I am not an “old school” dog trainer. Here’s what I mean by that.
Old School: You might have worked with the dog a bit to understand Sit, Down, Heel, and Come. OK, that is a good start.
But then there is the switch. The mentality changes and then if the owner gives a command, that dog better well do that command or else. And then some kind of punishment is used.
Here’s an example. I have seen countless owners who have worked with other Old School trainers with their dogs. Let’s say the dog has been trained all along with a tool: Leash and collar; electric collar; clicker; or some of the popular TV guru methods. Every time, these dogs have little to no relationship to the owner. I call them Hollow Dogs. The owners have been taught to be more concerned about a particular Method than how that method is affecting their dog.
To me, that is “Old School”.
Here’s my different approach.
New School: I teach the owners and dogs to discover their potential (or sometimes I’ll refer to it as their talent), and to push that potential as far as I can.
Thus, I was working with a new dog owner the other day. Nice doodle puppy, nice owner. I then gave him a “just right challenge”. Get some treats and get your dog to Sit.
So, he first says Sit in a firm voice. Nothing. The puppy hasn’t ever heard that before. He then snaps his fingers and says Sit. I interjected, nope, can’t use the snapping fingers. That has another purpose. I then gave him a hint. He tried that and got his dog to do her first Sit. I then had him pay his dog and encouraged him to try it again.
Why do I do it this way? I surely could have just shown him how to do it by demonstrating it myself. But he’s new to dogs. If I can get a student like this to grasp what works and what doesn’t, guess what? He then OWNS that for himself. The accomplishment of that challenge will translate into him learning to communicate with his dog, and to look to his dog for feedback, to know whether he is doing things right. If a correction is to be done in the future, then it will be warranted and fair to the dog. I want people to work with their brains, not their backs.
I can also start demonstrating, from the very beginning, another important concept: how does your dog feel about what you are doing and what you are teaching? I want them to learn, right from the start, how to read their dog. Because one day, if they were using one of those Old School Methods, that method is going to fail, and if they can’t read their dog, then something bad is going to happen. Many dogs fear their owners, and that kills talent.
Each lesson I give is a just right challenge. I continue to push the owner and dog to almost the limits of their talents, and that includes their communication talents, before we consider finishing the dogs with warranted corrections. A bright eyed, driven, happy, low stress dog is much more capable when you really need it than a dog that has either been beaten down, or has only a cold and superficial relationship with their owner.
Do you want a dog to “listen”? Listening requires more than just mechanically going through a rote set of exercises with a dog. Just putting a dog through drills, pushing and pulling along, being aloof and threatening in demeanor, doesn’t make for a well behaved, happy dog in the long run. They don’t really “know” anything because they didn’t discover it for themselves, and the owners, likewise, don’t know anything and when life throws them a danger that wasn’t puzzled out in the drills that were done… then people just freeze or overreact, the dog gets loose, and bad things transpire.
Thus, if a dog isn’t working with you, then they are going to be working for themselves, and nature always has goodies to offer to compete with what little you are providing.
Plan accordingly.