
My vision as a dog trainer and canine behaviorist is to completely overhaul the industry. In the United States, all animal trainers and behaviorists are entirely unregulated. There is no formal, legal certification process. This MUST change, and I am hopeful this will happen in my lifetime.
I don't use punitive methods or tools. I don't yell at, smack on the nose, do leash pops, or use fancy collars. My methods revolve around creating a partnership with our dogs. Dogs have been trained to lie still for an MRI, in which we learned that their emotional capacity is incredibly similar to a human's. They can love, grieve, and learn with incredible depth. So why not do so in a positive way, now that we know better?
The old methods revolve around providing clear boundaries to the dogs. We set them up to do the wrong thing, then correct them for it with varying harshness, depending on the learning stage of the dog and the perceived level of the error. We spent decades establishing pack leadership, dominance, and put immense focus on this hierarchical thinking based on a study that involved only 8 wolves, all of whom were unrelated, male, and kept in a small enclosure. This study, done in Sweden, neither applied to wild wolves, other captive wolves, wild dogs, or domesticated dogs. It was a freak scenario, and this is the system that these canids came up with to survive unnatural living arrangements to avoid excessive conflict between each other.
Now, we have the 4 quadrants of conditioning as learning styles. Functionally speaking, they work this way: positive reinforcement - adding something good to continue behavior, negative reinforcement - removing something bad to continue behavior, positive punishment - adding something bad to discontinue behavior, and negative punishment - removing something good to discontinue behavior. As you can see, positive and negative don't refer to good or bad necessarily, but to adding or subtracting. Reinforcement refers to helping a behavior be repeated, and punishment refers to stopping a behavior. We have very poor associations with the words "negative" and "punishment;" but here, they are entirely neutral.
I have spent years studying at university, dedicated self-study, and learning from thousands of dogs to develop my own unique style. I have a bachelor's in education in addition to a master's in animal science, so I am also highly qualified to teach the human end of the leash as I am to train the dog end of the leash. My focus is on always setting up for success, and rewarding the right answer. Over time, the right answer will be chosen, even if the situation does not set a team (human + dog) up for an easy time. Rewards are always determined by the dog first, and that usually means food (though sometimes it means toys, or even just being loved on). I then focus on building an endurance for learning through drive to work with the human(s) in the dog's life. This goes so much faster with the newer positive reinforcement approach than the old positive punishment mentality. I also don't need to wait until a puppy is emotionally mature enough to handle the corrections of the old way, we can get started as soon as they come home at 8 weeks old.
My system is based on private study at home, then generalizing those skills to public places. I always tell my clients, "Let's not teach algebra at Disneyland." For dogs, simply going outside on a walk is like going to Disneyland! The visual part of the brain lights up when dogs are smelling things, it is sensory overload in the best way as they dissect every bit of information from the overwhelming number of scents in an environment. Reactive dogs in particular have become highly visual after either feeling like they need to hunt or feeling like prey in previous life events, and that is not the time to ask them to focus on us and learn something new that has nothing to do with their immediate survival.
By putting the focus on 1-1 sessions first, both ends of the leash receive customized tutoring to maximize efficiency and understanding. By proofing what we've learned in public, we can ensure your dog generalizes clearly and well. Dogs do not apply what they learn to other scenarios naturally, it feels like a totally new game for them as soon as one element is different. That's why training often fails, and what takes the longest to master. Teaching a dog how to do something can usually be done in under 10 minutes. Having a dog replicate that behavior in all other situations they will need it? That's what takes a while -- not because dogs are stubborn, but because they are highly literal.
I work by replacing problem behaviors, rather than punishing them. If your dog barks at other dogs on walks, what would you like them to do instead? Maybe walk nicely next to you and ignore that triggering dog? Let's teach them how to do that, and then ask them to do it closer and closer to their trigger until the trigger becomes the cue to do the right thing instead of get barked at. What would you like your dog to do instead of jump up on guests? It's perfectly natural to be excited, let's not correct the dog for being happy to see people. Instead, let's teach them that when a person approaches to greet them, we sit in order to get pet and loved on. It's really that simple, and the dogs catch on like magic.
I can't help but laugh a little at all the correction-based trainers who think they can train service dogs for people with disabilities who want to owner-train. Please tell me how someone with rheumatoid arthritis in their hands can possibly hold a leash with a strong enough grip to correct a dog with a leash pop and maintain the training? Or push a tiny button on a remote for an e-collar? How can someone in a wheelchair body-block a pushy dog? How can a deaf person know to speak a cue at the correct volume with the perfect pronunciation like a military drill sergeant barking orders? How can someone with severe anxiety possibly have strong enough energy to "be the pack leader" when out and about in the world? When things fall apart after the board & train is over, they then blame the owners for not following through. It's absolutely ludicrous for these trainers to work this way, I don't know why they haven't gone out of business before now.
Let's honor the dog in front of us. Let's create partnerships where both ends of the leash are eager and safe to learn. Let's express love, not dominance. Besides, the original meaning of the word "alpha" is "parent."
Comments