Dog Training Philosophy 101

[F, Calla & Luca]

There are many celebrity trainers and dog training philosophies. I just got the Leerburg  catalog in the mail and Ed Frawley wrote an intro with his philosophy. Some of you will agree with him, I do, and some won't, but I think he's worth listening to and then forming your very own, personal view based on his thoughts and those of others mixed with your experience. He advocates for positive training combined with distractions and corrections. I like the fact that he admits mistakes, such as his original criticism of clicker training. The catalog also has many DVDs for various aspects of training from raising puppies, to training pets and onward to training dogs for personal protection. Here is his philosophy:
http://leerburg.com/philosophy.htm
and his general site:
http://leerburg.com/

[BG and Gavin]

Thanks for the interesting article F.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Ditto!

[F, Calla & Luca]

You're welcome.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

I think he tries to strike a good balance. This is pretty much where we have ended up with Tara's training-mainly through trial and error!! We have two of the Leerburg videos-Your Puppy 8 weeks to 8 months and Establishing Pack Structure. I found them helpful but like with most things one needs to sort the wheat from the chaff. He states that his approach is appropriate for all breeds even though he is a G.S. breeder. But, I found some of the ideas in the puppy tape way too harsh for training a mini ALD. :) We just didn't need to go to the extremes that he sometimes recommends in order for her to "get it". But that is not so say that they may not be needed in other cases.

[Kyoko]

Thanks for the good article!

[Adina P]

I did not read it through to the end. Too long. I would say that the way he describes HIS philosophy sounds very balanced and I can't really disagree with what I read. I agree that dogs need to know right and wrong and clarity and corrections often are very useful in dog training.

However, given that he's a business man, this is his site where he sells himself, his ideas and his products, his assessment of what other trainers do isn't very accurate. He's selling himself by building a strawman out of the 'others' and then putting himself in the 'balanced middle'. That's fine...it's a marketing page as well as an informative page.

However, these imaginary 'yank and crank' trainers that supposedly BOTH get the job done in a speedy fashion (because 'time is money')--where is he finding these trainers he's objecting to? And how can they both get dogs trained fast and create these scaredy cat dogs? They can't. These force trainers that whip dogs into submission...do NOT have effectively trained dogs so it's a moot point he's arguing. So either they don't exist the way he is describing them, or he's giving them more credit than they deserve, or they actually aren't producing scaredy cat dogs..or...or..or.

To me, the gold standard comparison tool...the thing that I think marks a GOOD trainer or training method is whether that trainer or method is capable of producing a dog that willingly works off leash. That is how I would recommend choosing a method or trainer.

So as to Leerburg training, which I am wholly unfamiliar with besides what he writes on his site, it may very well do that. I don't know. I like a lot of Ed's philosophy as written on that page. But it IS a sales page and he does paint 'others' with a big fat broad brush.