........didn't I just see the poor girl posting for HELP with Gunnar, that these things weren't working???????
Lot's of people say these things aren't working, but it's often the person attempting to train who isn't working...who isn't doing it right.
I use this method and have fantastic results.
Yesterday, in fact I took out my clicker and in one session, Lyric's lagging heel became 100% cleaner, including about turns. I never once had to correct, jerk, speak...nothing. While he would lag, I'd just keep walking, when he would get in the right position, I'd click and give a treat, keep on walking. As long as he stayed in the correct position, he got C/T often. He might lag again and I'd keep walking....no treat, no attention, just keep walking, looking straight ahead, but soon he realized where he had to be in order to get the treat and then he would catch up quickly right along side my leg. He'll forget and it will take more practice, but it's no different than the pop the leash method. They can forget with that too until it's ingrained. But the difference is, it's more fun and the dog works harder and learns better for reward than to avoid punishment. Why pop a leash and make it less pleasant if you don't have to? There is absolutely no reason to train ANY dog using such compulsive methods. I think that the saying, "all dogs are different and need different methods" is
way overused. I think virtually all dogs will work for reward if the motivation needed is found by the trainer. All animals, including humans, work for a reward. What on earth do we do which has absolutely no payoff? Nothing. Anything I do needs to have some sort of reward. I might try something once or twice, but when nothing whatsoever comes of it for me, I won't repeat it anymore. It might be that I'm doing something for someone else where there is no direct benefit to me, but there will have to be some payoff...maybe it makes me feel good inside that someone else feels good because I did that for them. Whatever....there
has to be a payoff to increase the odds of continuing repitition of a behavior. This is about learning behavior. It is widespread and it is fact, scientifically proven. This is not about individual breeds, temperaments or different species. It is about any animal with a thinking brain who needs food to survive and knows how to get it. It is about inherant needs which drive behavior and learning.
If anyone says that motivating a dog to want to survive by offering what it needs for survival... isn't helping shape it's behavior is doing something wrong. It is not the dog not wanting to survive and eat. It's not the dog's inability to learn. We see well trained dogs all the time and dogs trained with operant conditioning. What does that leave? It's how the owner/trainer is doing it. They're not getting the timing of reward or something. It takes some reading and practice, like anything else.