I think that is where a lot of confusion sets in. What one person thinks training is, may not be what the other person thinks. I do believe the majority of pet owners see training as... the dog listens most of the times, he may not jump up on people all the time, housebroken, can walk on a leash without pulling your arms out of their socket. All around a dog that is not a nusience.

On the other hand their are some that believe a trained dog is one that is able to compete in obedience or schutzhund events.

 I consider my dogs trained, they are not perfect, but I can take them to a park off leash and call them away from another dog while playing or call them off a ball if it happens to go in the road, and I can call them off a rabbit that they started to chase. They may not be to the level some people called trained, but they do listen, and yes most of them have recieved leash corrections during training. So I guess I take the middle road to training, I do use positive training when I can but I also use negitive. I like to use positive methods at first to show the dog what its supposed to do, but after that he will get corrected for not doing what he is told.

 

This is exactly what I am talking about.  Reliable, practical vocal control.  In a tight spot, you can call your dog out or down from a reasonable distance... all I'm talking about is being able to control the dog w/o a leash to the extent that you can get him out of / keep him out of trouble, should any one of a variety of random things occur.  I think that would be consider 'trained'.

When I think of positive only training, treat reward, toy reward, praise only... I know from experience that if you take a dog trained this way and put him in a down, and dump a bucket of hot dogs and tennis balls over his head, 99% of dogs trained this way will go bananas over the hot dogs and balls, and good luck getting them to listen now... LOL.  Just like children, a dog is not going to listen given certain stimuli, if it has not been shown there is  consequence for ignoring command.  If you have to so mucgh as raised your voice you have JUST USED NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT.

Until you can read a dog, you shouldn't exclude any training method, short of obvious brutality and abuse.  All dogs need some form of negative reinforcement... sometimes vocalization of your displeasure is enough, other times leash corrections or training collars are required.  The dog will tell you if it is effective or detrimental, but this differs from dog to dog, just as the effectiveness of different rewards differ from dog to dog. 

To think that a mild stim from a properly adjusted ecollar, or the proper use of training collars such as prongs, is somehow cruel or abusive, shows nothing but ignorance of what a dog is.  They do not care what something LOOKS like, they only care about the effect is has on them, on their physical body and mental state.  Some dogs have a very high threshold for physical correction, others will cower and vocalize at the slightest tug on a flat collar... each dog is different.  What will break one dog down into a quivering fearful mess will leave the next dog unfazed, and what will encourage another dog to perform beyond his limits will leave yet another unmotivated.

Too many so called trainers learn one canned method and favor it to the exclusion of all else... this is fine if you never want to give your dogs and clients the best possible results for each dog, but if you want to provide the most effective, beneficial service you can provide you must entertain all available tools and methods, utilizing what you need according to each dog's individuality.  Handler sensitivity, prey drive, food drive, physical size, pain threshold, intelligence, courage, dominance, they all differ between each dog... Take this into account, learn to read the dogs, use what they need... I can't tell you how many 'untrainable' dogs I've worked with to great success, and how many 'lame excuses' from 'trainers' I have proven to be just that. 

In the early stages even I use mainly positive reinforcement... the negative only comes in in the face of obvious 'willful' misbehavior... but when the proofing begins as the dog advances, the dog is set up for failure, and is shown there are consequences (corrections) for misbehavior / not following command.  As a result, I can dump hot dogs over my dogs head... Not that the act itself is of importance, but the fact the dog will maintain and listen under such distraction / temptation could one day save his life.

Terry B

America is a large friendly dog in a very small room.  Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair. - Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)