Companion Dog Training

22/08/2025

One of the great ironies of dog ownership.

You love your dog to bits, and want them to live the biggest, happiest, most included life.

But that same love causes you to withhold the discipline that enables that big, happy, included life… because it feels bad for you.

And so your dog ends up living a smaller, less fulfilled, and far less included life — not because they’re incapable of doing so, but because you’re incapable of prioritizing what’s best for them long-term over what’s uncomfortable for you short-term.

12/08/2025

New on Video on YouTube: Competitive Heeling in Dog Sports

📺:https://youtu.be/VFYwF05DcHE

12/08/2025

There are very few shortcuts that don’t cost double later—

The key to training success isn’t found in achieving the perceived next step, employing a more sophisticated technique or trying a new gimmick. A dog achieving his best, directly correlates to the quality of his foundation training and your mindset.

When trainers don’t see the progress in their dog they expect or desire, they sometimes get frustrated; their response is often to press harder, hyper focus on the specific area or force their dog….the exact opposite of what many dogs need.

We see this with young dogs or when teaching a new concept.
Specifically, handlers believing when their dog makes a mistake, it is the chance to ‘correct’, instead of recognizing, it is the chance to teach.

While everyone knows it’s not reasonable to correct for something your dog doesn’t yet understand , handlers can, inadvertently, do just that.

Whether it’s a shout, a yell, a “no”, or other correction, when a dog doesn’t yet understand a concept, doing this isn’t productive and can be detrimental.

‘Correction’ is defined as a rebuke or punishment, assumption of comprehension to know differently/better.
It doesn’t offer explanation, foster understanding and worse, it can deliver the message that trying (offering behavior), has negative consequences.

Dogs can develop an unpleasant association with the behavior that was ‘corrected’ such as:
a wrong flank direction, attempt at the shed, heading the sheep, shape of the flank, lifting off of a person, turning back, the list is endless.

It can affect overall enthusiasm, enjoyment, understanding and the willingness for a dog to want to try.
While the intent of the ‘correction’ is to speed up the learning, it can actually slow it down and cause many additional problems.

It’s ok and even productive, to let your dog be wrong when learning a new concept—
and also important he understands, it is not a big deal.
Instead of correction, employ connection; it’s a teaching opportunity.

Dogs, and trainers alike, learn from being allowed to make mistakes.
Training epiphanies are not common; the majority of the time the ‘sudden improvement’ is actually a reflection of the body of work that preceded it, which includes being wrong.

Mistakes aren’t the opposite of success, they are part of it and overcoming them helps develop confidence and mental fortitude.
Every dog learns at a different speed and the training time is dependent on the individual.

Understanding mistakes are inevitable and ultimately, pave the road to excellence empowers your bond and partnership.
macraeway.com

29/05/2025

Training vs. Temperament: Why They Are Not the Same and Why That Matters

As dog trainers and responsible owners, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that training alone can “fix” a dog. That a well-trained dog must also be well-tempered. Or that a lack of training means a dog is “bad.” Let’s be absolutely clear: training and temperament are two entirely different things, and mistaking one for the other can lead to unrealistic expectations, dangerous assumptions, and major behavioural issues down the line.

What Is Temperament?

Temperament is the dog’s natural behavioural disposition. It’s the core of who the dog is when all the training is stripped away. Think of it like the dog’s personality blueprint, shaped by genetics, early development, and, to some extent, environment. Temperament governs things like:
• Emotional stability
• Confidence or nervousness
• Reactivity thresholds
• Aggression or friendliness
• Impulse control (or lack of it)
• Sensitivity to stimuli

You can’t “train” temperament in the same way you can train a sit-stay. You can manage it. You can influence and support it. But you cannot fundamentally rewrite it through obedience commands. That’s why some dogs are easy going, bombproof companions even with zero formal training, while others need constant structure, vigilance, and management despite attending every training class under the sun.

What Is Training?

Training, on the other hand, is a set of learned behaviours. It’s the obedience, the recall, the heelwork, the ability to wait on a place bed, or the confidence to navigate a search area. Training is what we teach the dog, through repetition, reinforcement, and consistency.

A well trained dog responds to commands. A dog with a good temperament can make good decisions without commands.

The confusion arises when people assume that training alone is enough to make a dog safe. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Some of the most technically trained dogs, competition level obedience, even protection dogs, can still be a liability if their underlying temperament isn’t sound. Think of the dog who can heel beautifully in the ring, but flies off the handle at another dog passing the van. That’s not a training issue, that’s a temperament one.

The Safe Dog with No Training

We’ve all met them, that scruffy rescue mutt who’s never been to a class in his life, but gets along with everyone, greets the postman with a waggy tail, ignores other dogs on walks, and never chases a thing he’s not supposed to. He’s not trained. He’s just blessed with a steady, balanced temperament. He has resilience. He doesn’t overreact. He doesn’t need to be micromanaged.

That dog isn’t “good” because of training. He’s good because he was born with the right wiring and perhaps had a stable upbringing. He doesn’t cause problems because his natural instincts are calm, moderate, and easy to live with.

The Trained Dog with a Problem Temperament

Now flip it. You’ve got a dog that’s been through training classes. Maybe he has a half-decent recall, a few obedience commands, and can walk nicely on lead, as long as nothing triggers him. But he’s nervous, reactive, short-fused, or unpredictable around children, strangers, or dogs. That dog may be trained, but he’s not safe without constant management.

And here’s the crux: this is the dog who needs training, not to perfect heelwork or learn circus tricks, but to help manage the temperament that could get him (and you) into serious trouble. These are the dogs who thrive on structure, calmness, boundaries, and predictability. Their training is about teaching coping strategies, not commands.

Why It Matters

If you’re a dog owner, it’s vital to stop and ask: “Do I have a training issue or a temperament issue?” Because how you address it depends entirely on the answer.

If you’re a dog trainer, this distinction is your bread and butter. You need to assess temperament before you reach for a lead or clicker. A dog with a poor temperament is a management case, not a quick-fix obedience job. It’s about helping owners understand that no amount of “training” will overwrite deeply ingrained fears, poor genetics, or extreme sensitivities.

The Bottom Line

Training is what we do with the dog.
Temperament is who the dog is.

The best case scenario is a well-tempered dog with solid training. But if you have to choose, temperament will always trump training when it comes to long-term safety and ease of living. And if you’ve got a tricky temperament to work with? You train, not to cure, but to contain. To teach that dog how to live safely and predictably in a human world.

Let’s stop assuming that obedience equals good behaviour. Let’s start respecting the complexity of temperament. And let’s help more owners understand that some dogs are easy because they were born that way, while others need guidance every step of the way, no matter how many commands they know.
www.k9manhuntscotland.co.uk

31/10/2024

The good thing about training a dog for work is that he doesn’t need to be perfect.
Shepherds used to train their dogs for work, and the trials were secondary; dogs would be polished up so they could compete with excellence, but work was the priority.
Today, most train for trials first, and the work is an afterthought.
When a dog is doing practical work, he can make mistakes and learn through experience with guidance from the handler, until he understands the task. This allows the dog to develop without a lot of pressure before he’s mentally able to handle it.
With most people now training for trialing, some make the mistake of striving for perfection, rather than excellence.

“Perfection” doesn't allow room for dogs to make mistakes and work things out on their own.
Those who strive for excellence understand that mistakes are inevitable and part of the path to learning and improvement, while perfectionists tend to see mistakes as failures.
Excellence we can reach for with effort, practice, and persistence. But pursuing perfection sets an impossibly high standard, not only for us but also for our dogs.

Some ideas perfectionists pursue is for their dogs to: work at the perfect distance off sheep, drill them for the perfect walk, make sure every flank is perfectly square, to name a few.
The problem with this, is assuming it is the same for all dogs- instead of making adjustments for a dogs individual type and amount of ‘eye’, directness, presence, excitability, temperament, etc.
Often these handlers have young dogs that “never really got keen enough to train” (when it was the initial over training that caused it) or an open dog that flanks rather than walks up, lacks enthusiasm for shedding, stopping running sheep, enjoying turning back, or other.

If you require perfection you can diminish your dogs spirit and their ultimate potential.
Perfectionists may sometimes gain 2-6 months at the start of their young dogs career, but often lose years at the end of it.

Dogs, and trainers alike, learn from being allowed to make mistakes, and, in turn, learning from those mistakes will pave the way for excellence.

macraeway.com

Patricia Alasdair MacRae

08/10/2024

QUITTING SO MUCH SITTING
How did we become so obsessed with making our dogs sit for everything?
Maybe because it’s believed that dogs that sit on cue are obedient, well mannered, calm, self-controlled and that sitting is incompatible with unwanted behaviours. Maybe because we think it makes us look good as responsible dog guardians.

But is it all really necessary or more importantly in the best interests of our dogs, both physically and emotionally to expect them to sit so much?

Sometimes what we have always believed to be true is not always what’s best for our dogs. As we continue to learn more through research and ongoing education, our methods and beliefs need to change accordingly.

“Sit” is usually one of the first thing puppies are taught. Just one session at puppy school may include up to 20 or more “sits” - that’s a really high intensity workout for a dog at any age, but puppies in the growing stages are particularly at risk.

These sitting repetitions put excessive pressure on the developing skeletal system which may lead to damage or injury that may only become apparent at a later stage.

Senior dogs may find it really painful to sit down and then get back up. Sitting puts pressure on the lower back, hips and supporting muscles. Certain breeds are just not anatomically designed to repeatedly sit.

Asking a fearful or reactive dog to sit in the presence of whatever is triggering that emotion is probably the worst thing to do. The belief that sitting will magically create calmness and stop the negative emotion is not logical.

There is nothing wrong with teaching our dogs to sit and occasionally asking for sits in certain situations, but look at teaching more natural, alternative behaviours, that are just as effective.

In the words of Turid Rugaas – “If you yourself want to sit, sit! If you want your dog to sit, think twice!”

For more detailed information on this subject, here are some links -

https://blog.bharcs.com/2021/03/06/should-we-ask-our-dogs-to-sit/ #:~:text=Young%20dogs%20are%20very%20good,which%20starts%20causing%20compensatory%20issues.

http://www.turid-rugaas.no/sit.html

07/09/2024

𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭 ❌

The quickest way to take effort out of your horse is not knowing when to quit.

Think about this scenario:

A football coach tells his players to run up-and-backs down the field as fast as they can. The players respond, put out their best effort, and run the sprints to the best of their ability. Then, the coach says "Great job! As your reward, let's do that again."

Now, apply the same scenario to your horse:

You ask your horse for a specific response. The horse responds correctly and gives you the 'feel' you were looking for. You say, "Great job! As your reward, let's do that again."

In both scenarios, the players and the horses put forth maximum effort thinking that their reward would be to rest once they completed the task at hand. But instead, their reward was more work. That has to be frustrating, right?

I know that when you finally get the 'feel' you are looking for, it is tempting to keep repeating that feel over and over again to make sure that your horse has that skill mastered―but, you have to remember to 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 their effort first, then 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 the skill later. 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤.

06/09/2024

WHEN CLICKER TRAINING FAILED

In yesterday’s post, I detailed the work of Keller and Marian Breland who not only discovered "shaping" and bridging stimulus, but also invented clicker training.

Keller and Marian Breland trained animal acts featured in movies, circuses, museums, fairs, zoos and amusement parks across the nation, and also trained many of the trainers that worked in these facilities as well.

By 1951, the Brelands had trained thousands of animals from dozens of species, and in an article for American Psychologist, they said they thought rewards-based clicker training might work on any animal to train just about anything.

And then something happened.

They noticed that clicker training was, in certain circumstances, beginning to fail in ways that they could no longer overlook.

In a 1961 paper entitled, ‘The Misbehavior of Organisms,’ Keller and Marian Breland described their first experience with the failure of reward-based operant conditioning.

It seems that when working with pigs, chickens and raccoons, the animals would often learn a trick, but then begin to drift away from the learned behavior and towards more instinctive, unreinforced, foraging actions.

What was going on?

Put simply, instinct was raising its inconvenient head.

Though Skinner and his disciples had always maintained that performance was driven by external rewards or punishments, here was clear evidence that there was an internal code that could not always be ignored.

The Brelands wrote:

“These egregious failures came as a rather considerable shock to us, for there was nothing in our background in behaviorism to prepare us for such gross inabilities to predict and control the behavior of animals with which we had been working for years.... [T]he diagnosis of theory failure does not depend on subtle statistical interpretations or on semantic legerdemain - the animal simply does not do what he has been conditioned to do.”

The Brelands did not overstate the problem, nor did they quantify it. They simply stated a fact: instinct existed, and sometimes it bubbled up and over-rode trained behaviors.

Clearly, every species had different instincts, and just as clearly, a great deal of animal training could be done without ever triggering overpowering instinct. Still, the Brelands noted,

“After 14 years of continuous conditioning and observation of thousands of animals, it is our reluctant conclusion that the behavior of any species cannot be adequately understood, predicted, or controlled without knowledge of its instinctive patterns, evolutionary history, and ecological niche.”

What does this have to do with dogs?

Quite a lot.

You see a small but vocal group of clicker trainers believe everything a dog does is learned by external rewards, and internal drives are nothing but "old school" fiction.

While the Brelands argued that a species could not be adequately controlled without “knowledge of its instinctive patterns, evolutionary history, and ecological niche," the most extreme militants in the world of clicker training now seek to minimize and disavow the very nature and history of dogs.

Dog packs? There are no such things, we are told.

Dominance? It does not exist in feral dogs or in wolves, and never mind the experts who disagree.

Prey drive? Not too much said about that!

Of course, instinctive behaviors and drives do not disappear simply because they are inconvenient.

As Keller and Marian Breland put it,

“[A]lthough it was easy to banish the Instinctivists from the science during the Behavioristic Revolution, it was not possible to banish instinct so easily.”

Of course, one must be careful to qualify the role of instinct.

Yes, dogs have instincts, but the history of dog breeding has largely been about reducing instinctive drives. As a consequence, most breeds have instinctive drives that are sufficiently attenuated that they are not much of an impediment to basic rewards-based training.

That said, not all dog breeds are alike. Not every dog is a blank slate, as the owner of any herding dog or game-bred terrier will tell you. Prey drive does not disappear because you want it to. Many problematic behaviors in dogs -- especially behaviors in hard-wired working dogs that are being raised as pets -- are self-reinforcing behaviors that express themselves without any external reinforcement at all.

Clicker training, the Brelands remind us, cannot solve everything.

Is rewards-based training the most important tool in any trainer’s box of tricks and methods?

Absolutely. There is not much debate there.

But the Brelands remind us that dogs do not come to the trainer as a tabula rasa, nor should we think of all dog breeds as being more or less the same, or that all responses are equally conditionable to all stimuli.

Dogs and other animals, it turns out, are a bit more complicated that white rats, and the real world is not a laboratory.

In the wild and on the farm, animals have managed to learn, all by themselves, since the Dawn of Time and long before clickers came on the scene.

How did they do that? Does the real world have as much to teach us as the lab? Keller and Marian Breland thought it did.

22/08/2024