Originally Posted by
awackywabbit
With Takoda I ventured into the positive only training side. I've trained dogs for obedience since the late 80's using traditonal methods(choke/prong collars etc). Hunter was the first dog I had used the e-collar on but he was by far the best trained dog I've owned. I can't really say it was all due to the e-collar though because the hours spend training with him far surpasses my previous pet dogs.
I found that for me at least training positive was really frustrating. I struggled with getting the timing down and maintaining patience. I stuck with it though and I am still learning 4.5 years later. It took me MUCH longer to get reliable obedience from Takoda then it did my prior 3 dogs who were trained using traditonal methods. I'm talking just the basic sit/stay/down/come/heel off leash with distractions. Takoda still struggles with sit & heel in high distraction environments. I have purposely not used a prong collar on him in these 4.5 years just to see if I could work through these issues with him and we're still working on them.
I like training using postitive only methods its fun and it's challenging but at the same time for me at least it is extremely frustrating. Takoda when he is highly distracted loses all interest in rewards be it high value food or a toy/tug. I know it is likely my fault I've missed something along the way but for the life of me I am still trying to figure out what that was and try to fix it.
I don't want to say positive only doesn't work, it does, but it has been a frustratingly slow process for me at least. It may just be using traditional training with my prior dogs kinda spoiled my ability to embrace positive only since I knew how effective traditional methods can be. The jury is still out for me though. Training dogs is an art not a science and both myself and my dogs will continue to learn for our lifetimes. I just hope that I can be as fair and straightforward as possible with my dogs so that together we can share an amazing partnership both at home and in the field.