Hi,
Quick show of hands.
Who wants their dogs to follow through with obedience commands every time you give one to your dog?
Do you want your dog to come back every time?
Do you want your dog to hold a stay command for as long as you say?
Do you want your dog to stop pulling and walk politely at your side?
Excellent!
Everyone has their hand up so let me explain what you need to know to accomplish this.
To get reliable, consistent behavior, you need to understand and apply a very important behavior principle.
This principle is rarely talked about in dog training videos and articles.
Most dog owners are fed a constant, steady stream of positive reinforcement pap!
Positive reinforcement is great when you are training your dog but to get reliable behavior, you also need to understand and apply NEGATIVE reinforcement.
Before you freak out, understand this …NEGATIVE reinforcement SAVES LIVES!
Your life or someone you know has been saved by NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT.
We dog training pros like to call it PRESSURE and RELEASE.
Seat belt usage was extremely low until negative reinforcement made its appearance.
The beeping or dinging that happens until you click the belt is an example of negative reinforcement.
To make the unpleasant dinging go away, you perform a behavior (click) and it stops.
Seat belt usage was low until this was added to cars. Negative reinforcement is extremely powerful for increasing behavior performance.
When you learn how to use it properly, you will get much more reliable behavior from your dog, keeping your dog safe and increasing the quality of life for your dog.
Would you like to know more about negative reinforcement or as I said what we often call pressure and release?
Great… I just posted a leash walking video explaining this and you can check it out here:
Please write in your question and comments below the video.
Best,
Eric
Eric Letendre’s Dog Training School
1180 STATE ROAD, WESTPORT MA
774.319.6351