The Changing Face Of Dog Training (And How To Choose Your Style)

In my lifetime there has been quite a dramatic change in the methods being used by dog trainers. And this change is gradually being passed on to the wider public. It’s been really exciting to be a part of this change in approach that has accompanied our growing knowledge and understanding of behavioral science. 

We know from cave paintings and ancient burial sites that our relationship with dogs goes back over ten thousand years. A puppy that survived several illnesses with the help of human care has been found in a human grave dating back fourteen thousand years. 

That indicates a pretty close relationship, and one that almost certainly involved some training of one kind of another. Suffice it to say, we’ve been training dogs for quite a while! 

Dog training styles are changing

When you look at the last fifty years against a background of that ten thousand year relationship, these are very recent changes indeed. So it doesn’t surprise me, that not all dog trainers are on board with them. 

As a result, at this moment in time, there are several approaches or dog training philosophies all floating around together, with some trainers ardently advocating for their own method, and other trainers insisting that that theirs is the right one.

“there are several dog training philosophies all competing for your attention“

So one of my tasks on this page is to help you decide which training style is right for you and your dog. 

Popularity of different methods

Dog trainers can be roughly divided into two broad groups, traditional, and modern.

Fifty years ago traditional dog training dominated. It’s the style I and all my contemporaries were raised with.  Back then, modern dog training was largely regarded as second rate, and only a few modern dog trainers were beginning to make their mark. 

Now that situation has been reversed. Almost all up and coming dog trainers are learning modern methods, and it is these methods that are now taught by colleges, and recommended by veterinarians, behaviorists, and animal welfare organisations. 

If you attend a puppy class today, the chances are fairly good that you will be taught differently from the way I was taught fifty years ago.

And while there are some traditionalists still around, they are fewer each year. I’m going to explain why this is a good thing, and why its also important that we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

The underlying strategy

Dog training is all about changing behavior. Either because we want to teach a dog new skills, or because we want to fix a problem. 

“traditional training rewards the good and punishes the bad “

Traditional dog training has always been about rewarding good behaviors and punishing bad behaviors. To teach dogs that a particular behavior is bad, traditional trainers may even set the dog up to fail so that they can catch them in the act and correct the behavior when it appears.

Modern dog training on the other hand, is all about rewarding good behaviors and preventing bad behaviors, or making sure that bad behaviors ‘die out’. 

Rewarding the good, and correcting the bad all sounds logical enough, except that we now know, that many of the traditional ways of rewarding dogs (praise, patting etc) are not effective at changing behavior. 

In fact, traditional trainers have always known this which is why they have had to lean so heavily on punishment.

What they didn’t know, and what we do know now with the help of modern science, is why traditional training that incorporated rewards, but that was not heavily supported by corrections, was ineffective for so long.

“understanding exactly how rewards work has changed the face of dog training“

We look at this in more detail in the ‘principles of dog training’ because this knowledge has changed the face of dog training for ever. 

In traditional dog training, the focus is often on stopping unwanted behaviors. One of the downsides of this approach is that dogs don’t exist in a behavioral vacuum, they have to be doing something.

When your dog stops ‘jumping up’ that behavior must be replaced with something else. In fact if you focus on ‘stopping’ a behavior, it’s entirely possible that the dog will replace it with another undesirable behavior, such as barking.

And then you have to fix that behavior too. And possibly the one after that. 

“dogs don’t exist in a behavioral vacuum, they have to be doing something…“

In modern dog training the focus is on teaching viable alternatives. Taking behaviors we don’t like, such as running off, jumping on people, begging at the table etc, and replacing them with behaviors we do like, such as coming when called, sitting to greet people, and laying in a basket while we eat our supper.

To some traditional trainers this can seem a bit like cheating, or avoiding the problem. But it’s actually a more efficient way to train because you only have to fix the problem once, by establishing one new behavior. 

The problems with traditional training methods

Sometimes it can seem as though the traditional methods are faster. You could for example punish a dog for jumping up by giving a leash correction or pushing the dog down with your knee, and get a result quite quickly. There are problems with this approach though.  The first is that painful corrections may become associated with the presence of the person administering the correction – in other words the dog becomes afraid of their owner.

This is far more common than you might think. And sometimes the signs of this fear, are quite subtle.

Another problem is that the dog may only perform the desired behavior in the presence of the trainer – so you might for example successfully stop your dog from jumping up at you, but still have a dog that jumps up at other people, or when you are not around. 

“training with fear inhibits dogs from trying something new“

An annoying side effect of traditional dog training is that it inhibits dogs from trying out new behaviors. No-one wants to try something new, if doing so sometimes gets you a correction.

Dogs are no different. This might not matter in certain circumstances, when you want a high level of obedience in a specific environment for example. But it matters very much when you want to teach your dog a new skill, or a complex chain of skills. We’ll look at that in more detail in a moment. 

Without question the worse downside of traditional methods is that corrections given during training, even mild corrections, are associated with an increase in canine aggression.

“corrections during training are associated with an increase in canine aggression”

And with over 800,000 people needing medical attention after being bitten by dogs each year in the USA, this is not a situation we want to get into.

Are there downsides to modern training?

In some cases, modern methods take a little more time. In our jumping up example, it might take you a bit longer to teach a dog not to jump up without any corrections. But in my view, the end result is superior. It’s more resilient, and much more easily transferred to whoever might be handling the dog next. 

When it comes to eradicating certain types of established problem behaviors in an older dog, there are some instances where modern training methods may difficult to implement.

I’m thinking specifically of predatory behaviors such as chasing livestock, that occur in situations  where it is difficult or impossible to control the opportunities for self rewarding. Or where setting the up the training environment might cause distress to another animal. For the most part however, these situations are better resolved through management techniques than through traditional training.

I suppose you could say that the time spent learning how to train with modern methods is a downside, but I think we’re scraping at the bottom of the barrel here. You’ll need to be shown how to apply and use traditional methods too. 

Are there benefits to traditional dog training?

One of the key benefits of traditional training is the access it can give you to a range of expertise in a specialist field of dog work. If you want to train your Border Collie to herd sheep for example, you may be hard pressed to find a shepherd using only modern methods. The kinds of skills involved in herding dog work are restricted to a small population of people involved in farming or homesteading. 

“traditional trainers can give you access to specialist knowledge“

The same applies to my other field of interest, hunting companions or gundogs as we call them in the UK. But that is a slightly larger community and things are changing, albeit slowly.

Certainly within the sporting dog community  a tolerance for and understanding of the value of modern methods is growing. And even where a traditional trainer has not adopted those methods themselves, they may be willing to help someone starting out that wants to use modern methods for their own dog.

Which is what I meant when I said “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” Always be open to help from those that have a different style. You can often adapt their technique to fit your own approach. 

The benefits of modern dog training

The benefits of training using modern methods are many. The first is that is does no harm. If you fail, nothing has been lost.

Your dog has not become afraid of you, your dog will not learn to be aggressive through the use of modern methods, nor will you have made their behavior worse or ruined your chances of teaching that skill to them in the future. Your dog won’t have learned to shut down to avoid corrections, and they will be excited and happy to join in your training sessions in the future. 

“anyone can succeed with modern dog training methods, there are no barriers to entry”

The second most important benefit in my view is that anyone can succeed with modern methods. It does not require that the person handling the dog has any particular attributes or talents.

This is not the case with traditional training where many people simply do not have the will or the temperament needed to apply corrections accurately and with sufficient force.

In my early days as a traditional spaniel trainer the vast majority of people I saw fail were those that were simply unable to impose their will on their dogs. Basically, they were much too nice!

Another big benefit of modern dog training is that if you learn to teach a single skill thoroughly, in doing so you will have learned a method that can be applied to absolutely any skill that you want to teach any dog. The principles, tools, and techniques are the same and can be applied across your training program

When we look at creating brand new behaviors, or teaching new skills, this is where modern training really comes into its own. It enables us to teach a dog to do almost anything of which they are physically capable. Including building complex chains of behaviors for tasks such as unloading a washing machine, or putting toys away in a basket.

Training assistance dogs, therapy dogs and service dogs of all kinds is now carried out using modern methods and the results speak for themselves.  

Which is best, modern or traditional?

The evidence now firmly points to modern dog training as being superior to traditional methods and for that reason I recommend that those new to dog training make sure that they get themselves off the to the best start with a good grounding in modern training methods.

These are the methods now used to train service dogs, military dogs, therapy dogs, police dogs, drug detection dogs and more. And they are the methods you’ll find throughout this website, and in all of our online courses. 

I use these methods with my own dogs and I can vouch for the fact that they work very well.

Yet despite the evidence for modern dog training, and the fact that most dog training professional bodies, groups and educators now support it, there are still plenty of traditional dog trainers out there, promoting their methods through the television and YouTube.

And some of them have a huge following. So its reasonable for people to ask why that is.

The answer, sadly, is that training via corrections can appear to get quick, dramatic results. And it makes good television. The fallout can be edited out, or ignored because most people don’t recognise the signs that a stressed or distressed dog gives off when they shut down or are intimidated.

In some cases people actually enjoy the fallout, seeing a trainer get bitten on TV for example. Publication bias hides the failures, and dogs are rarely followed up months later to see how they are getting on. 

Methodical methods that build on skills in small incremental steps using rewards are not dramatic enough or fast enough for modern attention spans. And they don’t easily fit into twenty minutes of TV. Plus there is still a stigma around rewarding dogs  with food, and a feeling that doing so, is cheating.

Many traditional trainers play on this by making a big deal out of the fact you don’t need to use food to get results their way. I go into the use of food in training in a lot more detail in my article about the principles that underpin modern dog training methods.

It’s an interesting topic, and one that is close to my heart because I studiously avoided using food in training for the longest time. 

Your choice

Ultimately, you need to choose a training style that works. And methods that get reliable repeatable results no matter who applies them.

“Good training is always transferable” 

It’s entirely possible to set up a training program for a dog that has a different trainer every day of the week provided they all follow the program and check where the previous trainer got to before they begin.

Good training is always transferable, and does not require you to have talent, dog sense, aptitude, or to be firm or to inspire respect in a dog.

Remember that your dog isn’t going to abandon a behavior they enjoy, purely in exchange for something less enjoyable. This would defy the laws of science and it simply never happens.

“You don’t need to be a bully or a friend to train a dog. You just need to apply evidence-based methods consistently.” 

A dog will only decide not to carry out a behavior if their previous experience tells them that doing so will be rewarded, or that  failing to do so will be punished.  So if you don’t use food in training, you’ll need to use corrections.

That’s the bottom line. I hope to convince you that modern methods are far better, but there is a choice to be made. And the choice is yours. 

References

Why Neolithic Humans Buried Their Dogs With Them 4,000 Years Ago

Dog attack statistics by breed