Every few years a new celebrity dog trainer guru pops up, makes a boatload of money, while at the same time doing things to dogs that many, including myself, consider to be awful. These gurus blow oxygen back onto the dying embers of bad dog methods. Unsuspecting and vulnerable dog owners, and their dogs, are ultimately harmed by what is done.
There are two directions these people take. Either they are the purely positive (PP) reinforcement fanatics or the purely compulsive and punishment (PCP) fanatics.
The PP Fanatics promote some common claims. First, they say a dog should consent to whatever we do with them. Second, they don’t believe a dog should be physically touched or guided during any training or management, some even questioning whether it is ethical to use a leash and collar on a dog. Third, all training should be done with positive reinforcement. Fourth, enrichment should be the primary occupation for a dog during all waking hours. And fifth, all forms of devices are harmful, so a dog’s life should be tightly controlled to prevent the dog from ever being at risk from any harm.
The PCP Fanatics promote different claims. First, a dog is a reasoning being and should be subjected to punishment when they aren’t doing what we want them to do or immediately responding perfectly. Second, positive reinforcement plays little to no role in the teaching or management of the dog; positive methods are somehow ineffective and wimpy; and breed traits can all be overridden with sufficient training. Third, negative reinforcement and punishment are the preferred tools. Fourth, you can fix a dog’s fears, misbehavior, aggression, or traumas by using fear and trauma inducing methods. Fifth, a dog is to submit to a human or be forced to do so. Sixth, if a dog doesn’t fit the training program, double down on the punishments, or you got the wrong dog and so get a different one. And seventh, all skills can, and should, be taught using compulsion and punishment.
If you’ve worked with enough dogs, and seen the many varied training methods and results, and you have compassion for dogs, you will discover that the claims of performance from both camps are harmful, ineffectual, and deceptive. In both, they are making the dogs fit their programs rather than their programs fitting the dogs.
Let’s just sample what is wrong here.
Let’s start with the PP Method advocates. Their dogs never end up living a full life and lack many of the essential skills to be companions.
Consider the concept of “consent”. Does a dog possess sufficient intellectual capacity to voluntarily negotiate and enter into an agreement with a human? No, that is not possible. You can’t negotiate with a dog to not run out the open front door and run across the street. No one who has ever trained a dog has ever been able to accomplish that feat.
Should you never physically guide a dog, using touch, or a leash, to do anything? Let’s say you are training a dog to go up or down some open stairs, and on the way, the dog tries to leap off the side of the stairs instead of staying on the steps either way. Is it wrong to physically block the dog from jumping off? What if you are on a fire escape with a dog, and it looks like it is going to jump off the stairs and fall 3 flights? Should you not touch or guide the dog in any manner? Or what if you are teaching a dog to Sit and you touch their bottom as a guide to help them? is that inhumane? Remember we are discussing fanatics here, not people who would never physically or mentally harm a dog in any way. I have encountered these PP Fanatics. I was teaching a dog to do a Down, had treats on the ground, and had a calming hand on the dog’s shoulder as I pointed to the treat. Oh, man. I posted a video of that online and was excoriated by these trolls about how cruel I was to that dog.
One more. I see dogs which are being immersed in canine enrichment activities every day. The other day, I watched a dog being shown how to demolish a roll of toilet paper as an activity. Do you really think that is a good thing to teach a dog? Is that what you want a dog to do in your home when you aren’t looking? I see lots of these dogs online being taught innumerable useless and destructive activities as a form of enrichment. The more of these things you teach a dog, the more mischief they are going to get into over the years. I don’t want a dog to learn how to do some things. Do you want your dog to learn how to unlock your doors? To open cabinets? To tear up boxes and clothing and such to find treats? I sure don’t. None of these things are good for a dog. Furthermore, dogs that are made to be addicted to only playing will opt to not learn or do anything else you might need them to do when it doesn’t involve play.
What about the PCP Fanatics? These dogs are purposely traumatized, and some become dangerous.
I have written numerous articles about things you should never do to a dog. Old dog training books from the past century were full of these things and there is no need to bring them back. All long time trainers have been exposed to these methods, and the good ones realized the harm and have stopped doing these things. In interviews with the old timers, they express their regrets at what they used to do and tell others there are better ways. Yet there are some who still cling to these methods and don’t care to change. The main harms I see with the new PCP Fanatics is how they have resurrected these outdated techniques, label them as something special, and then get unsuspecting owners to pay them to terrorize their pets. It isn’t acceptable to use any of these old methods. It’s wrong to traumatize dogs. Furthermore, many of these PCP Fanatics won’t openly tell you what they are going to do to your dog.
I occasionally get the opportunity to speak with rescue volunteers. The main point I try to convey is we are supposed to be animal welfare advocates. To do this, volunteers need to decide and promise they will never do things that will hurt a dog. I don’t want them imitating one of these PCP gurus they’ve seen in videos who will hang a dog, having the dog gasping for air, risking serious injuries, breaking dogs, or causing the dogs to emit diarrhea in terror. I try to teach them to exercise some self-accountability by emphasizing they should assume everything they do is being recorded, and if it wouldn’t look good on the evening news, to not do it. And if they don’t know what to do, I recommend they find someone with sufficient experience and knowledge to explain, with well-reasoned and behaviorally sound arguments, how to approach this problem or that. I do not believe novices should ever apply any sort of negative reinforcement or punishment technique on a dog. If they can’t be trusted to consistently use and believe in reward-based techniques, they shouldn’t be given ideas on how to use any sort of corrections. Novices tend to react to dogs, and will resort to force instead of patiently teaching correct behaviors and developing proper, functional, repeatable, reliable, happy and low stress attitudes and behaviors in the dogs they are working.
About 20 years ago, I heard about a Doberman that was taken to a PCP trainer to learn how to track. The trainer used harsh compulsion methods. Whenever the dog left the track, the dog was severely punished. What the dog learned was so long as he kept his nose to the ground, then he wouldn’t be punished. However, since the dog never learned how to track, the dog would invariably be faking it was on a track and get punished again. This dog was so traumatized that it would break down when tracking and start uncontrollably shaking and emitting diarrhea. The dog had to be started all over, from scratch, to learn how to track the right way, but whenever the dog lost the scent, it would still break down. I don’t know if the dog was ever made right in the long run.
I’m also quite wary of working with dogs that have been systematically traumatized using PCP methods, whether done intentionally by the owner or some PCP trainer. If taken far enough, these dogs can develop a dangerous version of canine PTSD, and eventually someone is going to be seriously injured. Good dog training is focused on giving a dog reward based experiences that they will reliably replicate with appetitive motivation in the future. Bad training is about breaking a dog. Broken dogs break down. Broken dogs sometimes hurt others.
If you are seeking to train your dog, I believe these are the signs that your dog might be subjected to these obsolete methods.