01/30/2024
DON'T THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATH WATER!! How many times did you hear that growing up? It is an old saying and applies to so many situations. The one I am thinking of is Dog Training. So many people have new and improved methods coming up every day it seems. So, what is a person to do? Do we jump on each new method and apply it to our dog? Or do we stay in the old method that has proven true for so many of our dogs in the past? The answer is somewhere in between. One thing that many Professional Dog Trainers will say is, "Train the dog in front of you! " What that means is, apply whatever training method the dog you are training needs. There are some dogs who require very little correction because they are soft, or fearful, or their desire to please is really high and their drives are low to medium. But then there are dogs who will push the envelope and need a more firm direct hand. We can't take one training method and apply it to every dog anymore than we can take one career and apply it to each person. Imagine if you will, a Donald Trump as a nurse? Or a Mother Theresa on the floor of the stock market. Can the job be done by these individuals? most likely, but can it be done well? will the people be happy in those positions? will the people who receive the care or work be happy? what about the people around them? so, in the same way, we can not say that because we train a Border Collie or a Golden one way that that same training can be used on a St Bernard or an Irish Wolfhound. Let me break that down even further. Within the same breed, even littermates I have had to apply one method to one for one dog and another to the sibling. Dogs have personalities much like humans. So, what am I trying to say? There are many ways to train a dog. There are things that older trainers like William Koehler , Barbara Woodhouse, and Winnifred Strickland as well as many others did, that are the foundation for many methods used today. There are things that they taught that are still applicable. What we need to do is find the ones that are the most humane, and keep them in our bag of tricks for the dog that needs something they taught. Yes, there are outdated, unfair and even cruel things that we need to toss, hopefully never to seen again, like, stepping on feet to keep from jumping, or kneeing in the chest, or swinging a dog by the leash, or the constant jerking. But the back chaining, the timing, tone and communication that was also stressed needs to be applied. Some of the newer methods will be tossed as well one day, I hope. Things like no corrections ever, nothing negative, letting the dog make mistake after mistake with no direction, and wait until they make a correct behavior, and reward it. so, there are faults in each training. Our job as dog owners and dog trainers is to find the best training for the dog we are training, and apply it, all the while, building a solid foundation of communication and fair play, to develop a relationship and companionship that is beneficial to both dog and man.
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