Why I Don't Use Aversive Training Tools (Anymore)
When we adopted JJ, she came with a prong collar. The rescue’s trainer told us that she needed it to walk nicely on leash.
An aversive training tool is one that is designed to cause discomfort or pain in order to change an animal’s behavior. This includes prong collars, e-collars, and choke chains. Of course, flat collars and martingale collars can become aversive to our dogs if we use them to do things like pop the leash or force the dog into a down position by stepping on the leash.These methods work in two ways. One is via negative reinforcement – the removal of an aversive stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior occurring again in the future. An example is using an e-collar to buzz/shock your dog while he is pulling, and stopping the shocks when he is in the heel position. He will likely spend more time in the heel position to avoid shocks in the future. There is also positive punishment – the addition of an aversive stimulus to reduce the occurrences of a behavior – in this scenario. The pulling behavior is punished by shocking the dog when he pulls.
Aversive tools and coercive methods do work to train your dog to do things like not bark, not pull, etc. But they also carry great risk to the welfare and overall behavior of our dogs. I know this because a) I have done extensive research on the topic and b) I have witnessed the fallout from these tools firsthand.
In the fall of 2017, my partner and I adopted our rescue mutt, JJ. We knew she had quite a history. After being adopted once from the rescue, she was returned due to a resource guarding incident. We were fostering her, and we knew about her history, but we fell in love and decided to adopt. We soon learned that she was pretty reactive to dogs, so we sought out a trainer to help us with this issue. Here’s where things start to go awry. I did some googling, and was overwhelmed by the number of trainers in our area. I remembered that our rescue had given us a list of their affiliate training partners, so I grabbed that and began reading reviews for the trainers. We selected one from the list that our rescue had given us. It was a trainer that used electric collars. We were first time dog owners, and were uninformed about the risk that such training methods carry (I’ll get to this soon). If they were recommended by the rescue, surely they were good?
Led astray once again, this time by e-collar trainers. Sometimes you have to take two steps backward before you can learn and move forward.
They were not good. We saw quick results in obedience at first, but JJ’s reactivity and aggression towards dogs worsened. When she got worse, we took her to a veterinary behavior specialist, who let us know that we should be using positive reinforcement with JJ, and should discontinue the use of the e-collar immediately. JJ was learning that when she looked at a dog, she was shocked by the collar if she reacted poorly (barking, screaming, lunging). This meant that dogs predicted bad things, and dogs became even scarier than before. We quickly rerouted, and have been using positive, force-free training methods since. And the research that I’ve done confirms what we witnessed with our own dog as well as illuminates further risks.
The harness protects JJ’s neck if she pulls or darts after a rabbit. It fits her comfortably and is not designed to be aversive.
Here are some of the many risks that come with using aversive tools or coercive training methods:
Dogs trained with punishment exhibited increased numbers of problematic behaviors compared to those trained without the use of punishment. (Blackwell et al., 2008)
Dogs trained using punishment were less likely to approach new people and engage in play with their owners. (Rooney and Cowan, 2001)
Dogs shocked via remote control for obedience training have shown elevated stress responses, even outside the context of training. (Schilder and van der Borg, 2004).
Corrections with a prong/choke collar “may result in a suppression of barking or growling, but increased severity (i.e., no longer growling or barking, but biting).” (Savage, 2010)
There are honestly too many studies for me to link, but more information can be found in summary form here from the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior.
Positive-reinforcement based training does not carry these risks, and it also has some distinct benefits:
Dogs trained exclusively using positive reinforcement were reported to be significantly more obedient than dogs trained using “balanced methods” – aka both positive reinforcement and punishment – or exclusively punishment. (Hiby et al., 2004)
Dogs trained using reward-based methods may have increased learning ability than dogs trained using punishment. (Rooney and Cowan, 2001)
I’m never looking back. Reward-based training methods are often more effective than punishment and coercion, and do not carry the high risk of fallout. Finding clicker training has absolutely changed my life and JJ’s. She is always thrilled to play training games, and our relationship is now based on trust and safety, because she knows she can count on me to deliver wonderful things and take her out of situations that are stressful.
If you are thinking about making the switch from aversive tools/methods, please feel free to reach out! I would love to talk more about the process of crossing over.
