What is positive education, what are the tools to educate a dog in a positive way, but also what are the limits of this educational method? So many questions that find their answer here!
Educating your dog is important, but it is sometimes difficult to find the effective, respectful method of your dog and in agreement with you! For some years now new ways to educate his dog are emerging and in general our vision of the dog evolves and our sensitivity too. So to help you better understand what positive education is, or at least what is my vision of positive education, here are my answers to the most common questions on this exciting topic!
One of the biggest difficulties in the job of canine educator is that every professional has a vision of the dog of his own. Because of this, it is sometimes difficult to find one's way when one can read on the same subject everything and its opposite. In reality, we all understand the dog with our own filters. So our sensitivity and affect "prevent" us from being completely objective about the dog's functioning and his emotional states. It is important to understand this point before reading the rest of this file, because my vision of the dog that I am going to expose you here is in direct link with my course and my experiences. I have evolved a lot over the years and I have of course refined my understanding of the dog directly related to my understanding and knowledge of myself.
Positive education what is it?
Positive education, even if it is very reductive to define it in this way, is an educational approach that will focus on the dog's motivation in order to guarantee the dog's good emotional state in his learning process.
Indeed, to understand this point it is always interesting to bring it back to oneself. If I want to teach a child, for example, a basic rule of thumb, as to look well on both sides of the road before crossing, I will have two options:
Either I anticipate the error of this child and I explain before crossing how to behave in order to secure and once the action done I congratulate him on his good behavior.
Either I wait that it misses being overthrown to make him understand how to behave.
In the first case, I will have to be careful and of course repeat this learning each time the situation arises to ensure a solid teaching, the child will be in a calm emotional state and he will be especially happy to have had good behavior
So, negative reinforcement learning is faster as we have seen and it makes great sense, but at what cost? Indeed, stress exists for a good reason, whether for us Humans or for animals. Stress helps to ensure our survival. If we were completely devoid of this emotional state we would put ourselves in constant danger and it is highly likely that our species would simply not have survived. Stress allows us to put ourselves in a state of reactivity and this emotion is so strong and unpleasant that it encourages us not to put ourselves in the same type of situation to protect us. It is for these reasons that a situation causing stress will mark us and we will therefore tend not to forget it easily.
For our dog friends, the operation described above is strictly identical. The major difference lies in the fact that the dog is not able to conceptualize an idea and so he can not understand a verbal explanation, in short he can not understand an abstract idea (ie something that he did not live). To learn, he will have to experience it concretely and his learning will be related to the present moment. We can not explain to him what behavior to have, we must "make him do" so that he understands and learns.
In summary, teaching a dog can be done either through a so-called positive approach, so I will emphasize the anticipation and congratulation of the dog when he has had the right behavior, either through an approach more "negative" or uncomfortable consequence for the dog will be present if the bad behavior is presented. In the first because I emphasize the motivation of the dog to perform the right behavior, in the second case I emphasize the will of avoidance of the dog to not have this behavior.
So to get back to the basic question of what is positive education: Well positive education is an approach that will take into account the emotional state of the dog when he learns and insists on his motivation to perform an action.