A question for the all positive trainers

I feel almost abusive saying this but I will often send Sophie with a cookie in her mouth to find Mike so that he can stuff it into her treat ball for her. She takes the slobbered on cookie to Mike and waits while he puts it into her ball just so she can work to get it out. Funny thing is, she loves that game!!

Sometimes I'll give her a cookie and instead of eating it, she'll take it to Mike on her own....:rofl1:

I should mention that these are homemade cookies that she LURVES!

lol!

I must pester Dekka for a video of Dekka. LOL

The one thing I find sad/frustrating is the people that doubt or just don't believe that people have trained their dogs to an amazing level of 'leave it' with positive reinforcements.
We can tell them, but of course can't prove it. They also usually don't understand that it is something that has to be reinforced all time the same as a reliable recall.
We are all so proud of our dogs and the time and effort that we invested in our dogs and its sad to have it doubted, especially the method.
And the interesting thing is, those of us that do use positive methods generall don't have unrealistic and unreasonable expectations of our dogs. And we put the onus upon ourselfs instead of our dogs.

:hail:Toooo true

Alrighty then so how about a hot dog retrive contest instead to make things more challenging? ( But I think we should make a new thread so we don't hijack this one)

have him read what shamu taught me about life, love, and marriage: lessons for people from animals and their trainers.

one of the valuable lessons learned in the book above is in the power of the least possible response. i suggest the same with the nipping down the stairs. simply freeze and do nothing until he stops. i'm sure the fun is in the movement and tugging, so stop moving and take the fun out of it. it may be a slow trip the first time around but count your progress with each trial and note any improvement.

The best thing that works for me is timeouts. Generally my tone is very serious, and I have a very angry demeanor when I'm walking towards the dog in question/grab them by their collar and lead them to the place in question (usually our bathroom which is rather tiny)

I usually leave them in a down stay in the bathroom, without lights and with the door shut, for 5-10 minutes then go in and, provided they haven't moved (they never have so far), I release them.

It sounds minor, but my dogs HATE it. I realize this isn't necessarily positive, as it is indeed a rather stiff punishment for them, but in cases such as counter surfing, it's what I do.

I posted this pic else where but here it is. (I don't have a video)

The story behind this is....

I was teaching at camp dogwould, and they had an instructor's challenge. They divided the instructor's into 2 teams-yellow and blue. They had trick offs, and other stuff. The grande finale was the hotdog retrieve. Each dog had to retrieve the hot dog, or for less points you could let another team member do your turn for you.

Dekka retrieved 5 totally uneaten hotdogs for our team. She was the only dog to do so. I never trained it specifically, but it was funny when they announced the final challenge people were groaning-I was smiling saying my dog can do that

Positive training can teach great things, but as in all training-your dog can only be as good as you can train.

and here is the proof!

Is that really the camp's name "dogwould" ? That is cute.....dog would, dog can, dog will.

That must be one of the hardest things to teach--retrieve food and not eat it as you go.