Dog Training Myths Part 2 – Eazy Dog Training – Positive Dog Trainers

Eazy Dog Training – Positive Dog Trainers in Sydney

Dog Training Myths Part 2

Positive dog trainers often have to defend themselves against popular dog training myths, but why? Studies show that positive dog training is the most efficient way of training, not only dogs but other animals as well.

MYTH:  Positive dog trainers don’t believe in discipline.

FACT:  FALSE. It’s good to remember that positive does not mean permissive. Many positive trainers do use discipline but in a different form than other trainers. It can be in the form of vocal corrections, time-outs, ignoring bad behaviour or even removing reward that the dog wants. These are all very effective ways to correct your dog’s behaviour. They are used to guide the dog into making the right choice.

Dominance-based methods use force and hard punishment to discipline a dog. Examples of such punishments are ‘alpha rolls’, ‘biting’, foot pushes, hanging and shock collars that deliver an electric shock when the dog misbehaves.

MYTH:  Training a dog with food is bribery. You’ll end up with a dog who only obeys you when you have food.

FACT:  FALSE. I’ve owned 3 dogs myself and I’ve trained all of them using food rewards. They still obeyed me even if I didn’t have food. Those who claim that food is bribery do not understand how to use food rewards or how to complete their training. The whole point of using food rewards (or any other rewards) is to fade them out eventually so that your dog learns to do things for you, not for food. And positive training isn’t just about treats either. You can use whatever reward motivates your dog, whether it’s praise, play, toys, belly rub or walk.

MYTH:  Positive training stops working when you stop giving treats.

FACT:  FALSE. Once again it comes down to understanding how to train a dog. Training is never about non-stop reward. At the beginning of any training a reward that is used to motivate the dog to learn has to be of high value and given every time until the dog is responding reliably. When this has been achieved, the high reward, is only used intermittently. A lower-value reward such as praise will be used every time and the dog continues to respond even without the high value reward.This is how training works. The possibility of the potential high value reward in the future makes a dog work harder.

MYTH:  Dogs are pack animals like wolves and are trying to become the ‘alpha’ or ‘top dog’ over their owners.

FACT:  FALSE. First of all, we don’t really know that much about wolves. Wolves in captivity behave in a different way than wolves in the wild and most of our understanding of them is based on studies done with wolves in captivity. What we have learnt is that the idea of ‘top dog’ or ‘alpha’ status in the wolf world has been wildly misunderstood.
Second of all, dogs are not wolves. They differ from wolves both genetically as a species and practically as our domestic companions.