Positive methods have so many other advantages.
In addition to being powerful, positive training methods have lots of other advantages. They do not rely on fear or pain to influence behavior, and that allows the learning process to be an enjoyable activity you and your dog do together instead of unpleasant for both of you. Unlike other methods, positive methods are less stressful for dogs and better for their welfare.
Positive techniques build relationships and strengthen bonds instead of compromising them because they are shared good experiences rather than scary or uncomfortable ones. Not only is that beneficial to your lives but also to the training itself. Good relationships have always been a central part of good, effective learning experiences.
A fundamental training principle is that it is better to teach your dog what you want them to do rather than what you don’t want them to do. Punishing your dog for jumping on or biting visitors doesn’t help your dog know what they should be doing in that context. It’s better and more effective to teach them to sit when greeting someone or to go get a toy and bring it to you for a tug session when someone comes into the house. A useful way to remember to be positive and kind is to remind yourself a dog doesn’t need a correction to change their behavior, but they do need help to change it.
Sticking to positive methods with aggressive dogs is especially important.
I believe strongly that dogs with aggression and other behavior problems deserve our sympathy, as well as our kindness. Philosophically, I subscribe to the idea that dogs are not giving me (or their pet parents) a hard time, they are having a hard time. I’m sympathetic to them, and I want to be kind to them always. That is never truer than with aggressive dogs. The majority of aggressive dogs (80 percent of my cases, for example) are behaving aggressively primarily because they are afraid. If we want them to stop behaving aggressively, we need to help them conquer their fears. Being harsh in any with them is completely counterproductive to achieving that goal.
For example, imagine that a dog is afraid of new people, and every time they see a new person, they bark, growl, lunge, and bite if they are close enough. If you yell at them or punish them in any way, they learn that every time a person shows up, bad things happen to them (you getting upset with them is most definitely a bad thing!), which only makes them more afraid.
In contrast, suppose every new person they encounter tosses them treats, something to chew on, or a new toy. If this is done correctly by paying attention to a lot of details — such as the distance between the person and the dog, the order in which the dog is exposed to particular people, and the situations you choose to put the dog in — the dog learns that people are the source of happiness via food, chews, and toys.
They learn to be happy when they see a new person because they have been classically conditioned to associate a new person with good things that make them happy. Classical conditioning is a very powerful type of learning, and it is a very effective way to change the behavior of aggressive dogs. It is a positive technique because when done correctly, the dog is only in situations in which they can cope, and over time the scope of situations they can handle is expanded. The undesirable behavior stops because the negative emotions at the root of the problem are being avoided.
Making sure the training environment is a happy rather than a scary one is critical to behavioral change, and that can only be done with positive methods, not by adding fear or pain to their life. Counterintuitively to many people’s opinion, using positive methods with aggressive dogs is effective, and harsh methods cannot be successful. In fact, because I so often want to change a dog’s emotions to stop their aggressive behavior, I use play a lot when working with aggressive dogs.
Play can be a reinforcement, a distraction, an incompatible behavior, a relationship-building opportunity, and a way to help a dog associate good feelings with a trigger that used to scare them. Play is so powerful and despite becoming more popular as a means of behavioral change, it is still underutilized in influencing canine behavior. Think of the difference in what a dog is learning if they were to be yelled at for barking and growling at a dog passing by the window (“I hate it when dogs go by!”) versus if they were to be offered a chance to play tug every time a dog walked by the window (“I love it when dogs go by!”).
I would love to hear how this is working in your relationship with your pet!
