From Unskilled Balanced Trainer to Professional Fear Free: A Journey

....I need to admit something.

I did not start off as a R+ trainer. In fact, I started off using punishment.

I know! Shocker! But we all start somewhere...

So here's mine.

As a kid, I lived a fairly mundane life. Living in a small town in Indiana where everywhere you looked you either saw a corn field or a bank.

All the dogs I grew up with were search and rescue dogs, or something my mom brought home from craigslist or the local pet store.

The dog training world was beginning to get popular with celebrities like Cesar Milan flooding our tv screens. Both my mom and I loved his show, as it was a bonding period for us and a chance to learn about something we were both passionate about. Our dogs!

He was the only professional I knew at the time...and I copied some, if not many of his techniques.

I applied what I thought would work, and ran with it (I was 17 and dumb).

Back then, I used to call myself a balanced trainer because I thought that was what was best. Equal. Balance in life. I'm a libra, after all. I was no where near pro mode, but I wanted to enter this world.

I volunteered for local nature reserves to train foxes (positive based, which was super awesome), and the local zoo to get animal experience.

I thought I knew the ins and outs of the animal world.

Ah, youth.

Not only were we immortal, but we knew everything about everything, too. Cue the eyeroll.

When I began actively working on training, I was still locked into the methods seen from Cesar Milan and other local trainers.

I had thought being a balanced trainer meant I had the ultimate equation. Equal. Balanced in every aspect.

I am a libra, after all. We kind of live off balance.

Behaviorally speaking....I couldn't have been farther from the truth.

In canine training, 'balanced' is a term used to describe the trainer using all four of the quadrants of training.

• Positive Reinforcement (Add something desirable to increase behavior).

• Negative Reinforcement (Remove something aversive to increase behavior).

• Positive Punishment (Adding something aversive to decrease a behavior).

• Negative Punishment (Removing something desirable to decrease a behavior).

On paper, being able to utilize all the quadrants seems ideal. More is better, right?

Not so much. While it's important to understand how each of the quadrants function, it is more so important to understand what can be emotionally and mentally healthy and unhealthy for the student.

Speaking from Experience: My Aversive Past

To this day, I look at my oldest dog Mollie with a sense of appreciation and affection.

I received her from unideal circumstances. Bad relationships tend to do that. But hey, at least I got the dogs!

At that time, I was homeless and living in the car with her and my corgi Einstein. She was neurotic, reactive, fearful...and I was frustrated, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Training was the least of my concerns as I was on the verge of a mental break down.

I would fall back on aversive methods because I was aching for SOME KIND of RELIEF from life. Why couldn't anything go my way? Why couldn't I get a simple behavior?!

I look at myself back then, and sigh.

My dogs did not deserve my tantrums, no matter how stressed I was.

The Awakening

Once I moved to Washington and got back on my feet, I was able to look at life through a new lens...and attempt to build on animal communication again.

While I had an understanding of all of the quadrants, I realized that I would consistently lean towards corrective measures because that was what I was brought up on. Additionally, from having a trauma based background (more on that in a diff post) I found myself replicating what was done to me....to my animals.

Through a lot of self discovery, mediation and patience, I realized that most of what I was practicing was due to pure ignorance and repeated patterns.

"Be the change you want to see in the world" echoed in my mind. "Generational trauma ends with you". "Begin anew".

I realized that the methods I had watched for years, did nothing to change the behaviors I was working on.

Mollie kept pushing and practicing the things I didn't want her to practice. She may have stopped the moment the correction was applied, but then would quickly resume. She started to get more reactive. More aggressive towards others. More neurotic. Like, dang, what was I doing wrong? I was fully frustrated...and we didn't have the relationship I desired.

Cue the gear shift.

If I could work on myself to change my perspective, change how I treated myself and others, change how I tackle learning to make my SELF happy...why couldn't I do the same with my dogs?

After doing more research on positive training, I was amazed at how happy and confident the dogs I observed were. They looked free. They looked...WILD! (Cue goosebumps, because this is a heart activation here for StayWildDog).

I wanted to have that relationship with my dog. I didn't want to just be her owner, I wanted to have a real connection to her. To be able to communicate in ways I only dreamed of. I didn't want to restrain her anymore or her learning. I wanted to give Mollie a chance to be free.

Learning about how to properly use reward based techniques drastically changed my relationship with Mollie.

She no longer lunged out reactively towards strangers on walks. She looked to me for safety and confirmation she was doing a good job.

She no longer guarded as she had built trust that her resources were not going to vanish.

She no longer snapped at the other dogs for being too close, because she could recognize better pathways to responding due to our work.

And now she is a happy, confident, old lady. Going on 12!

There are times where I will sit with her on the bed and cuddle, running my hands through her greying fur.

Whispering to her that I'm sorry I wasn't ready to teach her back then.

I tell her how sorry I am that she had to struggle with me through my own poor choices.

I kiss her forehead and murmur how much I love her...and that she will never suffer like that again.

I will never get over the things I did in the past to her and my other animals due to ignorance. Due to my own shortcomings of lacking patience, how to, and empathy.

My promise to her is that I will spend every day working towards bettering my skills, my knowledge, and my understanding in animal communication. While I know I will never be able to make up to them what has already been done...I will make every ounce of their life worthwhile, and positive with the time I am given with them.

Emotional and Mental Health Matters

We are emotional creatures. How we feel impacts our choices. It tends to bleed into every facet of our lives. It's why I tell my students to take the emotional breaks when you need them...or else, you may just do something you regret, like me.

I called myself an unskilled trainer then because I was focused on getting quick results, and did not regard what the dog was going through, or how my own actions affected the ABC's of training. I needed relief. I needed help. Which is also when most people hire trainers. When they are already at wits end.

This is not common to hear from a fear free trainer, but I will say it.

Punishment works.

It does.

But at what cost?

Consider this...

Imagine a scene where a child who is left home alone after school. She is hungry, and remembered making grilled cheese with their parents. She turned on the stove to heat it up, and then as children do, got a little distracted. The stove remained on until mom came home.

The mom, furious out of concern, makes a rash decision to scold the child and forcefully grabs their hand. She holds it dangerously close to the hot stove, yelling "How stupid are you! You could have burnt the house down! Do you not see how hot this is?? Shame on you!" The child leans away with tears in their eyes, trying to avoid both the heat and their shame.

The child may have learned a valuable lesson to watch out for the dangers of the stove.

Sure.

But it may have also just taught the child to avoid their mother in the kitchen.

That may have taught the child to not trust her mother to not yell at her when a mistake is made.

She may try to cook in secret, because she was only trying to satisfy a need of hunger.

Perhaps, even experience obsessive checking of the stove to prevent future similar scenarios.

How can the child feel safe?

Most of us make choices out of reactive responses, usually based off fear. Fear that the house is going to burn down, fear that our child will be hurt.

Dogs experience similar deals with punitive measures.

Addressing emotional and mental health of the student is such a huge portion of how they learn. Human and dogs alike!

If they don't feel safe, they make different choices.

If they fear taking chances, they don't take any at all.

They live on constant eggshells, and fall onto habits and routines to cope.

Where the mom may not find the method damaging because her INTENTION was that of safety and concern. The mom may not even remember the event a few months down the line, but the child does.

The dog does.

Shouldn't we, as teachers be guiding them to be happy, healthy, confident beings?

Becoming Fear Free

Once it finally clicked for me, I focused on specializing in reducing fear, anxiety and stress in over-reactive dogs. I wanted to help my clients see the shift I saw in Mollie through using R+ methods and that it was possible to have the relationship they wanted from their pet.

I have been professionally training in R+ methods for 8 years, and am currently in school to finish out my degree in psychology so I may move towards a master program in applied animal behavior. I refuse to stop this momentum. I refuse to be ignorant. I refuse to harm again. I promise to you, myself and most importantly...my dogs that I will keep moving forward and staying with the most evidence based practices from the scientific community.

I currently attend classes from Grisha Stewart Academy, from Pet Professional Guild, IAABC and others to keep building continuing education credits, and to be the best I can possibly be.

Unskilled to Skilled Dog Trainer

All trainers have their particular skillsets. Obedience trainers to Canine Fitness Professionals. Therapy trainers to Agility. Search and Rescue to Hunting and Retrieval. We are all in this field because we love dogs!

But I will say that my experience as a previously balanced trainer, converted to R+ and Fear Free, my skills in behavior were severely lacking. And by that, I mean drastically.

I am thankful for my mentors that helped open my eyes and show me new ways of thinking and viewing the world.

I am thankful for the experiences I had, albeit aversive for everyone, which showed me better ways to approach others and myself.

While I work to practice kindness, I still find myself getting heated over other trainers who willingly use tools that were designed to cause harm to dogs. While many would argue that they could be conditioned as a positive stimulus, the intent behind the tool is HARM. Choke and prong collars are not meant to be comfortable, people. I would consider those people to be unskilled trainers.

Skilled trainers have patience, compassion, and often an ethical approach. They understand the dog as a unique individual, and that you can truly have the relationship you want from your dog.

I encourage all trainers, to work on bettering themselves, and to get as much information as possible about behavior. While the conflict between Balanced and Fear Free continues on today, we owe it to the people and pets we work with to have their best interest at heart. That means diving to the bottom of our own complications, and facing our ego, holding ourselves accountable of our own skills, and answering some hard questions about ourselves, which is never easy.

When you stop learning, you stop living.

Through compassion, understanding and a better bond.

Choose Kindness.