The war in dog training explained.
First of all, dog training isn’t regulated so anyone can call themselves a dog trainer. Does one really need education to work with dogs? You choose. If you choose to go into “force free” training, then it’s against balanced. You can choose to go balanced – does that make the education right? It’s common sense that is missing. I can build a house from start to finish – doesn’t make me a contractor. Electrical and plumbing isn’t that hard – but it doesn’t make me a plumber or electrician. What does it take to be a behaviourist? Simple education – read books and pass tests. If I read the books, and don’t take the tests – what does that make me? The argument over education is getting ludicrous – and again, which ones are right – balanced or force free?
If we step back and look at the state of politics today, things seem to be going far left and far right – we are losing the centrists. In my opinion, the same is happening in the dog training world. On the left, we have “force free” – these are the positive reinforcement, purely positive trainers etc. On the right, we have balanced training. Where is center and who is correct? The left likes to make up labels for society. I can’t be a heterosexual male anymore, they call me cisgender. Ok, fair enough. But what the left does is to create labels then use them to villianize the balanced world – to that end, they made up labels and the balanced community at large seems to have adopted these labels. Lets take a look at some of these labels.
The Alpha dog trainer, force free created the label, and you’ll hear “alpha” is debunked from the left. How does one create a label based on bad information, then debunk it? Alpha dog training was never a thing to begin with. The term “alpha” was coined by David Mech, and he freely admitted that he was wrong in classifying lead wolves as the alpha. Alpha dog training doesn’t exist – except in label or ideal.
Dominance based dog trainer. Again, another label based on hatred of people like Cesar Millan. We ended up with this Mickey Mouse definition of dominance and submission that really doesn’t make sense. In order for one to be dominant, the other party – or the sub – needs to give permission for that person to be dominant. So if your dog is dominant – then you’ve simply given up that role – you’ve given permission to be the sub. Dom/Sub human relationships for example – the sub is in control. If you’re forcing a dog to submit – then you’re an arsehole, not a trainer. Dogs need to choose to be calm and submissive – and that can’t be forced. Monty is very dominant in dog parks, when other dogs come up to him – they tend to go submissive, they choose to become submissive. It’s not that Monty is going over the top, or trying to take control — it’s just his way of being. Watch the video at the end, which dog is choosing to be submissive? My 10 pound Minpin or the 90 pound Rottweiler?
Enter B.F Skinner, animal behaviourist and human psychologist – and the man blamed for the creation of the “quadrants” of operant conditioning. You’ve heard of +R/-R, +P/-P or “Positive Reinforcement”, “negative reinforcement”, “positive punishment”, and “negative punishment”. Well, Skinner wasn’t a fan of punishment – period, he knew punishment isn’t effective and to date, I’ve never read about “positive punishment” or “negative punishment” in any of his works. If I’m wrong, please show me where he discusses either. Skinner didn’t create the quadrants, trainers did based on bad interpretation of his earlier works. Early works, he had computers timing the doling out of food reward – and human beings are not computers. Hence the reason that people are messing up with treat training.
Negative reinforcement happened early on, example – Skinner would hook up an electrode to a dogs tail and shock it til it figured out what trick was to be performed. The removal of negative reinforcement was classified as positive reinforcement. Later, Skinner stopped using negative reinforcement, and if you look at the ideal that he wasn’t a fan of punishment – then 3 quadrants are tossed out the window. Which one is left? “Positive Reinforcement”, and trainers today still managed to screw that up with “have a treat”. True positive reinforcement comes from personal choice – and the dog needs to choose, to use the brain they are given. When a dog makes a positive choice – it earns the reward of the outcome of that choice. If the dog is excited and barking at a dog – could it simply be that the dog wants to meet the dog. The dog needs to make a choice – to calm down – the dog will quickly realize that calm gets it everything it wants. The reward of choosing to be calm should be socialization, meeting dogs, meeting people – nothing should be a big deal anymore. But I watch people making everything a big deal.
Getting what it wants through postive choices is “positive reinforcement”, getting what it wants is a reward of its own and is the reason people can work with dogs without treats and reward – or punishment. What would you prefer? A dog that works for you – or a dog that works for that piece of food in your hand? This is exactly why I don’t use treats – figure out what the dog is trying to communicate – and let it reward itself through choice. It’s self-gratification and there is nothing wrong with it.
Skinner has been dead for 30 years, time to let him go as so much has changed since his death.
Now don’t get me wrong, Skinner had merits but he didn’t like the “black box”, the brain. According to Skinner, we didn’t need to investigate the brain – because we have operant conditioning and everything can be fixed using this conditioning. The “force free” community at large is upset with balanced mainly due to the abundant tool use and I get that. Some trainers won’t or simply cannot work with a dog without an e-collar and/or prong collar. It’s all they know, it’s all they learned and changing their minds isn’t easy.
Getting back to the war in dog training. Spend enough time in facebook groups or other internet forums, you’ll see the war. The force free community are trying to “one up” each other – in a war to see who can be less forceful. On the balanced side, if you come out against tool use – and you’ll be ripped to shreds. Now, looking at owners, many start off in the “positive reinforcement” world, realize that PR isn’t working for them – so what’s your only alternative? Balanced dog training. So many new posters in the balanced groups are coming out of the PR world, and end up using tools on the dog. Most times, you’ll read it’s for the life of the dog. And many of these people end up controlling and managing their dog for whatever reason – and control/management can ruin your own life.
And where is the dog through all this? If a human being is in a bad relationship – they can choose to leave the relationship. The dog doesn’t have that choice, it’s stuck with you.
If you could switch places with your dog, would you want to be in a relationship with you? Think about that long and hard.
I ask again, which dog is dominant – which is submissive?
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