All right . But then I am done here.

All right . But then I am done here.

This is a very common situation. Handler/owner of the dog/pup walks on the street. Dog/Pup see another dog/ person or such and starts to bark. Owner applies positive reinforcement and starts "calming" the pup/dog down by petting him and with soothing voice is saying something like this:" Do not bark on a doggie ,.. he is a good doggie, don't bark on him.It's OK ......" This is being said usually together with soothing petting of the offending dog.
Now understand that positive reinforcement adds on the behavior and negative subtracts. Thus the dog reads your soothing as encouragement. What is worse, is that this miscommunication escalates to the point where dogs will be aggressive at the source of his aggression further and further away. Also the owner when he/she encounters such situation is going to be worry more and more. Thus dog then hinks that the owner is afraid of the other dog or person or such and this then leads to further escalation of serious aggression.
This a very common case of use of positive reinforcement used improperly. Thus when we train a dog we must brake down everything to the lowest common denominator and that is often not easy.
Prager Hans

You suggest one example of a situation where positives 'might' cause aggression in a dog----that doesn't in any way mean that it is 'the most common cause of unwanted aggression in dogs'.
Equally likely to cause aggression is mistimed punishment which makes the dog link the approaching dog with pain and therefore decide to be aggressive in return!

You are talking rubbish really.

rune

You are talking rubbish really.

rune

Never mind, Wys - I am following your posts with interest and learning from them.
If someone uses the AP trick of only answering an isolated point because he or she can`t answer the rest, remember that the rest of us are reading and nodding.

NO they used positive and negative reinfocement. They did not use just negative.
That is crazy talk.
Prager Hans

Some
will learn and some will think it is rubbish.
That is how the cookie crumbles.
I have got a lot of positive PMs, but thay all were afraid to post here. I know why now.
Take care. Hans

It is possible to train by only choosing to apply positive reward
it means you have to think about things from a dogs perspective tho
I am learning all the time but as a challange to myself I am trying to train 100% positive reward
it is possible to use negative punishment kindly as well and I am in no way against that