lori drouin

a great post on one of the email lists from lori drouin...


"The trainers I know who are most consistently successful with many dogs
use a lot of motivation through personal interaction and yes, rewards in
their training system; but every one of them also has clear ways to
inform their dogs when the dogs make mistakes that is not based on a
barter system. It holds up in the ring because they don't show their
dogs until the dogs are seasoned enough that corrections are extremely
rare in training because mistakes are not being made very often at all.
The dogs know they are right because correct and incorrect variations
have been clearly and consistently identified, and good habits of
performance have been set. It holds up because these folks match their
dogs and generalize their training locations enough that the dogs no
longer wonder if either the reward or correction contingencies are in
play in new places; they believe that they are. The dogs already know
they are right in the ring, and praise that is allowed in the ring
affirms it, and absence of any of the "you need to fix this" messages
also affirms that they are right. The dogs may well be thinking about
the tug game or the treats they will get when they come out of the ring
with anticipation, but they aren't thinking that the absence of the
treats in the ring means that they are wrong."