Great Dane - dog aggression

[Boxergirl]

Season, I know you don't believe in working with a trainer, so I'm sure you've never had someone teach you how to use a clicker properly. There are a lot of misconceptions about how to use a clicker and you're stating most of them.

I think it's difficult to see in the video because we can't see the entire scenario. If you notice, when the dog lunges and barks he does not get a click and a treat. He gets a click when he turns back to the handler. It's also difficult to tell from the perspective, but generally the idea is to have the dog look at the thing it is reacting to (dog, person, cat, etc), the click happens when the dog looks but does not react. So in order to get the click and the treat the dog must look at the other dog, click, dog gets treat or other reward. The dog turns it's attention to the owner not because the click was used to break the focus. You WANT the dog to look at the other dog and choose not to react. That non-reactive response gets marked with a click. The click is not breaking his focus, it's telling him that he looked at the dog, did not react, and since that's what we wanted he now gets a reward. It teaches him that good things happen when he chooses NOT to react. It's not the same at all as the sound you make, a poke, or any other correction or interrupter. Put simply, the click marks the behavior of looking and not reacting.

I hope someone is able to come along and explain this better.

Editing to add that I suppose you could turn the click into a correction if you jerked the dog at the same time, or something similar.

 

[Glasgowdogtrainer]

Boxergirl, you said it perfectly. "Pay attention to me or else" and "Pay attention to me because good things happen" are 2 different things to the dog, which is why the clicker isn't a correction. Ever.

Princelord, we get classical conditioning all the time. When using positive reinforcement as I ahve in the video, we are getting classical conditioning benefits at the same time. We are always getting classical conditioning, we can't help it. The example in the video isn't a pure classical conditioning approach, it's operant conditioning using positive reinforcement so we get the benefits of classically conditioning the Drako that dogs predict good things.

 

[season]

Yeah, I've never used one. I'm reading up on them now. One of my favorite trainiers, Ed Frawley uses clickers but he also uses corrections. He has on article that I'm reading now. I like to learn new things. One of the reasons I appreciate Glasgow....I know we may but heads and have different views on things, but I'm always willing to learn.

Here's the article I'm reading now....great read.

http://leerburg.com/pdf/markers-clickers.pdf

 

[season]

It's amazing what someone can learn if they get out of their own way and do the work to learn. I'm realizing that I've been doing this "marker/clicker" training without really knowing it. I was marking with my words and not using a clicker. Yes, Good, Nope are three cues I use with Solo. He gets food rewards when we are working. He doesn't get kicked or punched or yelled at.
I'm always willing to admit when I'm wrong...that's part of learning. I get people asking me all the time how I get my dogs to be so well behaved and mannered and so "nice".....I never really have a good explanation for them.

 

[Boxergirl]

I may not agree 100% with everything Ed Frawley has to say, but I don't agree 100% with many things. He's been around a long time and is one of the guys that freely admits that he has changed his ways of training over the years. I admire that.

Clicker/marker training is a very powerful tool. I appreciate that you are open to learning about it. I've not read the Leerburg article yet, but I look forward to seeing what he has to say.

 

[Hector]

The clicker is used as a positive marker. It is used to mark the behavior we like and then reinforced with a reward (food, toy, praise). Your "tsh" sound is a negative marker. It is information you are sending the dog that he/she is doing something you don't like or something that's not right. Both are used as markers. I view a correction such as a leash pop after the dog fails to comply with a command or in your case, redirect to a sound.

Since you're a fan of leerburg, here's a long page on markers.

Leerburg | The Power of Training Dogs with Markers

 

[Hector]

Yeah, I've never used one. I'm reading up on them now. One of my favorite trainiers, Ed Frawley uses clickers but he also uses corrections. He has on article that I'm reading now. I like to learn new things. One of the reasons I appreciate Glasgow....I know we may but heads and have different views on things, but I'm always willing to learn.

Here's the article I'm reading now....great read.

http://leerburg.com/pdf/markers-clickers.pdf

I see that's the same as the link I posted, nvm.

 

[Boxergirl]

It's amazing what someone can learn if they get out of their own way and do the work to learn. I'm realizing that I've been doing this "marker/clicker" training without really knowing it. I was marking with my words and not using a clicker. Yes, Good, Nope are three cues I use with Solo. He gets food rewards when we are working. He doesn't get kicked or punched or yelled at.
I'm always willing to admit when I'm wrong...that's part of learning. I get people asking me all the time how I get my dogs to be so well behaved and mannered and so "nice".....I never really have a good explanation for them.

You may find the first post on positive reinforcement an interesting read.
http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/

 

[PrinceLorde13]

Which is basically exactly what I said in my first post, my second one was actually posed as a question because I wasn't sure. Maybe I'm seeing it different then some but I just watched the video again and I understand you're not using the click when he really lunges or barks, chances are he may not be able to hear it over his bark or in such a frantic state, however once he is back near you every time he looks away from you and at the other dog a click comes, then a treat, so how is this not a form of correction, he does an unwanted behaviour, click, does the desired behaviour, reward? Seriously asking I just like to try and understand anything and everything I'm just that kind of person

 

[season]

Yeah, I've never used one. I'm reading up on them now. One of my favorite trainiers, Ed Frawley uses clickers but he also uses corrections. He has on article that I'm reading now. I like to learn new things. One of the reasons I appreciate Glasgow....I know we may but heads and have different views on things, but I'm always willing to learn.

Here's the article I'm reading now....great read.

http://leerburg.com/pdf/markers-clickers.pdf

Thanks but I already posted it.

 

[season]

The clicker is used as a positive marker. It is used to mark the behavior we like and then reinforced with a reward (food, toy, praise). Your "tsh" sound is a negative marker. It is information you are sending the dog that he/she is doing something you don't like or something that's not right. Both are used as markers. I view a correction such as a leash pop after the dog fails to comply with a command or in your case, redirect to a sound.

Since you're a fan of leerburg, here's a long page on markers.

Leerburg | The Power of Training Dogs with Markers

Thanks anyway, though....good read....good to learn....especially the wording of things.

 

[season]

Which is basically exactly what I said in my first post, my second one was actually posed as a question because I wasn't sure. Maybe I'm seeing it different then some but I just watched the video again and I understand you're not using the click when he really lunges or barks, chances are he may not be able to hear it over his bark or in such a frantic state, however once he is back near you every time he looks away from you and at the other dog a click comes, then a treat, so how is this not a form of correction, he does an unwanted behaviour, click, does the desired behaviour, reward? Seriously asking I just like to try and understand anything and everything I'm just that kind of person

I was seeing the same thing.

 

[Boxergirl]

Which is basically exactly what I said in my first post, my second one was actually posed as a question because I wasn't sure. Maybe I'm seeing it different then some but I just watched the video again and I understand you're not using the click when he really lunges or barks, chances are he may not be able to hear it over his bark or in such a frantic state, however once he is back near you every time he looks away from you and at the other dog a click comes, then a treat, so how is this not a form of correction, he does an unwanted behaviour, click, does the desired behaviour, reward? Seriously asking I just like to try and understand anything and everything I'm just that kind of person

I guess I'm confused. What is the unwanted behavior you are seeing? Is it looking at the other dog? I think there's a misunderstanding about what the desired behavior is. It's not coming back to the handler. You want him to look at the other dog and choose not to react. That's why the click happens when it does. Maybe we're not explaining very well.

And believe me, he can hear the click. He can hear it because the click isn't happening when he's barking and reacting.

 

[PrinceLorde13]

Ok but he's not looking at the other dog and choosing not to lunge, he's looking at the other dog and before he can make a choice the click breaks his focus on the other dog and brings it back to the trainer. If the dog looked at the other dog, then back, then the click I would get what your saying but that just doesn't seem to be the case here to me. Through this training I can easily see how eventually the dog would begin to make the right choice on his own, but here it seems like a series of corrections working to that goal

 

[PrinceLorde13]

And believe me, he can hear the click. He can hear it because the click isn't happening when he's barking and reacting.[/QUOTE]

You just paraphrased what I said lol

 

[Boxergirl]

I didn't think I paraphrased what you said, so I must have misunderstood your intent. Anyway, you would never, ever click if he were reacting so there would never be a time when he wouldn't hear it because he was barking. When you use a clicker, you charge it first. The dog learns what the click means long before you ever use it to train a behavior. So when the dog looks and and isn't barking you click. The dog learns that by looking and being quiet he gets rewarded. If you waited for the dog to look and then look back to the handleer to click you would be marking the look back. At least that's how I see it. Marking looking at you isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you want to reward the quiet and lack of reactivity in this case. It's all about timing. Does that make sense?

 

[PrinceLorde13]

I understand you're not using the click when he really lunges or barks, chances are he may not be able to hear it over his bark or in such a frantic state

Boxergirl: And believe me, he can hear the click. He can hear it because the click isn't happening when he's barking and reacting.

That was the paraphrasing I was referring too, and I totally get the basis for clicker training you are talking about, I'm talkining about what I see in this specific video

 

[PrinceLorde13]

I guess I get what your saying it just doesn't appear that what's happening. Maybe it just takes some experience with clicker training to see it the way you do

 

[Boxergirl]

Haha, I'm still not reading what you said earlier correctly. I keep understanding it as you thinking the handler isn't clicking when he's barking or lunging because the dog wouldn't be able hear it. But maybe that's not what you mean at all. I'm really not trying to be dim here, but maybe I'm having a dim day? I was up all night helping a crabby kid study for a vet tech pharmacology final today and am a bit fuzzy brained.

I wish someone else would try to explain what you're seeing in the video. I'm not doing it very well.

 

[PrinceLorde13]

No the side note about not being able to hear it was just me thinking out loud, an after thought, I was saying I understand it's not meant to be a direct correction for bad behaviour, it just really appears to be a correction before the bad behaviour has a chance to manifest, diffusing a bomb instead of picking up the pieces after it goes off