Natural Dog Training Blog

The world of dog training has a myriad of opinions about the value of physical correction in a training program.  The question has also come up several times here in various forms: Is it ever necessary to use a physical correction with your dog? What is the Natural Dog Training approach to negative reinforcement?  Why would you ever want to cause your dog “pain”?  I’ve put off answering the question until now, because I wanted to make sure that all of you had a solid foundation in what Natural Dog Training is before I brought up this (potentially) controversial topic.  If you’re a new visitor to the site, please make sure that you peruse the Learn the Basics section so that you can also have a well-rounded view of Natural Dog Training.  But the time has come, so tackle the subject I will.

A little personal background

The first dog that I ever had (my family’s cairn terrier, named Sparky) was given the traditional dominance-style-heavy-on-the-negative-reinforcement training.  While in the intervening years I have actually seen dominance-style training be effective, I can tell you that it wasn’t very effective with Sparky.  And yet it was the only thing that I knew. 

Flash forward to my experience with Nola (the dog you see pictured all over this site).  With Nola it was obvious that the negative-reinforcement-based approach was just causing fear (and, eventually, an emotional shutdown).  I switched to traditional “positive” methods - which were great for most obedience type work in non-pressure situations, but not very effective in curing her of a deep-seated aggression towards the majority of other dogs.  And if we were in the woods and she lighted on the scent of a deer - forget it, she was off.  That’s what led me to Natural Dog Training (and you can follow the link to read more about my personal story).

I suppose what I’m trying to convey is my own personal concern about how negative reinforcement, as traditionally applied, can cause emotional instability in dogs.  It was with this hesitancy that I opened my mind to how it can be applied in the Natural Dog Training world - and I encourage you to do the same:  be hesitant, cautious, and sensitive to what’s going on with your dog.  And open your mind up to a different perspective.  I probably don’t have to tell you that, as I’ve come to know that all of you (ok, most of you) are a pretty open-minded bunch of people.  Just wanted to emphasize the point.

When my clients ask about “correction” early on, here’s what I typically tell them: 

Correction is like guard rails on the highway.  You hope that you never have to rely on them, but when you do, you’re glad they’re there.   Think of it like this - imagine that you’re trying to learn how to drive with NO instruction about how to operate a car.  Your instructor just sticks you in a car, straps your foot to the gas pedal at the entrance ramp to the highway, and you’re off!  Over time (and many collisions with the guard rails) you’ll learn how to drive, but it’ll be a long and painful process, probably causing damage to the car.  On the other hand, imagine the alternative - you actually learn how to drive FIRST!  Your first foray onto the highway will be much more successful.  The guard rails are still there to correct you should you veer off course, but they’re not even close to being the primary focus of your skill development.

Essentially:  Don’t worry about correction until your dog KNOWS WHAT TO DO.  And even then it should be on the periphery of what you do as a trainer - never primary. 

Let’s define what we’re talking about

The spectrum of what would traditionally be termed “negative reinforcement” is quite wide.  A generic definition would be something like “cause the dog discomfort (to varying degrees) in order to discourage unwanted behavior”.  Some traditional techniques employed across the doggie world are:

• A quick jerk on a training or prong collar
• A shock from an eCollar
• A loud, harsh “No!”
• Throwing a noisemaker (tin can, car keys, etc.)
• Hitting your dog (famously included, then removed from the Monks of New Skete books)
• And it pretty much escalates into a whole host of frighteningly abusive techniques at this point

While negative reinforcement as traditionally applied can certainly be effective, in my experience it tends to create fear in a dog and inhibit the expression of its nature.  Since the WHOLE POINT of Natural Dog Training is to honor the inner workings of our dogs’ nature in the process of training, it should be obvious that negative reinforcement, as traditionally defined, does not have a place in the Natural Dog Training world.

So what does Natural Dog Training do then?

In the Natural Dog Training world, remember that we pretty much try to frame all of our doggie interactions as an exchange of energy.  Our dogs don’t respond to the world because they’re thinking “if I do such and such my owner likes it” or “if I do this I’m gonna get zapped” - they are responding to how the world makes them feel, in the moment.  If something feels good - then more of that.  If something feels not so good - well, then less of that. 

There is an important nugget of information in here:  if a dog is in a state of drive, often ANY stimulation (except the most severe) will put them further into a state of drive.  Also, our dogs rely primarily on their emotional memory (and the memory of various “feeling states”) as they respond to the world.  If there’s nothing in their emotional repertoire, then they’ll fall back on the intellectual approach.  But generally, if a dog is in a particular situation and recognizes the FEELING of the situation, then the dog will respond the way that they have learned to respond when they feel that way.

So where does a “shock” come in to this whole thing?  Kevin Behan uses the word “shock”, which I personally don’t like as it still has, I think, a negative connotation.  But whatever, let’s use it for the time being (and perhaps you, dear reader, can come up with a better term that we’ll employ from here on out).  Between his book and our work together, Kevin Behan gave a few examples of beneficial uses of shock:

1. Imagine a dog who has managed to bring down a deer.  That deer is going to be kicking/flailing - and probably landing a blow or two to the dog.  If the deer’s strike is hard enough then it will, in fact, deter the dog.  However, a certain degree of physical contact will actually add fuel to the proverbial fire, giving the dog even more energy to make the kill.  It’s like keeping a basketball spinning on the tip of your finger - too hard a whack and it’ll fly off, but the right ’stimulation’ will make the ball spin faster and stay in its place.
2. Imagine a dog walking down the street, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge branch falls - nearly missing the dog, but very frightening for the dog nonetheless.  This surprise triggers “pack mode” - a defensive response for the dog - as the dog runs off in search of security among its fellow pack-members.
3. Let’s say your child is about to ride their bike into the street.  You see a pickup truck headed your way, and your child is going to go directly into its path if you don’t do something.  You run after your child, grab the bike in the nick of time, and tip it over to keep it from going into the street - hurting your child in the process.  Wouldn’t you say that the pain you caused your child was worth it in this instance?
4. Some soldiers are in battle.  Their sergeant yells “sniper!” and everyone hits the dirt.  All except one of them, who moved a bit more slowly and…well…got shot.  Yikes.  The next time the sergeant yells, no one hesitates - after all, their lives depend on him.

How is this stimulation applied in Natural Dog Training? 

Just to be ultra-clear, when I talk about “shock” I am talking about a quick “pop-and-release” on a training collar - either a slip collar (used CORRECTLY) or a prong collar (also used correctly, of course).  This pop-and-release should be enough to cause a heightened sensation, but should not be enough to cause pain.  Occasionally I might also use “discomfort” in training (as in the high collar technique, or using a slow upward lift on the leash to discourage jumping). 

So, as described above, there are really two kinds of shock. 

1. The first kind, which I use most often (which is still occasional), is the kind of shock that actually feeds a dog’s current state of being in flow/drive.  For example, when I’m training a dog in the down/stay (on the box), when the dog is secure in the “down” position I might give some pops on the leash to increase the level of energy IN THE DOWN.  I’m not “correcting” them when they try to get up - I’m actually reinforcing the down through adding just enough stimulation while they’re already down.  Additionally, a dog can get the association that a “correction” on the leash actually means “lie down” - since that is the feeling-state that they’re in when they’re experiencing the shock.  If the dog stops doing what they were doing, then you applied too much shock - you are merely trying to keep the ball spinning, or to increase the speed at which the ball is spinning - without knocking it off your fingertip.
2. The second kind of shock is meant to stop - immediately - whatever is currently happening/about to happen.  I would think of it as an essential evil, kind of like throwing your kid to the ground to keep them from being hit by a car.  Generally, I only use this kind of shock when I’m teaching a HARD down (i.e. a “down” under ANY circumstance) - and remember the “guard rail” analogy - it’s only effective when a dog already knows what to do.  I’m going to cover training the “hard down” in its own post (so don’t go off experimenting with this, please).  The idea here is that you want this hard down to be your LIFESAVER when you need it.  Those times are generally going to be when your dog is in an extremely high drive (or even “overload”) state - and you need your “Down” to penetrate through the energy of the moment and elicit an immediate response.  As we’ve talked about before, the only way for you to get there is for your dog to actually experience a high state of drive (or even overload) and learn to lie down within that emotional state.  It’s a gradual process of getting there, and when you do it right the shock actually ends up more like “shock #1″ than the “shock #2″ that I’m explaining right now.  Ultimately, though, it’s a shock that has a very limited context - it’s application is RARE but it is useful within that context.

What it all boils down to in Natural Dog Training is that there is no “negative reinforcement”

There is stimulation that fuels a state of flow/drive, and there is stimulation that interrupts that state of flow.  Primarily, in Natural Dog Training we are trying to stimulate emotional energy and teach a dog to channel that drive through us.  So when drive comes up in an “unwanted” situation, our focus is not on interrupting the flow (i.e. not on inhibiting the dog’s expression), but rather on redirecting the flow into an avenue that is acceptable and productive for our dogs.  Over time, our dogs learn that when they feel that high energy feeling there is no conflict in being attracted to you and doing what you ask.  When we use shocks, we use them to stimulate our dogs to a higher energy level (and again, I typically only use this in my training for a reliable down - not as a correction for ‘getting up’ - but instead as a way of keeping the intensity of energy high when the dog is already in a down position.  It’s another way of “feeding the position” - something that we talked about in our box work). 

In the rarest of moments we might use enough of a shock to interrupt the flow - but that’s only when the pattern of what to do has been well-established in higher and higher levels of emotional stimulation.  In those moments there’s nothing “punitive” about what’s happening, it’s simply enough of a shock to be like the guard-rail - knocking our dog back onto course.  And, more than anything, it’s done out of necessity - a method to be chosen when the time is right.  Considering that the issue of shock hasn’t even really come up in ANY of our training exercises (especially NOT when we’re talking about helping aggressive dogs), that should give you an idea of how rarely the technique is a part of a training regimen.

In what you would traditionally call “negative reinforcement” those moments would be big “NO!” moments - as if you were somehow, through physical punishment, educating your dog about right and wrong.  Our dogs are removed from the ethics of the situation, however, and that’s an important point in the Natural Dog Training methodology.  When an intense stimulation actually interrupts the flow of what our dogs are doing then we, as trainers, had better give that energy someplace to flow TO.   Fortunately all of you will have no problem with THAT part of the equation, considering that most of this dog training blog’s focus is on answering that most important question for our dogs:

What do I do with my energy?

And you know all about that, right? 

My apologies to all of you for the hiatus. 2008 is turning out to be quite jam-packed, and I’ve been doing my best to get organized so that, once I’m back in the swing (currently headed in that direction), everything can move ahead accordingly. In reviewing last years NaturalDogBlog, I realized that we’ve actually covered almost all of the basics. There are a few more things to talk about (notably heeling, “correction”, and answering the “where’s the danger” question) - and at that point you’ll all have all the tools you need to incorporate Natural Dog Training into your dog’s life. My immediate goal is to flesh out those topics, followed by an improvement to the quality of instruction with the Natural Dog Training eBook, and ultimately some video as well. In the meantime, I’m also going to open up the floor a bit more, to address particular questions that readers ask here in the blog posts. So if you have questions, feel free to submit them, and over time you may find yourself front-paged on the site. Of course you can remain anonymous, if you wish.

In that spirit, here’s a question that I recently received:

I do have a question for you about walks. Do you feel that the dog should always be by your side always focusig on you when going on a casual walk through the neighborhood, or is it ok for them to sniff around and walk both ahead and behind you, as long as the leash is loose. And along those lines, is it ok for them to walk in front of you, or should they always be next to you or behind. I always get varying opinions on this matter so I was just wondering what your thoughts might be on the matter.

Great question! I don’t feel that a dog should “always be by your side focusing on you when going on a casual walk through the neighborhood”. So yes, I think that sniffing around, walking both ahead and behind is fine, as long as there’s no pulling on the leash.

I see “heeling” as a technique to use when it’s necessary - (will be covering this on the blog, as mentioned before) - for instance, you’re walking through a crowded environment with lots of distractions and you use the heel to get through without issue. Expecting that kind of focus from your dog 100% of the time would be unrealistic imho, with the exception of those dogs who are just LIKE that. Also, you specified “casual walk” in your question. On the other hand, we have talked about how you should walk with your dog when you’re walking with your dog - and I think it’s helpful to see even casual walks as an interaction - as opposed to just your dog’s coming along for the ride (though a well-trained dog can handle this just fine, once that interactive relationship is well-established).

Typically I’ll start out a walk with some prey games, getting a dog to focus on me (as prey), incorporating tug and switching directions a bunch of times. I might even use a little bit of high collar technique (and if you follow that link, make sure you check out the second part of the high collar discussion as well) to help a dog that’s really charged up and directed outward. This combination of activity serves to at least synch up our energy so that I’m at the center of the circle of the dog’s radius of action, and they are focused on me in that way (the “you are the big prey” kind of way). The bulk of a walk I’ll allow to be informal (as long as there’s no pulling, at which point I would go back to prey games) - though I might intersperse some heeling, especially heeling at a run. I also usually finish up a walk with some tug, if the dog still has energy left to burn.

For me, the most successful way to be the center of my dog’s world is to embody that “moose” energy and allow it to be a dynamic (as opposed to a regimented “you must walk next to me/behind me and always be focused on me me me” kind of thing). It was my lack of success with alpha/”leadership” model of dog training that led me to Kevin Behan’s Natural Dog Training world to begin with. Remember that the prey controls the action, and as the moose you become the real leader in your dog’s life.