Two Ways to Train Your Dog: Which Works Best?

Photo Courtesy of MobilityDog.org

Business writer, Dan Pink, reminds us that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.

The dog training world also features two kinds of people: those who favor a traditional, dominance-based approach to training, and those who prefer a positive, reward-based method. (Like dogs themselves, blends and mixes exist, but for this discussion, we’ll stick with the two opposite poles). Both ways are in wide use by trainers, owners and handlers.

But which works best and why?

We View Dogs with Ambiguity

Dogs evolved from being hangers-on at the edge of our camps to hunting and guarding assets to beloved pets. We still see them in all these ways. Moreover, despite our millennia of experience with our canine companions, we nevertheless often misinterpret (or ignore) their behavior. As a consequence, they sometimes behave in ways we don’t like and wish to change, immediately or permanently. We want to be the boss in our dog-human dyad, benign dictators who gently but unambiguously tell our dogs what to do and how to act. Most dogs accept that relationship. Achieving this goal, however, has led dog trainers down two disparate paths.

Traditional Training

Pack of White Wolves. (Image Courtesy: Vincent Boulanger, Pixabay)

Traditionally, dog trainers who follow an obedience-dominance approach tend to use controlling, sometimes harsh techniques to eliminate undesirable behaviors and reinforce preferred ones. They want the dog to see them as the alpha of the pack (even if there is no pack, strictly speaking).

But dogs are far removed, in time and genetics, from the wolf ancestors who had (and have) clear dominance hierarchies in their social structure. These days, which animal gets to eat first or mate with the other-gender alpha is rarely pertinent to the daily lives of our pets. A dominance-submission model is not helpful for training our dogs to heel, sit and stay.

Users of traditional techniques seek to make the dog submissive and compliant, often through punishment of unwanted behaviors. Their training tool kit includes inflicting discomfort through the use of devices like prong collars; employing body language (kicking, violent leash pulling) to intimidate the animal; and withholding rewards.

Many dog experts believe these punishment-oriented training techniques worsen aggression and other problematic conduct, rather than eliminating it.

Reward-Based Training

In contrast to a traditional, obedience-dominance philosophy, a trainer may choose to use a technique that relies more on rewards and positive reinforcement. In a sense, this is a dog-centric way of doing things, whereas the traditional methodology is more human-centric.

Reward-based training uses:

• Positive reinforcement (providing a valued thing, such as a treat) to encourage good behaviors, and

• Negative punishment (taking away a good thing, such as a toy or a moment of physical affection) to redirect unwanted behaviors. The intent is to create a partnership relationship, rather than a dominance-based one.

Endowing Them with Human Traits

Critics sometimes say that reward-centric training inappropriately endows animals with human traits (that is, anthropomorphizes our pets). True, people sometimes refer to themselves as “pet parents” or call their dogs “puppy babies.” Taken too far, these romanticized views of our canine family members might lead to disappointment. For example, when dogs fail to respond to our detailed explanation of why we don’t want them climbing on the sofa.

In contrast to this sentimental form of humanization, however, is what one dog expert calls “critical anthropomorphism.” This means understanding that dogs are sentient beings, not human beings and that they respond to rewards, may react poorly to punishment, and can learn to understand human language.

Which Technique Works Best?

Young Woman Working with a Black Mobility Dog (Courtesy: MobilityDog.org)

Both traditional and reward-based training have adherents and critics, but are they equally effective?

One study done in Great Britain explored this question by surveying some 600 dog owners about their training approaches and the behaviors of their animals. The researchers studied such behaviors as barking, aggression toward people or other dogs and stealing food items. The survey asked respondents to indicate the degree to which they used punishment-based training, reward-based training, or miscellaneous methods and to describe the outcomes.

The results told a clear story: trainers said reward-based training produced significantly better scores for overall obedience. Dogs trained using reward-based methods were reported to be significantly more compliant than animals trained using either punishment or a combination of reward and punishment.

Who Really Needs to be Trained?

A reward-based way of dog training requires both the animal and human to learn:

• How the other communicates.

• What the other is experiencing in any specific situation; and

• What the other seeks from the relationship.

This requires training for both the dog and the person. A reward-based philosophy views the dog and the handler as a team, not equal (the person is still calling the shots) but not a formal hierarchy with the human as the boss and the dog as a subservient subordinate. Both are thinking, active, cogent agents in a process requiring communication, socialization and empathy.