Dog trainers views on Pet Corrector (compressed air)

[MrsForest]

This has been a game changer for me the last couple of weeks with a very bouncy 8 month old large breed pup.

no more eating horse poo and no more jumping and mouthing at me ( full set of nashers) now !

used with positive reinforcement

just seeking views from dog trainers on this method.

@Jan168 what a bizarre train of thought.

I'm not saying it was ever right, but back in the day I think aversive methods were more commonly used. Go back far enough and it was normal to be told to hit them over the nose with a rolled up newspaper and toilet train a puppy by rubbing their noses in it when they go inside. Who the fuck came up with that idea?!
Thankfully our knowledge of how dogs think and the training methods used have come a long way since then. Well. For some of us at least.

I have had 4 dogs my adult life, we took all of our dogs to classes and early training was walking round in circles with dogs getting them.to sit stay etc etc, to our newest dog where it was all.positve reinforcement and seeing things from the dogs Pov, and I can honestly say he is the most contended dog we have had, once we got past the pup/teen stage he has been a delight of a dog, some might be temperament but I do think it is the training.

My mother-in-law tried to teach me "rub their nose in their dirt" when I was already on puppy number 4 😧

I'm not sure that we've actually come that far, going off some of the horror stories I hear from my cousin who's a vet.

You could be right. I tend to move in like minded circles, so avoid all the aversive using, alpha types. I had to leave a spaniel FB group that was full of them. It was too depressing to read the shit advice people were spouting eery day.

There's still a lot of the Alpha Dog/pack order crap out there @SpanielsGalore , particularly with large breeds and guarding breeds...

Some of the bad behaviour he had when we first got him was stuff like stealing food from worktops, stealing clothes and shoes to rip up, chewing up the furniture and lots of people will advise you to use aversives to stop stuff like that ‘ooh I hit him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper’ ‘just spray him with some water and he’ll soon stop’. Any attempts we made at that we never did again as his reaction was quite scary. If we’d carried on down that road I can see that he would have been labelled an aggressive dog although it was our mishandling.

When our trainer advised basically managing this stuff ie put all the shoes away, don’t have cushions out, don’t leave food on countertops I was initially disappointed and felt like why should we change and not the dog but we eventually got with the picture and bought a shoe box and a better bread bin and it is true that this works over time because he never gets rewarded for these behaviours so he stopped trying (and probably he just grew up as well) He hasn’t chewed or stolen anything he isn’t allowed in years now.

I think some of it is a mindset thing. Some people have this whole ‘you have to show him who is boss’ attitude and we did feel criticised for not acting like that with our dog by some people (especially a big male dog lots of people feel you must have a very macho attitude to). The only reaction that punishing him ever got was fear aggression which felt pretty dangerous whereas we found that rewarding him for good behaviours plus some environmental management is actually pretty successful and a win win for everyone. We had an issue of him begging at the table and it turned out to be really quite easy to train him to go and lie on his bed at mealtimes instead and he now positively rushes to go there because he knows he will get to have some scraps afterwards if he does that. That was a win within a few days of just concentrating on training the alternative behaviour (threw food on his bed and paired it with place command when he went to get it then extended the time to be rewarded until he was staying there all meal) vs just shouting ‘no’ and ‘go away’ at him which never had any effect and made everyone annoyed us and the dog.

I am not perfect and he has various bad behaviours still which I know I could tackle with more effort but they haven’t been such a high priority but any time we have put effort in on positively training him he’s shown that he can learn and it’s just been so much better all round than pointlessly shouting at him and getting upset.

I might get one for my husband.

Oh I might have been in and left that group!

That really is interesting @ThePure , how you've learned as you went along with this dog. With larger breeds in general, a lot of training is about avoidance. We don't crate our puppies, they are free range from 8 weeks, so we create a puppy safe environment by removing all tempting things. By 4 months they could in theory reach the kitchen counters but by then they've learned not to. But a lot of it is training yourself to create the right environment for your dog and, clearly, you've succeeded in this with your boy.
I hear you on the macho attitude. We've had 4 massive (entire) male LGD's and you wouldn't believe the crap training advice that I've had flung at me - because I'm a little skinny thing. I'd regularly be told "that's a man's dog". None of it really is about brute force with this type of dog, it all has to be very calm and very positive and that is what people don't seem to realise about large or giant dogs. The pack order myth is still being perpetuated, the "show him who's boss" mentality is indeed a dangerous thing in a dog that weighs 50kg, 60kg or more. There has to be mutual respect.
Aversive training on dogs of this size and strength is very risky and not to be encouraged.

I have not read the whole thread but I adopted a lovely rescue dog who turned out to be terrified of many things but loved most people and cuddles. One big fear was aerosols being used - he would hear it from 3 rooms away and rush in to bark at me to try to stop me using it. If I didn't stop at once, he would feel he needed to snap at me to get me to stop. He was very frightened. Obviously, I never did it in his earshot after that but he had multiple other terrors - the doorbell (had to disable it and get post delivered to neighbour), anyone at the door, unexpected noises, vacuum cleaner, plastic bags (I had to replace binliners totally silently or he would rush in to bark at me to stop). The poor soul was a bundle of shredded nerves thanks to whoever used these aversive methods on him in the past (though it was apparent that at one time he had been owned by someone kind whom he loved). Sadly, despite months and months of kindness, patience and reassurance, plus input from a behaviourist who believed in positive methods, as well as trying various medications from the sympathetic vet to treat his anxiety, nothing helped and his fear episodes got worse and several times a day. He could not relax and would wake quickly out of a restless sleep at the tiniest sound. He was biting more when triggered by noises (chewing furniture and a plastic dustbin destroyed in 10 mins because I was out and he heard someone at the front door). Eventually, sadly, he had to be pts as his quality of life was wrecked by his terrors. He was a lovely affectionate dog when calm and unworried and when he did snap through fright he would afterwards be horrified and come up to me to make amends (he brought me his Bonio once with a sad look on his face). PLEASE don't use compressed air or any other aversive methods - these things in my dog's life before coming to me were instrumental in his breakdown and early death.

Oh, you can build interest in food rewards - I know, because I have done it.

And I have never claimed to have an answer to everything - I know bloody well that I haven't.

But I CAN recall my dogs.

And @twistyizzy all the successful field trialling HPRs I know are trained with both reinforcement and aversion. I know, because I have trained with the people who train them.

And no, properly used aversion doesn't 'ruin your relationship with your dog'. I hear this so often and it's not true.

@lionbrain I teach recall in stages with +R, and around increasing distractions. This works really well until we have prey in the picture.

ETA I'm leaving this thread now as we have visitors arriving shortly, and I won't be around.

All the ones you know doesn't = all HPRs. No wonder you've ended up using aversive techniques if you're surrounded by them. Not all trainers are good trainers.

Mine has been training and working all breeds of working gundogs for 60+ years plus he helps RSPCA and police assess and re-hab abused dogs. His #1 source of aggression in dogs = aversive training techniques.

He never, ever uses aversive techniques. The fact he can teach people how to control HPRs up to half a mile away without the use of shock collars etc shows you it can be done. Most people are too lazy to commit to the training.

It's exactly the same in the horse world, lazy people resort to gadgets to simulate the effect that others of us, who can be bothered to put the many hours of training in, achieve.
It took me over 600 hours to train the basics in my very first working gundog. That's 1 hour per day, every day for nearly 2 years. That's how long it can take. I don't take that long now but it shows how dedicated you need to be.

Like I said, don't want to invest the time then get a lapdog, not a working breed.

You CAN recall your dogs only by using aversive methods @EdithStourton , you have made that pretty clear.

I said I had a breed that was known for dodgy recall, but as regards my own dogs, I have trained faultless 100% recall in LGD without inflicting any fear and pain.

@EdithStourton I'm sorry. I have tried to be polite and respectful so far. But that is a total bullshit excuse.
I could say the same about training gundog. All the old school trainers use aversive methods. Fortunately there is a whole new wave of trainers who train ethically, using force free methods.
I am sue you could find a force free trainer for HPRs if you wanted to and was prepared to put in the extra effort required.