Training Philosophy

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his
leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be
worthy of such devotion."
                                                         - Unknown

Our training philosophy is simple: a well-behaved dog is a cherished
member of the family. By some estimates, only 1/3 of dogs live out their
lives in their original home and as many as 70% of dogs surrendered to
animal shelters are there because of behavior problems. Sadly, many of
these behaviors aren't problems for the dog, they are simply part of being a
dog.

It is our goal at Pawsitive Results to improve the canine-human bond
through understanding, clear communication, and dog-friendly training.
When you learn how to read and understand your dog's body language, you can begin to break down
the communication barrier. It's our hope that you will grow to have a deeper understanding of your
dog and what is important in her world.

We use a gentle coaching method to teach YOU how to train your dog. During the training sessions
we will demonstrate all training exercises thoroughly, but it is ultimately you, the owner, that will be
training your dog. As a member of the International Association of Animal Behavior
Consultants, we abide by their principle of "LIMA" meaning "Least Invasive Minimally Aversive"
techniques.

While we are flexible and creative in terms of finding what works for a particular dog, we always
abide by the LIMA principle and have made a choice never to employ force or compulsion methods
and are strongly against the use of shock/electronic collars, choke chain collars, or methods such as
alpha rolls, scruff shakes, leash corrections, hitting, kicking, intimidation, or yelling.

Training should be fun for your dog and should not involve physically hurting your dog or causing
emotional distress in order to get desired behaviors. We don't believe any dog should suffer in the
name of teaching it. Punishment or force based methods have potential to seriously hurt your dog,
physically and emotionally, not to mention damage the relationship between you.

Training your dog is about building a relationship, not about showing your dog "who's boss" or that
you can hurt him if he doesn't comply with you. Positive reinforcement is effective no matter
what age, temperament, or breed of dog you have. Our choice to train using positive
reinforcement is based not only on our experience but on recent studies* showing it to be just as
effective (or even more so) than traditional, punishment-based methods. The study mentioned above
also found a link between punishment-based training methods and behaviors including anxiety,
avoidance, fear, and aggression.

   "Authority without dominance, love without subservience, and respect without fear."
                                                                                                    - Unknown

*Hibey, Rooney, and Bradshaw, "Dog training methods: their use, effectiveness and interaction with behaviour and welfare", Animal Welfare
#13, 63-69, 2004


	Pawsitive Results Dog Training *"Where dogs and their people learn together"* Serving Beaver County, Pennsylvania & surrounding areas (724) 847-0577

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	"Training your dog is about building a trusting relationship - one where you and your dog enjoy working together."