February 1st, 2008 at 11.19 am
I am totally disgusted with this show and there inhumane techniques. All this programme uses is punishment and puts fear into those dogs. The training is to long and stressful. Training a dog isn’t something that can happen in a week, it can take months & months. Training is about patience, consistency and also should be fun and positive. To get to the core of a problem and to help a dog to behave takes a long time. Like people, when we train for something or fear something, it isn’t going to take just a day of week to fix the problem. Shouting and punishing us won’t help us, just put the fear into us and stress and make us worse. It is the same for dogs. Dogs have feelings too and show emotions and fear like people. I think before training a dog you need to be in a good mood and calm. On dog borstal they are all aggressive and have a tense approach. It’s very cold and brutal. Why lock the dogs up in cells? Why not let the dogs have its comfort sleeping with the owner. It’s already stressed with the changes.
I watched the programme last night and there was an Australian Kelpie, and the trainer was Robert Alleyne. Kelpies are working dogs. They are friendly and highly intelligent. Keplies need to be stimulated or can get bored and become frustrated. They need plenty of walks and socialisation to be happy. As all working dogs they need plenty of exercise and stimulation. The owner obviously didn’t realise this and wondered why his dog was frustrated and badly behaved. What I witnessed was the Robert Alleyne allowing the owner to shout and be aggressive and intimidating to this poor Kelpie. The dog had a muzzle on as it would bite and get aggressive, well if the owner is going to be aggressive then so is the dog, it will learn and pick this up from the owner. The owner shouted at the Kelpie to sit, just kept on shouting and shouting sit. The dog wouldn’t sit and they couldn’t understand why (because your shouting and stressing the dog out) he then put his hand on the Kelpies bottom and shouted sit and forced the poor dog down, pushed it so hard and the dog would get up and he would force it down again, I’m talking about really hard and nasty. The poor dog just yelped and struggled, the more the dog struggled the more the owner got stressed and forceful, this poor dog just looked sad, stressed and confused, its tail was down and legs bent, showing signs of stress and anxiety. Robert Alleyne said to the owner ‘I’m proud of you’ I was sad and angry to see such cruel and barbaric training. These people don’t seem to understand all dogs are different and all dogs are different to training. There is no respect for these dogs. The whole thing is based around punishment. All this does is make people think that’s the way to teach a dog, shout at it and put your hands all over it and force it into a position. I have dogs and each one reacts different to training, but one thing I always do is make sure I train them in a good mood and have a bag of treats ready to reward them. I train for no longer then 10 minutes about 3 times a day. I find this programme very destructive and nauseating.”

Agree again about the treatment of the Kelpie, it was pretty appalling, wasn’t it?

February 2nd, 2008 at 12.46 pm
I saw my first two shows on the BBC i player just yesterday. I was absolutely shocked to see the treatment of that poor Australian kelpie Biz. It was animal torture with the license payers money. Both the dog and and the owner were tortured in fact. I felt really sorry for the poor man. The ‘trainer’ had no knowledge of the breed and how intelligent they are. They are supposed to be able to handle tough situations. Just like a cattle dog, they are not supposed to give up, it’s what they are bred for. They are not collies. When you work with a kelpie instead against it you get the best out of it. If they had let him show his abilities in the agility track he would have excelled, if they had used positive methods he would have been the best dog out of the lot.
It seemed that the trainer had something against the owners and wanted to break them instead of the dog. How on earth did the trainer think the dog would surrender to his owner in his weak state of mind. It was too cruel to be true. The kelpie was not even given a chance to behave well.

And what are these training methods they used, out of the dark ages. That’s how I was treated when I first started to train for working trials in the early 80’s. Thank God the world of dog training has changed, or so I thought before I saw this appalling show.

Also the white happy bull terrier was called stupid by the even more stupid trainer. It was so plainly obvious what would make the dog tick. Yet again the trainer had no idea how train him. When they first arrived the girl was made to walk with the dog until she broke into tears and was let to continue to be dragged by the dog. That really lets the dog know who’s the boss, a crying owner. Any good man would then jump in and happily take charge and enjoy the training weekend, and that’s just what the dog did.

The lady trainer with the great dane was good and made excellent results with that dog, and with what, a clicker”

Good post there Mindy – well said

This is all very normal behaviour! Try getting in a good dog trainer who is local and understands modern up to date methods such as reward based training.

If you want to use DB methods, then it would be extremely difficult for a trainer who used other methods to help – why would you expect that? If you were willing to forgo rattle bottles or whatever, then I bet they would have helped. You have to understand that trainers who get results from difficult dogs, using different techniques to DB, will find it difficult to work with someone who is convinced that DB methods will work.

Of course, you very probably do not know more about dog training methods than they do – that’s an odd comment. You have presumably been to DB for a short time – you don’t suddenly know everything, no offence. I would not, for example, take you on unless you followd my protocols and training methods – I certainly would not alter my tried and tested methods to suit you, (no offence, again, meant).

Can I just say having been on the show to hear all of those santimonious people out there that feel the training is out dated/harmful – these trainers have the dogs interest as their priority. We were never advised or shown how to mistreat our dog, the trainers aren’t in it for the fame or money. Having been on the show we wanted to continue with our training and guess what not one local trainer would take us on afterwards – and why is that, are they worried that we actually know more about training than they do, one response was that they believed in positive training – so they wouldn’t consider us thats not very positive!? You don’t go on to Dog Borstal for the fun of it you go because nobody else has been able to help and its the last resort, not some puppy socialising club where you use ‘happy voices and chicken’ its the make or break not just for you and your dog but your family’s relationship and sanity, surely rattling a bottle in front of a dogs nose is better than having it put down? Anybody that classed this as as unacceptable then I am more than happy for one of the above postive know it alls to spend a weekend with my dog…without the £60 fee.