Why Don't More People Use Positive Reinforcement to Train Dogs?
Everyone who has a dog needs to teach them how to behave. But why do many people still use methods that have risks for animal welfare? Photo: Corey Terrill/Shutterstock A new paper by myself (Zazie Todd) looks at the barriers to the adoption of humane dog training methods by ordinary people. To understand how people make decisions about dog training, we need to understand people’s attitudes to different methods and what influences them, as well as people’s knowledge and technical ability in using those methods. Humane dog training methods use positive reinforcement and negative punishment. They are also known as reward-based methods, positive reinforcement, or force free methods, and they basically involve giving or withholding rewards contingent on the dog’s behaviour. There are many reasons to use humane methods rather than aversive ones (which, technically speaking, are positive punishment and negative reinforcement ). The use of reward-based dog training methods is...