Ask Honey! #9 – How to stop puppy mouthing & Using corrections in training

As some of you may know, we get dozens of emails every week (sometimes several a day!) asking us for dog training & behaviour advice. I used to try and answer every one of these individually but was just getting snowed under and struggling to cope. So I decided to only answer them on Honey’s blog instead, so that others can also benefit and future similar questions can be referred back here.

(I also thought it was only fair for people to make some effort to follow the blog for their answers, as I was getting quite fed-up & upset with the number of people who demanded information very rudely, acted as if I “owed” it to them and expected everything handed to them on a plate and then did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge, never mind thank, my long, detailed responses!)

So ‘Ask Honey!’ is a series of posts where I answer some of the questions that we are sent. I try to do them as often as I can but as they require a lot of time & effort on my part (and I always worry that our regular readers might find too much training stuff boring!) – so unfortunately, they’re not very frequent.

Anyway, here is a question we received last week and since we have received several similar requests for help about mouthing/nipping recently, I thought this would be a good topic to tackle next. As always, I can only speak from my own (limited) experience & research – I know many of you are much more experienced dog-owners than me – so if any of you have anything to add, do please share in the comments – we would really welcome & appreciate any contribution you may have.

~ Hsin-Yi

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Hello Hsin-Yi!
My family and I watch always your videos of Honey and we decided, just because of the videos, that we buy a Great Dane. We saw how lovely and gentle Great Danes are and have one now too. He is a black, 13 weeks old Great Dane Puppy named Pluto.

And we have a few questions:
1. How old needs to be a Great Dane, so he is in his full size? 1 Year or something?
2. Our Puppy bites us (playful bites) and he wont stop.Is it normal or do we something wrong?

Thank you for answering!

Congratulations on your new puppy – Pluto sounds gorgeous and what a great name! Now to answer your questions:

Dog Growth

As I understand it, most dogs reach their maximum height by about 1yr old but continue to “fill out” and grow slowly, until about 2yrs. Many males do not reach their full size until about 3yrs old.

This was certainly what we found with Honey – she grew very rapidly in height in the first year and then slowed down after that, although she did continue to put on muscle. She probably grew another inch or two in her 2nd year and her weight stabilised at around 18 months – 2yrs. I think it is not always easy to tell from puppy sizes what their eventual size will be – when we saw her, Honey was one of the smallest pups in the litter but she has grown up to be 35″ and 70kg (150lbs) which is pretty big for a female Dane. (However, she comes from a ‘big’ family – her brothers make her look dainty! )

Puppy Mouthing/Nipping

First of all, this is VERY normal for a puppy – I would probably worry if your puppy was NOT mouthing you! Puppies use their mouths to explore the world and it is natural for them to try to mouth & chew everything. It is also the way they play with other dogs - so it would be the natural way for them to try and play with you as well. As they get to 4 – 5 months, they will also begin teething so the urge to chew on something becomes very strong.

However, this does not mean that you just have to accept it. Puppy teeth can be very sharp & painful – and it is also important to teach them to be gentle with their mouths, especially on human skin, and to develop “bite inhibition“, ie. to control their bites so that they don’t bite down hard. A dog that does not learn bite inhibition can be quite dangerous as they can hurt you badly with their teeth, even if they are only playing or if they get too excited. Conversely, a dog with very good bite inhibition can mean that you don’t get badly hurt, even if they bite you by mistake (eg. if you step on them when they are sleeping and scare them) – because they have good control over their jaws and can soften their bite as soon as they realise there is no threat. The renowned dog behaviourist, Dr. Ian Dunbar actually believes that teaching big inhibition is one of the key things to making a dog “safe”.

Learning bite inhibition

In the wild, puppies would learn bite inhibition from playing with their littermates: as they mouth and nip each other, if they do it too hard, the other puppy will squeal and stop playing. End of fun. So the first puppy learns that if he wants to continue the game, he has to control the pressure of his teeth and be gentle. If you take your puppy to socialise & play with other puppies from an early age, he will usually not have a problem learning bite inhibition with dogs - but this doesn’t necessarily mean that he will transfer this knowledge to humans.

So we need to teach bite inhibition to the puppy ourselves as well, especially as human skin is much more sensitive than dog fur and needs your dog to be even more gentle. Now, there are 2 different ways of thinking about this:

• a) some believe that you should not allow the puppy to make ANY contact with human skin – ie. as soon as the dog’s teeth touch your skin (or your clothes, any part of your body), you should stop him. You should not allow ANY mouthing at all.
• b) others (like Dr Ian Dunbar) believe that it is actually important to let your puppy mouth you a little bit in the beginning so that you can actually teach them to inhibit the force of their bites. This way, they can actually learn to control the pressure of their jaws. If they never get the chance to practise the different pressures and corresponding results, how can they learn to control it? So in this case, you allow your puppy to mouth you in the beginning but only respond to the harder bites in the beginning, so that your puppy learns the difference between hard and soft bites. Gradually, you start making a fuss, even if the puppy is only using gentle bites…so that the puppy thinks, “Sheesh, these humans are really soft & useless! Can’t use teeth on them at all!”. According to Dr Dunbar, if you follow this schedule, ideally by the time your puppy reaches 4 & half months (before he develops strong jaws & adult teeth), he should not be exerting any pressure anymore when mouthing you.

(Dr Dunbar has written a great article about this on his website: Dog Star Daily - you can check out the article here: http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/teaching-bite-inhibition )

I have to say, when we got Honey – as 1st time dog owners! – we knew very little about training and I had only been told about the first approach. So we were probably a bit too harsh with Honey – every time she put her teeth on us, even gently, we would say sharply, “NO BITE!” – just as we had been advised by other owners (and didn’t even follow with praise when she stopped, which is what I would do now). In Honey’s case, I don’t think it made much difference overall as she has always had a very “soft mouth” and we have never really had an issue with her mouthing or chewing things. But with our next dog, I think I will certainly follow the 2nd approach.

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Ways of stopping nipping/mouthing

Regardless of which approach you choose above, you will want a way to stop your puppy mouthing you at times - whether it is because he is doing it too hard or simply because it is annoying (eg. if you are busy trying to do something important).

Like all things in dog training, there are many different ways to tackle a problem and you have to find one which is suitable to your dog’s temperament and which you are comfortable with. Certain methods use deterrents or ’correction’  which can be controversial nowadays but which I personally don’t have a problem with, as long as it is done “correctly” (see below) and is always balanced by praise & reward for doing the “right” thing. It does require some skill, however, to get the exact right timing and attitude, when using correction, therefore it is best used only if you feel confident & comfortable with it.

I have tried to give an honest, neutral account of each method – as you can see, all have their pros & cons:

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The OW! method - I would recommend you try this first before doing anything else. This is the most popular method and works for most puppies, especially younger ones – and is one of the things we used with Honey, with good success. Essentially, it copies what other puppies usually do. As soon as you feel the puppy’s teeth on you with hard force, give a really loud “OWWWWW!!!!” and jump up and walk away. All play stops. Ignore the puppy for the next 5mins. Then (this is important) go back and re-engage the puppy in play, to give him “another chance” to try again and “get it right” – he can only learn with repetition & practice…if he is gentle this time, make sure you praise LOTS: reward him for being gentle with lots of attention & praise. But if he starts mouthing hard again (or if you’re following Approach (a) above – if he puts teeth on you at all) , repeat the whole “OW!” sequence again. You may need to repeat this a few times but the puppy should start realising that all fun stops when he uses his teeth too hard.

Problems with this method: some puppies/dogs can actually get MORE excited when you make a loud noise and react to them nipping you. Instead of stopping, they just think it’s an even more exciting game and will mouth you even harder and even chase you, trying to nip you, as you get up and walk away, and keep on trying to mouth/nip you even though you’re ignoring them. So unless the fun instantly stops for the puppy, this method won’t be effective – so if your puppy gets more excited when you shout “OW!”, then you’ll need to try something else.

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The FREEZE (Ignore) method – this is again using the principle that “all fun stops when you mouth too hard” – it works because often, puppies are responding to movement when they are mouthing. So even though you may be trying to push them away with your hands or pulling your hands away and yelling at them to stop, all that movement and noise is really exciting to them and eggs them on even more. So this time you just freeze when the puppy starts mouthing you too hard. No talking, no shouting, no eye contact, no attention at all. Become totally boring. The puppy will think, “Hmm…the thing is dead. This is no fun.” and release your hand or whatever. As soon as they let go, you “come to life” and give them lots of praise & attention and start playing again.  Again, repeat this a few times so that the puppy starts to realise that the best way to continue getting fun & attention is to be gentle with their mouths.

Problems with this method: You need a really thick skin!! Most puppies won’t stop mouthing immediately when you freeze therefore you may have a painful few minutes before the puppy loses interest and stops. Also, some dogs just don’t give up and may decide that they’re quite happy to continue chewing on your hand, even though it is not doing anything! I personally don’t like this method because I feel that it ultimately isn’t teaching the puppy that it is not acceptable to chew on human skin – yes, they may still learn eventually through the process of “non-reward” but in the meantime, they will be getting into the habit of mauling human skin, which I just don’t think is a good habit to encourage. Having said that, I do know people who have had good success with this method so it all depends. I think it works better if you have a dog with a very soft mouth.

One situation it DOES work well with (and I would use it for) is if you have a puppy who likes to chase and bite and hang on to trousers. People usually try to keep walking and shake the puppy off, yelling at it and dragging it behind them as it hangs on, having a great time…in this case, a good way to stop this behaviour is to stop walking and freeze as soon as the puppy grabs your trousers and to ignore him totally, whatever he is doing, so he does not get rewarded. Then distract him with a toy. Since he is grabbing your trousers and not your skin in this case, it is slightly easier to ignore and wait it out!

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(The following 2 methods use interruptors/deterrents/corrections which the ‘purely positive’ trainers disapprove of, although these are actually the 2 methods we mostly used when raising Honey for general training/everyday manners )

The Interruptor method – we used this quite a lot with Honey, especially as she got older, and had good success with it. Essentially, you find some way to “interrupt” the problem behaviour and then redirect the dog onto an alternative, appropriate behaviour and give them lots of praise for doing that instead.

So in Honey’s case, we always kept a lot of chew toys lying around the house and whenever she started mouthing us too hard (or chewing on things she shouldn’t) – we would “interrupt” her behaviour with a sharp “NO!” or other loud noise – and then quickly wave a chew toy at her instead and give her lots of praise if she starts playing with/mouthing that instead. We also gave her lots of praise if we happened to see her playing with her chew toys anytime around the house – just to reinforce that behaviour by always rewarding it with attention.

Problems with this method: it doesn’t actually teach your dog to be gentle with their mouths on YOUR skin – it just teaches them to redirect any play/mouthing onto toys instead. So your dog never actually learns ‘bite inhibition’. (This was not an issue for us as Honey always had a very “soft mouth” to begin with but it may be an issue with a puppy that has a “hard bite”) It also relies on you always having a chew toy handy to redirect the dog onto – and assumes that the dog will show interest in the toy, instead of going back for your hand. Also, the ‘purely positive’ trainers will say that it is bad to use interruptors as it can scare the dog – many of them say you shouldn’t even ever say “No” to your dog or introduce anything ‘negative’, for fear of damaging your relationship.

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The Correction/Deterrent (Consequences) method – this is probably the most controversial method, although it is probably the method we used the most with Honey for teaching everyday manners/general training as she was growing up, with great success (BUT -  before using any correction – see the notes below about ‘Problems with this method’). It is very similar to the Interruptor method – it is really a varation of the Interruptor method - except that you are not redirecting the dog onto something else after you interrupt him but simply praising him for stopping the inapproproate behaviour.

In this case, you give the dog a verbal correction first, as a warning, to try and “interrupt” their behaviour – if they listen to the warning and stop the inappropriate behaviour, LOTS of praise – but if they still don’t listen to the “warning”, you follow your verbal correction with something that the dog doesn’t like – this way the dog learns that if he doesn’t stop when he hears the verbal correction, something “yucky” will happen to him. It is essentially teaching the dog consequences of his actions: if he chooses Action A, something nice happens (reward), if he chooses Action B, something bad happens (correction) – it’s his choice.

For example, with Honey, she really hates water and was easily deterred by even a gentle spritz from the ironing spray bottle. So if she was doing something “naughty” that she shouldn’t, we would give her a verbal correction first, “Honey – NO!” – if she stopped (even for a second!), we would immediately praise her, “Good girl, Honey!” but if she continued, we would repeat the verbal correction, “NO!” followed immediately by a spritz from the spray bottle. It is all done very quickly and unemotionally. The idea is not to intimidate or scare the dog or “make him pay” – but simply to show him, “Uh-oh! Bad choice! Now this yucky thing happens!”.  As soon as Honey stopped the naughty behaviour, she was instantly given praise again, so her confidence was restored and she can see that “good” behaviour comes with praise, “naughty” behaviour comes with yucky stuff…which would you choose?

Then you give the dog a chance to make the choice again and if your deterrent/correction was effective, the dog will think twice before making the “bad” choice again. So with Honey, we would have a little break and then come back to the same situation and let her make the choice again. If she starts doing the “naughty” thing again, she will get the verbal correction first again – and if she stops herself this time, she gets LOTS of praise & rewards. If she doesn’t even try to do the naughty thing at all but makes the “good” choice from the beginning, then again, LOTS of praise & reward.

If we have done things correctly, within a couple of repetitions, Honey should not be choosing the “naughty” behavi0ur anymore. Also, she should be stopped by a verbal correction alone, in future, without the need to be backed up by ‘yucky’ stuff.

Problems with this method - using correction is very tricky and there are several points which you must keep in mind – if you fail on any of these points, then yes, you can end up frightening your dog or damaging your relationship. It is for these reasons that people warn you against using correction – it can be very effective but it is very easy to get wrong and cause more problems:

1) The key with using deterrents/corrections is that they should be very effective immediately and you shouldn’t have to use them more than a few times to produce a change in behaviour. If you have to keep on “correcting” the dog, then it’s not working, you’re doing it wrong and you have to try something else.

2) It can be very difficult to find the right type and level of correction (‘yucky’ stuff) for each dog. Some dogs are very sensitive and even a loud “NO!” can turn them into a quivering wreck. Others are tough as old boots and will ignore or override a lot of things before it deters them. Also, remember that “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” – therefore, what one dog finds horrifying, another may think is wonderful! I remember reading a heated forum discussion where ‘purely positive’ trainers claimed that spraying a dog with water was “cruel” and would cause irreversible psychological damage - well, I guess they’d never met all the Labs who couldn’t think of anything better than being sprayed with water! (but that still didn’t make it a good correction because it wasn’t an effective deterrent!)

However, it is true that you can seriously frighten your dog if you use the wrong type of correction or too strong a level of correction – therefore, there is always a risk when you choose this method. For example, when Honey was a puppy, it was fashionable to use a “rattle can” as a way to startle a puppy and interrupt or correct their naughty behaviour. The only problem with this is that some dogs are very noise sensitive and suddenly startling them with a loud noise can cause them to develop noise phobias! I admit, we used the “rattle can” with Honey several times – with great success – but then she is a very stable, confident dog with no noise phobia issues so we were lucky – it might have been different if she was a more insecure, sensitive dog.

So yes, until you work out what kind & level of correction is suitable for your dog, there is a risk that you could scare them and cause more behavioural problems. However, I do feel it is a matter of degree and common sense – for example, I certainly don’t approve of physically beating your dog but at the same time, I also don’t agree with the other extreme of the ‘purely positive’ trainers who claim that you shouldn’t even say “No!” to your dog or give any kind of verbal discipline, otherwise you might damage your relationship. To me, that’s like being afraid to ever say “No” to your partner, for fear that they might not love you anymore. I always think that if your relationship is that easily damaged, then you don’t have much of a bond with your dog in the first place.

3) You must ALWAYS give a “verbal warning” first when using this method because you want to teach the dog to “self-correct” when they hear the warning – so that in the future, you won’t have to rely on using the correction but just the verbal warning. This is what we have done with Honey – when she was young, we used verbal correction coupled with some very effective “yucky” things that she didn’t like – and she quickly learnt that if she didn’t listen to the verbal warning, there would be “bad consequences” – gradually, over time, we no longer had to back up the verbal warning with anything “yucky” – the verbal warning (or what we call, “Telling-Off”) was enough. Now, we rarely ever have to do more than give a sharp “NO!” (or in really serious cases, she gets the “VERY BAD GIRL!!”) - for Honey to stop any behaviour.

4) Corrections MUST always be balanced by praise & reward for stopping the ‘naughty’ behaviour or for doing the alternative, appropriate behaviour. A lot of people think that correction just means yelling at and punishing the dog for doing the wrong thing – but a dog will never learn this way. They have to also be praised & rewarded for doing the right thing, in order to understand and make the “right” choice next time.

I see this a lot in Obedience clubs using the old-fashioned, traditional methods and they’re just yanking and correcting the dog on the leash every time he strays from the Heel position…but they never actually praise or reward him when he IS walking in the correct position. How can he ever learn then, if he is just punished for doing the ‘wrong’ thing but never shown how to do the ‘right’ thing and be rewarded for that instead? I have and do use leash corrections on Honey but only in extreme cases, AFTER I have first shown her the right way to walk and rewarded her lots for doing that, so she knows what is the “right” choice – and then if she doesn’t do it and doesn’t heed my verbal warning (in this case, “Heel”), only then will she get a correction, which is instantly balanced by praise as soon as she is back walking in the right way. The point is you are trying to use correction as little as possible and instead trying to encourage the dog to do the ‘right’ behaviour through praise & reward alone – and only use correction as a last resort, AFTER you know the dog already knows what to do and is just being wilfully naughty.

5) Corrections must be unemotional. Most people use correction when they are angry with the dog and want to “make him pay” for being naughty – this is the wrong attitude to have. You should never correct your dog through anger. Corrections should simply be a consequence of an action – something negative that happens because the dog made the ‘wrong’ choice – which will deter him from making that choice again (eg. if the dog goes too close to the fire, his nose gets burnt – he learns the ‘negative’ consequence of his actions and next time, he won’t go so close) As soon as it’s over, you move on.

Dogs use corrections with each other all the time – watch any bitch with her pups or even adult dog with a juvenile and you will see them using corrections to teach appropriate behaviour. However, if you watch them, it is very swift and sudden – and then it’s all over and everyone has forgotten about it. They don’t sulk or bear grudges or “make them suffer” for being bad. It’s simply – “Growl” (don’t do that)…”GROWL!” (stop that – I’m warning you)…NIP! (correction)…Pause (puppy thinks about it and realises that choice/action brought bad consequences)…OK, Back to Playing!

So the pup realises that he’s not in trouble, just that that particular action is not a good thing to do. So similarly, when you use correction with your dog, you have to make sure that your dog understands that you’re not mad at him – that you still love him – but that just that particular action will bring negative consequences if he chooses to do it. The only way you can ensure this is by making corrections unemotional, making sure you balance it with praise for the right behaviour (Pt No. 4 above) and making sure that you have a very strong, foundation bond with your dog (Pt No. 7 below).

6) You must get the timing exactly right when using corrections. This is very, very important – and one of the reasons that people often mess up when they use corrections. Not only do you have to make sure that you adminster the correction at exactly the moment that the dog is doing the ‘wrong’ behaviour (sometimes very hard to see!) – but you must also immediately follow with praise as soon as the dog stops the behaviour, even for a second. Again, sometimes very hard to see and time correctly. I see a lot of people correct the dog too late or miss praising/rewarding the dog when he has stopped the inappropriate behaviour.

7) You should never use corrections unless you already have a very strong, positive, foundation bond with your dog. This goes back to Point No. 2 about corrections damaging the relationship with your dog. Yes, this can happen but is less likely if you also spend a lot of quality time with your dog at other times, building up a strong bond and foundation to your relationship – so that it can withstand a bit of “negativity”, if you like, from time to time.

Having a strong bond will also make a big difference to how effective your corrections are and how little you will have to use – and how much your dog responds to verbal corrections or “Telling-Off”. These will only work if your dog actually cares that you are displeased with him. If your dog doesn’t care, you could be yelling at him until you’re blue in the face and it won’t make any difference. And the only way your dog will care about your approval is if you take time to build a strong bond with him in the first place - spend quality time doing fun things with your dog, learning things together, working as a team, showing your leadership - so that you build up a very strong bond with him and he actually respects you and values your approval. Then, in this case, not only will your relationship withstand a bit of “discipline” but your dog will also be much more sensitive to your displeasure or disapproval and will want much more to try and please you.

It’s like at school when you had a favourite teacher that you really looked up to and respected and wanted to please – and you would be mortified if the teacher just said, “I’m really disappointed in you.” – because you really care what they think of you. Whereas another teacher could put you in Detention for a week and give you all sorts of punishments and you wouldn’t care much.

I find with Honey that my displeasure alone is a very strong deterrent for her. I just have to raise my voice and put on a “hard” tone and it is enough of a “punishment” for her. It is not because she is a sensitive, “soft” dog – I’ve seen her being quite dominant and wilful with other people and not really caring what they do to correct her - but with me, she really cares. I think a large part of this is because I have spent a lot of time building up a very strong relationship with her and this bond is very important to her. I am also very consistent in my behaviour towards her – I always use a soft, sweet “happy” voice when talking to her and especially when praising her - and only use a loud, hard tone for specific verbal corrections, so that she really notices the difference. If you just yell at your dog all the time, they’ll get used to it and ignore you.

Of course the ‘purely positive’ trainers would argue that Honey listens to me because she is “scared” of me…which may be true but I don’t think a bit of ‘healthy fear’ from my dog is a bad thing! Certainly, when I was a child, I had a very healthy fear of my strict parents and their ‘discipline’ but it hasn’t damaged my relationship with them at all. If anything, I have grown up really respecting them and wanting to please them, and have a great, loving relationship with them. I do notice interestingly that with all our pets, I am always the main “disciplinarian” in the family (yes, including the cats! They have to follow rules too!) and yet the animals often opt for my company over Paul’s, despite him always being much softer & nicer to them. Honey always turns to me when she is insecure and would rather be with me than anyone else (she gets worried if I lag behind on walks and stops to let me catch up and gets very anxious if I leave her with Paul and walk off) – despite me probably being the toughest, strictest, most demanding human to be around!

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As you can see from all the above points, using corrections is very complicated and requires a certain amount of skill to get right – plus a stronger foundation bond with your dog, which you need to build through spending lots of quality time together – so it is really not a “quick fix” solution and I would only advise using it as a last resort when all other methods have failed and ideally, if you have someone experienced in using corrections to demonstrate and guide you.

United we stand, Divided we fall

I know this is not the ‘PC’ thing to say nowadays (and I’ll probably be lynched for even daring to write about using corrections! ) but I personally do find that in many cases, using a combination of rewards & appropriate correction works best, especially for everyday manners & general behavioural problems. I don’t like the way dog training has become like fundamentalist religions nowadays and if you’re not exclusively in one camp or another, you’re branded some kind of traitor and made to feel terribly ashamed. Personally, I use a range of methods from all camps, depending on the situation, and combine them to the best effect.

I have seen many people struggle with using “positive only” methods for ages, making very little progress, while the problem behaviour becomes an ingrained bad habit in the dog and causes a great deal of stress, in many cases limiting the dog’s freedom & quality of life…when a well-timed and appropriate correction may have resolved the problem early on and allowed them to move on.  I do believe that having both a reward (with Action A) and a deterrent/correction (with Action B) makes it easier for the dog to make the “right” choice. This is especially true when the problem behaviour is so self-rewarding (eg. lunging) that the dog won’t care if he is getting a “non-reward” from you for doing it (and he’ll also ignore your treats as you try to lure him into doing the right behaviour), and sometimes the dog is so large & powerful that simply ignoring the behaviour is not an option…in such cases, having a deterrent or correction that will “interrupt” the dog’s behaviour so that you have a chance to get through to him (and redirect him onto the right behaviour) can be very helpful.

This happened to us with Honey and her pulling/lunging problems on leash when she saw other dogs - we tried every single “positive only” method (ignoring her, distracting with treats, standing still, head halter, clicker, eye contact, alternative command, etc, etc ) but were getting nowhere, whilst she was becoming a danger to herself & others and taking her out was becoming so stressful that we were seriously considering rehoming her (yes, it was that bad. You could possibly hold on to and ignore a lunging small terrier – you simply cannot with a 70kg Great Dane). Then we found a great trainer in Auckland who showed us how to combine rewards & correction to help the dog learn to make the ‘right’ choice – and with some hard work and a lot of practice – Honey’s lunging problem was resolved in a few months. As you can see, she now walks calmly and politely past all distractions and is a pleasure to take anywhere – but is still a happy, confident dog and is not “damaged” or had her “spirit broken” or anything like that.

It meant that I could move on and actually DO things with Honey, take her places, do fun things, give her better quality of life. I’m sure that if I persisted with the “positive only” methods, I may have eventually achieved some improvement but it could have taken years and in the meantime, I had to manage a dog that weighed 20kg more than me and could easily drag me off my feet, in a hostile environment where people were already quite ‘anti-big dogs’ and expected her to be under total control. Also, one of the negatives of the “positive only” methods is that they do work but often take a looooong time to achieve results – and with a giant breed that has a very short lifespan already, I didn’t want to waste half of Honey’s life just struggling to walk 10 metres down the street. In her case, life really is too short.

(I know of one ‘purely positive’ trainer who has been working on his lunging dog problem for nearly 2yrs now: his method of dealing with it is to lure her away with treats every time she lunges and then after walking away and rewarding the dog for eye contact, he brings her back again. So far, there has been some progress in that the dog is slightly less reactive and can cope with other dogs coming a bit closer but any more than 2 metres and she can suddenly explode again. He is still never relaxed when out with her and still cannot take her to many places or into many situations. To me, this is just not good enough after 2yrs of hard work and I would feel that it is a terrible waste of my dog’s short life, when we could have resolved the problem and moved on – and spent the 2yrs doing other more worthwhile things.)

Yes, it would have been nice if we could have achieved it all through “purely positive”, rewards-only methods but I don’t feel bad for using a bit of correction if it’s meant that Honey has had a better life overall. Shorter pain for longer gain. All the interesting places she has been to and fun activities she has taken part in, plus all the things she has achieved - Obedience, Agility, Therapy Work, Rally-O, Dancing – we could not have done any of this if I had not overcome that lunging problem and been able to simply walk her. So instead of wasting years struggling with a basic thing, just to prove that we can do it “purely positively”, we’ve moved on and spent her life doing other fun things. In our case, I feel it has been worth it. (Incidentally, I never use correction when training for dog sports & things like tricks – I feel that those are things done for human vanity and trivial fun amd don’t have the same expectations as everyday manners that involve the dog’s safety and others around him – so for tricks, dancing & other dog sports, I always only use clicker & other rewards-based methods).

I’m certainly not saying that correction methods are better than reward-based ones – not at all – the two should work in conjunction with each other. And I would always recommend correction as a last resort and ideally, learnt under supervised guidance from an experienced trainer. But I just think that it is a shame how nowadays, you are always being forced to choose one or the other and made to feel guilty & ashamed if you’re not exclusively a certain “type” of trainer. God forbid if you should want to combine things, use a little bit of this as well as a bit of that!

I believe in reward-based methods and primarily use positive reinforcement in my training but I’m happy to use correction & discipline in certain situations, provided it is done “correctly”. Using this combination has not resulted in Honey becoming a “damaged dog” or ruining our bond or limited her ability to do things – on the contrary, she has probably achieved more than many other similar dogs and anyone can see that she has a very rich, full life and is a happy, confident, stable dog who enjoys a strong bond with me and a very good quality of life. Of course, it might have been different if I had another dog with a different personality. Who knows? But for us, this is a ‘happy combination’.