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Originally Posted by Maximo  There is no way to know if a dog is 100% reliable no matter what kind of training is used. I think we always need to be prepared for the unexpected.
Happy to hear you have had success with your training. What kind of "punishments" do you employ? Like you, I believe in positive reinforcement, but I do use the withdrawal of attention, which is a negative. I walk away, leave the room where they cannot follow. |
I agree you can never be 100% certain, I just know now that I have confidence in them, where I never did before. I use something called a bonker, it's basically a rolled up towel, with think rubber bands to hold the towel in place. For large dogs you use a tightly wound up large bath towel and for Yorkies you use a hand towel and mine is very tightly wound. I'm afraid to talk too much about the method, I believe some people would use it in anger or for such things as housebreaking and it should never be use for this.
Basically you attach a word to the bonker and actually have to hit them once. The trainer was sitting on the floor with a bowl of food, and when they tried to get the food, he bonked them. Obviously, you have to be careful how hard you hit them, and never hit them in the face, I go for the side of the neck, it's just something to get their attention and let them know you mean business. I practiced on my arm before I ever hit them. The towel is a good thing to use, because you can learn to throw it when other things like a water bottle require you to be close to them. When I throw it I actually don't try to hit them, I just try to get close, (the trainer may not agree with that), but the word "halt" has kept up it's strength for over a year, so there is no need to hit again. During training, they were each hit a total of two times. Here's his website if anyone wants to read more about it. I hope no one tries this method without understanding thoroughly the principals behind it. You have to reward them when they do behave, and most people skip this step, so if you are just hitting them without the rewards, they eventually get use to the punishment and you have to step it up, and that's were abuse comes in. So the rewards help them to learn a new behavior, while the bonker and the new "word" helps them to stop a old behavior.
Inhibitions