Copyright of S.I.T Canine Training 2014
Training information
Training Information
What is Force Free Positive Reward Training
Force free positive reward training refers to training methods which employ the use of techniques which
encourage a dog to think for themselves and learn desired behaviours which are rewarded with food,
toys and/or praise. Force free positive reward training does not involve punishing or forcing a dog to
behave in a given way. Read More....
The Problems with Punishment
Firstly I want to start by removing all ethical issues from the table. My aim here is to clearly explain why
punishment is not an effective way to train a dog using ONLY the principles of associative learning. I am
taking this stance as there are many trainers out there who do still support and advocate the use of
punishment in dog training. I want to explain to you the reader why these methods are faulty and why
trainers, which use punishment, lack the basic knowledge and understanding required to successfully
produce a dog which is willing to learn new behaviours and happy to interact with people. Read More....
Say NO to Pack Leadership
Pack leadership and dominance theory became popular in the late 90’s early 00’s. These assumptions
sprung from the idea that; as a descendent of the wolf the domestic dog shared a similar behavioural
ecology and therefore the two species should be treated in the same way. The main ethos of pack
leadership and dominance theory is the idea that your dog is trying to ‘rule’ you; that given half a chance
he will seek to supplant you as boss of the household and become king of his domain. Read More....
The Principles of Associative Learning
While some aspects of associative learning may seem complex at first, the overall principle is very easy to understand. All forms of associative learning are based on the simple idea that when two ‘things’ are paired together in a consistent manner the first ‘thing’, which we will call stimulus, comes to stand for the second ‘thing’, which we will call behaviour – you can view this as a cause (stimulus) and effect (behaviour) relationship. Read More....
Making a Behaviour Valuable
All behaviour is costly and therefore no organism performs a behaviour without good reason. Behaviour is costly firstly because it uses energy and secondly when we are performing a given behaviour we are stopping ourselves from performing a different behaviour. As humans we have to prioritise our behaviours all the time. While I am sitting here writing this I am unable to get a load of washing in the machine, or walk my dogs, or hoover the house. All of these activities use energy so while I am engaged in writing this article (or doing any of the other jobs) I am not using my time to source and eat food which will replenish my energy reserves. Also in my list of jobs some are more rewarding than others, I would much rather be walking my dogs or writing these articles than sorting out the washing or hoovering the house. But I know if I don’t deal with the over following washing basket I will run out of cloths and if I don’t hoover there will be more fur on the floor than on the dogs! Read More....
Making & Breaking Habitual Behaviours
When we train dogs to perform a behaviour we are either teaching a brand new behavioural association between a new stimulus and a new behaviour; for example teaching a novice dog to wait in a 2 on 2 off position on a contact in agility training, or we are teaching the dog to adopt a new behavioural response to an old stimulus – we call this HABIT BREAKING. Read More....
The Positive Working Relationship
A relationship can be defined as: ‘The way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave towards each other’ - we need to tweak this definition slightly to define the relationship between humans and dogs. ‘The way in which a human and a dog or groups of humans and dogs regard and behave towards each other’ The relationship (using the above definition) is the most important aspect of dogs training, as it is the stage upon which training occurs. Read More....
