Training Dogs With Kindness

Training your dog with kindness means that you never scold or reprimand your dog for behaviors deemed unacceptable. Instead, focus on rewarding the dog for positive behavior and ignoring inappropriate responses. There are a variety of methods that you can use to safely and effectively train your dog. A properly trained dog will make others feel at ease and prevent you from worrying about whether it will misbehave.

  1. Clicker Training

    • Clicker training uses a form of operant conditioning to provide a safe and kind method to train dogs to adhere to specific desired behaviors. The clicker is a palm-size housing with a metallic button in it; the housing and clicker together amplify the audible click, which the trainer triggers to indicate to the dog that it is responding positively. The clicker acts as a precise and effective device to let the dog know exactly what he is doing correctly and when he is doing it. This prevents the delay involved in verbal praise, which may cause confusion.

    Conditioned Reinforcement

    • The clicker acts as a conditioned reinforcer to let a dog know that the action it is completing is appropriate. A conditioned reinforcement comes only with repetitive and consistent use of a device. Conditioned reinforcement is not something that the dog will naturally find appealing. However, it is something that the dog will instantly and immediately begin to associate with a positive result. In the absence of a clicker, you could snap your fingers. However, this may become a distraction and the dog will end up looking to your fingers and losing focus.

    Primary Reinforcements

    • Primary reinforcements are used along with the conditioned reinforcement. A primary reinforcement is anything the dog finds naturally appealing such as praise, treats, play or water. When combined with the conditioned reinforcement, the dog begins to learn that certain behaviors bring about praise and rewards. Eventually, through continued use, the dog will begin to learn in a kind and humane matter what the owner expects of it. Owners have successfully trained dogs to sit, heel, play dead, retrieve newspapers and beg on command with the help of primary reinforcements.

    Weaning

    • Once the dog has begun to learn appropriate behaviors, you can begin to lure it off the clicker. In the initial stages, tell the dog a command such as sit. If it sits, click the clicker as it is sitting and give it a treat when it sits successfully. As the dog gets faster with its response time, begin to increase the number of repetitions of a command before giving the next treat. For instance, get the dog to sit, then to stand, and then to sit again before giving the treat. Eventually stop giving a treat, giving praise only. With enough practice, the dog will no longer need a primary or conditioned reinforcement to obey a command.