Canine Behavior Training
Seize the Leash
Attend a class designed for dogs that are difficult in normal group classes, that bark, lunge, become excited, reactive or aggressive towards other dogs or people or just shuts down. This class is des...
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Joey's Story Subscribe to Our Blog Ask The Trainer 
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I recently had an email discussion with a Positive Reinforcement Only type dog trainer. What I got out of this discussion was that Positive Reinforcement Only dog training suffers from a serious flaw -- it does not teach your dog to respect you. Therefore, the relationship that you build with your dog is one sided, from the dog’s perspective. Nonetheless, most dog training books or magazines you get your hands on, the majority of dog trainers and dog schools advocate training with treats. Even PetSmart advocates the “bribery method”. You may find this surprising but they honestly believe that in order for you to properly train your dog you have to bribe him with a tasty treat. But they don’t stop there. They also tell you to bribe your dog with treats to teach heeling, for looking at you, and even to distract him from attacking another dog or a visitor. The dictionary defines reward as: "something that is given in return for good or evil done or received; and especially that is offered or given for some service..." A lure is extremely useful when teaching new tasks, overcoming uncertainty or fear on the animal's part, and magnifying the interest and importance of you and/or your actions in the animal’s eyes.. An animal that is uncertain about a given task or working on a piece of equipment or unusual flooring can often be lured successfully. By using a lure to make yourself and your actions of greater interest to the animal, you can quickly establish a relationship with, and gain cooperation from, animals you do not know well. A bribe however, only teaches your dog that he has an inalienable right to all the food and treats he wants, even if he doesn't do exactly what you want, or only does it half way. I've tried clicker training (often used in conjunction with the “bribery method”). I find it clumsy and it takes days to get a simple behavior correctly and completely done by your pupil. If, and when, your dog ever gets trained by this method (bribery and clicker training), you will be advised to completely stop using all treats for good. The trainers will insist that your dog will eventually obey you just as well with or without any treats anywhere and anytime for rest of her life. I get the same results using respect training without putting my dogs through the frustration and withdrawal of the treats method. In the clicker world, the use of the clicker is predicated upon the fact that you have only 2 to 3 seconds to let an animal know that what he just did was correct. That's about how long their associative memory works. Any longer and you risk teaching your dog the wrong behavior. Timing is perhaps the most obvious aspect of any reward system. The clicker is supposed to “mark” the actual behavior that you want the dog to do. The dog then associates the sound of the clicker with getting a treat and hopefully will then associate the behavior with getting a treat. I can see using this method on large animals like elephants, dolphins and killer whales as it would not be easy to be “hands-on” with such animals,butt you can get to a dog fast enough with a pat or praise to “mark” the behavior without having to use an intermediary like a clicker.
No matter how stubborn or difficult your dog may be, he is smarter than you give him credit for and CAN learn to respond to your commands through your love, leadership, praise and technique, not hot-dogs, beef jerky, bacon strips or dried liver. How is this not common sense? Ultimately, it is respect that motivates a dog to be well-behaved even when he doesn't FEEL like being well-behaved at the moment. When your dog respects you, you can teach him virtually anything and he will stop any misbehavior upon a single word from you. Bribery only gives you an "illusion" of a trained dog. It is respect that motivates a dog to listen to you, to do what you tell him to do, and to refrain from doing what you tell him not to do, regardless of his personal preferences at the moment. When your dog respects you he will make a conscious, informed choice to do a behavior (or refrain from doing a behavior) not only when he's in the mood for a reward, but also when he might not care a hoot about the reward -- he controls himself because he knows what control is and how to apply it. All of life works this way, by cause and effect. Dogs are happy with this kind of dog training because they understand it perfectly well. They WANT you to take the lead and show them the consequences and effects of ALL of their behaviors, so they can make informed choices. Cause and effect is how your dog (and humans) learns about the world around them. It's up to you to help your pet!
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Seize The Leash Training Tips- Sensible Training 
Why not show your dog what you want first, then ask him to do it? Or better yet, catch him doing something you like and reward him with praise or a game of tug after giving him the cue word for that behavior . I’ve used this method over and over for teaching “Bang!” – just catch your dog lying down somewhere, point your gun finger at the dog and say Bang ! After a few repetitions of this you can say bang! and he'll flop down. No treats involved. Both of these methods are simple. There is no fumbling with clickers and treat bags and no worrying about whether you clicked at the right moment. You don't have to spend a ton of money on treats that are generally unhealthy for your dog or cut up hot dogs (also unhealthy), carrots or liver all day.