Reliability and the Retrieve: Justifying the Ear Pinch?

[indybindy]

To train those types of dogs with ear pinches, heeling sticks, and other harsh corrections, would have destroyed their positive attitudes and their love of work, don't you think?

Actually FF teaches the dog the absolute and correct response, so they aren't afraid of being wrong. ..cause you taught them the right answer.

The way you talk about FF and performance dogs tells me you really haven't spent much time around the methods or successful trainers. And sometimes you've (generic "you") got to look at your methods and honestly critique your own dogs performance and ask yourself if the methods are really producing the results you are looking for.

[Annette47]

I think that FF can be achieved through different methods (not always an ear pinch), but the main idea is the dog learns compliance is not optional. In my opinion, it depends on the dog what method will be most successful to achieve this understanding. I don’t think all dogs need “harsh” physical corrections, but what is harsh to one dog may be barely noticeable to another. In any training, the methods used should be tailored to the dog, but I am not a fan of “purely positive” where the dog is only rewarded and never corrected. Appropriate corrections and/or compulsion has a definite place in training for me, but the methods I use for each dog may vary. For example, because Chloe doesn’t want to be wrong, a mild correction is usually sufficient to motivate her to change her behavior. Scully was the same way. Mulder, on the other hand, especially as an adolescent, could be a very stubborn, pig-headed pain in the a$$ to train, and often needed stronger corrections to get the point.

I think some of the issue may be how people on this thread are defining FF. To me, it’s not about the method, it’s about the goal, but others may be defining it by the method.

[TuMicks]

Long ago I did a little in the Ob ring... no big deal, just enough to put CD's on 3 of my labs. But it was interesting. I still like to watch Ob practices and competition on line. It would be easier to describe how we use FF if I could show you a very finished retriever at work but getting good video is difficult. Maybe the best video is what you can find on the Super Retriever Series (SRS) videos that are on Youtube. But what you will see is dogs doing very complex work at very long distances from their handler... and we begin all that training, including FF in a typically structured program. Although programs of training vary, the outlines of them look something like this:

1. Conventional basic obedience.
2. Obedience commands used to e-collar condition the dog
3. FF... first conventional, then with the e-collar.

A lot of people use a FF table. As I mentioned earlier, it is not so much pain, as it is anxiety that is used by many trainers. Dogs do not like to be off terra-firma. The table puts them out of their comfort zone. They don't like their feet messed with. On the table, the trainer puts a piece of cord around two toes... a loop. The cord is tightened enough for the dog to notice it. After that, each step of the way, the dog gets rid of the loop by taking the bumper...
1. Right in front of their faces
2. On the table in front of them.
3. A little further down the table... then further... then further... until the dog will run to the end of the table and pick up the bumper on the command to fetch.
After this, the loop is not used, but since the dog is collar conditioned, then the e-collar is substituted. Once the work on the table is done, the training moves outside, and there are formal fetch exercises used. But the issue at this point becomes all about GO... the fetch is already well learned.

This is a very rudimentary explanation, crude even. There are a lot of subtleties I'm omitting (like delivering the bumper correctly, when to fetch, and when to ignore, etc.)

But from this point, once the dog understands GO (and fetch) then he is ready to go into the training yard and begin learning to line to a pile of bumpers. Then he learns to stop on the whistle and take directions to the correct pile of bumpers (right left and back...)

Again, this is very simplified. But what I'm trying to convey is that the FF for the field dog is just a small part of the foundation for almost everything else the he will learn for the rest of his life.

So the FF is used to shape the in-bred strong desire to retrieve, into a compulsion.

I think field people can learn a LOT of cognitive-behavioral concepts from the Ob ring. (That's why I'm reading one of Leslie McDevitt's books now...). Having said that, I'd hope that before you critique field-trainer's use of FF, you could really see how we use it. And I wish I could explain it better than I have.

[windycanyon]

Which part?

Your first sentence. Janice used to use ear pinch / FF as I had her series of training tapes on VHS. She was very much a traditional style trainer up until maybe the past 2 - 3 yrs when she's gone more positive in keeping w/ what JQ Public wants to see/hear.

[Labradorks]

Your first sentence. Janice used to use ear pinch / FF as I had her series of training tapes on VHS. She was very much a traditional style trainer up until maybe the past 2 - 3 yrs when she's gone more positive in keeping w/ what JQ Public wants to see/hear.

I think if you talk to most trainers over a certain age they will tell you that X is the way they used to do it because that was the way it was done. What's wrong with doing things differently if it's a method you prefer with the same or better results? We are constantly improving methods in training, and if she is getting the same results without inflicting that type of training on her dogs, why not? Are you saying her dogs are doing poorly compared to how they did when she used the more traditional methods? Her dog, Remi, is four now, maybe five? I have her video teaching him the clicked retrieve and it starts when he's 12 weeks old. I believe she learned from Denise Fenzi.

[Labradorks]

I think that FF can be achieved through different methods (not always an ear pinch), but the main idea is the dog learns compliance is not optional. In my opinion, it depends on the dog what method will be most successful to achieve this understanding. I don’t think all dogs need “harsh” physical corrections, but what is harsh to one dog may be barely noticeable to another. In any training, the methods used should be tailored to the dog, but I am not a fan of “purely positive” where the dog is only rewarded and never corrected. Appropriate corrections and/or compulsion has a definite place in training for me, but the methods I use for each dog may vary. For example, because Chloe doesn’t want to be wrong, a mild correction is usually sufficient to motivate her to change her behavior. Scully was the same way. Mulder, on the other hand, especially as an adolescent, could be a very stubborn, pig-headed pain in the a$$ to train, and often needed stronger corrections to get the point.

I think some of the issue may be how people on this thread are defining FF. To me, it’s not about the method, it’s about the goal, but others may be defining it by the method.

The article was about the ear pinch, thus defining the method. I force my dog to fetch by withholding food.

[Labradorks]

Actually FF teaches the dog the absolute and correct response, so they aren't afraid of being wrong. ..cause you taught them the right answer.

The way you talk about FF and performance dogs tells me you really haven't spent much time around the methods or successful trainers. And sometimes you've (generic "you") got to look at your methods and honestly critique your own dogs performance and ask yourself if the methods are really producing the results you are looking for.

You're right, I haven't spent much time around field dogs/trainers. I did my research, watched people work their dogs, experienced trainers included, a large handful of MH dogs. I watched the videos and read some books. I went to WCs, picnics, and a hunt test. And that is what turned me off of the FF/ear pinch. I cannot stand a dog that slinks and is whale-eyed, scared to make the wrong move. That makes me want to cry. Right then and there I knew I could not do that to my dog. When my former field trainer kept insisting I put an FF on my dog for no reason, I found a new trainer that would support my decision not to FF or e-collar my dog.

I completely agree with your last sentence. I think that's important regardless of what you are training for and what methods you use.

[Labradorks]

A friend, also a Lab owner, brought this magazine by today. The Retriever Journal from February/March 2015. She said there was a FF article that she couldn't even get through. Now, this is pro-FF and this is the photo in the article. This, in the name of a sport that I want to do? No way.

[TuMicks]

The article was about the ear pinch, thus defining the method. I force my dog to fetch by withholding food.

But you can understand that this method is of limited value if your dog is blinking a duck 250 yards from you... yes?

[Labradorks]

But you can understand that this method is of limited value if your dog is blinking a duck 250 yards from you... yes?

It depends on the dog. How well is the dog trained when you toss a duck 250 yards away from you? Is he trained to that level? Or are you just winging it (pardon the pun) and expecting him to be perfect? The other thing the article brings up is reliability. And the question is, is the reliability worth it? And why are we putting those types of expectations on our dogs? Who and what is ever 100% reliable? If your dog is 90% reliable without an ear-pinch, is it worth it to ear pinch him for that 10%? Not to me and not for this dog.

There are dogs with good retrieves who are not ear-pinched/FF'ed in the tradtional methods. It's not the only answer. It might be the faster answer, but it's not the only answer.