[Zvonimir]

That is difficult to answer.

‘No’ must remain ‘No’ forever, because it marks unwanted behaviour and unwanted dog’s decisions, which you don’t want anytime, anyplace. But dog’s attention span and understanding changes over time, and your training will change too; you teach a 5 months old puppy differently than the 2 years old dog. Therefore ‘Reinforcement’ part in ‘NR’ will change too. How much, and how?

This is the big problem, actually, where (I’d say), 80+% of dog training fails and never delivers truly good, smart and loyal dogs. It produces confused dogs, stuck at a level of puppy training techniques because any formulaic reinforcement ( A –> B –> C) forces them to find that routine acceptable. But the routine is not the same thing as the goal you want; you want a certain goal.

Eventually, dog has a desire to never hear the word ‘No’; dog really wants to please and show himself faithful part of your pack. It is best if you observe your dog, look what he does and how it does it, and then work how you will increase his trust and loyalty to you with a minimum of ‘Nos’.

Look at the bigger picture, not at a particular discipline where dog fails for some reason. Always try to find another way of doing something.

I apologise for not giving an easily formulated answer.

[Saul]

Hi @zmwt ,

Based on what you’re saying, a no should basically be a “punisher”, as in, it should be associated firmly with something negative, but you should try to use it as little as possible and rather train the dog to do alternate behaviors when they’re doing things they’re not supposed to, does that sound right?

Thanks

[Zvonimir]

That’s right. ‘No’ should stop the dog from harming his life, endangering your life, the property, other dogs and people, etc. The dog doesn’t necessarily know all of that, that some actions lead to injury or even death, but you know, and you want to prevent them. ‘No’ is the hardest boundary of all, which keeps everyone safe.

What to do before dog reaches that boundary, how to allow dog to learn at a relaxed pace? For example, I use ‘Don’t’, in normal voice. Then praise, in smooth, cheerful voice. ‘Don’t’ teaches the dog where to slow down in order not to hear ‘No’. If he passes ‘Don’t’ boundary, then ‘No’ should follow. ‘Don’t’ is a soft boundary.

An example: puppy is nipping and biting repeatedly. Sudden loud ‘No’ and pulling the collar at the same time (quickly but softly) tells the puppy that is not acceptable at all (for many reasons, which puppy doesn’t know yet). The puppy stops, because it doesn’t like the loud voice, and doesn’t like sudden jerking of a collar. In dog’s own terms, the correction for unacceptable behaviour would come from a dog pack leader anyway.

Then, I offer a hand to the puppy immediately, while telling him ‘Don’t .. don’t …’ in normal voice, and touch puppy’s muzzle with hand, several times. That ‘Don’t’, and offering puppy ability to avoid biting and avoid being corrected, is what the dog pack can’t do. It is the soft boundary, which the humans can construct around the natural correction, and use it to train dogs to do things that dogs naturally would never do.

At that moment, we are teaching the puppy (A) not to cross the hard border (that is correction which dogs do anyway) and also (B) to look at us for a direction, when the dog reaches the soft border (which humans introduce in order to teach dogs all the amazing things dogs can’t learn in their packs). We want that eye contact moment allowed by soft boundary – it is the basis of all exercises.

So if the puppy bites again, ‘No’ follows with a collar pull. But if the puppy doesn’t bite, if it turns head away from hand or blocks your hand with its paw, there we act within the expanded boundary — cheer him up with patting and abundant verbal praise in soft, cheering/whining voice. That is a form of play — and an instant reward.

Now the dog knows the process, which is an extension of their natural learning process. 1) The hard border, 2) The soft border where dog is hesitant, looks for direction from you, and 3) Praise / play. We can apply this to any teaching exercise.

The process is based on a combination of pack discipline, and human input which extends hard borders of the dog’s world into soft borders of human training world.

So the process eliminates the need for food rewards. ‘Food rewards’ are purely human concept of bribing and coercion, which is not associated with the natural behaviour of the dog pack or any other animal. In real life, dogs even don’t get a pat from their dog pack leader; they must bow-play to ‘rub off’ some ‘gratitude’.

PS. Sorry for a wordy reply!

[Saul]

Hi @zmwt ,

Thanks for the detailed explanation

I had some followup questions if you didn’t mind:

1-I understand the concept of the no, followed by a correction, but the concept of the “don’t” I don’t quite understand. What I don’t get is how you would train the dog what “don’t” would mean? Would that be after correcting it? Or would it be before the “no” correction, and eventually the dog would understand?

2-For the collar correction, for a puppy, do you recommend a martingale of slip lead?

3-Are you saying you don’t use food rewards for training? Or just for correcting behavior? I’m curious because I was trying to see if there was a way to train without treats

Thanks!

[Zvonimir]

Hi, thank you for the reply.

Sure, ‘Don’t’ concept can be confusing at first. But it is meant to give the dog 1) elastic boundaries without too many corrections with sharp ‘No’s’, 2) opportunity to focus on your eyes and the sound of your voice.

When the dog is tempted to do something for which he was previously corrected with a sharp ‘No’ plus pulling of the leash, using Don’t in a normal voice is reminding him to slow down, and >correct himself<, while looking at you carefully, waiting for your further input.

That’s the establishment of self-correction and growing attention. Simple No can’t do it.

“Don’t” works with a previous No. When you set No for something undesirable, and the dog is corrected and won’t do it again that moment, you introduce “Don’t”. By immediately tempting the dog to do something undesirable again (which otherwise he would be corrected with sharp No), at that moment the dog will refuse temptation. He is still under the impression of the previous correction with No.

Repeat “Don’t .. Don’t” in a slow, normal voice while tempting him and the dog will respond by firmly 1) staying in place, 2) refusing to indulge on his impulse, and 3) looking at you.

When you introduce “No + Don’t” for, say: biting hands, nipping shoes, jumping on people, crossing the street impulsively, etc. which is all undesirable behaviour, you will notice that the dog turns his head to make eye contact with you often, whenever he is facing something new.

If the dog faces something new, and you say “Don’t” he will not indulge and he knows he >won’t be corrected<. He self-restrained himself calmly.

This principle is simple and can be applied in, literally, hundreds of situations. For example, for my 4 1/2 months old GSD, I set:

• 3 hard boundaries around the house (3 house doors, 1 large garage door. At each, he stops, looks at me to get approval to move out, or disapproval and he then stays in. He can freely go inside the house from the outside but is not allowed to leave the house without okay.

We did “No + Don’t” for each boundary

• We do the same when crossing the streets. Now he sits firmly on the sidewalk, and even if I step on the road and pull him with a lead to move on while saying “Don’t …”, he resists, pulls back, and won’t move forward. I check if there is traffic coming, he is looking at me attentively, and if I okay him to move, only then he goes.

• To show you the diversity of use: the game of fetching the ball. I allowed him to fetch the ball for a while without any intervention, and he enjoyed it. I wanted him to love the game first without restraints, then introduce some restraints. I introduced “Don’t”, so that he runs after the ball only when I approve that he may go, not every single time. I throw the ball while saying “Don’t go”; he is watching it, then makes eye contact with me, waiting for me to what to do.

I wait for a little, I then disrupt eye contact by looking sideways, then look at him again and release him with “It’s okay, Go fetch.” And he runs to fetch the ball.

All of that is done without a single treat.

What would be an alternative to Don’ts and Okays from above? Treats. Here is the answer to your question. However, treats do nothing but artificially draw a dog’s attention; it usually becomes ‘hand contact’ only, and ‘food smell contact’, because the dog follows treats in our hands and sniffs around our pockets, not quite listening to our voice, or observing our eyes. Treats severely divide the dog’s attention.

With treats, it may appear that the dog is learning faster, but his loyalty and bond diminish or never properly establish. With Don’ts and Okays, the progress seems to be slower in the beginning (because the dog doesn’t do crazy tricks following our hands), but his TRUST in you grows, and the bond becomes stronger. In the long run, which is better?

Regarding the collar, I still use a flat, wide, normal collar (padded leather) because I don’t yet train the puppy to keep an exact distance from me or an exact formation. I use a long leash, allowing him to sniff around to learn more about the environment, plants, objects, animals, etc. to recognise them by shapes, scents etc. Sometimes puppies bark loudly at common objects because they don’t recognise what they are; long lead allows him to go around and sniff and look, then look how I touching unknown objects, etc. That is what I’m focused on.

For now, more freedom, longer lead. In several months, when he learns more about different situations, I will begin shortening the lead, pacing him more to keep exact distance. For that I may use either a German-style chain collar, or a slip lead; I have both, but I’ll see what works better for him.

I’ll keep you posted if you wish. Thank you.

[Zvonimir]

Sorry, just to mention a couple of small details;

• I don’t give treats during walks or training. But when our morning / afternoon walks and training end, I sit next to him, say under a tree, and I drink my coffee from the bottle or eat a crunchy bar. I begin first, that is important. He looks at me, and then I give him some jerky and water from his bottle. I want food eating to be a bonding session, in which the proper structure is also established.

<font face=”inherit”>• With Don’ts, and Okays, you can construct commands to be interesting, and as if you were speaking with a human person. Say, “Sit, stay” becomes “Sit, don’t move”. Which is kind of same, but sounds better because it combines two specific things and a word from the learned correction. What comes after Don’t, is associated with previous corrections. Don’t + “Move, Go, Jump, Bite, etc”. If he was corrected for jumping at people, then if you used “Don’t .. don’t jump .. don’t jump … don’t ..” during correction (always </font>emphasise<font face=”inherit”> word DON’T), it sounds nice, and the dog will respond next time. </font>

Dogs respond to contexts. With Okays too, for example, “It’s okay, Come here” if you restrained him previously with “Don’t move” next to a busy street and you have already crossed the street before him. But, if you are still next to him, he stares at you when you observe the road left and right, and then you follow up with “It’s okay. Let’s go”.