To help choose a method, try to look at training from your dog’s point of view. Imagine that you suddenly find yourself on another planet with beings that don’t look or act like you (which is the position your dog is in). You don’t understand a word of their language (just like an untrained dog doesn’t understand English). You want to fit in somehow and get along with these beings. A being who is significantly bigger than you puts a choke collar around your neck, attaches a leash and pulls on it, giving you the command “zork.” You aren’t thrilled about the collar and leash, but you get up and start walking along behind the Big Thing. Suddenly he yells, “Zork!” and jerks you forward on the leash.
You don’t know what you’ve done wrong, but he seems to want you to walk ahead of him, so that’s where you continue walking. This time, he roars, “No, Zork!” and gives you a hard jerk backward. Now you’re really confused. You don’t know where he wants you to walk. After several more painful jerks, you finally figure out that the only place you can walk and not have him jerk you is on his left side. You’ve learned what “zork” means, but you’re not very anxious to learn more—at least not that way.
Let’s try another scenario. You are again helplessly stranded on the planet of Big Things. One of the Big Things comes up to you and shows you that he has a handful of things that look remarkably like candy. He holds one close to your nose so you can sniff it. It smells like candy. You’re a little hungry, so when he hands you one, you eat it. Wow, they’re great! Big Thing takes a few steps away and says, “Zork,” all the while holding out the hand with the candy. You take a few steps to follow him, and he hands you another piece.
This time when he says, “Zork!” and walks away, you are quicker to follow him. Again you get another piece. You walk along together, with you respectively a little behind him. He repeats, “Zork!” in an inviting tone of voice and lures you forward to his left side with the hand holding the candy. When you get right alongside him, he gives you another piece. You’ve got it! You get a reward if you walk on his left side when he says, “Zork.” You can’t wait for the next lesson to begin.
The second training example illustrates the use of positive reinforcement. My system of training is based on positive reinforcement, mostly in the form of food rewards. But that isn’t the way I’ve always trained. Everything I read and heard cautioned against using food to train a dog. Then I had a difficult training problem. I wanted to train my Borzoi, Carla, to retrieve. Carla was a beautiful, elegant dog who only did AKC obedience competition to humor me. We had completed her Companion Dog (CD) AKC obedience title. I wanted to try for the next title, the Companion Dog Excellent (CDX), but there was one problem. A dog is required to retrieve to get this title.
Carla had never shown any interest in retrieving anything except food from the kitchen counter. I had previously trained my first dog, an Irish Setter, to retrieve reliably for the show ring, but I was uncomfortable with the way I had done it. The method I had used was based on applying force with the choke collar. At the time it was considered a humane method of teaching the retrieve because the more popular method was to pinch the dog’s ear. Nevertheless, it didn’t seem the right thing to do morally, causing a dog so much discomfort just to get an AKC obedience title that meant nothing to the dog.
Then I read an article in a dog training magazine about training a dog to retrieve using food. Although I had always been told that you should never use food to train a dog, I was desperate. I decided to try it, and it worked beautifully! Carla got her CDX title easily, and I learned that you can train a dog with food.
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