# Very revealing video!



## liljaker (Aug 6, 2011)

I do think people try to simplify it many times without really looking at it from the dog's vantage point. Thanks for posting.


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## CT Girl (Nov 17, 2010)

Am I the only one who saw the gorilla right away? Although I have used terminology like "he is blowing me off" when Swizzle disengages I always consider it my fault. My cues were not clear enough, I put him in too stressful a situation or I am not interesting enough. When everything clicks I love to see him prance with pride. I like to keep it positive. I use oops as a marker if he misses a weave pole or approaches an incorrect obstacle and I wonder if that is appropriate for a shy dog.


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## cookieface (Jul 5, 2011)

A few weeks ago, I attended a dog sport event where a number of dogs were wearing prong collars. One prong-wearing dog, who had vomited earlier in the day, was out with his handler and not sitting on cue. The handler cued him to sit and when he didn't comply, she gave a correction. The routine continued for a few attempts until the dog got sick again. I'm sure the handler thought he was "being stubborn" or "blowing her off" when in reality, he was ill.


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## Quossum (Mar 18, 2011)

My favorite trainer, Susan Garrett, has a saying, which I wrote down in bold in my training journal:

*"He's not blowing you off. He's showing you where the value is."*

The challenge as positive trainers is to get the dog to value what *we* want them to value, more than they naturally value sniffing, running about like maniacs, or checking out other dogs. :angel2:

Or, in the case of a fearful or cautious dog, raising their confidence so that they can feel safe seeking value with your commands and not have to worry about that big dog over there, or those funny people walking around, or that gorilla--or whatever.

By the way, the nice thing about the dog conveniently showing you what he values is that he is giving you great information on the kind of things that you can use as rewards!

CT Girl, you asked about the NRM (No Reward Marker), like the word "oops." The NRM can be a very powerful tool, but it has to be wielded ever so carefully. Used properly, it is *completely* neutral and means, "Not quite right, no big deal, try again." I use it with my dog when he misses a weave entry or pole, and upon hearing it he stops weaving and comes dashing back to me, eager to try it again. However, many trainers cannot resist the temptation to put censure in their voice when using the NRM, their "Oops!" becoming increasingly angry or harsh. If the dog cringes, slows down, tries to get away, becomes anxious when he hears the NRM, you're doin' it wrong. When that happens, it has become a punitive tool at worst, and at best an aversive, which is best avoided when trying to teach a free-thinking, independently acting dog. Mind you, some dogs are mentally tough and not really bothered by mild aversives, but for soft dogs, aversives can shut them down. 

Just some thoughts.

--Q


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## cookieface (Jul 5, 2011)

Quossum said:


> My favorite trainer, Susan Garrett, has a saying, which I wrote down in bold in my training journal:
> 
> *"He's not blowing you off. He's showing you where the value is."*
> 
> ...


Great thoughts! When I say cues, I do my best Kikopup voice  I know some think she's too far on the positive side, but I do love her up-beat approach to training.


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

When people tell me that he "knows" the cue and has done it before, but is now "blowing me off," I don't like that. lol. "Knowing" has nothing to do with it. LOL. When people feel that it's okay to give a collar correction or some other thing, it's because they're assuming since the dog "knows"...he's just being stubborn. But consequences drive behavior, not cues. And if a dog is more motivated elsewhere in his environment, it's just not going to work. It's just the way they are. So, it's up to the trainer to make sure the dog has an adequate history of reinforcement for a particular thing, a very trained in method of getting his attention and focus. If the dog has complied a few times, but not this time, he's not being stubborn. He simply needs more training. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.:act-up:


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## liljaker (Aug 6, 2011)

Quossum said:


> My favorite trainer, Susan Garrett, has a saying, which I wrote down in bold in my training journal:
> 
> *"He's not blowing you off. He's showing you where the value is."*
> 
> ...


I love Susan Garrett and her blogs. Agree totally.


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## ItzaClip (Dec 1, 2010)

CT Girl said:


> Am I the only one who saw the gorilla right away? Although I have used terminology like "he is blowing me off" when Swizzle disengages I always consider it my fault. My cues were not clear enough, I put him in too stressful a situation or I am not interesting enough. When everything clicks I love to see him prance with pride. I like to keep it positive. I use oops as a marker if he misses a weave pole or approaches an incorrect obstacle and I wonder if that is appropriate for a shy dog.


if you keep your no reward marker neutral it should be fine, i find the word has a lot to do with it. for ex using the word "wrong" tends to get said more forcefully, negatively and using the "oops" or "try again" or other more neuitral word is often said more neutral to light...just an observance


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## CT Girl (Nov 17, 2010)

Quossum said:


> My favorite trainer, Susan Garrett, has a saying, which I wrote down in bold in my training journal:
> 
> *"He's not blowing you off. He's showing you where the value is."*
> 
> ...



Good, I use it the same way you do and Swizzle does run back to me. I thought I had read Susan Garret stopped using it so I was wondering if I should too. I may have misinterpreted something from her blog. Actually, now that Swizzle is more confident he is more confident to wander off. Before he would stick like glue. It does not happen often but I need to come up with strategies so he does not see that as an option.


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## cookieface (Jul 5, 2011)

I came across this article today:

“But He Knows It!”


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## CT Girl (Nov 17, 2010)

Thank you for the link. It also led me to many informative articles that I enjoyed reading.


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## msminnamouse (Nov 4, 2010)

Some people would argue that the dog being unaware that you gave a command is a correctable offense because they weren't giving the human their undivided attention. 

Yesterday I watched a video that made me really sad and angry. A local dog trainer had a dog on a choke chain attached to a long line, about 20 ft long. He had his wife walking the dog under his instruction. The dog she was walking stopped paying attention to her for a minute to check out another dog they had put in a "down" in the field so the woman turned and ran away from the leashed dog at full speed and force. She did this so hard that she rebounded against the dog's low center of gravity. Imagine the force being applied to this dog's neck. All because he dared to stop paying attention to her for a minute.


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## CT Girl (Nov 17, 2010)

That cruel training is so unnecessary. A nice liver treat or toy could get attention that is not based on fear and intimidation. I am glad you are not posting a link to this video, just to hear about these methods is so upsetting.


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## msminnamouse (Nov 4, 2010)

I liked this thread so much I wanted to come back to it because I didn't add anything that I felt was constructive. 

Eileen has a bunch of great contributions to this. She has a series of "missed cues" videos, one of which links to a blog about "disobedience" and I believe that blog leads to other blogs on the same topic.

This is the series:

Missed cue videos - YouTube

Here's another blog entry by 4pawsu:
Is it really disobedience? | Paws Abilities

I contributed a comment at the bottom about Ginger and her back problems that were representing as "disobedience" and all I had to go through to find out that it was actually a very painful medical problem!

That being said, I never take it for granted when an animal doesn't comply. I always give the benefit of the doubt that there could be a very legitimate reason why, rather than assume that the animal is simply "blowing me off". 

Many people will swear up and down that their dog knows it and is just being stubborn so he deserves <insert type of correction>. 

Well, to that I say, how the heck do you know what's going on in your dog's mind? Can any of us read minds? 

The fact is that many professional trainers even don't quite grasp how dogs learn! Yes, they learn very similarly to humans but they lack much of our human logic and reasoning and there are some key differences in how they learn. Like the first Youtube video shows. Most dogs don't generalize well. 

So if I teach my dog to sit in the living room and then take her outside and command a sit with cars whizzing by, and she doesn't do it, maybe she just genuinely can't generalize the cue to this situation/environment and the cars are too much distraction. So that would be at least two trainer mistakes right there. Lumping criteria (going from the quiet, boring living room to a different, busy and distracting environment without working her up to this level of criteria) and not teaching her how to generalize the command (not having taught it in different scenarios and environments). 

I could give you a million other examples of trainer mistakes and how it effects the dog's compliance and a million reasons for so-called "disobedience". 

If a dog knows a cue, and they can carry it out, what good reason do they have not to if they know that they won't get a worthy reward, or if they're in danger of a correction? What dog enjoys being corrected?? One thing I've observed is that corrections often cause response depression and a frantic rush to comply just in order to ESCAPE a correction. So why would a dog prefer a correction all of sudden to doing a command that they supposedly already know and are quite capable of performing?

I'm tired but I had a point somewhere in all of this! Anyways... when training goes wrong, I think it's much more constructive to consider if there's a medical reason something failed or if perhaps something could have been taught better, which is much more often the case, though I'm not discounting medical causes as they do happen and are very worth consideration. 

It's time we stop shooting the dog!


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