While many trainers advocate the use of treats as a training tool, many more are urging dog owners to give up their treats and adopt a more natural style of dog training.

Most modern puppy training methods result from the work of a psychologist named Burrhus Frederic Skinner, A.K.A. "B.F. Skinner" (pictured right). Although none of Skinner's research studied the behavior of canis lupus familiaris (the domestic dog) in a urban setting, many modern puppy trainers have nonetheless stumbled on the work of B.F. Skinner and have used his theories to shape their puppy training methods.

In a nut shell, B.F. Skinner, like many early researchers, attempted to explain why people behave the way they do. He went about this by performing a multitude of scientific experiments on laboratory animals, many of which were subject to relentless isolation, electrical shock and food deprivation. Through these experiments Skinner developed his theories of "Operant Conditioning". Skinner also toyed with the idea of raising children in deprivation chambers, so to insure that their behavior could be properly shaped.

What Skinner tried to do was discover a mathematical understanding of animal behavior. He wanted to tell us WHY we do the things we do and how we could better "shape" our own behavior based on clearly defined, predictable, positive and negative stimuli.

The consequence of trying to mathematize cognizant behavior, is that we fail to respect the deeper glory of spiritual development and emotional expression. When we try to condense the whole world experience of a puppy into the sanitized test tube of a scientific experiment, we inevitably fail to respect the the inherent wonderment of a living mind and puppy training becomes something crude, and possibly destructive.

               Dog Training Methods

There are three dog training methods in common use. The first is often called “Jerk and Praise”, although not by its practitioners, and if you took your dog to obedience class ten or more years ago this is probably what you would have been taught. The dogs are fitted with a choke chain and the handler is instructed to jerk on the chain when the dog does not perform correctly, and to praise the dog verbally when it does well.

The second method is called “Positive Training”, where the punishments are kept to a minimum if used at all. Instead, food rewards are used when the dog performs correctly. Tidbits of food are often used to lure the dogs into performing the desired actions, and after many repetitions, the food lure is “faded” as the animal learns what is expected of them. This method of training has become immensely popular , as many people have become concerned about the humane aspects to wrapping a metal chain around their dog’s neck and choking it.

The last method uses techniques originally developed for training dolphins and is called “Clicker Training”. A clicker is a small plastic box with a metal tab in it. When the tab is depressed and released, a loud “click-click” sounds. In Clicker Training, the dog is first taught that every time the click sounds he will get a treat. After this, the click is used to mark the exact point in time that the dog has performed the correct action, and the end of the behavior being taught. Punishments of any kind are strictly forbidden in clicker training, and the dogs are run through dozens and dozens of repetitions of the behavior being taught in rapid succession.



► Operant Conditioning


All three of these methods rely on a principal known as “Operant Conditioning”. This is a concept developed by a group of psychologists known as “Behaviorists”. Behaviorists believe that the only important component about what organisms do is the behaviors that they exhibit, and that it is irrelevant to ponder on the animal’s motivations for those behaviors. For example, if you dog barks at the doorbell you should stop this by directly dealing with that behavior in some manner. You could, for instance, train you dog to go eat from his bowl every time the doorbell rings as it would be impossible for him to bark while eating.

Key to the theories of Operant Conditioning is the concept that an organism will tend to repeat a behavior for which it is rewarded, and will cease a behavior for which it is punished or even simply not rewarded. Behaviorists tend to evaluate all animal learning or changes in the way that an animal acts, from within this framework, it is easy to see how all three training methods listed above employ these concepts. Behaviors to be learned are practiced over and over with the dog being rewarded (or not punished) for performing poorly.

Clicker Training in particular is like Operant Conditioning on steroids. This method was scientifically designed and perfected by people with PhD’s in animal psychology. It has been fine-tuned such that your dog doesn’t stand a chance of resisting, and he will learn the tricks you want with a speed that will make your head turn. Dogs are genetically programmed to desire food, and when the food treats are out the dog is already half way to not thinking, as he becomes entirely focused on the food. The clicker itself becomes a constant feature of the training, which alters the dog’s state of mind; much the way people use incense to help them slip into meditative trances.



►The Problem With Operant Conditioning


It is often overlooked that Operant Conditioning is “conditioning”, not learning. Conditioning is a process whereby a specific response is developed in an animal to a certain stimulus. When a dog has been properly trained by these techniques is doesn’t even think about what it is doing, the action becomes an automatic reflex when it hears the command. Clicker trainers use a term called “fluency”, which to most people means that an action has become effortless. To a clicker trainer this term means that the command-action (stimulus-response) chain has moved from being a thought-out action to a state where it is an unconscious reflex. In this respect, it is really indistinguishable from a post-hypnotic suggestion. No intelligent person would ever think to plant frivolous or strange behaviors in a person or dog using hypnosis yet they will freely us a clicker to do the same thing. In fact, it is a basic tenet of Clicker Training that you can never do harm with a clicker, mistakenly confusing positive reinforcement with safe training.
 

► Can Teaching Tricks Harm A Puppy?

As an example of the problem this can cause look at the common trick called “Take a Bow”. This is where the dog puts his elbows on the ground and lifts his bum in the air, like he is bowing.

When taught with a clicker this action would first be “captured” by the clicker by waiting until the dog just does it or luring it with food (you do this by putting a bit of food under his nose, and then shoving it down and back between his legs). As soon as he does the bow, he is clicked and treated. This is repeated a number of times until the dog figures out that the click is for the bow, at which point he will start to bow over and over again (this is called throwing the behavior at the trainer) as fast as the trainer can click and toss treats. Once the trainer is reasonably certain that the dog will keep performing the bow spontaneously, he starts to say the command as the dog is doing the bow. Gradually, he moves the command earlier and earlier, saying it just as the dog starts to move and then just when the dog looks like he’s going to move until he is clearly saying the command before the dog does the bow.

After this has been going on for a bit, every once in a while the trainer will let the dog bow without saying the command and he will withhold the click/treat. Eventually the dog will start listening for the command and only perform the bow when he hears the command. This is called “extinguishing the uncued behavior”. Once this point is reached, all that is left is to develop “fluency”. Hundreds of repetitions are performed until the bow becomes a reflex action to the command.

Here is where the problem comes in. The "bow" is a very important communication tool for dogs. From the dogs point of view a "bow" has a specific meaning that is related to benevolence, joy, and exuberance. Dogs "play bow" when they want to have fun. When we condition dogs to use their "bow" for reasons other than play, we run the risk of disrupting their ability to communicate in a way nature intended. The "bow" may no longer have to do with joy, love and exuberance, and becomes a mindless reflex of a brain washed dog.

This point has come under fire by a number of amateur dog trainers who give advice freely on internet forums. One such trainer," Asher", a vigorous supporter of bribe based training, says: "Play bowing is a behavior that some dogs will perform to defuse a stressful (dog on dog) situation, so having it on cue is good."  This is not always true.

When a natural behavior is taken out of the dog's natural context that behavior may, (not always), become disconnected from its natural intent. When this occurs some dogs start to act in ways that trainers call idiopathic, which means: Of or relating to a disease having no known cause.

A problem related to teaching the "bow" occurred when a ten month old Dalmatian walked up to its owner, play bowed twice, the proceeded to jump up and attack. The owner (who was left with 46 stitches) described what she witnessed as "bizarre". When asked if she had ever trained her dog to 'bow' as a trick, the owner answered "Yes". We have documented other such cases where instead of using behaviors that best suited their situation, dogs started to "throw" unrelated behaviors at their owners in fits of obvious confusion. Sadly, these dogs are often euthanized with the excuses being 'unknown'.

We do not believe that teaching 'bow' is the singular reason dogs develop problems. But we do believe that teaching a dog to perform reflex-like actions for a click or treat, time and time again, sustained over a number of months, can create problem dogs that only respond in a robot-like manner because they have been conditioned to perform for food. Even when the treat is removed from training, the dogs mind may be permanently altered to expect a treat whenever a command word is given. Dogs in this mindset are not stable in other areas of life and can be triggered to behave in ways that seem idiopathic.

Note: The damaging effects of food lure training are rarely seen in dogs that experience a balanced education. This means, in cases where treats are not used for everything, and the owner uses a healthy balance of rewards and humane discipline.  
 

It is important to remember that the basic techniques and fundamental principles of the most common puppy training methods used today can be used equally well to train rabbits or chickens. They are designed to bypass any thought processes that the puppy has and hypnotize our pets with food bribes.