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hey folks,

a while ago it was decided that my wife would take over the dog training, since she was clueless about dogs, and the training process would help ozzy bond with her. i've had no problems with oz listening to me at all, but she has. so off we go to one of the few local places that'll accept rotties.

now, the place we ended up is a purely positive training facility - and frankly, they're driving me nuts.

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little background on me - i'm 27, and have been involved with breeders and trainers since i was about 9. until now my dogs have all been labradors, and the training has been to a minimum of a CD on the dog, if not further gun-dog or other working dog venues.

throughout this, rewards and praise have played a large part, of course, but there were corrections as well. eg. dog is called in on recall. i call "back!" dog rockets to me. dog proceed to rocket on by me, the lead goes tight, dog get's a pop. once the pup is in the right place, treat, and praise. same basic idea for anything i've trained - show them the behaviour required, assosciate command with said behavoir. from then on, proper response gets a treat, wrong response gets a quick pop, "no" then the dog is placed as required for the command, followed by "good puppy!" and treat.

using this process, it only ever took 2-3 weeks to teach the basics. (sit, stand, wait, place/stay, recall, close/heel, etc)

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now, fast forward to the current trainers we're at. they don't believe that you should ever pop your dog - i'm yet to hear the word "no" pass any one of the trainer's lips. quite frankly, their demo dogs are poorly behaved. (the "utility" demo dog spend the time before it's actual demo eating it's leather lead, then the handler's shoe, and was ignored for this.)

so far as i can tell, the harshest correction they believe in is ignoring the bad behaviour. the first time I took ozzy up, he came in with me in a perfect heel, on a pinch collar. you'd think i was driving him in with a cattle prod. apparently this is "cruel" and "will turn the dog completely off me and training" and if i need better control than the flat collar, "try a gentle leader - after all, it works on my dog. (toy poodle)"

now, i swapped oz to a martindale collar, since i finally drove through their heads the futility of putting a carting breed on a gentle leader, (there have been dozens of incidents of neck damage from the "gentle leader" - enough that my last trainer would kick anyone from the class if they brought their dog in with them) and the fact that it is purely power steering for your dog. where the nose goes, the dog goes, with no training required - and with the result of no training happening.

think my biggest issue is that, while there are a handful of dogs in the advanced class that are wonderfully behaved, they are all basically toy breeds, or smaller dogs (cocker's, beagles, pugs, bunch of toy poodles and min-pins and such) but not one of the "real" dogs shows what i consider acceptable behaviour for a higher level of obedience.

now, we'll be sticking with this course, since its paid for already, and it is helping my wife control ozzy some, but afterward, i think i'm out of there. quite honestly, i believe i was doing a better job at home, with my bag of treats, a happy voice, and a pinch or martindale for when he really isn't paying any attention.

thrust of my question is this - does purely positive training, with no corrections at all for anything, just rewards for good behaviour, actually work? i wouldn't trust it to work with any of my labs from years past, but i admit to a bias. was wondering about other's opinions. to me it comes across as new-age touchy feely BS. but again, looking for other's experiences with it.

sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for the chance to vent and ask questions,

peace, eh?

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