What NOT to do and why- dog training clicker tips
April 29, 2012 in Dog Training
PLEASE READ THE WHOLE MANIFESTO IN AN EASIER FORMAT HERE: www.dogmantics.com It also translated into Dutch Swedish Spanish and Portuguese on that site. Here is a small excerpt: The many problems with using physical or psychological intimidation: 1) Without perfect timing, intensity, and consistency, the “training” amounts to nothing more than abuse. 2) The animal learns to avoid the punisher in order to indulge in undesirable behavior. 3) These techniques can cause irreversible emotional damage to the animal. 4) The punishment can increase stress hormones, arousal, and aggression. 5) Animals can habituate to the punishment — meaning that the intensity of the punishment must keep increasing to have any effect as the animal learns to endure it. 6) You cannot change an animal’s basic emotional response to find children, adults, or other animals (or anything for that matter) reinforcing by using intimidation; you can only suppress the dog’s punished behaviors. 7) Intimidation can cause dogs to hide their warning signs before attempting to bite. 8) Dogs trained with punishment can feel trapped by their handlers, since the decision to leave a ‘stay’ or to leave the handler’s side (to escape from a bothersome child, for example) can cause punishment. Animals who feel they have no escape tend to bite rather than move away. 9) Intended intimidation can actually increase the behavior you wish to extinguish, as intimidation involves giving a form of attention to an animal. 10) The …
