[nagdu] GDB's new methods

[Sherry Gomes]

As for the long time trainers, my impression is that they accepted the
change better than the retrains!  The long time instructor who challenged me
to try using food rewards did it by saying, Sherry, if you think we've never
used food to help teach a dog something or help them get over fear, you can
think again.  We've always used it.  That trainer had been at GDB about 15
or so years at the time, no maybe 20 years at the time, and he'd been
training dogs in the military before that.  He had a reputation of being a
no nonsense brusque guy, but was gentle as a kitten with his dogs and had
always sued food rewards in training.



-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Tami Kinney
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:57 PM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nagdu] GDB's new methods

Click! Low-cal smelly salmon treat to you! /lol/

Now I'm eaten up with curiosity, too. I'm really glad to see more and
more of the old-guard programs move towards positive reinforcement
training and applied operant conditioning, for a variety of reasons. But
I'm always curious as to how that's going, since it can be as difficult
for a human to make the switch as it is to get an animal to switch from
negative reinforcement training to positive training. It's a whole
different way of thinking and responding, you see. Understanding the
technique and methodology is only the beginning... It's about
communicating with a foreign entity in a whole new way from a whole new
perspective. So, how do the trainers with years of experience in doing
things one way then translate to the new way? Well, they're all
individuals, so it will vary. I'm also curious as to how that works on
an institutional level. 

Anyway, with positive training methods -- applied operant conditioning
if you want to sound snooty about it -- there are a number of methods
with varying theories behind them. As with anything else, there a
experts in each who insist that their way is the only way and the rest
is bunk. So, then, which any program and its trainers decide upon will
be the one used by the handlers of the dogs they train because that is
what the dog is trained to respond to.... I'm curious to see how this
new trend is applied and how it changes over time and how it works
out...

So any c/t or other positive method handlers in the newfangled modern
way, give info please. /lol/ Inquiring minds and all that!

Tami

On Thu, 2011-09-15 at 08:35 -0400, Tracy Carcione wrote: 
> I thought GDB was using clicker training, the click & treat, with the
> treats decreasing frequency as the dog figured out what was wanted. 
> (That's my understanding of C&T, which I admit is rather vague.)  But I
> was talking to a friend about it, and she thinks that GDB is not clicking,
> just using food rewards, and that the treats never decrease.  She thinks
> that the new GDB graduate is constantly handing out treats, at least at
> every up-curb, and probably other places.  We're picturing a guy
> schlepping a 5-pound bag of kibble for a long walk!
> Are there any recent GDB graduates on the list who've been trained in the
> new methods?  What is it really like? Now I'm eaten up with curiosity! 
> C&T me!
> Tracy
> 
> 
> 
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