Just a thought

Hey everyone,

I recently started rehabilitating my aggressive dog with "positive reinforcement." This newer, fancy method seems to be becoming increasingly popular among trainers and owners. Science says that dogs that it is more effective to redirect and show him what he SHOULD do. That correcting unwanted behavior only confuses a dog and that they don't understand it.

HOWEVER, that's exactly how dogs deal with it with each other. Any unwanted behavior among dogs is swiftly corrected. A dog at the dog park gets too rough, the other dog snaps. A puppy gets too close to his older brothers bowl, the brother growls. It seems that corrections such as snaps, nips, growls, snarls, glares, etc. is how other dogs say to each other "hey, cut it out. That's unacceptable."

Any thoughts?

This has been the number one method of dog training in GB for many many years (this is a forum based in Britain)
If you have a look through the behaviour and training section you will find a lot of posts addressing this.

Anyway good luck with your dog, let us know how things go. I'm sure you will have great success.

I feel it's like with human children. I see people in my store all the time with human children and "positive reinforcement"...
"Now Megan we must use our inside voice, Megan if you don't get off that display Mommy is going to be very disappointed in you, CRASH Now Megan when we get home we're going to have a talk. Good girl, you're walking with me now and you may pick out a pack of gum".

I hear people talk to their dogs like that too. I think positive reinforcement should be when we're home or in public you know I'll always be ready with a treat or tushy rub because I love you dearly. BUT if I say your name in a certain way I want your undivided attention because I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL FOOD GIVER and you will listen to me.

Positive reinforcement is great, but I will say that with some dogs... I find being firmer works better. If I tell my Bunnyhead girl to get down in a sweet voice, or lure her down and then reward her with a treat... she'll take the treat and just jump back up. Worthless!

But if I tell her in a no nonsense voice "Jade, get down!" she gets down promptly and doesn't jump back up. I like to do what works. I'd never advocate striking or hitting a dog BTW.

I'm very lenient with my dogs, which is why I have a "tone" I use when I'm not going to tolerate anymore nonsense. If my Nigredo has something he should not have, he is expected to drop it when told.

If he decides he does not want to, I'll just go over and take it from him. I don't tolerate aggression from my dogs, and they know better than to try anything like that.

If Jade is growling at him or a cat for no reason (he can be way across the room, or the cat could just be walking by) and being a "queen" she is told sternly to cut it out. Usually a stern "Jade, cut that mess out" does the trick.

She usually does... or she walks away. If she does not, I'll walk over to her and clamp a muzzle over her head... then she is free to snarl and be nasty all she wants. She can be crabby sometimes and will just growl because she is in a mood.

By the way, it is not exactly true that the only way dogs can learn is through positive reinforcement. Long before this was realistic (or existed), there were plenty of very well behaved dogs. So sorry to all the people that say there is no other way... that is not true.

And I refuse to accept that true aggression can always be remedied with positive reinforcement. Sometimes IMO a dog needs to understand that nobody is going to barter with him and that he runs nothing.

The one thing where I totally draw the line on my rules is if my dog shows aggression towards me or my family. If my own dog ever turns his/her head to bite me or any of my family members... I will use as much force as needed to prevent harm to me or my family without a care for the dog.

My dogs are both big powerful dogs BTW and if they decided to attack, you could not go easy on them and come out unharmed.

Well said Mj Basically sums up exactly the way our house is too. Especially with the big strong breeds. You the owner have to have a mindset from day one what limits will be set and enforce them immediately.

I'm normally so soft spoken people are always asking me to repeat myself. Same with the dogs. The only time I raise my voice...note not making it higher, most dogs don't respect Mickey Mouse voices...making it deeper and louder. If something brings me to shout, everything stops in it's tracks.

We don't chase cats in the house for any reason. Just standing between them and announcing "EXCUse ME" and Callie drops his head and heads off for the other room. I don't believe in corporal punishment with dogs or children, in any case they will remember and turn on you someday.

I agree LoveMyBull... Mickey Mouse voices are good if you're trying to make a dog wag his tail and jump up for a pat... but not so good when he needs to understand that what he is doing is unacceptable.

My dogs sometimes go overboard with the playing and it gets nasty... I usually yell "HEY!!" and it stops but if they don't... I am just fine with getting up and walking over there and saying "Cut it out right now!!" while flailing my hands and BOTH dogs cut that noise out and go in opposite directions.

I don't think it's a bad way to handle it because it works and it prevents them from fighting or having a scrap or knocking something over or something else horrible. When dogs get riled up, being nice isn't always the way to go.

In the end, whatever I'm telling the dog is in their best interest anyway... so how I go about it (sans beating or hitting them or hurting them in any way) is not so important.

Same with leashes, I'm not using any prong collars etc... you'll just learn that we don't walk unless you cut the pulling out, you're not strong enough to walk me and walks are mighty boring if nobody is walking.

Mentally, physically, or otherwise... they are no match for me and they know this. All this is done without ever hitting, rolling, kicking, or striking the dogs in any way. Mind over matter. Letting your dog out think you, treating dogs like humans, and being too passive, is what often leads to the problems people have IMO.

When you observe (well socialised) dogs in the park, you'll find that before they snap, growl, bark or lunge, they will use much subtler language. They will turn their head, blink, lip-lick, sniff the groung, sit down, walk away etc. to signal the other dog that they're too much. Only if those signals are ignored by other dogs they then resort to more aggressive displays of discomfort.
This only works with dogs that know dog language though. If you take a dog that's never been properly socialised and that doesn't know the rules, it may react differently. My dog is like that for example, she was always told off for displaying warnings and her signs of discomfort were largely ignored in her previous family, she was bullied by other dogs and her humans probably let her be bullied because they thought she needed to learn to defend herself by herself. She was overcorrected by dogs and humans and turned into a nervous wreck. She became reactive with minimal warning signs. She's now learning to display the proper calming signals and displacement behaviours in order to signal to other dogs it's getting too much.

It's also good to point out we're not dogs so we can't communicate with dogs the same exact way that they do with each other. So a leash yank, slap on the bum or a good telling off is very different for a dog than a correction done by a calm and experienced dog in the park. Human corrections inflict more fear and mistrust because they're harsher and normally they come at the wrong time, without proper pre-warnings (as dogs would) and way too strong. Most of the time when dogs get corrections, they've never been taught the proper behaviour in the first instance. So you assume your dog knows a command and punish/correct when the command isn't followed, but actually the dog didn't know it was doing something wrong or didn't know what exactly the command meant.
A good example is teaching 'sit'. Some people still teach their dogs to sit by saying 'sit' and then pushing the bum down. The dog doesn't know the word or what it means, and then gets punished for not doing it. Eventually, it will learn that it should sit down when it hears that word, but in case of building up a positive association with learning and training, it creates a bad and conflicting feeling in the dog.
Of course, gently pushing the dog's bum down to the ground isn't painful punishment, but it's nonetheless a type of aversive training.
So much easier to free shape or lure a sit command that the dog then LIKES to do because it's associated with something good (treats, praise) and will set the dog up for success, which is a positive feeling. Next time you're trying to teach your dog something more difficult, it will be ready for it, knowing that learning and training means fun and treats and spending some nice time with you.