When you look for a dog trainer these days, you often read “Positive methods” somewhere in their marketing literature. Yes, positive methods can mean treats and praise but what it is not is the absence of consequences for the dog. This is where “positive methods” is misunderstood. There’s always a consequence to behavior and choices and it is no different for dogs. Hence, there is ‘negative’ in dog training.
The fact is, there are two methods that all good trainers use when they work with dogs:
Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning.
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING; Making an association between a stimulus (saying “Walkies”) and subsequent behavior (a walk).
*In the event of a conditioned response, there is always a ‘cue’ before the conditioned response such as the example of “Walkies” and a walk.
OPERANT CONDITIONING: Any training that reinforces or punishes a behavior.
There are 4 consequence types that are used in “OC” training. These are:
+R Positive Reinforcement: Anything good that is added to increase (reinforce) behavior.
-R Negative Reinforcement: Anything bad that is taken away to increase behavior.
+P Positive Punishment: Anything bad that is added to decrease behavior.
-P Negative Punishment: Anything good that is taken away to decrease behavior.
It will help you to look at it this way; Positive and Negative is NOT good and bad but rather, addition and subtraction:
+ Positive means to add something to the situation.
– Negative means removing something from the situation.
Reinforcement, be it positive or negative, sustains a behavior and makes it more likely to happen again.
Punishment, be it positive or negative, decreases a behavior and makes it less likely to happen again.
Operant conditioning is about consequences for behavior. In other words, when OC is employed, the dog learns that by behaving a certain way or performing a certain exercise it can make something positive happen or avoid something negative.
With these methods, CC and OC specifically, there is NO physical abuse. Dogs can learn there is consequence to their behaviors and still have a fun, positive experience with training.