is it ok to stick trian a dog meaning train a dog to obey commands but when they dont just tap them on the nose with a stick.any comments 

errrrrr

what is THAT supposed to teach a dog? other than, of course 'get the hell away from owner, because if i mess up, ill get a bash on the nose'.

NO! would YOU learn by being bashed in the face every time you got something wrong?

Em

wondering if you mean a target stick?  Although you don't actually tap the dog with it, they touch it themselves.

Helen

Hitting a dog with a stick won't teach it anything other than you are nasty person to be avoided if at all possible.

are you confusing this with "targeting"? targeting is where you train the dog to touch the tip of a stick with its nose.
hitting a dog on the nose with a stick could not be called training, it is simply animal abuse.

Have you been trained to do anything by the stick method yourself?  If so I am sure you can answer your own query; if not I am sure there are any number of people who would offer to demonstrate this technique on you!

This would be very confusing for the dog; whatever training method one uses, it has to be clear as to exactly what is wanted. John on here gave a good example the other day of confusing training: dog called, told to sit, praised, and when asked the owner said she/he was praising for good recall. Not what the dog would have thought though, he would have felt the praise was for the sit.

I feel we always have to look at ourselves as trainers/owners if the dog is not doing what is wanted or not progressing as usually if we alter someting about ourselves or the way we train, the dog will improve.

JMHO :)

Lindsay
X

Agree with all the previous messages.

Dogs learn to repeat actions that bring rewards (lots of praise/food/toy/whatever is a powerful reward for that particular dog).

Dogs learn NOT to repeat actions that bring punishment (being hit on the nose with a stick or in any other way frightened/upset, it doesn't always have to be physical punishment).

If (as an example) you are teaching your dog to sit, you reward your dog each time it sits, your dog will want to repeat the action over and over.

But think about what happens if you are teaching your dog to sit using punishment whenever the dog doesn't sit. For example, dog stands instead of sit, a smack on the nose teaches the dog not to stand, dog lies down instead of sit, a smack on the nose teaches the dog not to lie down, dog wanders off sniffing, smack teaches dog not to wander off sniffing. None of the smacks on the nose teach the dog to sit. They just teach the dog not to do other things.

And if your aim is to teach a sit, there are dozens of things that the dog could do wrong, as above standing, downing, wandering off, wandering off sniffing, leaning, half-sitting, jumping around, running off, putting a paw on the owner, picking something up and chewing it, etc, etc. There are probably hundreds of different variations and if you train your dog not to do each of those actions you will find it takes a very long time, and by the time you cover them all your dog will probably have decided not to have anything to do with you. Teaching your dog any other exercise would be exactly the same.

If you have already taught your dog a command and your dog is choosing to ignore it, then either it doesn't fully understand what it is being asked to do, or you're not giving the dog a suitable reward.