By Abbie Volpone, VSA-CDT
https://www.dogtrainerabbie.com/
Dog Training Methodology
Quick Facts:
- Dog training in the U.S. is an unregulated industry, meaning that anyone can call themselves a professional dog trainer without going through any formal education or certification.
- Electronic shock collars (E-collars, static collars) are banned in many countries, including Germany, England, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Wales, Canada, and Australia.
- Some countries, such as Germany, have also banned the use of choke chains and prong collars.
- Dogs learn very similarly to humans. Functional MRI studies have concluded that dogs have the same level of sentience and ability to experience emotions comparable to that of a 4 year old human.
- Based on current scientific evidence, The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior recommends that only reward-based training methods are used for all dog training, including the treatment of behavior problems.
- Studies have proven aversive training to be ineffective and damaging physically and mentally, affecting the dog’s subsequent ability to learn and often leading to fallout behaviors such as an increase in aggression.
Some Specifics:
- Much of dog training methodology is based on models of operant conditioning. “Positive Reinforcement” training is a method that lives primarily in the positive reinforcement quadrant. Aversive (sometimes referred to as “balanced”) trainers live primarily in the positive punishment quadrant (for example, adding the feeling of a shock collar to decrease the behavior of barking).
Punishment is defined as the opposite of reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase it. It is an aversive event that decreases the behavior that it follows.
For Punishment to work as a tool for behavior, it must be immediate and consistent. For example, when you touch a hot stovetop, you will immediately be burned. If you touch that same place with the stove on every time, you will be burned. This punishes the behavior of touching the hot stove by making it less likely to happen again.
It is foolish to think that we, as humans, can use punishment in the same way to meet our ideas of what dog behavior should be. We will always lack consistency, as we do not watch our dogs every moment of their life, and that can actually encourage behavior. When learning to ride a bike, even though we are punished by falling and hurting ourselves, we are encouraged to keep trying because sometimes, we don’t. In the time it takes for a dog to make a decision, act on that, for us to perceive it and decide it is wrong, and then press a button to activate a signal sent to a shock collar, the punishment is far from immediate. This delay is no longer punishing the behavior we think it is, which leads to frustration, confusion, learned helplessness, distrust, and oftentimes punishes an entirely separate behavior that we had no intention of punishing.
There are many problems with using punishment, such as:
- Punished behavior is not forgotten, it’s suppressed – behavior returns when punishment is no longer present.
- Causes increased aggression – shows that aggression is a way to cope with problems.
- Creates fear that can generalize to undesirable behaviors, e.g., fear of school.
- Does not necessarily guide toward desired behavior – reinforcement tells you what to do, punishment only tells you what not to do.
The Physical Harm
- If you feel your dog’s neck with your hands followed by your own neck, you will see how similar they are. The trachea, esophagus, thyroid gland, lymph nodes, jugular vein, muscles and spinal column are all located in similar places. The only difference between a dog and a human neck is that under the fur, a dog’s skin layer is only 3-5 cells thick, while the top layer of human skin is denser, 10-15 cells thick.
- The thyroid gland lies at the base of the neck just below the larynx close to where any collar sits. Just one yank can cause injury to a gland that controls many of the body’s vital functions.
- From a strictly physical perspective, Jim Casey, Mechanical Engineer, explains that, “A dog can pull against its leash/collar with more force than its own weight and can exert even more force if it gets a running start before it reaches the end of its leash. Considering a typical flat collar, an 80 pound dog can cause a contact force of approximately 5 pounds per square inch (psi) to be exerted on its neck. This force increases to 32 psi if a typical nylon choke collar is used and to an incredible 579 psi per prong if a typical prong collar is used. This represents over 100 times the force exerted on the dog’s neck compared to a typical flat collar greatly increasing the possibility of damage or injury to the dog. For this very reason, many countries with a progressive approach to pet safety and health, such as Austria and Switzerland, have already banned prong collars.
You’ll never see a shock collar on a dolphin doing tricks in front of a crowd, or a prong collar on a tiger at a zoo sitting calmly for vaccinations. We removed fear, punishment, and intimidation from schools when we realized it did more harm than good to a child’s development. These methods are damaging and simply unnecessary in the dog training world.
Dogs were the first domesticated species, more than 30,000 years ago, more than 10,000 years before the domestication of horses. This was, or course, without the use of chains, collars, leashes, electric shock, or, well, dog trainers. The “training” was the bond and relationship between dog and person, and what that relationship could offer for both of them. I think this is important for us to remember with our canine companions today.
Citations and Further readings:
- Does training method matter? Evidence for the negative impact of aversive-based methods on companion dog welfare – PubMed (nih.gov)
- AVSAB-Humane-Dog-Training-Position-Statement-2021.pdf
- Operant Conditioning: What It Is, How It Works, and Examples (simplypsychology.org)
- Positive Reinforcement Dog Training: The Science Behind Operant Conditioning (akc.org)
- The Pet Professional Guild – Open Letter On Why Changes are Needed