ABC’s Approach to Dog Training

Positive Reinforcement Dog Training

When it comes to dog training, professional dog trainers have many different philosophies and utilize various dog training techniques. If you’re looking into a dog training career, you’ll want to know the differences between these philosophies in order to select a school that offers the program you’re most comfortable with. Below is Animal Behavior College’s dog training philosophy and techniques.

Relationship Building Foundation

One of the first lessons our dog training school teaches our students is how to build a close relationship with dogs. We believe this can be accomplished through constant positive interaction with dogs; thereby creating a healthy foundation on which even the most difficult challenges can be easily solved. We also found that once a proper dog and human relationship is established, dogs are more likely to learn faster and less likely to display unwanted behaviors.

Behavior Shaping

Once students have established healthy relationships with their dogs, they’re ready to learn animal training techniques. These include: luring, shaping, capturing and molding, all of which focus on positive reinforcement dog training.

For example, lure training involves using a desirable object, such as a toy or treat, to teach dogs their cues. Likewise, the shaping method also focuses on positive reinforcement by teaching behaviors in small steps and rewarding each step along the way until the dog has learned the entire behavior.

Operant Conditioning Principles

ABC also trains dogs through operant conditioning. This is a process of changing dog behavior by rewarding or penalizing a dog each time an action is performed until the dog associates the action with pleasure or displeasure.

There are four components used in this dog training philosophy: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment. While our focus is on positive reinforcement dog training techniques, we also believe that a comprehensive education is vital to your animal career, which means that we include an education on aversive techniques as well.

If you want to learn more about our dog training course, contact us at 800-795-3294.