# Those that Kill but Won’t Correct



## Adjecyca1 (Jul 25, 2010)

Video here :http://vimeo.com/95776340

Article:http://www.boundangels.org/those-that-kill-but-wont-correct/


> There is a trend in dog training that is ever more popular, yet their vigilance ends up hurting many dogs. This trend is the “positive only” movement.
> 
> Last month I was in Prescott Arizona working with the humane society. On my last day I was asked to work with a dog that was set to be put down for aggression. I’ve worked with my share of aggressive dogs in shelters and in my private work, so people often refer to me when dealing with these type dogs. More often than not, the cookie trainers have turned their backs and some activists say that if you need to use compulsion to correct a dog it’s better to put that dog down. Well, some compassionate humane societies are standing up against that concept, the Yavapai Humane Society is one of them. Nacho had been at the shelter for over 70 days.
> 
> ...


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

Oh look, another article by someone with training philosophy A making vague accusations against mysterious yet unidentified "some activists" with training philosophy B and calling them names. 

I wonder if the sun will set in the west tonight? 

*yawn*


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Of course, he didn't actually try the other training philosophy, likely doesn't know how to use it and we can't verify any of this. Uh huh.


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## sandgrubber (May 21, 2014)

It would be hard to construct a scientific study comparing positive only vs positive with aversive methods for handling dogs with temperament and or behavioral problems. If anyone knows of a study that has done so, I would love to see references. 

I don't see that either side, or the many shades of each, has a claim to Truth. I know my bitches use aversives in training their pups, so 'balanced training' has face validity for me. On the other hand, I've the wrong aversive in the wrong situation make a dog fearful rather than correcting the behavior. Back to the first hand, I've also seen some e-collar trained retrievers do amazing work with no apparent sign of neurosis.

Like so many things, it's complicated. Who am I to judge?


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## RCloud (Feb 25, 2011)

sandgrubber said:


> It would be hard to construct a scientific study comparing positive only vs positive with aversive methods for handling dogs with temperament and or behavioral problems. If anyone knows of a study that has done so, I would love to see references.
> 
> I don't see that either side, or the many shades of each, has a claim to Truth. I know my bitches use aversives in training their pups, so 'balanced training' has face validity for me. On the other hand, I've the wrong aversive in the wrong situation make a dog fearful rather than correcting the behavior. Back to the first hand, I've also seen some e-collar trained retrievers do amazing work with no apparent sign of neurosis.
> 
> Like so many things, it's complicated. Who am I to judge?


Agreeing with this pretty much. While I prefer to use primarily positive training, I've seen enough to know it doesn't always work, and sometimes you have to train with corrections. No judging from my end.


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## goodgirl (Jan 14, 2013)

I've seen a couple other videos by this goof ball. What I see is that white dog only wants to increase distance from the brown ones. He does not like his handler, in fact the 2nd brown dog does not like that handler. Once he looks at him and lifts his lip then looks away, like a sneer. The white one made moves 3-4 times saying he'd like to bite that handler's leg or hand, just to make him stop the leash corrections, but he's better than that. He was mostly trying to appease him. If they think that's dog reactivity, I could show them some REAL reactive dogs. By the way he was holding his mouth while barking at the other dog it looked like fear aggression and mild at that. Probably never socialized to other dogs as a pup. Since the white dog was trying to increase distance, I bet he'd respond real well to systematic desensitization and counter conditioning with the owner helping to manage the distance. Build a good relationship with an owner, learn some foundation skills first. Real meat treats. The other handler with the German Shepard was doing a great job. The 2nd dog was more stable and wise. That's what I saw in it anyway, but I'm just an amateur!


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

I don't even care how he trains dogs. What keeps me from taking articles like this seriously are the unnecessary insults, logical fallacies and cognitive biases. 

(And specifically for this article and others like it, I'm still waiting to see any credible, specific accounts of people who would actually rather kill a dog than use a correction on it, a claim which I've seen multiple times in various articles/blogs/etc.)


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## Miss Bugs (Jul 4, 2011)

> (And specifically for this article and others like it, I'm still waiting to see any credible, specific accounts of people who would actually rather kill a dog than use a correction on it, a claim which I've seen multiple times in various articles/blogs/etc.)


well I have personally been told this, sooo.... not by some big name trainers being as I have never consulted any, just by random local "positive" trainers so I don't have any names or quotes to throw out there. but when Rusty was aggressively attacking everything and their methods not only didn't help, they made him increasingly MORE aggressive?? you bet I was told he was "un savable" and he should be "put down". and when I went "rogue" and switched to heavily correcting him and pinning him(which worked), I was called abusive. 

I am a "train the dog not the method" type trainer(now lol), I couldn't care less about either side of the debate, but as often as I see articles like the above, I see just as many if not MORE people respond in fury, with claims like " purely positive only" trainers don't exist and how anyone who says anything even remotely in favour of corrections just has no idea what they are talking about and they are making things up etc... and 99% of the time half the crap being spewed about the article/author has no basis in reality...heck half the time it has no basis on the article its just blind ranting that makes me struggle to believe any of these people even READ the article.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

> Sadly, most dogs that have behavioral problems have problems because of the fanatical movement that wants to abolish any corrections in training.


Seriously, I don't know where people are living that has so many needle-happy positive-training types. Pretty much everyone I know would gladly beat the crap out of a dog (or kid for that matter) if they thought it would get them their desired results. . .and guess what? Most of the time it doesn't _because they aren't doing what they do effectively_, which I imagine would apply to any training type. I mean, I hate to say that there's any way to use brutality effectively but some people DO get their desired results, so I suppose it comes down to timing or something like that. But most people don't use it (or any training method) effectively. It takes a fair amount of knowledge, experience, and gut instinct to train an animal effectively and I don't think most people have those.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

I WANT people to name names. Because people who would rather kill than correct are causing people to totally misunderstand positive training and they need to be called out by people who use primarily positive based training but aren't opposed to judicious correction when needed (which, I think, is a LOT of people on this forum and elsewhere). 

But I never see anything in any of these articles except vague claims of boogeymen killing dogs all over the country. (Along with unsubstantiated claims like the one willowy quoted above).


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## Robbi (Nov 19, 2013)

Haven't yet watched the video buuuuut here's a thought on the article:

I'm sorry, I have to read everyone elses responses, but one thing that really really stood out to me was "positive training doesn't work, so then will you kill the dog?" What? that is such a huge jump!! It's like there is only one manner of positive training, when in reality there is tons of ways to solve a problem with positive training. If your dog jumps on guests when they come in through the door, you teach them to sit when they greet guests. But that doesn't work, so you teach them to go to a place until things can settle down, but that doesn't work, so you teach them to stay by your side when guests arrive....It's up to you to find what will work...I'm not saying you can always find the answer alone, sometimes you need a professional to help you, but it's articles like these that allow people to go from a few halfhearted training attempts to the shock collar because it makes their lives easier. 

Training is hard, and it takes work and patience. Dealing with an untrained dog is harder, but often comes with quicker fixes.


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## JohnnyBandit (Sep 19, 2008)

Nothing good will come of this thread.


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

I saw "positive only" and stopped reading. We've had that discussion.


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## Fatdog (Jun 1, 2014)

I'm starting to realize there are a lot of "experts" in the area of dog training. I did watch the video and I have a question. 

The trainer uses 2 leashes. One is a slip lead the other is a prong collar. I initially thought he was using the slip collar for safety to make it easier to control the dog if it went bonkers. Then the prong for corrections. 

That's not what I saw. He would do essentially a correction with the prong collar and call it a redirection. Then when that did not work he lifted the dog with the slip lead. Essentially choking it and called that a correction. I understand why he he "lifted" the dog. I'm confused why he called the prong a redirection and the "lift" a correction. Seems like the lift was a more serious correction when the prong was not working. Point blank both where corrections.


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## Greater Swiss (Jun 7, 2011)

I'm generally open to give most philosophies a chance (at least in theory, and in my mind, not necessarily in practice unless it proves worthwhile). I read the article ad thought, ok....not agreeing so far, but maybe I'm just being biased in my reading. Then I watched the video (well...as much as I was willing to watch anyway). When the part is written about "lifting the dog" I got irritated, really irritated. 

It states that it "Calms the dog and returns it to a neutral state". Um NO, it shuts the dog down! I will say that I consider that it is a viable approach if a dog is actively attacking in an unexpected situation, in an extreme situation if your only option is to kill the dog or make it shut down because there is serious maiming about to occur or is already occuring...ok, I can see it as a life or limb option. NOT something to actually SET UP!!! I mean WHAT!!!???? Ignorant and cruel. 

I agree with the use of careful corrections, or even using some heavier corrections in an absolute last ditch effort (by someone experienced) to work on a dog that is severely human aggressive. The approach in this video, the setting up the dog to shut it down!! It is cruel and on top of it, if that dog makes it through and gets deemed "saved", who knows, it could be a time bomb, not a dog I could ever trust. NOTHING like real aggression and reactivity can be solved in 15 minutes. 

I have met and heard of the odd person that takes the mantra "ignore the bad reward the good" too far, and too literally, and their dogs can be a pain in the butt, and I can see how that could create big problems in the wrong dog...but this approach is way too much. It is like they are taking "death row dogs" and experimenting on them.


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## sandgrubber (May 21, 2014)

Training methods should be judged more by their long term outcomes and less by the trainers' spiel. 
It seems to me that most shelters euthanize dogs like Nacho. 
To form a judgement I'd want to see how the Nacho behaves a month or two down the line. Even better, a year or two.
If the training does not have a long term negative impact and the dog does not,in the hands of a 'normal' owner, revert to aggressive behavior, I'd say: "It's not pretty but it works." If the dog ends out a nervous wreck, or ends out reverting to DA patterns, especially if it goes on to kill someone's pet, I would say euthanasia would have been a better option.
I find these discussions frustrating, because there's so little systematic follow-up.

Has anyone ever seen systematic followup on the dogs Cesar Milan supposedly cures on the TV show? 

As for "Kill but Won't Correct", the big question for me is how much is required to correct. Some aspects of dog behavior seem to be genetically programmed and very hard to correct. Reactive dogs seem to stay reactive, though their impulses can be redirected. From what I've seen, no training method reverses temperament faults, such as inbred aggression, reactivity, shyness, etc.. Trainers can bring about improvement through conditioning, but it takes a dedicated and fairly skilled owner to maintain the improvement.


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## Sarah~ (Oct 12, 2013)

sandgrubber said:


> Training methods should be judged more by their long term outcomes and less by the trainers' spiel.
> It seems to me that most shelters euthanize dogs like Nacho.
> To form a judgement I'd want to see how the Nacho behaves a month or two down the line. Even better, a year or two.
> If the training does not have a long term negative impact and the dog does not,in the hands of a 'normal' owner, revert to aggressive behavior, I'd say: "It's not pretty but it works." If the dog ends out a nervous wreck, or ends out reverting to DA patterns, especially if it goes on to kill someone's pet, I would say euthanasia would have been a better option.
> ...


:thumbup::thumbup:


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## So Cavalier (Jul 23, 2010)

> NOTHING like real aggression and reactivity can be solved in 15 minutes.


Agree. (too short)


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## petpeeve (Jun 10, 2010)

One thing that stood out for me was the trainer used a hopped-up, excited, semi-reactive GSD helper dog to provoke Nacho in the beginning ... but then conveniently switched over to using a docile, "neutral", totally non-reactive mixed breed to *prove* his method works. Pffft. Talk about cherry picking the helper dog. Certainly not what I consider real world parameters. Having Nacho go back into the compound with the GSD would have been a more convincing test of worthiness and end result. I remain completely unconvinced, regardless.

Also has he (or anyone else there at the shelter) never heard of CC, DS, LAT etc ? whereby a gradual reduction of distance and staying under threshold directly replace any need for physical corrections. 70 days and scheduled to die my ass, either that or incompetent boobs all around.


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## sandgrubber (May 21, 2014)

btw., it's worth reading further posts in the same blog. I thought the articles on Flirt Poles in Shelters and the Decompression Phase made a lot of sense. Having read a little more, I'd say the post in question vents a lot of frustration with people who give up on dogs and a thoughtful approach to preventing dogs from going nuts in shelters and making sure they aren't overwhelmed on going home from a new shelter.


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## Greater Swiss (Jun 7, 2011)

sandgrubber said:


> btw., it's worth reading further posts in the same blog. I thought the articles on Flirt Poles in Shelters and the Decompression Phase made a lot of sense. Having read a little more, I'd say the post in question vents a lot of frustration with people who give up on dogs and a thoughtful approach to preventing dogs from going nuts in shelters and making sure they aren't overwhelmed on going home from a new shelter.


Ahh, you read some of the other stuff too! I had a quick skim later on, and there are some pretty sensical points throughout. I do agree that they are venting some frustration, and I gotta say I respect that completely. It is frustrating how easily people give up on some dogs...the dog in the video was an extreme case, but the point is still valid. I agree with your other post as well....very good points!

I do get what they are doing...extreme measures in a last effort to keep the dog from being euthed. I still don't like setting the dog up to be "lifted". I think it should have been with a better choice for the other dog, and done slower. I really don't like the "15 minute fix" that the video implies. I strongly doubt that they intend to say that 15 minutes cured that dog....but the wrong people come across that video (like some people who see CM episodes and start a "training" program of pinning and such) might think....oh, that'll cure my dog, I'll do that. I'm sure (or I certainly hope) that there was continued work on that dog, and less harsh and intense. Overall, if they only had one day to work with that dog, I think they should have taken a LOT longer than 15 minutes over the procedure they showed. Bigger distance, longer time, less harsh, at least give the dog a chance to react a bit better instead of flooding it like that.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

If you were a shelter with limited resources and legal liability for adopting out a dog with a known risk of biting, you might "give up" on some dogs "too soon," too.


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