Understanding and Training Dogs: A New Perspective

Learning Styles: Dogs vs Humans

Alethia Knutson

Dogs are man's best friend, right? So why do we have such a hard time understanding and training them? You’re supposed to know your best friend. Well, according to Victoria Stilwell (Dog Theorist who believes in positive reinforcement to train) we don’t understand them because we are categorizing them the wrong way. I believe that she has found the key to successfully training dogs. “Dogs are not on a quest for world domination. They are not socialized wolves who are constantly striving to be ‘top dog’ over us, and they are not hard-wired to try and control every situation.” And to help people understand their dogs better, she has a few tricks up her sleeve that she wants every dog owner to know.

After reading Victoria’s article “The Truth About Dominance”, and many others from her website, I can see why she has had so much success in the dog training world.

She has studied other dog theorists and has in turn become one herself. Dominance over a dog is not done by force. “Science has shown us that forced submission is not at all representative of how animals, including dogs, establish healthy functional relationships between themselves or us.” She says that training a dog should never include punishment, intimidation, or fear. Your dog should not be scared into following directions, but encouraged by kindness and love.

Victoria has five main ways of successfully training a dog. She also writes in her blog that she has more, but that these are the main ones that she uses. Proven to all work incredibly, her list of training methods:

Lure and reward training - “This type of training simply involves using a food reward to guide the dog into the desired position or behavior. If your dog is not motivated by food you can use toys instead.” She explains that this is fun and easy for both

participants.
Clicker training - “A clicker is a small hand-held device that gives a 'click' sound when pressed. Clicker training is a method that uses a unique sound, a click, to tell a dog that it has done something right, the clicker is pressed and the click sound is immediately followed by a reward.” Clicker training has become popular in positive dog training.
Shaping - “Shaping is the process by which you can gradually teach your dog a new action or behavior by rewarding him during each step of the process while learning that behavior. In this way, you can break up a potentially complicated action into smaller parts that your dog will learn and understand more quickly.” This method works best when training for harder, non-natural behaviors.
Catching behavior - “When training your dog, there are a number of easy ways you can get them to perform the desired behavior. One of the easiest force-free ways to teach your dog a behavior is by 'catching' them in the act of the behavior.The concept of catching a behavior is that you identify and reward behaviors or actions that your dog performs without a cue from you or anyone else, thus making it more likely that the dog will repeat that behavior or action again.This method works wonderfully for basic cues like 'sit' and 'down,' because your dog naturally performs these behaviors on their own.” Easiest to use this method is at the beginning of their training.
Choice training - “Choice training involves catching actions and behaviors that you like in your dog and marking them with rewards your dog finds motivating. These actions and behaviors can then become your dog’s ‘default’ behaviors that he or she can choose to use in certain situations.” It’s easy to create a habit that you enjoy, so if you instill a positive reaction to its behavior, you would naturally want to do it more often.
With Victoria’s overall theme being “Kindness is Powerful”, you can see how she displays it so well and is a follower of her own rules. No matter what type of instruction, she uses, it never includes negativity or punishments. She only focuses on the favorable actions, which for her and thousands of others has made the opposing disappear.So training a dog sounds easy, but what if we could use some of these principles to train and teach humans.

There are three main ways that people learn. Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic.
Auditory - “Retains information through hearing and speaking. Often prefers to be told how to do things and then summarizes the main points out loud to help with memorization. Notices different aspects of speaking. Often has talents in music and may concentrate better with soft music playing in the background.”
Visual - “Uses visual objects such as graphs, charts, pictures, and seeing information. Can read body language well and has a good perception of aesthetics. Able to memorize and recall various information. Tends to remember things that are written down. Learns better in lectures by watching them.”
Kinesthetic - “Likes to use the hands-on approach to learn new material. Is generally good in math and science. Would rather demonstrate how to do something rather than verbally explain it. Usually prefers group work more than others.”
If we know the characteristics of people with different learning styles, then why don’t we try to combine Victoria’s theory with this knowledge? I would like to see us implement “Positively” in our daily teachings.
From the day we are born we are learning new content, so if we teach with compassion and kindness then everyone in the world would change the way they learn. My theory is that people would start dealing with problems in a positive manner without fear, punishments, or intimidation. Humans would automatically view life, learning, and relationships in a more positive light. If someone was taught from birth to only focus on the right in life then there would be very little room to dwell on the wrong. Though it’s good to see what you have done wrong and receive constructive criticism, it is not okay to view only that side of things. By focusing on the correct things people would naturally be more happy and better at dealing with conflicts throughout their lives.

As most people know, not everyone learns the same, but by finding the right learning style everyone can be successful in learning. So what if dogs are the same way? Victoria has pointed out many ways of learning because some ways work better for different dogs. With that in mind, I would like to blur the lines and see how well it would work to apply “Positively” to a school's’ guidance system. Instead of punishing the “bad” students for their naughty behavior, we could encourage them and praise them when they do good. Thinking about it, this plan would probably have to be influenced from the beginning of a child's learning career. Think of it this way. A school with no punishment system because all kids have been trained to react in a positive manner out of habit. Now wouldn’t that be something?!

Victoria and many others have seen the effects this training has on dogs and now we can test it on humans. I truly believe that positive reinforcement could change the way that kids learn throughout school and the rest of their lives. I don’t see why anyone would be opposed to trying “no-punishment schooling”. I mean, who doesn’t want to feel comfortable in the environment that they spend a large amount of their life in. This is the exact thing that 7Rivers is searching for and I believe it could work.