I often shudder when I see trainers offering to "Board and Train". This means you give up your dog to someone who then "trains" the dog and returns it to the client. Normally this is offered by trainers who use punishment methods and would prefer a client not see them punishing or hurting the dog, for fear the client would object and then take their business elsewhere. Punishment trainers want you to see the finished product, and never the process at which this is arrived.
As I've said in other posts, you can train with punishment, but its no fun for the dog, and it comes with a large number of risks. Why use this method when we have a perfectly good alternative that provides no risk and equal results? Positive reinforcement is the best way to train. (and my dog agrees!)
The biggest issue however is training is a very subjective word. Most Pet owners want a dog that "behaves" - meaning they can walk nice on leash, not aggressive with other dogs or people, and has no anxiety that would lead to them destroying the house when left alone. While a board and train might teach your dog 'commands' like stay, come, sit, down, etc - its very unlikely the above mentioned issues would be corrected.
Complex behavior like aggression and anxiety cannot simply be fixed by a training session. The whole life of the animal must be looked at, this isn't something you can 'board and train' away. Whenever I do a consultation I ask a large number of questions usually along the lines of:
1) What does your dog eat (food is very important for both overall health but low nutritional intake can actually promote aggression and low-tolerance thresholds)
2) Where does your dog sleep and spend most of this time (social exclusion and boredom can drive stress and promote aggression or anxiety)
3) How do you treat your dogs issues now? What methods have you tried in the past (More often than not owners can do a lot of damage or make situations worse, snatching items away for example can lead to guarding aggression)
These are just some examples of the questions that are important to me on a consultation. I generally have 2 goals for a dogs life to promote a healthy mental state:
Goal 1: dogs energy level is met with an acceptable amount of physical OR mental exercise for that dog.
Goal 2: Dogs social time (and freedom) with both family and other dogs / people is increased as much as possible.
Trainers who do not look at the whole picture of a dog do a large dis-service to not only the dog but to the clients. Learning fancy commands is nothing if your dog is living a miserable life and will display other very unwanted behaviors.
Dogs are very much like humans in that our quality of life effects our overall mood - we need to look at the whole picture of a dogs well being if we truly hope to help them live in our world.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Mother dog punishment justification
I recently had a debate among some other trainers that are members of our national association here in Canada. I was unaware that so many of them were punishment based trainers and sadly have had to reconsider my membership in the group. I do not want my membership dollars going towards the promotion of using ecollars, prong collars or other such punishment based devices.
One interesting point of argument that many trainers use who employ punishment in their training is that mother dogs use correction and thus punishment and correction are natural and should be part of any training program. Often other dogs are referenced as well, not just the mother, since adult dogs correct other dogs as well.
Let's look at this a little closer:
1) Dog-Dog correction is always expertly timed exactly when the behavior is happening, and it is usually very mild. Mother dogs do not bite their puppies, they often only growl, stare or snap. A physical touch would only happen if these other methods failed, and again it would be very fast and only last fractions of a second. Most other dogs operate in the same manner, a quick growl or snap to get the message across
2) Dog correction is often related to their own well being. Mother dogs will correct a puppy if he bites her too hard while milking, or if fighting with litter-mates. Other dogs usually will correct for things like being humped, continued harassment (to play or otherwise), to guard a resource or to create space and say 'get away from me'.
The key point here is the correction is not designed to compel the other dog into forced action. You do not see other dogs forcing other dogs into heel position, down-stays or loose leash walks. They are not concerned with the other dogs behavior outside of how it relates to them.
This is a key central theme that all people would do well to take note of: Dogs seek to control their own lives, while humans seek to control the dogs.
Another key point of 'correction' is a dog wouldn't correct for natural behaviors. A dog would never 'naturally' be expecting to be corrected for 'normal' behaviors like digging, jumping or chewing objects.
Humans live in a complex world, which dogs do not naturally understand. We need to use our big brains to show them how to live in a modern world, how to not chew our nike shoes and how to cope with being alone for 8 hours. There is nothing natural about the things we ask of the modern dog, so the idea that we can train dogs the same way they train either other is just foolish.
People have been researching dog training for the last 100 years, imagine the strides that have been made in the last 30 years alone. The internet didn't exist 15 years ago, imagine how different the world is in just that brief time. The idea that we haven't found a better way to train our dogs other than watching their mother is pretty insulting to human intelligence.
One interesting point of argument that many trainers use who employ punishment in their training is that mother dogs use correction and thus punishment and correction are natural and should be part of any training program. Often other dogs are referenced as well, not just the mother, since adult dogs correct other dogs as well.
Let's look at this a little closer:
1) Dog-Dog correction is always expertly timed exactly when the behavior is happening, and it is usually very mild. Mother dogs do not bite their puppies, they often only growl, stare or snap. A physical touch would only happen if these other methods failed, and again it would be very fast and only last fractions of a second. Most other dogs operate in the same manner, a quick growl or snap to get the message across
2) Dog correction is often related to their own well being. Mother dogs will correct a puppy if he bites her too hard while milking, or if fighting with litter-mates. Other dogs usually will correct for things like being humped, continued harassment (to play or otherwise), to guard a resource or to create space and say 'get away from me'.
The key point here is the correction is not designed to compel the other dog into forced action. You do not see other dogs forcing other dogs into heel position, down-stays or loose leash walks. They are not concerned with the other dogs behavior outside of how it relates to them.
This is a key central theme that all people would do well to take note of: Dogs seek to control their own lives, while humans seek to control the dogs.
Another key point of 'correction' is a dog wouldn't correct for natural behaviors. A dog would never 'naturally' be expecting to be corrected for 'normal' behaviors like digging, jumping or chewing objects.
Humans live in a complex world, which dogs do not naturally understand. We need to use our big brains to show them how to live in a modern world, how to not chew our nike shoes and how to cope with being alone for 8 hours. There is nothing natural about the things we ask of the modern dog, so the idea that we can train dogs the same way they train either other is just foolish.
People have been researching dog training for the last 100 years, imagine the strides that have been made in the last 30 years alone. The internet didn't exist 15 years ago, imagine how different the world is in just that brief time. The idea that we haven't found a better way to train our dogs other than watching their mother is pretty insulting to human intelligence.
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