Many years ago we had our first Belgian Shepherd called Badger. Before Badger we had owned Rough Collies so this was a bit of a shift for us from a lifestyle perspective. To put it mildly, we were unprepared for the full measure of intensity, energy, and intelligence that comes with a breed like Belgians. We did the best we could with the limited knowledge we had about dogs and dog training.
Badger was a lot of dog. Given what we thought we knew 20 years ago, we used shake cans, prong collars, and even a shock collar for a short while in working with Badger. We don’t use any of those things any more with our dogs and we have many new tools at our disposal in working with Rizzo and Tira (our current dogs). But here’s an interesting fact – Badger was a wonderfully happy dog and we had a great relationship with him.
We have abandoned a lot of coercive, force-based approaches in our training but that isn’t because we had awful, painful, and difficult relationships with our dogs in the past. We had lots of fun with all of our dogs. We loved them and, in their way, they loved us. But these days we approach training very differently.
Using behavioural science and reward based training has allowed us to avoid a lot of problems with our dogs. We have been able to teach our dogs more things in less time than our previous dogs. It has, quite simply, been the most effective and efficient way we have ever tried to work with our dogs. We still love our dogs and they still love us (in their way).
So the choice of training methods for us wasn’t about being more humane or kinder to our dogs. We felt we always did pretty well in that department with our dogs. The cuddles and kisses and wonderful greetings we always got told us that was true. What has changed is how much more we can do with our dogs now. They are smarter and better dogs. Just as we are smarter and better trainers.
And isn’t that really what it should be about?
Eric
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