December 13, 2022
Why Positive Reinforcement Training?
Full disclosure, I’m a positive reinforcement trainer and I passionately support this style of training.
This blog post will be about the benefits of positive reinforcement training. However, this post is in no way intended to shame anyone for training their dog in a different way. There is a lot of information out there and we have all come to dog training via different paths. We all have different skills and strengths and situations in life. The purpose of this post is to share what I have learned and seen in a professional and personal capacity and help shed some light on what we now know about how dogs learn. This is going to be a long post, so here’s the gist: dogs learn best when they receive enjoyable consequences (rewards) for a desired behavior. Reinforcing behaviors (example: giving a treat immediately after a requested behavior is performed) increases the likelihood that the desirable behavior will be offered again. Punishing unwanted behavior can work in the short-term, and may not eternally harm some dogs, but it does not create an atmosphere in which they learn to make voluntary choices and bond with their owners. At worst, punishment can harm dogs for the long-term.
Let’s take a trip back in time, ten years ago, before I knew anything about dogs. I was not yet involved in animal care at all. I knew nothing. I had six cats, and decided “ya know what? I need to adopt a dog.” I drove to a shelter, met Toki (who could barely walk and looked like a ribcage with toothpick legs at 8 weeks old) and fell in love. Weeks would pass before he was given the green light to come home with me for health reasons. He had been dropped off at the shelter at ONE day old! He was half the size of his littermate, and he was a bottle-fed baby with a peculiar (but very fancy) nose. The love of my life.
Anyway, I was finally able to bring my bundle of joy home when he was around 14 weeks old. I threw myself into everything dog. I attempted to learn everything I possibly could about raising and training a dog.
As we all know, the internet is full of information. Some factual, and some not-so-much. I learned a lot of great and not so great stuff. I reached out to several trainers to try to give my boy his best start in life.
Well, initially, I failed. The first two trainers I worked with used aversive techniques (prong collars and collar “corrections” on walks) as well as flooding (immersing your dog into an environment that is anxiety inducing to make him “get over it”) as part of their training style. I was scolded for allowing Toki to sniff on walks because the trainer told me walking should be his “job”…I’m sorry, what? I was told that my human emotions were telling me that these techniques were wrong because I didn’t understand dog behavior.
Well, what I came to understand very quickly, especially after we adopted Super Sensitive Starla, was that even mild corrections, which are very aversive to sensitive pups, were ruining my dogs. They were becoming anxious, even tucking their tails on leisurely walks! I also came to understand that it was these particular trainers who actually did not understand dog behavior. With the help of our veterinarian, my husband and I found a wonderful positive reinforcement trainer who helped us repair the damage “old school” training techniques had done to our dogs’ confidence.
As you know, I pride myself on having happy goofy dogs, and I believe wholeheartedly that our bond was facilitated by the change in training technique and the effort to understand how dogs learn and what they require to feel secure in the human world.
So, back to other methods of training. While many well balanced happy-go-lucky dogs can come out of “traditional” training methods or the use of tools like prong collars relatively unscathed, the current research on how dogs learn teaches us that even if a dog is not damaged with the use of dominance theory training and “corrections”, he is not learning to make choices and use his brain in a way that creates behaviors that are more suitable in the home environment. He is learning more slowly and not picking up on communication with people as easily. For example, if you spray a dog with water every time he barks, he may stop barking for fear of that yucky water getting on his face. The behavior is being suppressed. But he is not learning a different behavior in its place or how to deal with or change his emotional response to whatever is triggering him to bark in the first place. He is also learning that you, his person, might be untrustworthy.
A positive reinforcement trainer will figure out what trigger is causing the barking, counter condition (create a more positive association) the dog to the cause of the barking and/or create a training plan through which the dog is rewarded (with treats or another reinforcing things like toys or play) for choosing a different behavior when in the presence of the thing that makes him bark. For example: your dog barks ferociously any time he sees another dog on TV. So you start feeding your dog treats when he sees pesky TV dogs and he starts to think maybe those dogs aren’t so bad. Then you teach your dog that he gets rewarded for lying on his bed quietly with a Kong during TV time. Over time, as you reinforce this preferred behavior with well timed praise and rewards, it becomes more and more likely that the dog will begin to offer this behavior consistently even without treats. And bonus: you’re strengthening your bond with your dog instead of becoming a distrustful figure who might spray nonsense into his face when he’s trying to warn you about that suspicious tiny dog inside the big glowing box.
A very serious negative outcome of using punishment in training – and anything can be punishing/aversive depending on the dog, be it a spray of water or citronella, a shock collar, or a voice raised in anger – is the suppression of a dog’s warning system (growling, warning barks). I have seen case studies of dogs who were punished over and over for growling and barking when stressed until the dog no longer used body language or vocalization to express discomfort. He effectively lost all ability to communicate his fear or anxiety to anyone. Then when the dog was put into an uncomfortable and frightening situation (close quarters with no escape with a stranger who kept interacting with the dog), the dog bit the person – with what was perceived by the person as no warning. The dog, having been punished out of expressing discomfort, was placed in an uncomfortable situation and his only recourse to make the “scary thing” (person) go away was to bite. And the person ended up with stitches.
I have seen the fallout of punishment in the veterinary setting countless times. Well-intended owners scold their dog for being nervous in the vet’s office, pulling on their collar or yelling when the dog barks. They have been taught by “traditional” trainers to override the dog’s emotional state by “being in charge.” Not only is this ineffective, but it worsens the dog’s anxiety, makes him feel completely unsafe, and then he is an absolute terrified mess at future visits. He might need to be muzzled for the staff’s protection because he is so scared, he could bite. A reinforcement-based counter-conditioning plan could have helped change the dog’s opinion of vet visits without all the heartbreak.
All of this is to say that the more compassionate and research-based your method of training, the better the outcome for your dog. Do we need to raise our voices or make a loud sound or physically move our dogs sometimes? Yes of course – you’re not going to gently whisper “hey quit it” if a dog fight breaks out. Do dogs need boundaries within the home? YES! But boundaries can be taught in a fun and rewarding way. Again, I do not judge people for their past training mistakes (who am I to judge when I made the same mistakes?). I do not judge for all the misinformation out there. But I am constantly furthering my education with programs which offer the most up-to-date information in their curriculums, and the truth is, time and research have told us that positive reinforcement training is the best choice for creating happy companions. And another bonus: you feel good training this way and it’s fun!
Let me know what you think and what your experiences have taught you! Email me at info@cerberusdogtraining.com.