26/10/2025
This is exactly why the BCCS are excellent and I have studied with them ( obviously as well as Impackt) … force free ( positive only or R+) whatever you call it is fantastic for training and for teaching a dog something new.. I’ve never disputed that. It’s the cult, the narrative and the blinkered ideology that actually harms dogs 🐶
Here is the BCCS response agreeing with this post *******
This is about Police dogs but there are other industries, and life in general with dogs vs teaching a dog something new, where we’ve never forced ‘force free, positive reinforcement only’ on our students.
Students include Vets and Vet Nurses, who regularly report that their job would be impossible if they had to work force free. They’d spend all day trying to coax one cat out of a carrier.
We also have multiple Police Forces on our dog behaviour courses.
We’ve been criticised in the past for not jumping on the R+ only bandwagon, but we were founded on experience of dogs that were only alive after ‘R+ only’ failed, and LIMA behaviourists stepped in to work with dogs waiting to be euthanised.
Of course we have a Modern Dog Training course. And we have a lot of modern dog trainer students who are fantastic, and we absolutely support modern dog training. But we’ve always had Dog Behaviour courses that cover all 4 quadrants, and no ideal or cult following is demanded or expected. Feedback is always about how students are given all the information and allowed to come to their own conclusions.
To us, dog training has always been defined as teaching a dog something new. And this absolutely should be force free and R+. This is science backed and dogs learn best when happy and encouraged.
But we never class addressing pre existing conditions, or life in general with dogs, as something that can and should be force free, especially when this includes a simple ‘ah’ or ‘no’.
True story - we were on a Zoom call with IAABC decision makers about why they cannot award our dog behaviour course any CEUs because it isn’t Positive Reinforcement only, (because it’s dog behaviour, not dog training, and dogs aren’t force free in their own natural behaviour) and the representative’s dogs began barking in the background. She told them ‘no, be quiet’, and carried on telling us how we have to alter our content because it doesn’t align with IAABC standards.
Imagine teaching a dog ‘sit’. The dog is sitting and you go to reward with a treat and the treat itself encourages the dog to stand, to get to the treat, so you withhold the treat until the dog sits again. We asked IAABC if this should be removed from our content because it’s negative punishment, withholding or removing something the dog wants, to reduce unwanted behaviour. We never got a reply.
This is the ridiculous state the industry is in. It’s followed trends in society in general, and dog owners are criticised for even using the word ‘owner’ now because it denotes force and control. We must all be doggy guardians now. The word obedience is also a dirty word. Anything that suggests the human should be in control or in charge, is unacceptable today to many in the industry. And they’re very influential people.
And the result? Dog bite stats and incidents are through the roof.
How are we supposed to address the out of control dogs, if we’re not allowed to ‘control’ them?
We understand setting dogs up to succeed and encouraging desired behaviours and working with dogs in perfect harmony, and who doesn’t want that perfect blissful partnership, with mutual respect? But not all dogs are the same. And we have to stop trying to apply one approach or philosophy to life with dogs. A puppy in need of some basic training isn’t the same as a dog who attacks other dogs. And not all aggressive behaviour is fear based. Sorry, but it just isn’t. I know some experts love to believe this because it aligns with their ideals. But BCCS staff have worked with dogs that will happily run the length of a football field to get to and attack another dog. How is that fear based?! That isn’t a dog backed into a corner choosing the only remaining option for survival.
Even the basic terms in operant conditioning have been warped to align with ideals. Stillwell’s website is positively. But in dog training, positive doesn’t mean ‘good’ or ‘force free’. It means adding something. Positive punishment. Positive reinforcement. Like a car battery and maths. + and -. “I’m a positive dog trainer” means nothing.
To be clear, we don’t agree with genuinely aversive equipment or techniques that cause pain, but to say that a trainer is evil because they’re willing to disagree with unacceptable behaviour with a verbal interrupter , is ridiculous. Can you imagine children never being told no? Can you imagine society with no consequence for bad behaviour? We’d be living in a Mad Max movie. So if it’s a bad idea for children and society, why is it the way forward for dogs?
Rant over.
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