I wrote this post initially in August 2020. It seems disingenuous to delete it entirely, especially because a great deal of my thoughts, on the surface, remain the same. But as usual, with age and experience and education comes nuance, and the question of training methodology just isn’t as black and white as I had once thought of it. I was very focused in the post on why training with punishment can be appealing for a pet dog owner, but in some ways was just as myopic as the approach I was criticizing. This is what I had to say:
We live in a culture of instant gratification. You can stream television, curate your interests and contacts on Social Media, and reach anyone in the world at any time on FaceTime, Skype, or the now COVID-popular Zoom meetings. Even looking for advice on dog training, the internet has oodles of advice without even leaving the comfort of your home. With so many answers available, it seems inevitable that if we play the right card, click the right button, visit the right website or see the right person, we can find the answer and implement the solution to every challenge we face. We want it to be easy.
I often marvel at the world of dog training, and how successful marketing seems to be for trainers who use aversive techniques. There is a clarity in training with punishment - a product to buy, a result to see quickly and easily, a tool to sell you. Validation that yelling “no” was a productive use of your time. I get it. Successive approximations is a hard sell when your dog’s behavior is impacting your life now. You want the life with the dog you pictured in your head.
Stop. Rewind.
Today, I am still using positive reinforcement as my primary approach in training. But, I hope, I have been successful in taking a more nuanced view towards training methodology overall and to individual client concerns specifically. Rather than “choosing positivity” - the original title of the post - I want to always be returning to “choosing kindness.”
I am a reinforcement-based trainer, but I’m largely uncomfortable with training methodology labels because I think there is always an interpretation of the definition that not only doesn’t define, but works against my perspective.
I don’t use what the training community refers to as “tools,” but based even on the schisms within those communities, the definition of tools differs - I’ve worked on head halter desensitization, I use front clip harnesses, and for many that would eliminate me from a truly “force free” designation.
When I train, when I think about my goals in training, it comes down simply: I want to train with kindness. I want to train the dogs in front of me by recognizing that the life we ask them to live in - the behaviors we want and don’t want, the environments we put them in, the consistency we demand of them - are all incredibly big asks for these creatures that we share our lives with. I want to make behavior plans with the awareness that we hold every single card that shapes our pets’ lives. With an acknowledgement that - as only a millennial who grew up through the rise and fall of no less than three separate Spiderman franchises can tell you - with great power comes great responsibility.
I train with the understanding that kindness extends beyond the dog in front of me. Training involves change on both ends of the leash, within and outside of a household. The behaviors I teach, the goals I want to achieve, don’t end with the dog themselves - they spiderweb (get it?) out further than I may be able to see in the moment. When I ask a client, “does that sound like something that will work for you?” after a proposed solution - I mean it, genuinely. Because no matter how clever the training solution is, if it isn’t sustainable for everyone involved, it’s not a solution at all.
For me personally, the situations I have run across where tools may be tempting come from an emotional place - a desire to control the situation and avoid the behavior that I don’t want to encourage in my dogs. I don’t see that desire as respectful for my dog, or productive to our relationship. It’s certainly not leading with kindness. I am cautious of the implementation of tools in training programs because I do see situations where tools are used as a way to shift away from our responsibility of listening to the dog and to shut down communication we dislike.
In understanding a behavior, we’re told to ask ourselves the function of the behavior in our animals. If the function of the consequence we are handing out is to keep everyone safe, to be clear with them, to build up a behavior, to allow better quality of life, then I don’t think it necessarily matters if we use tools. If the function of the behavior is to express frustration, to release anger, to exert power over another or to threaten that we can…that is where we stand to fail our animals. Considering the function of the consequences we dole out is as important, if not more so, as considering the consequences themselves.
The error that “force free” trainers continually make when shutting down all tool use, or all punishment in training, is the assumption that the goal is always selfish on behalf of the human and about shutting down the dog’s side in communication. The error that “balanced” and “traditional” trainers make when dismissing reinforcement-based training is the assumption that leading with reinforcement automatically results in permissiveness and only placing importance on the dog’s communication with little regard to the human’s needs or desires. There are certainly trainers that exist that fulfill the worst of those traits. It’s a fear of being associated with those traits that keeps trainers clinging to the labels they’ve chosen. We’re told building bridges, failing to condemn other training methods, claiming labels that we don’t 100% conform to, will confuse issues further in an already unregulated industry. I would argue, though, that the true divide is more delicate than that.
The people who love their dogs - our colleagues, our training buddies, our clients - are all united in similar goals. We want to enjoy our lives with our dogs. We want our dogs to enjoy their lives with us. If we start there, from a place of meeting those two goals, then our training choices will be deliberate, they will be thoughtful, and they will be kind. Our behavior plans will include management and prevention that is sustainable for everyone involved, enrichment that the whole household can enjoy, and skills and behaviors that reward our dogs for making the best choices for the whole family.
One of my favorite clients was working on a pattern game with her dog, who was reactive at the door. We’d used this pattern game to success, everyone was happy with the results of the game and the ease with which it could be utilized. Yet, week after week, when I came over, the game wasn’t set up, wasn’t in use. When prompted, she explained with a self-deprecating laugh, that the set up for the game, which required bowls on either side of her door, simply wasn’t pretty, and because of that she was procrastinating. It would have been an easy thing to dismiss, or to chuckle at with her and then move on. But the fact of the matter was, the skills as we had currently established them, were kind to the dog, but they weren’t kind to her, and her quality of life. Everyone works hard to make their life and home feel like their own, and feeling good about your front walk is part of that. In that situation, it was fortunately easy enough to come up with an aesthetically pleasing set up for the game - but acknowledging and adapting to the human needs allowed for sustainable change that improved everyone’s life.
Kindness in training, then, requires a great deal of thoughtfulness, and even more nuance. Nuances I’m still personally untangling, nuances that oftentimes contradict one another. Approaching things in a thoughtful way, leading with kindness, for me, has yet to mean the implementation of tools in my training plans. But my experience is not comprehensive. While I have not implemented tools in my personal or professional training, that professional training, my professional growth, my professional education is never complete. I have seen tools implemented for challenges in painstakingly thoughtful ways, that have inarguably improved the lives of the dogs and of the humans. I have seen “force free” methods implemented in ways that have been diminishing and unkind to both the dog and the humans involved. The divide in the training world has less to do with methodology and more to do with an honest assessment of quality of life - for everyone.
There’s very wise advice I see circulated often. When choosing a pet professional, ask them:
What happens if my dog does something right?
What happens if my dog does something wrong?
Are there less invasive alternatives to what you propose?
These are great questions. I would add to them: why? Why are we doing what we are doing when the dog does things right? When they do things wrong? If there are less invasive alternatives, what is the reasoning for not using them?
Is your trainer kind? To your dogs, and to you? Are they looking for the solution that best supports the needs of everyone involved in your training relationship?
If your trainer is leading with kindness, they will be looking to match with clients whose methodology reflects their own. They will be transparent with their experience and humble enough to refer you to a trusted colleague if your challenges, your preferred approach, or your goals would make someone else a better fit. They will be able to speak to the thought process behind their approach, and answer your questions in full. They will work to find solutions that fit your life, while advocating for the needs they see expressed in your dog’s behavior. They will not judge or shame or belittle you for things you did not know, did not understand, did not do the way they would do it. They will lift you up for seeking help. And they will do all that because they are training with kindness, no matter what tools they are or are not using.
