Here's a link to a small photobucket album, I didn't know if there was a section here just for picture posting or not, there is on another forum that I visit, so I thought to be safe I'd just stick this link here rather than posting a threadful of pictures where they don't belong!
http://s1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg542/KSG34ever/GORDY/?action=view¤t=100_1808.jpg#!oZZ1QQcurrentZZhttp://s1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg542/KSG34ever/GORDY/?action=view¤t=100_1808.jpg
I guess Gordy has not been fully trained with positive reinforcement training... scratch that... he hasn't been. We used an e-collar in our obedience class for off leash training. He is pretty much completely reliable off leash without it, as I figured out last month when I damaged my transmitter at the beach and had to send it for repairs... but its kind of like a safety net for me I guess, I'm
pretty sure I can get his attention without it, but I'm
completely sure I can get his attention with it. If he's running towards a dangerous situation... I want to be more than pretty sure I can catch his attention to be able to stop him! So if it weren't for the ecollar, he'd live his life attached to a leash.
Anything that's not life or death though, we use positive reinforcement training. Everything we do with foster dogs is also positive reinforcement training. Our goal with the dogs we foster is to first of all just teach them to be really good family members, and then once they get that down, we figure out what other things they might be really good at, and we teach them some things related to that. Not much so far though... our first foster dog was in our care for almost 2 months, and we taught her all the basics, then how to do some tricks, and then weave poles, because she was pretty much naturally rocking it! Our second learned basic obedience, then a few simple tricks, but we only had her for a few weeks, one of which she was hospitalized for complications after she was spayed.
Petsmart offered a free positive reinforcement training class for foster dogs from the shelter we foster for, and we took our first foster dog there. So I guess we have "formal" experience with that too. They haven't had another class since that one though, so our next two foster dogs have been trained with clicker training, and it seems to work pretty well. It seems that they don't learn as quickly as Gordy and our first foster dog learned, but its not due to the type of training, its because in comparison, they have had pretty rough backgrounds. Our second foster dog was a stray who I would guess nobody ever took the time to work with, and our current foster dog lived outside "because of his bad manners" (said the owner who surrendered him... but in all honesty... for having to have spent part of his life outside... he is a pretty great dog. I'm surprised at his manners actually... they could be
a lot worse!) and the poor little dude has some medical set backs as well.
) , you and Gordy can be better than you ever imagined!
Glad to hear you have an amazing trainer ... hopefully of the 'positive reinforcement' persuasion? We're positive reinforcement trainers on this forum, hope you are too. Being a therapy dog is a fabulous goal for Gordy, can't wait to witness his journey. And thanks for fostering too - it's always so great to give a paw up to dogs in need whenever you can. Have fun on the forum, just jump in anywhere, don't be shy. 
I mean, how would you like getting zapped in the neck when you least expect it???? Just saying....
