02/07/2023
Can “positive” herding using Dogs exist?
The short answer is no.
I want to preface this article with the fact that I’m not calling for an end to any practise or condemning it. This article is purely to act as a discussion point and what I think is a unique topic I haven’t seen discussed.
Now I’m not saying you can’t teach a Dog to herd in a positive way. A lot of Dogs are bred for that purpose and find it incredibly reinforcing and there’s been a huge move to get away from “old school” teaching on the dogs side and teach the animals with positive reinforcement. That’s something that needs to be praised.
What I’m talking about is the fact there’s another animal involved (the one being herded) and the fundamental relationship is based on using negative reinforcement to make animals move to where we want.
This comes in a few ways:
Typically least force is staring/physical proximity but in extreme cases dogs have been bred to nip live stock etc.
These are all taking advantage of negative reinforcement to get an animal to perform a behaviour.
They add pressure to an animal which is then removed when the animal performs it.
That’s the definition of negative reinforcement.
Perhaps positive trainers of herding dogs are aware of this and choose to ignore it or think that it’s fine. However it is also possible that people just haven’t stopped to think about the fundamentals of herding from the herded animals perspective and that’s why I’m posing this question.
Now I love to deal in “solutions” and for that we can look at zoos. I’ve seen many zoos go from herding/using negative reinforcement to teaching herding or other animals to have a recall or “place”. Co-operative care is a huge part of the zoo movement these days and there’s absolutely no reason farmers cannot adopt this practise too.
There’s also sports that utilise herding instincts/teaching on non sentient objects for those dogs who are bred for that.
Just something worth thinking about (I think atleast)
