From: srlee@beta.lanl.gov (Stephen R Lee)
Subject: Re: Help with Shepherds
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:41:03 GMT

In article <24135@alice.att.com> rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin) writes:
>
>
>Stephen R. Lee writes:
>>>Good obedience courses look to developing the character of the dog,
>>>and it is the character that you see forever after.
>
>>I suppose I would extend this to say that good obedience courses develop
>>the human counterpart, providing them with the means to understand and
>>communicate with their dogs, as well as a variety of training tools to
>>use.  Tools in the methodology sense.  Kohler is one method.  There are
>>lots of others.  None are fool proof in all given situations.  Dogs are
>>individuals and should be treated as such.  Obedience classes that develop
>>the human side of the equation in this manner naturally cause the character
>>of the dog, the human, and the relationship to be elevated.
>
>(Just marking the article, lots deleted)
>
>I want to talk about rec.pets.dogs, and what is taken to be expert advice,
>and why it's so impoverished.
>
>What you wrote hovers on being right, but does not prevent things going

Gee, thanks.

>wrong again.  It doesn't try to say what communication involves, or
>what understanding is, and that these relate to character very much,
>they are character.

Communication and understanding.  Do these really need definition?  I am
talking about the ability to communicate with the dog.  The ability to
understand the dog.  The ability to intelligently train the dog.  What is
ambiguous about that?  Good classes will teach these things. Period.

>
>So very quickly, understanding becomes what is easiest, a sappy teddy-bear
>feeling;  and communication becomes the alpha roll, and we're right back
>in the same old junk.

Yes, this can happen.  Particulary with some narrow minded types that 
insist on viewing a dog through one set of lenses.  I think we both agree 
that this is a bad thing.  So what is your point?  I am certainly not advocating 
this.

[stuff deleted]

>
>Look, it doesn't have to do with using Koehler - Koehler happens to train
>using character as the sole reference point, so he never loses sight of
>what a dog is - but you have to teach character, not undermine it.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think that character is something that 
is taught.  It is something that exists.  Perhaps you mean one should respect
the character of the dog when training it.  No argument here.

[stuff deleted]

>Thinking that training methods supply tools is wrong - it serves as the
>fatal displacement, the fatal deferment, of the whole point of being a dog.

I disagree.  When one does not think of training methods as tools, one
is necessarily assuming that dogs are robots, that can be programmed
using the exact same algorithm each time.  When the focus is on the dog
as an individual, one can try different methods to teach a concept that
fit the "character" of the dog in question.  It is just that simple.

>How do you teach character?  

You don't.

> Without bribing, without coaxing, without
>threatening, without dominating, you insist on absolute obedience, and
>that means absolute.

If I am reading this correctly, you are saying that absolute obedience is 
character.  Strange.

>The appearance of the moral other is the beginning of language, and that
>is how communication comes in - not as a tool.

Am I speaking English?  I never said communication is a "tool."  I said that
TRAINING METHODOLOGIES are tools that should be applied to FIT THE INDIVIDUAL
DOG.  Good training methods WILL TEACH HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR DOG and
provide one with the ABILITY TO CHOOSE TRAINING METHODS (tools) TO FIT THE
INDIVIDUAL DOGS.

-- 
============================================================
Stephen R. Lee                 | 
OooWoo Racing Kennel           | I'd rather be driving sled
E-Mail: srlee@beta.lanl.gov    | dogs.
Organization: Drama, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA