To distance myself from friend because of her dog training?

[VallyRey]

Friend and I bought puppies at the same time (so similar age). Not on purpose, we’d actually lost contact and happened to turn up to the same training course. Mine is a cross husky, hers is a Doberman. Very early on her dog showed dodgy behaviour, pinning other puppies to the ground and biting their necks. She was ultimately asked not to bring her pup back.

We still met up for “play dates” but despite my pup being bigger, hers would constantly bully my pup and we had to separate them a few times. As hers got much bigger, the play dates stopped as I just didn’t trust it and we kept in touch through Facebook with pics etc.

Since then her dog has grown quite aggressive and is now in one-one training. She told me her dog was much better now so we met up this morning. I didn’t even recognise her dog walking towards me, it looked like a bloody military dog or a dog from obedience demonstration videos. Wow I thought ... I must get the trainers number! On meeting her dog showed absolutely zero interest in me or my dog. It just sat very quietly. Ears alert, eyes forward. Turns out the trainer is a “balanced” trainer who worked for the military as a dog handler. The dog has been trained on a slip lead. It seems to have had a total personality change ... in that it has NO personality now. I feel sorry for it. It’s like a robot.

The latest is that she’s taking up schutzhund training to exercise the dogs “natural instinct to protect”. I think she’s creating a time bomb personally.

AIBU to distance myself from her?

Lead checks aren't punishment

They are - they have to be. There are only 5 possible outcomes for a behaviour:

• positive reinforcement (adding something the dog likes)
• negative reinforcment (taking away something the dog doesn't like)
• positive punishment (adding something the dog doesn't like)
• negative punishment (taking away something the dog likes)
• neutral (adding or subtracting absolutely nothing)

Now a lead check is not something the dog likes because that would result in the dog repeating the behaviour more that resuled in the check, and is not neutral because that is the result of neither adding or removing anything from the scenario - so it must be something the dog does not like. A punishment or aversive.

It is an addition to the situation - so it must be positive punishment.
There are no other options - as per the foundation of all animal behaviour science.

Anyone who thinks dogs trained this way are happy, safe, reliable... clearly knows nothing about dog behaviour.

Yep. There is plenty of science out there - proper, peer reviewed studies, that positive punishment sometimes works and is something as effective as reward-based training (*) but that it also carries much higher risks than reward-based training - such as multiple studies that link positive punishment with the development of aggression towards owners and other humans.

• A comparison of training methods used in the US to train guide dogs actually showed a much higher suucess rate for dogs trained using reward based training (approx. 80% pass rate) than those trained using a balanced programme (approx50% pass rate). So it may not be as effective.

In balance, I've met a number of ex-military dogs that were all trained using reinforcment-based methods and all have still been as you described: rock solid but interested in the world around them/other people and dogs. So it's perfectly possible to achieve this level of obedience without punishment. I don't think those dogs had any less happy or fulfilling a life than pets who are encouraged to display a wider range of experimental behaviours (which is essentially what you're talking about, OP).

She’s found a form of training designed to channel the instincts her dog has - this is a good thing. You wouldn’t, I hope, feel terrible for a Labrador or spaniel being given some form of gundog training? Learning to retrieve and find things by scent? This is the same principle, just with a different breed with different drives.

As for the way that she’s going about training it, that may be a different matter. (Although I don’t see a large breed of dog pinning others down as ‘fun’ either). But working with the instincts that your dog has is eminently sensible, imo.

Most Doberman's and guarding breeds mature into quite "serious" dogs. It sounds like she's trained it really well and it's now older so acts differently. To be honest OP you don't seem hugely dog knowledgeable. Schutzhund is exactly the type of training a dobie needs for mental and physical stimulation.

Ah thankyou @LovelyPuddings saved me typing that out!

'Balanced' training, using a slip leash, is training using punishment - a lead check/jerk/correction, whatever you want to call it, is, as LovelyPuddings has accurately explained, is punishment.

Punishment works by suppressing behaviour, not by addressing the root cause of that behaviour. Suppressing symptoms rather than addressing the root cause will always, eventually, cause problems in itself, and typically, much more serious problems.

If you're uncomfortable around her or her dog for any reason, by all means back off from the friendship (or at least don't meet up with the dogs).

However, it sounds like her dog was more than she could handle on her own, and she took the steps she thought necessary to bring it under control. I wish more people with unruly (sometimes dangerous) dogs would do that, if they intend to take the dog around people and other dogs.

In the long term, a well-trained dog will be happier than one that's constantly having to be disciplined, and in this case, she may have saved his life, if he had overly aggressive tendencies.

Tbh you sound like the mother of a pfb - competitive and jealous! Her dog was the naughty one, that’s now changed and you’re jealous that she has the well behaved one 🤣

She sounds like she’s being a responsible dog owner and has dealt with the dogs behaviour effectively and done a great job. You should stop seeing her though as you’re judgemental and clearly don’t like her and disapprove of everything she does.

She sounds like she's done totally the right thing and has Dobie that is really well trained. Schutzhund training isn't just about protection. She's doing what's right for her breed of dog. I don't know why you have a problem with it, but you clearly do so yes you should distance yourself as she can't do right for doing wrong in your eyes anyway.

She tried multiple reward based training methods from the sound of it and had no success. You considered the dog, rightly, to be untrustworthy. Now she has found training method that has brought her large powerful breed from untrustworthy to under control. There is literally no pleasing some people. Imo she did what she had to do before the dog grew big and strong enough to physically overpower her. You cant be dragged around by walk around with a dog you cant control. It's an accident waiting to happen. You get a guarding breed like that, you either make sure you can handle it or you make sure you never have to.

Wait! So every time my dog pulls and I stop walking that is punishment?

How else do you stop them pulling?

Very interested as I can't think of any way of doing that without stopping and causing some tension on the lead - a lead check!

The first training session wasn’t helping her to address the issues with the dog though. They actually asked her to leave. So she found another one, who has helped her. It’s not that jumped she jumped straight into this level of training. The alternative is that she has a dog with aggression towards other dogs.

To be honest, I think your trainer is the issue. They are prepared to send a Doberman that is showing aggressive instincts into the community without addressing the issues. By actually asking your friend to leave they could have also made her embarrassed to seek further help. Maybe your friend should judge you for sticking with your trainer?

I clicked YANBU by mistake.

I think you are being massively, massively unreasonable.

Her dog was showing signs of maturing into a dangerous liability, she sought the advice of a trainer who has trained many headstrong/challenging dogs in the military and the dog is now behaving itself.
The military trainer presumably has a great deal more experience with large, challenging, working breed dogs than you do..?

So, if the dog had carried on being unruly and pinning other dogs down, that would have been preferable?

It’s not happened yet. It’s all hypothetical. If she trains dog to be an on command killer then by all means, stop meeting her. At the minute she’s successfully addressed an issue.

This isn’t a working dog, it’s a pet.

It's still a working breed. My friend has a pet Labrador from working lines - it's still a working dog even though she doesn't work it. Plenty of dogs are "working breeds" even though they're now also kept as family pets.

Good owners will channel a dogs natural instinct (whether that's agility, scent-training, hunting, flushing, retrieving or guarding) so that the dog has a purpose. Having a purpose makes working dogs happy dogs. Plenty of working breeds will become destructive/howl if they're not worked properly, simply because they're bored.

Punishment works by suppressing behaviour, not by addressing the root cause of that behaviour.

If that's true, does that mean stopping whenever a dog pulls on the leash is punishment, as it suppresses the behaviour? What about trainers (like Victoria Stilwell) who advocate just turning around and walking in the opposite direction? Both of those techniques are widely recommended by positive trainers and both suppress the dogs natural desire to pull.

To clarify - you didn't want to interact with the dog because it was badly behaved. Your friend has put a lot of effort in and the dog is now very well trained. You don't want to see the dog now because it is very well behaved.

Can you see how that is insane?

Sounds like you don't want to see her, so don't. You don't need an excuse.

Her dog was the naughty one, that’s now changed and you’re jealous that she has the well behaved one

This

Friend sounds amazing in getting her dangerous unruly dog under control With sustained Training. Kudos to her

You're whinging because she found training that sounds perfect for her dog? Jesus.

*Wait! So every time my dog pulls and I stop walking that is punishment?

How else do you stop them pulling?*

Yes, this is negative punishment as pp said. You have taken away the dog's forward motion and done so to try and link pulling = no more going forward in the dog's mind. The result should be that the dog is less likely to pull in future.

There is not a single person who has ever trained a dog using only reinforcement. Even inadvertently ,we select negative punishment quite a lot. Call dog, dog comes, put it back on lead. Punishment.

However, when selecting punishment as a deliberate method, we have a duty to consider a number of factors, including how severe the dog will experience the punishment (bear in mind for some dogs being shouted is much more punishing than for others, for all kinds of reasons), whether or not the same result could be achieved otherwise, what risks there are with using this specific punishment and whether or not we are doing so ethically.

As an point of debate. Is it more or less ethical to:

• administer multiple small scale punishments so that the dog is upset multiple times before learning

or

• administer one significant punishment so that the dog learns in just one instance and never has to be punished again

I'm not arguing for the latter but simply bringing up a point for debate.

In the pulling example, you could use treats to keep the dog by your thigh, slowly reducing them over various reward schedules to achieve the same result. For some dogs that works well. Now, I use the stop/start method myself for my current dog so I am not advocating a blanket ban on all things punishing. Just laying out the science behind what we're doing.

What exactly is it you want, then?

You didn’t like her puppy when it was untrained, now she has an impeccably trainer adult dog and you don’t like that either?

My pup has been a Grade A twat today, can I have her trainer’s number?

If you (all of you) really want to question learning theory, can you READ the preceeding posts properly.

• positive reinforcement (adding something the dog likes)
• negative reinforcment (taking away something the dog doesn't like)
• positive punishment (adding something the dog doesn't like)
• negative punishment (taking away something the dog likes)

Punishment is something you do, by either adding or taking away, that reduces the frequency of the behaviour.

So yes, if your dog pulls, you stop each time he does so, and the behaviour of pulling reduces in frequency then that IS punishment. In this example it is negative punishment, you have taken away something the dog liked (forward movement).

If your dog pulls and each time he does so, you give him a jerk to the neck that he dislikes sufficiently to try to avoid (from which we can conclude, it hurts), and as a result the frequency of pulling reduces then that IS punishment. In this case, its positive punishment, you have added something the dog wants to avoid.

Using aversive punishment, positive punishment such as jerks to the neck, harnesses that tighten in sensitive areas, shock collars, prong collars, slip leads... suppresses behaviour.

We have not addressed the cause of the behaviour, we have just punished it out of existance.

Negative punishment on its own, tends not to work well - if you just stop each time your dog pulls, the chances are you will actually teach your dog to dash back and forth to the end of the lead and back to you, rather than teach him to walk beside you.

So the better way to teach this is that forward motion occurs when the dog is beside you (positive reinforcement), AND that forward motion is ceased if the dog goes ahead (before he pulls, to avoid that back and forth issue).

Positive reinforcement 'balances' with negative punishment.

Positive punishment, 'balances' with negative reinforcement.

However, if you try to combine, as 'balanced' trainers do, positive reinforcement, with positive punishment, the positive punishment outweighs the reinforcer, and any rewards or praise words are not rewarding in themselves but are actually markers for 'you avoided punishment' which in itself IS a positive reinforcer because relief is hugely rewarding... and thats not good, anyone working for the relief of NOT being punished is really not a happy or mentally stable individual.

Just beacuse the dog in this example now appears to behave well, does not mean that this has been achieved in a safe, appropriate way.

The end, does not always justify the means, particularly when there is a better, safer alternative way of getting to that end.