If there is one thing that makes me boil it is people, particularly trainers, who use force of any kind to get dogs to comply.
What such people don’t understand is that the dog isn’t doing as it is asked because of respect, love or trust. It is actually complying because of fear of discomfort, or in some cases pain.
I have so many clients who have had experiences with trainers who have told them to jab the dog in the ribs with their thumb, yank on the lead to make it stop pulling or one of the most dangerous ones is push on your pup’s tongue with your thumb if it bites you. It has been proven that behaviours learned through force extinguish very quickly and need a greater intensity of force to achieve compliance as time goes on. I have heard of one person who uses their own dog to put the dogs that are being trained ‘in their place’. This shows a total lack of understanding of ethical training techniques.
A more passive kind of force in dog training is the use of harnesses that press on the dog’s nerve under its front legs when it pulls, choker chains, prong collars and restraints that are fitted around the dog’s muzzle. All of these ‘training aids’ are like a band aid on a sore .You remove the band aid and the sore is still there.
A good trainer should be able to train a dog without even touching it, without having to use ‘equipment’ and without having to use aggression verbally or physically.
I get so much satisfaction from training a dog by only using encouragement and acknowledgement and so should you!