Confused About Dog Training?

Why is there so much confusion in the dog training world? 

A big part of the confusion is that the study of the mind/ body relationship is still not understood by science. 

If they don’t understand it, and if they can’t even get in agreement with what they are talking about, then that filters down into the dog training world. 

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some things that have been generally figured out. Of those things that are known, the fault then lies with dog trainers who haven’t attempted to figure those things out. 

There are four viewpoints that are still arguing with each other: 1.) Attempts to make sense of consciousness, including the idea of sensation and perception; 2.). Attempts in the laboratory to explain behavior and the assumption that consciousness is irrelevant; 3.) Attempts to explain behavior in terms of the theory of evolution and the effects of adaptation, some of which is done in field studies; and 4.) Another version of laboratory research focusing on biology, chemistry, physics, and medical experimentation. 

While all four types of science are looking at the same thing, they are like the proverbial story of the six blind men who come across an elephant: one feels a leg and thinks it is a tree, another touches its side and thinks it is a wall; another touches the trunk and thinks it is a snake, another touches the tail and thinks it is a rope, another touches a tusk and thinks it is a spear, another touches an ear and thinks it is a fan. 

In the dog training world, too much focus is on the perspective of trial-and-error learning. Give a pleasant reward, and you’ll get more of that behavior. Give an unpleasant consequence, and you’ll get less of that behavior. That may sound reasonable to explain everything and to do anything. Unfortunately, that isn’t how the entire “elephant” works. Yes, some toss in a little folklore about what they think wolves do in the wild, a dash of the psychic occult, and a willfully unaware approach that ignores most of the thinking that has gone on before them by some very smart people. The secondary approach that most are relying upon is the medical viewpoint of behavior, with a fleeting nod to behavior and a focus on giving a dog a pill. Furthermore, people are making up their own words that have no basis. If the scientists are still struggling with defining what they see, then how does it help to come up with an entirely different vocabulary, or to use what little is known in the wrong ways? 

So, here we are. And what is to be done about it? There is no unified field of psychology and behavior. There is no “science” of dog training yet. Looks like the blinders need to come off, eh?

Plan accordingly.