126 Hey mike,
Thanks for responding. Ill try your alternate method for the forced retrieve.I have alot of questions for ya. Ive been following your foundation style training for some time but have never put it into practice. Now im really anxious to give it a shot.
Im currently in school at National K9 learning center in Ohio. The training here is rather Koehler-esque; training collar/prong/ecollar. Praise/correction/motivation seem to be the three things driving their training philosophy here. However im noticing that some of the dogs just arent motivated to work for praise. Theyll do the work but theyll do it slowly and without any drive. The answer then (here at the school) is to motivate and if the dog is non compliant, correct. The teaching phase is very short; I mean very short and uses praise as the only positive reinforcer. Corrections are introduced from the beginning and are supposedly part of the learning process. Im thinking of causing a stir in class and bringing up the topic of primary reinforcers and secondary reinforcers, strength of reinforcers, etc but dont want to risk getting on the bad student list. I know some dogs work harder for food then they do for praise and vice versa but it seems like theres only one approach here and they make it fit the dog in one way or another. If the dog works in a very slow manner, almost as if avoiding or solely working to avoid the correction, it is attributed to the dogs personality.
Id like your thoughts on something rather then answering of a question:
here they claim that all dogs will work for praise; they just have to be taught what praise means. Furthermore that food simply acts as an unnecessary intermediate between the owner/dog relationship and if the goal is to eventually wean off of food then why start with it in the first place.ObviouslyI believe there are flaws in this philosophy otherwise I wouldnt be asking for opinions on the forum.
Any thoughts??