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Originally Posted by Nancy1999  Couldn't agree with you more, but I had tried so many different kinds of training and nothing produced consistent results, every time, until I found a new trainer who advocated a type of punishment. I trained Joey to do every trick in the world, but he couldn't be trusted to be around my granddaughter so we had to do something different. We had a member here whose beloved and gentle dog bit her granddaughter and I just thought that could easily be Joey. He didn't like certain moves and if she had food or walked in a certain manner with her skirt flipping he got too excited. The trainer changed my life. My dogs are now two of the best behaved dogs I've ever had, I can get them to stop barking on command and the doorbell can ring without them going nuts. They seem so much less neurotic. I know people hate the word, "punishment", but in behavioral terms, punishment is anything that decreases the probability of the behavior, so a punishment could be a kiss if it decreases the probability of the behavior. I'm all for positive reinforcement, and it should be the main type of method used for teaching them to do something, but to teach them to "stop" doing something, reinforcement is not as reliable, and I think that's why many people think there dog is trained until something bad happens. |
There is no way to know if a dog is 100% reliable no matter what kind of training is used. I think we always need to be prepared for the unexpected.
Happy to hear you have had success with your training. What kind of "punishments" do you employ? Like you, I believe in positive reinforcement, but I do use the withdrawal of attention, which is a negative. I walk away, leave the room where they cannot follow.