positive only training methods and describes in great detail why you need corrections in dog training. If you enjoyed this article or learned something from it please share. The more people that receive this message the better the world will be for dogs and their owners.
Thank you First off I want everyone who reads this article to understand my motivation behind writing this, certain tools ( such as prong collars and electronic collars) are being banned across the globe and dogs are being euthanized for behaviors that could easily be fixed. Did you know in America over 1 million dogs that come through animal shelters get euthanized every year?
It's impossible to know the exact reasons why all dogs wind up at the shelter, but it's safe to assume that dogs are not being given away due to good behavior. That's not even counting the ones that get sent straight to the vet... For those of you who do not know me or haven't seen me train don't assume by this article that I am a heavy handed, yank and crank, old school trainer, that is gung ho about punishment and thinks every situation is solved with punishment.
I simply know when and why to reward and when and why to correct and always aim to correct in the lightest fashion possible. I believe in being open minded to anything that can help me help dogs and in turn help their owners. I believe the more options you have, the more capable you are as a trainer. I am growing increasingly concerned about the message "pure positive " training advocates are spreading and how bold and aggressive they can be in their attacks on other styles of training.
I understand that a good portion of this following, probably the majority are good hearted people who truly feel they are doing the right thing or at least supporting the right values. The other portion is drinking the kool-aid, behaving in a cult like fashion and spreading fear and propaganda about tools and training techniques they have no experience with. This fear leads to a generalized uneducated fear from the general public that keeps these myths and wives tails circulating.
As you will see later on in this article generalizations and assumptions are not really ever the truth, usually just propaganda skewed in the direction of the person talking. For those of you that fall in that camp I hope this article sheds some light on the other side and how most of us balanced trainers think. To understand where I'm coming from I feel it's best you know a bit about me. If you're a pure positive trainer reading this, I was you...
I was determined to train without force or aversives for 5 long years. I started in 2008, went through Animal Behavior College, taught at Petco for a couple of years, got my cpdt-ka certification, met up with other pure positive trainers, shadowed their classes and studied every training dvd I could possibly get my hands on... I was obsessed with fixing aggression through force free methods. After a while everything I came across was just a reminder of something I already knew, said by a different person.
I had some success sure, but I realized through early failures that this method of training alone lacked reliability, was too much work on difficult cases to realistically expect clients to be able to do, lacked options when things weren't working well enough, left options for dogs to not comply with your cue's and most importantly can be unsafe.
Lately I've been hearing a lot of positive trainers talk about how "the science" states punishment will make a dog aggressive, punishment ruins relationships between dog and owner and that positive reinforcement alone is more effective than using punishments, negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement combined... I can tell you first hand that this is the furthest from the truth.
Let's talk some real stuff here- as I stated earlier, I was a pure positive trainer for 5 years and still study positive reinforcement trainers frequently. I can tell you first hand that this style of training alone with a hyper dog, aggressive dog, reactive dog, very distracted dog etc... is incomplete and can not be completely successful on its own with a majority of dogs.
There might be some dogs who are easy and fit the profile for that style of training better, however I'd argue that it doesn't possess all the answers for the vast majority of dogs. Dogs are like kids in this regard, not every child learns the same way. Classic case of square peg and a round hole.
This is not to say that nothing good comes from positive reinforcement training, many great techniques have come from positive reinforcement training and overall I believe it has benefited the industry by making trainers more thoughtful and gentler in their approach to training. Matter of fact I lean way more towards the positive reinforcement side of things than the traditional style of training ( escape/avoidance training that doesn't use food).
I simply believe there are circumstances that call for more than just positive reinforcement training to fix behavioral problems, to make obedience more reliable and ultimately increase our dogs overall safety. Some people have claimed to have fixed problems with pure positive methods, but when you ask them about it, there are always certain stipulations to it and it usually takes them months to years to even get there.
I am not an advocate for lazy training by any means, it's just that in some scenarios you're experience leads you to know better and you can get to the same result skillfully and smoothly without spending months or years. Would you rather ride a bike to work or drive a car? You learn through your experience and become an expert. No "humane hierarchy" should govern the way that you train. Especially if you follow one that has death before discomfort...
I honestly can't even believe people are so extreme that a thing like this exists... you can call yourselves humane all you want, but when you are killing instead of correcting, you need to look in the mirror. Don't get me wrong I use positive reinforcement to teach new behaviors all the time as it is the best way to teach new things to dogs.
It is even incredibly useful when working with fearful dogs and can help stop reactivity and fear aggression by counter conditioning and making dogs more comfortable around things they are afraid of. The downfalls of pure positive training comes when you are trying to stop a behavior that is not rooted in fear. Let's discuss some examples of how positive reinforcement training on its own can come up short. Keep in mind I see a ton of clients after they didn't get the help they needed through pure positive methods.
