Training multiple sports

[Root Beer]

How many of you train and compete in multiple sports with the same dog at the same time?

 

When I started, I had the idea that I had to do one thing at a time. When Speedy started, he did agility. When that didn't work out, he did Rally. After that he did Freestyle. He does still go to a Rally trial from time to time, but dancing is his real "thing" these days.

 

I want Dean to do everything at the same time! He is finishing his basic class soon. Then he is going to start Freestyle dance and Advanced Basic Obedience - hopefully to change into Rally by summer.

 

I'm thinking of starting him training in agility when he is about two, a year from now. By then I expect he will be ready to compete in Rally and Freestyle. Eventually I'd like to try my hand at Saint Hubert's Obedience with him.

 

Have any of you made something like this work all with the same dog?

[Rosanne]

I don't see why it couldn't.

 

I guess 'herding' isn't really a sport on these boards, but I am a very serious agility competitor, who takes time every week to go work some sheep with my dog. I do see some things from one transferring to the other now and then (his release word from a down makes him come up to his feet too quickly on stock, and just yesterday he released in agility with an arm signal, which is what we've been using on stock to get him up and push him out gently), but it's definitely worth it.

I love agility too much to stop in order to work my dog on stock more, and I like working him enough not to stop that and worry about my stays. He'll figure it out.

 

I know lots of people that do flyball AND rally AND agility AND tracking etc etc.

[Kat's Dogs]

We don't compete in all sports, but we do DO some of them all together (rally, disc, agility, some little dance moves, etc).

 

It can work!

[Katelynn & Gang]

My dogs do herding, obedience, agility, freestyle, rally, dock dogs and disc dog. Not all at once but all in the same week.

 

Herding and obedience are our main things though and that is what we focus on. The others are just fun and games for my gang. They on't really care, so long as they are doing something, anything.

 

Katelynn

[airbear]

How many of you train and compete in multiple sports with the same dog at the same time?

 

Back when I only had one dog, we did compete in multiple sports. Bear competed in agility, disc, obedience, and freestyle, often in the same month. Bear wasn't outstanding at any particular sport, but he could do pretty much anything you asked of him, provided the incentive was appropriate.

 

Dog #2, Wick, came along, and the only thing that she can do is agility. We've tried working sheep (dismal failure), obedience (can't heel worth a darn) and flyball (after 4 years, she now can pass into a dog but can't have a dog pass her yet ... argh!). Of course, Bear picked up flyball immediately, and still competes in the odd tourney, and he loves to work sheep, though he is not what I would call a talented dog. We've entered a couple of arena trials, and he's done ok.

 

Lou was purchased as a trained sheepdog, and that's the only thing that we compete in right now. He's learning agility, which he loves, though I doubt we'll do much more than just Jumpers. He's also started training in flyball, but we haven't really got beyond recalls over the jumps.

 

For us, the constraint is time. Each activity requires time, travel, etc. and with 3 dogs, it's hard to find the time to drive everyone to their activities. Also, we have to choose what we're doing on various weekends, and since there are more agility trials than sheepdog trials, if there is a conflict, I generally choose to do the sheepdog trial. Plus, if you want to excel in something, I think you need to dedicate more time to that one thing. Since Wick is pretty good at agility, that's where we spend most of our time. Lou is a sheepdog, and that's the area in which I wish him to excel, so we don't spend too much time on the other stuff.

 

Oh and re: commands, Bear didn't have a problem with conflicting commands, such as "come". In agility, it meant 'come into my side and take whatever is in front of you to get here'. In obedience, it meant a recall to front. In flyball, it means 'hurry up and bring that darned ball back'. In sheep, it means slice, apparently.

[borderlicious]

I'm curious, what do those of you on the board think of activities such as obedience and agility conflicting with stock work? I imagine that the constant attention (and by attention I mean eye contact rather than simply listening for a command) on the handler, which is so highly prized in obedience, is something that would work against a dog in stock work - I wouldn't want Eve to look at me rather than the sheep. So, how do those of you who do stock work get around the eye contact issue for obedience and agility?

[border_collie_crazy]

I have done many sports at the same time with my dogs, and will be doing so with Electra as well. Happy is the only one I have had issues with between flyball and agility, and only because she would much rather play flyball, so instead of staying at the start she would taken off running the moment I stopped touching her lol otherwise I have never had an issue with it. I have never has an issue with attention and stockwork either, I have never had issues with my girls looking at me instead of the stock...

 

Leck is a bit tricker...despite what people try to tell ya, Tollers are definatly not as bright as BCs lol with the co-ownership thing I have to show her, so I need her to look FORWARD and not at me while I am gaiting her, and absolutly NO sitting in the ring. however I am also doing obedience with her.... lol so at the same time I need her to be able to watch me in the ring and sit when I stop. when summer roles around she will also be trained to pull, trained in Agility and feild work.....ya so I have been traing with doffernt equpment so she knows the differnce lol for example no sitting when wearing the show chain, sitting and watching me when where a flat nylon collar, pulling when in the pulling harness......... this is much easier with the BCs lol

[Root Beer]

I'm curious, what do those of you on the board think of activities such as obedience and agility conflicting with stock work? I imagine that the constant attention (and by attention I mean eye contact rather than simply listening for a command) on the handler, which is so highly prized in obedience, is something that would work against a dog in stock work - I wouldn't want Eve to look at me rather than the sheep. So, how do those of you who do stock work get around the eye contact issue for obedience and agility?

 

That's an interesting question. I only do "hobby herding", but in the little that I've done with Speedy, he is in a completely different mode when he is with sheep than he is when we are doing Freestyle or Rally. He definitely knows the difference, just like Sammie knows the difference between killing a groundhog and play fighting with another dog.

 

See - Speedy in "dancing mode":

 

 

It's a whole 'nother story when sheep are in the picture. He was just starting here, but you can see he's not working under the same modus operandi! I didn't have to teach him to take his eyes off of me or anything.

 

 

In fact, when we used to do agility, his inclination was to keep his focus on the obstacles and listen for the cues. Our trainers at the time didn't like that and insisted that I try to get eye contact from him. Now that I've seen him on sheep, I think that if we'd had a trainer who accepted his ability to respond to verbal cues insted of insisting on that eye contact, agility might have worked for him.

 

I have no plans to do any serious stock work with Dean either - I got him on purpose to be a sport dog - so I'm not concerned about it, but with Speedy there is no issue inasmuch as he just does occasional stock work for the pure bliss of it.

[airbear]

I'm curious, what do those of you on the board think of activities such as obedience and agility conflicting with stock work?

 

Honestly, if your first goal with Eve is to have her working stock at a decent level (not KC instinct tests, but actual work), then I would start with that. The agility and obedience stuff I would delay until you are happy with how she works stock, until she is confident, fully engaged, etc. I have one (the aforementioned washout, Wick) who just doesn't take her eyes off me. She also thinks my training stick is some sort of tug toy. Bear is too obsessed with sheep to bother looking at me (or listening to me, for that matter).

 

Now if you watch Lou and I at the post, you'll think "My doG, there's no way he's going to find the sheep, because he's just staring at her". But on the way to the post, he scans the field for them, and I can tell by the way that his ears cock that he's locked onto them. Then he stares at me until he gets the "Shhhhhh". He rarely looks at me after that.

 

He makes good eye contact with me on the startline in agility, and we'll make eye contact from time to time on course (like when he's coming out of the tunnel) but I wouldn't say we ever maintain eye contact for any sustained length of time. I don't really want my dogs staring at my eyes anyways - they should be cueing off my body language and my verbals.

[Root Beer]

I second what Kristi said!

 

If I were planning to have a Border Collie do stock work either as a profession or for serious trialing, I would skip the agility and so forth, at least until the dog had the sheep thing down at a good level.

 

I don't think that the two are exclusive, but if I were looking for the dog to be truly excellent at one particular thing, that would be the thing I would focus on, probably to the exclusion of anything else that wasn't truly necessary.

[Carson Crazies]

If I were planning to use my pup on stock with any seriousness (which I am) I would wait until the dog were well underway on stock before I considered introducing OB or Agility. Actually, I'm not planning to do anything but stockwork with my pup, but if I were going to do any other thing I'd wait. I prefer to keep most of my eggs in one basket though - I try to find the thing that each dog is best at and concentrate on that thing. That's mostly so that I can keep my own sanity, though, and so that I don't have to choose too much.

 

I will say this though - I found OB to be a slight hinderance when we started Bree in agility. We had to work hard to get her comfortable being on both sides of us, and to stop staring at us so much. I say "us" because DH primarily runs her in agility.

[laurie etc]

If I were planning to use my pup on stock with any seriousness (which I am) I would wait until the dog were well underway on stock before I considered introducing OB or Agility. .

 

I agree with this - take it from someone whose "cross over from agility" dogs think herding sheep is a Nascar event...zoom.zoom.zoom. My younger dogs that I want to seriously work on stock have not been introduced to the "need for speed" in agility. I think speed happens naturally in Border Collies once you let it happen. There's not a whole lot of need to "build drive and speed for agility" like in some other breeds.

My young dogs are learning to take time and be thoughtful on stock first, and once that is embedded in their brains then they may get to do some speed work in agility. Meanwhile, they have been on agility equipment, just enought to get the feel for it and not be worried, they have learned handling, come to heel, 2 0n/2 Off "board work", start line stays and jumping grid work. They also learn "household" obedience - enough to become acceptable members of society at home and in public. When I feel they are where I want them with the sheep, they MAY then get to do more agility. Until then, I'm in no hurry to "rev" them.

As far as formal obedience goes, I do think insisting on too much eye contact with the handler, and not being allowed to "free think" and "problem solve" can be a detriment to competion stock work AND to agility. I do know folks who seem to do lots of dogs sports with the same dog, but they are very dedicated; and few and far between. I can't think of anyone who is at the top of their game in USBCHA stockwork (or even close) and does any other competition sports with their dog.

If other "herding venues" are all you are interested in, I do think you can train AHBA style stockwork and other sports concurrently. My olders dogs compete and WIN in AHBA herding at the "championship" level (equal to about pro-novice level or a small ranch course) and also do agility. Although different and "fun", AHBA scoring is much more forgiving than in Border Collie trialing - after all it's geared toward all herding breeds. IMO, AHBA is a piece of cake in comparison to USBCHA trialing.

Laurie

[Marilyn T]

My first border collie started in Flyball and Obedience at the same time as a puppy. Then at one, we went to our first stock clinic. He was a good dog in everything, not spectacular in anything. Might have been spectacular if I had known more in herding though. He ended up with an Onyx award (20,000 points) in flyball, when it was something special, a UD in ACK obedience, CDX in UKC and CKC, got a TD, and won an open class in a USBCHA trial. The biggest problem with cross training is the general freedom a dog has in other venues to make mistakes. Most people now a days train obedience, flyball, and agility with the 'do over attitude'. Shape the behavior with food, don't tell a dog it is wrong, just do it over with more positive rewards until it gets it right, then jackpot. This is done with the misguided attitude that all training must be fun for the dog. When the average person goes into stock dog training with this attitude, they never advance. Suddenly, training might not be 'fun' and a lot of dogs can't handle this change. The dogs, when first confronted with corrections for being wrong on sheep, tend to be massivly confused, and quit when they don't get to do over and over until they get it right. This is also known as not being able to take a correction. Positively trained dogs tend to sulk, quit, or use avoidance when exposed to stock training for the first time because they suddenly hear NO quite a lot. They have no experience in changing behavior to avoid the no correction, just get to do over until they happen to get it right, then are jackpotted. I taught KPT puppy obedience at our local training club for over ten years, and people always were amazed at my control on my dogs, but usually didn't want to work through the puppy tantrums to get there. They would rather rely on food. How often do you see someone in flyball pick a dog up to get it into starting position, rather than have the dog come back to them and stand? How often does it take two or three people to remove a ball or tug toy from the dogs? I do train some things with positive reinforcement, and am a firm believer in changing voice to indicate pleasure in behaviors. I even use food to get sit, down and stand and come on my puppies. But I also don't avoid correction. I got a young dog (6months old) once, (currently 30th on the points list for USBCHA) and tied him up to help someone else take a photo of their dog. He pitched a fit, broke loose and almost got killed. When I took him to the local club to teach him to tie, and he threw a tantrum, many people wanted me to make it easier on him, but my feeling was his life depended on this, and he needed to learn right then that he didn't always get his own way. After 5 minutes or so, he realized he couldn't change his circumstances, and when he setttled down, I went over, praised him, and released him. After another five minutes, I repeated the exercise, and he never again tossed a fit. He is a wonderful dog who understands 'knock it off' is about the worst thing he will ever hear from me, but honors it. Currently, I have given up on obedience since it wasn't personally rewarding, and do flyball when I can but USBCHA trialing takes precidence.

[Root Beer]

I will say this though - I found OB to be a slight hinderance when we started Bree in agility. We had to work hard to get her comfortable being on both sides of us, and to stop staring at us so much. I say "us" because DH primarily runs her in agility.

 

I found that when Speedy started Freestyle, too. For Rally I taught him to stay on the left at all times. In fact, I taught him to pop over to the left automatically if he ended up on my right! In Freestyle, he has to dance on the right, too. It took a while to teach him that when I put him on the right it wasn't a game of "pop back over to the left right away!" He has it now and actually dances very nicely on the right side.

 

I'm starting Dean on Freestyle and Obedience at the same time, so I think the left/right thing won't be such an issue for him when we do get to agility. We will also do distance work for Freestyle, so that should help, too.

[Root Beer]

Most people now a days train obedience, flyball, and agility with the 'do over attitude'. Shape the behavior with food, don't tell a dog it is wrong, just do it over with more positive rewards until it gets it right, then jackpot. This is done with the misguided attitude that all training must be fun for the dog.

 

I beg to differ that this approach is "misguided". I think it depends a lot on your goals for your dog. My personal goals for my dogs in performance is fun. That's it. Yes, I want them to perform with precision, but even before that on my priority list is true enjoyment of whatever we are doing - whether it be Obedience (which some dogs actually do love), Rally, Freestyle, Agility, a game of ball, swimming, etc. If my dog is not having fun (overall, I mean) in a particular activity, we will go home and play ball instead. Therefore, I use no corrections in any training of new behaviors and it has worked very well for me and my dogs.

 

If my goal was to have my dog work stock, I would use the appropriate approach to training for working stock, but the fact that some of us choose to train for sport in a way that won't work for training for stock is hardly "misguided" - it's just different. It can actually be very appropriate based on our particular goals.

 

For those who wish to do both stock work and sports, I can see there being a need to train for the sports in a different way with some dogs, perhaps, but many of us are not in that boat.

[Root Beer]

I do know folks who seem to do lots of dogs sports with the same dog, but they are very dedicated; and few and far between. I can't think of anyone who is at the top of their game in USBCHA stockwork (or even close) and does any other competition sports with their dog.

 

That is something that I should consider. It has never been one of my goals to "be at the top" of any particular sport. Because of Speedy's fear issues, it is a major accomplishment just to have him be at a competition and qualify! The fact that he has some titles is a HUGE deal for both of us. And his most important accomplishments are things they don't give ribbons and titles for. He's just that kind of dog and I couldn't love him more.

 

I wanted a temperamentally stable Border Collie for sports so I could have the enjoyment of those same activities with a dog that I don't constantly have to focus on assisting with confidence and comfort before performance. I never really thought about trying to have him become excellent at something. That's so far removed from my current goals that I had never really considered it.

 

I think that at this time, I'd like to see Dean be proficient at a lot of things rather than excellent at one particular thing. Now, if he shows a very strong preference or a specific talent for something along the way, that could change, but for now I do like the idea of mixing it up.

[Marilyn T]

The original question was put out ... how do you train multiple diciplines at the same time on your dogs. I thought I answered that.... Stock work needs a dog to be able to handle corrections, and not expect fun at all times. I have a friend that has the philosophy of never doing a negative correction at all with his dogs. Never says no, never says ah ah, nothing. If they poop in the house, he just cleans it up, and puts them outside. Doesn't tell them that that is wrong because he wants his dogs to have fun all the time. Consequently, he has to walk all of them on a flexie at all times so they don't run off. Because his training must always be fun for the dog, they never learned there are consequences for some behaviors. The dogs don't care if they please him, since they are out to have fun for themselves. T

 

his is where I am coming from. My dogs are very happy. They all live in the house, but they live with my rules. Maybe my phrasing was a bit harsh, but I have always believed training is giving the dog information..... Information that a behavior is right, or that a behavior is wrong. When I train flyball, I tell my dogs they are wrong for cutting jumps... or chasing another dog. Even though that might be more fun, they don't get to do that. That involves saying they are wrong, and asking for behavior changes to make it 'right'. If your whole goal is to have fun and make your dog happy, just feed it all it wants to eat, never ask anything of it and it will be happy. This is the basic difference between other sports and stock work. In other sports, the dog is doing an unnatural behavior, and must rely on the handler for any enjoyment. In stock work, the basic instincts come out, and the dogs are reinforcing themselves by working the stock. Being allowed to work is positive reinforcement for stock dogs. Having fun, is detremental to the stock being worked. Most puppies have fun by chasing, biting, and splitting up the sheep, ducks, etc. This isn't fun for the stock. In Stock work, the most valuable trait a dog can learn is self control. This doesn't happen automatically, it must be encouraged and trained. That usually involves negative corrections. My statement was meant to say that ALL POSITIVE, ALL THE TIME is misguided, and I will stand by that.

[Root Beer]

The original question was put out ... how do you train multiple diciplines at the same time on your dogs. I thought I answered that.... Stock work needs a dog to be able to handle corrections, and not expect fun at all times.

 

Honestly, when I posted the question, I wasn't even considering stock work a "sport". I should have been clearer.

 

I think that the question of training multiple sports such as Rally, Agility, Obedience, Flyball, etc. is actually a separate question from training sports and training stock work at the same time.

 

So, some confusion arose from that, and I apologize for that. I should have been clear in the original inquiry.

 

I have a friend that has the philosophy of never doing a negative correction at all with his dogs. Never says no, never says ah ah, nothing. If they poop in the house, he just cleans it up, and puts them outside. Doesn't tell them that that is wrong because he wants his dogs to have fun all the time. Consequently, he has to walk all of them on a flexie at all times so they don't run off. Because his training must always be fun for the dog, they never learned there are consequences for some behaviors. The dogs don't care if they please him, since they are out to have fun for themselves. This is where I am coming from.

It is frustrating to me that all of us positive trainers get lumped by default into this particular category. It is really tough to communicate the difference between never ever saying "no" to a dog (which is, I think unwise and impossible) in everyday life and never using "no" or corrections to train new behaviors. One results in a dog that never learns consequences, ask you said. The other results in a dog that learns what you are asking of him or her first and then later learns the consequences of not listening once the behavior is truly learned. I can see why not everyone prefers to train positively, but I really get tired of people assuming that those of us who use purely positive training never say "no" to our dogs.

 

My dogs are very happy. They all live in the house, but they live with my rules. Maybe my phrasing was a bit harsh, but I have always believed training is giving the dog information..... Information that a behavior is right, or that a behavior is wrong. When I train flyball, I tell my dogs they are wrong for cutting jumps... or chasing another dog. Even though that might be more fun, they don't get to do that. That involves saying they are wrong, and asking for behavior changes to make it 'right'.

 

That works for you and I respect that. So, why not consider respecting that there is more than one way to go about teaching those things. I believe the same thing - that training is giving the dog information. I just go about it through a different method - one I personally prefer and have had great results with.

 

If your whole goal is to have fun and make your dog happy, just feed it all it wants to eat, never ask anything of it and it will be happy.

Actually, I ask quite a bit of my dogs. Sometimes I think I have asked more of my fearful dog than it is really fair of me to ask of him. But he goes along for the ride with great enthusiasm. Yes, I have used food to communicate to him that the world is a safe place. Yes, I used food to communicate to him what certain words like "sit", "down", "stay", etc. mean back when he didn't know them. Now that he knows the words, he does not get food every single time. Sometimes - in competition, he does not get food at all, and he still knows what the words mean because the training has been accomplished.

 

I'm surprised by the assumption that I ask nothing of my dogs because I use food to train and that enjoyment is my goal for them. That isn't the case at all. I ask a great deal.

 

This is the basic difference between other sports and stock work. In other sports, the dog is doing an unnatural behavior, and must rely on the handler for any enjoyment. In stock work, the basic instincts come out, and the dogs are reinforcing themselves by working the stock. Being allowed to work is positive reinforcement for stock dogs. Having fun, is detremental to the stock being worked. Most puppies have fun by chasing, biting, and splitting up the sheep, ducks, etc. This isn't fun for the stock. In Stock work, the most valuable trait a dog can learn is self control. This doesn't happen automatically, it must be encouraged and trained. That usually involves negative corrections.

 

And, as I said above, for those who plan to do stock work, the training of the dog must be done appropriately. But for those who do not plan to do stock work, there is really no reason to take stock work training into account any more than there would be a need to take tracking training or search and rescue training into account with a dog that is going to be trained strictly for, say, flyball.

 

My statement was meant to say that ALL POSITIVE, ALL THE TIME is misguided, and I will stand by that.

 

And I will stand my my statement of begging to differ. I do acknowledge, however, that "All positive all the time" means something a bit different to you than it does to me.

[Rosanne]

Positive reinforcement and operant conditioning are ways of training a dog. . .

I have spent a bit of time here and there with Susan Garrett, who was one of the big pushers of the positive methods and clicker training in general in the agility world - one of her main slogans became "Positive is NOT Permissive". Training a dog positively does NOT mean never ever telling them they did something wrong - she regularly utilizes things like time-outs and putting them away, etc. The point is that when you are teaching something, you use operant conditioning - get them to offer behaviors and reward what you want - but once they know it, they definitely DO get a 'punishment' if they do it wrong. Not a smack on the head, but a punishment nonetheless.

I train positively, but I ALSO tell my dogs when they are wrong.

 

It sounds like the person described above who does not even seem interested in house-training his dogs is not actually what i would describe as a positive trainer, but rather a permissive owner. . .

 

Relax guys, I don't think either of you meant to pick a fight over terminology.

 

It has been my experience that in stock-work, sometimes it just comes down to verbally and physically enforcing a command by walking through the sheep and 'helping' the dog - lie down, in particular, comes to mind!

[Marilyn T]

Nowhere in any of my posts did I say training positively is bad.... just that the dogs that only have positive in their life do not cross into stock work well because they are never exposed to taking or learning from a correction. You take offense at my statements, but I did not lump positive training in with the 'all positive, all the time' people. If you never tell your puppy to not bite you, it will continue to bite you. If you never say bad dog for pooping in the house, it will still poop in the house. If you never say 'do't chew that chair' it will continue to chew the chair. If you never say 'don't chase that dog in the other flyball lane' it will continue to chase other dogs. This is what I object to and call the all positive, all the time thing. You DID say your main goal was for the dog to have fun, and if he doesn't have fun, you leave, go home and play ball. What else am I supposed to think of your goals for your relationship with your dog? I respect anything people try and do with their dogs, and when I taught KPT I would encourage students to do all kinds of things... and that they were only limited by their imagination. When I was doing obedience it was on the forefront of the food training-positive motivation era. I was told I could never get a reliable retrieve without an ear pinch. Bullsh#$. I trained a great retrieve without it. I was told a flyball dog would never make an obedience dog. Bullsh$# again. My flyball/obedience dog was HIT once or twice. Teachers were advocating choke, pinch collars. I trained with a buckle collar. I do understand positive motivation training.

 

With household obedience, I don't understand putting up with wierd behaviors that would be unacceptable from a child in a dog just because you don't want to tell your dog no. In order to establish limits, and yes... training new behaviors, the dogs must learn shaping. Shaping positively only, works to a point, then correction must be introduced for a behavior to remain learned. These are basic Karen Pryor rules of training. I never said training positively is misguided. I said that the idea that all training must always be fun is misguided. I do not enjoy correcting my dogs, but sometimes they need to hear no, and learn to avoid hearing no. This isn't usually fun for a dog, but so be it. When they get it right, they have pleasure in what they are doing to please me. My dogs enjoy working sheep, they enjoy flyball, but enjoying chasing other dogs in flyball isn't my idea of fun, so I correct them. When I teach pace on stock, usually the dogs don''t 'like' it but tough... they don't always have to like what I ask, just do it. This is the attitude that makes the difference between stock work, and other sports. I do understand some dogs have issues that are difficult to work through. I got back a pup at a year and a half that was neglected early on due to owner pregnancy and having the baby. He would melt down when given a correction. I was told he would only go in and out one door in the home, would avoid trying to please and suck up to be petted rather than try and learn. Classic learned helplessness. The first thing I did was put him into a household class. He could only work 5 minutes the first week. Then 10 the next. He didn't like it, but had to stay in the environment in order to learn it wouldn't kill him. By the end of the 8th week, he was one of the best in the class, could work the full hour, and was thriving. I can' t say he was always happy, but once again... tough. I could place him into a single dog home at that point with the reasonable expectation that he would thrive. He has. That is why learning at an early age to deal with information is important. They must be able to recognise positive and seek it, and recognize negative and try and avoid it. When teaching heeling, you use food and positive to shape the dog into the proper position. I object to the idea that you cannot say 'no' to give the dog more information. I object to the 'do over and over' rather than saying 'no... not that, this'.

 

I also do not object to folks that can't work stock. It isn't for everyone, nor for all border collies. I have chosen to pursue sheep trialing as my hobby, and activity with my dogs. It takes up all my spare time. I can't afford to split my spare time up among other pursuits if I want to excell at this, and I do. If you are happy with your dog's performances, then stick with what you are doing, it is obvious it works for you. My point of view was the dog that could do it all needs also to be able to handle the corrections aspect of stock work. By avoiding teaching a dog to handle corrections, you are seriously compromising its future work on livestock. By teaching corrections, you also enhance its learning capacity, and the speed at which the dog learns. Please don't take any of this personally. That is the major problem with this format of information exchange. You can read as much or as little into people's posts as you want. Marilyn Terpstra

[Marilyn T]

Rosanne... thanks for the terminology clarification... Permissive training is a much better way to label the attitude I am thinking of. Thanks...

[Root Beer]

First of all, peace! I love this kind of debate. I did take the "misguided" thing a little personally because I read it in the context of my own question. But I'm not angry or upset or anything. I like to hash things out - I love these kind of details. Read my tone and a very interested seriousness!

 

Nowhere in any of my posts did I say training positively is bad.... just that the dogs that only have positive in their life do not cross into stock work well because they are never exposed to taking or learning from a correction. You take offense at my statements, but I did not lump positive training in with the 'all positive, all the time' people. If you never tell your puppy to not bite you, it will continue to bite you. If you never say bad dog for pooping in the house, it will still poop in the house. If you never say 'do't chew that chair' it will continue to chew the chair. If you never say 'don't chase that dog in the other flyball lane' it will continue to chase other dogs.

 

I actually look at this in a little different way. When Dean first got here, he was a counter surfer. Instead of teaching him "no, don't do that", I taught him that "off" meant put all four feet on the floor. It works for when he's about to jump up on someone and it works for counters. The final result is the same, but the good thing is that he doesn't learn that it's "bad" to jump up. I want him to jump up on cue for Freestyle, so I intentionally kep it positive. As his training progresses, I will teach him that the default behavior is to sit and wait for attention.

 

He jumped up on doors, too. Instead of teaching him, "no jump", I taught him to sit on cue and then to sit and don't move. Then I added in the door. Now all I have to say when we go to the door is "muff" and he sits a couple of feet back from the door and waits to go out. I never said "no" in that entire process.

 

So, for those of us who prefer to do it this way, it can be done. Like you said, it's the difference between positive and permissive. Positive is, "sit at the door until I say "OK". Permissive would be to let him do what he wants. I chose positive and I love the result. It's a great self-control exercise and will make a foundation for the start line stay in agility, too.

 

This is what I object to and call the all positive, all the time thing. You DID say your main goal was for the dog to have fun, and if he doesn't have fun, you leave, go home and play ball. What else am I supposed to think of your goals for your relationship with your dog?

OK, I wasn't clear. I guess I was exaggerating a bit, too. A good example would be when I was having trouble with Speedy going "wonky" with the jumps in Rally. No matter what I did, he was running around taking them backwards. There was a real push from some to "get tough" with him. I had to decide at that point what doing Rally was really worth to me and to my relationship with my dog. Did I want to spend my time and energy "being tough" in that instance. I chose not to. In the grand scheme of things, it made more sense to me to desensitize him to the jumps slowly, retrain how to take them correctly, and keep it positive. It took time, but now he can jump correctly on cue. There would have been no joy for me in "getting tough" to get him to jump the way I wanted him to. Had the choice been to "get tough" or go home, in that instance, I would have chosen to go home. Thankfully, there was another option.

 

Of course, there are challenges in training and it's not always a barrel of laughs. We have to work through the challenging times and we don't walk away when it gets challenging. But when it's a choice between taking a lot of time to keep it positive or take the fun out of something altogether for both of us, I choose to take the time.

 

I never said training positively is misguided.

 

My apologies for the misunderstanding.

 

I have chosen to pursue sheep trialing as my hobby, and activity with my dogs. It takes up all my spare time. I can't afford to split my spare time up among other pursuits if I want to excell at this, and I do. If you are happy with your dog's performances, then stick with what you are doing, it is obvious it works for you. My point of view was the dog that could do it all needs also to be able to handle the corrections aspect of stock work.

I totally respect that. I have great respect for those who do stock work seriously. It definitely isn't for me beyond giving my dog some exposure to it for his own enjoyment.

 

Please don't take any of this personally. That is the major problem with this format of information exchange. You can read as much or as little into people's posts as you want. Marilyn Terpstra

 

No worries - and same here. I definitely didn't mean anything personal in this discussion!

[Tassie]

Just chipping in here to thank you guys for this discussion - it's a really interesting one, and all posters have raised important issues and teased them out patiently and with respect for each other. Thank you.

 

I have one dog who has done some stock work - she and I had the chance to become quite useful farm hands on my trainer's farm - but we did have to go through some rough patches first, as she learned to respect stock, and to work with me. I am primarily a positive trainer in most things, but as was raised in the discussion, will use more immediate corrections when it's a matter of life or death - and I include harassment and chasing of stock in that. I did find that the stock work fitted in great with agility - since I am not fast enough to have her by me, she became quite confident at distance - a confidence which has diminished some since we no longer have the opportunity to go to our trainer's farm (darn work gets in the way!)

 

I think the distinction between training new 'trick' behaviours (as in all the dog 'sports' - which I do through positive motivational training/operant conditioning - and re-direction when needed) on the one hand, and learning the rules for living safely in a situation on the other hand, is a really important one. Suzanne Clothier says something like 'the dog's basic questions are where do I fit in? what are the rules?' - and if clear and consistent answers are not provided, the dog will make up his own. This to me is rather different from all the obedience, freestyle, agility, rally etc. stuff which we then decide to add on - these are the fun stuff, not the survival stuff. The stock work to me is part of the survival stuff - which is not to say that there's not satisfaction in it for dog and handler - just that training methods may need to be different from those used for the purely fun stuff.

 

Anyway - thanks for a thought-provoking discussion.

[borderlicious]

Thanks, everyone, for the input on that. I feel the same way, she won't start any obedience or agility training until she's had a good deal of experience on stock. Dakota is going to do some AHBA stuff in the future, but my ultimate goal for Eve is USBCHA Open.

 

As for the reinforcement/punishment debate . . . To me, training is about feedback. If the dog does something right, it recieves positive feedback from the handler whether it's in the form of a "good dog", a frisbee launched into the air or a piece of steak. If the dog does something wrong, it recieves negative feedback, usually in the form of verbal correction/NRM (in varying degrees of sternness) or physical aversives. You can successfully train with only one form of feedback, but the best training, IMO, incorporates both. I personally don't use physical punishment on my dogs during things like agility and obedience. That IS supposed to be all fun. Why shouldn't it be? I'm not going to lose anything but a ribbon if my dog screws up.

 

Stock work can't be all fun, the dog has to be responsible for its own actions. It doesn't matter in agility or obedience, since the dog's actions are often times just the behaviors that the *trainer* shaped - if the dog screws up in agility, it's often times the handler's fault. I fail to see how it's misguided to treat a game as a game and give only positive feedback.

 

Interesting discussion all around

[Marilyn T]

Rootbeer: you said

 

 

When Dean first got here, he was a counter

surfer. Instead of teaching him "no, don't do that", I taught him that

"off" meant put all four feet on the floor. It works for when he's

about to jump up on someone and it works for counters. The final result

is the same, but the good thing is that he doesn't learn that it's

"bad" to jump up.

 

I actually don't think the final result IS the same. The difference is that your method is dependant on you being present to give the counter command to his counter surfing. All fine and dandy if you are always present. I would have set it up so he got a big surprise when he counter surfed.... mouse traps under a sheet of newsprint (so the dog soes not get hurt) and when he triggered them, he got instant negative reinforcement for jumping on the counter. You might have heard the phrase from Jack Knox clinics to let the sheep train the dog. That means set up circumstances so the sheep educate the dog how to behave. Let sheep break out of a corner, and when the dog races off in a direction to cover, use that directional command to teach it. Kind of like descriptive praise. (Move the food over the puppy's head, as their butt hits the floor, say good sit. ) I am just using the counter to tell the dog not to jump up. My way will eliminate the counter surfing. My way teaches self control. I would bet your way eliminates it when you are there but he will do it when you are not there.

 

Borderlicious: Don't wait to do agility or obedience with Eve. Just do some things in moderation. Teach a watch, but don't drill it. Teach respect for the leash. Teach a sit, down, stay. Teach your recall whistle. Teach your contacts. All this will help you when you get to sheep. Just be careful to not become the handler that the dog always needs to get approval from. Don't insist that she needs to look at you when you talk to her. Let her focus on something, perhaps a ball, and talk to her. Then teach 'that-l-do' to mean leave what you are doing, and come here. Dogs that tend to be more concerned with what the handler wants than what the sheep are doing are seriously handicapped on stock. You don't want your dog always looking at you for the next clue about what to do on sheep. Take the young dog to trials, and have her watch. It becomes like TV for them. If she becomes over excited, insist she show self control. Soon, they figure out the sheep come from the opposite end of the field. This is the basics for them looking for sheep when you are at the handlers post. Have her learn to relax next to your chair. Do 'step on the leash' until she realizes she doesn't always need to be entertained by you. All of this is teaching self control, and that you are a part of the picture. You just don't want to take all the independance away from the future stock dog. Allow her to explore, and self entertain a bit. Do NOT allow her to develop any obsessive behaviors. When you get that gut feeling that Eve is starting to obsess, nip it right there. That is the worst bad habit you can allow. It might be cute in a puppy, but the OCD border collie is a major pain in the butt and never lives up to its potential.