I’ve loved dogs since I was a little girl. I’ve always had dogs. I chose to make dogs my profession. Not because it’s lucrative (it isn’t) or because it’s easy (it isn’t that either). But because I want dogs to have the most fantastic life possible.
Dogs don’t get to choose where they live or how they’re treated. They don’t get any say in how — or even if — they’re taught how to behave.
Their entire life is in the hands of their owner.
Think about that for a moment. Their entire life. Every decision. Every consequence. Not up to them.
I started my training career using old-fashioned methods: I used a choke chain, I scolded, I corrected. I would also use praise, too, but relied most heavily on “fixing” what the dog was doing wrong.
I earned my M.A. in psychology and in doing so was immersed in the laws of behavior and learning. With this knowledge, I realized every living being with a brain learns the exact same way:
We repeat what works for us. This changed the way I looked at my dogs.
I quit looking for (and correcting) what my dogs were doing wrong. And oh! Did I start having a much better time with my dogs! I began catching my dogs when they were doing things I liked. Turns out, they very often did things that were good, but because I was so busy looking for the bad things, I didn’t even notice all the good.
I’ve sent silent apologies to all the dogs with whom I’ve crossed paths for the way I treated them back then. For the times when I didn’t understand how to teach them what they needed to know. For the countless times I used corrections instead of instruction. For all the confusion they experienced because of my lack of knowledge.
Back then, I didn’t know there was a better way. I was doing the best I could. That’s what fuels me now. When we know better, we do better. My mission is to reach as many dog owners as I can and show them how they can love their four-legged best friend and have a great life together. And it’s all about training.
So while I wouldn’t trade this job for any other, when I see dog owners asking their friends for advice to fix their dog’s problems and read answers like “squirt him with water,” or “the electronic collar worked wonders,” it makes my heart hurt. The dog isn’t “being bad” on purpose. He’s not trying to push the owner’s buttons. There’s almost always a reason for the behavior. Dealing with that bad behavior using corrections isn’t fair.
The simple solution almost always involves teaching the dog to do what you want him to do. And very rarely is the solution to punish, correct, scold, or discipline.
Here’s what I know: you love your dog. You don’t want to do mean things to your dog, you probably just don’t know what to do. In the absence of any other information, people resort to the one thing they do know: get rid of the bad behavior.
I’m here to tell you there is a better way. A way that will teach your dog what you want him to do. That in the very doing, will get rid of the bad stuff. You love your dog — train him like you love him.
This blog is full of easy, fun, and effective solutions to problem behaviors. Take a look around. Leave a comment on a post if you have a question. I want to help you love your dog even more than you do already. A little training goes a long way.
Have you ever thought of creating a manifesto from this blog post and turning it into an infographic? You say some important things and I bet it would spread widely in a pictorial format.
This post is absolutely fantastic. I’ve often sent those silent apologies myself – I really just didn’t know any better. I love the title of this post and the idea behind it. Well said!
What an interesting idea, Pamela! I will have to think about this very seriously! I’ve been toying with the infographic idea for awhile now, this adds more fuel to that fire!
This was one of those emotional, unplanned posts. I was just so sad to see training advice being dispensed like candy on a Great Dane Facebook group. All kinds of corrections and barely any “let’s teach them what they need to know,” advice. Thanks for your kind words — they mean a lot! 🙂
Glad I discovered your post through “I Still Want More Puppies” blog. I have been getting lots of instruction on how to correct from a specific breed forum and I’m very interested in other options.
I have also apologized many times to our past dog for all the wrong types of training. I hope to do better this time around.
What a great post! I’m glad Pup Fan posted it in her list today!
Glad i found u…..having trouble with walking my westie. She just loves her yard and playing there. She is 5 now and I still can’t get her to walk on the leash from the house. I’ve tried every training method, throwing food out, ecollar( hate that) . I know i am the problem because by this time i am FRUSTRATED. Yes, she is smarter than I am. You know, she doesn’t meet me at the door ,often, hmmmmm?? I even had a trainer come to the house with the ecollar to help train…..I hated it and Rosy knew it. I refused to pull her down the street, she stops and lays down, I give in turn around and come home. There for awhile she liked that expandable leash thing, but with that she is smelling everywhere, i rein her in and we walk for a few steps, UG….this is just wrong, isn’t it.????
When I foster dogs and they whine in their crate at night, sometimes I will squirt them with a water bottle. I am happy to hear other suggestions as I certainly don’t enjoy doing it. But if the dog continues to whine all night, my husband gets annoyed.
@Wantstolearnmore: Have you tried squirting your hubby with water when he gets annoyed? Is he at the point that he growls? If he starts snapping, you may have to have him put down. :/
Frankly, I’d recommend re-homing him if it’s not working out. 😉
I vote for t-shirts with this slogan! “Train your dog like you love him!” With a silhouette of a dog. You could do it on cafepress or somewhere that you could have multiple breed options…
Hi Westie momma, while I am not an expert, is your dog food-motivated? You may have to move REALLY slow with this. Like getting your dog going out through the front door on loose leash, and either using a clicker or marker word like “yes”, when she is walking nicely. Then slowly work your way down your steps outside your driveway to the street, doing the same thing. Might be very slow-moving, but it would be positive re-inforcement. My dog had the opposite problem, too excited to go out, would pull me down the steps and yank on the leash. We had to take baby steps, and it seemed to take forever, but the end results are worth in the long run. Hope this helps!
Laurie, is that you in the photo as a little girl? I grew up with collies! This article is so lovely I am off to share on my FB page.
Hi Westie Momma, thanks for stopping in! Have you tried using the leash in the yard, where she’s comfortable? If you can walk her in the yard with the leash, try leaving the yard with the leash on. You don’t have to go far — just out a few steps, then back in the yard. Then try again the next day. I would definitely use food and the clicker. Know that your *ultimate* goal is to walk the neighborhood, but the immediate goal is to get her comfortable with the leash. Only when she’s comfortable with the leash will you begin to try moving outside the fence. Baby steps will get you farther faster! Do let me know how it goes!
Great ideas, Jodi! Thanks for stopping in and for that help!
Hi Wantstolearnmore (love that — we all want to learn more), thanks for stopping by and for the great question. There are a couple of approaches to your problem. First, if the dog’s whining bothers your husband, is it possible for the dog to be crated in another room? Like a spare bedroom? If so, you could stay in there with the dog for the first few nights to help him get comfortable with the crate, then move the crate to your own bedroom once he’s able to settle quietly.
Another thing to think about is what the dog is going through. Fosters generally have some stress — they are out of their regular, comfortable environment, with strangers, in a strange house, maybe even with strange dogs. They are eating different food, in a house with new rules, have maybe me ere been crated. Basically their life has been turned upside down. They are looking for some stability, some kindness, some predictability.
For me, spraying a dog with water, especially while crated, is the opposite of stability or kindness. Imagine if a young child was crying because he was scared. I imagine one would comfort the child, not punish him for crying.
Associating bad things with the crate will also carry long term implications for the dog in his new home. We like to have the crate mean really good things for the dogs no matter what. Nothing bad happens to dog in the crate, only good things. So squirting a dog violates that tenet.
Also, squirting a dog with water doesn’t give him any ideas in what he *should be* doing.
Hi CHrisWagg! yes, indeed, that is me with my childhood collie named Trooper. One of the dogs I offer silent apologies to…
Just thought I’d point out (if it hasn’t been already) that your blog seems to be broken. both the ‘home’ and ‘archive’ links up-top lead to an error page. At any rate, enjoyed the article and was hoping to dig further into your content. –mh
What a wonderful post. I too used to use training methods on my dogs that I thought were in their best interest but now know better. Many years ago, I hired a professional trainer to help me deal with my beautiful, unruly Australian shepherd Zenith. The trainer assured me that when Zenith yelped when I jerked on her choke chain, it was just her protesting my dominance. I was such an idiot because I paid this moron to teach me how to hurt my dog. Now I only use positive training methods to teach my dogs. It’s amazing how much better it works, and I feel that I now earn the trust that my dogs have in me.
When you say forever, how long do you mean? I have a dog who’s a year and 6 months. I’ve had her since she was 12 weeks old and i’ve been patiently teaching her how to walk on a leash every single day. I was only using positive reinforcement but i feel like i had to try something different since it’s been way over a year and she still chooses to tug. A lot of times she walks perfect but some days she acts like she hasn’t been taught a single thing in her life. So the past week she’s been wearing a choke collar but I don’t really feel like that’s effective either and I really don’t want to use it but it was my last resort(she hated the gentle leader so much that she would scratch her face til it would bleed and would hide in her crate when it was time for a walk). I am still using treats and a clicker, but honestly i think she knows exactly what’s expected of her she just chooses to be a brat. I walk dogs from the shelter and typically they learn manners after two or three sessions but i can’t seem to be able to control my own dog. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I consider myself to be a very patient person and I still have very mixed feelings about using the collar but I feel like since it’s been over a year i’m not doing something right.
Thanks for stopping by to comment on the blog. Have you tried a Freedom Harness from Wiggles, Wags, and Whiskers? They are great front clip harnesses that most dogs take to without any trouble at all. And because it’s purpose is to help curb pulling, both you AND the dog like it! 🙂
How were you teaching her to walk with the clicker?
I’m in the middle of filming a video series (new videos are published every Thursday!) right now on loose leash walking. It’ll be available in the next few weeks.
Thanks Marmot! I’m working on transitioning this blog over to my website, so hopefully those two buttons won’t be an issue and navigation will be *much* easier. Thanks for the head’s up!
My feelings exactly, Lisa! Thanks for stopping by. Many of us did things we regret. Thankfully, our dogs didn’t seem to hold a grudge. My hope is that we’ll meet them again someday and can fully explain and apologize to them…
Hey thanks for your response! She’s actually made great improvement over the past couple of days. I’m definitely not using the choke collar anymore, it feels so wrong therefore i know it is. I train her by stopping every time she pulls i tell her to come if she does I click if not i start walking the other way and when she catches up to me i click. When she gets really excited about something i tell her to sit and stay and click and reward of course. I think i’ve figured out what i’ve been doing wrong. Initially I was rewarding her way too often to the point where she would ignore me when something distracting happened because she knew she could get a ton of treats later. When i had this realization I didn’t use treats at all when teaching basic obedience (only for tricks). So a couple months have gone by and now the treats have regained their value and I know to use them very carefully. So now I click and praise every single time she does something right, but she only gets a treat after 5 clicks or when she makes great improvement. I see a lot more consistency in her behavior. I do have to be careful and I have to keep raising my expectations but I’m very confident this time I figured her out. My dog is kind of a diva but she knows a lot of commands. This is one of the very few issues I haven’t been able to conquer but were starting at square one and this time everything will be different. I’m looking forward to seeing your video, I love seeing more and more positive trainers gain popularity. What you’re doing is amazing and it’s making this world a better place for dogs. Thank You!
I’ve been reading a lot of your posts. What I want to know with clicker training is: How do you get away from treating once the dog is reliable? I don’t want to have to give my dog a treat every time he does something I tell him to for the rest of his life…
Great question, Jeremiah! We don’t use treats for the rest of their lives. We DO pay, though. After all, would you stay at your job if they said “Ok, you know how to do your job, now we want you to do it for free?” Probably not.
So, instead of carrying food around (impossible to do with the service dogs — or our own dogs for that matter), after the behavior is known (around distractions, for the necessary duration, etc.), we start to reinforce the appropriate behavior with access to things the dog loves. In our house that could be access to: the crate, the collar being put on, the door being opened, their food bowl being placed on the floor, hopping up on the couch (or bed), chasing me through the house, being chased through the house, catching the tennis ball, playing tug, retrieving the bumper, etc.
I think you get the idea — there are LOTS of reinforcers that aren’t food! We use ’em liberally! One of the laws of behavior states: Behavior that ISN’T reinforced goes away.
Therefore we need to reinforce all that good behavior if we don’t want it to go away. Smart trainers reinforce with those “real life rewards” I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I hope this answers your question!
Thank you very much for the reply. I have been having a great time with my dog now that I’ve started training her again. What helped the most is coming across your saying somewhere that five minutes at a time is fine. That helped a lot!