From: saavik@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Marla Belzowski (K-9's))
Subject: Re: behavior modification or dog training
Organization: Purdue University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:41:14 GMT

In article <24240@alice.att.com> rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin) writes:
>
>
>Stephen R Lee writes:
>>>If you teach what Koehler does, the way he does, it always works.
>
>>No.  There is no teaching methodology or philosophy that will work on
>>all dogs in all situations all of the time.  I don't care how many 
>>anecdotal pieces of evidence you care to give me about Kohler, or
>>anyone else cares to give me about their favorite method.  There is
>>NO method that will work on ALL dogs ALL of the time.  Period.
>

Bravo!  Well said!

>Well, I won't try to read your stake in that, but consider that
>there is perhaps simply no problem training dogs, it is EASY.
>

Some dogs are no problem to train (and I would venture to say
most dogs are easy to train) but there are some that are not!
There are some dogs were even the gentlest of methods send them
into a wimpering heep on the floor.  There are some dog`s like
my parent's old Airedale, that you could beat over the head with
a 2X4 and still get no results (not that I would suggest tring this!)
No method work for EVERY DOG ALL THE TIME!  It is an impposibilty in
this universe.  There is NO such thing as always -- every rule has
an exception!

>You can use a great variety of methods, as you say, so I am agreeing
>with you that far.
>
Good, at least you realize that there are other methods.

>They do not all teach character, they do not all have any vision of
>the dog as a great dog.
>
No method teaches character.  Not even Koehler.  Character is something
your dog already possesse.  As Bernie Brown once said to me,
"To have an obedience dog, 95% of the work is chosing the right
dog and 5% is not screwing up that dog!" (or something along that line).
He was absolutely right.  Your dog`s reactions depend on it`s breeding,
temperment, socialization, health, and many other factors.  
You an not teach speed to a dog.  Speed is a God given gift.  Some
dogs will be faster than others at excersices and some wil be slower.
Yes, a fast reacting dog looks impressive, but it is not necessary
for getting high obedience scores.  You can teach a dog precision.
To impove your chances of getting your dog to react as fast as
possible, you have to make the dog WANT to do it.  Making each
excercise fun and enjoyable will motivate your dog to do the
excercise fast.  If you conside this character, my method(S!) 
teach character also!


>Koehler will work at the level you imagine training works, for the same
>reason that other methods work at that level - teaching the dog what
>you want takes (what?) about 3 minutes, and persuading him to do it
>in one form or another maybe a couple days, if you want, in lots of
>different ways.  Koehler generally takes a week.
>

I`ve taught dogs to heel in 2 minutes and I`ve seen dogs were
heel takes two years.  Each dog learns at a different rate as do
people.  Some catch on quicker and some don`t.  You will know when
your dogs knows something by it`s reactions!  Then you have earned the
right to correct it.  If your dog is confused or doesn`t know the
exercise you have no right to harsly correct it.  Koehler does not
make this distinction.  

>What Koehler retains in the program that so many have picked and chosen
>from, and why Koehler works with every dog even indominable ones, is giving
>the dog a stake in what he does.  The dog thinks he's a great dog, and
>is one, because he's opened a new space to occupy.
>

Koehler works with a few dogs that need a very firm hand.  It doesn`t 
work with dogs that are very sensitive, overly excitable, hand shy,  
or just plain highly intelligent.  

>Training in what I've been calling the teddy-bear school and the dominance
>school, to characterize the two most popular ones in the dog books today,
>are such sad affairs, without any vision at all to offer the dog or you.
>As if training were a regrettable necessity, if I can put it that way.
>

To me someone who only quotes one method of dog training is a novice.
There are many ways to train dogs.  There are many people that have
sucessfully trained dogs using your "teddybear methods".  This only
proves that these methond were appropriate for those dogs.

>I am trying to make Koehler readable again.  Take the book, and for a moment
>put aside the duck of doubt about whether this is exactly just the right
>technical move you'd make that that particular time - because it doesn't matter
>much, the dog will get trained - and read the consistency of the vision
>he has of the dog as intelligent and responsible, and the constant pains
>he goes to to get you to show that vision to the dog.
>
Yes, the dog will get trained, but will it be a happy dog?  With
Mauii, that was a definate NO!.  Koehler broke her spirit.  She did
not happily respond to commands, in fact she sulked and winced
everytime I gave her a command.  That`s when I changed my methods,
and by golly, it worked.  She is heeling better now than ever before,
and she is HAPPY!  (by the way, I used Bernie Brown's Method of no
Force dog training to RE-Train her on the heeling).


>If you can keep that vision, which is forgotten today absolutely,
>then it doesn't matter if you use the Koehler ear pinch or the
>Bauman collar snatch, you'll be using Koehler.
>---
>

I use neither.  The ear-pinch only makes my two scream and cringe.
It totally made Wolfie a nervous wreck.  
I have other ways of treaching fetch.  Mauii is so proficient now that
all I have to do is point at an object (any object!) and say "get it"
and Mauii promply gets it for me.  She just loves fetch and that is a
HUGE accomplishment for a herding dog!!!

>Here's an anecdote nonetheless.
>
>I was training Susie in tracking one day in a park, and it so happened
>that the local obedience instructor had picked out that field to train
>her dog in tracking too - two cars in the desert colliding, as it were -
>so she put her dog on a stay and came over to ask me where i'd walked,
>so she'd be able to understand any difficulties her dog had that might
>be due to it.
>
>After a minute, her dog broke the stay and came over too.  Here's the
>amazing part, she didn't correct the dog!
>
>We've talked training a lot, and she thinks Koehler doesn't work either.
>
>I'm sure you have a very well trained dog, but my experience with trainers
>in clubs who teach training is that they don't like Koehler, and their
>own dogs aren't very well trained.  It is as if dog training were a very
>_precarious_ thing to them, very _chancy_.
>

Dog training is not a precarious thing.  It is very exact.  Either
the dog knows it and does it, or it doesn't.  I`ve done a lot of
training and my dogs are very reliable.  I`ve had a Dobie jump
on top of Mauii and Wolfie while they were on a down say, and neither
of them got up or even growled.  I`ve had dogs fighting right in front
of me when Mauii was on a sit stay, and she never broke.  She was
very worried about me, and was ready to help if I wished, but since
I never called her or let her off, she sat there watching.
I don`t think Koehler works with every dog, but my two appear
to be very WELL TRAINED.  Huummm, could it be that other methods  
really do work?

>None of them mentioned the robot theory of Koehler, or said Koehler
>didn't work with my dog, because Susie was eminently there.
>

I still think it make a dog a robot.  I guess you don`t consider me 
one of those professinal trainers then.

>I think it is true that some dogs are in a way harder to train, in particular
>submissive ones, in that you have to be very _accurate_ to avoid dominating
>them.  You don't want or accept a submissive oppressed dog-wimp posture,
>you want a working posture;  so for example you have to be very careful
>to avoid leaning over them when you show them no, like this! and praise
>the result.  There is sloppy handling even with Koehler.  (This is
>Vicki Hearne's observation from training a wolf hybrid.)
>

I see you`ve never trained an overly submissive dog.  Wolf-hybreds are
not the submissive type.  They tend to be highly dominant.  

>Several people have written to me that Koehler doesn't work very well
>with certain breeds and so forth.  Well, Koehler taught classes for
>years, and personally supervised the training of over 10,000 dogs
>in that time, and I think he'd have noticed that if it were true.
>He publishes an affidavit to the contrary, in fact.  So maybe I am hopelessly
>naive, but I don't think so.
>

I think your niave.  Bernie Brown has trained over 10,000 dogs too (it`s
not that hard to help that many people, I`ve helped train over 400 dogs
already) and he has had a lot of success.  Daine Baumans trained at least
that many too, and look at her success.  I`m sure that many other
trainers have trained untold hundereds of dogs using countless numbers
of methods.  Sure, some don`t work, but many many more do.  
A lot depends on the owner.  If the owner wants a well trained dog, the
dog will be trained.  If the owner doesn`t really care, the dog won`t
be trained.  It`s not entirly the method, but the dedication of the
owner.

>Moreover, two trainers I know of using Koehler make no mention of such a
>result, and they have no particular reason to suppress the supposed fact.
>They are professional trainers.
>

So, I know at least 15 professional trainers.  None of them use
Koehler.  All of them have had "high-in-trial" or OtCH dogs.
Just because a Few trainers use Koehler doesn`t mean it`s the only
method.


>Finally my own experience with three dogs, two of them highway strays and one
>my Dobie Susie, is that training is the easiest thing in the world, and
>probably the most enjoyable too.  So enjoyable that we kept on going
>through the utility and training books, and I am trying my best to share this.
>It's not many dogs, but it's lots of years.
>
>I have noticed that people who train dogs here tend to say things
>like ``A dog should never be taken off leash near traffic, because
>no matter how well trained he is, he might dash off for some reason.''
>I find this amazing, what in the world are these people teaching?
>

I find it amazing that you take such a risk with your dogs.  It only
take one second of laps time in a dogs training to get it killed. 
No dog is 100% reliable all of the time.  Maybe yours is, maybe mine
are, but I'm not willing to take that chance with my dog's life.
I`ve trained four of my own dogs, and hundreds of others in classes.
I`ve had easy training dogs and hard training dogs.  I`ve had
fear bitters, abused dogs, rescue dogs, mixed breeds, pure breeds,
and just about every size dog there is in my classes.  There is
no one method to use on all these dogs.  

By the way,  While I was out running my dogs with my bike (Me on the
bike and Mauii and Wolfie coupled with my brace collar), Wolfie`s
collar broke.  In the middle of the street his buckle snapped.
A van was rushng up behind us at that exact time.  I though "Oh
my GOD!  WOlfie is going to get hit".  Wolfie knew the collar had
snapped and stood there in the street with a "HUUHH!!) Look on his face.
I yelled "Wolfie COME!" and he totted right up to me waggin his tail.
The guy in the van never slowed down.  100% reliable, no, but well 
trained yes.  It saved his life.  Did I train him with Keohler, no,
but the results were the same.  He obeyed without hesitation.  
Other methods do work.

>It's time to look at whether something is missing.

It`s time for me to get on the plane for WY.
Tanksgiving break is just around the corner and I`m heading to WY
for a plant trip, so this is my last post until Dec. 1 or so!

Happy Turkey day everyone!!!

------------
Marla Belzowski   saavik@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Mauii Nikki Belzowski CD CGC TDI CERF
Brittish Legend of Beowulf CD CGC TDI CERF tri-color collies
Legend`s Year of Jubilee   sable and whie collie

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