Our Training Philosophy

Our training philosophy relies heavily on the principles of positive reinforcement, a system which utilizes rewards (food, praise and other) to bring about permanent changes in behavior. Unlike systems which rely heavily on punishment, our training not only imparts the necessary skills, but also builds the dog's confidence, strengthens the dog's bond with its owner, and maintains a positive attitude toward learning: just like children who enjoy school, dogs who like their "work" tend to excel.

Years ago, virtually everyone trained dogs by the "yank and jerk" method. The theory was that the dog would learn to avoid all behaviors that would be punished, resulting in a well-trained, compliant animal that would not challenge the pack leader.

This "alpha" philosophy had both a historical and empirical foundation and, for many owners, was reasonably successful in achieving a more manageable pet.For many dogs, however, this approach led to some serious consequences. Dogs trained by primarily compulsive methods often tend to become timid and submissive with their owners, fail to develop confidence, become mistrusting, and most significant, may learn to fight back. This "fighting back" can lead to more serious aggression directed toward the owner, or become generalized as a style (strategy) in resolving stress-related encounters with other people or dogs.

Enter operant conditioning. Pioneered by Dr. B. F. Skinner in the 1930's, its value as a training approach both in and out of the laboratory became increasingly evident over the next four decades. Creating a foundation for applying principles of learning to both humans and animals, operant conditioning explained how to use positive reinforcement, rather than punishment, to both reward desirable behavior and maintain a positive attitude in the subject. The sequence of stimulus > response > reward was embraced by many, most notably marine mammal trainers, for which "punishment" training was a dead end.

THE COMMON SCENTS SYSTEM

With over 30 years in the business of behavior modification, we at Common Scents understand the advantages and disadvantages of both positive and negative reinforcement training, and have developed a training philosophy which incorporates elements of both.  Based on the principle of establishing authority (benevolent leadership) rather than dominance (intimidation), we first build a positive foundation for desirable behavior through a system of rewards.  Next, we demonstrate how to maintain desirable behavior, while at the same time preventing the dog from becoming dependent on the reward.   Success is achieved by first demanding a specific level of performance for a reward ("raising the bar"), and then advancing to reinforcement on a random basis, where the expectation of a reward is ever present, even though the reward may not be.

This completes the picture for the dog, who now learns to respond both when it wants to, and when it has to.  The end product is a well-rounded pet that is confident, but also accepts the owner's authority without the attendant problems that both extremes of positive and negative enforcement training may create.

Want to know more?  Please feel free to call us!

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior also has more information about the  benefits of positive reinforcement training.

AVSAB Position Statement

*For ease of understanding, we have stretched the definition of some of the terms associated with operant conditioning and substituted more commonly used and understood words.

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