Ask the same question of 10 dog trainers and you’ll get 10 different answers. To the dog owner or guardian, training is a way of effectively achieving the best
behavior from their dog. Fear, pain, and aversive are words consumers do not necessarily associate with the training of their dog. Yet, in the world of the training professional, no matter the level or experience, those are fighting words.
Nature Seeks Harmony, Not Confrontation.
Story by Anna Cooke. Photograph by Jaime Seymour-Newton T
here are two camps in the dog training profession: positive+ training (formerly purely posi- tive) and balanced training.
Both camps, perhaps in an effort to simplify what it is they do and how they do it, tend to generalize their techniques. Some positive+trainers say that there is no such thing as balanced training. “It’s a misnomer. The trainers use shock collars.” And some balanced trainers say of positive+ training: “They shove a treat down a dog’s throat and say, ‘good boy.’ What happens in a situation where there are no treats?” When we spoke with author and dog
trainer Brian Kilcommons, he advised that we must take a serious look at the welfare of training. “The divisiveness of the two sides is not working for the dogs, the dog owner or the profession,” he said. “If you are a true professional dog trainer, and your heart is really in it, you are going to listen to people, not shut them out.” For the most part, the consumer is
unaware of this divisiveness within the profession. But, mention the name “Cesar” to a group of trainers and the reaction will be anything from a subtle eye roll to spit-spewing rhetoric to adulation. Walk down the street with a prong collar on your dog and you’re likely to
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encounter an evil eye from someone. Another scenrio: You arrive at the dog park, treats in your bag, ready to work with your dog. Off to the side, a group of people stops what they’re doing to watch. Someone breaks away from the group, walks towards you and lets you know how (ahem) the timing of rewarding your dog is off.
Dogs have become much more a part
of our family nucleus, living, eating and socializing with us inside our homes. Therein lies part of the behavioral issues we’re having with them. A canine is an animal, domesticated by humans, not a little person with fur. Respectful bound- aries are, oftentimes, not set between the species. We often misread what our dogs are communicating. The misinterpreta- tion of a dog’s body language and how we respond often results in, and encour- ages, an unacceptable behavior. As humans, we misinterpret body
language between each other all the time. We are an inconsistent and confusing species. Dogs are trying to figure us out, but are we taking the time to figure them out in return? What’s at the root of this great
divide? Camilla Gray-Nelson, dog trainer, author and director of training at Dairydell Canine in Petaluma, California, believes that a lot of the debate on how to
train a dog stems from one critical source: the myth of aggression-based dominance. “When an assumption is made or an
assertion stated that sounds logical, often no one bothers to check facts,” Camilla says. “If it’s easy to believe, it is. And the longer that assumption is out there, unchallenged, the deeper it is woven into the fabric of popular belief and truth. Such is the case with the myth that dominance in the animal world is achieved through aggression.” One school of dog training thought
is firmly rooted in the belief that dominance, subordination and rank in general are established through con- frontation and aggression. said Camilla. “Because confrontation and aggres-
sion with a dog can produce negative, sometimes dangerous results, all forms of correction and the entire notion of out- ranking a dog are avoided,” said Camilla. This type of training is referred to as positive-reinforcement; opting to teach only new and alternative behaviors. On the other side of the Great Divide
is the balanced training camp who uses positive reinforcement to teach new behav- iors, and correction to stop unwanted behaviors. There are some positive-rein- forcement-only trainers who believe that any kind of correction could have an emo- tionally negative impact on the dog.
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