Training and Behavior Thoughts

by the K9 Guy, 01-18-17

Before breakfast every day, I'm on the computer. Checking emails, checking dog news, and reading posts on several dog trainer groups (on social media) to which I belong. I not only enjoy this reading, but often I will read something that sparks further thought for days (or weeks). Over the past few months, 2 posts from fellow trainers really caught my attention.

The first discussion revolved around whether corrections could make dogs mean, anxious, or worsen behaviors. This is a common talking point for positive only advocates. Around this same time I read an article in PetPlan's magazine "Fetch" (by a Veterinarian, not a trainer), who boldly stated that that corrections will always cause a dog to be fearful and should never be used. Never mind that mother dogs always correct pups, and pups are never fearful of their mothers. But really? I offered my detailed opinion on this topic last year.

The trainers discussing this topic had many opinions as well. The one I remember best was one trainer stating: 'if fairly correcting a dog causes it to have a meltdown, there's a whole lot more wrong with the dog than training can solve'. Exactly. Fair and equitable corrections are part of nature, and how dogs live and communicate with each other. And while teaching needs more than corrections alone, to imply education absent corrections or consequences is effective - that's not substantiated by the reality of this world. Any dog that is destroyed by a fair, educational correction (in the context of balanced teaching and information), is not going to thrive in the real world.

A second statement that also kept me thinking several months back was this: 'if a month's worth of training doesn't fix a problem dog, he/she probably can't be fixed". Whether this seems harsh or obvious, there's a lot of wisdom here. I've often stated how training cures a lot of ills. Almost every behavioral study has shown training a necessary component of better outcomes (than medicine alone, for example). Training firms up a dog's relationship with humans, it affirms a dog's willingness to work with humans, and it teaches a dog to defer to a human's wishes over its own.

So what's in play if effective training isn't helping a dog's behavior? Well, 2 possibilities come to mind. Sometimes you're dealing with a dog that may lack an innate desire to work with people. Such dogs prefer making their own choices in situations, and often are challenged behaviorally in situations involving people. In other cases, dogs unresponsive to training may simply not be wired properly. These dogs usually have very odd, unpredictable, and extreme outbursts of aberrant behavior. Unfortunately not every dog can be saved.

So summing up - good training offers diverse information. That information will include (fairly) correcting unacceptable behaviors. If good training is in place and a dog isn't improving - well, some dogs are simply not wired to live well in a human world. Luckily for us, such dogs are few and far between.