All Positive All the Time Is Illogical Captain
I am an all positive dog training ALMOST all the time
Since I am an all positive dog training – almost all the time dog trainer I welcome the contributions of any “all positive – all the time” trainer that can contribute to that end of my tool bag but just so we understand each other here’s my take on this topic of “all positive all the time/ignore bad behavior and reward good behavior only:
- There is no species on the planet that has ever successfully raised their young by being all positive all the time.
- There is no species on the planet that has ever successfully raised their your by being all negative all the time.
- All species do raise their young with love and discipline intended to encourage desirable behavior and discourages undesirable behavior.
- Level of discipline or reward is not defined by the trainer, dog owner, the tool of choice. Level’s are determined by the student. What it values it is used as the reward, what it perceives as a disincentive is used as its discipline.
- The dog is the only species on the planet that has been selectively bred to please human beings. The use of “treats” has value but is vastly over done and in many trainers is used to provide the illusion they are training when they are in fact teaching tricks.
- Dog trainers that are “clicker trainers” are not professional dog trainers. Dog trainers that use clickers as one of the tools used in their dog training might be professional dog trainers. The same applies to any dog trainer that claims to be an “one tool trainer”. This becomes particularly evident when said trainers express that their is correct/worthwhile/humane etc. tool.
- A professional dog trainer may specialize in the use of a specific tool/method, such as clicker training, ecollar training etc. and as a result almost exclusively work with dogs referred to them as candidates identified in need of their particular skill set.
- The “science” presented as “proof” that all positive all the time/ignore bad behavior is sound and that it must act as the foundation of all training is not accepted as good science by scientists that specialize in the fields of ethology, biology and psychology. The studies are incomprehensibly structured and the conclusions are either agenda oriented or simply naive.
The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) English biologist.
What Mr. Huxley calls “laws of nature” I called in my book Nature’s Template (The Beautiful Balance – Dog Training with Nature’s Template). In the case of what I see as the inexcusable ignorance that is all positive all the time/ignore bad behavior-reward good behavior, the cost is the lives of dogs. Some in a physical sense – never having been properly trained, killed because they were unable to come when called, returned to breeder, surrendered to shelters because they were not taught what they needed to coexist with the people they lived with. In others the results are less dramatic but equally inhumane. These are the dogs are denied access to much of their owner’s world. Unable to exert self-control they can not go places or do things that any where near approach what their genetic imperatives have designed them to do. They live lives of unnecessary sterility that was never the intent of their owners.
