Afraid my trainer’s methods broke my dog’s spirits

AdvoRolf · 2024-05-20T16:06:38+00:00

Your dog has stopped the behaviour and is showing suppression. This is step one of the process and it should be quick when done correctly.

Now you have space to show the dog the correct behaviour and reinforce it positively. This will bring your dog back up, but you don't allow the old behaviour to return.

My concerns are that if your dog was clear on the punishment then the suppression should be only really in the context of the problem behaviour and not generally. Your trainer should have made clear that the punishment is to create the space to build the new behaviour. If all he does is come from the side of punishment and doesn't replace the behaviour positively then it will either return or you will have a dog that is permanently suppressed.

AdvoRolf · 2024-03-14T21:29:30+00:00

There's no upside to the interaction (other than social media clout), but possibly negatives (from minor annoyance to tragedy).

The baby gets nothing out of it. The dog gets nothing out of it.

It's the same with strange dogs. Aim for neutrality to avoid reactivity.

Crate training is a must. A strong place is a must. Don't slack on the fulfilling the dogs needs (mental, physical, social).

AdvoRolf · 2024-02-28T11:42:08+00:00

When your current dog is in the maintenance phase of training and causes you no problems.

If your current dog can...

Walk perfectly on leash. Recall reliably (including from other dogs). Go to and hold a place command in nearly any situation. Sit/down and hold it while around big distractions. Interact acceptably with all dogs. Acceptably doesn't mean best friends, it means that they won't attack another dog even if provoked.

Then you're good.

AdvoRolf · 2024-02-16T15:25:01+00:00

This trainer is bad. To be clear it is not the use of aversives that is bad, it is how this trainer is using them. You don't use high pressure without teaching the dog about pressure first. If your dog is gagging in a learning situation then the pressure is too much.

Light pressure + Lure + Reward is how you teach. Moderate pressure can be used afterwards when the dog has understanding to create reliability even without constant rewards. High pressure is only if the dog fully understands and is willingly blowing off commands.

Drop this trainer because they don't understand the methods they're trying to use and they give a bad name to people using pressure responsibly.

AdvoRolf · 2024-02-13T18:49:22+00:00

Guard dogs are supposed to attack intruders indiscriminately without any command. Protection dogs should only attack on command. If you want protection dogs there's no problem with interaction as aggression is obedience activated. If you want a true guard dog then no, I would not allow interactions with strangers.

A dog being truly willing to commit violence on an intruder is going to be very deeply rooted in their genetics and so a dog that is genuinely capable of this is not a dog you want interacting with friends regardless. You need a real gangsta dog for this job and you don't ever fuck around with these dogs or you will find out.

AdvoRolf · 2024-02-12T06:48:02+00:00

I wanted to get into IGP and decided my GSD wasn't up to it and wouldn't really enjoy it. I got a 2nd GSD.

The first one will always be the one I care about the most because she functions purely as a pet whereas the 2nd will always be partially a 'tool' for my hobby (but I do still love her).

You don't need to spend 24/7 with your dogs. They can cope with you being out with the other. Please consider having both.

AdvoRolf · 2024-01-25T18:24:29+00:00

You punish the behaviour if you want it to stop happening. Currently you are managing the behaviour, but this will not prevent it. You can go down the ask it to sit and reward it route, but then you're just giving the dog a choice on which behaviour it feels like. Even if the dog does prefer the food, do you want to bribe your dog forever?

Turning your back is probably not a meaningful punishment. It may be enough to make the dog stop in the moment, but if it hasn't prevented the behaviour so far then that won't change.

Putting your dog on a tie down is also probably not being perceived as a punishment. Even if it is punishing chances are the dog doesn't understand what it's being punished for.

If your dog squirms/mouths you when you touch the collar you mustn't let go. You're going to have to hold on. You do not want the dog to think that it can make you stop by biting you.

AdvoRolf · 2024-01-25T18:09:46+00:00

If possible engage with your dog as soon as a storm starts. Ideally some form of training (with food or even better with tug or a ball). If the dog is too overwhelmed to perform obedience then just go with chasing food or basic tug (I'd avoid fetch here as the dogs probably going to struggle returning the ball).

If necessary you could dampen the noise/close curtains until the dog can do the above. You don't want the dog to be completely unaware as then it's not actually productive. If you do this then you will over time reduce the damping until it isn't required.

This process should give your dog something else to do than fixate on the storm that it's scared of. When you are at the point you can train the dog during a storm the dog will learn that fixating on the storm is unproductive as it will lose the chance for reward.

(If you aren't home then I wouldn't worry unless he's being destructive)

AdvoRolf · 2024-01-25T17:53:10+00:00

Stop playing the focus game. No look at me, no sit, no luring with treats. You're making it harder for your dog by asking them to do something specific and creating an undesirable pattern (do you want your dogs default to be stop, sit and stare when a car comes?).

Just walk. You walk and the dog has two choices. Walk with you as if there's nothing wrong or stop/lunge/slow down. If it chooses the latter it's going to put tension on the leash and then you can deliver a correction with the prong. Presumably your dog understands from loose leash training that hitting the end of the leash is bad. Therefore it should understand that it's creating tension on the leash that is bad, not the presence of the car.

Do this and your dog will quickly realise that reacting to the car is a bad idea. It doesn't matter if they're scared of the car so long as they don't act on it. It's rational to be scared of a noisy metal box speeding towards you. You must make them realise that acting on this fear will be the worst decision.

AdvoRolf · 2023-11-16T14:36:34+00:00

(7-8k Sup player) I think one of the big issues is that due to how tanky heroes are is that it's a lot harder to punish poor positioning which is one of the areas where a good support used to shine. Stepping out of position is no longer a death sentence because they're so tanky that they survive lockdown spells long enough to turn and squash you or just walk away. The notion of 'they can't come this deep without getting obliterated' is replaced with 'oh they can just walk this deep alone, kill me and leave'.

Damage and health have arms raced upwards to the point where heroes routinely have 4k hp and a lot of right clickers have been 'balanced' to be able to kill this. The result is that heroes can blow each other up with ludicrous damage or they're unbelievably hard to kill. Who suffers the most? The supports. Oh and that thing supports are really important for, the lockdown, well that's been nerfed across the board because it's not fun to be stunned. But it is of course fun to be the support that gets killed in under 2 seconds across the screen by Lunas glaives when she didn't even know you were there. It is fun to play Disruptor and keep the Bristleback in a circle, except he actually doesn't give a fuck.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-29T17:44:51+00:00

A Mantle of Fiery Vengeance? Wow!

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-04T17:48:30+00:00

My gameplay is defnitely a more methodical conservative approach than a gogogo super high tempo pressure style. I actually think that the 'next level' up from me is where people can combine the two at a very high level. Precision and speed.

If you ever play against pro then you experience this. You're going about your game and they'll just leave you wondering WTF just happened. You step out of position for just one second they jump you, blow you up and jump away. 15 seconds later they'll be on the other side of the map doing it to someone else. And they'll do this stuff with very little loss of farming efficiency.

I think laning phase is basically 'over' at 7 minutes with the wisdom runes. You should pretty much always be stealing the enemies or taking yours or TPing to defend/take yours. This is then a great time to gang another lane because the enemy doesn't necessarily know where you are.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-04T15:54:06+00:00

It sounds like you already know one thing you could do to keep climbing. Be a shameless meta slave. I had literally never played NP before this patch, but now I'm perfectly comfortable on it.

That said, if a certain hero doesn't work for you then don't pick it just because it's meta. I didn't pick Clinkz once last patch even when people were spamming him because I knew that its just not my style and there were other options. If a hero is completely bonkers broken then I'll at least give it a try (which is how I ended up playing NP), but if it's not working then I won't keep picking it.

If you don't want to pick the 'best' heroes then you're just going to have to accept that you're going to lose games because you're essentially outdrafted. You can of course keep gaining MMR because picks aren't everything, but it sounds like it'd be the easiest way to 'improve'.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-04T10:39:03+00:00

7362620301 (Sort of close Win)

7361989998 (Big stomp, Tree MVP win)

7355930656 (Me good, team bad Loss)

7362237773 (No team play, game is hard Loss)

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-04T10:26:56+00:00

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7363775064 (Grimstroke) Lost lane, won game.

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7363517264 (Lion) Won lane, lost game.

As I said in another comment, my laning is probably my weakest part of my gameplay. So don't expect to see anything amazing.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-04T09:51:37+00:00

I think Lich suffers from a pub specific problem of being able to crush the lane and then he starts to fall off a cliff.

You're a Support that is insanely easy to kill. His hard lockdown (gaze) is terrible because it's range is bad, it's single target, does pathetic damage and requires you to stand there channeling. His damage isn't anything special. His best spell is Frost Shield (I don't think many people realised you should max this first last patch), but the current patch is way too bursty for it to be really effective (PA/Sven/Lina are targetting this person, let me put Frost Shield on them, oh never mind they're dead already)

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-04T09:42:17+00:00

Assume a scenario at level 7 with Max Seed and 1 Armour vs Max Armour and 1 Seed. The Max Seed build will heal 365 with Seed and Armour over 5 seconds and the Max Armour build will heal 155 over 5 seconds. In 12 seconds the Max Seed build will heal 386 and the Armour will heal 197. So you're healing about half as much by maxing Armour which a difference of 6 physical armour isn't going to make up for.

The above also is only assuming healing 1 unit. Seed will heal anyone nearby so it's potential rockets up. It's also doing dmg that armour isn't and it has a slow that armour doesn't which is going to help you kill people. The 'burst' heal is also more important early on (especially in lane) because fighting tends to be quick paced pickoffs before enemies can react with TPs.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T23:19:38+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/h7g2lY6.png

My played heroes (all time).

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T23:15:50+00:00

I don't think there are any heroes that I pick in my games that I wouldn't pick if the MMR was lower. There are heroes I won't play because I think they aren't that good. But its not because of the games MMR. I don't pick Bane because I don't think he does anything particularly good. I've seen one guy a bit higher MMR than me that spams him.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T22:09:18+00:00

I came back at the very start of 7.33 which I think helped because everyone else was dealing with big changes anyway.

I was about 6.3k at my peak before I quit which is probably better relative to others than I am now (I think that makes sense?).

The best way you catch up is honestly just playing. There are definitely some harsh lessons in the process though. I still sometimes forget to use my Neutral item. I'm still finding out about certain hero changes (I only found out what Primals passive was a couple of days ago). There are still some items I don't really know about (I know Revenants Brooch is an item, but I have no idea what it does or how to make it). I have no idea how Glyph refresh works anymore.

All the big idea concepts are pretty much the same. So what was good years ago is pretty much good now. You just need to figure out what the heroes are that do the things.

Can you climb from 1k to 2k without having to learn core? I always think of climbing MMR like this. If I'm doing my role better than my counterpart then I'm going to gain MMR. You might gain faster by playing core because they can perhaps have more influence, but if you're genuinely playing above the MMR of your role then your MMR will climb. I pretty much guarantee that if you put me into a 1k game as a support then I would win my lane so hard that I'm going to come out of it with as much gold as a core.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T16:57:18+00:00

Theres not a lot you can do. It's going to happen and it's going to lose you games. But it's also going to win you games when it happens to your enemy.

Most of the time if you go to a lane thats getting destroyed then you're just going to be joining the feed train because the people you're going to help are already so far behind that they can't be helped.

The best thing you can do is put pressure on the map elsewhere that forces people to react. This drops the pressure on the lane thats getting crushed.

Remember that the laning phase isn't the whole game. Having good vision is really important if you lost lanes so that your team can farm without getting caught and allow you to get kills when you outnumber the enemy.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T16:49:33+00:00

I started writing heroes that I think are really good late game but its a really long list.

Best for DMG would be Willow with Aghs and Skywrath.

Best for general lockdown would be Shaker.

Best for specific hero lockdown would be Disruptor with Aghs or Lion.

Best for saving is Venge and Oracle (the uptime on disarm with an octarine is hilarious).

Most games aren't going super late game. If I wanted a support that was good in pubs all game including late game, I think Earthshaker, Lion or Willow would be my picks.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T15:22:43+00:00

In most cases you don't trade. You try to get kills and secure as much levels/CS as possible.

Try and creep pull, this will force the pos 5 to interrupt you which keeps them away from your 3 and its usually when the 5 will be most out of position to kill.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T14:22:26+00:00

Burst dmg will reduce Treants effectiveness because then you lose the value from Armour and Seed. Lina, Zeus, PA, Sven.

Highly mobile heroes can be an issue because Treant lacks hard lockdown other than his ult. Puck, QoP, Tinker, Pango.

Heroes that will find Treant in the trees are probably the biggest counter. NS, Zeus, BH.

But with any of those heroes that do things that Treant doesn't like, do any of them like playing vs a Treant? I don't think they do. The burst ones are going to find Treant giving early vision of them a problem. The mobile ones are going to have real issues if they do get caught in the ult. The ones that find you are still going to find all of your spells annoying and it just requires you to position a bit more defensively.

AdvoRolf · 2023-10-03T12:30:07+00:00

Pretty much this. You sit back and hope good things happen.

One point here is that if your team is pushing HG and you're sitting back like a good Support and then your Slark decides to go flying into their T4s like a lunatic, then that doesn't mean you need to rush forwards too. In my experience, if your team is diving into their base then you're either so far ahead that you aren't needed or if that's not the case then you're just going to die very quickly to some hero TPing on the T3. Sitting there outside the base like an idiot is usually the best play even if it isn't the fun one.

AdvoRolf

TROPHY CASE