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.

Our goal is to help keep dogs in their current homes through training and understanding. While we are
flexible and creative in terms of finding what works for a particular dog, we always try to use the least
invasive, most minimally aversive training techniques possible. We 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.

Our choice to train using positive reinforcement is based not only on our experience of working with
hundreds and hundreds of dogs of all breeds and mixes, owned dogs and shelter dogs, but also 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 Professional Dog Training & Behavior Services (724) 847-0577