I have a huge
advantage over most dog trainers. I
don’t train in order to make a living, or even as a supplemental income
source. I have a nice police pension and
no longer have to work for a living. But
I am a type A personality and the idea of becoming a couch potato after
retiring had no appeal. I train dogs to have something to do
This allows me to stand back from the industry
and make my decisions without being influenced by the need to make money. As long as I pay the overhead, finances are
not my motivation.
When I met Pat
Muller, the inventor of Manners in Minutes training, it was an “aha”
moment. I realized that she had come up
with a training system that made sense to both the dog and the dog owner. And since it made sense to both of them, it
was the fastest way to train a dog.
The dog training
profession is almost entirely made up of two schools. The first school is the all positive
reinforcement methodology; the second is a dominance/alpha school.
Positive
reinforcement is by far the largest school.
The vast majority of trainers are in this school. The idea is simple. Reward positive behavior and through
repetition the dog will perform reliably.
I find some major flaws
in this technique. Too many trainers
use food as the reward. Food reward has
some major drawbacks. Some dogs are not
food oriented. But more often, as I have
written before, the trainer fails to get the owner to see the difference
between motivation and bribery. Many
times I see dogs that have turned the tables of the owner. The will only perform for food. Or they will deliberately misbehave so that
the owner gives them food to change their behavior. Far too often someone ends up with a fat dog
that only behaves when food is immediately available.
And while some of
them claim to be all positive, frustration can lead to harsh corrections.
And there is a lot
of smugness and self righteousness by many of these type trainers. They have a built in excuse for their
training failing you. It is your fault, you
aren’t kind enough.
I think, in
theory, the dominance/alpha school is closer to the right track. But in practice, most of them get it
wrong.
It seems far too
many of them are just plain bullies.
They end up punishing the dog to the point that the dog obeys out of
fear. And fear is not the relationship
you should have with a dog. They
misinterpret the alpha/pack concept to cover their own shortcomings.
Because of these
people, dominance training has become a dirty word within the dog training
industry, especially with the all positive people.
There is a third
school. I call it the balance
school. It isn’t all positive
reinforcement, but instead of punishment it uses gentle correction
techniques. But what sets it apart is
the use of praise.
Unfortunately
there are not a lot of balance trainers. You really have to work to find
one. And a lot of people who claim to be
balance trainers aren’t.
I tell my clients
even if they mess up on everything else, if they get the praise right, the will
get the dog right. It will just take
longer.
There are some
simple rules for the effective use of praise.
1.
Try not
to gush. Gushing is using the same
phrase multiple times for one performance.
So when a dog sits when told to sit, tell them “good sit” one time. Dogs often mistake gushing as barking and
one of the reasons dogs bark is to invite play.
Gushing can sabotage training.
2.
When the dog obeys a command, make sure you
praise it immediately. Since one
decision gets only one reward (good sit) praise the dog as it obeys, not after
the fact. “Good sit” should be said as
the dog is in the act of sitting, not when the dog has been sitting for a
while.
3.
Praise everything the dog does even if you did
not give it a command. If you walk by
and the dog stands up, tell it “good stand.”
If it does not get up tell it “good down.” Praise makes the dog believe you are in
charge.
4.
If you make a correction, praise the dog when it
obeys. Corrections without praise are revenge;
it is the praise and not the correction that makes it training.
5.
Praise the action. “Good dog” means you like the dog. “Good sit”
means you are reinforcing the command.
The effective use
of praise can often overcome other poor training techniques and incompetent
trainers.
Doug
