Reclaiming the word balanced

I want to reclaim the word balanced.

There. I said it.

And before anybody starts reaching for their keyboard, I don't mean "balanced" as in a bit of chicken in one hand and something unpleasant in the other.

I'm talking about reclaiming balance in how we raise dogs.

Because somewhere along the way, I think we've lost the plot a little bit.

We seem to have created two opposing camps.

At one end, there's:

"Put this on your dog." "Correct that." "Press this button." "Don't let them get away with it."

And at the other:

"Don't expose them to anything." "Close the blinds." "Don't walk them." "Scatter some food." "Let them decompress." "Give them another lick mat."

And somewhere in the middle of all this noise, I sometimes wonder whether we've forgotten something fairly fundamental:

How to actually raise a dog.

The things experienced dog owners don't see as problems

I was working with someone recently, and it got me thinking.

I could see several tiny behaviours beginning to emerge in their dog. Nothing catastrophic. Nothing worthy of a Netflix documentary.

Just little flickers.

And it made me think about the dogs I've raised myself.

I've owned around thirty dogs during my lifetime and currently live with fifteen of my own. That's a lot of dogs. A lot of adolescence. A lot of hormones. A lot of inappropriate decisions.

And probably a lot of chewed things I'd rather forget about.

My dogs aren't robots.

They've done stupid things. They've tested boundaries. They've had disagreements. They've developed inappropriate interests. They've occasionally made decisions that have made me think:

"Well, that was bloody stupid."

They're dogs.

But perhaps one of the biggest things experience gives you is the ability to recognise the flicker before it becomes a fire.

You see something and think:

"Ah. I know where this could go."

And you deal with it.

Not six months later when it's become an established behaviour.

Now.

Normal doesn't mean leave it alone

Take a Border Collie chasing flies.

Border Collies are genetically predisposed to notice movement. We've selectively bred them for generations to be extraordinarily sensitive to it.

So a young Border Collie becoming fascinated by a fly isn't exactly breaking news.

Initially, it can look quite funny.

Fly moves.

Dog stalks fly.

Dog chases fly.

Everyone laughs.

Except the dog is potentially getting something incredibly valuable from that interaction.

Movement triggers behaviour. Behaviour produces gratification. The dog gets its little dopamine hit.

"Oooooh. That was good."

So it does it again.

And again.

And again.

Eventually, something that began as a relatively innocuous expression of genetics can become highly rehearsed and self-reinforcing.

Now try stopping it.

Suddenly you're removing access to something the dog REALLY enjoys.

And that's where frustration, conflict and even redirected behaviour can appear.

The behaviour wasn't necessarily abnormal to begin with.

But normal doesn't automatically mean desirable.

And understanding the difference is incredibly important.

Dogs resource guard. Humans do too.

Resource guarding is another example.

Put several dogs together and occasionally they're going to disagree about stuff.

Food.

Toys.

Beds.

People.

Space.

That's mine.

Move.

I had that first.

You have children? Congratulations. You've probably witnessed resource guarding too.

"THAT'S MINE!"

"HE'S GOT MY THING!"

"SHE CAME IN MY ROOM!"

"MUUUUUUUM!"

We don't immediately diagnose the children with a behavioural disorder.

We educate them.

Sometimes you share.

Sometimes you don't have to share.

That's yours.

That's theirs.

Don't take things from each other.

Give it back.

Stop winding your sister up.

Basic social education.

Yet when dogs display perfectly understandable social behaviours, we can sometimes catastrophise them.

Of course resource guarding can become serious. Of course it needs appropriate management and intervention.

But the first tiny grumble over a toy doesn't necessarily mean you've got Cujo living in the kitchen.

It means you need to pay attention.

And then adolescence arrives…

Oh joy.

The teenage years.

Your delightful puppy suddenly discovers hormones, independence and opinions.

Anyone who has raised a teenager knows roughly how this goes.

They test boundaries.

They make questionable choices.

They hang around with individuals you'd rather they didn't.

They stay out later than you'd like.

They discover things you wish they hadn't.

And eventually they bring home a boyfriend or girlfriend you can't stand.

Welcome to adolescence.

We understand that humans need guidance through this period.

We don't expect to tell a fourteen-year-old something once and have them respond:

"Thank you for your guidance. I completely understand your perspective and shall modify my future behaviour accordingly."

If you have one of those, congratulations.

Perhaps have them cloned.

Yet with dogs, people become incredibly disheartened when they've redirected something three times and the dog does it again.

Of course it did.

Training takes repetition. Education takes repetition. Growing up takes repetition.

Some dogs are easy.

Some are tenacious little sods.

I've owned both.

Positive does NOT mean permissive

This has been one of my mantras for years:

Positive is not permissive.

Removing aversive tools from my toolbox doesn't mean removing boundaries.

I don't need to hurt a dog to tell it I don't want it doing something.

I don't need to frighten it.

I don't need to intimidate it.

I don't need to string it up, hit it, shock it or cause it pain.

But equally, I don't have to stand there throwing cocktail sausages at it while it dismantles my sofa.

There is another option.

Education.

My dog starts chewing the sofa.

I interrupt.

"Nope. Not that."

Here's a bone.

Chew this instead.

Dog goes back to the sofa.

I interrupt again.

Here's your bone.

Dog goes back again.

Okay. Clearly you're currently more committed to interior design than I anticipated.

So perhaps I'll put you on a lead for a while. I'll prevent access to the sofa. I'll make the appropriate option easier and more reinforcing.

And tomorrow we'll practise again.

No drama.

No rage.

No battle.

No need for a medieval torture device.

But equally, I'm not letting you eat my bloody sofa.

That's a boundary.

And I'm perfectly entitled to have one.

Sometimes the consequence is simply: that doesn't work

This is something I think we've lost sight of.

Not every consequence needs to be painful or frightening.

Sometimes the consequence of an inappropriate behaviour is simply:

That avenue doesn't work.

You try chewing the sofa.

I interrupt you.

You try again.

I interrupt you again.

You try for the forty-eighth time.

Guess what?

I'm still here.

And I will calmly interrupt you for the forty-ninth.

Eventually, the dog learns:

"This isn't particularly productive."

Meanwhile, I've provided appropriate outlets and reinforced the behaviours I do want.

That's training.

That's education.

That's persistence.

And persistence is massively underrated.

Reinforcement isn't pacification

I LOVE reinforcement.

My entire training philosophy is built around understanding reinforcement and using it intelligently.

But there's a difference between reinforcing behaviour and pacifying a dog with food.

Food isn't magic dust.

And indiscriminately feeding a dog isn't necessarily training.

What behaviour am I reinforcing?

Why?

What is the dog learning?

What happens when the food isn't available?

What skills am I actually developing?

Those questions matter.

Somewhere along the line, we've occasionally started behaving as though the alternative to punishment is simply feeding continuously.

It isn't.

Just as taking treats out of your pocket doesn't automatically make you a dog trainer, putting them into your pocket doesn't make you permissive.

Reinforcement should have purpose.

The pendulum has swung

Dog training desperately needed to change.

We've learned more.

We've questioned methods that caused pain, fear and intimidation.

We've become better at recognising emotion.

We've learned about genetics, arousal, stress, reinforcement, environment and choice.

That is progress.

I have absolutely no desire to go backwards.

But progress shouldn't prevent us from asking whether we've occasionally swung the pendulum too far.

Because the answer to:

"Correct everything."

cannot simply become:

"Never tell a dog it can't do anything."

The answer to:

"Make the dog comply."

isn't:

"Remove every expectation."

And the answer to inappropriate behaviour isn't always:

"Scatter some chicken."

Sometimes a dog needs us to say:

No. We're not doing that. But let me show you what you CAN do instead.

Kindly.

Clearly.

Consistently.

That's the balance I want back

So yes.

I'm reclaiming the word balanced.

Not balanced tools.

Not half reinforcement and half punishment.

Not chicken in one pocket and an aversive in the other.

I'm talking about a balanced perspective on raising dogs.

Love AND boundaries.

Freedom AND responsibility.

Reinforcement AND expectations.

Compassion AND clarity.

Understanding genetics without using genetics as an excuse.

Accepting normal behaviour without allowing every normal behaviour to flourish unchecked.

Managing when necessary without making avoidance a permanent way of life.

Allowing dogs to make choices while recognising that sometimes the answer to their choice is:

"No. Pick another one."

I want dogs that are confident.

Social.

Resilient.

Happy.

Optimistic.

Amenable.

Able to cope with frustration.

Able to exist in the real world.

Able to hear "not that" without falling apart.

And able to make good choices because they've actually been taught how to make them.

I've raised enough dogs to know that none of that requires violence.

But it doesn't require permissiveness either.

There is an enormous amount of space between those two extremes.

And perhaps it's time we occupied it again.

Because kindness doesn't mean weakness.

Boundaries don't require brutality.

Reinforcement doesn't mean bribery.

Management doesn't mean avoidance.

And positive… doesn't mean permissive.

That's the kind of balanced dog training I'm more than happy to put my name to.

This piece first appeared on Kamal Fernandez's business Facebook page and is republished here with his permission. The original remains the version of record.