By Dr Sophia Yin
Virtually everyone who started as a dog trainer over 15-20 years ago started out using traditional dog training techniques: similar to those used by Cesar Millan (National Geographic’s The Dog Whisperer). This is how most dogs were trained back then. As a result we have first hand experience as to why and when such punishment-based techniques might work, the pitfalls, and why and when other techniques work better.
Traditional training techniques are based on the idea that we must become the dominant leader and rule our pets the way a wolf would rule a pack. That is, they assume most misbehavior in dogs is due to the dog is trying to be dominant and then they employ techniques that they think a wolf (since dogs are seen as having a social structure similar to wolves) would perform in a wolf pack. In order to evaluate whether this reasoning is valid, we must first understand what dominance is.
Read the rest of Dr Yin's essay here:
http://askdryin.com/dominance.php
Traditional training techniques are based on the idea that we must become the dominant leader and rule our pets the way a wolf would rule a pack. That is, they assume most misbehavior in dogs is due to the dog is trying to be dominant and then they employ techniques that they think a wolf (since dogs are seen as having a social structure similar to wolves) would perform in a wolf pack. In order to evaluate whether this reasoning is valid, we must first understand what dominance is.
Read the rest of Dr Yin's essay here:
http://askdryin.com/dominance.php
