At
most training institutions, their programs are designed to teach the dog as many
commands possible in the shortest doable time frame. This practice does not take
into consideration the negative effect that this system has on the dog’s
working attitude (happy or sad), or the bond relationship between owner and dog.
They convince the customer that they give them more for their money by promising
to teach the dog a greater number of commands, and at the same time saying it
will be trained in a shorter period of time. But if less time is spent on each
command, how well can the dog actually learn them?
And will the dog work slowly and depressed while doing his
new tricks? And will he despise his
time working with his owner, and see each session as a period of cruel and
unfair punishment? When explained
to the majority of dog owners in this manner, most immediately realize that it
is far more important to have a dog that performs consistently, quickly, and
happily on the basic and necessary commands, than it is to have a dog that is
taught a few additional tricks, but performs slowly, depressed, and oftentimes
not at all. A properly trained dog should perform reliably and with good spirit
whether indoors or out. It should not make a difference when there are other
animals or crowds nearby, loud noises or sudden distractions, or any other
circumstances that may be present.
In
the past, Old World Kennel has specialized in the training of doges for the
serious tasks of law enforcement, home protection, and competition schutzhund.
Schutzhund is a sport that originated in Germany, in which dogs compete in
working trials in the areas of tracking, obedience, and protection. Some of the
criteria that the dogs are scored on include precision, speed, and the attitude
of the dog while executing the commands. But in the areas of law enforcement and
home protection, the need for a stable, quick, and reliable well-trained dog is
even more important when one considers that lives could be at stake!
It is in these serious areas of canine work that Old World Kennel has
clearly stood out as an obvious cut above the rest.
To successfully train a dog to
consistently work in a willing manner, one must thoroughly understand the
delicate balance between positive and negative motivation. Both aspects must be
utilized in any successful obedience training program if the dog is to end up
competent and well adjusted, but it is the delicate balance between the two that
very few trainers have mastered. Positive motivation can be food, praise,
chasing a ball, or a number of other rewards that an individual dog may enjoy.
This is the method that should be used to introduce any new dog to new commands,
so that learning will be fun, humane, and something to look forward to. The
proper use of positive motivation can really spark the potential to build a rock
solid bond between dog and owner. However, without the later introduction to
negative reinforcement in the training program, the execution of commands from
the dog will be unreliable at best. You see, positive motivation when done
properly utilizes one of the most prominent natural drives of an individual dog
initially teach a command. For instance, a good trainer should be able to
evaluate the dog and decide which natural drive is strongly pronounced, and then
utilize that drive as the basis to reward the dog during positive
motivational training. If the dog has a high food drive, or drive to chase a
ball , or just a strong drive to receive praise from the owner, the trainer will
choose the strongest of these for the individual and that will be the sole
motivation that will be used to introduce the dog to new commands. And this
concept works fine as an introduction, but if a higher drive is circumstantially
triggered while training is taking place, the dog may ignore the command and
instead be focused on the stimuli responsible for kicking in the stronger drive.
For example: Let’s say a trainer
is working with a dog that has been trained using only positive motivation in
the form of food. And lets say that this particular dog has an especially high
prey, which more specifically can be described as the drive to give chase and
capture a moving object. If while being trained, the dog notices a rabbit in the
vicinity that is darting off and crossing a busy street, unless the dog is in a
state of starvation to substantially heighten his food drive, he will more than
likely pursue the rabbit and run the risk of possibly being killed by a passing
car. We now can appreciate the seriousness of what can occur with a dog that has
been rushed through training in an obviously incomplete manner. And it is for
this reason that a properly trained dog will have been exposed to some form of
negative reinforcement in his training program. Otherwise the dog will only be
obedient when he feels like it, or more specifically when none of his other
stronger natural drives are activated.
To summarize, positive motivation is the
method of choice to teach a beginning dog new commands. It keeps his attitude
high, and increases the bond between dog and owner. The
later introduction of negative motivation produces consistency and reliability
in the execution of commands. And if used AFTER a dog has thoroughly learned a
command taught by positive motivation, it is both humane and necessary. To be
even more specific, negative motivation is a form of mild physical correction
given to a dog only after he has thoroughly learned a command but makes a
voluntary choice to ignore it. When done correctly, the correction is
immediately followed the necessary physical manipulation to force the dog to
complete the command. The dog is then praised and rewarded as he was during his
positive motivational training. As a result, the dog does not remember so much
the negative force that he received, but rather the most recent thing that
occurred, which was the correct execution of the command followed by the reward.
This way his attitude will remain positive and the bond between him and his
owner will stay strong.
A proper
physical correction need not be painful to the dog. In most cases it is more
appropriate if it is merely annoying. The correction should be brief, and its
purpose is not so much to punish the dog, but rather to get the dog's attention
back onto the task at hand. In most cases, a short tug on the training collar,
or a quick pinch or pull to the ear or flank of the dog, is all that is needed.
It is almost NEVER justifiable for the owner to strike the dog with a hand,
foot, rolled up newspaper, or anything! One reason is that this sort of
correction will disturb the trust between dog and owner. And for those who are
interested in later utilizing their dog as a source of home or personal
protection, striking a dog can have an even more catastrophic result. A dog
corrected in this manner will learn to shy away from an up-raised hand. And in a
real life situation involving danger, the dog that hesitates or cowers could end
up dead, thus putting the owner or owner's loved ones also at risk. Perhaps now
it is easier to see that a training program that does not utilize both positive
and negative motivation is considered by us to be incomplete, and oftentimes even damaging to the dog.
