Glengarry dog trainer Liana Seadon says there has been a shift in the industry towards positive reinforcement rather than punishment-based training over the past decade.
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“[The industry] is not regulated but we have seen people going off and doing more training and there are a lot more courses available now then when I started out ten years ago,” she said.
“There was a big trend towards being a pack leader … but now there is a trend towards the idea that you don’t need to be a boss, you need to point your dog in the right direction.”
Her comments come after a video depicting a German Shepherd being forcibly shoved into rushing water, allegedly shot on the set of upcoming American film A Dog’s Purpose, caused outcry across the world and calls to boycott the movie by animal activist group PETA.
Producers Amblin Entertainment said it was investigating the circumstances in the video.
“Traditional methods of training were all about getting quick results, not necessarily getting long-term result that you get with postive reinforcement training,” Miss Seadon said.
When you force a dog to do something they are not ready for trainers call the experience “flooding.”
“When you flood a dog they become overexposed to something and then they end up fearing that more than when you started with them,” Miss Seadon said.
“Sometimes aggression is one of the things you can see, sometimes the fear increases to the point where they might not come out of their shell ever.”
She said positive reinforcement also takes the different personality of each dog into account.