What does everyone think of this?(leerburg.com)

[julie87]

So I was browsing dog training on agression and ended up on leesburg.com I wasn't surprised the many stories I found on german shepherd and pit bull attack stories so I was curious to read them thouroughly as my dog now shows signs of agression. Anyway I came to realize that Ed Frawley believes in negative reinforcement as part of his training..? I can't imagine anyone practicing that type of training techniques on their GSD on this forum? Tomorrow I am meeting with professional dog trainer and I made sure that she doesn't practice negative reinfocement. What do yall think of this famous dog trainer?! This is what Ed had to say about his dog.

"I have owned some nasty dogs in my life. I own a male right now that is as bad as anything I have ever seen - probably worse than anything most people will ever see in their life (I bought him when he was 5 years old). This dog will viscously try and attack another dog through a fence when I let him out of the kennel. This is going to blow the minds of the Goody-two-shoes and the phooo phooo Halty and Clicker people that read my web site - but I have stopped this dog’s fence fighting. It took three 30 second training sessions. I simply told him “NO” and hit him over the head with a kennel shovel. The reason it took three sessions was because I did not know how thick this dog’s head was - I really had to whack him hard on the third session to get his attention. Now he knows that there are consequences to fence fighting"

[GregK]

LOL! Guess that's one way of doing it. Personally, I avoid this type of 'training'.

[codmaster]

Originally Posted by julie87

So I was browsing dog training on agression and ended up on leesburg.com I wasn't surprised the many stories I found on german shepherd and pit bull attack stories so I was curious to read them thouroughly as my dog now shows signs of agression. Anyway I came to realize that Ed Frawley believes in negative reinforcement as part of his training..? I can't imagine anyone practicing that type of training techniques on their GSD on this forum? Tomorrow I am meeting with professional dog trainer and I made sure that she doesn't practice negative reinfocement. What do yall think of this famous dog trainer?! This is what Ed had to say about his dog.

"I have owned some nasty dogs in my life. I own a male right now that is as bad as anything I have ever seen - probably worse than anything most people will ever see in their life (I bought him when he was 5 years old). This dog will viscously try and attack another dog through a fence when I let him out of the kennel. This is going to blow the minds of the Goody-two-shoes and the phooo phooo Halty and Clicker people that read my web site - but I have stopped this dog’s fence fighting. It took three 30 second training sessions. I simply told him “NO” and hit him over the head with a kennel shovel. The reason it took three sessions was because I did not know how thick this dog’s head was - I really had to whack him hard on the third session to get his attention. Now he knows that there are consequences to fence fighting"

Does that mean she can't say "NO" to the dog? Or just no shovels?

[FlyAway]

Good way to give your dog epilepsy. I had a fence fighter. He would still look over the fence, but when I was told him to get in the house, he hustled. No head bashing needed, just food.

[GregK]

No shovels, codmaster - clicker and cookies.

[msvette2u]

We use electricity to deter fence fighting

[GregK]

What, you turn on some bright lights or something???

[msvette2u]

They may see bright lights when they bite the fence which zaps them? I don't know.
They don't go back to it, so it works.

[Cassidy's Mom]

That's a pretty extreme example! But that's not negative reinforcement, it would actually be positive punishment. The four quadrants of operant conditioning are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.

We think of positive as good and negative as bad, but in this context, "positive" means adding something - either a reinforcement to increase the occurrence of a behavior, or an aversive is used as punishment, to decrease the occurrence of a behavior. "Negative" means taking something away - again, either something good, or something bad. Here's a link about operant conditioning: ClickerSolutions Training Articles -- A Beginner's Guide to Operant Conditioning

Here's an interesting article about negative punishment, which is often used with positive reinforcement: Negative Punishment (and Why It Is Great) clickswithdogs

Rather than getting too hung up on the terminology, I would just meet with the trainer, ask about her methods and discuss your concerns.

[Cassidy's Mom]

How on earth could not whacking a dog over the head with a shovel (really???) be equated to never saying "no"? I say no to my dogs all the time, but I draw the line at "training" that could cause brain damage.