Question for balanced trainers/trainers who use aversives in their training plan - I have a couple questions! —A +R trainer

A

airamnire

New member
We had a great discussion last week on my last post! I answered tons of questions and it was super fun to read all the responses!

I don’t have service at my new place yet, so forgive me if I’ve missed your comment. I plan to go back and respond to more when I can.

I had left these questions in a comment, but I don’t think I got an answer yet so I wanted to open it up to everyone here!

I try my best to remain objective in the way I word things. Feel free to kindly ask me to change how I’ve worded things if you believe it would be more productive to put something differently. No shame or blame here, only observations paired with my personal experience. But that’s why I’m here, to expand my personal experience.

I understand why balanced trainers use tools to proof cues but I never understood why they do it in that manner. Why do we need to punish mistakes when we can set the dog up for success so they can make the choice we want? I’ve found that the more we do that for them, the more they will choose the behavior we want because it’s been reinforced so strongly. Pointing out and punishing mistakes is a waste of time in my opinion. Dogs are fantastic at picking up on patterns. Once they figure out the pattern we are asking for, they will cut out all the extra stuff that made their reward take longer to get to them. Perhaps I am understanding the process of proofing as a balanced trainer would use it wrong?

I also don’t understand using an e collar stim to make a dog recall faster for example. I understand the mechanics, I understand how it works, but I don’t understand why it’s chosen when we could find what is most rewarding and practice in many contexts to build a strong reward history. Once the dog figures out what is asked, they will find the easiest way to get to the reward in their own.

Personally, the balanced trainers that use mostly +R and use their tools gently, sweet. Have at it! The problem I have is with the trainers that put a prong on every dog no matter the age or size. The trainers that drag a dog along on a prong and make people believe a shut down dog is fixed because they’re too afraid to react.

Now please know I don’t think every trainer who uses positive punishment does this, but it is the vast majority of training videos I see coming up on my explore pages on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, push notification recommendations on YouTube… Or trainers giving harsh prong corrections and giving food after as if that’s going to cancel out the discomfort and pain they just caused…
The commenters are so thrilled because it looks like the dog is better because they’re no longer frantic, but reading the body language, it is clear the dog is shut down. Ears back, tail tucked, lowered and tense body posture, whale eye, scanning. Unfortunately this is the exposure to “balanced” training I have had. I put balanced in quotes because these trainers are just straight up compulsive and lying about it…

Just like a lot of you seem to have been exposed to the inexperienced side of positive reinforcement training, I definitely have been exposed to the super marketed, quick fix prong collar on every dog trainers…

So I guess I wrap it up, I don’t understand why balanced trainers choose to use positive punishment or negative reinforcement to strengthen behaviors when there are ways to do it that minimize stress and risk of fallout…

What would implementing a prong or e collar look like in your training plan? When would you use it? When wouldn’t you?

Thanks everyone!!

ETA: leaving work for a few days off so i won’t have WiFi or service for a bit. I check back in and read more answers when I can. Keep them coming, keep em civil. Not here to argue or change minds or to have mine changed, just to understand others’ thought processes. If you respond to this thanks for your time!
 
@airamnire Risking committing the sin of answering a question with a question:

I use an ecollar with my dog while bird hunting. He has a command that means “turn” — ie he has gone too far in front of me, and I want him to start heading back my way to check in. This is different than a formal recall, where he ends up sitting in front of me. I often give this command when he’s 150yards away in the field. Sometimes I give him this command when he's not in sight and as much as 5-600 yards away. Sometimes I have to give it when he’s chasing something he shouldn’t be (rabbits usually). In these cases, he’s in full activated prey mode.

The command consists of a whistle and/or my voice command combined with a beep on his ecollar. If he’s just strolling, he’ll turn on that combo 100% of the time. If he ignores that, always when he’s engaged in a scent, I give the command again and use the lowest stim on his collar that he can feel (training level, people call it). On rare occasions, always involving chasing game, he’ll blow that off and I’ll use a higher level of stim to get him to execute the turn.

How would you handle this command, one of the most essential commands for pointing dogs that are hunted, with r+ methods?

(edit: and to be super clear, this is a genuine question. I am genuinely curious if anyone believes training a bird dog with only r+ methodology is possible.)
 
@annaliseh Per your edit, I’ve always wondered those folks that do attempt to be purely positive in bird dog training are doing so in the first place. If you’re willing to use pigeons/chukar/quail/etc in training/testing/trialing (and not to mention actually hunting wild birds) but won’t use an e-collar and want to be purely positive, why participate in this sport in the first place if you want to “minimize stress, pain and discomfort”.

Not to mention when you need to whoa break a dog, trash break them off porcupines/snakes/deer/livestock etc.

Edit myself: I can run my setter offleash without an e-collar at a park or on a hike no problem and even have hunted without it on before without issue. But at the end of the day it’s a safety feature and keeps her honest. High drive bird dogs will sometimes think they can get away with ripping birds, and the belly collar keeps them honest.
 
@andy2014 My theory is that those people think something like "well they hunted before ecollars, so it's possible." Those folks are either young or just not aware of the history of bird dog training: as we know, ecollars were the humane alternative to older, much more sinister, methodologies.

I am 100% with you: my boy and I sometimes go 3-4 days in the field (that's potentially 60-80 miles off leash for those of you who do not hunt) without me touching the stim button. We have a partnership, and I am deeply proud of him. That said, I have no idea how we'd have reached this level of partnership without the ecollar. I think of the first time we were in the grouse woods and he bolted after a deer, then realized he had no idea where I was. Almost 1k yards away in endless northern MI woods. That could have been the end of him right there.
 
@coreopsis Right, and from what I understand dogs were a lot more disposable. If the dog died on the job, blew off commands, got hurt, etc, they’d be replaced.
 
@bitcoin I recently learned that they'd actually shoot them with number nine shot for creeping on a whoa command. The idea was that if you had to shoot the dog a couple times and it died, the problem was still solved.
 
@maskirovka Me too! I have not been able to find anything that specifically addresses history though. It’s basically either old methodology books or reading the early 00s posts on bird dog forums.
 
@airamnire What I see in those photos are dogs that are of bird dog breeds that are being trained (presumably using r+). That, of course, is totally possible. I taught my dog to sit (along with most of his other basic obedience) using r+ methods.

What I am asking is for examples of someone training a bird dog, and specifically a pointing breed, to hunt using r+ methods. So a dog with heavy prey drive, being released into the woods to exercise that prey drive, obedient to your command when 150+ yards away when in proximity to prey, trained only using r+.
 
@airamnire I get that this isn't your schtick, but this is not an example of what I am asking for. This person's dogs are Springer Spaniels. Lovely dogs they are, but they are neither pointers, nor are they dogs known for difficult to harness prey drive. They are specifically bred to work very close to a handler. If I were going to try using only r+ methods with a bird dog, they would probably be my first choice as well.

You asked for situations in which aversives are a necessary part of a training program, and I have offered one. As of yet, I don't think you have offered an alternative.
 
@annaliseh Hello,

That’s my TikTok and my dogs, to assume that spaniels lack “prey drive” is a silly assumption if I’m honest. Spaniels given an inch will take a mile and need to still be TRAINED to stay close, look at U.K spaniel field trials there will be some on YouTube. You’re correct that they are not pointers and so will not range as far in terms of working, which is the exact reason I stick to the spaniels. But without correct training they will absolutely be at the opposite side of a wood putting pheasants up and ignoring their owner despite their lack of “prey drive” as you say.
 
@noah0135 Oh wonderful! Beautiful dogs.

You’ll note that I didn’t say “no prey drive” but “not difficult to harness prey drive.” I was comparing them to, say, a well bred GWP etc.

Since the OP never provided an example: are you aware of anyone training long ranging pointers (say those GWPs) in scenarios like we encounter normally while hunting here jn the US using only r+ methods? (i.e. where the "wood" we're hunting grouse in goes hundreds of miles in most directions)
 
@annaliseh Forgive me, I am at work. I don’t have time to go searching and like I said I don’t have WiFi at home right now so I can’t do searching. I’ll see what I can do.

Personally I don’t immerse myself in the camp of people who hunt game, because it’s hard to find +R amongst the majority of other trainers out there. Plus I am vegetarian so I don’t hunt so I don’t want to see dead birds 😭 whoops. I’ll try to look for you when I can.
 
@airamnire
Personally I don’t immerse myself in the camp of people who hunt game, because it’s hard to find +R amongst the majority of other trainers out there.
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Eh. I have a friend who's a field trial judge and a breeder. She says, if you can't put at least a JH on one of her dogs without collar conditioning and force fetching the dog, she's done something wrong with her breeding program.

She feels that they should be able to get up to Senior before they need more than just genetics.

But her dogs often go to hunting, not trial homes, and those dogs are out hunting as puppies, without lots of collar conditioning and force fetching.

The pro guys will force fetch and collar condition all of their client dogs, which makes sense. They want them to be able to run and qualify with no nonsense.
 
@davecb I know dogs that have completed a retriever SH without an e collar. But they weren’t trained 100% R+. You can try to shape train a blind all you want, but at some point the dog won’t sit on a whistle because the factor or bird scent is overwhelming or won’t take a cast for the same reason. Then what? What do you do at 100 yards away?

Retriever trainers in Europe don’t use e-collars. BUT they aren’t 100% R+ and their dogs would struggle to pass a US Master test and couldn’t compete in US (or Canadian) field trials.
 
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