How to Speak “Trainer,” and Choosing the Best Trainer for Your Dog

Julie Jacobus, ABCMT, CPDT, OSCT

Training by Julie and Associates, LLC

There are many trainers out there, and choosing the best one for your dog and your family can be difficult.  Training is an investment in you and your dog’s relationship, and essential, especially if you have a family.  The main divisions of training include positive reinforcement, traditional, and balanced trainers.

Positive reinforcement trainers use a reward based system to emphasize when your dog is doing well by first rewarding with a primary reinforcer—like food or treats—to teach your dog commands and good manners, then rewarding with praise to fade the use of treats.  Corrections used in training are to be as minimally aversive to dogs as possible, and generally involve removing something the dog likes to reduce unwanted behavior, such as walking away from a dog that is jumping on you.  This is referred to as negative punishment; you are removing something to decrease the behavior.  For example, you might teach your dog that jumping does not get your attention, and in fact makes you go away.  Then you would reward a behavior you like, say petting the dog when he is sitting politely.

Clicker training is a positive reinforcement style of training that involves using a clicker to capture the behavior you want.  An example is if you are trying to teach your dog to sit, when your dog’s back end touches the ground to sit, you click and reward.  Clickers are not intended just to get your dog’s attention, and sometimes your timing is critical.  Clickers can accelerate learning new behaviors, but you have to become proficient with the clicker and learn the training style.  Other positive trainers simply use a reward marker word, like “yes” or “good.”

Traditional training involves a correction based system, where you correct a dog when they are doing wrong.  Adding an aversive to reduce a behavior is called positive punishment.  Trainers using this system often use devices like choke chains, prong collars, or remote shock collars.  If your dogs pull on the leash, you would administer a correction by giving a sharp yank on the choke chain.  The prong collar was not designed to be an anti-pull device, it was originally intended to be used as you would use a choke chain, but is limited slip, so it will not continually tighten as a choke chain might.  Generally traditional trainers use rewards few and far between.  If corrections are not administered at the critical moment, you may inadvertently teach your dog something you did not intend.  If your dog receives a correction when pulling towards another dog, they may think that pulling towards dogs make corrections happen, and build a negative association.

Remote shock collar trainers are becoming increasingly popular.  Instead of administering corrections via a leash, you depress the button on the remote to send a static shock to your dog’s neck.  While the degree of shock has evolved to a wide range, it is still aversive.  Terminology used to describe the shock and shock collar training includes stims, taps, and e-touch.

Balanced trainers generally combine positive reinforcement techniques with traditional correction based training.  They may use food rewards coupled with corrections.

How do you choose a trainer?  When choosing a trainer, feel free to ask as many questions as you like.  If a training technique makes you feel uncomfortable, keep looking.  Ask not just how long a trainer has been training, but how they learned to train.  Working with animals is good, but you need to know how long have they been a professional trainer.  Other questions include Are they a full-time, career trainer and are they pursuing continuing educational opportunities?

Our knowledge of training and dog behavior is continually evolving.  Find out if they are certified through or members of professional organizations?  Then, check out the organizations’ mission statements to ensure they are what you are looking for.  If the trainer specializes in a behavior that you need help fixing, find out about their background, and feel free to ask for references.

The more you learn about training, the better educated you can be to make the best decision for you and your dog, and set your relationship up for success in the future.

Happy training!