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Dog Training Styles and Techniques

By Ty Brown

Just as there exist hundreds of dog breeds, so are there numerous styles of training to educate these dogs. There is no one way that is perfect or right all the time (regardless of what many dog trainers will tell you). There are, however, certain correct principles of dog training that should be seen in some ratio in all training programs.

I learned to train dogs from a great dog trainer on the west coast. People would often ask him what method he used for training dogs. His response was always “I prescribe to the method of ‘whatever works’." What he meant to say with this was that every dog is different and needs to be approached accordingly. One thing that works with a certain dog will not necessarily work with another dog. Having said that, there were certain constants that found their way into the training program for every dog he trained. I have come to find after years of experience and countless dogs trained that this is true. I will approach every dog differently, but every dog is also going to get many of the same training techniques. There are two principles that must show up in every training program in order to have success.

Motivation
Motivation is one of the most important principles of dog training. When you train your dog to perform any behavior you want him to enjoy that behavior. No one wants a dog that looks like he hates obedience. That is where motivation comes in. A good trainer is always going to look to see how he or she can best motivate every dog he works with. He or she is going to determine what are the ‘hot buttons’ for the dog. Is it food, toys, lack of correction, praise, etc. that is going to motivate your pet? The problem with motivation is that nowadays too many trainers have turned to strictly motivational techniques. I call these trainers ‘fluff’ trainers. These are trainers that at the risk of offending the sensibilities of dog owners and animal rights groups refuse to give a dog any type of correction with a dog training collar. They feel that they can effectively train a dog using only motivation. It doesn’t work, however. You can achieve wonderful results with motivation only training, except when you need it the most. Say, for example, that you have trained your dog to return to you on command using only motivational methods. Now, say your dog is chasing after a cat directly toward the street. You call out to him “Ranger, come here!” Meanwhile, Ranger is thinking to himself, “Self, I would much rather get this cat then go back to mom and dad.” So off he goes. His training is incomplete, it is lacking in a fundamental principle.

Compulsion
This leads me to the second principle that is necessary for training success. This principle is often called compulsion. In a nutshell, compulsion is the use of a correction to shape a behavior. A correction can be in the form of a jerk on the leash, a well-timed spray with a squirt bottle, or a shake of the scruff, etc. This is the probably the worst understood principle of dog training. You will often find two extremes when it comes to compulsion. The first extreme is the ‘fluff’ trainers. These are the trainers who refuse to give corrections or won’t use them on the level where they actually make a difference. Fluff trainers believe it to be cruel to correct a dog. There exists a very definable line between giving a correction and abusing your dog. It is very possible to give well-timed, firm corrections to your dog and have it be a wonderful learning and growing experience instead of a cruel situation. Dogs amongst themselves often use compulsion as a means of communication, training, and establishing order amongst the pack. It is a principle they understand. As humans, we too understand compulsion. If we touch a hot stove, we get burned. If we come to work late too many times we get written up. Cheat on your taxes and you may go to jail. Dogs however don’t understand jail time, write ups, guilt, responsibility, and other human attributes. So our use of compulsion must fall within certain parameters: a withholding of praise or reward, a leash correction, or other such method. Dogs will never be able to raise their level of understanding to our level, but we can definitely learn to communicate on their level.

The other extreme with compulsion that I have found are trainers that rely on it as the basis of their training program. This is too one-sided. A training program that relies solely on compulsion produces dogs that are often obedient, but appear to hate life and obedience training.

There is no magic formula to tell you how much motivation versus compulsion you should use. Every dog is different. Through time and experience you will learn how to best approach training your own dog.