Ocean Dreamer

You may know that the dog training community is currently divided into two main factions: “traditional” trainers who follow what is known as pack theory and positive or clicker trainers whose methods are based on animal learning theory. I am proud to fall into the second group, though I’ll leave the critiques of pack theory to another day. (If you’d like to learn more, check out this article on the problems with dominance (pack) theory and this article on Cesar Millan’s methods.)

A traditional trainer recently joined one of my clicker lists and has been advocating for pack theory. (You’d think she would have chosen a more likely place to advocate for her beliefs than an email list of devoted clicker trainers, but no, she chose us.) What stands out to me most from reading her posts, though, is just how emotionally draining it must be to be so intent on being alpha to your dogs all the time. I can’t imagine spending every moment of every interaction with my dogs focused intently on insuring that I was demonstrating my dominance over them. Seriously, why do that when there are so many other, happier, more emotionally healthy ways to interact with your dogs, where you actually get to enjoy your dogs’ time? Forget not wanting to hurt your dogs. Forget not wanting to damage your relationship with them. Forget not wanting to potentially put yourself at risk of injury by forcing a dog into a frightening position. If for no other reason than a purely self-serving one, be a positive trainer so you can enjoy stress-free time with your dogs.

Happily, though, a trainer friend used my lovely Cassie as an example of the effectiveness of positive training. We’re famous. It was quite a pleasant surprise to read her post and realize she was talking about Miss Cass!

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