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Why positive reinforcement only won’t save all the dogs

July 19, 2019 by SWestfall3

If you watch this clip, you can see several things.

First of all, the trainer makes no claim that his methods will reform this dog into a dog that will never fight other dogs, and when you see the dog enter the room, it absolutely is on the hunt. She is looking at other dogs that way many dogs look at squirrels.

Some pit bull strains have a had a deliberate selection for this sort of behavior. It’s not all in how you raise them. They absolutely will throw it down to get to another dog and kill it.

That’s why these training techniques, which include the judicious use of the electronic collar, are effective.  This dog is being trained so that whatever drive she has that makes her want to kill other dogs can be managed, and she can have a life.

Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool for dog training, but it is not the only way to deal with them.

The foundation of getting this dog under control was set through this session. It will take lots of work and dedication to keep her safe.

Contrary to what people may have thought about my views on this blog, I was never opposed to electronic collars. I was opposed to using them to inflict unnecessary pain on a dog.

After dealing with several pit bulls in my professional and personal life, I can say that many of them do need a firmer hand than most people are willing to give them.  Some of these dogs, once they know you mean business, will absolutely give you their all.

But you have to give them fair and clear leadership signals. You cannot let them walk all over you.

So if this type of dog is going to be popular (and they are very popular), owners and trainers are going to need all the available tools to deal with their behavior.

Electronic collars are now made with so many features and stimulation levels that they are quite humane devices. There are countless trainers doing wonders with them. There are also quite a few jagoffs who are using them for abuse, but we should not punish those good trainers because of bad ones.

About ten or fifteen years ago,  positive reinforcement only became an idea in the dog world.  Positive reinforcement isn’t a bad thing. It’s a great way to teach stylish obedience. It’s also great for teaching commands.

But this good idea took on a sort of unreasoning fundamentalism.  People would often point out that polar bears and orcas could be trained with positive reinforcement alone, so why not dogs?

Well, the problem with that logic is that orcas and polar bears aren’t walked down city streets. They don’t really live in civilization. When they are in captive situations, the public has almost no access to them– and for good reason.

Anyone who has ever walked a dog on a public street knows fully well that many people believe a dog on a public street is public property that must be approached and talked to, regardless of whether the person walking the dog happened to have been in hurry or not.  Can you imagine walking a positive reinforcement only trained polar bear down a street and have some well-meaning stranger walk up to pet it?

Obviously, that won’t ever happen, but we expect dogs to behave with such extreme composure and control.  Most dogs will be able to handle it well, but the dogs that don’t may require different training tools and methods.

And we should, as open-minded individuals living in a free society, be accepting that it’s going to take a lot more than giving a dog treats and ignoring unwanted behavior to make certain dogs safe in public.

If we can’t accept that reality, then we really must accept the consequence that lots of dogs are going to be euthanized for their behavior, because they do require other tools and methods to manage their behavior.

I am not knocking the great strides that have been made in modern behavior modification and training techniques that have come from positive reinforcement/rewards-based training. Those methods are the absolute gold standard in making well-behaved pets.

But they are not the solution for every dog or for every problem dog.

To say otherwise is to be a bit dishonest.

If you’re going to train dogs, the rule of thumb should be to learn as much as you can from as many people as you can, and never stop learning.  An open mind is as useful as an open heart.

And that’s where I come down on the great dog training debate as it exists.  Too much heat has been exchanged by both sides and not enough light.

The truth requires more nuance and understanding than our social media culture can currently handle at the moment. But if you really want to know things, you can find out.

Just keep that mind open.

And for the record, I have trained a dog using an e-collar at low levels. She got so many treats and praise while doing so that she gets quite excited when I pick up her collar and put it on her.  She knows the fun is about to start when that thing comes out.

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Posted in dog behavior | Tagged American pit bull terrier, electronic collar, pit bull, positive reinforcement dog training | 2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. on July 31, 2019 at 5:09 pm LaEscura

    I’m not much of a dog trainer myself, but here is what I’ve gathered over the years…

    Collectively, this is known as force-free training – which involves positive reinforcement and other methods (depending on which issue a dog has to be addressed) that lack inflicting pain or fear or putting the animal under any unnecessary stress. Personally, I would never consider a shock collar on a dog that has a behavoural problem that is rooted in fear (most cases of aggressive reactivity in dogs is fear-based – usually as a result of poor socialization, puppy fear periods and a dog’s individual genetics). Not such a good idea to fight phobias with something that causes more fear that can cause the dog to simply shut down (stop reacting). ;-) But that is certainly not the case with that Pit bull type in the video as you have noted, and in this case using an e-collar maybe be warranted.

    Many dogs (my own included; maybe with the exception of an over-the-top food-obsessed dog such as a Labrador or Golden) will cease to accept even high-value treats when on a situation that triggers them enough mental stress or arousal – rendering positive reinforcement useless. The brain cannot focus on anything else or rationalize when going into flight or fight mode… same with humans. In such cases in force-free circles, they employ desensitization to stimuli in baby steps pared with something the dogs loves (counterconditioning), so that in time animal is able to overcome its phobia to whatever it’s scared of.

    My current dog is an intact male and since after turning a year old is extremely hostile to other entire males. He shows very different – more classic aggression than the prey-based aggression demonstrated by very dog fight-oriented APBTs. He switches into attack mode on a dime the moment he notices another male smells male, and will even take on dogs much larger and has knocked and pinned down a larger Golden (not bragging about this and I’m certainly not happy or proud that he developed this tendency) attacking him unprovoked. He has been aggressively jumped as a puppy by other dogs that were loose. But strangely he doesn’t give any body cues that he’s afraid prior to attacking – he seems confident that he can take on his opponent so I’m guessing that his aggression is intense dominance-based and towards younger dogs he is an intolerant bullying jerk. I’ve been contemplating on tackling this issue with a force-free trainer but also with an e-collar since his aggression doesn’t appear to be fear-based (I’ve been studying canine body language and signals and pretty much know a fearful dog when I see one).

    With shock collars the results are usually instant, where as with strictly force-free methods it takes more time and patience.


  2. on August 1, 2019 at 3:47 am LaEscura

    Have a look at this: caninenationDOTca/archives/primecontent/guest/frustrated-by-force-free-fundamentalism



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