This is a difficult subject. It’s difficult to write or speak about it without upsetting a lot of people on either side of the debate. It’s difficult because humans often think in absolutes, all or nothing. It’s difficult because humans are very susceptible to confirmation bias. It’s difficult because humans are often outraged at any perceived criticism. It’s difficult because we are, by nature, quite an aggressive species. But hey, let’s give it a go.
There’s an almost constant argument about compulsion vs none compulsion-type training. Many of the same arguments/insults come from each camp. Each often claims the other to be uneducated and harmful to dogs. Despite having several degrees in animal behaviour, I’ve been called uneducated countless times. It’s just used as an insult. I don’t think education plays a big role in how we treat animals. The words used in these debates have become almost meaningless. For example, I was told a few days ago that the none-compulsion trainers should be accepting of anyone who agrees to the principle of ‘welfare first’. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Well no, it doesn’t! The obvious problem is that anyone can, and does, claim to put welfare first. The guy who calls himself the dog daddy, Augusto Deoliveira, uses some of the most extremely aggressive methods I’ve ever seen and would be considered by many, even in the compulsion side of dog training, to be abusing dogs. I can guarantee that if asked, he would say he’s putting the dog’s welfare first.
The word ‘balanced’ is also pretty meaningless. It’s used by many trainers who use shock collars and prong collars. It is supposed to indicate the fact that they use all of the four quadrants of behaviour: positive punishment, positive reinforcement, negative punishment, and negative reinforcement. In scientific terms positive = added stimuli, Negative = remove/reduce stimuli, Reinforcement = behaviour will increase, and Punishment = behaviour will reduce. Notice that the words differ in meaning from their everyday usage, this can cause confusion. This isn’t the point of my post, actually, I don’t think about the quadrants much, but I have to point out, for my own sanity, that quadrants are a way of understanding the learning process. They are not a set of instructions or list of things to cover. Placing a gardening fork through my foot at age seven was positive punishment. Prong of fork (pain) added to foot = positive. Behaviour of playing with a gardening fork was reduced = punished. Just because the theory of positive punishment can be used to explain my learning process does not necessarily justify its use. How else might I have learned? Does every child need to learn this way? It’s totally illogical and without any sense of reasoning to assume positive punishment is required based on it being one of the four quadrants.
I don’t like the word ‘balanced’ because it indicates an assumption of being reasoned and fair. If using all four quadrants is ‘balanced’ there’s a false assumption that those not wanting to use unpleasant consequences are unbalanced. Whoever came up with the word was smart, I’ll give them that, but it’s based on a lie. The four quadrants are not dog training instructions. It’s. like baking a cake with a potato in the middle of it; when your guests ask why you put the potato in the cake, you say, well it was in the cupboard so I thought I’d use it.
There are plenty of industry leaders who want to flirt with both sides of the training world. Why fall out with people eh? Many of them sell courses, seminars, workshops, etc. It doesn’t make good business sense to alienate people. I don’t know the motives, perhaps it’s not a business decision but an honest personal belief of inclusion. I feel some of them pushing this agenda, ‘we should all work together and learn from each other’. I posted recently that there is no such thing as balanced training.
There is no such thing as balanced training. There is training and there is abuse. Mixing them doesn’t equal balance. Abuse remains abuse, no matter how you dress it up
Granted, it is slightly provocative, but was on my personal page and the people who follow me are largely none-compulsion trainers. It’s not something I’d necessarily post in a group of compulsion trainers. Then its intention would be to antagonise. But still, my language was criticised. Their inference was that I was calling all ‘balanced’ trainers, abusers. In fact, they tried to lead me down the path of accepting this premise. Why? So they could then say ‘saying NO to a dog is balanced training so you’re accusing all people who say NO to their dogs of being abusers”. They were actually posting that suggestion on their own page as they tried to lead me on my page. This is the world of social media I guess, full of straw man arguments. However, it highlights the very real problem of where you draw the line. When does training become abuse?
For me, and I only speak for myself, if the training involves the attitude of ‘do what I want you to do, otherwise I’ll hurt you, scare you, or do something unpleasant to you’ then I believe we are abusing our position over that animal. It is no longer training, in my view, but bullying. Who am I to impose my will on another being through fear or pain? To teach/help animals is a privilege. It should be a beautiful thing. It should be an act of nurture, not one of aggression. People will try to muddy the waters for their own agendas, but that’s where I stand.
It should also be considered that absolutely none of us are superior, perfect, humans. We all mess up, most of us have bullied someone at some time or otherwise been less than pleasant. It’s not about being superior, it’s simply about not accepting abuse as a legitimate means of training dogs. For many people it’s the norm, it’s the way it’s always been done, it’s reinforcing for them, they’re comfortable in their crowd, and they genuinely believe they are the dog’s salvation. It really is difficult to change a mindset forged over so many years and I understand that, but I will not stand by and pretend it’s acceptable to me.
I think people need the truth – forcing dogs to comply by means of fear or pain is abuse.
Hi to all the people who are going to call me uneducated – please at least make it funny because it’s getting boring.
Shay Kelly 