...will work for your dogs.
Ok, that's a bit of an overstatement, but the idea I'm trying to get across is that I really dislike the saying "well, whatever works for the individual dog is what's needed." Basically what people are communicating when they say this is that owners have the right to treat their dogs however they want to achieve the behavior they are looking for, as long as it doesn't cross the line into "abuse." I could write a whole blog post on the many things that are widely used as instruments in dog training that are considered abusive to experts in the field of behavior, but I will save that for another time. This blog post is to discuss force free training and why it works for every dog and why it's better for every dog.
When people say "Whatever works..." what I believe they are really discussing is how it's easiest for them to get the behavior they want out of their dogs. Sadly, for most people this includes a series of don'ts. I don't want my dog to jump, I don't want my dog to growl, I don't want my dog to react to other dogs on leash, etc. This is a very unfortunate way to look at the behavior of our dogs, and I say this with full understanding because I was once that owner. It got really frustrating for me and I'm sure it got frustrating for my dogs. Why would they walk next to me if I wasn't treating them nicely? Did it matter that they got some cookies for sitting and doing other tricks? Maybe it helped, but it certainly wasn't enough.
Lucky for me and my dogs, I changed. I had my eyes opened to the world of force free dog training. It's been a long, difficult process because it's not easy. This is where I think the breakdown occurs for a lot of people: when they think "no corrections" they think "positive reinforcement." So what do you do when the dog is doing something you don't like? How do you use clicking and treating to fix that!? For this reason I prefer the term force free training. There are three primary elements to force free training:
1) Positive reinforcement--rewarding what you like
2) Negative punishment--not rewarding what you don't like
3) Management--setting the dog up to succeed
I think management is really the most difficult and this is what changes from dog to dog and situation to situation. So yes, it's an overstatement to say "what works for my dogs will work for you dogs," but it is the management that changes, not the method. Management can be really tough. It takes a lot of energy and thoughtfulness to always be 10 steps ahead of your dog. It can be tough to maintain vigilance to foresee situations that your dog might fail in and avoid them. Believe me, mistakes get made even by the best most highly credentialed trainers, but as you keep working at it you get much better and it becomes a part of your routine. The management element of force free training is why communicating over phone, e-mail, or even in person with someone will never be the same as having an in-home professional, force free trainer. For recommendations visit Truly Dog Friendly.
With sound management, force free training will make your life happy with any dog. Will it make your dog-aggressive-dog dog social? No, but it will teach you how to build a relationship with your dog such that when he sees another dog he no longer has an aggressive response, but rather maintains engagement with you. This is accomplished without ever causing fear, anxiety, or pain, and in fact building that relationships REQUIRES never causing those negative responses. As an added bonus, you learn about your dog on a level you never believed possible. You learn all of their nuances and it makes everything in your life so much easier in the long run, but it is a huge hurdle to get over that learning curve.
"Traditional" trainers--trainers that use positive punishment and negative reinforcement--haven't done the research on learning theory published in the last 50 years that demonstrates how dogs (and all animals) learn best. We do not learn best by positive punishment, ever, and such punishment has consequences. A lot of those consequences are that your dog doesn't like you as much, that your dog fears you, that your dog listens to you because he's intimidated. Some of those consequences can be more severe, like the development of fear aggression, being bit, taking his suppressed anxiety or fear out on another animal in the home. Did you know 15% of dogs have an aggressive response to being yelled "NO!" at and 20% of dogs have an aggressive response to being sprayed with a water pistol (Herron, et al. 2009)? Those are scary numbers to me considering how many "trainers" (quotations indicate they likely have no credentials) and people helping other dog owners, give that kind of advice. Are these dogs innately aggressive? Maybe. Sometimes aggression is genetic, but 20% of them? That seems unlikely. What seems more likely is that these animals are fearful of their owners and thus respond aggressively. They are scared. Their owners have scared them. Is that what you would ever want to do to your dogs? I regret every single day that I used fear in an attempt to manage my dogs. I only wish I could take that back.
It pains me to see and hear people giving advice that works because of inducing fear, whether it's a loud noise, water, a choke chain, or a verbal correction. Does it work? Sure, it can, in 80% of cases, according to Herron, et al, but it costs a piece of your relationship with your dog. If you use these techniques you probably don't even realize that piece is missing, you don't know any deeper kind of bond exists, I certainly didn't and I have and always will love my dogs deeply. It causes me so much pain when I hear "whatever works for each individual dog," unless of course they are referencing the particular reinforcer that dog responds to or a particular management technique. There are changes necessary to account for unique circumstances and the specific personality of the dog, but under no circumstances does it have to include pain or fear. To quote Ian Dunbar in his 2007 TED talk: Punishment "does not have to be nasty, scary, or painful...if it doesn't have to be, then it shouldn't be."
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