I want some good sources of information on basic training of adult dogs. I also want some good sources of information on agility training with the basis on the foundations of that training.
If there are books or other that give so fun things to do with dogs - games of some kind - that would be great also.
Thanks.
Sue Ailsby Training Levels.
Ditto!
It seems that this is the book. Thanks you three, for the recommendation!!
Well, I’ll be the lone voice and offer something different. I don’t believe he’s as popular as he once was, but try Wm Kohler (I think that’s the spelling). He was a trainer back in the days before we were quite as PC.
I used his method to train all my dogs and man, were they TRAINED. I lived right in the heart of LA for 3 years and never had either of my dogs (a GSD and a Bull Terrier) on a leash. Didn’t need to…they were that good.
I’d go to the local Ralph’s (grocery store) and put them both on a down stay…and I could be in the store for an hour and they would still be right there where I left 'em.
His background was training dogs for the Army in WWII, police dogs, and movie/TV dogs. He trained the dogs for the original “Incredible Journey” and those movies about a Irish Setter, among others. Anybody who can train a Bull Terrier AND an Irish Setter, has my respect.
Thanks, I will look into him and his books. Thanks!
It shows how little I know when I don’t recognize either of these names. This is very helpful.
I went to their website. http://www.koehlerdogtraining.com/home.html
The author mixes up a lot of learning theories and makes huge assumptions. He assumes that the dog will make the correct choice quickly.
re: loose lead walking,
"His instincts will be to somehow lessen the discomfort around his neck, and when he finally moves toward you, also an act of his choosing, the line will indeed slacken and the dog will have made a more correct choice; one which results in comfort. "
Unfortunately, I know of far too many dogs who don’t make the connection and repeatedly make the same error, of moving forward into the collar over and over. According to the author, you then move in the opposite direction, allowing the collar to self correct. What if your dog doesn’t figure that out? You just keep doing it, till the dog does? What is that saying about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing expecting different results?
I’ve used the Koehler method. I got a dog who sorta kinda knew where heel position was but her attitude was pretty squashed. She didn’t want to look at me, and wasn’t a happy worker. Was this dog too sensitive? Probably not, she more likely just didn’t make the connection.
For further exploration, I would turn you toward Denise Fenzi. Denise does Schutzhund and AKC obedience. She is a TOP competitor and does not use prongs, slip/choke collars and gets some kinda amazing results. She also has a blog and she has a new puppy (Brito), where you can follow his progress. In addition to that, she has some online courses that are quite affordable, and she has attracted the likes of Sue Ailsby, Deb Jones PhD, Amy Cook PhD, and a host of others. The courses run the gamut from good manners to IPO. You can check out her training on youtube and she is on FB as well.
If you are interested in doing agility eventually (I’m guessing from the suggestions for agility books), I would definitely steer clear of any “traditional” obedience trainers like Koehler. Regardless of whether the methods work or are things you would do, they are designed to create a very different type of relationship with the dog than what you want in an agility dog. I haven’t personally seen much of Denise Fenzi’s teaching, but I’ve seen some of her working with her dogs and have ordered her newest book myself. I’m not a great “book learner”, so we will see how it goes!
Since I don’t do well with instructional books on dog training, I’m not much help with suggestions. I do love reading theory type stuff, and highly recommend Susan Garrett’s “Shaping Success” and Patricia McConnell’s books “The Other End of the Leash” and “For Love of a Dog”.
Kohler himself has been dead for years, so this must be his son or something. Kohler was older when I first discovered him and that was about 45 yrs ago.
Again, all I can say is that my dogs had the best recall EVER and were ALWAYS aware of where I was. They were resistant to just about every distraction in the world (you can imagine Los Angeles). But again, I worked hard at it and took it step by step.
See if you can get some of his ORIGINAL books. It never hurts to have afew extra tricks in your training bag…
I appreciate the discussion, too.
The dogs I’m interested in getting, and hopefully will soon, are quite different individually. They are adult dogs of different breeds. The dog that will do a bit of agility is a very specific personality, extremely intelligent, and clear cooperative discussion is the only thing that we could do with her. One is just a dog who wants a leader he can trust, but he’s not an agility candidate from what little I know. He’s just going to be a trail companion and playmate.
For these dogs and for our meager goals, a rougher approach is not the best approach, though reading the ideas of Kohler will be very interesting and helpful.
For the little agility dog (just low level playing for now and maybe forever), we are also going to breed specific training information.
I will follow up on all of the information.
Thanks!
[QUOTE=cowboymom;7263044]
http://sue-eh.ca/resources/SueAilsby.pdf
Good reading. :)[/QUOTE]
Bless you! I need A. something to read and B. A good way to train my foster do.
That isn’t Kohler Sr., I assure you. They are probably trying to sugar-coat it for today’s market.
The way the original book taught was you started on a long line (like 20ft), with a standard (not prong) chain collar. You walked a pattern, and did not try to control where the dog was by pulling. But when they got ahead of you, you turned and RAN the opposite direction.
Very, VERY quickly the dog learned that they needed to be at your heel…it was the best place to be. And then you started putting in distractions (I remember we carted my house cat down to the training yard to use her…:D)…it takes almost no time at all before the dog thinks the “distraction” is trouble, and actually gets closer to you.
Again, this guy trained police dogs who had to be impervious to all distractions. And it made dogs that you could be confident in in terms of recall and heeling.
Not saying it’s the only way, but it sure did work. I don’t think I’d use it on a hypersensitive, shy dog, but on the independent, rather stubborn types (like the Bull Terrier) who tend to selective deafness, it was GREAT!
[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7264109]
That isn’t Kohler Sr., I assure you. They are probably trying to sugar-coat it for today’s market.[/QUOTE]
Dude said he worked with the Koehlers. shrug.
[QUOTE=threedogpack;7264111]
Dude said he worked with the Koehlers. shrug.[/QUOTE]
Well, there you go! Just 'cause I worked for Frank Whitely (Hall of Fame TB trainer) doesn’t make me him…
I’m definitely interested in reading the original Kohler material. It seems that his approach was one born of a mistakes-can-be-fatal idea.
The entire subject is quite interesting to me. It’s been a few years since we had a dog, and we’re hoping this works out.
[QUOTE=Coyoteco;7264131]
I’m definitely interested in reading the original Kohler material. It seems that his approach was one born of a mistakes-can-be-fatal idea.
The entire subject is quite interesting to me. It’s been a few years since we had a dog, and we’re hoping this works out.[/QUOTE]
This is his “primer” on basic obedience training. He has other books as you will see.
Used…a big fat 58 cents + $3.99 for s/h. Beware of anything published after 1980, because that’s someone else messing with it.
And read the reviews please…35 o/o 50 give it 5 stars, but of course some bleeding hearts think it’s terrible. But pay attention to who is writing the reviews…one person is a trainer for 20 yrs of guide dogs (talk about dogs that need to ignore distractions!) and recommends it.
Example of some of the reviews:
[I]Let me start off by saying, I am not giving this book 5 stars, because the book is NOT perfect. But it’s better than anything else IF your dog fits a certain profile.
My dog: a rescue pit bull/pharaoh hound mix. Who put these two dogs together? An idiot. What I rescued was an ultra strong, ultra fast, pure muscle dog with a prey instinct through the roof. She was abused, neglected, and left half starved when I got her. She has high anxiety and is terrified of other dogs. Shortly after I got her, we were on a walk and an off leash dog attacked her and nearly killed her. Ever since then, she’s been very dog aggressive.
Me? I’m a 5’4" 130 pound woman trying to handle 60 pounds of pure anxiety and aggression. I was at my wits end because I loved her dearly, but was thinking I was going to have to put her down. Clicker trainer did nothing, because she is not food motivated. When I first got her, I had to basically beg her to eat and drink and still to this day, I can leave a bag of food next to her bowl and she won’t touch it unless I give it to her. I took her to FIVE trainers. I am not lazy, I am not cheap. FIVE trainers of various methods. Even a doggy shrink. Nothing helped her. Her separation anxiety was a nightmare, she would howl all day long and I nearly got kicked out of my apartment. She would break out of her crate every day and leave blood every where. I was in tears every day. We were walking/running/and hiking six miles a day (3 before work, 3 after) and I still couldn’t tire her out or calm her down. Xanax did nothing, valium did nothing.
Enter a brilliant and KIND dog trainer who introduced me to the Koehler method.
He had me get the book and told me plainly: skip the last bit, your dog isn’t human aggressive and we won’t ever be doing any of those things to her. The language in the book is harsh and I will admit, my delicate liberal arts self felt a little afraid of what I had signed on for.
But my trainer was so kind and patient with my dog. Don’t listen to anyone who says you “punish the dog before you teach them.” UNTRUE. For our first lesson and the week afterwards, my girl and I just practiced walking around each other. She was getting to know me on a long leash and running around a park. We felt safe because we were supervised by our trainer.
THe second week, her leash got shorter and I walked in more directions, turning quickly. Instead of keeping her eye out for prey to hunt, she kept her on me: “what is mommy doing? I should watch mommy.”
In fact, it wasn’t until nearly four weeks in that corrections started getting made. I was working with my dog for an hour every day, which was great fun for her and tiring for the first time ever because she was having to use her brain. Rain or shine, we were in an empty park by my house every day before and after work, practicing.
It took us longer than the 8 weeks he says it can be done, this is true. And she did once get a rap on her nose from the trainer but that was because she was lunging at another dog. Is it better to let a tiny dog be torn to bits by my dog or have my dog physically punished to stop her? This is what the koehler method is really about: saving “hard” but good dogs from euthanasia.
My dog does NOT hate me, she loves me. She is not afraid of me. She is also no longer afraid of other dogs or aggressive towards them because she knows, if she stays close to my side she’ll be safe. When she starts to stress, I have her “do work”, such as sitting, laying down, heeling, etc, and she relaxes, her mind focused on “work.”
Her separation anxiety DISAPPEARED. She knows I am going to come home and that she is safe in her crate.
The whole thing is a miracle, but you need a good trainer to go along with the book, the book should really NOT be used alone. The nuances of how to move around your dog are subtle and you WILL get them wrong, even holding the leash correctly, unless you have someone there with you.
So while I recommend the method, I do not recommend the book alone. [/I]Not sure I agree w/needing a trainer, as I was only 15-20 some years old when I used it and with no trainer…
And this one:
Buying this book was the best decision I could have made. I have a Cane Corso that no trainer has been able to help me with. With this book I have seen more progress than with the $1000 trainer I had hired. I would recommend buying and reading this book before wasting money on a trainer. My dog will not listen to anyone but me so you can see why a trainer was not any help for me. People who say that this method is inhumane has not read the whole book. This method is used as a last resort for many difficult and aggressive breeds that other methods have failed. This book will also help you understand how a dog interprets certain behaviors from their owners. I really hope this helps others as much as it has helped me.
There are many more. Naturally afew are scandalized at the very idea of training a dog by any means other than clicker/food, but this simple DOES NOT WORK on some dogs…and personally, I’ve never found it as reliable in those “oops…” moments.
The fact that so many people stilll find this book a lifesaver when it was published in 1976, pretty much says it all. It’s stood the test of time.
You want a dog who is reliable over and over and OVER again off-leash? Try this. And for less than a buck, how can you lose?
But DO follow the book exactly and don’t miss steps. You will be amazed how well this works.
Not adult specific, but this is required reading for our puppy buyers.
[QUOTE=Tom King;7264206]
Not adult specific, but this is required reading for our puppy buyers.
Deb Jones has a training module with Denise Fenzi, called…Raising a Perfomance Puppy.
she is excellent.
