It was early evening in the spring of 2002 when I found myself 10 feet across the kitchen from a dog with bared teeth and lowered head. He was growling in a low, menacing rumble.
As I looked into his fixed, steely eyes, I could hardly believe this was the dog we had raised from a puppy. He stood over the food bowl we had just put down and he wanted my wife and I gone from his area. That much was clear. How we had gotten to this point is a story for another day, but it was one of those defining moments. The dog we raised was threatening us.
My wife and I were forced to consider that our nearly 20 years of dog ownership and training had failed utterly, and that we might have to return this dog to his breeder and hope he could be placed in a home better capable of managing him. In that moment it would have been easy to blame the dog or the breeding or even the breeder for bringing an aggressive dog into the world. It would have been easy to minimize our role in creating a situation that was clearly not working for the dog or us. It would have been easy if we were not the ones who had created this.
A few months before this incident, my wife had started taking our dog to agility classes in hopes that having something to do together would improve things. It was a phone call to one of the agility instructors that would forever change our lives and the lives of our dogs.
After patiently listening to our dilemma, this trainer suggested that we pick up a book called Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. Already at our wits’ end, it seemed worth a try. We were ready to phone the breeder and surrender the dog if we couldn’t find a solution. One more book, one more viewpoint – maybe it could help. It turned out that Culture Clash was the best single source of information on dogs we had ever come across.
Opening that book opened a whole new world to us. Much of what we knew about dogs and dog training had been written decades before or passed on to us from obedience instructors who likely worked from the same sources.
What we thought we knew was that dogs needed to be controlled; that their behaviour left unchecked would turn our lives into chaos. Dogs needed to be shown who was boss – who was “alpha” in the household – and that they were to obey us or face the consequences.
Culture Clash showed us a very different picture of dogs with well-defined needs and consistent behaviour patterns. Trainers could work with what dogs TRULY were and achieve great results without treating them like small furry humans.
So stark was the contrast with what we thought we knew about dogs, so clear and logical was its presentation, that it shocked us into taking a fresh look at what dogs were and what they might be capable of, if given the chance.
The information in Culture Clash led us to other books, including Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog and Patricia McConnell’s The Other End of the Leash. It was Karen Pryor’s book in particular that led us to a new understanding of what working with dogs could be.
Don’t Shoot the Dog described a style of training that involved rewarding the dog for desired behaviours, a marked contrast from what we had been doing – trying to control unwanted behaviours by punishing our dogs.
It was a way of working with dogs that set the dog up to be successful and making us proactive partners in helping our dogs do the right thing, instead of just reacting every time they surprised us by doing something we didn’t want.
These new books, and others we have discovered along the way, led us into all of the great information that science and researchers have discovered about dogs and dog behaviour.
It seems strange in retrospect that we had simply accepted information that was decades out of date, passed on to us from old books and dog trainers. It just never occurred to us to find out more about the animals we lived and worked so closely with. What we discovered was a whole world of information about dogs, information that has been researched and compiled in the past 15 years.
And it changed us. Learning what science has discovered about dogs instead of believing the hearsay of others changed not just the way we went about training our dogs. It changed what we understood dogs to be. It changed what we always thought of as the limitations of our dogs’ intelligence. Discovering positive reinforcement and clicker training changed our philosophy of living and working with our dogs. It was something so simple.
What if we spent our time trying to catch our dogs doing something RIGHT instead of trying to catch them doing something wrong? What if we tried to teach our dogs the things we wanted them to know rather than telling them all the things we didn’t want them to do?
What if we saw ourselves as educators trying to teach our dogs, rather than wardens trying to keep our unruly charges from causing mayhem? What if the challenge was to see how much we could teach our dogs to do, and not to make sure our dog DOESN’T do things? What would happen? How far could this take you?
Well, my beautiful younger dog, Tiramisu, is teaching me all about that. You see, we started her out with clicker training and positive reinforcement from 11 weeks old. As all of these new books were telling us, we started her training right away and her ability to learn was nothing short of astounding.
She’s turning six years old this month. She knows nearly 50 distinct behaviours on cue, she’s earned over 30 titles in the sport of dog agility, and she is the easiest dog we’ve ever had to manage in our lives. I wish I could tell you what those limitations of dog intelligence are, but as yet we haven’t found them. I’m happy to report that I’m still learning about dogs and they never fail to surprise and delight me.
And that snarling dog across the kitchen? He turns 10 this year. He’s an agility trial champion. He’s sleeping happily on his couch right now and he’s happy to move if I ask him. Our relationship is much better — no more growling at dinnertime.
The road back from a damaged relationship created by force and intimidation training was relatively short once we knew what to do. Our journey to a new way of living with our animals has been full of fun surprises and new challenges that we have overcome as partners with our dogs, instead of adversaries.
That journey continues for us and I look forward to sharing what we discover with all of you.
For more tips on how to communicate with your dog, please read Eric Brad’s Life As A Human article “Three Reasons Why Your Dog Isn’t Responding“.
Photo Credits
All photos courtesy of Petra Wingate © 2009
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Recent Eric Brad Articles:
- A Broken Dog - Epilogue (Redemption and Validation)
- A Comfortable Dog
- Do Scientists Love Their Dogs Too?
- What Is Your Dog Saying About You?
- What's Wrong With Intelligent Dog Training?
uberVU - social comments 
I think this philosophy carries over to contact with all species (including other humans). It’s much nicer to try to catch someone doing something right rather than always looking for the wrong behaviors…
What a wonderful article on Accenting the Positive.
Thank you Eric, I look forward to your next article.
Thanks for sharing your story. Clicker training and positive reinforcement do work so much better than the old ways, don’t they?
“Don’t Shoot the Dog” opened up a whole world of more efficient and more humane communication for me me — as Petra says, with humans as well as dogs.
Happy clicking!
Undoubtedly the Clicker and positive reinforcement of desired behaviors is the most effective way to train in the sport of agility. Developing a motivated, thinking, dog that has pure joy for the sport is the ONLY way to go … you just won’t get that kind of team mate with a rope and a stern voice.
When you are fortunate enough to be able to carry that relationship built totally on positive out of the ring and use it in the rest of life, then both the dog and the human will experience the strongest bond and the most peaceful inner spirit.
If you haven’t looked in to the concepts Eric writes about here, you’re missing the best that a human and dog relationship has to offer!
What a great article. When we got a puppy for the first time in 15 years, some great friends suggested the book, ‘Don’t shoot the Dog’, and it has changed the way we will approach having dogs for the rest of our lives. There are so many people that are proponents of this ‘show the dog who’s boss’ mentality and my parents are some of them. When I compare our dog’s sister, who was raised with that philosophy, to our approach of rewarding our dogs for behavior we want to see, the differences in their behavior is amazing. I look forward to reading more articles.
I agree with what Petra said. So often we only hear about when our behavior is a problem in some way, but we rarely hear about the time when we’re doing well. People really have a hard time giving and receiving simple affirmations.
Fortunately our dogs are just fine with frequent praise.
Great article Eric, I had no idea you were so talented! Culture Clash is indeed a wonderful book and we have gleaned a tonne of info from it ourselves into our daily life with our ‘pack’.. A great handbook for every dog owner. Looking forward to seeing more of your articles.
Wow Eric good job, click and treat. I am with you on the clicker training. I would have been lost with Jagger if I didn’t used that method. But I am happy to say, Jagger is happy and learning new stuff everyday.
A very well written article. I’m very proud! Positive is always better than negative. You and Petra have wonderful relatioships with your dogs. I will be waiting for your next article!!!!!
Eric,
A great article. I agree with going with positive over negative. Achiements are faster for both dogs and humans. I look forward to future articles from you. By the way, Dixie is learning to put her toys away. Clicker training has made this fun and easy way for her to learn this.
Wonderful article, Eric. Positive reinforcement seems to work across cultures and species (could be useful in foreign affairs, perhaps). Another great book that helped us with our “wild” dog is “Smarter Than You Think: A Revolutionary Approach to Teaching and Understanding Your Dog in Just a Few Hours” by Paul Loeb and Suzanne Hlavacek. This book also offers a diet for dogs that turned our older dog’s health around in a very positive direction and saved us a ton of money on “specialized” dog foods.
Great job, Eric. It truly reminds us of where we are (or should be) with helping our dogs to learn. Keep the articles coming. We will need to stay one step ahead of our companions.
Wonderful article, Eric!! I agree with all of the above comments; I just wish all those dog owners out there who do not read and do research about their dogs could have access to this article. I wish my vet had it as a flyer to hand to her clients.
Your pictures are great, Petra!
Great article…as the owner of a brand new puppy, I really appreciate the information. (and am wondering if the techniques would work on my teens!)
Great job, Eric!
Isn’t it amazing that such a simple (and EASY!) concept can escape the grasp of so many “intelligent” people…both in the dog world and others.
THANK YOU for putting it so clearly that it will make sense to those not already on this path.
Great Article and well written, I can’t wait for your next one. Click – Treat
Thank you all for the wonderful feedback! I’m grateful for the opportunity to share what I know about a technology that has changed our lives so deeply and in such unexpectedly wonderful ways. It’s my wish that you all share the same amazing journey with your animals, what ever species they may be.
Read, learn, discover.
Eric
Great job Eric! Positive reinforcement is the way to go. Looking forward to reading more of your articles.
Great article Eric, I liked the introduction which grabbed my attention immediately. Your presentation was clear and easy to read. I also thought the photographs were superb Petra.
I heartily agree with all the concepts you present and spent 30 minutes this morning trying to explain to a neighbour, who was busy telling me how he punches his large dog to let him know “who is boss” and establishing himself as the “alpha male” as he had seen on TV, that positive reinforcement works so much more effectively. I think I will just give him a reference to this article and hope he might learn something!
Well done! Looking forward to the next article.
Very insightful Eric! I could relate to it on many levels. Very touching!
Hi Eric,
A cool article and lots of comments. Reminds me of a dog we had when I was a teenager. We had no idea how to train him, he got big and out of control fast, and we had to put him up for adoption. I still wonder whatever happened to him.
From a fellow writer on here, congrats!
Nathan
Oh, that’s what all the clicking is about!
My parents used the clicker method with treats with their pup (about 8 years ago now) and although he is very kind, he is not well-behaved. Luckily we never had issues with our dog, but I sure wish I could have talked with him! He was my best buddy for 10 years. Still miss him dearly.
I am so glad you went the extra step required to not only save your snarling dog’s life but also to make both your lives so much more enjoyable. Thank you for an article that may very well motivate other owners to take those few extra steps and reap rewards that will last them a life time ! I am sure you have no idea how many dogs … and people’s lives your article may have saved!
Another book you may wish to add to your very good collection is:
Before and after you get your Puppy by Dr Ian Dunbar
Carol
Thanks for hanging on to my brother and showing him that people
really are a blast to be around! Us Belgians love all that positive reinforcement stuff, and if you are really good to us, we will smile so hard it makes us sneeze. Whenever I do this when my mom comes home she laughs her head off
My parents love the crap out of me, and agility is still the funnest thing I know how to do, although “sitting nice” at 9pm exactly…. always gets me a big ass cookie!!!
Thanks for sharing your struggles and your JOY!!!!!!
Takoda and the Burkeville gang
Thank you Carol for your generous comments. We do, in fact, have several books in our collection by Dr. Ian Dunbar including the one you mention. Dr. Dunbar’s work has been instrumental in moving our understanding of dogs and canine behaviour forward.
I must say that although you refer to our change in training as a “few extra steps”, it has in fact been a far easier road than the force and intimidation of the more traditional training we were using. Yes, changing our thinking in the beginning was a big step and took some effort, but beginning with good habits and practices has made managing our dogs so much easier in addition to being so much more rewarding. Clicker training and positive reinforcement didn’t just help us repair a broken relationship with our Vince, it created two wonderful dogs we raised from pups using these principles.
Knowing you are a dog training professional makes your comments that much more heartening and thanks for taking the time to post them!
Eric
I remember long ago and far away — sitting on the grass in a football stadium in Saskatchewan, to be exact — meeting you for the first time and thinking, hey, this guy really gets it. How refreshing it was. Obviously, both you and Petra have continued to build on the profound understanding that started with those bared teeth.
Having started naively in a more traditional training milieu (not especially punitive, just not reinforcement-based), I saw the light, so to speak, as the result of having not a snarling dog but one who was too terrified to function in even the quietest version of the world. With a most enjoyable change in approach and understanding, she flourished, and all the dogs in my life since then have been the beneficiaries.
Thanks for a great piece — hope to see lots more from you! (Come for a visit and we can have a write-a-thon! — I seem to have a lot more free time these days…)
Kathryn
Terrific Article Eric! It seems like such a simple thing…accentuate the positive, not the negative…and yet it’s so easy to forget and go the other way. Thanks for the well-written reminder! NICE job!!
Very cool to read your published work, Eric. It’s great to know that you will reach a far greater audience than just those of us who are lucky enough to know you in person. I look forward to upcoming articles.
Sandra
Nicely done Eric.
I use clicker training in the pound where I work and find the dog’s responses are far more positive than what some of my co-workers have achieved due to the fact they do not understand the concept. Maybe it’s just me but I find that most folks want a “quick” fix to their dog’s behavioral problems and do not want to spend time and effort to achieve the goal of a harmonious relationship. So sad. At least my fur kids and I have a good relationship
Teresa
Hi Eric,
Really enjoyed both your articles, and I look forward to reading others in the future! Love the positive reinforcement, and the clicker training methods.
Thankyou! Really great to read your turnaround
How great for you and your dogs
I agree that is the one big difference between positive and traditional methods
The old style method means you are always looking for your dog to fail, you are always looking for bad
But once you start looking for the good you see how smart, amazing and funny your dog is