Chat
04-14-2018, 12:11 PM
How are things going with Koby? I haven't had time to work with my goats lately because of new babies and a lot of other stuff going on. Hopefully we'll get a drive in tomorrow. I'm thinking the tongue on our new wagon is about 6-8" too short for our boys. It's working, but it's not ideal and pulls the harnesses to the side when they stop. We need the angle of the yoke strap to attach further forward instead of to the side. Luckily our pole bolts onto the doubletree so it will hopefully be fairly straightforward to add length of tubular steel in the middle.
Sabine, I think we agree way more than we disagree even if it doesn't always look like it.
I agree that the learner should be right as often as possible. If too many mistakes are happening, it's time to reevaluate how we're teaching. And I also agree that it's important not to practice the wrong behaviors. Conventional training absolutely agrees with all of that, which is why it puzzles me that so much of the literature in the clicker training world refers to traditional training in pejorative terms. Traditional trainers have used positive reinforcement successfully for thousands of years, as evidenced by reading the works of Xenophon.
One of the important things to understand about correction is that the animal must learn how to understand it and respond appropriately. Like my dog attack example earlier--if the goat has never had a whip or a rein used on it before, it is unlikely to respond appropriately to a strong application and is more likely to either ignore it or panic and bolt--making the situation worse. Appropriate response to any cue needs to be taught through practice whether we're using only positive reinforcement or a traditional combination of positive and negative. I had to work hard to teach Sputnik not to overreact when I first introduced the whip. He had a tendency to panic and bolt if I so much as tapped it on the ground near him. This was not an appropriate response, and since a whip is an important communication tool for harness training, I had to spend time desensitizing him to it so I could use it safely when we went out on the road. Now he knows that when I tap him with the whip, I'm asking for a specific behavior. So, going back to my example of the dog attack, if I must use my reins and whip strongly to avoid a wreck, my goat is a lot more likely to listen and obey those commands since he has been trained to know what they mean. He's also less likely to have his feelings hurt because he knows these signals have a meaning even if I had to give them very strongly in reaction to a dangerous situation. If he didn't have a good history of understanding correction, he would probably think I was beating him for getting attacked by a dog (totally unfair, totally frightening, totally undermining of trust), which means we will be facing many more training problems after the incident! Teaching animals to understand correction can be as important as teaching them to understand commands.
Sabine, I think we agree way more than we disagree even if it doesn't always look like it.
I agree that the learner should be right as often as possible. If too many mistakes are happening, it's time to reevaluate how we're teaching. And I also agree that it's important not to practice the wrong behaviors. Conventional training absolutely agrees with all of that, which is why it puzzles me that so much of the literature in the clicker training world refers to traditional training in pejorative terms. Traditional trainers have used positive reinforcement successfully for thousands of years, as evidenced by reading the works of Xenophon.
One of the important things to understand about correction is that the animal must learn how to understand it and respond appropriately. Like my dog attack example earlier--if the goat has never had a whip or a rein used on it before, it is unlikely to respond appropriately to a strong application and is more likely to either ignore it or panic and bolt--making the situation worse. Appropriate response to any cue needs to be taught through practice whether we're using only positive reinforcement or a traditional combination of positive and negative. I had to work hard to teach Sputnik not to overreact when I first introduced the whip. He had a tendency to panic and bolt if I so much as tapped it on the ground near him. This was not an appropriate response, and since a whip is an important communication tool for harness training, I had to spend time desensitizing him to it so I could use it safely when we went out on the road. Now he knows that when I tap him with the whip, I'm asking for a specific behavior. So, going back to my example of the dog attack, if I must use my reins and whip strongly to avoid a wreck, my goat is a lot more likely to listen and obey those commands since he has been trained to know what they mean. He's also less likely to have his feelings hurt because he knows these signals have a meaning even if I had to give them very strongly in reaction to a dangerous situation. If he didn't have a good history of understanding correction, he would probably think I was beating him for getting attacked by a dog (totally unfair, totally frightening, totally undermining of trust), which means we will be facing many more training problems after the incident! Teaching animals to understand correction can be as important as teaching them to understand commands.