| Canine
Education – Introduction |
Training
Collar Method – Objectives, Motivation and Discipline
Article
contributed
by Han-Sing, Gan
Today
there are a lot of talks on the revolutionary positive reinforcement
methods, and the traditional training collar (a.k.a. Choke collar) method
is frown upon as inhumane and even cruel.
And the treat training is touted as the revolutionary method to
educating our canine companion.
I
have asked myself some fundamental questions to establish what would be
most reasonable for our dogs:
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Q:
Dogs (which is descended from wolves) is a pack animal,
therefore, how does the pack function together?
A: There are functional hierarchies in the packs, with an
Alpha male and female, who alone reserve the rights to breed and
to eat first.
Q: How are these hierarchies formed, and how is the Alpha
male/female selected? Do
they give food to the rest of the pack as salaries/reward when
they want them to fall in line (obedience) with the pack
hierarchy?
A: Alpha Males are established by proving that he is the
strongest in the pack; this is done through fights and the winner
will pin the others by holding the other down by the neck in a
firm grip in the mouth. Correction
for stepping out of line for a dog is done in the same method, be
it a pup or an adult. Never
do the Alpha Males reward any dog in the pack for falling in line
with the pack hierarchy with food, the acceptance of the dog by
the Alpha is reward in itself.
Q: When do the dogs get rewarded with food then?
A: During the successful hunt of a prey. The dog that brought down the prey will usually enjoy the
feast just after the Alpha.
Q: Dog training is compared with Dolphin’s training, and horse
whisperer training discovered by Grant
Golliher, are they the same and can the precepts be
interchangeable?
A: Dolphin’s training are usually involved with stunts and
deep sea retrieval mission, similar to dog’s agility or
search/tracking training, relies on the predatory drive of the
animal. The concepts
of inducing the drive of the animals to perform a certain exercise
or activity are totally interchangeable. The horse whisperer, Mr. Grant Goliher, which revolutionized
the taming of wild horses in the acceptance of the saddle and
bridle involves his observation of how wild horses’ behavior of
acceptance in a herd, and recognizing the herd leader leading to
the join-up (a term he used where the horse will be tame and
desire to join up with the leader and ultimately accepting saddle
and the bridle – note:
Goliher did not change the tool in the taming of the horse, ropes
and whip are still used). The observation of the animal’s natural behavior and
applying methods to alter those behaviors to be acceptable by
humans is necessary to improve on how we train and to be more
effective. The emphasis of Mr. Goliher’s method is the reading of the
horse body language, e.g. the licking, and head nods; this concept
of paying attention to the body language of our dogs (e.g.
licking, paw raise, ears position) during training will enhance
the training result by recognizing the different moods the dog is
trying to communicate. However, dogs are very different animal from horses, and the
tactical methods may be different. |
Therefore,
coming back to the issue of training collar.
It is in the opinion of this writer that training is a method, and
the measure and responsibility of the use is entirely in the hands of the
handler. All training must be
measured, fair and reasonable from the perspective of the dog, not the
handler. For the training
collar to be effective professional trainer had emphasized that the collar
should be loose for at least 80% to 90% of the time; otherwise the
training would be ineffective.
There
are various types of training since man first domesticated animals; the
various types of training have very different goals and objectives and it
is important to understand the differences, reviews the effectiveness of
the methods used and not jump onto any bandwagon of canine education.
As
in any education, there is always objective, correction and reward.
The reward would be the motivation to accomplish the objective,
while the correction is the control from straying from the established
objective. Therefore in
canine education, there should be an objective for your dog and yourselves
to achieve, and reward for the dog and yourselves have to appropriate and
reasonable.
Canine
education can be broadly divided into 2 categories:
Compulsion
Education:
Obedience
training is categorize into compulsion education, as it involves the
shaping of the behavioral habits of the dog that is sharing our
habitation. To the dog,
compulsion education is the establishment of the rules of the pack and
their habitation living habits. The
reward for this training is the acceptance into the pack and agreement
of the Alpha. This will
determine the fundamental relationship between the dog and the
owner/handler. Food rewards
will be deemed as bribery to the dog.
In compulsion education, consistent praise (reward of acceptance)
and correction (maintenance of discipline) is the foundation.
Inconsistent praise or correction (or inappropriate correction)
will render the training ineffective.
The objective of the dog in compulsion education is the
acceptance of the owner/handler through communication through body
languages, voice tone and discipline, and the communication of this
should be handled in a reasonable, fair but firm manner.
Dogs can handle a correction well (contrary to most belief) and
will not see it as torture, if it were dealt a fair and consistent hand.
Inducement
Education:
Training
which uses the natural instinct or ability of the dog is categorize
under inducement education. It
involves the invoking of the drive of the dog to perform a task or
exercise using a certain stimuli (food, or the thrill of the chase,
hunting drive). Agility,
tracking, fly-ball, search/rescue, hunting and herding exercises are all
part of this. For certain specialized task requires dogs which are
specially bred for the activity, therefore not all dogs will be
successful in all activities; for example, while an Australian Shepherd
or a Border Collie will happily herd for hours, a Beagle or Pointer will
probably fail to achieve this. Alternatively,
the Beagle or Pointer will excel in hunting exercises as compared with
the Shepherd Breeds. Inducement
education is trainings using games and even food to invoke the dog’s
natural instinct and drive to perform a task that is in their natural
ability in a given environment.
Many
dog owners/trainers failed to see the distinctions between the 2
categories of canine education, and accept praise will accompany
correction in obedience training. Resulting
in frustrated owners and equally frustrated and confused dogs, which in
turns results in communication problem and behavioral problems later. To make the matter worse, the different forms of training are
mired and become a mesh of confusion with activist touting the
“humane” method of training in obedience.
Which the methods used is neither new nor revolutionary but used in
inappropriate settings.
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