"Dog Borstal" TV show

Any UK posters been watching this? What did you think?
Im not sure if its been shown anywhere else but its been on for 4 weeks now on BBC3. I think last Mondays was the last episode.

I thought it was fantastic. It gave a very clear view of what trainers/behaviourists sometimes have to deal with as far as some of the owners go and brings up issues of dogs that have gone through 'positive only' training methods and failed miserably...making the point that not every dog can be trained with 'positive only' methods.
With the method I use for training, the guy that devised the method and my 'mentor' I would say at least 30% of our clients (the boss put it at about 50% or a little more and hes the one that did most of the pre-training interviews) were dogs that had either been 'expelled' from 'positive only' training classes due to being 'untrainable' or had passed but with poor results and they didnt retain the training for long.

Mic Martin is awesome, some have said his bedside manner could do with some work but I see where hes coming from and I know how frustrating it can be sometimes. Fudge and his 'teddy', Dale and Flake....what an idiot, I really felt sorry for the dog as it turned out that Dale really wasnt interested in training his 'intact, about 5 year old out of control JRT' he apparantly said that he only did the training so he could have his 15 minutes of fame on the TV....how sad for Flake!!! (As per an interview with Rob Alleyne, one of the other trainers)

Lucky for the white GSD's owner that he wasnt with Mic for the whole program, I think the guy would have quit.

Anyway, heres a couple of websites for it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/tv/dogborstal/index.shtml



And Martins website:

http://www.lotti-fx.co.uk/hdts/

Im really hoping they do another series.

 

Hi Dels,
I've watched this a few times now, albeit with the volume off half the time as Floob barks at dogs barking on the TV and it's on at 10pm here when Mr Nik is in bed. Anyway...

I was horrorfied when I first saw it. I'm very much a possitive/praise person, not just with animals but with everything in life. I'm an old hippy who's just for love and peace :lol:

However, I decided to watch it again and started to see how 90% of his methods worked. I like how the people get 'punished' for 'failing' their dog. So many people don't see it's what they do/say to their dog is why they are how they are. I'm not saying everyone has made their dog into what it is, but on this program it quite clearly is their fault.


I also have to admit that I've failed with the 'negative into possitive' way with Floob in one area. I've tried for a year now to get him used to greeting dogs on leashes again, but nothing has worked so I'm at a training class where the instructor is a monster

He's good, but not my type of 'attitude' He has that program down to a T. I think it's very 'old school' so I'm taking tips and training Floob with a mixture of both and he's a different dog. His heel work is amazing and it's only been 2 weeks. He just has more confidence and enthusiasm. We're yet to meet a dog out on the street but we'll see how it goes.

Back to Dog Borstal... I'd say for people to give it a chance, it's not everyones cup of tea.

(It's still not mine, and I don't watch it anymore, but it does give options to people who have failed with training the 'possitive only' way.)

 

Hi Del, I have been watching it and think its great.
I agree Mic's bedside manner needs work but then i also think well he seems to geth through to people the importance of a well trained dog out in society.

The one with the white German Shepherd really annoyed me that owner really needed a kicking as he was just sad, I think he loves having a dog that acts like that and if you noticed that when the dog went into agrresive mode he seemed to be amused by it.

Some of the owners listen and do really well with the training, But then you got the ones like the owner of the chocolate lab that was told not to give him milk in his food and to only feed how the trainer told her, Yet she reckons over night that he had lost weight because his collar slipped off, well no dog can lose that much weight over night lol.

I really like it but none of the training methods have worked with ice, I am going to start taking her out and doing one on one with her see if i can get through to her that being good is better than being a pain in the a** lol.

But yeah i would have to recommend Dog borstal to anyone.

Did you see the tv programme on overweight animals there was a rottweiler on there she was larger than a male sea lion and the owner said she is not over weight and is healthy the poor dog couldnt even walk properly and had to be in pain because of the weight she had to carry you could just say see her legs she was that big.

Mike

 

Oh yeah, that poor Rott...I thought the owner was going to sock the groomer at one point....like we say in the animal hospitals...."theyre going to love them to death"...!!!

Well I heard that BBCAmerica might be running it in the near future for anyone in US thats interested and I heard that there 'might' be a second series in UK.

I really hope they do another series, someone in UK has a dog blog and there were some interesting comments made on there about it....I think my favourite was from someone who didnt like Mic at all, she said "dogs are not wolves, therefore they are not dominant"....this was after the show with the Weimeraner (Louis).

Heres the link:

http://dogsrule.co.uk/blog/dog-media/do ... -3-review/

 

That was good reading but have you noticed there was a couple of people that were saying the training methods were horrible and no good, Yet as i look at it those methods changed the dogs.

None showed fear or aggression towards owner or trainer by the end of the week and most of them passed with no problems.

The only dogs that did not pass in my opinion is the dogs with owners that just would not pay attention and take into account it is not always easy to train a dog out of habits that it has become accustomed to.

Yes Mic Martin is abit abrupt and straight to the point but he cant be all bad he trained police/guard/military dogs and almost all dogs he has trained have listened to him without any problems.

He is firm with both dog and owner, I look at it this way if the owner knew basic training then there would be a few less problems to be addressed but most people just want to have them as babies.

Yes my dogs are my babies but they are not wrapped up in cotton wool and protected from the world, and they sure do not lapse in there training.
A person that owns a dog should always carry on training there dog no matter what as it only takes one laspe in the training and the dog can revert back to his/her bad habits.

There is no such thing as a bad dog just bad owners....

But like i say these are just my opinions...


Mike

 

This was important but I think a lot of people missed that. They take one look at Mic, hear him yelling at someone and decide that his methods are ' out-dated or barbaric.' (I think those words were used in the dog blog).

 

I have not been able to see the show, since I live in the US, but if it comes over here that sounds interesting. I just thought I'd comment on the whole positive training thing. I know that for some dogs, that works. For instance, my dog Snickers just wants your attention, so even giving her negative attention makes her happy, though not as happy as positive attention. So for Snickers, while I do say "no" when she does something she isn't supposed to, she doesn't get punished for it, I give her a chance to do it right, and she gets a reward when she does that. Ranger, on the other hand, while positive training works for most things with him, it doesn't work for all things. For instance, we have an electric gate across our driveway, and he finds being able to run around the neighborhood much more rewarding that coming back to teh backyard for a rawhide. The rawhide works for Snickers, but for Ranger, he has to know that there will be a consequence if he runs out. The consequence varies though, sometimes it is a tap on the butt, and other times I carry him home, something he hates. Anyway, that's kind've my opinion on the whole training with negatives thing.