If someone would have asked me 5 years ago about training birddogs with food I would have laughed at them. I had the old school mentality that a dog should do what it’s told because I said so. I was 100% wrong. Now, the majority of my obedience training consists of food/reward based training.
There are two opposite ends of the spectrum with dog training. At one end you have the old school yank and crank compulsion based trainers. A typical compulsion based trainer puts a choke collar or a pinch collar on the dog and start yanking. A good example would be heeling. The trainers say “heel” and yanks on the choke chain, “heel” yank, “heel” yank, sooner or later the dog figures out that if he stays by your side he avoids being yanked. The dog learns to avoid the yank by staying at your side.
Does it work? It sure does. Avoiding something unpleasant is a very strong motivator. But when you think about it, it makes about as much sense as spanking a child until they figure out what you want them to do. Eventually they learn, but the results usually aren’t very pretty. Since their only motivation is to avoid an aversive, instead of working to obtain something, they’ll do it, but only because they have to and are afraid of being corrected, not because they want to. A dog that’s only trained through compulsion doesn’t have an open mind to learning, and doesn’t enjoy training sessions. You can usually tell a dog trained in this manner. They typically will have a lower body posture when training, tail down, head down. They look like they want to be anywhere but there. It robs the dog of confidence and style. Usually the trainer conditions the dog to tense up when they hear the command because they’re expecting a physical correction every time they hear it.
The upside of compulsion training is that it’s reliable and fast.
At the other end of the spectrum is positive reinforcement only trainers. A positive only trainer relies strictly on giving and withholding of rewards to train. Reward the dog for performing the correct behavior, withhold the reward for unwanted behavior. The beauty of positive reinforcement training is it creates a dog who thinks for itself to access things that it wants, creating a bold confident dog that looks forwards to training and has an open mind to learning. It encourages the dog to offer up new behaviors because he enjoys learning. They become an active part of the training process, not reactive. It doesn’t rob the dog of style like compulsion based training, and there is virtually no fallout if done improperly.
The downside of using only positive reinforcement, is reliability amongst distractions. Although there are some trainers of working dogs who have trained to very high levels using positive only methods, positive only training typically doesn’t produce the reliability that compulsion based training does when the distraction level gets high.
So where does that leave me?
Some where in the middle with a balanced common sense approach! Compulsion based trainers feel that positive trainers are only bribing their dogs, while positive trainers think that all physical corrections are a level 10 and should never be used.
When I train with food, I’m no more bribing my dog than my employer’s bribing me by giving me a paycheck. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. The same is true for my dogs. When it comes to physical corrections with dogs, not all corrections need to be a 10. If I said your name and you weren’t listening and I walked over and tapped you on the shoulder (physical correction) to get your attention, I doubt that would be considered excessive force. The same would be true if I held your hand to physically guide you, which is no different than leash pressure when done properly.
My training philosophy is to train the behavior with 100% positive reinforcement methods, then teach the dog to turn off leash pressure separate from any commands, then apply the pressure to the known command. Don’t let the term pressure fool you. My idea of pressure is simply nothing more than teaching the dog to give into the lead, then eventually an e-collar. I’ll teach him/her to give into the lead with positive reinforcement. Once the dog learns to give into the lead, a correction usually becomes nothing more than gently moving the dog with the lead to guide them to the correct behavior. If the dog knows the command that has been taught with positive reinforcement and knows how to turn off pressure (this is called negative reinforcement) without any commands, then you apply very gentle pressure to the known command - the dog will have a complete understanding of how to respond and will keep their enthusiasm the whole way even when a correction is applied. This may all sound very confusing, don’t worry, I’ll be explaining this in great detail as I continue with this blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wQdqa2WfzU