What is Force Free Dog Training?

Looking for a dog trainer can be a daunting task.  With different terms, techniques and advice advertised online, it can easily become overwhelming and leave you wondering what actual techniques you should use and who should you go with.

In an ideal world, all dog trainers should only use positive reinforcement and Force Free training methods, but what does all this really mean?

Well, Force Free training is where no force or punishment is used to train your pooch.  This means no yanking on leashes, pushing bums on floors, yelling at your pup for either doing something wrong or not doing anything at all, and having no use of collars such as e-collars, choke chains or prong collars.  Basically, no use of anything that caused pain or discomfort to your dog!

Positive reinforcement can be defined as giving something pleasurable to your dog in response to a desired behaviour being done.

We also have negative punishment, which is taking away something pleasurable to your dog in response to an undesirable behaviour being done.

All these definitions are great!  But what is the real world context?  Well, let’s use a dog pulling on lead as an example!

So, Force free means no yanking the dog back on the lead when they pull, we don’t do this as this can cause damage to the trachea.  We also don’t want to use leads on collars as this can cause tracheal collapse down the line.  Another reason is if the dog’s motivation to move forward can sometimes be so strong, that they can ignore the sensation of being choked (but this is worth a blog post by itself)!

So what do we do?  Positive reinforcement calls for praise, treats and access to a very special toy for when the dog is besides you, and negative punishment calls for stopping and not going forward when the dog pulls and ONLY moving forward when the dog turns to check in with you and there is slack in the lead.

But won’t this take forever?  No actually!  Dogs are incredibly smart, especially when it comes to getting things they want, so you will usually see an improvement within the first half hour of training if not sooner!  The key however is practice!

So, when looking for a trainer, make sure they are Force Free only!  This means that you can be confident knowing that you and your pup are in experience and caring hands!

If you fancy booking a FREE Meet and Greet or even a 1-2-1 consultation, why not head over to our Book Now page to get started!