What positive training is not

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I havent done a ranty post about training methods for a while - so here is one
All too often I am hearing people who train using punishment tools saying they have to for certain behaviours because (real examples) How safe would it be for me to be trying to bribe with cookies when my dog is playing in the traffic or wagging chicken in-front of his face when he is attacking another dog is not going to work

The problem with the thinking of punishment based trainers is they have to see the behaviour and then punish it
So they think positive training would be the same - see the bad behaviour and then bribe the dog with food or toys in the hope they would learn to not do those things

And of course the problem is in some cases that is what they might see positive trainers doing - except at that point they are not training
For example imagine the case of positive and punishment trainers walking along a path with an untrained dog. One day there is an unexpected hole in the fence that the dog sees before the trainer and darts into the road

Of course as the dog is untrained he has no recal

A punishment trainers course of action may be to yell for the dog to come back, which of course will not work, then have to run into the traffic to try and grab the dog - and possibly even punish the dog when they reach them - which by that point the dog does not realise they are being punished for going tru the gap in the fence.
Later that trainer may walk to path beside the fence and punish the dog any time they start to move towards the hole
Or train a recall by punishing the dog while they are away from them and stopping the punishment when they choose to come back

A positive trainer may try to get the dogs attention with some food or a toy so they can grab the dog and get them to safety - THEN knowing about a problem they will work on training the dog a behaviour they do want
So most likely a whiplash recall in lots of different locations
and a nice heel command so the dog can walk nicely with them past a danger
AND clip the dog on the lead while they pass this point on the walk so the dog is kept safe and does not get to practise the unwanted behaviour.

So if you look at the above both for positive and punishment trainers the first point of the dog running into the road is not actually training - it is the trainers seeing that there is a training problem/opportunity
bribing with something nice is just a way to hopefully deal with the immediate danger and get the dog to safety.
Actually giving a cookie to the dog for running into the traffic would not work as training - if you did it often enough then your dog may learn to run into traffic to get a cookie.

Positive training is NOT letting a dog do the wrong thing then bribing them with food
Get the dog safe (manage the situation at hand) THEN realise you have a gap in your training and work on fixing it


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