Unsure about negative dog trainers

[DuckEggy]

I think I know the answer to this and need to trust my own gut, however ...

Situation 1: dog trainer shouted at my dog for doing something

Situation 2: I was advised to harshly reprimand my dog and avoid them seeing an animal they were barking at by obstructing them

Both were professionals with a good reputation locally.

My stance tends to be rarely to tell my dogs off as such, reward for good behaviour and try and avoid or ignore bad behaviour or ask for a more positive one instead.

There are exceptions, because I'm human! - if my pup jumped up and hurt me I'd probably shout out in pain - or if they were about to push past me to get to something dangerous in the food bin, I'd say a harsh 'no'.

Generally though, I don't want to shout at them. If they are being stubborn or bolshy, I will be firm but not loud. They are not lap dogs and come from working heritage.

Am I being too feeble? Out of text book and in real life, is it necessary to raise a voice? Barky dog would have continued to bark whether I shouted at them or not.

People applying the principles incorrectly doesn't make the system a failure. Merely their failure to apply it properly.

inconsistent half arsed training isn’t going to achieve much even if you label it positive.

Positive training isn’t being positive with a dog, it’s operant conditioning, it’s literally just applying behavioural science into training a dog.

Corrections will work with some dogs, dogs are pretty adaptable, but it’s usually pretty inefficient tbh.

What are you correcting? How does the dog know that? What’s it supposed to do instead?…chances are you’ve just got a confused dog.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t interrupt a dog or stop it doing something potentially dangerous but expecting it to learn why you’re correcting it and what it’s supposed to be doing is pretty unrealistic for most things.

Interesting discussion. I train mainly through shaping, luring and catching the behaviours I want. I have the home set up to discourage and manage unwanted behaviours. I very rarely use a raised voice as just not needed. Recall is on a sixpence even with distractions / prey due to the training methods and dog breed.
I’ve trained that after a walk, they sit in the boot unrestrained, boot open for air, having a drink while I change my boots. It’s been proofed and generalised well using rewards. I only do this in safe areas not a busy road. One day this week we had a distraction above all distractions! A spinny excited collie jumped out of the car opposite, off lead, spinning in circles just in front of them. My non -spinny collies thought this was incredibly fun and leapt out. I immediately shouted “ no, get in” very loudly and firmly. One jumped straight back in to look very sheepish and the other looked sheepish, then jumped back in. No harm done but they’ve learned another lesson.
I guess what I’m saying is that when safety and “ never ever” situations happen, you make your voice and body language such that you will not be ignored, just like with your children, but when “teaching” you should be using positive reward based techniques.

Balanced Dog Training is when you reward a dog for good behaviour and tell them off for negative behaviour.
Positive Dog Training is when you ignore any bad behaviour and reward good.

One of my two dogs shuts down with any kind of negativity so got a positive based training. The other one was a complete shit, highly driven, very intelligent and very badly behaved throughout adolescence. The trainers we worked with were very much of the positive mindset and even they struggled. At my wits end and seriously considering rehoming I found balanced Dog training and read more into it. I followed some of these trainers on Instagram and began putting what they said into practice. The difference was light and day. My dog needed to know what I wanted him to do and what I didn't want him to do. He's a different dog now and much happier. I get compliments on how well bonded we are.

Different dogs have different needs. You treat the dog as an individual and not a machine that acts how a book thinks it should.

How do you know that it wasn't that you hadn't found what properly motivated/rewarded him?

Because after 2 years I think we had exhausted everything. From sausages, liver, balls, squeaky toys, he couldn't give a shit.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t interrupt a dog or stop it doing something potentially dangerous but expecting it to learn why you’re correcting it and what it’s supposed to be doing is pretty unrealistic for most things.

I disagree with this to be honest, I think it's very realistic to be able to train your dog to follow your cues.. and that's what people should actually strive for when training dogs, one word, or look, or click or point and your dog should know what it is you're conveying to them.

For instance, I'm not a big believer in physically shutting dogs away, or physically maneuvering them where you want them, I prefer that they have the ability to make the right choices themselves within guidelines set by us, so if a dog is getting too close around us when we're eating, I can click my fingers and say 'out' and they will leave the room.. the out command has been taught by physically taking them from the room while using the click and 'out' command to start, then using body language to move them out the room without touching them, rinse and repeat until they understand that 'out' means out and they go and lie down somewhere else while we're eating, it has been firmed up by never giving them food while we're eating, and giving them praise when we have finished and they're free to come back in.

I use the same type of command for any excited barking in the back garden, but I use the 'in' command.

Same command for sofa hogging, but 'off'.

If you just take a dog and shut it in another room, or physically move it around, or distract it with something else, or ignore bad behaviour, IMO it is never really learning what you don't want it to do, and that is a really important part of training IMO, as long as your body language and actions are consistent, not everything has to be rewards based for them to understand it, a large part of it is forming that bond where they trust you and you trust them and fundamentally they want to please you, as your love and affection and fulfilling their care needs can be just as much a reward, if not more, then an actual treat.

I don't mean this to sound argumentative, but why would that matter?

They found the system that works for their dog, why would it matter what that system is? There's no real right or wrong here.. there's just things that work and things that don't work, a lot of people go through a lot of training methods before finding what suits them and their specific dog.

If you're struggling a little with the training methods you're currently implementing then change it up, but don't be afraid to be that assertive person your dog needs you to be, to show them what you do want and what you don't want, they will not hate you for it, and you may find it is a game changer in how your dog responds to you, be calm, be assertive and be consistent.

Isn’t that just providing an alternative to the unwanted behaviour @sandyhappypeople ? I do all that with my dog and consider it positive training because there’s the element of choice in it (choice being fine in low stakes environment). I mean, my dog is usually going to choose to do the right thing because a)food based b)she does have the instinct to follow instructions, but it’s still a choice.
I think the only physical maneuvering I did was to block doorways with my legs in the early days while teaching Back command. Handy for doorways and also for steps and slopes out walking.
It’s true that tone of voice does have an impact, but I wouldn’t say I’ve trained her to fear a negative reinforcement. A sharp command is the negative reinforcement I suppose, which is fine if that’s as negative as I need to get. I’d not be comfortable with having to escalate that into scruffing her or anything else physical. I realise that you are not saying you are physical with your dogs btw, but some people feel they have to move onto that if a sharp voice doesn’t work. I’ve always tried to take a step back and find a reward based tactic.

One thing nobody has mentioned is the tone of your voice, your body language.and your emotional state.

You can achieve a lot by learning to control these - dogs know when you are faking it!
I think a good trainer would teach you about these and work with you to become that super cool amazing human that your dog just wants to hang out with!

I also believe that teaching a dog a no for dangerous situations is important as well as a gentler oh no! If they do something wrong in training. Note, it just means: what you do isn't what I want you to do.
The importance is to get their attention and coax them into the correct behaviour. Then use voice, body & whatever reward to tell them it's perfect when they do.

I’m not quite sure what you’re disagreeing with? you’ve just described teaching a dog what to do and rewarding it.

Out, in and off aren’t corrections they’re commands and praise is a reward.

Reward based training doesn’t mean they get food for doing stuff, it means you’re reinforcing what they’ve done with some sort of reward, people tend to use food because with puppies and new dogs it’s usually easiest, but anything positive is a reward, including praise.

Like nobody is saying let your dog take food off your plate and then give it more if it stops 😂

Just that if that’s the issue you have, teach it what you want it to do, whether that’s just teaching it a leave command or a bed or place etc. and yeah sometimes as management especially with a very young dog giving it a chew or whatever can help while you work on those, but it’s as well as teaching them what to do not instead of.

You don’t just shout at it or tell it off and expect it to actually learn anything other than you resource guard your food. i mean it’ll probably sort of work because you’re bigger than them, but they might still decide someone else’s food is fair game.

@sandyhappypeople you do realise you're describing positive training while simultaneously shitting on it, right?

I know exactly what motivates one of my dogs: the scent or sight of anything with fur or feathers and a heartbeat. It's a bit hard to carry that around in your treat bag.

Even now, after years of work building value in me, in treats, in praise and play, NOTHING is more exciting than a partridge taking wing.

Positive really isn’t ignoring bad behaviour. It’s about capturing what you want by reward and manipulating the situation as best you can to prevent ‘bad’ behaviour. Which is only bad to us and normal to the dog.

Myself or any of the trainers I know - nobody accepts ‘bad’ behaviour but we work to prevent it, pre empt and teach an alternative and look at why.

To me balanced means chucking a shit load of treats at it, it not working then using punishment to scare the dog into behaving. Interestingly never used in sports like agility, flyball, scentwork, guide dogs, hearing dogs etc. Because it can and does damage a relationship where you need your dog to have absolute trust in you.

I’ve never seen a well trained independent breed be successfully trained with it. Only breeds you can bully.

My dog now generally rubs along ok with our cat. But in the mornings he’s sleepy and she’s excitable. So we ask her to wait upstairs which we’ve trained until we go down and either move him or shut off her access to him until she’s had a play, eaten, been to the loo then relaxed a bit. She waits slightly fizzing until released. Thats positive training. Train and manage. The alternative is letting her go and practice jumping all over the poor cat trying to lick him and love him and yelling at her of which makes mo difference.

I haven’t shit on it at all? this is all in response to op saying they reward good behaviour and ignore bad, imo you can’t ignore bad, to successfully train your dog you have to do address both.

you can’t just do one and hope for the best with everything else, if you’re going to have a dog you need to be able to train it to listen to you, if one way isn’t working you need to find alternatives that are relevant to your dog and its needs otherwise you just end up as one of the many dogs we see on a weekly basis who’s dogs don’t listen to a word they say.

I know exactly what motivates one of my dogs: the scent or sight of anything with fur or feathers and a heartbeat. It's a bit hard to carry that around in your treat bag

Derailing the thred allert!
You know you can make a toy with faux fur and a heartbeat....

www.etsy.com/uk/listing/484156352/add-on-for-custom-reborn-baby-baby?gpla=1&gao=1&

Ignore doesn’t mean let them do it though…. Usually anyway, you might ignore attention seeking behaviours in that way because attention then would be rewarding even if it’s negative attention.

But usually it means don’t waste your time trying to tell them off for bad behaviour it means teach them what you want them to do instead or a combination of management and training to prevent it happening, it varies a lot by what the bad behaviour is.

The alternative is letting her go and practice jumping all over the poor cat trying to lick him and love him and yelling at her of which makes mo difference.

the bottom line here is that your dog doesn’t listen to you, or doesn’t understand that this situation is undesirable for you, I wouldn’t be happy with what you’re doing as a solution to be fair as it’s a compromise not an actual solution.

if you’re happy to do all that instead of teaching your dog the leave command so your dog and cat can happily co exist, then it will never change because you are leaving your dog in an excited state waiting for its reward, which is being released, instead of teaching it that being calm around the cat is the behaviour you want.

you don’t have to shout and hit your dog to create a relationship where it listens to you and wants to do the behaviour you want on your command.. but it’s not as simple as asking for a simple action then giving a reward.

but again, IME people who use ‘positive reinforcement only’ seem to accept the limitations of it, think it’s the best you’re going to get, and denounce anything else as cruel when it’s just not.

No, she’s young and still learning in different states of arousal. Set her up to succeed. We train when in low arousal then slowly apply to higher states. 6 months ago she couldn’t have any contact with him at all as she was too rough. We’ve slowly applied training in a variety of situations and increased contact and now it’s only a few situations where he is more reinforcing than we are which are getting fewer and fewer. We do plenty of rewarding for calm but above all choosing to leave him alone which does take management but is far more reliable long term.

I don’t want to be keep telling her to leave. It’s boring plus I need to always be there. We’ve managed things so she chooses to leave him alone whether we’re there or not. I can now go off into another room and make a drink with them sleeping together and know she won’t bother him. That’s the result of choice based training. Choices are powerful things.

As I’ve typed this he’s just walked in. Dog has looked at him, given a bit of a wag then laid back down looking at me. No cues/commands needed. Two happy four leggeds. Very happy with that and no real limitation just time, patience and thought.

Dogs get better at what they practice. Practice the ‘bad’ (undesirable) things and they get really good at it. Manage the undesirable and prevent and manipulate them into practicing the good and guess what happens…

I can assure you that if I used punishment of any kind on my highly intelligent and therefore sensitive working terrier that would be the end of her wanting to work with me or listen to me. I’ve seen it happen with dogs that have come to me shut down and not wanting to work as they’ve been to training clubs where punishment is used. Sometimes we’ve been able to restore the relationship but sometimes not.

I don’t want a robot. I want a team mate.

Either way, you’re never actually teaching the dog that you don’t want that bad behaviour, you just distract them, or change things so they can’t easily do the bad behaviour, like physically removing them from a situation.. it never deals with the actual issue.

it is possible to train a dog to either not do the bad behaviours, or to stop doing them if they do start on your command, and that training doesn’t involve shouting or hitting.. but it’s not likely to happen with positive reinforcement training only imo.

you calling it a ‘waste of time’ shouting at them just shows you don’t really understand, you don’t shout at them to get them to stop a behaviour, you train them so they know you don’t want that behaviour, and when you give them the command, a look or a click of your fingers to stop, they stop, THEN you can use positive reinforcement again, because you then reward them doing the right thing.

but they have to learn what is acceptable and unacceptable first.

I don’t want to be keep telling her to leave.

you don’t keep telling them to leave, that’s what you do when you’re teaching them to leave, after you’ve taught the behaviours you don’t want, they just leave because you’ve trained them to, if there’s ever a slip or a slightly different version (when out walking for instance) you have the leave command to use which the dog understands and can be rewarded for.

You say you give them the choice, but imo locking them away and distracting them takes away their chance to do the behaviour you want, they aren’t not doing it to please you but because they physically can’t.. it’s not the same thing at all.

but each to their own, if it’s working for you then that’s all that matters.

A case in point being:
Long avenue of trees, fields one side, gloriously muddy bank with a claggy stream at the bottom. My dog was impossible to walk there when she was between 6 - 12 months. Lead-bitingly, spinnily, batshit crazy impossible. Major FOMO about any offlead dogs having more Fun than she was, but manners or sense around bikes/horses not well developed enough to let her off.
We could have shouted at her, put her on a cheese wire slip lead and yanked her in repeatedly until our strength and overbearingness stopped that behaviour. We could also have written it off as somewhere we couldn’t take her.
What we did was stick with a Pattern Game (based around scattered treats and the command ‘Find It!’). Now all we need is the command occasionally if something particularly exciting is happening. So she’ll see her absolute Best Thing Everrrr in the distance (collie with a ball etc) and there’s no staring, lunging or squealing any more. She looks at the ground, she looks at us for a “Good girl!” and we carry on walking. We’ve overwritten the reactivity in her brain with a Job - find something on the ground, or in our hands.
We were advised to get her to look at us or to block her view in the early days. Didn’t work and I can see why. She needed to make her own assessment of the situation and choose to Find It.
Pattern work is very adaptable too. We can take her to new and exciting places and it still works. The beach, however, is a work in progress. 🤦‍♀️. Crashing waves are super exciting and I won’t allow her to be one of those dogs who stand on the shore barking hysterically at them, so it’s very short visits, lots of Find It! and move away if she goes up the Reactivity Ladder. She does like looking for seaglass with us, though, because I guess we are all doing Find It

That is absolute bullshit.