What’s The Truth About Using Aversive Methods In Dog Training?

No normal person wants to harm a dog. Let’s get that out of the way up front. This article is not about how to harm any dog. If you are someone who would take your anger out on a dog, or get pleasure from harming a dog, then you should stay about a million miles away from any dog. The question we are going to examine is: is there a role for making a dog uncomfortable, stressed or afraid in training? Scientists have determined there are fear systems in the brain. When those systems are stimulated, animals and people display behaviors that are associated with fear. Fear has a necessary survival function. Without fear, animals would not survive. One of my promises to all my students is that whatever I do will be done intelligently. So, let’s use our intelligence here and not succumb to maudlin tales of woe from those in the dog community who don’t know what they are saying or are being dishonest about what they do themselves. I’m not here to give you permission to start yelling and abusing your dog. If you do that, it’s on you. That isn’t good dog ownership or good dog training. This article is about straightening out concepts, so we do what is right.

What Is Owner Absent Misbehavior?

Some dogs soil the home when the owner is gone, destroy things when you are not around, bark or howl, dig, or cause trouble for other members or pets in the family. This is “Owner Absent Misbehavior”. What sets up this problem?

How Is Your Relationship With Your Dog?

If your dog Comes happily, allows grooming, accepts a leash and collar, likes playing with you, likes being petted by you, listens to your commands, can be left home alone without distress or destruction, and doesn’t have to be left in the yard while you are gone, then you have a good relationship with your dog. How does your dog stack up?

Rescues, Shelters And Breeders Need To Focus On The Puppies

What would make the biggest impact on reducing the number of dogs in animal shelters, and consequently, the number of dogs put to death every year? Rescues, shelters and breeders need to start focusing on puppy socialization and training. Get the puppies right and you are much less likely to get them back. 

Preventing Shelter Dog Deterioration

Long term, inappropriate kenneling creates neuroses in dogs, resulting in repetitive or severely inhibited responses; multiple signs of extreme stress, self-preoccupied behaviors; increased care soliciting or care rejecting behavioral patterns; and sometimes becoming hyper-aggressive. Neurotic dogs are more likely to remain too long in shelters and risk being killed. The main contributing factors which cause the development of this disorder in shelter dogs are intense restraint and confinement; inability to express normal behavior; frustration; inappropriate feeding protocols; inescapable aversive stimuli; hunger; unresolvable motivational conflicts; irregular schedules; repeated encounters with unfamiliar people and animals which do not engage in successful greetings. Here are preliminary steps to take:

Dogs, Pavlov, and Skinner

 What are we, as dog owners and trainers, to make of the mechanistic learning science doctrines of Pavlov, Skinner, and others? The troublesome outcome of their work in animal and human experiments is that their concepts were sterile and inadequate, and forced to explain all behavior as combinations and sequences of exact, independent, reflexive actions. 

Force Free vs Balanced Dog Training?

There has been a long-standing dispute between the “force free” dog training community advocates and the “balanced” dog training community advocates. What’s that all about?

My Male Dogs Want To Fight

Aggression is a difficult topic to explain and treat. First, we want all dogs to get along, and it is hard to understand why dogs that were friends are now in conflict. Second, it is hard to find research studies on dog fights because of the obvious difficulty and danger of working with aggressively stimulated dogs. Third, there are long standing biases and rivalries in different fields of behavioral theory, with one side focusing on “nature” (genetics and inheritance) and the other focusing on “nurture” (learning and life experiences). Lastly, we see the simple truth: if aggression was understood and controllable, we’d have no need for laws, police, or prisons. The truth is that aggression is both reflexive (nature) and instrumental (learned).