Cooperation, Not Control

* Before anyone gets started, I'm not saying that dogs never need to be under control - they very definitely should be under control out in public, in areas where other dogs/people/livestock/wildlife may be or anywhere that they could be in danger.

So what do I mean by cooperation, not control? I'm talking about the way in which we train our dogs, teach them the cues that we need them to know and follow.

As I have said before, I grew up in the era of Barbara Woodhouse, choke chains around the necks of most dogs and that instantly recognisable sharply spoken 'Sit!' complete with hand signal, raising the hand up sharply to the shoulder. This was also accompanied by lots of jerking the lead (attached of course to the choke chain), looming over the dogs, loads of big body language and showing the dog who was in charge. This is not training, it is coercion and, frankly, bullying.

There is an argument to be made that we can never truly not use coercion in training, even when utilising positive reinforcement methods. While we are not doing anything that causes the dog to feel fear or pain, we are still manipulating the circumstances, arranging the environment so that the dog is most likely to do whatever the thing is that we want. This is more of a benign kind of coercion compared to the effects of aversive methods. While there are some that say any form of coercion is wrong, there is much less damage in setting a dog up to most likely do what we want and get themselves a tasty treat than in yanking on a prong collar or triggering a shock from an e-collar when they do something 'wrong'. The latter methods fit in far more with the concept of bullying than training, particularly in the minds of many modern kind and ethical canine professionals.

So yes, there is still an element of coercion and control involved in how we set up training sessions for dogs. We engineer the situation so that the dog is most likely to do the thing that we want (set them up to succeed) and get something they really enjoy as a result. The very definition of reinforcement in the scientific sense - something that increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated. The dog comes to realise that doing the things we want gets them things they like: a tasty treat, access to a favourite toy, a game, fuss and attention from their human... Setting up sessions to be fun for the dog (and so fun for the human as well) can increase the strength of the canine-human bond.

Aim to work with your dog, not try to make them work for you. Make it fun for them to be where you need or want them to be so that they want to be with you and want to be in what is the right or safest place, so they choose to be there. The best relationships we can aim for with our dogs is a partnership, not a dictatorship.

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In other news, the audiobook of Understanding Reactive Dogs is now available for purchase. It can be found at Amazon HERE (link goes to your native Amazon store) or on Audible or Apple books (links to which are on the book page at Books2Read).