Today I am going to do something I rarely do on this blog - borrow from another blog. I prefer to use original material here, to write about personal experiences and thoughts, not just copy and paste things from Facebook or other internet sources.
But today is different. Many of you may have already seen this. If you haven't, I think it's worth your time. Please read the whole thing. It's not a slam against any training method.
It encourages individualism in training and it encourages trainers to learn what their dog actually needs, not just to follow a cookie cutter approach or, as the author calls it, "cult like" adoration of a particular method to the exclusion of realizing that method may not be ideal for every dog in every situation.
http://paws4udogs.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/why-i-am-not-a-clicker-trainer/
It's something I might have written if I'd not been so dang busy shoveling snow, thawing frozen pipes, ice skating to fun matches, peeling Phoenix off the ceiling and dealing with an unhappy 100-pound Angus calf in the basement.
Soon, we will return to our regularly scheduled blog of insightful, thought provoking, cleverly crafted original material. Or at least original material.
Interesting. It reminds me of what I consider to be the stupidest comment anyone ever made to me about my dog, something along the lines of "Your dog is badly trained because he does everything you ask him because he loves you so much and not because he knows you're boss."
ReplyDeleteHaha, that IS true of my dog...it worked for Novice but now that we're training in Open I'm having to go back to basics and teach her, for example, EXACTLY where front is. Sigh. Even the 'perfect' dog can be a training challenge :)
DeleteA "100-pound Angus calf in the basement"? That has to have an interesting story behind it...
ReplyDeleteYeah, really - how does a calf get in the basement anyway? I thought you all had cellars out there?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the article was interesting and she was doing well until she started back-handing other people's tools of choice. Reading that, I do feel she is actually a clicker trainer, just not a member of the Cult of the Clicker. It's nice to see that some people are beginning to understand that teaching a dog to handle and even bloom under pressure is a good thing, since no matter how they try to modify his surroundings, pressure is a part of life. Perhaps this is a first step away from the disaster that was the Purely Positive movement?