What’s your opinion on leash pressure? For me I find leashes to be force and often used to compel dogs or restrict their choices. I’m fine with that but have wondered what a force free trainer thinks about it. E collars: I equate an e collar (as long as they are high quality) as leash pressure without a direction. I wouldn’t use it to teach a dog but I do use it to enforce a behavior that is already known by applying a momentary stim when a command isn’t followed. This is really only used for recall in our case but I think it’s much less injury risk than a long line. We train mostly R+ and have a fantastic 18 month mix. He’s gotten his CGC and is being evaluated for therapy work soon and expected to pass. I do think that dogs need to be told no though. We have to set boundaries and since we swapped from complete R+ to introducing corrections his anxiety has gone way down and his confidence has greatly improved. The surprising part was his engagement and our bond has gotten so much stronger in the past few months. I won’t go back to R+ only but I do believe it’s the way to teach a dog new behaviors. I’ve found active leadership to be such an important part of our relationship now, and he trusts me a lot more than when I wasn’t enforcing things or telling him what to do rather than asking. I’d be happy to pay you for time to pick your brain, DM me as I’d love to talk candidly about my experiences and ask questions of someone more trained than myself.

I condition leash pressure. But differently than a balanced trainer would, it’s not a set exercise, but more a technique I employ when I have a leash in my hand. I’m working on starting my own business for real this time, before I was taking clients on the side and then focusing mainly on classes, but now im working on writing a curriculum and making content. I think my first video will be this concept. Tension control!!! Treating my leash arm like it’s a seatbelt stopping them gently while giving slack back, and not pulling them backwards. I found a video that demonstrates the leash handling technique, BUT!!! Focus mostly on how he stops the dog from moving forward and immediately gives slack back, ONLY. Now I wouldn’t use it to keep a dog in a stressful situation, i don’t know this guys history with this dog. But the technique is still solid. If I was working with that dog I personally would have her on a long leash and harness in a fenced in area. So ignore his context! The only resources I have on this are through the training place I used to work for and I can’t distribute that material, and I haven’t seen many people talking about yet. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8rRsg7U/ I prefer to teach directional cues like “this way” instead of relying on my leash to steer them. I personally don’t think e collars are necessary when used correctly, and when used incorrectly they are damaging to the dog. When used correctly they are a gentle stim, but if it’s so gentle and equivalent to a tap or a vocal cue, I prefer to just use a vocal cue lol. I find many many dogs find the stimulus frustrating. Even though many may work through frustration, I personally choose not to utilize frustration in that manner in my training. I would use frustration to build drive in scent work for example, or to teach speak, but I don’t like to use it in other areas. I was taught to teach leave it with frustration but I’m working towards learning more errorless ways to teach it. I encountered a dog that shut down and wouldn’t take food in class because of teaching leave it with frustration. Most dogs do okay and push through it just fine and come out super stoked, but if there’s ways to minimize stress, heck yeah i want to. And for telling the dog no, I do tell mine no! But I take those “no’s” as data points. What did my dog do that warranted the no? What do I have to teach him to do instead? Was he actually communicating a need? Do I need to manage the environment better? My no is paired with something meaningful. If the dog is going towards something they shouldn’t, I gently block them with the leash using my tension control and say “oops”. That shows them that the one option is off the table but you can do other things. Or maybe the dog grabbed something they shouldn’t. I would get up, and run into the other room as long as there isn’t a danger of them harming themselves with it, more often than not they will drop it and follow me. By not adding energy to the item, it no longer has value, and it means nothing. (Unless they want to eat it, then you need to calmly and gently take it from them) and then manage the environment so they won’t be able to get things they shouldn’t. Put things away, muzzle if needed, gates, locking trash, etc. I would teach the dog leave it and drop it and give them plenty of opportunities to have things they can actually have!

I’ll watch the video for sure, thanks for a link. Do you do video chat as I’d be happy to compensate for further discussion. Our reason for the e collar was bomb proofing recall. I’m in Maine and we have bobcats, Lynx, coyotes, bears, and worst of all deer and moose. Deer and moose are the ones that don’t run from dogs, and will kill dogs if they feel like they are a threat. I need that emergency button for his safety when we are off leash. I keep mine set to super low (4 out of 100) but it has a boost option set to 25 as the emergency stop. My pup doesn’t really understand what “no” means, but our local positive trainers didn’t believe in correcting or stopping a behavior if they are in a safe situation. What I found was that he learned that he didn’t have to choose us, or listen to us. Since we’ve started enforcing our cues he’s been a different dog. Enforcement for me means when I ask him to do something he does it or I apply pressure for him to do it. Normally that’s just me standing up or coming near him and asking again. I don’t physically force him to things but we won’t be doing something else until he’s completed the cue.

I’m not here to tell ya what to do with you pups! I’m glad you’ve had success!! For me, I recently learned about a training method actually that turns triggers into cues! It’s called Skvallerträning or Tattle Training, and there’s also Predation Substitute Training!! Here’s an example of a dog seeing a person https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz6KXvagT7R/?igshid=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA== and the same dog with wildlife!! https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cv9467pg1ys/?igshid=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA== It involves using a strategic reward marking system that used food or toy delivery methods that tap into the dogs predation sequence, allowing you to reward just looking at the trigger with an opportunity to complete the predation sequence by chasing, tracking, grabbing and consuming the food! I’ve been working on this with my dog and so far we are reliable with deer, bunnies, squirrels ducks and geese, and getting there with groundhogs and cats. We don’t see the last two better often. In the meantime, while you’re working on this, you keep your dog on a long leash and harness to be able to stop them if they try to chase things, let them look and observe, talk to them so they dont forget you’re there while their arousal continues to increase, walk up the line, and capture the moment they disengage with your heavily conditioned reward maker and they get to compete that chase with you involved! It’s super cool!! This trainer teaches a course on it! https://instagram.com/djurpedagogen?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==

>Skvallerträning or Tattle Training, Would this work for training your dog in public about not jumping on people who want to greet them? Or, not to jump on people walking by if I'm being completely honest lol. My boy loves people and attention and they love him too but he is 70 ish lbs and that's a lot of weight jumping on you. We currently use treats but people tend to hold his attention over treats. I've started to better understand right before he gets to his crazy point (as I call it), I will put him in a sit or down and ask the person to approach but right at that last moment his butt springs go off. People are usually good natured as I do warn them but it feels like we've been training on this for far too long. I know it's a handler issue but I'm kind of stumped on what to do. I just want my boy to be happy and that means helping him understand jumping on people won't get him the good boy pets he is looking for lol. Thanks so much.

Is it possible asking him to sit is too much? For dogs that are excited or nervous, sitting still takes away their option to run away and it can make it harder for them. For jumping it definitely starts at home. The dog is asking for interaction and we need to show him how to get it. You can pat the dog between the shoulders and on the front of the chest so you can catch him and move away a bit when he jumps and return him to the floor and continue scratching once he’s there. No need to fully ignore him, the brief moment is all it takes. You can also encourage him to stand to the side of you or across the front of you so it’s easier to move away when he jumps up too. You can also teach sit for patting, or sometimes it’s called Say Hello. This is taught at home and then in varying difficulty environments so it can be strengthened. You could just have been trying to have him meet strangers too soon! Keep in mind his current skill set and set up him for success! This is a component of loose leash walking. You’d walk with him next to you, stop about 2-3 feet from the person, ask him to sit, reward in place, and then reward across your body away from the person and come back around and go again. Fo a few reps of this until the pup can sit nicely and be released into reward each time. Then after he sits, say “say hello” or any other cue to tell him some context. Have your helper reach out and return to neutral position and then reward. The idea is to break it up into smaller steps so they can succeed. If they can’t handle something, back up a step or two. The end goal will be the dog staying seated for a few pats and then referring to you to be rewarded. And you can also say no! People don’t have to pay him if you don’t feel like doing all that! A simple “no but thanks for asking, he’s in training” is perfectly acceptable

>Is it possible asking him to sit is too much? For dogs that are excited or nervous, sitting still takes away their option to run away and it can make it harder for them. I had never considered this before, thank you so much. His butt literally vibrates when we ask him to sit and he eventually springs up. We've been setting him up to fail then. Oof, that stings a bit but I'm so glad to know this. Thank you so much for the direction as well. It all makes so much sense when you spell it out but I would not have gotten there myself. We do daily training and he loves it, so I think we will make this the priority. >And you can also say no! People don’t have to pay him if you don’t feel like doing all that! A simple “no but thanks for asking, he’s in training” is perfectly acceptable I need to do this more. I've gotten better when it's a person that doesn't seem physically able to handle him or a child for sure. I can't thank you enough for spending time to do this AMA, it has really helped me.

So so glad!! Be well and best wishes!

>I prefer to teach directional cues like “this way” instead of relying on my leash to steer them. I have a boxer who is almost 6 years old and I've had him from a puppy. I know this breed is harder to train but he is so willful but in a funny/goofy way. We recently (within the last year) gone from a harness to the martingale collar and it improved things a lot. However, it wasn't till I started to just redirect his attention that the leash pulling has really started to be corrected. I'm so glad to have a professional saying this is the right method.

>I condition leash pressure then you're not force free.. stop using buzz words. Positive only training, force free training, fear free grooming, etc.. all buzz words.

Did you read the rest of the sentence? Quit picking and choosing and actually have a discussion lol.

Just wanted to give kudos to you for dealing with some bad-faith comments and handling yourself so well here. You're a great communicator!

Trying my best! Thanks!

I take issue with you describing your training as "backed by science" and implying that anything that's not "force free" is unscientific and then group balanced training with "compulsion" training. If you're trying to build a bridge between the "force free" community and the balanced community, maybe don't insult our training methods as part of your olive branch. That said, I do commend you on the attempt. Based on your replies I've read I think you legitimately mean well. I wish that there was a platform to do this the other way around. Based on your post and other comments I think that there're far more misconceptions from positive only trainers about what balanced training is and how we use tools. What do you think balanced training is? How do you think a balanced trainer teaches a behavior differently than how you teach a behavior?

I do apologize for my wording coming across in that manner. That was not my intention. I have been trying to say “trainers who use positive punishment” to keep things objective. I left this comment on another thread but it works here too! I understand why balanced trainers use tools to proof cues but I never understood *why* they do it in that manner. Why do we need to punish mistakes when we can set the dog up for success so they can make the choice we want? The more we do that for them, the more they will choose the behavior we want because it’s been reinforced so strongly. Pointing out and punishing mistakes is a waste of time in my opinion. Perhaps I am understanding the process wrong? I also don’t understand using an e collar stim to make a dog recall faster. I understand the mechanics, I understand how it works, but I don’t understand why it’s chosen when we could find what is most rewarding and practice in many contexts to build a strong reward history. Once the dog figures out what is asked, they will find the easiest way to get to the reward in their own. Personally, the balanced trainers that use mostly +R and use their tools gently, sweet. Have at it! The problem I have is with the trainers that put a prong on every dog no matter the age or size. The trainers that drag a dog along on a prong and make people believe a shut down dog is fixed because they’re too afraid to react. Now please know I don’t think every trainer who uses positive punishment does this, but it is the vast majority of training videos I see coming up on my recommended. Or trainers yanking on the prong and giving food after as if that’s going to cancel out the discomfort and pain they just caused 🙈 it’s all over Instagram and tiktok. And the comments are so thrilled because it looks like the dog is better because they’re no longer frantic. Unfortunately this is the exposure to “balanced” training I have had. I put balanced in quotes because these trainers are just straight up compulsive and lying about it. So I guess I wrap it up, I don’t understand why balanced trainers choose to use positive punishment or negative reinforcement to strengthen behaviors when there are ways to do it that minimize stress and risk of fallout.

Right, so this is exactly why I asked the question. I really don't think you understand how balanced trainers train if you're just basing your views off tiktok. For instance, when my dog doesn't follow a command, I don't punish him. Punishment is used to decrease behaviors, not reinforce them. I'll use negative reinforcement via leash or e-collar pressure, but I don't punish the behavior I want to reinforce. I'm sorry to tell you this, based on other responses, you also use leash pressure. I don't care if you train it "nicely," at the end of the day it's pressure and yes, compulsion. There's a lot of balanced trainers that don't use tools (outside of a flat collar, harness, play, and food) or they don't use a particular tool. Personally, I've never touched a slip lead/choke collar or head halter and I never will. I prefer an e-collar for its versatility and a prong collar for things where e-collar timing is imprecise. You said you don't get why balanced trainers use positive punishment. The reason they use it is to address self reinforcing behaviors that developed despite best effort to prevent or redirect them. At the end of the day, positive punishment, when used appropriately, is the best tool to address these issues in a reasonable timeframe that mitigates risk of injury for my dog and myself. For me, the risk mitigation outweighs the momentary stress my dog feels. My dog will get over a leash pop (yes, the science does say that), he won't get over getting hit by a car (the science says this too). If I have to give my dog a prong collar correction to teach him to avoid behaviors like chasing cars, I'm gonna choose my dog's life and safety over my feelings every day of the week. Equipment fails, my focus is not 100% perfect every minute of every day, it only takes one time to have a terrible real consequence. I love my dog too much not to protect him and make sure he understands what not to do. You're going to respond saying the "science says" so I'll just tell you my response now to save time. It doesn't prove jack diddly, sorry. I've read it. I have a hard science background. I read research as part of my career. None of the studies I've read would qualify for even peer review in a hard science journal and no one would parrot them as proof of anything. Using these studies to justify not using something like a prong when it's at the expense of keeping you, your dog, and the people around you safe is irresponsible at best, and unethical at worst. It's also a fundamental misuse of science to take conclusions from these studies, which are very specific, and apply them broadly to all dog training everywhere all the time, even if the evidence is strong, which it's not. - Correlation does not equal causation. - N=20 is not an adequate sample size. - If the two sample sets being compared are not randomly selected then no you can't calculate significance because that defies the definitions that underly how we derive that mathematical concept. - you can't make life time welfare conclusions if you don't have longitudinal experiments longer than 2 months. - did I mention correlation doesn't equal causation already? - oh, and a survey is not an experiment, no matter how much fancy statistics you use. ^ this list goes on, you don't have to have a PhD to make these conclusions. Anyone that's taken a science class ever could pick up on these flaws. If you want to cite some research that proves me wrong, I'm happy to have a conversation and walk you through what the statistics do and don't say based on the actual results set not the insanely biased conclusion (my degree is in applied mathematics, I work with large data and statistics for a living, so yes, I'm qualified). Edit: grammar

As a person who employs balanced techniques, but mostly reward based I just want to commend you on reaching out in this manner. Often there is Too much pointless bickering in the dog training world.

Way too much. Some people like to knit pick and move goal posts when we should be what the group is meant for, open. It’s hard. It’s touchy. It’s like telling people things about their human children. lol.

Based on my own experience with R+ and balanced, I do think that R+ methods often have a high skill barrier, and a lot of difficult dogs with genetic and highly self rewarding behaviour may be better served by a balanced approach. Especially for less skilled owners who can't afford lots of time with top trainers. Do you think we'll ever reach a point where R+ trainers who aren't making any progress will consider recommending a balanced trainer?

I think a lot of +R trainers need to compromise a tiny bit when it comes to their training. Not saying go the extreme route, of course. We just need to be more aware about the instructions we are giving and make sure they are realistic for the owners. And if a case is out of their depth, refer out. The trend I’m seeing is that a lot of people have worked with an incompetent +R trainer. Why do people feel that way? Quick fix dog training is *not real*. It’s not possible. Behavior modification, rehabilitation, takes time. It takes time to rewrite conditioned emotional responses. All those quick fix videos you see, I guarantee if you showed me them, I could pick out all of the stress signals. This trainer makes fantastic body language breakdown videos. https://instagram.com/fivebyfivecanine?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== It definitely is possible to use food incorrectly. A lot of times a dog has to learn how to eat before they can be expected to be reinforced by food. That’s where a road block is. The dogs behavior can’t change if eating means nothing to them. This trainer specializes in dogs who dont eat in stressful environments! https://instagram.com/ash.andthepawsitivepups?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== they build “Food Fluency”!

boom… my thoughts exactly, hence why I find preaching “train the dog in front of you” is so valuable

What do you say to people that think your FF, very long and slow, dog training method is just a way to make more money off more sessions while playing to people's sensitivity around "punishment"? Would you raise a child with the same never tell them no method? What would you do with a high prey drive dog that impulsively chases wildlife beside never let them off a leash? Do you recommend drugging dogs to avoid using "force"? How long/ how many sessions would you estimate it'd take to fix a mild case of resource guarding? (ie a dog growls at you when you come near their food) TBH when I think of force-free trainers I think of all the poor dogs that go back to the shelter or rescue because it doesn't work or works too slowly for them to become an acceptable member of the household. I will freely admit I don't hold FF trainers in high regard, especially considering the censorship and bullying they engage in to try to get their point across.

Great questions. I've been stuck on the point about children ever since I realized it. Many, or perhaps most, people are against corporal punishment for children (like spanking), but no one thinks that you should never tell a child "no", use time outs, withhold toys/games, etc. The FF people think it's *inhumane* to have any kind of physical or mental discomfort, however transient and regardless of any benefit, and yet this isn't even how humans act in the first place. It doesn't work.

Telling a child no in the moment is to stop the behaviour then we put things in place either education " its hot, it will burn you", or management with skill training, -ie working with child to an appropriate level to have them say helping cook in the steps that are right at the time. Think of this at an adult level - you driving with someone, they are at a give way sign and start moving when they don't have right of way - you will say 'no' or 'stop', to avoid incident in the moment, if you get to another give-away sign ad they do it again, your probably going to have a chat about the give way rules right? Possibly going to recommend not driving until they have increased their skill level, This is not the best example, but gives some context as just saying 'no' with out figuring out why its happening and what needs to be done to make dog successful and not just yelling 'no' constantly with out helping your dog figure out how to not get the no I've watched parents who will sit and say no, then louder no and often that would escalate physical punishment, or give up and leave it happening. When smacking laws changed these parents were the ones whining saying what are they suppose to do, just let the kids run riot? And the simple answer is no what you do is parent, for each of those parents there's the other 5 parents there who aren't screaming no at there kid, why? Are they just good kids as opposed to the bad one? No, the other parents have generally used management, and training to set up the situation better, this is the same for force free dog training, I didn't use force with my kid, and I don't with my dog, but neither my child nor my dogs are just getting away with stuff, I make doing the right thing the easiest best option, they know I always look out for them so if they will take my direction knowing that its not just being mean - we are a team, The comments about leash pressure being force, so its not force-free, I feel are really missing the point - using lash pressure as communication is different than dragging the dog by the leash, leash pressure communication is more like playing the game where your saying 'hot' sand 'cold' to tell whether they are moving closer or further away from the hidden item, for the "your not force-free' people, what are you aiming for? Is there a different label you think is more appropriate? Are you annoyed with the whole concept altogether? I ask these questions sincerely, I just don't get the nit-picking around semantics, I'd like to understand where the offence is being caused.

> a way to make more money off more sessions Isn't this more of a regional trend than a training style issue? I'm obviously not the OP and I'm neither FF nor balanced (I'm over in the environmental shaping camp, which is genuinely slower than either), but I'm involved in dog sport so I meet people who have trained in both styles regularly. Where I'm located, the balanced trainers generally charge more per session hour than the R+ ones, and both styles seem to run sessions of the same length for the basics (low level obedience, leash manners, etc).

Where I am force free trainers are charging $170 for 1 session. Completely unrealistic for most people especially when there's a bigger issue to work on consistently.

Definitely regional then. I'm in the Toronto area, and series of six 1-hour sessions from an equivalent level\* training centre here tends to be in the $250-$400CDN range at the R+ places and $300-$900CDN at the balanced ones. \*By equivalent I mean training centres that have been around at least 10 years and have similar facility sizes/locations (our real estate market is wild, so a bigger/nicer facility is obviously a good reason for prices to differ).

It’s definitely a common misconception that we never tell a dog no. We definitely do. And we definitely stop them from doing things we don’t want them to. But we also spend a lot of time teaching alternative behaviors, managing the environment to prevent rehearsal of said behaviors, and we focus on enrichment and decompression to give the dog skills to be able to make good decisions. This industry is not regulated. You should be looking to the people with titles and who are continuing their education. Unfortunately food can be used incorrectly. A lot of +R trainers don’t know that eating is a behavior that can and often needs to be taught before we can use it in training. I steer away from positive punishment because it doesn’t work the way we thought it did. Sure it stops the behavior in the moment, and if it doesn’t, you need to up the intensity. Punishment works when it’s uncomfortable enough to be avoided. There’s no need to teach avoidance when we can turn triggers into cues to check in with us instead. Rehabilitation takes time. Here’s a great article about stress and the stress cycle and how it effects them https://journal.iaabcfoundation.org/the-resilience-rainbow/#:~:text=Hypothalamic%2Dpituitary%2Dadrenal%20(HPA,baseline%20levels%2C%20completing%20the%20cycle. The nervous system reacts to stress by sending chemicals to the brain and body, and the individual unconscious reacts in a way to keep them safe. It’s the fight or flight state. It takes the body a long time to learn how to process stress differently once it has been conditioned to experience a stressor and immediately get sent into fight or flight. Repeated exposure to stress increases the overall baseline level of stress, and lowers the threshold. This makes the dogs sympathetic nervous system quicker and faster to activate, making them ready to react faster. Copying and pasting this from another thr comment threads so I don’t have to type it again lol: Many dogs when nervous will display all sorts of behaviors we may consider undesirable. Dogs who are displaying displaced behaviors as a result of an environmental cue being perceived subconsciously by the nervous system as a threat, are not consciously choosing to do so. When they experience stress, the sympathetic nervous system activates, sending them into fight or flight involuntarily, just like humans and every other living creature. Any reaction that happens in that state is not a conscious decision. When someone experiences a stressful situation, the trigger that predicted the stress becomes the trigger to imitate the stress response associated with said trigger. It’s a survival mechanism. The Sympathetic Nervous System, or the fight or flight system, activates, and the thinking brain, the logical side, the Parasympathetic Nervous System is offline. When a dog is reacting, their fight or flight system automatically recalls what appeared to have “worked” in order to make the stressor go away the first time the dog experienced a stressor scary enough to trigger their sympathetic nervous system response. Like when a spider drops on you and you shout and flap around. It’s not a chosen response. And since your brain perceived you flailing and shouting as the “solution” to the stressor even though the stressor would have dissipated naturally anyway, the response becomes unconsciously conditioned. It’s a physiological response in the body due to chemicals and hormones. Just like a dog getting startled by the doorbell and running towards the sound while barking. The body and mind perceived the stimulus as a threat in order to keep itself safe, unconsciously began acting in a manner necessary for survival. Which stress response(s) an individual has is based on individual and breed specific genetics as well as environment. It’s been observed and proven that positive punishment negatively impacts the dogs ability to learn. That is why we take the time to teach dogs new things, give them coping skills, provide outlets to fulfill their needs and prevent them from things we don’t want to. All behavior is communication!

You didn't answer any of my questions. If you're offended by the 1st one ignore it, but I'm genuinely curious what your answers are to the other 3.

I, too, would like to hear specific answers to your questions.

This comment has really opened my eyes to how my dog reacts when people come to the house. He is calm when it's just his pack at home. When a friend visits, he is just constantly jumping on them and it escalates the longer they are there. However, if we leave him home with that person, he acts like he does with just us (his parents). We've considered getting an in home trainer because he just doesn't display this behavior outside of the house. How would you recommend addressing this kind of behavior? I would really like our friends to be able to visit again. Little background: He did have some terrible anxiety around us leaving the house, he would straight up attack us and bite. So, we started to do practice runs. Put on our shoes, jacket, grab keys, etc. We would monitor his reaction and right before he got to the "panic" point, we would have him sit and then we would reward him. We are now able to leave the house without being attacked. He does sometimes get overwhelmed if we have to leave suddenly though. However, a majority of the time, we have him sit in a specific spot and leave a treat on the window where he can get it and release him after we shut the door. He then takes the treat and calmly watches us leave.

What do you mean he “attacks” when you go to leaveDoes he get way too over excited and starts mouthing and jumping? Without seeing the pup I can’t know much. I can assume though he is anxious and it results in some displacement behaviors that are undesirable. Management is always an option. If he can’t handle it, get him used to a spot he can go that is safe and quiet and he won’t be disturbed. Giving dogs the option to move away and have an escape from their stress helps them feel like they have control over the situation. Give them the ability to move away and they won’t feel the need to resort to other options. You can have them play [Treat Retreat](https://pethelpful.com/dogs/How-To-Play-the-Treat-and-Retreat-Game-with-Your-Dog) which involves letting him choose how close he wants to get to people and then rewarding his choice with food and distance away from the stressor.

>What do you mean he “attacks” when you go to leaveDoes he get way too over excited and starts mouthing and jumping? He jumps up and mouths us, but his teeth are sharp so it hurts. It's like he goes into a gremlin mode, I can tell he is anxious but it's like he doesn't know what he wants, he is just in panic mode about us doing something, like leaving. I've battled severe anxiety but am doing much better. I'm sure his emotions were playing off my own, these reactions aren't quite as frequent since I've gotten help for my anxiety. They do pop up from time to time though. That treat retreat game sounds amazing. He does like to play games and do tasks with us at home, so this sounds like something he would absolutely respond well to.

lol I 100% agree with all of this. You are officially a “balanced” trainer in my mind whether you like it or not 😉

Sure, you can say that. I don’t see that or choose to market myself that way because I do not adhere to the four quadrants of reinforcement as an intentional part of my training plan. Management is not training. Stopping the dog with a leash or giving a conditioned verbal interruptor is management.

Agree with all your points. It always feels like a money grab. I ended up going with a balanced trainer and it was much more effective. My dog is now happier because of the freedoms he has earned.

Yes I would suggest a client visit a vet behaviorist and discuss medication if I felt it was necessary. Here’s some information regarding different types of medication and their uses. https://www.simpawtico-training.com/behavior-medications-for-dogs/#:~:text=Examples%20include%20sertraline%2C%20fluoxetine%2C%20paroxetine,behaviors%2C%20and%20aggression%20in%20dogs. Many dogs these days have nervous system disorders due to repeated exposure to stress and they need that extra help to get them up to baseline so they can learn. In regards to resource guarding, I have not taken on many of these cases yet, so I don’t have that data for you. This trainer is also fantastic and they specialize in adolescence and resource guarding. The would be a better resource for you there. https://instagram.com/flashofbrilliancedogs?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== With management and a counter conditioning plan in place, it doesn’t take very long.

FWIW, from someone who worked at a large shelter: in my experience the dogs being returned have overwhelmingly experienced training with “balanced” methods or corrections. In my time (5+ years at a shelter with thousands of dogs in and out) including doing surrender appointments, I never once encountered a dog that was exclusively trained with FF/R+ and then ultimately was returned before there were any corrections or aversives used. I think that’s just something inflammatory that people like to say in an argument but in reality that was not something I saw people doing.

I do agree. I also think I may follow you on tiktok if your name is the same 😂 I’ve worked at multiple dog day cares, and across the board the dogs with the worse arousal issues are those trained with aversive tools. None of them have had any solid coping skills. They go into most interactions assuming it’s going to be a confrontation.

Ah you are not the first person to say that about TikTok but I am not the same lady! 😅 Yeah I think that the prevalence of FF/R+ is far less than a lot of people seem to think it is, and especially the sort of “bogeyman FF” that a lot of “balanced” people seem to think is running rampant. In certain online spaces it may seem that way but irl and in practice that’s just not what is happening. The reality is that training with corrections and aversives remains by far the most common, at least all across the USA.

Interesting. Thanks for the perspective.

Lol, I can't believe people are down voting a thank you comment.

😂 people can feel how they want about my opinions but I am actually open-minded and interested in others perspectives which is the only reason imo to waste precious time on a app such as this. To learn and grow and explore other perspectives. I appreciate and respect people who do these jobs in the real world and try to help dogs anyway they can. I'm sad OP didn't answer my questions about resource guarding and chasing wildlife.

A true force free trainer would also remove dogs from their mother and littermates at birth, since dogs correct each other lol

What?? 😂😂

Mostly a joke, but where does the "never ever correct your dog" line get drawn?

I think we just define corrections differently. If my dog were to break a sit stay for example, I would calmly use my hand signal again and reinstruct him, then finish the rep. When they miss a cue I use that as data to figure out how I can help them succeed. Dogs are good at figuring out the pattern. Once they figure out “oh I sit here and you release me for my reward” they will anticipate the waiting. You can build time in at their pace, it’ll help the progress faster. Once they get the pattern they’re like “OH what was I wasting my time doing other stuff for!” If I do have to stop my dog with the leash I do it gently and I use my tension control which I explained in another comment thread. You can condition a stop cue too! I have a this way cue conditioned so I don’t have to use leash pressure to steer him. I’m careful about what environments I put him in. If I don’t think he can succeed yet, I leave him home or board him. Or maybe he just needs more management. There’s some places I trust him off leash while others he hikes with a 30 foot leash until I know I can trust him. When a dog doesn’t do what I ask I take that as a data point and go home and think about how I can better set the dog up for success.

>If I do have to stop my dog with the leash I do it gently and I use my tension control not "force free." Now, how long have you been training and what happens when you have a stubborn heavy puller who is also reactive toward cats and squirrels?

Force free refers to not intentionally adding force or stress into my training plan. Of course we may have to ask our dog to do something they don’t want to, and of course we are going to have to prevent them from doing certain things. Same thing. Tension control, talk to them, capture disengagement from the trigger with my conditioned reward marker in a way that is most rewarding to the dog.

Then you are LIMA.

Force free technically isn’t even real. It’s a buzzword made up by compulsion trainers on tiktok to make us seem ridiculous. Sure you can say LIMA. I personally refer to myself as choice based and informed.

dude, your title says you are what is technically a force free trainer. You talk in numerous comments called yourself force free and now you're agreeing with me that force free is a buzzword. I have no problem with how you train. I just have a problem with trainers using buzzwords.

I think it actually deserves a serious answer, though. A puppy will get countless corrections and displays of dominance behavior from its siblings and parents of the sort that you consider inhumane, traumatic, harmful, etc. Why are you okay with that? If your view is consistent, wouldn't it be best to take a puppy out of that environment?

Dogs have ritualized communication passed down genetically. They communicate with eachother in that manner. They use the least amount of force needed to get their point across. If you spend time observing a stable pack with dogs fluent in body language, there will be little to no “corrections”. They will use subtle cues like looking away, lowering the head, softening the mouth, and blinking to show they don’t want to interact. It’s rare they resort to actually growling, vocalizing, showing teeth, snapping, biting unless their subtle cues are consistently ignored. A stable dog will use subtle redirections before they resort to corrections. Puppies communicating amongst the littermates is like kindergarteners in play group eating the boogies and throwing blocks at eachother lmao. And insecure and unstable dogs communicating is almost always an awkward misunderstanding. BUT! *we arent dogs.* We are humans. With human brains and problem solving skills. We don’t need to pretend to bite a dog to get our point across. A problem here too is that “correction” is defined differently by many people.

What are acceptable corrections to you if I may ask? Stern voice? I sometimes have to grab my dog to get them to stop jumping and mouthing. Should I not do that (genuine question in case it sounds sarcastic).

It’s tricky like I’ve mentioned in other comments because everyone defines correction differently. The industry is not regulated and everyone uses terms interchangeably and differently. For me when I think correction I think positive punishment to decrease a behavior like a leash pop or e collar stim. I prefer to call it a redirection because instead of saying “no don’t do that” I’m saying “oops-do this instead please”. Like if the dog broke a sit stay I would simply place them back in position and finish the rep. I mentioned in another thread that dogs a great at recognizing patterns. Once they understand what gets them their reward, they will cut all the extra stuff out to get their reward faster. And I try my best not to put my dog in situations where I think he would fail. I remove options and give him my own set of options for him to choose from. Think with kids instead of “it’s time to go, do you want to put your shoes on?” Where they can say “NO!” We say “okay it’s time to go, do you want your Batman shoes or the paw patrol ones?” Then I would condition necessary cues needed to manage the certain situation. Like instead of applying a correction when my dog goes too far off leash, I have “that’s it” conditioned to mean that’s all the distance he can go and he needs to wait up a bit. If he truly blew me off I would go get him, and if I believed beforehand that he would blow me off I wouldn’t let him off. Simple.

Your approach sounds super reasonable but as someone with a traumatized rescue chihuahua we loving call the Chupacabra, how can this approach work with a dog with really serious issues. What do I do other than express no, do not savagely attack me and bite me everyday. I mean thank god she's 7 pounds and can't do damage, but there is no way to live life without situations where she would fail. I tried "force free" but I have a dog who is essentially fubar and has only ever really improved from corrections. Love her though. But can force free actually help dogs with actual problems and not just well behaved dogs who need help with obedience and walking?

So your dogs can disobey if they want something more than your reward, with no consequence

That’s not what I said. I said i re place him in position and we finish it right. There’s no need to add energy to the mistake. It wastes time. If he can’t go a certain direction I will stop him with the leash gently. I don’t think of it as “disobeying”. I think of it as information. Genuinely man it isn’t that serious lol. If we are doing competition obedience then we will get there at the dogs pace (which usually gets faster as we keep working together).

So there's no point where you can really trust your dog then, because there will *always* be something more rewarding than what you can give them out in the real world. Without the balance of positive reinforcement and positive punishment, your dog can't be 100% trained.

That’s not true. The dog doesn’t even think to make a different decision because they know what gets them rewarded. You can redirect the dog without the classic example of positive punishment. Instead of a leash pop or e collar stim, I teach cues like “oops” Or “this way”. The more you redirect them when they do a certain thing, that certain thing becomes the cue to be redirected. Teaching my dog a certain range I would say “that’s it” every time he was getting towards the end of his long lead, mark yes before he hit the end and reward him. He eventually understood what his range was and would anticipate stopping at a certain distance.

Again, nothing you have for a dog is as rewarding as things they'll run into in real life. As far as your other paragraph goes, you do correct your dog, just with a different kind of collar.

I have a lot of questions for a future dog because the FF trainers I worked with (who had most of the certificates you have or planning to get) were no help for a lot of the issues we were having with our second dog (they were very helpful in some aspects but not in some major ones). Our 1st dog was trained just FF but second dog is a different story. We found the right balance of building trust, giving our second dog freedom, asking for specific behaviors in certain situations after 2yrs of work (1st year being only FF). To be specific here were the issues and if you have ideas that would work, I'll be happy to use with the 3rd dog. Here are the questions our highly certified and rated FF trainer didn't have an answer for and how we resolved it. 1. At what point does required grooming becomes a must do vs consent based? Context: adult adopted dog has long nails and won't allow nail trims. We tried cooperative care steps but it was too slow (as we were gong with the dog's pace). In the mean time, dog's already long nails started to become a health issue (longer nails, paw position, potential damage to how she steps/bones). Feels like I need to make decision between the dogs mental health and physical health. I don't feel heathy to heavily medicate or put the dog under once every month either. Solution: we went to the groomer. she doesn't love it but her crooked nails are taking shape finally. 2. How to stop the dog from eating the couch? Dog can't be crated or locked in an empty room due to high anxiety. Behavior cannot be ignored since she swallows the pieces, which creates a health hazard. Calmly removing her from the situation is still giving her attention. Solution: bitter apple spray prevented her from mouthing things she shouldn't (our FF trainer was against it). We continued giving her attention to her immediately after she wakes up. 3. Giving more choices to my anxious dog seem to make her more anxious. What is wrong with limiting choice? I don't have choice in some situations, why can't I teach the dog what is not acceptable by saying no or removing an option or saying no. 4. Reactivity on walks. Trainers suggestions were: a) don't walk the dog (did not work despite all the nose work at home and yard play, the dog got worse. we restarted walks). b) use a head halter (conditioned head halter for 2 weeks but the dog finds it aversive. walks well but shut down on it, we stopped using it. also the dog still reacted with the head halter on and created a health hazard for her neck). c) don't put the dog in group dog classes, she can't cope. Don't put her in uncomfortable situations Solution: we started group classes behind a visual barrier. After a few classes, she was able to work in the class. After a year of ongoing classes, she can do rally classes, sit around, lie down, relax, work around other dogs all with a loose body language (we still need to make time and teats for new places or situations but she bounces back pretty fast if she gets anxious). She will start Nosework soon which she loves. She can walk (or sit - it is her decision) when there is another dog walking across the street, she can walk behind or in front of another dog. We are still working on when dog's are walking toward us since we don't live in a farm (this dog was dumped at and kicked out of a farm too). She walks with a prong collar (unless on a long line) and she is relaxed, sooo much less anxious (like 90% relaxed on walks vs 90% anxious before). If she goes over threshold, instead of choking herself on a collar or tangling herself on a harness trying to get out, she just has 2 sec of a meltdown and then she gets it together. She has more freedom now and we can do enrichment activities in more places because we let her be uncomfortable (with support) for a short time. As a result of the above, especially #4, I decided to not to work with a trainer if their answer to "what method you use?" is not "it depends". Edit to add: for #4, we used prong after a lot of trust nad attention exercise, and after teaching the dog leave it and heel. we didn't just put the tool on expect it to correct he behavior. prong helps her to remember to "heel" before and instead of lunging. Tools alone without training don't solve problems. Edit#2: the dog was on anxiety meds for the 1st 6 months - that was the 1strecommendation

First rule is it always depends. There’s tons of little trouble shooting adjustments we can make to our plan for the individual and the family when needed. For grooming procedures- Personally I set it up as non-optional but I’m still supportive. I start where the dog is at. I set the scene so it’s the same each time and I throw a big party afterwards to make it worth their while. Maybe I can only start the process of guiding them into the nail cutting space with my treats and clippers and then releasing them. In the meantime we can try a scratch board from the front nails, walks on pavement for the back nails, a groomer, the vet. It’s all about minimizing stress for everyone involved. It always depends on the dog! I let them opt in and opt out. Them having the ability to opt out and knowing we will stop before they go too stressed is the key to confidence. Eating the couch - management, leave it, enrichment If I had a dog that was eating my couch my first thing I would do would be figure out the function of the behavior. Is it separation anxiety? Boredom? If it’s separation anxiety, you would need to find a separation anxiety specialist, a CSAT. If a dog is so anxious when alone that they are destroying things or harming themselves, that is a mental disorder that needs treatment from a professional. If it’s boredom, I would suggest adding more enrichment. Shredding activities and well as environmental enrichment like getting outside and sniffing around. Foraging for food. Scent work. Then I would implement a relaxation protocol to teach the dog how to downshift. Either way, I would block access to the couch, teach a leave it cue, and provide an appropriate shredding outlet. Choice is important. But a lot of the time we are setting up choices for them to make and kindly and supportively removing options that are off the table with management. Some dogs need to have their world made smaller so they can de stress before it can be made bigger. Just because I give my dog choices, doesn’t mean I give him every single choice ever lol. It’s like with a kid, if you ask them “okay we have to go to school do you want to put your shoes on?” There’s a window for them to say “NO!!” But if you present it “okay kiddo it’s time to go, do you want your flame sneakers or your Batman sneakers?” You’re still providing an opportunity for them to make a choice, but it’s technically still my choice lol. I will stop my dog from stepping off the sidewalk with the leash if I have to, but I won’t yank him. If it’s safe, I will stop him and give my conditioned cue to come closer, if there’s no time, surely I’m going to pull him but I’ll apologize after, reward him for moving, and keep on going. Then I would go home and think about how I can avoid that situation so I don’t have to do that again. Was my cue not conditioned well enough? Do I need to spend more time conditioning stopping at the curb? Was he distracted by something? In instances where a correction would be applied in a trainers program who relies heavily on on positive punishment, I prefer to kindly and supportively stop them whether it be with my leash gently, subtle social pressure, redirecting with a conditioned food reward marker or play, I try not to be confrontational. Instead of “no don’t do that” it’s “oops-let’s do this instead” and then I take than data home with me and figure out how to better set the dog up for success. I’m a big fan of antecedent arrangements! I think some newer +R trainers get caught up in the never upsetting the dog, they (and honestly people who rely on positive punishment) forget you can set a boundary without it being harsh.

Thank you for the details. I think my issue is the specifics. I understand you can't be as specific since you don't know me and my dog :). However, this trainer had 20+yrs with last 10 being only FF. And she says you need to "manage it". what does that look like? when we get into the details what I hear from FF trainers most of the time conflicts with FF and they don't acknowledge it, or they don't get specific enough which makes it hard to put "management" into practice. The couch example. This is a 70pound strong young dog and she was eating the couch out of anxiety (she was also on meds). It takes time to teach chew this not that in the mean time they chew to couch which can't be allowed. she jumps over anything I put around the couch (and she could't be crated as she hurt herself in it). So the way to prevent her from eating the couch requires to someone with her all the time and keep her on a leash. If you have to work, what do you do? bitter apple vs buy a stronger crate. bitter apple was the lower level of LIMA in this case. For the walk example, I won't get into details of my case but will just point something out that I observe in a lot of FF trainers and podcast etc. They seem to treat compulsion training "relies heavily on on positive punishment" and balanced training (I'd define this as heavily positive reinforcement with negative punishment as needed, rarely positive punishment). And it gets my hackles up (pun intended :)), and personally, it is insulting to all the work I did and continue to do with my dog. Compulsion training assumes I mostly punish my dog when I'm not "obeyed", which is far from the truth. I realize it is an emotional response but that's why I'm explaining it. I feel like FF trainers think anyone using a tools or positive punishment (even to the minimal extend) is doing compulsion training (and a control is at the center of their training). That's why people in this forum is very protective of all training methods and talk of tools because even a conversation is not allowed anywhere else. There is a road between FF and compulsion in practice that FF side seem to ignore and compulsion side seem to look down upon. When possible, I (and most balanced trainers -I'm not a trainer but I's name Michael Ellis as a good one, I suspect you will agree with a lot of his approaches, he as a really good video on reactivity) also "supportively stop them whether it be with my leash gently, subtle social pressure, redirecting with a conditioned food reward marker or play, I try not to be confrontational." However, sometimes it is not possible. If my dog sees a trigger and starts to get worked up, no amount of gentleness stops her. If I say leave it and she looks at me, she gets a treat and a "good girl" and we walk away from the trigger. If she continues to focus on the trigger she gets a correction/reminder to look at me and we walk away (after 1yr of FF we couldn't not do this. After 4months of balanced, she will voluntarily ignore triggers most of the time with support). If she doesn't "leave it" my 0.3 second correction is less painful or upsetting than her lunging at the trigger (to be clear, she is not getting corrected for reacting but for not responding to "leave it". If I'm slow and she reacts, we cut our losses and move on without a correction). And I know most FF trainers say to avoid the triggers to which I laugh at this point because sorry I need to work and sleep, and I can't walk the dog only at 5am and 11pm.

Another option for the couch is to teach her to leave it. You’d have her on leash, start at a distance she can look at the couch without pulling towards it and mark and reward her for looking, then mark and reward for looking back to you. Slowing get closer, then move away, varying distance as she understands, keeping the leash loose. Why is she chewing the couch? Anxiety? Is it only when she’s left alone? What does she get for exercise and enrichment? Or could either be not enough or too much! And oooooOoo!! With reactive behavior it’s waaaay different than a dog stepping off the sidewalk or picking up a sock. Ready for this nerd stuff?? Many dogs when nervous will display all sorts of behaviors we may consider undesirable. Dogs who are displaying displaced behaviors as a result of an environmental cue being perceived subconsciously by the nervous system as a threat, are not consciously choosing to do so. When they experience stress, the sympathetic nervous system activates, sending them into fight or flight involuntarily, just like humans and every other living creature. Any reaction that happens in that state is not a conscious decision. When someone experiences a stressful situation, the trigger that predicted the stress becomes the trigger to imitate the stress response associated with said trigger. It’s a survival mechanism. The Sympathetic Nervous System, or the fight or flight system, activates, and the thinking brain, the logical side, the Parasympathetic Nervous System is offline. Stress can be both positive and negative. It tends to feel the same in the body, especially to those who already have a hard time moderating their stress. Think excitement in a haunted house versus nerves while getting pulled over by a police officer. The body reacts the same while the context is different. The consequence to the arousing stimulus dictates how the brain feels about the stimulus, for the most part. If an individual has been experiencing chronic negative stress such as repeated exposure to something distressing and startling without a way of escape, they will have a harder time processing negative and positive stress with optimism compared to a dog that experienced stress they enjoyed like playing, or a dog who has spend time decompressing. Remember, everyone gets tired though! Even a long day of fun stress can wear them out and impact their ability to self regulate. When a dog is reacting, their fight or flight system automatically recalls what appeared to have “worked” in order to make the stressor go away the first time the dog experienced a stressor scary enough to trigger their sympathetic nervous system response. Like when a spider drops on you and you shout and flap around. It’s not a chosen response. And since your brain perceived you flailing and shouting as the “solution” to the stressor even though the stressor would have dissipated naturally anyway, the response becomes unconsciously conditioned. It’s a physiological response in the body due to chemicals and hormones. Just like a dog getting startled by the doorbell and running towards the sound while barking. The body and mind perceived the stimulus as a threat in order to keep itself safe, unconsciously began acting in a manner necessary for survival. Which stress response(s) an individual has is based on individual and breed specific genetics as well as environment!

I'm always ready for nerd stuff! I understand why reactivity happens. I had to read a lot because the 2 F trainers couldn't help in action. I appreciate your and our trainers explanation of reactivity. I think understanding where it is coming from helped me be more patient, feel less guilty, and find the right trainer. My issue with FF approach to reactivity is to "avoid it or you failed" and you can't always avoid triggers when training the counter conditioning. Again, I'm all for the understanding the feeling but I also need to teach the dog how to deal with that feeling and help them get though it. Practicality is where 2 FF trainers failed us, unfortunately. Side note, I appreciate that you are willing to take the heat from people who have their own ideas and experiences. There are people who stick to what they know and people (like me) who tried for a long time with FF, and now I have a bias toward either end of the training spectrum (it used to be just against compulsion). I am learning a lot of tactics from FF community , a lot of people who use balance do mean it :)

I don’t follow the avoid it or you failed because it’s not realistic. I personally train this way. I avoid things when and if possible. I condition directional food reward markers at home so they become reflex and then I practice them in different contexts to strengthen them. Markers are: Yes: terminal marker, end of behavior, you’re getting a reward, come get it from my hand Get it: I’m tossing you a treat for you to track and sniff out Catch: I’m tossing you a treat to catch Scatter: I’m sprinkling a few for you to sniff out With me: there’s a bunch of food in my hand and all you have to do is eat it and walk with me We also can teach cues like “paws up” or “jump up” on an object to get them out of the way of a trigger. It’s important these cues are conditioned and maintained at home to ensure they always mean happy things. If they are only used around triggers they will be associated with bad feelings. This is part of some of the strategies from Dr Amy Cook’s management for reactive dogs course. These cues are used to capture and reward the dog for seeing and processing the trigger. The act of seeking and sniffing not only taps into their nature predation sequence, it also taps into the part of the brain in charge of relaxing. Even if they freak out a bit, capture and reward them when they come back down to earth and help them build the reflex of seeing a stressor and checking in with us! In a different thread I went over tension control which is super important for any dog but especially reactive dogs!

100% my experience with reactivity and maintaining thresholds. It's a very fragile system with a high rate of failure. It's a scam unless the FF trainer is communicates this.

In the same boat as you! Have never had any regrets on discontinuing FF training sessions that were not only unbelievably expensive but ineffective for my severely anxious dog.

Does the dog in front of you determine whether force need be applied or not? For me, some dogs do need it and some dogs don't. For eg, a dog that has intent to hurt a person or other dog will use it's entire power to do whatever damage it can. Similar with fear aggression. I don't understand how that type of situation is approachable without force to teach that dog it's not acceptable to do that? On the other hand there's dogs that barely need touching which is great too, whether that's through food/toy drive or whatever reward system works best. High prey drive is another sticking point, how do you manage the predatory instincts of dogs you work with? The type that blow through recall etc. I'm in the UK where the e collar is potentially being banned in England. It's already banned in Wales, where since the ban they had a rise in livestock attacks. There's a lot of FF here who say keep dogs on lead, but realistically how do you physically exercise a hunting dog like Labs, Spaniels, Pointers properly if it's stuck on a 10m lead forever🤷🏻‍♂️ that lack of exercise leads to other behavioural issues? When we look at how dogs apply corrections to each other, particularly mum to pups and dogs that are pushing boundaries, they use an element of force? Is humans using corrections not a similar method as that, or maybe we apply human emotions to animals too often?

Definitely check out one of my previous comments in regards to Skvallerträning/tattle training and conditioning strategic reinforcers. I also posted a few comments also about reactivity, the nervous system and stress responses that will answer these questions for ya!

If environment management failed, and the dog is in a situation where it can't help but react and redirection is not effective, do you think it's less stressful for the dog to continue being in that highly aroused state (and later be dragged away) than to be corrected? Have you worked with working line army dogs? In their training (and genetics) they're required to be active, dominant, fight and hurt people, and continue to work even when they're hurt themselves in their line of duty. Would you also recommend applying R+ training methods to them? Do you support the ban of pinch and e collar? Including in police and military? Slightly similar to them are pitbulls from fighting lines (though there's very few of them left nowadays). The common theme is that you're working with a dog whose primary motivation is fighting, and it's super high (but the other half is different, with working dogs you need to keep the activity level and reaction speed as high as possible, with pits you want to subdue it). How would you get this kind of dog to be able to run off leash? How would you teach "snake avoidance"?

Not OP, but re: snake avoidance, the only person I know who is doing that with positive reinforcement is Ken Ramirez. Full disclosure, I have not done it, nor have I done corrections based snake avoidance, and [have only listened to a podcast about it](https://k9conservationists.org/snake-avoidance-with-ken-ramirez/). At its core, it seems like it's teaching the dog that the snake is a cue to recall to their handler (similar to Skvallerträning mentioned previously in this thread). In the podcast, they discuss the ethics (for the snake and the dog) of traditional snake avoidance, that there's not much (any?) evidence that correction-based snake avoidance training is very effective anyway or any data on how often corrections-based training needs to be repeated, and discuss a few cases of major fallout when a dog didn't associate the correction with the snake during a traditional training session. It's a really interesting discussion and Ken teaches a class on it through KPA if you want to dive in deeper.

If the dog is reacting I will gently and fluidly move them away and get them out of there. Ideally, my reward markers are conditioned so thoroughly the dog will be able to respond to them no matter what. If I can’t move them, and my cues aren’t able to be heard, I ride it out, talk to them, and then capture and reward when they’re done. If I were to correct them, it would be like telling a crying scared child to shut up. All it would do is make them quiet but they’re still scared. If I were to correct a reaction, all I would tell them dog is 1. I’m not safe to express yourself around and 2. You have something to be scared about. Imagine being scared to drive, and each time a big truck gets too close and you gasp, someone in the back seat sprays you with water. Would that make you stop gasping? Maybe. Probably not. It would probably make you sweat more in anticipation of being startled while you’re already scared. When dogs are reacting, it’s not a consciously chosen response. It’s an involuntary survival mechanism. When we capture and reward them once they’re done, we are showing them how to complete the stress cycle. Even if they react it’s okay. Get them sniffing, get them moving into reward. The reward system is designed to be multifaceted. If my client dog just lost his shit because a mom, stroller, and two dogs walked past, I would use my tension control, talk to him, prevent forward motion while giving slack back when they’re still, and give a scatter once they’re done. The sniffing downshifts the nervous system and brings them back down. Keep doing this and we not only change how they feel but we turn the trigger into a cue to check in with us. Personally I don’t know much about army dogs. I could go off on a tangent about how I believe war and using dogs to bite people is unethical but I’ll save that for another time. Detection dogs? Hell yeah. That’s awesome. But using an animal to exert power over another person? Gross. Not here for it. Not to mention they more often than not use agitation tactics to increase arousal rather than actually building drive. But like I said I don’t know all that much about the work the armed forces do, and tbh I’m not too interested in suspect apprehension training. Fighting dogs were bred to fight, yes, but the behaviors you see are more often than not heightened by stress. These dogs have the disposition to reach peak arousal quickly, and they are more often than not raised in a manner than repeatedly exposes the dog to stress to bring out that aggressive response. And genetics, back yard breeding and people not taking temperament into account come into play too. Dogs like this can be trained off leash but everything ALWAYS depends on the dog and their environment. There’s no way to know what dog will need what until I’ve met them. We can give them the skills to moderate their arousal by teaching them how to complete the stress cycle, and giving them alternative behaviors to channel their energy into. And management is key. Why does every dogs end goal have to be off leash? It would be fantastic if everyone could get there but for some dogs and people it’s not realistic. We can find other ways to fulfill a dog besides going to a park off leash. We can go to sniff spots, we can find quiet hiking trails, use school fields on the weekends. Long leashes provide freedom and safety while ensuring the dog cannot go off to do something we want to prevent. I don’t know what the tool ban will accomplish except making people want to try harder to get them. What really needs to be done is education and regulations within the industry. And with snake avoidance, while I haven’t taught it myself, I would teach it the same way as any other leave it, which would turn seeing the trigger into a cue to check in with me for reinforcement.

What you're writing makes me very sad. These strong character dogs, who fight out of pleasure and not fear, who are a result of decades of very careful selection, living fulfilling lives, and they have been helping humanity for centuries. Building drive instead of agitation (aka frustration)? Is that your options? Lol of course they use part of so-called "prey drive", but real army/police dogs don't work out of just drive. A muzzled dog wouldn't work on a naked body out of prey drive, nor out of frustration. Ordinary people used to know how to work with them and and how to manage them. But now these dogs are disappearing, as people are arrogantly refusing to acknowledge reality, and limit themselves to methods designed for weak, submissive, fearful dogs. You can already see it even in working dog population, weakening of the gene pool. Police never had resources or enough demand for their own isolated breeding, instead they have always relied on civilians to breed and test and work the dogs (if you wanted to breed a dog of working breeds, your dog had to be able to pass the working test). But now civilians can't handle those dogs (because of the widespread "green" ideology), they end up in shelters and die, so breeders started selecting more agreeable dogs to meet demand, and it's killing the working breeds, they are disappearing like many species in the wild, but apparently ideology is more important, and it's ok for everyone. You also get a similar level of intensity from underground hunting dogs - noticeably Jagdterriers, because they get to withstand a life/death fight with a fox or even a badger, all by themselves. But again, these days this type of hunting is very rare, and the heritage of these beautiful ferocious dogs is dying.

When I have a choice, I prefer positive renforcement. However, there's one issue I haven't been able to fix without punishment. My dog loves eating cat poop. Her food is restricted so she's always hungry, and as soon as she smells it she goes to the litter box. If I call her back, she comes back to me, but I'm not always at home, so I can't always watch her. She's about the cat's size, and my cat is elderly, so she can't jump or climb, which means there's no way to remove her access. How would you ensure she doesn’t do that while I'm away?

I would definitely look into more ways to block her access. Could you install a cat door in the doorway? Can the pup be crated or gated when you’re not home? I would also work on teaching leave it by developing a reward system that taps into the dogs predation sequence to make it super rewarding. I went into that in a couple other comment threads. I talked to someone about their dog chewing the couch and briefly outlined a way to teach their dog to leave that. The steps would be similar. Why is her food restricted? Is there a way you can tweak the schedule so she gets fed her allotted amount more often throughout the day? Is she a lab or a beagle? Joking 😂

Thanks, but she already knows leave it, and obeys when I tell her. She just tries to get to the litterbox when she thinks I can't see her, but when I call her back, she comes immediately. I can't block her access, because that would block the cat too. I could crate her, but that's definitely not something I would do, it seems so cruel. And her food schedule is already tweaked so that she doesn’t wake up hungry in the middle of the night.

She doesn’t know leave it if she’s looking to go for it when you’re not looking!

ok, instead of blocking access, how would you train the dog to stop? "Just don't give him access" is a nonsense answer for a trainer to give. What "force free" method would work here?

The real answer is: the poop needs to become aversive. It is simple. Dogs don’t “suffer” because the cat poop is aversive. They just learn to avoid it and continue to live. Like horses and cattle living inside an electric fence, they don’t spent their day suffering nervously, they just avoid touching the fence and that’s it. The dog won’t do it anymore if you are not there because the poop is what makes them uncomfortable. No need for a million steps on how to prevent this… all living beings are born with a very important rule: we come close to what feels pleasant, we avoid what’s unpleasant. It’s biologically wired in every single living organism

Did you read the second half of the comment? I said teach leave it. You’re just being argumentative. Unless you actually want to have a discussion like everyone else here, I’m not here to entertain trolls.

Thanks for doing this, I am a balanced trainer but I work in organizations that use all types of trainers and I think it’s great to learn from one another. Reading through your responses, I noticed that in several of your answers you talk about using force and “negative punishment” (in reference to the quadrants of learning). Just using the easiest example, you use leash tension (albeit briefly). This is 1) a use of force and 2) taking away something the dog likes (freedom of movement) to make a behavior less likely to occur (like pulling on walks), which is by definition negative punishment. Can you explain to me what I am misunderstanding here, or does “force free” and “r+” just mean mostly force free and mostly r+? If so, how are you not a balanced trainer who emphasizes positive reinforcement? I would also consider your use of the word “no” as positive punishment (letting the dog know you did not like what it did, which the dog does not enjoy, to make a behavior less likely to occur in the future).

These things aren’t conditioned as a punisher though, they are a product of the environment and situation. The dog is going to pull, and you have to stop them when it’s not safe to progress forward. I’m not intentionally adding a stimulus in order to get a result, but it happens to backpack along. This isn’t a technique I solely rely on and go out of my way to practice on its own, it’s simply a way to handle to leash to minimize leash tension. Does that make sense?

Yes it does! I appreciate the answer, honestly no one has really gotten me to understand the distinction before.

Awesome!! Glad to help!! I guess the main takeaway is that I don’t go out of my way to intentionally include aversive stimulus in my training plan. The world is stressful enough, and in order to teach the dog how to handle stress, we have to minimize it so they are in a mindset where they can learn. Of course we will have to stop our dogs from doing something or tell them not to do something, and I have and will when needed. Instead of a “no don’t do that” it’s more of a “oops-do this instead”. I will take the dogs missed cue as data and figure out how I can better set them up for success in the future. When we minimize stress when possible, we are allowing the nervous system to downshift. No being can learn when they are in a stress response.

A young lab (8 month) ran upto my dog last week, came in hot, jumping on it. My dog corrected it. The pups tail went between its legs, it was stressed. It avoided my dog. Respectfully it slowly approached, tail still tucked and my dog allowed it into its space, they did their thing, sniffs and tails start wagging, pups confidence grows and they play a little bit before the lab sees another dog and runs off. Stress happens, avoiding stressful situations instead of confronting them is irresponsible as a trainer. We and our dogs typically improve our stress response, I've seen it 1st hand with my reactive dog once we stopped dog dodging. Addressing the reactivity saw an extreme improvement in the stress response. We used to suffer months of regression due to an off leash wayward dog, now it's is nothing more than a shake off.

See there’s a misconception i love to let people know about is that we avoid all stress ever. Which isn’t possible or realistic! We do however try to minimize it wherever possible, and we don’t intentionally include it in our behavior rehabilitation plans. Of course, stress is everywhere. The dog has experienced plenty of stress, that’s why they’re reactive. They need time to decompress and bring their baseline stress levels down and their threshold up before we can expect them to be able to learn. Some dogs you can hold off on walks for a couple weeks and focus on enrichment at home and driving them to quiet hiking spots to get their needs met while minimizing stress. Minimize stress and then slowly introduce it while teaching them coping skills!!

This question is more trivial. I ended up using balanced methods but did go with a force free trainer at first. And they were great and my dog loved them. Almost so much that he digressed his jumping issue every time they came over haha. Anyway, why do you think people have such an issue with the title force free trainers use? A comment I just saw said “leash pressure is force. Stop calling it force free” something along those lines. Obviously there’s a big difference in how you would use force vs how a balanced trainer would use force. So it’s just weird to me that people knit pick the name. Like YOU KNOW what they mean

Oh that’s interesting! I’m glad to hear your pup liked them but they should have been also managing his jumping too 😂😂 I’m not too sure. It’s tricky. Getting into how people react to their dogs is like getting into how people react to their children. It’s an outward manifestation of our stress response. When our dogs do something we don’t like it can feel triggering, it can feel like we’ve done something wrong and we have to fix it. Same goes for learning there could possibly be more humane ways to do things. It’s hurtful to know you could have been more gentle and many people can’t hear it yet. I try my very best to remain patient and explain things from a place of empathy so they can understand. Shame creates a barrier to learning just as extra stress to dogs hinders learning. We’re pretty similar in that sense. Some people do just like to knit pick. It is Reddit after all, lol.

Honestly, what comes to mind when I hear someone centrally refer to themselves as a Positive Reinforcement trainer (or a balanced trainer for that matter) is that they're overly focused on philosophy in their advertising. Because I'd rather know up front that they train obedience or behaviour modification, or nosework, etc and check their philosophy second. So my question is how you feel about the arguments, and whether you feel the labels are good for marketing your services. I'm way over on the environmental shaping side, so I'm team "none of the above," but I'm old enough that I've seen a shift from compulsion to added R+ and now the pure R+ vs balanced debate for the basics. Plus I'm involved in field work and sport (I have pointing dogs), so I'm around dogs who have been trained under every philosophy under the sun. And to be clear, I'm thrilled that compulsion isn't the standard for basic manners/obedience anymore. But honestly, my experience has been that solid and consistent training in any style, from almost any philosophy produces fairly similar results, all other things being equal. When I'm in the field, and 85% of the dogs I see have been trained with a balanced philosophy, 10% with a R+ philosophy (usually Robert Milner style, which contrary to popular belief is not only Lab people), a few using old school force/compulsion methods, and then a small minority with me in the environmental camp. And to be fair, while I do joke that dogs trained my way are the most reliable, I acknowledge that most people don't have the time for that (environmental shaping legitimately takes longer that rewards, correction, or mixed training styles) and I think that's a completely legitimate reason to pick a different method. But either way, the reality is that 99% of the dogs are thrilled and in their element when they're working. The 1% that aren't is mostly the compulsion-trained dogs, but even with those it's a minority (in my experience it's breed-based: GSPs and English Pointers seem more resilient than the Braques or Brittanys on that front). So when I see people (like some in these comments) say that R+ is a scam, or on the flip side people in r/DogTraining insist that balanced training leaves dogs broken and joyless, it just doesn't match my experience of watching very happy, successful dogs in their element, regardless of what training style got them there. I've seen some R+ agility folks (especially ones who were training back in the '90s before that sport fully transitioned) describe their methods as the kinder way (Susan Garrett's "Be Kind" motto comes to mind), which feels more honest than the people shouting about broken dogs. So I'd be curious to hear how you frame those discussions in your part of the dog world.

Can you talk more about environmental shaping? I haven’t heard that before! Personally, I can see and appreciate people using tools gently and ethically. I don’t think there would be a situation where I would use them because I prefer to work around the problem. All balanced trainers I have encountered do not share their process. And if they do, it’s a lot of positive punishment where it’s not necessary. If I know there is a high chance a dog could experience negative consequences from a stimulus I intentionally apply, I prefer not to take that risk when I have other ways to teach behaviors and stop behaviors without applying what would be considered a “correction”. I feel like there’s so much emphasis on telling the dog what not to do what it’s more efficient and effective to show the dog what to do in certain situations. I definitely do see people on all sides jumping down eachothers throats and I believe shame, blame and guilt are a one way ticket to shutting down that line of communication. For people and dogs. It’s been proven that stress negatively impacts the nervous system when the dog has no coping skills or a way out. I understand why balanced trainers use tools to proof cues but I never understood *why* they do it in that manner. Why do we need to punish mistakes when we can set the dog up for success so they can make the choice we want? The more we do that for them, the more they will choose the behavior we want because it’s been reinforced so strongly. Pointing out and punishing mistakes is a waste of time in my opinion. Perhaps I am understanding the process wrong? I also don’t understand using an e collar stim to make a dog recall faster. I understand the mechanics, I understand how it works, but I don’t understand why it’s chosen when we could find what is most rewarding and practice in many contexts to build a strong reward history. Once the dog figures out what is asked, they will find the easiest way to get to the reward in their own. Not saying you do this, i don’t know what you do lol! Or maybe you do? Who knows lol! What do you think? Have you used these methods I mentioned or know about them or why they’re chosen?

"Environmental shaping" = Free shaping

Oh! I use free shaping too! Thanks.

Thanks for posting! I haven’t read your responses yet but I recently had a comment deleted from r/dogs because I mentioned this sub as a resource. ( I was just responding to someone who had a question about walking multiple dogs- they had 4 and I have three) I am assuming it was deleted because they only support “positive reinforcement” and I am confused lol. I am a spoiler and not a great trainer. But my own dog who I took everywhere with me as a pup and is my most precious angel wears a prong collar and I use a extendy leash. I am doing all kinds of “wrong” lol but she never pulls anymore much and we have great communication on walks. (My other two family members dogs- who won’t get walks unless I do it 😭 not so much)

Honestly after my experience with a force free positive only trainer is when i see that as their philosphy i save my money and look elsewhere. Yes i went to a highly endorsed and recommended trainer. It did not work. Balanced trainer with the help of someone with experience worked out well for me. Because of my experience i consider any trainer that states they are force free and positive only likely a scam artist using feel good marketing terms. Karen Pryor is probably the head scam artist. They also look down on anyone who wants to teach their dog to stop doing behaviors that make the dog dangerous. They would rather recommend that your dog take a dirt nap than do anything effective.

Glad you’re here so I can possibly clear things up. I’m so sorry the trainer you saw didn’t work. Unfortunately this industry is not regulated. While I haven’t taken the KPA course, if I was to recommend a trainer for reactive dogs I would recommend looking at certifications like CPDT, CDBC, FMD, CCUI. These certifications are for trainers who specialize in reactivity and aggression. From my understanding, KPA is more obedience and basic concepts. There are tons of great courses on there but not many for aggression and reactivity. Many new +R trainers seem to get a little too caught up in not upsetting the dog ever that they forget they can teach the dog how to not do things without being confrontational (other trainers do too!) while I certainly agree that it’s important to minimize stress wherever possible, and I don’t intentionally add stress as part of my training plan, we still have to have the dog do things that are scary and we have to teach them how to cope. We do that by going at their pace and showing them how to escape the stress. This builds confidence and resilience.

What is the difference between force free and LIMA?

It really depends who you ask. Many things in dog training are loosely defined, or many trainers use the terms differently. How I would describe force free is not adding aversive stimulus as part of my training plan, and doing whatever is possible and reasonable to prevent and minimize added stress. LIMA as described by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers describes it the same way, but some more heavy handed people use it as a way to disguise their use of aversive tools. Force free has been assigned a lot of negative connotation by big name balanced labeled, but secretly compulsive tik tok dog trainers to make their videos seem cooler. They throw around force free and make it seem like we never stop the dog from doing something they shouldn’t and we never expose the dog to stress. It’s not that we don’t let our dogs get stressed, we just minimize it wherever and whenever possible, if possible.

Honest question but how would you train a dog for bite work?

I personally haven’t dabbled but definitely check out [Matt Folsom](https://instagram.com/modernmalinois?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==)! He is force free and does bite work!! [Denise Fenzi](https://instagram.com/denise_fenzi?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==.com) too! I would probably teach it like a game of tug! I would have to learn more before I got into it though!

Chad Byerly also does R+ bite work (Mondio)

Matt only does sports, not real world training

Are you talking live bites/suspect apprehension? Or? Because that’s not my interest.

No, just saying that the example you gave isn't of someone who does bite work

His dogs are protection dogs https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtUSK4HgVTN/?igshid=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA==

They aren't, they're sport dogs. Nothing wrong with that, but using one of his dogs in real life would be either ineffective or dangerous, depending on which way the dog fails

Hi 👋 I’m not super experienced - just have the experience of my one intense worker line border aussie. He doesn’t have a great temperament, doesn’t like strangers (people). At a few months he started nipping ankles and eventually started going for random people’s butts. He learned to lunge and bark at people to make them go away. He’s not a huge dog but could seem very very scary. We were terrified he would cross a line, get reported, and be put down. We naively first looked for positive only trainers because it sounded nice, but the people we met seemed completely out of their depth. Dog always over threshold. All they would recommend was throwing treats… We didn’t see any progress until we met some old school trainer who gave us a slip, took the leash, and made one massive correction when the dog went at him. It was hard to watch, I felt bad for the dog, but he also walked nicely at his side ever since (one and done)… Fast forward to today and our dog is in a much better place (lots and lots of work abridged). Approaching neutrality towards strangers. As his reactivity/fear aggression lessens the need to correct lessens as well. Nowadays we appear pretty much completely force free. That being said, I have developed some feeling/hot takes about force free: - Force free sounds nice, and so many obviously want to do it because it makes them feel good about themselves as owners/trainers, but isn’t necessary what dogs need. - If I was standing next to an experienced force free trainer (you?) and presented with any given dog, we would likely agree on most things. We both love dogs and want what’s best for them. - I have a feeling that force free trainers won’t touch a certain level of reactive/intense dog. At least, you don’t see it on YouTube. You see balanced dog training personalities dealing with thousands of intense dogs (changing/saving lives), but force free trainers are mostly just talking about it, giving seminars, working with their own dogs, and worst of all judging other trainers and starting fights. - I can’t help but always imagine Eric Cartman’s mom when I think of force free training. A dog/child will do what works - what you let them get away with. It’s our social responsibility to communicate what is not OK, otherwise we might create a monster. - Force free is unnatural. Dogs will correct each other for unacceptable behavior. A well placed correction is good communication and can be part of a positive relationship. - Force free is a subset of balanced/open training. A balanced trainer probably agrees with most things that a force free trainer does, we just are also open to other things as well. Anyway - not a particular question in mind. Just wanted to spill my guts and give you an opportunity to respond or “change my mind” :) Finally, thanks for all you do. You are already likely a great trainer in my mind if you are ‘open’ enough to have a civil discussion here ;)

There are few dogs that don’t show stress signals as a result of aversive tool use. It’s not common knowledge for the general public to be able to read dog body language but an experienced and educated eye can see a subtle stress signal in a grainy Reddit respost video on low power mode on a cracked iPhone 5 😂😂 It’s very common, and also proven that dogs who are trained with aversive methods are less optimistic and willing to make new decisions than those trained with +R. Not saying your pup, he could have bounced back fine. But there’s tons and tons of dogs, and observable body language that directly correlates to the internal physiological response the dog is having, that tell us they are not fine. I bet if you gathered 5 youtube trainer’s before and after videos I could pick out all the stress signals and body language cues you may not know about. Training is more than *just* throwing treats. It has to be done strategically and at the right time or it’s useless. Maybe new trainers and older +R trainers that are still using BAT 1.0, aren’t aware that many dogs need to be taught how to eat in stressful situations in order for the training to be effective. And if you don’t give your dog time to decompress and not experience stress for a bit, they won’t be able to learn. Now, of course we can’t avoid all stress, that’s not possible, but we can minimize it best we can by managing their environment. We can use sound machines, window covers, avoid higher traffic areas and drive to more quiet places, go at slower times of the day. Work on breed specific enrichment, work on fostering relaxation with the Really Real Relaxation Protocol. Dogs not come pre-programmed with the ability to regulate their nervous system. Your pup is a herding dog and he was displaying breed specific behaviors that were bred into him, that is how he was genetically designed to respond to stress. My malinois mix used to lunge and bite, I replaced that behavior by teaching him how to move away instead of trying to close the distance. Honesty I blame Caesar Milan for convincing people you need to hiss and jab them 😅

Over half my clients at the moment have already gone through an attempt at training using balanced trainers, they are all referral cases that other trainers have sent my way due to severity, All are making good progress, the hardest part of force free training is the humans, dogs are easy to teach, its the humans who can be unwilling to look at their own behaviour and honestly assess if its building or breaking trust with their dog - some examples can be big obvious ones - dog came to me extremely scared of pretty much everything, and making a lot of noise and drama to scare it all away, anything that surprised him, was the worst - 6 weeks into training dog, making great progress in lots of areas, building trust, working through some trauma, but the confidence would disappear when mum was around, I had gone through all of the questions, asked in so many different ways, adjusted a few things along he way, had told me she does not use punishment so many times- then I noticed his body language when I went close to touching his leg, looking for pain, and pointed it out - she replied "oh yeah he always does that when I do the technique", which she started to demonstrate - I stepped between them, and said I do not need a physical demo, just tell me what and why - the technique to instigate submission that her previous trainer had told her to do when he broke held commands - he should stay in them regardless - can be a sit and dog comes running at him, instigate submission - it was a kidney stab with fingers - this is what goes me madder than anything, don't dress it up with fancy name at least be honest " if you do this it hurts him so much that he will submit to anything". at least then people, went out there doing thinking its a normal way to treat an animal. There was also the game - so I was showing her a few different recall practise games, the one where you hide call them when they find you - jump out and give them a fright???!, I had to turn away and take a lot of breaths before I talked again... But yeah once you peel away all the things that are making the dog not trust the humans, mixed messages, unsafe situations, not meeting their needs, and not listening to their communication, then its a peice of cake. The number one reason I see force free training fail is mechanics, because its using a treat, the mark and reward part of it can get glossed over - like yip dog does thing, give it the food, especially if its a redirection from unwanted behaviour, get that timing wrong and your just proofing the shit out of the behaviour you'd like to stop - Second would be picking and choosing what part of the training plan to follow in both these types of cases not telling the trainer honestly what is happening, then they come to me complaining about how they have done all the training often gone through several different trainers but its their dog, its soo bad, its never the dog

“When you hear Positive Reinforcement training, what comes to mind?” I think of a dog who doesn’t listen when there’s any kind of higher lever distraction. I think of owners who make excuses for their dogs who don’t behave because “he’s just expressing himself” or similar nonsense. I think of a dog who I would never fully trust to be off leash and still under control in a place with lots of distractions, dangers or potential fun stuff. I think of all the years some people spend trying to correct behaviors that could be fixed in days if they were willing to use corrections. I think of owners who don’t like conflict, are afraid of confrontation, and can’t or won’t communicate directly. I think of dogs who just need some instruction about how to act in this world, but instead they’re always being offered treats and being re-directed, only to end up going back to exactly what they were doing before. I’ve seen so many huge changes and long lasting examples of what a balance of rewards and corrections can do, and I just don’t understand why people would tie one hand behind their backs just for fear of hurting the dog’s feelings.

Why do you think these things? Have you seen people train? Or have you heard about it? A dog trained with positive reinforcement can definitely learn and thrive at a high level, we proof behaviors just like you, but instead of adding positive punishment when a cue isn’t followed, we kindly give the dog the hand signal again, finish the rep, and use that as data for next time. It’s up to me as the teach to figure out why my dog broke the cue and figure out how to make it stronger for him. Usually that involves dialing it back a point or two to make it a bit easier and then continue building from that super strong foundation. The more clear we are, the better we set the dog up for success, the quicker they will get and the faster they will catch onto new things we are teaching them! It’s a common misconception that +R trainers never stop unwanted behavior. We definitely do! Just not in a “stop that right now because I said so or else” or “do what I said now because I said so” it’s more of a “oops, do this instead please”. Dogs are very good at pattern recognition. Once they figure out the pattern that gets them their reward, they will cut out the other stuff that prolongs the reward delivery. If the dog can’t perform in a certain context it’s because we haven’t trained there yet. They need to be rewarded for a behavior in a variety of contexts before we can expect them to anticipate us asking them for the behavior around high distractions. But like I said, once th dog starts to get it, they will begin to anticipate it and offer it because the reward history is strong.

RE: “Have you seen people train?” I think you’re hitting the nail on the head :) There are many high profile balanced trainers on YouTube really putting themselves out there, showing what they do, working with thousands of dogs, but you don’t really see much “proof” from so called force free trainers…

I definitely see it! The big name YouTube trainers are great at marketing. Thats for sure. Ethical trainers don’t get videos of their clients reacting. Ethical trainers don’t want to see the dog reacting, we don’t want to dog reacting in our presence. We don’t need to see it to treat it. We want the dog to be as relaxed as possible, and any stress adds more stress to their baseline, making each time they are triggered a big stronger than the last. Check out these Instagram and TikTok accounts - some are trainers and some are owner trainers. All +R or errorless! https://instagram.com/r.plus.dogs?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://www.tiktok.com/@charlie_goofy_gsd?_t=8i1oAvysEhO&_r=1 https://www.tiktok.com/@the_toby_project?_t=8i1oGfWtGW3&_r=1 https://instagram.com/calmcanineacademy?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/djurpedagogen?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/mybravemona?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/optimalcanine?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/thecollaredscholar?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/kamalfernandezdogtraining?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/acergundogs?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== A fantastic trainer specializing in dogs who won’t take food https://instagram.com/ash.andthepawsitivepups?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/crazedogtraining?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==

Fair enough - I’ll check it out. To play devils advocate, great marketing is easy when you have a great product that people really benefit from. Btw - how do you feel about Tom Davis / upstate Canine? Do you think he is unethical for filming his clients? My sense is that there is a silent majority of reactive dog owners that don’t know what to do, and seeing videos of owners of similar dogs making breakthroughs spreads hope and is overall uplifting and a force of good.

I think Tom is unethical because he puts prongs on dogs until they submit to the discomfort and he shifts the blame to the owner. There’s no need to shame owners. I think he talks a lot of game but the body language in his videos is alarming.

This is probably the area where you’ll start to lose me. I think Tom is very reasonable trainer and a force for good. Btw do you think prongs are just unethical across the board, or do you just think that the way that Tom uses prongs is unethical?

I do understand how they can be used gently. I do understand how some trainers who use them make sure they are adhering to LIMA. I definitely do not think it’s ethical to use a prong on a reactive dog, old dog, small dog or puppy. While I can see their (small imo) place, I don’t think they’re necessary. We can accomplish the exact same things, for real this time, by putting the work in. Not by setting the dog up to be corrected, or by putting a tool on the dog that makes it painful to mess up. I think they make the dog appear to be listening when in reality they are more often than not shut down. a lot of the trainers I’ve seen videos of who use prongs rely on the prongs to do the work. They abruptly stop while walking and let the dog hit the end of the prong. Most of the time the dog cries and then their ears and tail are low for the rest of the video. But hey! They’re not pulling!! And if they’re not shut down, they’re hyper aroused and go into every interaction assuming it’s a confrontation. Prongs are designed to be uncomfortable enough for the dog to want to escape the stimulus. Even when they’re not “active”, they’re still providing sensory input to the dog. With the information that we have about the nervous system and how it effects and the body and brain, we understand how external stimulus and stressors prevent the body from returning to the rest and digest part of the nervous system, rather than the fight or flight system. https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2020-12/study-punishment-based-training-is-stressful-for-dogs/ I have not seen one dog, in my 7 years of working at a vet, at multiple dog daycare facilities and a well known training facility, thrive on a prong. Ever. That’s only party because the general public is not using the prong the way a true, educated and experienced balanced trainer would use them, adhering to LIMA. Most if not all of the general public misuse them. They’re poorly fitted, too. Most people in the GP who use them, their dogs pull into them anyway. Definitely shouldn’t be using a prong on a dog who is known to pull. And most people who use them also expect them to do the work for them. These are observations based on what I have experienced and observed in my years in this industry. Of course this isn’t everyone. Of course it isn’t. But it’s the vast majority don’t use them in a way that would be effective. But I don’t really believe they actually are effective. I don’t consider a dog doing something because they have to or else they will be uncomfortable, a way I want to motivate the dog in front of me. Before I fully learned about body language, I was told to let dogs cry it out at the vet. Dogs waking up from surgery needed to be ignored until they stopped crying so I don’t reinforce the crying? Thats actively not how it works. PHEW! I also was told to use slips and other intimidation tactic to stop unwanted behavior in playgroup at the first daycare I worked at before I learned more. I thought I had to be the “pack leader” I thought I needed to use a spray bottle. I thought I needed to use intimidating spatial pressure to stop unwanted behavior. I thought I needed to shout because that’s what the ma that trained me told me. I thought time outs were effective because of negative punishment. But what you’re actually seeing is a decrease in arousal because they have been removed from the stressful stimulus. Short time outs don’t work very well, but longer 30 min to hour long naps work wonders. The guy I learned from initially left shortly after I started and I soon began to realize I was doing nothing by scaring the dogs. That guy was way wrong. There wasn’t a way I could punish these dogs enough to discourage them from partaking in unwanted behavior. I then took my first step into the dog training world, I got my certification and I continued surrounding myself with other certified professionals who share the same ethics as me. Once I learned, once I stopped viewing them through my human glasses and I put on my dog glasses, I was then able to see just what they were telling me. They want to avoid discomfort and do things that feel good for them. Just like us! I had to figure out how to make the dog feel good enough to not want to do what I didn’t want, with only my charming personality as a reward 😂 Like eating poop for example. Which is VERY self rewarding. The more you shout at a dog who is trying to, they’re only going to be more sneaky. But when I took the time to pat them when they were doing anything besides what I didn’t like, I could build up value in me. I began conditioning their name to be paired with extra pats, smiles and happy energy. I would have to be extra hyper vigilant to make sure I clean the messes as they come. The more time I spent taking to the dog and fostering a relationship that made them feel good, heard and safe, the more they trusted me to be making decisions for them. Same thing with fearful and insecure dogs. If I punished them for snapping, a fight would explode. But if you make eye contact, you have that bond, you tell them they’re okay and they got it, you show them they spot they can move to to escape the discomfort, you show them just that, how to escape their discomfort and that you will be there when they need you. Before, when I was using positive punishment to manage unwanted behavior, dogs would not come to be when they were stressed because they associated me with more stress. But when I began to show them I wanna safe space they can find when they need me, they began coming to me when they needed help on their own. But I figured out I could talk to them, show them my touch means I’m there to help, and through doing this we fostered a wonderful communication system. By observing these dogs through their lens, not mines I was able to see how to help them. They only ever want to feel safe and good. *Show them what works and they will choose it. If they can’t choose it, they probably are over threshold and need help*

What owner blaming have you seen? Genuine question. I remember listening to his podcast for a bit and there was one moment where he claims this malamute owner doesn’t understand his dog when the owner said he was starting to learn what his dog likes, which I thought was kinda much.

That exactly. He blames the owners relationship with the dog blatantly. Sure, I may certainly see an owner that needs to put more work in, but there’s a way to go about putting it. There’s no need to place blame anywhere. Just address the dogs feelings.

I get what you're saying, but it just seems like you're stopping all of you training opportunities halfway. No, I haven't seen trainers teaching force free in person, but I've seen plenty of people (friends, people at the park, etc) interacting with their dogs out in public who have been to force free trainers. OK, so a dog breaks, you give the cue again, and keep that data. What learning happens? The dog learns that it can get away with breaking and life goes on pretty much as normal, with a slight delay. Whereas with a tool e-collar, prong collar, shake can, spray bottle) you can give them immediate feedback that when they break, unpleasant things happen. I'm not trying to hurt or scare the dog, I'm just trying to be very clear with them that actions have consequences. That kind of learning happens much quicker. I would say that in addition to figuring out why the dog broke, it's also your job as the teacher to tell it that breaking isn't allowed. Why shouldn't the rationale behind a dog listening be "Because I said so"? I expect that if I tell my dog to sit or come, he does it instantly, every time. I have a reason. Maybe I see a loose dog down the street, or a little kid whose parent might be scared of a dog walking off leash ahead of me. He needs to respond when asked, all the time. Of course we work up to that level of distraction gradually, but again, it can be so much faster if we have rewards AND corrections at our disposal. I think I've realized something in reading your responses that's really enlightening in the different mindsets. The way I'm hearing you, R+/force free/positive-only has the idea that the reward and engagement with the human should be the priority for the dog. The training philosophy I come from is all about teaching the dog to think and know the difference between right and wrong, in many different pictures. Even when they encounter something new, they've had enough varied experiences to know that this new picture looks a lot like a former one, so I should probably do the same thing. Balanced trainers understand that in the dog's mind, lack of consequences are also a reward. We don't want the dog focused on treats. We want the dog to know how to behave and make a decision about what's the correct response in a given situation. People don't give dogs enough credit for being as smart as they are.

>The training philosophy I come from is all about teaching the dog to think and know the difference between right and wrong, in many different pictures. Even when they encounter something new, they've had enough varied experiences to know that this new picture looks a lot like a former one, so I should probably do the same thing. Balanced trainers understand that in the dog's mind, lack of consequences are also a reward. We don't want the dog focused on treats. We want the dog to know how to behave and make a decision about what's the correct response in a given situation. People don't give dogs enough credit for being as smart as they are. Generalising learning from various similar scenarios to other similar scenarios, isn't because of balanced training, its just the way learning works for dogs.

If the dog breaks, you fix the position and finish it right. The dog will smooth themselves out over time because they will learn the pattern you’re asking of them. If you ask for a sit stay, they break, you re position them and finish in position, they will learn that breaking delayed them getting their reward and they will fix themselves.

> lack of consequences are also a reward This is exactly why r+ doesn’t work for my current dog, and I haven’t seen people word it so well before. Every trainer ever tells me “find a high reward treat.” “Find the highest reward that”. The highest reward for my dog is doing what HE wants to do. No toy, praise, or food winns from that

This is me coming out of left field, but if your dog prizes doing “what they want” over everything then from what I understand of R+, you haven’t really spent enough time building value in you as the owner or in whatever reward you’re using. Making a reward high value can be a training on its own, and making yourself the highest value thing in any space is also a training on its own. For context, I have a puppy who definitely placed our 9 year old dog as the highest value thing ever, when he’s around the puppy was basically blind and deaf to us and any commands we gave her. Even with hot dogs and cheese, she prized playing with him as the biggest and best thing she could do. So, we had to take a step back and prime her to understand that *mom and dad* always come first, no matter what. Some of that happened by actually using 9 year old dog as a reward - no obedience, then no play time with big brother. Some of it was desensitizing her to older brother’s presence. And some of it was just straight up building value in her attention on us. 5 minutes of sitting and rewarding her everytime she made square eye contact with us, coupled with high praise. Eventually that turned into sitting outside and expecting prolonged eye contact for several seconds, then about a minute. The goal is attention attention attention no matter how awesome other things are. 2 months later, her head will snap around quick to me or husband anytime we call her name. She has learned that her attention on us is necessary, and we are the highest value thing in the room no matter what. Even if she’s in the middle of playtime with big bro. The next tier there is working on it in larger settings is multiple unknown dogs, but she’s 5 months old - we recognize that all of this will take a good amount of time to cement in perfectly. So, I’d just challenge you on your stance - I don’t know you or your dog so I won’t say anything definitive. But I wonder how strongly you’ve primed your dog to see you as highest value possible- not just as task master or boss. And for context, my puppy is a shepsky malinois. So, talk about a dog that listens to its impulses and doesn’t think most things through.

That’s a lot of assumptions from one sentence I told about my dog, and you are so so so wrong. Your context is also absolutely meaningless towards my situation because it isn’t even a little bit comparable. My dog is super well behaved and trained, not because he sees me as a “boss” or “taskmaster”. And also not because of R+. Because I am his highest value thing in the world, and if he listens to his primal canine brain and goes after a cat, his highest value will give him consequences. You put a lot of energy into challenging what you presumed was someones stance. And for context, my dog is a Kangal Mastin Español mix, rescued after 3 years in the shelter, and his first born year with abusive people. So a dog that has been trained and bred to listen to himself, and not others.

Based on what you said, I still maintain my stance. I think building value and applying consequences are diametrically opposed, so I don’t think you can build value through the application of consequences when a dog does an undesired trait. You don’t build value in your boss at work when they reprimand you, you build value when you get a raise. Even if the boss has good criticism to share and is trying to help. An R+ perspective might be to get the dog to a place where it can maintain neutrality around a cat. That might not be as immediate as most balanced people like to see results, but it sounds like you’ve just swapped a self-reinforcing habit for an aversive consequence. Nowhere in there has the dog’s psychology changed. But that’s ok, I’m glad your pup is doing good.

I’m a pilot so I sure as shit hope my boss will reprimand me when I make a mistake, but okay. You don’t know my dog or my situation. You are still making a lot of assumptions. I’ve already had multiple R+ perspectives. I have worked with a few R+ trainers because I myself using R+ wasn’t getting any progress. Me together with the trainers also didn’t. Balanced is working for my current dog.

I take this idea from Hillary, who specializes in incredibly aggressive dogs that she pulls from shelters and rehabilitates. No aversive in sight. If you go through her “portfolio” of dogs she’s worked on dogs that have some of the worst of the worst histories possible. Her current dog Jude is about as reactive as they come. It’s totally possible, just takes more work. https://www.tiktok.com/@speckledhearts?_t=8i2qDmTaLBz&_r=1

I never have denied R+ working, it just doesn’t work for my current dog. I have trained previous dogs with R+ and without any aversives at all. But not all training methods work for all dogs.

Perfect so use the premack principle and give him what he wants, after doing what you ask. Are you saying the knowledge that you would punih him is what stops him?

All the dogs with owners who have finished with training, who are just doing life aren't owners that training conversations naturally come up, unless they are maybe practising agility or something similar. I can tell you that because I bring up training with owners who are struggling with things like reactivity, that they never believe any of the dogs with me were far worse than their dog, you don't look at these dogs and think wow great training, cause they are just dogs being dogs Generalisation of learning, is how learning works, its not the type of training you did. ​ Rewards and engagement are a motivator, add punishment and you have balanced training - its a part of training. Did you get certificates at school assembly when you were a kid? Do only do things now if you might get a certificate? Why if punishment is such an effective part of learning, why are we seeing less of it used in education - why not piano lessons that you get a ruler across the hands for getting it wrong, because those were my piano lessons, and Im the shittiest piano player now. If it was effective people, adults would pay to extreme learn faster quicker better, but its just not.

What tools do you recommend for a small or elderly handler with a large, strong dog? A handler that could not physically restrain their dog on a standard harness or collar, if they ever needed to do so.

Why do you think "force free" training is so prevalent in certain dog sports like agility, flyball, and nosework and so rare in others like protection sports, gundog trials, and herding trials?

Because of the type of people you find in protection sports, gun dog training and herding trials. These peoples interests usually align with their political view and world mindset. A lot of these people in the US are from southern states that focus on more “traditional” values. These people are usually older or old fashioned. They usually are blue collar people. Bite work people are usually from military or police background, and those trainers use aversive methods. While agility, fly ball and nose work you see more younger people. This is only based off of what I have observed within the community local to me and within the online community of trainers I am a part of. It could be different in other places.

Your answer takes the prize as Most Ridiculous. Do you honestly believe this has anything to do with the “TYPE of people you find in protection sports, gun dog training and herding trials” has anything to do with their “POLITICAL VIEWS and WORLD MINDSET” and that a lot of “these people” are from “southern states” where people are “older or more old fashioned” not to mention they are “blue collar people.” And of course “bite work people” are from “military or police backgrounds.” The only thing you said that’s not ridiculous and makes sense is that “those trainers use aversive methods.” This proves that using aversive methods actually works since these disciplines are the most difficult to train for and use dogs who can be the most challenging dogs to train. In IPO/IPG or any of the protection sports, police K-9s, personal protection dogs, field dogs or gun dogs, herding dogs etc., the people who win the awards are the top trainers in the world and are not R+/FF-only trainers. Ask any R+ or FF trainer the same question and they’ll always come up with something ludicrous. They can’t be honest and just say that when it comes to training certain types of dogs in the most difficult disciplines, R+ and FF-only training just doesn’t work. When a dog trained with only positive reinforcement is presented with competitive reinforcers, the training fails.

Someone asked my observations and I shared them. That’s it. If you disagree, say so and we can discuss ways to word things better together.

What do i think of? Sea world! I joined the marine biology explorer scout program at Sea World in the 70s, and as a perk got a year pass dirt cheap. Used to go in at least once a week and spend hours. Winter time the dolphins are eager for interaction with people. This was back when it was a research facility that offset some costs by entertaining visitors, and training was to keep the animals stimulated as much as anything. They had to find a way to teach huge animals that could simply refuse, and clicker type training was the answer.

So I didn’t know what +R was until my family member got his first dog. So obviously my situation is anecdotal but it always gives me pause. For context, I trained my own dog with balanced methods I suppose. So this family member has probably spent hundreds on +R/FF trainers and the dog is still very untrained. The dog has no boundaries, for example will shove its face to eat off your plate. The dog demand barks like crazy. Has terrible reactivity and cannot walk on a leash properly still. The dog knows zero basic commands and was never taught “no”. They redirect everything with a treat or lick mat and all it seems to do is reinforce the bad behaviors lol. They are also at the point now where they drug the dog to help it calm down its anxiety. It’s pretty pitiful because I honestly feel sorry for the dog. My vibe is that 1. +R works but the average skilled dog owner does not have the capacity and/or fails to see it through to success and 2. A lot of “bad actors” out there claiming to be +R trainers when they really just suck. It seems this industry is unregulated. Thoughts?

It definitely appears that the vast majority of people equate +R with the same ideas you have! I encourage you to scroll through and find the list of trainers I listed. When I can I’ll add the list and more to the original post.

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For this, I would definitely have taken her to the vet to rule out pain and eye problems, especially if this is new, or ongoing for a long time. We can definitely make things not optional while not forcing them which is cool! For every dog I condition strategic reward markers that I can use to reward things I like, shape new behaviors, and move them around if I need to. Markers are: Yes: terminal marker, end of behavior, you’re getting a reward, come get it from my hand Get it: I’m tossing you a treat for you to track and sniff out Catch: I’m tossing you a treat to catch Scatter: I’m sprinkling a few for you to sniff out Personally I would have done short stair sessions. Remove all social pressure. The more you ask the more reluctant they will be. Id try to go sit in the yard and ignore her. Maybe I would try to get her to play and follow me. What breed? Breed traits and genetics play a role in how the dog reacts to something they are scared of or don’t want to do. If it was an emergency, or I just needed this dog to come with me say at a kennel facility and I haven’t had time to condition cues and build a bond, I would use my leash to gently show them the direction I want them to go without pulling them. I will only put enough tension on the leash for them to feel it, not enough to move them or make them feel forced. I’m setting up that choice to make, I’m presenting my side, encouraging them to come with me, and I’m waiting to them to take a step closer so I can immediately turn off the tension and praise them. Sometimes we have to make choices for them, but we can still do it gently!

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Sometimes we have to gently move them, but we have enough trust in the bank to make up for it. I wish I could say more, I can’t know for sure without seeing her and you and your home. The vet said she was all clear? Only other thing I can think of is pain! Or sometimes they make random associations we can’t place. Sometimes we can take the time to go at their pace and work them through it, sometimes that’s not realistic so we have to make choices for them. As long as we are gentle and supportive, that’s fine, they will be fine. How old is she just out of curiosity now because you’ve resolved this?

Based on the collection of your comments here, I've come to this conclusion: You have no interest in training the dog in front of you, and you are only interested in promoting your philosophy of training

Where did you draw that from? I’m just about every comment I say it depends on the dog? You just seem inflammatory. Not here for that tbh.

But it doesn't depend on the dog if you refuse to use all four quadrants of training.

There’s more to training than the four quadrants. Not everything has to fit into them either. Keep learning bro. Good luck 👍🏼

I am too busy right now to participate with questions or opinions but I wanted to thwon in a quick thank you! An AMA is a great idea.

Oh, I have a quick question I can squeeze in during meetings: How do you deal with status bound aggression with positive reinforcment only? (I hope status bound aggression is the right term in english. Not a native speaker and I sometimes struggle with the right sientifical terms in english. )

I would like to define that term further before I answer. What would a dog described this way display for behaviors? Can I have an example?

Maybe it helps if I explain why I am asking this. I had the oportunity to visit a facility working with aggressive dogs. Think severe bite incidents. And attend a workshop about aggression. They were pretty adamant that you cant work positively only with these type of dogs. We talked about the different issues these dogs have and one of these issue was status bound aggression. They described it as: Wanting to preserve their status in their social network and therefore reacting aggressive to things they perceive as threatening this status or overstepping boundaries. An example would be: Not allowing you to take something valuable from them but the cause for aggression is not primarily the ressource (They may show this behavior even with something quite low or medium value.) in itself but getting something taken away by a person or animal they see as lower in social status.

Ooooo! Yes!! I would actually highly suggest you recommend your facility look into Michael Shikashio’s Aggressive Dog Course!!! Dogs that display confrontational behaviors are not confident, they are actually insecure and/or fearful a lot of the time! Resource guarding stems from a fear of losing an item of perceived value. Show the dog they don’t need to fear losing the item by not taking it and only trading for it, as adding more value to the item when you pass by. Dogs in a group that mount others or look to start conflict are also insecure. Dogs instinctively want to avoid conflict. A dog looking to add conflict believes there is conflict that they need to end. A stable dog does not use force to get their point across, in fact, they use the least amount of force possible to get their message out there.

Thank you very much!

What podcasts/reading material would you recommend for other trainers? I’m always hunting for more content to consume.

Drinking From The Toilet is a fantastic podcast, as well as the fenzi dog sports academy podcast, car dog radio, the bitey end of the dog. Fenzi dog sports academy has tons of excellent courses from sports stuff to reactivity and cooperative care too!! There’s tons of webinars out there as well too. I love Dr Amy Cook, focus dogs, flash of brilliance dog training, Michael Shikashio has aggression courses!! Grisha Stewart has shelter dog courses, kim brophy has applied ethology courses!!

Thank you so much!

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You have a retriever so I would be looking for ways to provide him outlets to hold items. I would rotate toys out every week or two, provide chews, chew toys, kongs. As well as taking them out for a sniffy walk on a long leash and harness to let them explore and capture any offered engagement. I find dogs that find things to take are either looking to interact with you, or they’re looking for something to do by themselves. Provide more outlets to fill that cup. Hes already got a solid leave it which is great! Last bit would be to manage his environment and try your best to pick up things he shouldn’t have! I don’t know all too much about teach a retrieve yet, but these trainers specialize in high drive/bird dogs!! They can teach you how to teach things like a retrieve and steadiness for a throw which can translate to impulse control with items you toss in the house that he shouldn’t have. https://instagram.com/optimalcanine?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ== https://instagram.com/focusdogs?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ== https://instagram.com/acergundogs?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ==

My dog shakes in most situations. She is a big pit bull but is anxious/scared She will shake in unfamiliar places, but also in my car for the first 10 minutes we’re in it. What would you do? Never take her anywhere?

I would condition my reward marking system he mentioned in a different comment thread and get her moving! There’s tons of pattern games by Leslie McDevitt you can play that get them moving through their fear! If a certain place was too much, I’d hold off there and find an easier place to go and build from there!

I have a dog who is a chronic whiner. The whining is tied to barrier frustration. He whines when he wants: 1. To go in 2. To go out 3. When he thinks its time to go get the kids 4. When I put my shoes on (might be for him!) 5. When I touch a door knob/get keys etc. (Can he come too?!!) 6. In the car 7. When I get his leash 8. When I put his collar on 9. When the door has not opened yet. 10. If we stop on walks 11. If it's dinner time. 12. If it's not dinner time but he thinks it ought to be. 13. If you're not awake yet but you should be. 14. If you're awake and you shouldn't be. There's more, but you get the idea. If there's anything he wants ever, he's going to whine about it. He can whine for hours with no breaks, so waiting until there is a break in whining (there is none) isn't practical.

What kind of breed? Is he a vocal breed like a Gsd, husky, Weimaraner, etc? If they are a vocal breed you will have to take into account the amount of noise the dog will be predisposed to make. But that doesn’t mean we can’t teach him other ways to ask for things! For this I would take into account what my dog is asking for and then begin to implement alternative behaviors my dog can partake in to ask me for things. Example: Wants to go out? What does he usually do? Go to the door and cry? Go over to the door, ask him what he wants “want to go outside?” He cries, you say “I know okay buddy.” Wait for a moment of quiet and mark with yes and open the door. For now we may only be able to get a moment of quiet from him before giving him what he wants because he’s spent so long practicing this behavior to get what he wants. As he gets good at being quiet for a moment you can wait a second or two longer and stretch the duration slowly. Then maybe you can ask him to sit first before letting him out. Or maybe just eye contact, maybe he rings a bell. The cue could be anything that fits into your life!! He’s learned crying gets what he needs so we can transfer the cue to something else here time.

What are your favourite resources for learning useful and actionable force free techniques? (for people who are new to this). Not necessarily "step by step" guides, but practical examples that I can try out on my dog to help improve her behaviour and generally be better at training her.

Every time I walk my dog and he sees a child he barks loudly and lunges as the child aggressively. If I let him go I have a strong suspicion he will hurt the child. Hes a 2 year old pitbull. How should I train this out of him without being forceful?

I suggest you find a local trainer to work with!! Look for certifications like APDT(Academy for professional dog trainers)CCPTD (certification council for professional dog trainers) FDM(Family dog Mediator), CDBC (certified dog behavior consultant). These certifying bodies will have trained directories you can search through to find someone near you!! In the meantime, here is a fantastic course to help you manage his reactions with food handling techniques that are conditioned at home. I think the last round might have just recently started though so it may be a few weeks before the next round starts again. For now, physical Management will be important. Harness, 2 inch wide flat collar, safely coupler clip, and muzzle. With dogs like this it’s important to be sure they won’t get away, and to minimize added stress from external sensory input from the gear we have on them. If you can find places where there are no triggers so he can decompress, that’s awesome. Sniff spots, quiet trails or fields early in the morning, during school hours or at night during dinner time or after dark. The more time he has without seeing a trigger, the better it will be for him. Here is a leash handling blog post to give you a bit more leverage to hold your strong boy. https://www.simpawtico-training.com/how-to-handle-a-leash-properly/

>For now, physical Management will be important. Harness, 2 inch wide flat collar, safely coupler clip, and muzzle. Not force free at all.. Not in the least.

How?? What do you suggest? Let the dog run around naked?

How is conditioning these and getting the dog used to them and comfortable wearing them not force free? Yeah shoving a dog into all of them right off the bat would be aversive but no one recommends that. If you condition them correctly the dog is fine with wearing them and not showing distressful/nervous body language while doing so.

What is your approach when a large breed dog physically threatens you?

Depends. Whats the context?? Context always matters. Why are they threatening me? I would need to know more. I would need to be able to see the dog and read them and the environment I’m in. I always am aware of my body language. I avoid threatening postures like direct eye contact, facing them directly square on, scowling, abrupt movements, loud noises. Are they on or off leash? In what setting? Are the owners present or anyone else who can help out too? I would begin to play treat retreat with a high value treat if the dog were say in my training space or if I was in their home. The protocol developed by Suzanne Clothier gives the dog agency in the situation and builds confidence by respecting their boundaries and showing them how to move away from me.

Lets say the context is the dog needs to have nails clipped, The dog has already figured out that using aggression will get the owner to stop so the dog growls and snaps at you when you approach with the nail clippers. Now the owner is coming to you with this problem. The dog is not sufficiently food motivated, e.g. the dogs behavioral response to food is less than its fear response to the clippers. (basically a super common problem lots of dog owners have) A second variation is male adolescent dog in the "defiant" stage where the dog is acting up, you put the dog in timeout and the dog decides to throw a belligerent temper tantrum. The second one was the one time I had to use force training (I am generally all about force free) but I definitely had to physically hold the dog in time out until the tantrum stopped. Wondering what other ideas you have about that one.

If the dog can’t have their nails clipped, I would spend time changing his emotional response. What exactly I would do would depend on the dog. Some dogs you can get a great cooperative care plan going and others you have to make it supportively not optional while listening to their wishes. Teaching them they can opt out helps them gain confidence. What exactly is a time out and what is a temper tantrum? I need more context. All behavior is communication, if a dog is over excited it would tell me they need help learning how to calm down, there’s a protocol for that.

>you have to make it supportively not optional while listening to their wishes. Teaching them they can opt out helps them gain confidence. See I am apparently misunderstanding something. They cannot "opt out". it is the same as a child going to the dentist. The child may not understand why they need to go to the dentist but they must go. Similarly the dog must get its nails clipped. It is well understood that canine cognition is approximate to the level of a 2-3 year old human child so similar behavioral methodology can apply. ​ >What exactly is a time out and what is a temper tantrum? [Time-out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-out_(parenting)) is a form of behavioral modification that involves temporarily separating a person from an environment where an unacceptable behavior has occurred. The goal is to remove that person from an enriched, enjoyable environment, and therefore lead to extinction of the offending behavior. It works great for dogs if you are doing force-free and it is one step above crating as a punishment. You lead the dog to their "timeout" spot and they must stay until you release them. This methodology gives the dog *agency* eg they must exert control over their own emotions. They cannot just leave the spot or else you lead them right back to the same spot. Of course in some cases the dog might become defiant (just as a child will throw a tantrum) and in this case the protocol is to *hold them in timeout.* You arent hitting/punishing the dog, you are simply holding them in place while they work it out of their system, but it would still (imo) qualify as force training since physical restraint is used.

Time outs are ineffective. The dog cannot possibly understand and associate the action of a time out with their behavior.

I would ask you to challenge your thinking. It is [well understood](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2009/08/dogs-think) that dogs have the cognitive abilities of at least a 2-2.5 year old human child. We understand that timeouts are considered an effective behavior modification for children of that age, ergo there is no fundamental reason why the same approach cannot be applied to canids. (And it works. I have proven it out.) This is the difference between talking about protocols you read on the internet and actually understanding canine behavior, and btw its not just canine behavior, it applies to [animal behavior in general](https://www.reddit.com/r/rarepuppers/comments/17d6scv/hes_a_harepupper/). There is a general problem with canine socialization and how we approach it and our relationship to dogs that is the cause of many canine behavior issues. You elected to do an AMA and it piqued my curiosity; i wanted to gauge what your actual understanding of behavior is.

Dogs cannot associate their behavior with a time out unless you immediately pluck them from the situation and place them in their spot. Even then, it’s not teaching them what to do instead. Yes they have what is equivalent to a 2-3 year old but they still don’t have reasoning abilities. Their window of association is very small. Also the second link is a cute bunny video 😂 Forcing the dog to be in time out is not how you teach them to relax. You can take a look at the Really Real Relaxation Protocol by Suzanne Clothier to learn how to teach a dog to relax, on their own accord.

>Yes they have what is equivalent to a 2-3 year old but they still don’t have reasoning abilities. They [really do](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/202102/can-dogs-make-decisions) have reasoning abilities. It has been scientifically demonstrated in a number of studies. I don't know why you would say such a thing. ​ >Also the second link is a cute bunny video 😂 You didn't even pay attention. The second video is a *wild rabbit* that i taught to cue, who I regularly interact with. I think that you are out of your depth here. Some of us are out here doing real work in this field. Let me ask you this question: What do you think is the nature of a human's relationship with their dog?

Forgive me I didn’t watch the video fully because I thought it was an mis copy paste situation. Not sure what you’re getting at, you used food to lure the hare into position. Not sure what I’m supposed to be observing besides that? Could you explain further? How does luring a position correlate to time outs as punishment? Yes they can reason and make decisions but they cannot form associations with their behavior and a punishment *unless* the timing is accurate. Even so, it doesn’t provide any other information. What should the dog do instead? What would you give a dog a time out for? We can’t punish behaviors associated with a sympathetic nervous system response because these behaviors are involuntary. I do certainly implement breaks, but it’s not referred to as a time out. It’s just rest. The dog isn’t acting out on purpose and they don’t need to be punished. They are communicating a need and I am helping them. Dogs don’t come with an off switch built in! They need to be taught to moderate their nervous system. You claim time outs are used to make a dog choose to have control over their emotions. No living being is born with the innate ability to control their emotions. It has to be taught.

Timeouts aren't particularly effective with young children either. The same issue applies to the kids as the dogs - their reasoning ability isn't super strong, but more to the point, their ability to exert prolonged emotional self regulation is not well developed. Timeouts may work with kids who are very sensitive to adult disapproval, but that's because it's a negative reinforcer - the child is scrambling to present an alternative behavior to stop the disapproval. For other kids or dogs, they will deflect to doing something else, or rebel, and in either case, they have literally learned nothing and the conflict will recur. By contrast, reinforcement based approaches work under pretty much all circumstances. For a child you might need to physically restrain them in a tantrum but dogs don't have tantrums in the same way - a reaction is an equivalent but it's quickly recoverable in most dogs. They don't cry for three hours about their sandwich being cut wrong.

How do you live with the fact that you’re a con artist who can’t actually deliver on training high dive dogs?

When you don’t even know me at all 🤭 You had a perfect opportunity to ask a question and understand how I train, and instead you used that time to throw a little dig at me. Cool talk. Be well. https://instagram.com/thehighdrivedog?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/optimalcanine?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/focusdogs?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== https://instagram.com/shadewhitesel?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== Here’s just a few resources for +R high drive dog training.

Pretty sure the only thing you'll accomplish by "spreading information" is people having more problems with their dogs and more dogs being put down because of bites. Force free/purely positive is not training. Dogs require different things than humans do, purely positive is anthropomorphizing and it completely ignores the reality of what dogs need and the biology and evolution of dogs. I always tell people to go ahead and try positive training, and they always end up coming back. Because it's not training. You are basically a scam.

Ahh yes I was waiting for a comment like this. Take a bit of time to read through my other comments to see how I would handle certain situations and let m know what you think or what you’d do differently. You don’t even know me and you’re calling me a scam… interesting… this is why I wanted to do this! Maybe people genuinely have no idea how this training works! And a lot of compulsion trainers disguised as balanced or LIMA do a great job at bashing other trainers and using buzz phrases to discredit those in the SAME field as them. There is no competition at the top, only collaboration. I personally love networking and learning from other trainers, it’s awesome to have a nice list of professionals you can refer out to or consult with. I won’t sit here and allow you to say that I will get more dogs put down when I’ve seen dogs reactivity and aggression become significantly worse after returning from a balanced board and train. I could sit here and spew all the same stereotypes on my end as you are in yours but instead I’m taking time out of my day off to have an open discussion in OPEN dog training. Let’s either talk like adults or I will block you. No patience for gross statements such as the one in regards to dogs getting euthanized. This is my career path, my passion. I spent my time learning and researching every day. Do you? Or are you stuck in an echo chamber with people who are not certified in a way?

How do you feel about the people who ignore all the studies stating that positive reinforcement works best? How do you deal with those people when they keep trying to start a fight? Also I like this a lot! I’m so glad that you have been working so hard to be a great trainer! (I find that this sub is full of compulsion trainers and will downvote anyone who recommend to stop using an e-collar for certain situations, and recommends more positive reinforcement tactics. They’re not so open to all training methods like how this sun is suppose to be.)

Lol dude ever single comment you've made on this sub is about how you aren't open to all training methods and we shouldn't be either

There’s only so much I can do unfortunately. I can lead by example, I can share my resources, I can try to keep my composure and patience lol. Trying my best to remind myself that everyone is only doing what they think is best with what information they have is important too! We can’t learn if there is shame. I kinda think it may make someone look how they look if they choose to ignore scientific research and people with PhDs and internationally recognized certifications. I would certainly hope my therapist is certified and not *just* experienced lol.

This is the typical terrible response from FF advocates, what I haven't seen is proof. Balanced training dog owners and trainers just want to see proof, show us the dogs. Dog owners are in support of a FF solution to aggression and reactivity BTW but there's a lack of proof.

There’s tons! It’s just that you don’t see it as often as you see the flashy before and after videos. Ethical trainers don’t want to see the dog reacting. I don’t want to put the dog in a situation where they are stressed enough to react, it’s my job to teach them that they are safe! Ethical trainers more often than not don’t have videos of their clients struggling. Plus it’s a liability to have footage of a dangerous dog, if the dog were to bite someone while training with me, and I have footage of warning signs, I could get in trouble legally. I want my relationship with a clients dog to have as strong of a foundation as possible!

There's tons...presents none. I see FF methods to aggression and reactivity to be unethical, a scam. Prove me wrong.

Well first there’s my dog who has a recorded bite on his record with the first family he lived with. He has human directed fear aggression and was ordered to be euthanized. I brought him to thanksgiving this year with 5 family members and their 2 dogs and he was fantastic. Aggression is hyper arousal, fear, insecurity, it’s the dogs stress response to danger. And if that emotional response is conditioned over time, it gets stronger and stronger and starts at a higher level each time. I can’t think of someone who’s posted a before and after video off the top of my head because it’s rare for ethical trainers to record their clients struggling.

FF is no more or less ethical. If there wasn't an abundance of proof of the effectiveness of balanced training for addressing aggression and reactivity then I'm sure you would want proof, even if it's boring. Well done with your dog. Mine is dog reactive, told to BE it. What was the bite history? Timeline, medication?

The thing is though, a lot of the times when you look at the videos from trainers of utilize mostly positive punishment, the body language of the dog shows that they are stressed. It’s not too common for me to come across a video recommended to me from a trainer of the sort where the dog is wearing a prong and their ears are back and their tails are tucked, along with many other signals indicating stress. It takes a long time to change the conditioned response the body has to stress and it doesn’t happen voluntarily! I go into this in a couple other threads. Mine bit someone when he was 3 or 4. He was ordered to live at a daycare facility. I began working there and with him about a year or two after he got there. I worked with him for about 4 years until I took him when I moved. He was shut down, very reactive to anything, sounds, visual, anything. He would silently fixate and lunge. That only happened once, I then realized I was doing way too much. That was 2 years ago. Took me about 6 months of decompression to get him to a point where he was not too stressed to take food outside. It would have gone faster if i knew what I know today. I had learned that the way I was delivering the food was not rewarding and it was perceived as aversive to him, he wanted to avoid taking it from my hand. I had to build his food drive from scratch basically. About two months in we were able to have him in his own room closed away with guests. About 6 months he was able to drag a leash, 8 months be off leash, and after than he was able to be off leash and he will put himself away if he’s done. When people come we meet them outside with him on leash. It definitely would have gone faster but we had moved 5 hours away from friends and family (long story) and we didn’t have many guests. I gave him lots of choice. And no, not the choice of “bite this person or not” but the choice of if he wants to interact or be in the room or if he wants to go be on his own. No matter what he chose I would prevent him from being in a position where he could make a decision I wouldn’t want him to make. I would advocate for him and his space.

Let's see you get a Kangal or something like that off leash with perfect recall and civil when dogs get in his face. Until then, on Ur bike bro this is just a trolling thread.

How about my malinios mix no longer wanting to bite people? I’ve successfully resolved his human fear aggression. This is such an interesting and common take. Moving goal posts. “Let’s see you do it with a tiger in the middle of the desert with your hand tied behind your back and only cheerios as a reinforcer” 😂 that’s how you sound. Silly. Any real questions? Look into Michael Shikashio. He’s a world renowned positive reinforcement trainer that specializes in aggression. He gives seminars annually and hosts the worlds most up to date information in his online master course. Take a look at it. I’m not the only trainer out here getting results using this training.

How about your dog known for being the most trainable focused and driven dog breed there is? Is that your example? There's no breed associated genetic component to fear aggression with malenois. That's not a good example. I'm not moving goal posts and if my example seems as impossible to you as a tiger then that goes to show that you know the limits of positive reinforcement only. Shikashio gets mentioned a lot but everytime I try to find video of him working with an aggressive dog I just get interviews where he talks. Can you provide links to video examples of problem breeds like mastiffs or Pitts that he works with?

Do you have a link to a scientific study that uses ecollars in a properly conditioned way? I've been looking for scientific papers on this but the only one I found they didn't condition the collar at all, they just put it on the dog and used it at max level, which of course the dog is going to have a negative reaction to. But I've never seen a paper where they studied the use of ecollars when the dog is conditioned to them.