10/12/2026
I believe the goal of training and training, tools, food, leash's & collars, electric collar, is to create new habits and change behavior so you are not using food, leashes, and collars or electric collars in a regular ongoing basis.
If you are your MANAGING behavior, you have not changed your behavior.
I guess having to "zap" your dog, all the time to manage his behavior is better than having no ability to manage behavior, but perhaps think in terms of traffic enforcement.
 what's the goal when you get pulled over for speeding?
Obviously they want you to slow down but they want to change your behavior so you go to speed limit without them managing it.
Then how does that system work?
Did they just give us a car and send us out on the highway and through punishment we learned what the different traffic signs and laws were?
No. Obviously we were taught all of that. Additionally, we understood how traffic laws are enforced and then by enlarged they're enforced fairly equitably based on an individual's behavior with a goal of changing behavior so they don't need to pull you over all the time.
If they pull me over every day and give me a warning that might manage my speed on a daily basis, but it's certainly not gonna change my behavior.
On the other hand, if they give me a ticket for $20,000 I'm not gonna slow down, I'm gonna quit driving. I can't risk that and it's really gonna mess with me.
Same with Dog training.
First, we need to teach them what we want them to do and it's not 1960 and we don't need to teach dogs to do things. They don't know how to do because they want to avoid something physically unpleasant like the Yank of a leash or swat of the hand.
Unfortunately, a lot of that old-school yanking crank tow. The boot training still exist.
After we've taught them, the dog has to understand how we are going to enforce or reinforce what they've been taught to do and we need to do that in a fair progressive manner.
You don't teach the dog to sit or whoa in the backyard and then take it out in the field with the expectation. It should do it in a highly exciting environment.
Totally unfair yet people do that constantly.
"Well, he should know I taught him...."
About his intelligent as telling someone 7 pounds of pressure makes a weapon go bang and then throwing them in a firefight.
After the dog understands how things are going to be reinforced you then fairly reinforce commands as distractions to compliance are gradually introduced.
Why gradually?
Because when the dogs are excited, they're just like you, they aren't thinking clearly.
Yet people put dogs in situations every day where the dog is so excited it's clearly not thinking very well, and then they complain that the dog isn't listening, the dog is hardheaded or uncooperative.
And when was the last time you heard a trainer talking about visual or olfactory induced auditory exclusion?
I thought so.
Fairly reinforcing commands as we gradually add distractions, done properly, will result in a dog that can think clearly in very exciting situations much like a highly trained soldier can think clearly in situations that probably an untrained person can't.
Sure, you can do a terrible job in the backyard and then smash your dog in the field or the farmers market yanking on leashes and pressing buttons because the dogs "not listening."
And on the other end, you can constantly manage your dog behavior, every single day with tones, vibrations and the lowest level of some type of reinforcement that gets a dog to comply.
One may be effective, but it certainly not very thoughtful, humane, and compassionate.
The other may be thoughtful, humane, and compassionate, but it's not very effective.
For me and the dogs I trained the goal is a behavior change so it is unlikely as possible, given the fact it's a different species with the brain of a five year-old they can't read and has competing and environmental distractions, to change behavior and create new habits, so I don't have to reinforce command commands on a regular and ongoing basis.
95% of the trainers out there just seem to be regurgitating what 95% of the information out there is.
Living or working with a dog and having to have a bag full of hotdog or a fully charged electric collar isn't the relationship I wanna have with my dog.
