I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until either my mouth or your ears fall off: Taking care of a dog can be overwhelming. What do we do when surrounded by conflicting information with no idea where to start?
Getting past a few “barriers to entry” helped me better understand my blue heeler Scout. These core concepts enabled me to make intentional judgments about our training methods, develop go-to strategies to handle specific situations (like her fear-based dog reactivity), and simply enjoy our life together.
Here are the ideas that made my role as a dog owner click.
* Our dog training and ownership journey is never ending. There is always more to learn! Everyone’s foundation is different — in my experience, coming back to the following concepts always helps me put new information into perspective so I can stay motivated instead of overwhelmed. This article was first written on October 22nd 2020 and last updated in November 2023. It’s not comprehensive but gets at the biggest breakthroughs in our early days.
Table of contents
First things first: You’re already training your dog!
1) Social norms and interaction
- Anthropomorphism versus anthropodenial
- It’s not all in how you raise them
- Socialization is about exposure
- Advocating for our dogs
2) Communication concepts
- Windows of opportunity
- Clear reward markers
3) Science-y stuff
- Operant conditioning
- Classical conditioning
- Counter conditioning and desensitization
4) Our dogs’ wellbeing
- The canine Umwelt
- Layered stress model
- Blue ribbon emotions
- Biological fulfillment
- Fear mongering from training “camps”
First things first: You’re already training your dog
It can be… scary? confusing? foreign? to think about dog training, especially as a new owner. I used to freeze a little at the concept.
What does “dog training” even mean?
I had absolutely no idea how to teach my dog to behave like the trick stars from movies or America’s Got Talent — and I also didn’t really understand why training was something I should spend my time on in the first place. After all, I was “just” a pet owner.
But then I realized that “dog training” isn’t always some super-fancy, far-fetched thing. It turns out my family and I had trained my childhood dogs throughout their entire lives without even realizing it.
Training is often in the little, unintentional things
Here are a few examples of what we taught our family Bichons, Larry and Lucy. (They definitely were not all great things.)
- Pull on the leash to get where you want to go. When they pulled, we’d follow.
- Bark at the back door to be let outside. We reinforced this behavior every time.
- Stay close to humans when they have food. We frequently gave into begging.
- Run to the back door when someone picks up your leash. They caught onto this one quickly.
- Get excited when people come to the door. We always hyped them up.
- Bark or whine for attention. We pet them to get them to quiet down.
- And so on and so on.
At the end of the day, my childhood dogs understood a lot of patterns about our daily lifestyles. We reinforced plenty of bad habits — and a few good ones! — without ever strapping on a training treat pouch or setting out to teach a new behavior.
To own a dog is to train a dog
So if it feels like dog training is overwhelming — like there is no way you possibly have time for that or it is just completely out of your league — remember that to own a dog is to train a dog.
Our dogs are always learning. We are always teaching.
If canine companions are able to pick up on so many patterns and behaviors without us even trying, imagine what we can do as a team when we’re even just a little bit more intentional!
1) Social norms and interaction
Anthropomorphism vs anthropodenial
We hear about anthropomorphism a lot in the dog world: Ascribing human characteristics, emotions, and thought processes to our pets.
Thinking that our dogs are actually just four-legged people often creates confusion and conflict on both ends. (No, I can’t expect Scout to understand English. She didn’t pee in the house because she was holding a grudge. She doesn’t think her crate is mean. And so on!)
But like everything, there’s a balance.
In some cases, anthropodenial — the opposite of anthropomorphism, where instead of ascribing human characteristics to our pets we deny they have any at all — might be worse.
It’s important to understand that our dogs are not humans. It’s also important not to treat them like robots or fail to embrace their emotional and cognitive capabilities.
You can read more about critical anthropomorphism as a dog owner in this article.
It’s not all in how you raise them
Many well-intentioned folks throw around the phrase “it’s all in how you raise them” to emphasize how socialization and training can shape our dogs’ behavior. I understand where they’re coming from!
Years ago, I held that mantra close myself. I wanted to believe that all dogs were (my idea of) perfect and social and wonderful, and only humans could “ruin” them.
But I was wrong.
The truth is that nature and nurture both matter. It would be remiss to ignore either one! We have a lot of power to teach our dogs — but we also have to work with their existing predispositions.
Just as there are desirable genetic traits (a husky’s desire to pull, a cattle dog’s instinct to herd livestock, and so on) our dogs can also inherit problems like insecurity and aggression. This is one reason reputable breeding matters to preserve the species we love.
Socialization is about exposure
I used to think proper dog socialization involved introducing your new puppy to every person, dog, or other animal you came across.
Now? I think exposure is more valuable than direct interaction.
Willy-nilly forced greetings can be stressful for our dogs. They’re unnatural. (It’s not normal for domestic dogs to be indiscriminately social.) At best too much unstructured interaction can create excited overarousal — at worst it can put our pets on the path to fear-based reactivity by eroding their faith in us as owners.
Don’t get me wrong: It is important that our dogs can handle a range of social situations. But it’s even more vital that they can simply exist in new environments without feeling the need to “say hi” to (or run from) everyone they see!
You can read more about how I decide whether to let someone pet my dog in this article.
Advocating for our dogs
Our dogs aren’t born with a verbal language or understanding of human culture. It’s on us to help them successfully navigate our world. That means we need to advocate for them!
Jay Jack’s faith in handler concept has been an integral part of working through Scout’s fear-based dog reactivity. I think it’s also incredibly valuable for dogs who don’t have any “problem” behaviors.
When we teach our dogs that we have things under control — we won’t let anything get into their personal space and they can consistently rely on us for guidance — we reap so many rewards:
- They’re better able to relax in public without constantly scanning the environment.
- We can enjoy more novel experiences together knowing we have a strong foundation of trust.
- They look to us for help instead of reacting inappropriately in new or stressful situations.
- Ultimately, both of our lives are more enjoyable. We feel connected as a team.
You can read more about advocating for our dogs in this article and drawing the line between advocating and “babying” in this one.
2) Communication concepts
Windows of opportunity
Windows of opportunity have been a huge part of providing clarity in our Scout’s life. They enabled us to encourage fun, high energy activities in certain situations while also being able to “turn it off” and chill when we needed to!
We no longer use super strict windows, but I do think the conceptual framework was really helpful.
Clear reward markers
I’ve found reward markers to be an integral part of working with my dog. First popularized by marine mammal trainers, marker training (often done with a clicker and thus called “clicker training”) allows us to “mark” moments of our dogs’ behavior to provide more clarity in the teaching process. This ultimately makes learning more efficient!
You can read more about our personal marker system and reasoning in this article!
3) Science-y Stuff
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a learning theory where an animal makes an association between a particular behavior and a following consequence — and that consequence affects how often they perform the behavior moving forward. It’s largely credited to psychologist B. F. Skinner.
A lot of dog training is based on this learning theory. Any time you think about rewarding a dog for a good choice or punishing them for something they aren’t supposed to do, that’s operant conditioning!
What are the four quadrants?
There are four operant conditioning quadrants based on two criteria:
- You either want a behavior to increase or decrease, and
- You either add something or remove something to achieve that result.
If you add something, it’s called “positive” (even if what you’re adding is unpleasant). If you take something away, it’s called negative. This is important because we often have strong gut reactions to those two words. In operant conditioning, “positive” does not mean good and “negative” does not mean bad!
If you’re increasing a behavior, it’s called reinforcement. If you’re decreasing a behavior, it’s called punishment.
Operant conditioning is focused on what happens to the behavior
The most important thing to realize about operant conditioning: What makes an action fall into a certain quadrant is fundamentally based on what happens to the behavior.
If the behavior doesn’t increase, you weren’t reinforcing (even if you think you were). If the behavior doesn’t decrease, you weren’t punishing (even if you think you were).
It is impossible to use just one quadrant
By operant learning theory definition, everybody teaching anything uses all four quadrants. Even things like our voice — or simply giving affection at the wrong time — can be positive punishment if they decrease a behavior.
A few examples:
- Scout finds my disappointed tone to be punishing. If she does something I don’t like and I say “ahn, hey!” that is positive punishment because I add something (my verbal) to decrease the rate of her doing a behavior.
- Scout also hates being ignored. If we pointedly refuse eye contact or move away from her, that is negative punishment because we take something away (our attention) to decrease the rate of her doing a behavior.
- When Scout is really hot, she doesn’t enjoy being pet. I inadvertently positively punished her sitting right next to me after playing in the park on warm days because I’d always pet her when she approached. I added something — my touch — and decreased the rate of her doing a behavior.
The point is: While “punishment” can sound scary, we all use it. It doesn’t have to be mean, painful, or unfair! You can read more about our personal views on punishment in this article.
And operant conditioning isn’t everything, anyway!
The more time goes on, the less preoccupied I am with strict quadrants in my dog training. You can read more about my shift to prioritizing social interactions in this article.
Further operant conditioning resources
I’ve really enjoyed reading what Dr. Mark Plonsky, a trainer and researcher, has to say about operant conditioning. Here are two articles that can help clear up a few technicalities:
I also have immense respect for Pat Stuart of Operant Canine and The Canine Paradigm podcast, who speaks clearly and accessibly about reinforcement and punishment.
Finally, The New Behaviorism by John Staddon brings an interesting perspective to discussions about operant conditioning and Skinner’s views.
Classical conditioning
Most of us have heard of Ivan Pavlov, the famous physiologist who conditioned dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell. He is the father of classical conditioning the way B. F. Skinner is the father of operant conditioning.
While operant conditioning is concerned with voluntary responses (things that we choose to do, at least in the beginning before they become habits), classical conditioning is concerned with involuntary responses (often thought of as reflexes).
Classical conditioning has a large emotional component
When it comes to dog training, one of the most important parts of classical conditioning is its emotional impact.
Here’s a quote from trainer and researcher Mark Plonsky:
“If a stimulus tells you that something good is going to happen, you feel good about it — one might call the emotion joy. It is probably what dogs feel when you tell them to get ready for dinner. If on the other hand, a stimulus predicts something bad is going to happen, you feel bad about it — one might call the emotion distress (by the way, this emotion can be an undesirable side effect of the use of punishment).”
There are a lot of nuances here. It’s important to be aware of how our actions can affect our dogs’ emotional states — and it’s also important to realize that just because punishment can create negative emotional associations with a stimulus doesn’t mean it has to.
Emotions vs behaviors
My personal philosophy: I will punish behaviors, but I will never punish emotions. If Scout reacts inappropriately to the sight of another dog, I will let her know her actions weren’t okay (usually through subtle social punishment) — but I allow her to look at other dogs, gather information, and feel scared or ask me for help.
You can read more about how we train through Scout’s fear-based dog reactivity here, and find my favorite resources for working through reactivity on the whole here.
Further classical conditioning resources
I quite enjoy Dr. Mark Plonsky’s article Learning What Predicts What: Pavlov and Dog Training. It has some excellent visual tables and real-world dog ownership examples!
Counter conditioning and desensitization
Counter conditioning and desensitization are two common strategies to work a dog through specific triggers (like if they are afraid of something) or to get them used to certain procedures (like wearing a muzzle or putting on a harness).
The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
What is counter conditioning?
Counter conditioning involves making an unpleasant or scary stimulus predict something good. This makes seeing the trigger a positive experience. An example of this would be to feed Scout a high value treat every time she sees another dog.
What is desensitization?
Desensitization consists of steady exposure to a trigger at low levels — slowly increasing its intensity — until it’s no longer a big deal. An example of this would be to hang out with Scout several hundred feet outside of a dog park, decreasing our distance from the other dogs over time as she became more comfortable.
Real-world applications
Counter conditioning and desensitization are great in theory — but they don’t always work in real life.
For example, we didn’t have success using either of them on its own to work through Scout’s fear of other dogs. We lived in an apartment building and could not reliably control our distance from her trigger!
There are many approaches to training — like teaching an incompatible behavior to pass scary stimuli and heavily rewarding it — that end up using counter conditioning or desensitization principles in a sort of roundabout way.
While it can be difficult to set up picture-perfect situations to counter condition or desensitize, the overall concepts are integral to so much of what we do with our dogs.
4) Our Dogs’ Wellbeing
The canine Umwelt
Umwelt is “the world as it is experienced by a particular organism”.
In the early 1900s, biologist Jakob von Uexküll coined the term to refer to each animals’ unique point of view. It’s German for “surrounding world” and stresses an organism’s self-centered, subjective world — not merely the habitat it lives in, but how it perceives that habitat in its own way.
Trying to understand how my dog feels has been important to me since I adopted her, especially in working through her fear reactivity. The idea of Umwelt inspired me to start with biology and ecology instead of mere human speculation.
Ultimately, I care about my dog’s subjective view of the world because I want to live well together. In order to create a life we all enjoy, we have to imagine our dogs’ experiences, not just our own.
Layered stress model
The layered stress model shows how stressors in our dogs’ lives (and our own lives — it has great applications to humans!) “layer” on top of each other. If you’ve ever heard of the pile-on principle or the straw that broke the camel’s back, it’s the same idea.
When we eliminate as much stress as possible at the foundational levels — health, lifestyle, and clarity — we give our dogs more bandwidth to handle any specific triggers in their environment.
And you can read about an example of health affecting Scout’s behavior in this article.
Blue ribbon emotions
The concept of blue ribbon emotions comes from a neuroscientist named Dr. Panksepp. Animal welfare researcher Temple Grandin further expanded on what they look like for dogs specifically in her book Animals Make Us Human.
I highly recommend you give Animals Make Us Human a read. It may be on the older end now, but it was so valuable for me. I’ve also written a lengthy review that sums up my main takeaways from the book!
Quick overview of the blue ribbon emotions
There are four main blue ribbon emotions: Seeking, Fear, Rage, and Panic. An additional three (Play, Lust, and Care) can be viewed as subsets of the Seeking system.
- Seeking: Seeking is “the basic impulse to search, investigate, and make sense of the environment”. It’s a very pleasurable, broad emotion that encompasses many positive feelings.
- Fear: Dogs feel Fear when their survival is threatened physically, mentally, or even socially.
- Rage: Rage evolved from the experience of being physically restrained by a predator. Frustration is a mild form of Rage generally incited by mental restraint.
- Panic: Panic comes from the social attachment system. Animals feel it when they are separated from their families.
Biological fulfillment
The underlying theme of both the layered stress model and blue ribbon emotions is biological fulfillment. Learning about them has completely revolutionized how I approach life with Scout!
In order to best communicate, train, and ultimately enjoy my dog, I need to do two fundamental things:
- Eliminate as much stress as possible in her daily life
- Equip her to healthily handle stress for the inevitable moments where she does experience it
We spend a lot of time playing and enjoying “no expectation walks” on a retractable lead or long line to activate Scout’s Seeking system. We let her chase squirrels (with permission), sniff everything she finds interesting, and ultimately just be a dog.
First, this is just plain fun. It allows her to satisfy her natural instincts and alleviate pent-up stress.
Second, the more we activate her Seeking system, the more it becomes a pattern. This makes it easier for her to get through moments of fear and frustration!
I particularly like how Jay Jack understands biological fulfillment. His podcast episode on leash reactivity does an excellent job explaining how many things we ask modern dogs to do are deeply unnatural (and therefore inherently stressful) for them. I highly recommend listening even if your dog has no behavioral problems!
I also enjoy this Denise Fenzi quote from her episode of The Canine Paradigm podcast: “The way to get the dog on your side is not through deprivation of alternatives.” It helped me understand that the more I fulfill Scout’s natural instincts, the better our relationship will be.
You can read more about biological fulfillment in this deep dive article.
Fear mongering from training “camps”
Conversations about dog training methodologies get heated. People throw labels back and forth like grenades, and we’re all too quick to judge someone who isn’t in our “camp”.
What’s more: We often make assumptions about the way someone trains based solely on the visible tools they use. In reality, the underlying approach matters far more than any one specific object. (You can read more about how training tools don’t automatically define training methods here.)
I’ve developed a “balanced” dog training philosophy that works well for me and Scout, but I remember struggling to deal with extreme statements (from all sides) for so long.
Fear mongering might look like:
- “Using a prong collar on your dog will damage your relationship.”
- “Letting your dog on the furniture will ruin your authority.”
- “Only irresponsible owners use retractable leashes.”
- And so on and so on — any black-and-white statement meant to scare you into a certain course of action
This is really hard to deal with, especially when we’re already feeling confused about how to approach life with our dogs! Hard-and-fast statements make us feel pressured, ultimately hurting our confidence more than helping us figure out what we should actually do next.
The truth: Dog training is complicated
It’s natural to want quick solutions and absolute truths… but nothing in dog training is one size fits all.
I’ve learned amazing things from trainers who consider themselves force free and amazing things from trainers who consider themselves balanced!
There is a huge spectrum between “dangerous compulsion training that basically forces the dog into behaviors” and “dangerous permissive training that lets the dog do whatever it wants”. All the good trainers I’ve found fall somewhere in the middle.
At the end of the day, I am not anti-positive-reinforcement-training or anti-balanced-training. I am anti-extremist-views-that-hurt-dogs-and-owners (like trying to ban tools across the board or pressure folks to follow a certain path).
And I am very much pro-whatever-is-best-for-my-individual-dog.
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