Am I the only one who doesn’t like using the term balanced trainer?

[warriorforchrist94]

@legitjpw My main issue with him is that he condones and does videos with the dog daddy guy. Maybe he doesn’t even like him and really condone it and he does it from a business perspective; and I know his social media presence is for his business, I just don’t like him for that. His free shaping, awesome, amazing to see.

 

[lovejt209]

@warriorforchrist94 Yeah this is my issue with Beckman too. Seeing the balanced trainers I’ve found really helpful support this guy has been really disappointing

 

[legitjpw]

@warriorforchrist94 Oh, I didn’t even know that huh

 

[mew]

@legitjpw I watch American Standard's long for content. I don't use all of it and there's some stuff that would be a bit harsh for my dogs temperament, but overall he has really good training methods. Honestly, without his video on hind leg awareness training I wouldn't be anywhere close to a focused heel with my husky. He has a lot of really great content and his reward based training stuff put even the best positive only trainers to shame. He just gets a bad rep because he's more outspoken than most and he frequently bashes positive only trainers

 

[andrewk292]

@legitjpw You may not have seen his video where he swings around a young shep, who's leash is thrown over a tree branch and says things about the handling like "he'll think twice about doing that".. not exactly those words

 

[aveotheotokos]

@gineke I’m with you.. I like Tom Davis’s take…. He has described himself as an “Unlimited Trainer” because he does not artificially limit himself on the methods he can use to help people and their dogs.

So then the term “Limited Trainers” would apply to the Lima / r+ crowd as they are limited in what quadrants of operant conditioning they can use. And limited based on an ideology, not what actually works and achieves results to help the dogs.

And you can tell them - “my methods depend on the dog and the owner. No one method will achieve results for every dog”

 

[ramfel]

@aveotheotokos I've always liked Tom for his takes on this notion. Another take of his is that +R trainers are just fine with "death before discomfort" insinuating that a dog should rather be euthanized before a aversive training tool is introduced that might actually correct and manage reactivity, preventing a bite incident and keeping it out of kill shelters. Maybe a bit grandiose sounding, but it tracks.

 

[aveotheotokos]

@ramfel I took the time to read many of the “Science” papers they quote and link to… One actually said that euthanasia is not aversive because the dog doesn’t feel any discomfort…. That made the throw up in my mouth just a little bit….

Gotta twist into some interesting mental contortions to make that logic work.

 

[mew]

@aveotheotokos They're also like 90% survey studies. Yet the force free community acts like there's definitive proof and if you don't believe them you are a "science denier." I really want to just comment "CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION" on their posts over and over again but they would just block me and not read it so I stay silent.

 

[aveotheotokos]

@mew 100% agree, and you can undermine this with their own “Science”. The very first “Science” listed in the AVSAB position statement talks about why these surveys are unreliable….

This first paper is a treasure trove of accidentally saying the truth..when your
1) the paper directly states that these papers can not and do not establish causation…..this directly undermines their own claims
2) it talks about how unreliable surveys are, them bases much of this claims on surveys
3) the also show reward based training is associated with aggressive behaviors…(oops)
4) a relationship between punishment and fear was only found in small dogs.

5) they studied dogs who were trained by “hitting and shaking”. (This had bad outcomes? Who would have thought….)

And so much more.

When your own science undermines your science, you may want to re-evaluate

Link to that paper:

https://banshockcollars.ca/pdf/The-effects-of-using-aversive-training-methods-in-dogsdA_review.pdf

 

[mew]

@aveotheotokos There was also another study that found a huge correlation between muzzles and aggression. Wow, can't imagine why there's a correlation there. The same survey study found the same correlation between aversives and rewards for aggression.

Even on this review you linked there's a number of studies they're summarizing that I've read and they're completely missrepresenting the results. It's like for each of these studies they only looked at the conclusion and didn't pay attention at all to the real data.

Also, I've never read a meta analysis or a review of the literature that didn't throw out studies that didn't meet methodology requirements. My guess is it's because if they did that they would have to throw all of them out.

 

[aveotheotokos]

@mew Yep..We’re on the same page for sure. I’m convinced they are counting on people either just saying “I follow The Science” without ever actually reading any of it. It appears many people are convinced just by thinking there is “Science” behind what they are being told.

 

[ramfel]

@aveotheotokos Genuinely curious what those "resources" are that they cling to. If you can, either in a message or comment, I'd love to see links to these "undisputed, science backed" studies they lean on,if you can find them.

 

[aveotheotokos]

@ramfel Many are found in position statement on "humane dog training" from AVSAB (an organization that makes money off of dogs with behavior problems). They are listed at the end of the position statement. You can find many with just a google search, others take more work and a few are behind paywalls. None of these are good research. Link below.

https://avsab.org/resources/position-statements/

The very first one listed is a “survey” of other studies, and talks about the inherent flaws in surveys, and then goes on to include a large number of these flawed surveys. The section in this paper on the problems with surveys is worth reading.

When doing research, it’s a absolutely critical to properly isolate the variables being studied, and accurately measure the results. Many of these papers fail at both of these. One that claims to prove reward based training was just as effective as balanced training included citronella spray collars and muzzles in the group of methods defined as “aversive”…. Wait, they just said that reward based training is just as effective as a citronella spray collar?

None of these studies isolate a training variable effectively. The measurements to are terrible, and many are just surveys of random dog owners….if you want to study what type of training is most effective, study the best. If you wanted to find out what golf club worked the best, would you hand out surveys to random people on a driving range, or would you have a pro like Tiger Woods use it and then actually measure the difference in the trajectory of the balls?

And I haven’t even touched on “confounding variables” - unmeasured variables that influences the outcome of the study, that if unaccounted for may cause errors and impact the results.

Yes, shitty “Science” annoys me.

 

[ramfel]

@aveotheotokos Much appreciated, i look forward to driving into this.

 

[aveotheotokos]

@ramfel Lots of research there, I’d just encourage you to read it as research, many people read these papers the way people used to read newspaper articles.

Newspaper method - Read headline, read first paragraph, scan next one to two paragraphs, them move on..

Researcher method - read the summary / introduction, then skip to the end and read the conclusions. Return to the very start of the paper and carefully read the paper in its entirety, asking yourself if the research truly verifies the claimed results. Is the research well done? Are confounding variables accounted for, and have the authors properly isolated and measured the variables being studied

 

[ramfel]

@aveotheotokos Thanks, this will be my intention. I got my start as a petsmart trainer. After learning about other training methods, it kinda felt like I'd been indoctrinated into thinking +R was not just the best most effective training method, but anything else was the devil's work. It's hard to remain impartial at times as a result. Gonna put on my objective cap as best I can.

 

[mew]

@ramfel When I first heard Tom and other trainers talking about this mentality from +R trainers I thought it must be hyperbole. But then I started to talk to them and to my horror I realized it's absolutely true. That's when I realized that Force Free is pretty much a cult at this point.

 

[ramfel]

@mew Idealism does terrible things for the mind, and breeds awful consequences when combined with group-think.

Now, a Force Free trainer who reads that is likely gonna say "speak for yourself", as that's all reddit is, a series of echo chambers. I'm willing to answer questions on how I train, I will not entertain a debate however, it doesn't serve us generally.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@ramfel That's a surprisingly common mindset in many dog subs