4 dog training myths that suck the joy out of training

Dog training should be fun and rewarding for BOTH ends of the lead. 

But if there’s one thing that’ll get in the way of that, it’s some hotly pedalled myths that are so deeply ingrained we can be worried about deviating from them. 

As a professional dog trainer, you might be used to clients wanting to ditch the treats as quickly as possible. But in truth, it’s not just guardians who have been programmed to think we should fade out rewards as quickly as possible - but is rushing to ditch rewards really helpful?

How about letting dogs work things out for themselves? Should you be silent and avoid interacting too much verbally with a dog during training? Or are you really making the dog work harder than they need to?

Read on as we debunk 4 of the most common dog training myths that suck the joy out of training. 

The 4 dog training myths that make training harder

#1 Fade out lures as quickly as possible

Have you heard this one? If you’re training a dog using lures, you should fade them out as quickly as humanly possible.

The theory is that relying on a lure might mean the dog relies on it to perform the cue. 

Here’s why that’s not the most important thing! 

A lure is helping the dog to understand what you want them to do. It’s very quick and easy to fade a lure - but why rush to do it so fast?

If training feels good, a dog is more likely to repeat the behaviour… because they liked it! And what’s our ultimate goal? 

We want the dog to perform the behaviour we’re asking and to enjoy doing it. 

Regimented training is no fun for anyone - and rushing to increase the difficulty for the dog only serves to make the task harder for everyone. 

If we remove the lure too soon, we lose the enthusiasm for the behaviour - and that’s very hard to bring back. When the dog LOVES doing the behaviour - you can choose to fade the lure if you want to. 
 

#2 Reward behaviour incrementally to get better outcomes

The myth is that to build impressive behaviours we need to focus on accuracy and reward incrementally to achieve better outcomes. 

The problem with this is that our focus shifts onto how quickly and perfectly we can get a dog to do a behaviour. When we’re fixated on accuracy though, the dog’s experience of the training becomes secondary - and that’s a problem. 

When a dog is enjoying training and revelling in the experience, their enthusiasm for training and doing things with their human grows. And this is worth focusing our attention on! 

If we rush ahead for attainment, we risk dulling the dog’s enjoyment for the task and as we said in relation to myth #1 - waned enthusiasm is very hard to win back. 

It’s far better to reward a dog for one tiny increment and doing it with joy, than to push them to do the whole nine yards and just be going through the motions and not enjoying the process. 

If a dog isn’t enjoying the training, something’s gone wrong! 

When we give the dog’s wellbeing as much attention as the training, we sidestep pushing dogs to plod through tasks out of obligation - and that’s worth making time for. 

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#3 Be quiet and don’t vocalise too much during training

The common dog training advice is not to communicate too much with a dog during training or you’ll confuse them!

Stay quiet and don’t use too much intervention - instead let the dog think and make a decision.

Here’s why we think this is doing our dogs a HUGE disservice (and making training harder than it needs to be!):

By removing the information we could be sharing with our dogs, we are introducing frustration and confusion. 

This purist way of building behaviour is not serving anybody! Dogs have evolved with us over thousands of years - they live with us day to day and read us all the time. 

Tone, enthusiasm, body language, movements - dogs can read all of these things. 

It's a massive disservice to our dogs to say that if we communicate with them during training it would confuse them… in reality, it can be motivating and make training easier!

Help the dog when needed, and they’ll find it easier to understand what you want! 

We’ve heard guardians and trainers alike say that their particular dog doesn’t like shaping, they find it frustrating!

But perhaps that’s because we’ve been indoctrinated to believe we mustn’t help the dog beyond the shaping criteria. Which in essence, is simply making the training more difficult than it needs to be for the dog to understand.

You don’t avoid communicating with your dog in any other scenario! Thinking that you have to limit communication during training only serves to make the human end of the lead worried about doing anything instinctual in case you’re ‘breaking the rules’.

You wind up with a handler who is unsure. And a dog that’s unsure. 

And those emotions flow into our teaching and make training harder than it needs to be. 
 

#4 Reward highly for perfection & set high standards

The mantra is to reward dogs more highly for better repetitions and to reward less for slow/sloppy repetitions. And it’s a mantra that a lot of us have paid a lot of heed to.

Let’s take a step back together and look at what this is really teaching our dogs. 

If we think about recall… how many times have we heard (or maybe said ourselves), if your dog comes back really quickly, give them a jackpot reward. 

If the dog returns more slowly or you have to go and get them, give them a smaller reward. 

The theory is this will build in motivation to return to you faster.

But we don’t think this plays out in reality. Because if the rewards are mundane and boring - how likely is the dog to want to repeat the behaviour?

If the dog potters back on their own terms and is given a measly reward upon their return, are they more likely to rush back quickly next time? Or was their slow potter more rewarding than the teeny reward they got when they made it to their human?

In reality, if we had the most amazing play session or social reward or food for the slower, sloppier pieces - we’d be building motivation and enthusiasm for the dog to come back with gusto next time. 

This is the dog’s emotions at play again - if the dog has an amazing time when they return (no matter how slowly), they’ll be more excited and motivated to come back more quickly next time.

Differentiating between fast and slow, actually can damage your training results. 

The dog will always choose what they find rewarding. Our job is to take note of what the dog finds intrinsically rewarding and to use that to fuel their enthusiasm for the tasks we need or want them to do. 

In Conclusion

For us, it’s important not to think about each behaviour a dog performs in isolation but to look at it as a continuum. Focus on the dog's emotional experience first and foremost and utilise this understanding over focusing heavily on criteria and you won’t go far wrong!

Anything a dog finds difficult is going to be easier if we bring enthusiasm and awareness of their wellbeing to the forefront.  

If a dog is struggling with something, first refer to our 7 step wellbeing framework - so you can ensure there isn’t an unmet need which is preventing the dog from engaging happily with the world around them.  Often, you’ll find simply by working through this framework the problems you’re experiencing vanish as the dog’s been given what they need to thrive. And they’re much more willing, able and wanting to partake in fun training exercises with you or their guardian. 

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