Viewing Single Post From: The Dog Whisperer

Viewing Single Post From: The Dog Whisperer
MrE	Feb 7 2006, 05:04 PM
Chatterbox Posts: 761 Group: Members Member #166 Joined: January 10, 2006	Isnt there a dvd out on this too, I fancy getting that. I'm in both camps at the moment. I think what is important is to use whatever methods improve the dogs life. There are good methods but none are a panacea. I suppose they need to be suited to the problem, the dog and the owner. Fear and pain do work, so does reward but sometimes the circumstances may require the choices we do not wish to make and in turn cost the animals life. For example in India, tigers were eating kids and attacking humans. Its a bit hard to change that animal behaviour with reward methods. The first choice of cure was to shoot any stray tigers and zoo up a few others to keep the breed going. Now thats not really good for the tiger. The option they chose was electric shocks! Dummies were made of humans and placed around the country where tigers inhabit. The dummys were wired to batteries and every time a stray tiger attacked one it got a damn good shock. Dummys were even placed in the tigers camps etc. Eventually the tigers became classically conidtioned to fear the human shape and hence avioded human contact. Attacks went down to very low and the tigers kept their area. So I think a true trainer will be aware of the benefits of all methods. Me personally I prefer reward based, but what animal lover wouldnt. But I am also prepared to learn the dominance model and other methods of training. Plus when I read a great deal about airdales, welsh, lakelands, wired fox, they all say needs a strong owner. Translated I think that means and owner that does not take any cr*p from the dog :-) I do think terriers and dominance go hand in hand. Imho I do think its needed to a degree. But not at the cost of reward based learning. Its simple, to me terriers like "right" n "wrong" not "right" and "say nowt when they are doing wrong" Well that's what seems to work in our lives at the moment :-)


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