Any trainer worth their salt uses a variety of tools, Koehler certainly had some good ones, and some awful ones. The Positive methods also offer some great training tools, but many people interpet them poorly and resort to bribery which does not work.
Any normally intelligent person can take what works from both sides of the coin. I teach with positive methods, certainly. I also correct a dog who is in error, when that dog knows better.
Gosh I can choose to use both. I don't want to teach using pain. I do want to PROOF a dog with whatever teaches that dog not to blow me off.
There are several stages to "training."
The dog or puppy must learn to Move into Position. I can teach a puppy or dog to move into position and teach the puppy or dog the WORD for that position without any correction at all.
That's the teaching stage.
Training has to do with getting enough successful repetitions that the dog generalizes the behavior (will do it 90% of the time, no matter where it is done).
Proofing is teaching that same dog who is now trained that they MUST do it when I ask for it.
That I use a play reward, a life reward or a food reward to get those first two stages means I usually have to do very little in the way of proofing the dog.
Most competitive Schutzhund trainers that I work with now use positive methods to start a dog. It results in far less burn out and refusal in adult dogs.
Most agility trainers use positive methods because it creates a faster thinking, confident dog.
Do they never correct a dog? That would be silly.
They're getting successful competition results and very social, easy to handle dogs without using pain/force to teach or train. Cooperative training fosters confidence and speed, that's why they use it. Most of them were coersive trainers in the beginning - we all were. That was the only way to do it.
Until we learned about the successes of co-operative training. The dog is working for what the dog wants. If the dog is successful the dog gets what it worked for.
The exact same way we learn. If the dog isn't successful, the dog doesn't get what it wanted. Believe me to a good rag or ball dog, that's a powerfully unhappy thing. It motivates the dog to try again.
If I don't get what I want because I got C's instead of A's, I'm gonna work harder. So does a dog. Most of them have some, one or more, things that they DO want more than breathing.
I use that to get the dog to pay attention, to desire and to cooperate with training. I reward good work. I reward successively faster and better work.
Damn straight I will correct a wrong, trained dog. But I'm not doing that as part of teaching. It doesn't have a place in learning.
I am a human being, capable of independent thought and I have studied most of the methods offered, currently and in the past and I CHOOSE to use parts of both.
I think cooperative motivation has a huge place in learning.
I think LIFE has consequences and dogs are completely capable of learning that consequences SUCK.
Dogs left to their own devices play games with rules, have rules of conduct, and if you blow it, and you know better - dogs deal out often painful consequences.
Dogs also teach other dogs and puppies with patience and as little pain or fear as possible.
In a pack the adult dogs make the decisions, puppies do not greet strangers first, are not responsible for decisions about safety.
While puppies, we have the responsibility of that same leadership, to protect them, to TEACH them how they should behave, to lead and train before they're thrust into the spotlight.
It is also our place to correct older juvenilles and adult dogs in the way they should go.
Oddly I find that I can use many of the tools offered by all sides of the training coin.
And scientifically, there are FOUR sides to it.
Punishment
Avoiding Punishment
Reward
Withheld Reward
Not two choices - four.
Koehler uses two, Avoiding punishment and punishment.
Strictly positive people use two, Reward and withheld reward.
I like FOUR, four gives me lots of choices.
Life contains all four choices for people and dogs and I prefer to use all possible tools if necessary.
Training is not black and white. You can figure out what works for each dog, in whatever combination and no one is stuck with just two sides of the coin.
I prefer to teach before I correct. That's just my thing, I find if I stick with teaching and training before I correct, that I have to do very little correction in the end.
Though I do more thinking and planning than I did when force was the first option and the last.
I've seen and worked with all manner of trainers who combine both, or work with either side over the last 30 years. People who train dogs for the military, people who train SAR, people who train police and Schh. dogs, people who train service dogs.
The best combine things to their own liking and understanding, looking at new methods and using what works for them and THEIR dogs.
Methods are just tool chests belonging to a bunch of other people. I peek around their chests and take what makes sense to me. But I couldn't NOT look. I might miss some amazing new piece of knowledge. Something that might be dead useful. So I read, and go to seminars, and take classes.
I try to up my understanding of what is working for others and why.
It's a lot easier to decide I know it all, there's nothing left to learn. It's just not true.
I'd rather hone my skills, increase cooperation, get better at getting what I want without force. Find ways to communicate better.
Find ways to use the brain I was given. I didn't have to beat or yank my daughter to get her to sit in church. I don't have to do it to the dog either.
Just my take on it.
As to Cesare... after that lawsuit I wanted nothing to do with his ideas that include hanging a dog on a treadmill, til passes out then dies later.
Anyone who espouses hanging a dog til it passes out is not okay by me. Ever.
