Me and my mum took our 14week old Boo (Leonberger pup) to a puppy class as recommended (and although late, we have been socialising her in other situations).  Our neighbour has trained dogs for 28yrs and when i questioned her the other day about what she thought of clicker training she replied with a raised eyebrow saying "I'm oldfashioned and use collars leads and treats, i've trianed dogs for 30yrs, 28 professionally!" - she's very abrubt and my heart sank when she said that and all my fears came true at the puppy class.

We brought Boo into the arena and she met this what looked like staffy/bulldog/boxer type cross. he was quite agressive but ok, a little snappy to Boo, but our neighbour got hold of it and held it upright by his collar (full grown dog) and yanked him in this position. At that moment i knew i'd not be going back there. THankfully the puppy class was just to socialise really, but the man teaching it was telling everyone with their puppies to 'check' them whilst teaching them to heel (checking he said was not 'pulling their head off' although i'd have argued that he was doing that to many of the puppies). he said we had to show dominance and to get them in a 'down' we should push them and force them to the ground.  All this time Boo was in a harness (so her neck was safe and we didnt do what he said anyway) and if she had been in a choke chain like most of the dogs and puppies in there,s he'd have been really  hurt since she weighs alot already!  It all just felt so wrong. our neihgbour tried to get my mum to sign up for the obedience training when Boo got to six months old.  Luckily since when we walked in the dog strangling act had put her off and she declined.

I think there is one clicker trianing woman near us ,and i'm going to look into it after this depressing experience.  I felt so sad that this still goes on and people dont question that it must be injuring their dogs.
Surely you can train dogs without yanking on their necks?

I train my horses through natural horsemanship which teaches me to learn their language and not the other way round.  This 'trainer' kept saying 'we have to make them knwo we are their leaders' and was encouraging them to be forced to the ground.  Our neighbour also had previously had a 'fight' with a GSD (she rescues difficult ones apparently) and it had bitten her as she'd tried to 'show it who was boss' - god knows how the woman is still alive to be honest.

I kind of need some uplifting news here, i feel so deflated and depressed after seeing so much ignorance and plain cruelty.  There were some very frightened dogs there tonight.:(

Sorry to hear there are still dinosaurs out there who havent kept pace with changing training methods, and glad youre not going back. This is why people need to visit a class without their dog first to see if it will be any good - a good trainer will welcome visitors. Having said that there are good classes based on kind positive methods which are not clicker based, and Im glad to say Morse and I have attended 2. We look forward to our classes, the instructor is trained by john Rogerson and there are some dogs in the class with issues, but everyone is safe and happy. Its all based on getting your dog to really want to be with you and obey you, to be fun, and there are lots of wagging tails. First night I went she showed the owners of some really hard dobes how to get them to relax and have fun by flicking treats at them - they had so much fun they forgot they were learning to sit! Hope this cheers you up a bit, if you want clicker training keep looking for a class your Mum is willing to take you to.

What an awful experience for you and your pup.  I'm so glad you are not going back.  There are still a lot of places that train this way.  Fortunately you had the foresight to know it wasn't right.  I expect that most of the other dog owners are unaware that there is a much nicer way to train a dog.  Such a dreadful shame.  It breaks my heart what these poor dogs go through.  I saw a couple with a 10 week old weimeraner pup at the weekend who had been shown by a vet nurse how to pick up the pup by the scruff and pin it to the ground to show it who is boss.  Their pup was used to demonstrate the technique to other puppy owners and it was 8 weeks old at the time.  Mrs had a feeling that this wasn't right but Mr said it must be as this vet nurse was a qualified dog trainer - she told them so - so he did it a couple of times the next day.  2 weeks on and the pup is still terrified of him. :(  Next time your neighbour tells you that she has been training dogs for 30 years tell her you have been breathing oxygen all your life but that doesn't make you a scientist. :D
Sally

Well i suspected before i got there (having been told she was old fashioned) that it would be like this, but i really didnt imagine ti would be this bad.  Luckily i was not told to do things to our dog - the guy pretty much left my mum alone with Boo to be dragged about! (boo is very big already!).  It is SO important though that we teach her to heel (especially in busy situations like that class) as she is growing so fast that she will be too strong. 

I am going to look for puppy classes which are Choker chain banned, i dont mind if we cant find clicker classes as as long as it is kind it doesnt matter.  I just cant believe people dont search for a kind way to be with their dog. There werent many waggy tails at this class i have to say.  Only when the puppies were meeting each other!

Unfortunately, as Lorelei has said, not all dinosaurs are extinct.  I get really disheartened whenever I hear anyone in any field trot out the phrase "well I have been ....................... for xxxx years" as though longevity and length of service is any quantifialbe reliable indicator of success and sound methodology!  Even if it were, times change, methods move on otherwise most of use would still be trying to invent the wheel!!!!!!

Your post is a timely reminder to always "see before you buy" when looking at training of any sort!

Tally goes to a KC one - she has done her puppy foundation and is now doing her bronze ..they are really good..no choke chains just treats..they train owners as well, so that you can help them learn better..

Yes, training should be all about training the owner too :) and it should under no circumstances be stressful. It should be an enjoyable time.

There are "happy" classes out there, MadMarchHare, plenty of 'em - good luck with Boo for next time!

Lindsay :)
X

Yes i know we should have looked first - but i want to point out that we did NOT choke our puppy whilst there! we just let her sniff the other puppies (When the silly git who was being allseirous taking the class let us!) and just get used to a mega dog situation so to speak!  If that man had told us to do so (acutally neighbour woman came up to my mum and said 'why do you hvae a harness on' and my mum said 'so we dont choke her' and she didnt contest that which was good! 

I also agree wtih the training of humans thing -very important. That is what my natural horsemanship thing i am studying does - it teaches me to be good at horse language, not the ancient way of the horse WILL do it if you put a big enough bit in its mouth method.  Same difference with the choke chain with dogs as opposed to the kind methods.

Does anyone know how i can find kind puppy classes in my area? (somerset)

http://www.apdt.co.uk/trainers_area.asp?area=Somerset

Thank you sally!! (and thank you for the mail;))

Yes, this was a bad experience, one not to be repeated, I didn't think there were any classes like this still running!

If I were you I'd try somewhere else but I don't think you will get group 'clicker' training classes.  I always understood that this had to be done on a 1:1 basis because if you have several dogs all conditioned to a 'clicker', all the dogs in the group would hear the clicker no matter what behaviour they were performing at the time and think they were being reinforced.  Therefore, you could be reinforcing behaviour you don't want in someone elses dog whilst reinforcing what you do want in yours.  Does anyone else have any ideas on this?

I quite agree. We went along to a clicker training class just to watch and it was quite an eye opener to see the dogs not do what they were supposed to be doing. So, I assume this was because of intermittent clicking from other owners not clicking at the right moment. I must admit I prefer the treat, show and praise method. The best place to look for classes is either at the library, pet shop or vets. The police might also know of some well run classes, also the council. Good Luck in your search. Maybe the Kennel Club might know.:)

Or ask your vet's receptionist which one she would take her puppy to if she had one.  If they have quite a few classes locally and are the same as my vets if you ask them outright to recommend a class they won't be able to do it, but if you ask, from the feedback they get which they would take a pup of their own to you may get a better answer.

I feel there are very few really good dog/people trainers around.  I have been lucky in that I have found two excellent and one good ones and seen many poor ones over the years (especially when I was doing the dog correspondence courses)..  To find a good one watch the dogs - do they respond when the instructor speaks, can s/he reprimand with a look/sound and the dog react (let alone the owner).  Do the instructors own ambitions go beyond teaching pet classes, do they compete themselves in any form, and are thus still learning and open to new ideas.

Suzieque, there are loads of places like this still running.  In my catchment area alone there are at least half a dozen dog training clubs who do horrible things to puppies and dogs in the name of training.  Their fall out however keeps us in business with behavioural problems, mostly aggression.  The trouble is that first time dog owners don't always know that these places are way, way outdated.  Some of them just want the cheapest and the most local to them.  By the time they find out that there is a better way the damage is already done.

You can teach with a clicker in a group.  Clicker trained dogs are learning to think for themselves and part of that process is understanding which clicker belongs to their owner and is meant for them.  I can also clicker train several dogs together.  The click is paired with eye contact.

Sally

Hi Sally

I have clicker trained my two but each seperately if you see what I mean.  I have only ever brought the 2 together for a session when I am training one against distractions (ie the 'other' dog).  BUT I have used a 'multi pitch' clicker so there is a difference in pitch of 'click' for each dog as I trained it.  That way there is no confusion about who the click is for. 

But I have always stayed clear of clicker training in a group class because there seems to be so many pitfalls.  I can see that you pair a visual cue with a verbal cue and click and treat accordingly, but if two owners are working at the same time, each giving the correct conditioned cues to their dogs and one dog sits straight at heel and one is slow and sits cockeyed but hears the click meant for the other dog who performed correctly surely, if all other things are in place (its handler was giving eye contact at the time!), the dog is going to get very confused if it thinks it was 'clicked' but doesn't get a treat.  Surely it will stop offering a 'sit' at all whether straight or crooked because to the dog, the conditioned reinforcer(s) click & treat are not consistent in their use.

Suzieque.  I don't know that I would remember which pitch of click I was supposed to use for which dog?  :) Of course it is infinately better to teach a dog on a one to one and that is how I would teach anything that required serious consideration but I do enjoy just 'messing about' and clicking and treating my dogs when they are together too.  I also teach things that they can do in pairs. 

When training in a group, I believe that dogs are able to distinguish where the click came from and very quickly learn to ignore other people's clicks and I'm sure we are all guilty of clicking at the wrong time sometimes or failing to deliver the treat as promised.  That's the beauty of reward training - you can screw up sometimes and it won't be detrimental to the dog.  :D
Sally

Sally

Maybe I'll have to give it a try in one of my sessions, perhaps just getting handlers to teach a fun trick, and see how it goes.  Maybe I've been erring on the side of caution!!

Thanks

Sally, its interesting you say taht about agression from these classes.
After our neighbour had throttled the staffy cross, she then boasted at how her hands virtually didnt work anymore because she had been 'wrestling' a GSD and it had been biting her etc on teh arms. she was probably thinking she was 'showing it who was boss' and yet by being agressive with it she was in fact teaching it to be agressive! and the staffy she throttled, no doubt learnt to be mean by the bad training.

I have to say thank you for hte link of trainers in our area. my mum spoke to one today who said she helps humans to train their dogs - and she will help us clicker train if that is what we want, but only one on one. I think that perhaps non clicker training woudl work better in our family, as i'm pretty sure my dad would be hopeless at keeping up the clicker business! reward will work just as well for us as a family i'm sure - its very exciting that this woman will help us.  My mum told her about the class we went to the other night and she kind of made a noise about the fact she knew about it. it is sooo heartbreaking seeing allt hose puppies who were so cowed and unhappy.  there were about 15 puppies in the class and this man was trying to teach them all to 'heel' 'sit' 'down' - how are puppies going to concentrate in tahts ort of situation!? whilst there was another dog class going on at hte other end of the arena. shocking.

Glad you have found a decent class Emily.  I expect this lady feels as exasperated about your neighbour and her set up as I do about the ones round here but there is nothing she or I can do about it because of ethics.   What it needs is people like you to make sure that everywhere these places advertise, usually the vets, library etc are made aware of what an absolutely awful experience you had there.  If only one person complains or draws it to their attention then it is unlikely to make any difference which is why people don't usually bother but if everyone did it then the vets would take notice and maybe take their ad of the board or their contact number off of their list.  Do you actually live next door to her?  I would love to be a fly on the wall in a couple of months time when she sees your Boo is 'doing his stuff' because he wants to, without force and without lead corrections.  Don't let me down. ;)
Sally

I wont let you down sally!
our neighbour is not next door - we livei n the middle of nowhere, but she's up the road and often drives past us when we are walking our other dog Indy. She kept saying that she was going to kidnap our Boo as she wants a leonberger - and i'm quite relieved for boo that shes' not at a home like htat!

What was interesting is that a girl was watching the class with me (we were both watching our mums!) and i said to her i didnt like the yanking on the necks, and she agreed taht it seemed unescessary - i just hope she tries to look for someone else too. 

As for putting in a bad word for them our local vets are not 'local' they are out of our 'parish' so to speak as we used to have them where we used to live and kept them on. the local vets we dont know, so it would be silly to go to them and tell them about it wouldnt it? also next time our neighbour asks us where we were at the class - i've told my mum to just be blunt and say we dont want to bully our dog into anything and that there is no need for choke chains with any dogs.  I pray for the soul of the poor GSD she throttled (and kind of hope it hurts her properly next time, she needs a wake up call).

I cant wait to get boo doing great stuff - shes' so bright (our 'new' dog trianer said that they were the loveliest of the giant breeds :D) - i have tos ay they are very full of energy for a supposedly lazy breed, its delightful! her and our Indy are best of friends now, its sooo lovely. Indy didnt get on with our old dog we had before.

Well I have been to a Mary Ray class and we were all clicking away simultaneously and it worked a treat.  Bear in mind that the dog has eye contact you and their hearing is so good that it takes very little for them to zero into their click.

where is burnham on sea in relation to you? i go to a really good club there but there is a waiting list.