From: crs@beta.lanl.gov (Charlie Sorsby)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Re: Motivational Methods
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:43:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: newshost.1992Sep29.194305.8449
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory

In article <23746@alice.att.com> rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin) writes:
= 
= We disagree about flexibility -

I guess that's because we define "flexibility" differently.  In the
context of the original posts, "flexibility" *to me* means:

Being willing to use whatever method is most suitable for the dog,
the person, the situation, and the time, and having a sufficient
selection of tools (methods) to make that possible.  It has nothing
to do with permitting the dog to disobey.  I and, or so I inferred,
the original posters are speaking of the flexibility of the trainer.
The characteristic of being willing and able to use different methods
under different circumstances.

= First, because flexibility is usually taken to mean, when someone says
= that you have to be flexible training dogs, to mean that you shouldn't
= correct but try to understand the dog's particular difficulty.

Well, as I said, that's not what it means to me although I do
believe that it makes sense to try to understand the *reason* that
a dog has done something other than you expected for it may well
mean the difference between making an appropriate correction and
making one that will do more harm than good.

= Then something is added like, if it's willful disobedience, then correct
= (though some don't even add that).

That may be a "method" but it isn't called "flexibility" at least
not by me.  It is up to each trainer to decide whether any given
method will be *effective* under the circumstances at the time.
That ability to decide, at first experimentally, later, with
experience based on that experience, is part of being flexible.

In short, if one is flexible, one is not rigidly bound to any *one*
methodology but is able to use the best of many where the
definition of "best" is likely to differ from dog to dog and may
well differ from situation to situation with the same dog.

It seems to me that we are victims of, shall we call it, the Humpty
Dumpty syndrome.  From rather unreliable memory and after many
years, "Words, my dear Alice, mean precisely what I want them to
mean.  Neither more nor less."

There are similar variant usages of "correction."

= No.  The correction is necessary after an adequate introduction, it teaches
= that this is non-negotiable.  The dog knows you, you who are responsive in
= all manner of things, who takes him out when asked, who rubs his tummy
= on command, etc., but you don't negotiate even slightly on this point.

No argument.  I don't always pull it off with the consumate skill
that I'd like but that's my objective--again subject that the
correction is appropriate to the situation.


[Deleted stuff with which I don't disagree.]

= Second, because flexibility, knowing lots of tricks, gives the beginning
= trainer a very tentative attitude, which acts against training; the
= beginning trainer is unable to MEAN what he commands when the syntax
= of training is indefinite for him, if I can put it that way.

This point is well taken.  I submit, however, that it depends on
*which* beginning trainer.  I further suggest that a beginning
trainer with only *one* method to choose from, may respond in
precisely the way you describe because he (need I say "or she"?) is
not comfortable with the method he knows.  In that case would it
not have been better for *that* trainer to have learned about
several methods and to have chosen one with which he is more
comfortable so that it can be applied assertively and with
consistency?

For *some* beginning trainers I agree with you.  For them, having a
single one-true-faith sort of a method may well be best.  At least
at first.  But if the trainer never outgrows this limitation, I
don't believe that he will go very far for one who is this
*inflexible* is unlikely to be able to contend with dogs of widely
differing personalities.  Or so I believe.

= Third, because flexibility is a cop-out in obedience classes.  The fact
= is that most dogs do not get trained, and the leading cause of euthanasia
= is not disease but behavior problems.

It is not clear if this is stated as opinion or as fact.  If the
latter, citations would be in order and sources with no ax to grind
would be preferred.  (That is not to say that *you* have an ax to
grind; only that some so-called sources have.)

= People TAKE their dogs to obedience
= classes not because they want to be trainers but because they need help,
= and it really burns me that they can't get it, and drop out, discouraged.

I won't comment on obedience schools for I've never been to one.
My interest is bird dogs and, consequently, I'm more interested in
practical obedience than in formal obedience.  I understand that
basic obedience school is mainly just for fundamentals but that
doesn't alter the fact that I'm unfamiliar with them.  I'm simply
more interested in a rock solid "Whoa!" than in a perfect head-at-
knee heel.

= I wish I had a dollar for every person who's stopped me and said
= that he wished his dog was half as well behaved as mine, and
= THAT HE'S BEEN TO OBEDIENCE CLASS BUT IT DIDN'T HELP, HIS DOG IS
= TOO UNCONTROLLABLE.   These are the drop-outs that the obedience
= instructors seem to forget when they tell how well their flexibility
= is working.  The guys that don't come back.

Well, I haven't been to obedience school but I must comment here.
Are you considering the possibility that it is the *student* who is
to blame here rather than the instructor?  I've seen people that
you can tell to make a correction until you are blue in the face
but who simply refuse to do something so mean to little Fifi...

= The fact is that most people do not want to correct their dogs,
= they want to be nice, not cruel, and they are confused about
= what niceness is and what cruelty is, and it is the responsibility
= of the obedience instructor to straighten them out on this.

No argument.  But some people will *not* be straightened out by
*any* instructor.  Their beliefs are simply too deep seated.

= That's why the rhetoric in Koehler is necessary (look at it), he's
= very harsh, very harsh with the handler.

Surely you don't contend that everyone who's read Koehler is a
perfect (or even an adequate) trainer; that there are no Koehler
"drop outs"?  Are you as harsh with Koehler for his drop outs as
you were above with the hypothetical obedience-school instructor?

Please realize that I'm neither criticizing nor defending Koehler
or any other "expert"; I'm saying that *no one* will be able to get
*every* "student" to do what the instructor "knows" is best.  Not
Koehler, not motivationists, no one.  The greater the difference
between the beliefs of the student and the methods taught, the
greater the likelihood that the student simply won't do it.

= But god the thing really works.

*If* you do it and do it consistently.  But the same can be said of
other methods.

I well understand that it can be difficult to achieve both
flexibility and consistency at the same time.  I come to grips with
this dilemma by trying to select a method that *I* think will fit
the dog at first and changing only when it seems to be a dismal
failure.  I guess I don't believe that using one method for a month
and then changing to a different method is necessarily
inconsistent.  Or maybe I've just been lucky.


-- 
Best,

Charlie "Older than dirt" Sorsby				"I'm the NRA!"
	  crs@lanl.gov