A parody of modern parenting with a lesson to be learned when it comes to our dogs
Dog Training Challenge
This will be the strangest proposition ever labeled as a dog training proposition. I challenge you to watch the scene above from the movie Old Dads. It’s a parody on both old school approaches to life, and modern parenting. This scene takes our “enlightened” understanding of empowering our children to a reckless extreme. Of course, it’s filmed to look absurd. It hits home because as a society we are moving in that direction. When it comes to our dogs, we are already there.
Dog Training: A ”How To” Approach to Creating a Tyrant
The path is simple: choose what feels good, over what actually does good, for your dog. It works every time! This choice always leads to an entitled, disobedient dog prone to a whole gamut of problems including aggression.
If you want to speed up the process of creating the ultimate tyrant there’s definitely things you can do. First, repeat yourself when it comes to commands without there being any consequences. You quickly become “Charlie Brown’s teacher”, and in turn the least respected person on the planet. Still not fast enough? Just indulge every impulse your dog shows. He wants to cross the street to go to the bathroom, by all means follow him. Once there he chooses he prefers the other side of the street, dutifully follow him back across the street. You dog wants a treat, get up and get one for her. She wants more food, fill that bowl up.
Positive-Only Dog Training: Crossing the Line
This is where I’ll get in trouble. If you really are dead set on accelerating the progress in creating a cross between Dennis the Menace (if you’re lucky) and a third-world dictator, enroll your dog into a positive-only approach to dog training. This is the same as pouring gasoline on a fire.
Imagine an approach to dog training which teaches owners to continually repeat commands, ignore bad behavior and reward good behavior, or distract bad behavior with food. The one rule that must be adhered to in this age of dog training “enlightenment”: never correct the bad behavior with negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement doesn’t work (They’ve created statistics!), it’s archaic and a relic of all that was wrong with society in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. What are you doing when you take a positive-only approach to dog training? At best you’re avoiding bad behavior rather than addressing it. You’re teaching them you don’t have to be obeyed unless you have a treat. Your words have little value as you repeat yourself incessantly. You’re feeding treats like there’s no tomorrow, no doubt indulging their every whim. It’s gasoline when most people who enroll their dogs already have a fire that needs to be addressed.
Dog Training: Turning Good Intentions into Bad Choices
Clearly fried chicken sells better than salads. Everyone knows pizza and desert leads to weight gain and health issues. And whole foods are better than processed. Yet open a restaurant serving pizza and deserts all made from wholesome ingredients and you have a waiting list. Why? It feels good to be eating healthy foods that taste great. I’m chief among those waiting in line! I’ll propose way down deep we all know we can’t eat pizza and deserts to lose weight and or become healthier. That’s not what we tell ourselves. The lie that we are eating healthy and it tastes great, just feels good.
A positive-only approach to dog training feels good. Who wouldn’t want to reward your dog into being a great well-behaved member of the family. To see their little faces as they’re being given the treats warms the heart. The question is, way down deep do you really think you can “click and treat” your aggressive dog into being a well-balanced non-aggressive dog? Do you really think during your dog’s youth (7 months to 2 years+) that you can “treat” them into obeying you – under distraction, and do so without a treat, when you need immediate control?
Dog Training: Approach Determines Outcome
You can do what “does good” for your dog, or just what feels good. Doing what “does good” can also feel good, just maybe not the 24/7 state of doggy nirvana that positive-only dog trainers are selling.
Our love for our dogs should always win in this struggle between needing to always feel good over doing good. If for some reason you like obnoxious tyrants, you now have the recipe for creating one.
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