care if it is a "flimsy piece of plastic", is very sadly mistaken. This is never going to be necessary for a genuine trainer who actually knows what they are doing, and is strongly counter-productive when working with any fear-aggressive dog. It also is cruel, and will not be effective. Unless a person thinks that it is appropriate and effective to hit a human child in this manner, or another adult human being should be hit with something in order to teach that individual what is appropriate behavior, it is incomprehensible to me why anyone would think it is appropriate for a dog. Dogs deserve our respect and patience, not our brutality. Resorting to this kind of treatment  only indicates how ignorant and insensitive that person is.

And for anyone who thinks that it is a good training method for anyone to receive blows from a plastic bat, my hope is that someone treats them in the same manner so that they can experience first hand the confusion, fear, resentment and anger that will result.

[GentleLake]

7 hours ago, CptJack said:

You might get shut down/avoidance now, but you keep pushing...you know what's going to happen? It's going to bite.

Just ask Cesar Millan.

Great response in its entirety, CptJack. My first reaction when I read the comment about the hitting not being "hard" was the same as yours: Look at the dog for chrissake. Look. at. the. dog!

Even if physical correction was warranted, don'tcha think the first one was enough without following the attempting-to-flee and clearly terrified dog to repeatedly whack it over and over again was a bit much, @Smalahundur?

[highway61]

4 hours ago, Smalahundur said:

In my opinion no reason for such a hysterical outcry; a prison sentence for for the  trainer, and shutting down of the facility? Absurd.

Right. Because the problem here is the hysterical outcry   

[Smalahundur]

All of a sudden I remember why I avoid the parts of these boards that don't directly relate to stockwork.

Bye folks.

 

[Baderpadordercollie]

5 hours ago, Smalahundur said:

All of a sudden I remember why I avoid the parts of these boards that don't directly relate to stockwork.

Bye folks.

 

No hard feelings from me.There are lots of different people here, so someone's bound to disagree with you. But I agree that the sarcasm in some of the replies towards you is a bit... abrasive. And I cringed a bit reading them. I guess you can either take that or you can't. People are very passionate about this subject, and I admit, so am I. But no hard feelings on my part. 

[aschlemm]

I noticed the video was taken two years ago.  I wonder what happened to the dog?  And the owner?  How does the owner feel about the video?

[juliepoudrier]

As someone who owned and managed a fear aggressive dog, I can say that at least in my case, escalating or trying to punish never did anything to diminish his fear biting. Recognizing what triggered him and managing *that* is where I had the greatest success. The first time he snapped at me, my immediate reaction was to swat him across the muzzle. He taught me pretty quickly that reacting to him with any sort of aggression or violence (no matter the mild) was a recipe for increased fear aggression from him.

In those 14 years he only seriously bit me once (my mistake) and never hurt anyone else.

 

J.