This is a demonstration of a “conditioned retrieve,” which is also popularly known as force-breaking or force-fetching. I now prefer the term “conditioned retrieve.”
Part I
Part II
Just about everything Robert Milner is doing here is negative reinforcement.
What is negative reinforcement?
It is NOT punishment.
Punishment is anything we do to a dog that will cause a behavior to stop.
Reinforcement is anything we do to a dog that will encourage a behavior.
Punishment and reinforcement have positive and negative versions.
Positive reinforcement and positive punishment are when the trainer adds something. Positive reinforcement is giving a dog attention or food for doing a behavior. Positive punishment would be a leash pop or a nick from an e-collar when a dog does something we don’t like.
Now that makes sense.
Negative punishment is when we take something away. Let’s say we have a dog that likes a certain toy, but every time she has this toy, she decides to pluck try to tear it up. We can punish this behavior by taking away the toy every time she starts trying to tear it up.
Negative reinforcement is exactly what you’re seeing in these videos. To enforce the sit command, Milner holds the dog’s collar. This causes the dog discomfort. When the dog sits, the pressure on the collar is released. We’re taking something away to encourage the dog to do something. Negative means taking something away. Reinforcement means something that encourages a behavior.
The toe and ear pinches are also examples of negative reinforcement. The dog really isn’t being hurt here, but it is causing some discomfort. To get rid of the discomfort, the dog has to take something its mouth or release it to get rid of the discomfort.
I’d been trying to understand cognition psychology but I may had missed.
Also an old thing called hunger works like a string in a toe, doesn’t it?
When you take away the hunger by giving a piece of food, isn’t it negative reinforcement?
Anyway a hungry (but comforted and well-controlled ) animal keeps learning really quickly.
Well, that’s one of the US retriever training methods. To use phrase “conditioned retrieve” makes it sound almost acceptable…
However, it really beats me, why to teach/train a retriever to fetch by force as to retrieve is an inborn trait in the breed.
No comments on the other US training specialty as it is not legal in most European countries.
The system of testing and trialing that we have almost requires it. The dogs are run on contrived shooting retrieves, not actual shooting events. Some of these involve what are called blinds– the dog doesn’t see where it fell. And the dogs must run out and back in a straight line.
I wish we did things your way, but we have developed this culture. That’s why are field-line Labs are so much different from yours.
Ok, I’ll bite. What US training method are you referring to?
I’m referring to the conditioned retrieve.
They may scruff the dogs, but it’s considered “not quite cricket” to do conditioned retrieves.
Yes, I’ve seen some scenarios of US field trials. Some of the blinds are really at a considerable distance!
However, can’t quite figure it how prior F/F training is teaching a dog to keep straight lines? I´d rather say it is E/C – don’t you… ;)
Basically, what it does it provides a foundation that the dog will pick up something now matter what whenever it hears the whistle blast. It will do so at any distance.
The dogs have to run in entirely straight lines in the North American system. If a dog has to cross water, it has to turn around and jump back in the water and come straight back. If a dog runs across the bank to get back, which is actually what virtually all dogs do because it’s far faster, the dog has broken a rule. They call them “bank runners.”
The dogs are run out in straight lines to the blinds. If they deviate, they get a whistle sit, where they turn completely around and sit down. They are then directed to the blind.
You have to train dogs not to air scent on their own, which sounds kind of strange.
“If a dog has to cross water, it has to turn around and jump back in the water and come straight back. If a dog runs across the bank to get back, which is actually what virtually all dogs do because it’s far faster, the dog has broken a rule. They call them “bank runners.””
Slight correction–most good judges could care less about the return.
However, if a dog is allowed to bank run on the way back, it’s more likely to bank run on the way out–which isn’t such a horrible sin in and of itself on a single marked retrieve, but it can indicate (not prove–indicate) a reluctance to enter water, which is such a bad thing in a duck dog that even “good” bank running gets close scrutiny.
Then, if there are multiple retrieves involved–two, three, four–the bank running tends to disorient the dog and erode memory, and results in less precise marking and more hunting in the long run on complex memory marks. Since in competition “marking is of primary importance,” anything that erodes memory on the second, third, and fourth birds is a bad thing for competition. Also, it can interfere with a dog’s blind retrieve by further complicating “the picture” (running around in circles in a field with multiple previous marks can do this).
So it’s not the bank running that’s frowned on per se (especially on the way back), but it makes advanced marking and blind running scenarios more difficult–so teaching a dog not to bank run is a fundamental advanced training concept.
But it’s a fundamental flaw if you want a dog to return as fast as possible.
The straight line rule only applies to the same conditions. A dog can run far faster than it can swim.
I just think it depends on your goals. If you are a lone duck hunter who doesn’t anticipate so much action that there will be more than one bird down at a time, who cares?
If you are such a hunter and usually hunt on a river, you may very well WANT a bankrunner.
If you anticipate your dog having to remember multiple marks and also having to pick up blinds through those marks, either for competition or because you will be hunting with a group and expect lots of birds down, it might be more efficient in the long run to have a dog trained for straight lines, because the dog will probably mark better and hunt less and require less handling.
It’s a common topic of debate on the training boards every fall, and there’s no consensus on whether to enforce straight lines in hunting or not. Some think it’s a big deal, others don’t, and others think it depends on the dog.
I see both sides, but my hobby is competition, so straight lines win. Interestingly, the Lab is the bankrunner and caves into other factors and requires constant maintenance on the concept; the flattie has beautiful, fast, straight, stylish lines.
And I don’t believe in competition, so straight lines don’t matter.
I’ve come to the conclusion that competition is the way to wreck a gene pool in a very short time period. The goal becomes to breed from only an elite, instead of thinking about producing a whole line of very good dogs.
It becomes an emphasis on producing a gene pool that can consistently produce over the long term.
This is a major systemic problem.
I believe in testing breeding stock to prevent kennel blindness.
I am just not sure that we need our egos all tied up in this. Because I have yet to find something more destructive than the human ego.
Well, I don’t breed now and probably never will–not ruling it out–but it would be only incidental to having a terrific dog, not to establish any kind of kennel.
If I were in it for my ego, I’d have committed hari kari long ago!
I like to develop a working relationship with my dogs, and watch their natural and trained behaviors as they do what they’ve been bred to do, and what their trainable natures (also what they’ve been bred for, BTW) can accomplish.
It’s just plain fun, as well as challenging and interesting. To me.
The purpose of these things is to determine the quality of breeding stock.
I don’t see any purpose of competition or testing unless that’s what’s in mind.
And if we didn’t have kennel blindness issues, they probably wouldn’t be necessary at all.
That’s how I view dogs.
I don’t get sports. I don’t watch them on TV.
So maybe my brain isn’t able to grasp something here.
I personally prefer a dog that has a bit of its own mind.
There are times when the dog is smarter than I am.
And I’m willing to admit it.
This would never be allowed.
Think of the blind as an extension of the trained retrieve/force fetch. That’s how a blind is taught–
put this right in your mouth and give it to me immediately when I tell you to (beginning force fetch);
pick this straight up off the ground and put it right in your mouth and give it to me immediately when I tell you to (force fetch complete);
go three feet and pick this up and put it right in your mouth and give it to me immediately when I tell you to (walking fetch);
go 20 feet to the white bucket, pick up the item, and put it right in your mouth and give it to me immediately when I tell you to (baby sight blind);
go 20 yards…
go 100 yards…
go 100 yards to the small white bumper…
go 200 yards and you’ll see the small white bumper…
go 200 yards in a straight line and when you get there you will see or smell a duck or bumper (now the dog is doing big-dog blind work)…
Bill, I mentioned above the “unmentionable” ;)
That doesn’t get me any closer to knowing what you are talking about? If it is some major taboo, like the humanzee, just point me in the general direction.
It’s a taboo because in retrievers any “augmentation through training” to enhance retrieving instinct doesn’t allow for people to choose dogs that have “purely’ strong retrieving instinct.
Btw, for me, a well timed e-collar nick is a lot more effective than picking a muddy dog up off the ground and shaking her like a can of paint.
Well, horses for courses – that’s it. ;)
I’m not against e-collars.
Bill, E/C = electronic collar.
Some people seem to have it in a wider correctional use… :(
http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=1209672&page=1