People of different ages, young and old, will love having a dog or puppy around. They even treat them like their best friends. However, you should also think about the potential consequences of owning one. Effective dog training is necessary for your dog and you must understand that he must make an effort to socialize his dog. You have to expose your dog to the outside world, so that he doesn’t bully other people.
There are dog training techniques you can follow so that you can easily handle it such as dog whispering, reward training, and clicker training. Knowing all these techniques will make effective dog training easier to handle.
Despite the many dog training methods to choose from, some examples listed here are ranked in the following order:
1. methods that rely on learning theories as an illustration of behavior manipulation
2. methods that depend on the ethology of the dog, including the normal or regular habits or behavior of the dog.
Furthermore, some methods according to practical theories can be organized within three distinctive subcategories:
1) Typical training of your dog (negative reinforcement)
two) Positive Training
three) Mixed techniques.
Negative dog training was originally designed for war canines. This technology was beneficial in the events leading up to World War I. This training method was used by civilian trainers after the World War II period, and quickly established itself as accepted normal practice.
Proper traditional dog training or negative reinforcement
Punishment and negative reinforcement includes the main didactic strategies in traditional training.
Punishment, however, is an unpleasant response to a certain behavior. Although punishment could possibly weaken a behavior, it is certainly not an absolute. Furthermore, such punishments often have unwanted side effects.
The positive expression of reinforcement is a method that enhances a mentality as if an unpleasant situation is avoided according to the result of the behavior.
For example, pressing on a dog’s shoulders can produce an unpleasant experience for your dog. If his weight on his shoulder falls off every time he’s in a down position, it’s very likely that your dog will perform the same action for the foreseeable future, to avoid this kind of unpleasant sensation. Therefore, your furry friend will associate the command to lie down with the unpleasant association or negative reinforcement.
Choke chains, spike collars, and (electric) shock collars are standard tools in traditional training and its variants. In fact, such training is generally geared toward dog obedience exercises, with little regard for behavioral issues.
An example of a reprimand could be if you hit your pet or yell because your dog has climbed on a chair. Eventually, the end result is that you could probably persuade your pet to jump off the couch, however little to no real eventuality will ensure that this escalation can’t happen a second time. Such unintended consequences can result in the dog biting you, becoming quite frightened by your appearance, or experiencing phobias around couches.
Proponents of implementing this method often feel that such rigorous training offers proven solutions that cannot be achieved in multiple ways. Also, they believe that canine training collars like choke, electroshock, and spikes are not harmful because canines have a very high pain tolerance level.
Detractors of such dog training believe that this method and the dog training equipment involved are unnecessarily cruel and barbaric and, in fact, not very effective dog training. Furthermore, they believe that such a process could cause unsafe side effects, including fear of biting and damage to the dog’s windpipe.
positive dog training
This system of dog training has been manufactured thanks to the principles of an operant conditioning system developed by Mr. Skinner. Although it is not an entirely new method, it only came into common use during the 1990s.
Positive dog reinforcement is quite a popular method. This type of reinforcement occurs because of your dog’s specific attitude. An example would be if one gives a food reward to their dog after they lie down, they will usually lie down often to get this type of treat. Therefore, it is likely that the dog knows how to lie down through a positive method of reinforcement for dogs.
Alternatively, if your canine must sit and after fifteen seconds is given a dog treat, your dog may disassociate the resting behavior with the treat. Your pup may believe that you gave him the treat mainly because he was looking up, or because your dog’s ears twitch to indicate interest. Therefore, the rewarding of his canine friend was carried out, however, the specific required behavior was not reinforced.
clicker training
Clicker training is generally considered a popular method of dog training.
One difference that is certainly noticeable with clicker training compared to other methods is implementing a clicker for that first example. The clicker is often a small tool where a click is heard when squeezed. This is done to record the entire time the dog performs a behavior.
Other similar attributes of these techniques are really easy to understand and enjoyable to complete. In fact, such methods are not usually based on obedience exercises and are popular for getting answers to such behavior problems.
The missing element of negatively based reinforcement, or punishment and training collars, such as choking, electric shock, or spikes, can enable positive dog training solutions for both canines and their owners. Such an element could well be the obvious advantage for this type of training.
Detractors of these techniques point out that positively trained canines will not fully respond if your dog is able to smell or smell a tasty treat.
Despite being so common, such observations are false. Many service canines for disabled owners, or police canines, competition canines, and performance canines, practice the efficiency of positive dog training every day.
A combination of techniques implements both positive and negative reinforcement with the goal of achieving a better level of effective training for dogs.
While choke collars seem to be used more often, we can consider how the various methods tend to appeal to canines compared to traditional dog training.
Mixed training techniques.
In fact, the most frequent response to the use of the association combination with such sporting behaviors, for example, leaving the attack sleeve, is impossible to adopt without the use of negatively based reinforcers.
Even though trainers implement a variety of approaches and also use such positive types of reinforcement, they often stay away from using food for reinforcement purposes. In case the trainer has to use a positive use reinforcer, he tends to choose games instead of food as a reward.
Some training methods are based on the idea of canine ethology.
Ethology, a science commonly considered to be based on studies of behavior or species within a natural situation. Normally, instinctive or traditional instinctual behaviors of all species could be studied.
The methods that provide canine ethology generally consider the natural behavior patterns of the canine, but generally ignore the basic concepts for learning theories.
In line with the paradigm or with the idea of pack leader, canines make dominant hierarchies within this pack. Therefore, one must become the alpha or pack leader in order to maintain a warm relationship with their canine.
The main notion of ethnology-based methods is always that the owner should end up being the leader of the pack.
Although it’s not immediately apparent if the alpha concept started, we might think that the 1980s widely recognized the buzz around this concept. Cesar Millan and Jan Fennell would be the most famous authors for these methods.
The following has become the recognizable trainer, as a result of his “Dog Whisperer” show.
Various authors consider that these techniques have foundations in academic studies according to the study of the nature of wolf packs. These techniques were also considered and implemented after many years of studying canine behavior.
Alone, they are ineffective at instructing commands according to the dog’s obedience. In this sense, many trainers tend not to adopt these real canine methods.
In fact, it is truly concerning that those known to practice these aforementioned techniques do not consider themselves to be trainers. In fact, their claims are to be individuals who can communicate with canines with a deep appreciation of a dog’s body language and behavior.
Unfortunately, ethology-based methods differ from each other as there is no real standard for them. In fact, several methods appear to consist solely of popular belief and not actual studies.
Not enough persuasive cases are presented regarding such methods. Such methods may also depend on a common ideology, which may be the case for several such forms.
Proponents of these ethology-based methods consider these methods to be a normal strategy for “talking” to canines. Such champions also make use of kinder procedures. In fact, such levels of aggression in these methods are highly variable and depend on the system used by the dog trainer.
Detractors often question the concept of an alpha dog leader, and indeed discuss it as if there is no need for such hierarchical dominance.
Perhaps further investigation of these ethology studies could allow for a more open-minded attitude towards dog behavior. Meanwhile, ethology-based methods can never provide clear enough guidelines, even with the help of high achievers like Jan Fennell and Cesar Millan.