By CLEAR founder and consultant Oliver Beverly

Focussed and ready! A border collie puppy looks intently at its owner during a CLEAR training session. 

Being an effective communicator is essential to being a good dog owner/trainer. If your puppy or your dog fails to respond first time to your instructions, whether in the kitchen or at the park, ask yourself three questions:   

• Did he actually HEAR my word or SEE my hand signal?          
• Did he UNDERSTAND what it meant?          
• Was there adequate MOTIVATION?

Unless your answer is always ‘YES’ to all three then any specific behaviour you want from your dog simply won’t happen until you acquire good communication and teaching skills. Our experienced, well qualified and friendly coach-instructors will help you do this - and much more.

We use modern training techniques are effective and enjoyable at both ends of the lead. They will assist you to quickly have an obedient, calm and well behaved dog that trusts you and is welcomed wherever he goes. He will understand what you are saying and soon WANT to do immediately what you ASK him to do. 

Our responsibility as dog owners, whether of a new eight-week-old puppy or a recently arrived adult rescue dog is to teach him what our hand signals or our words mean so that he can 'sit', 'drop', 'stay', 'come', 'leave', 'heel' etc. first time. If educated gradually, patiently and methodically he will soon learn to do so, happily and willingly. He will also do so whenever and wherever requested and whatever the level of distraction.

Expecting a new puppy to be a mind reader and instantly understand English is as unrealistic as expecting him to understand Chinese. To become frustrated when he doesn't 'obey' and to repeat commands louder and more sternly hoping that he will comply is unreasonable. To then reprimand a puppy, whose only crime is not understanding, with a verbal or physical correction is clearly very unfair.Intentionally or unintentionally we are all informally training our dogs 24 hours a day, simply by the way we interact and communicate with them. They either learn by themselves to do undesired things, like jumping to greet visitors, or we are proactive and teach good things first, like sitting on a mat when the doorbell rings.

Many puppies soon become out of control adolescents. The reason is simply because, even if they are aware of the need for training, their humans are blissfully unaware HOW properly to teach them good behaviours in the first place. As owner/trainers we can teach new behaviours by saying, in English or any other language, a 'command' word first. When the puppy initially fails to understand then pushing at one end of the body or pulling his collar gets him into the right position. Even though the process is not much fun for the puppy this physical approach undoubtedly works: most dogs will quickly learn the meaning of a limited number of  words like 'sit' or 'drop' and will perform a few basic behaviours in the kitchen for a few seconds. Usually they do so with reluctance and unreliably and for a short time only, especially if there is something more interesting going on around them.

Instead of getting frustrated and pushing and pulling CLEAR Dog Training will help you to acquire the techniques to influence what happens inside your puppy's or your dog's head, without the use of any compulsion at any stage of the learning process. A large repertoire of simple behaviours, as well as a wide range of complex ones will soon be performed - voluntarily, reliably and promptly.

Training methods based on the scientific laws of learning are like the laws of gravity and always work. Unlike older punishment-based animal training methods, such as in horse 'breaking', they involve no psychological or physical pressure, force or pain - however mild. Your dog too should be able to choose and decide for himself which choice of alternative behaviours is the right one to offer. Instead of being fearful to experiment, and run the risk of being immediately 'corrected' for a 'mistake', he should be encouraged to use his initiative and see what works to his advantage. Through trial and error, without the possibility of unpleasant consequences, he will become a willing and involved learner who learns quickly and joyously.

Provided you have the necessary knowledge and skills, which we will show you how to acquire, and provided everybody else in your house is consistent your dog will quickly understand your communication and what you want him to do. He will do so because he WANTS to and not because he HAS to!

There is no question that both traditional and modern training methods work and are therefore 'successful'. The difference is in the approach and philosophy to teaching as well as the speed and enjoyment of the training process - at both ends of the lead. With the newer techniques there is a different mindset and even a change in the trainer's vocabulary whereby 'command' and 'obedience' become 'cue' and 'good manners', and 'correct' and 'dominate' change to 'show' and 'motivate'. Naturally it is every owner's choice as to which way he or she would prefer to teach. From your puppy's or your dog's point of view, however, there is no doubt as to which way he or she would much prefer to learn!

Suppressing a behaviour by force is probably quite painful and your puppy may have temporarily stopped biting to avoid being hurt by you in the future. He will have no idea why he is being treated so roughly and there is no guarantee that the biting won’t happen later in life if, for instance, somebody accidentally steps on his tail.

Simultaneously uttering a guttural command or threat (e.g.,"No biting" = If you bite again I'll hurt you again, and for longer ) in English assumes your puppy is a mind reader or can miraculously understand whichever particular human language you used.

Nipping ankles or biting hands are invitations to play and when littermates continuously do so they mouth and bite each other all the time. If one puppy bites another too hard the game ends as the bitten puppy yelps and moves away; so if the biter wants to play again he needs to solve the problem himself by modifying the force of the bite and not to do it so hard the next time. This is a continuous and VERY necessary learning process throughout puppyhood, adolescence and adulthood. 

Puppies that are taken away from their mother and littermates too early, e.g. at 5-6 weeks instead of 8-10 weeks, have inufficent time to learn how to play nicely and are therefore much more likely to nip and bite inappropriately. Single litter puppies are at an even greater disadvantage.

A shouted command ‘NO Biting’ might well startle a puppy so that he stops doing it but, no matter whether it is said in English or Swahili, it doesn't teach him what else to DO instead.

Puppies that have not learned bite inhibition may yet grow into much loved adult dogs and cause no harm for several years; however many of them quite unexpectedly do attack a child or adult, 'out of the blue', and end up on the evening TV news. Because they had poor or no bite inhibition the damage can be severe and so they are generally destroyed the next day.

Suppressing a behaviour by force - such as when vets and vet nurses recommend holding a puppy's nose and telling him 'No bite' is likely quite painful.

Although a puppy may have temporarily stopped biting to avoid being hurt by his owner in the future, he will have no idea why he is being treated so roughly.

Simultaneously uttering a guttural command or threat (i.e."No biting" = If you bite again I'll hurt you again, and this time for longer ) in English - or Swahili - mistakenly assumes a puppy is a mind reader or can miraculously understand a particular human language.

There is no guarantee that the biting won’t happen later in life if, for instance, somebody accidentally steps on his tail.

What many people don't realise is that biting is an invitation to play and when littermates continuously do so they mouth and bite each other all the time. If one puppy bites another too hard the game ends as the bitten puppy yelps and moves away; so if the biter wants to play again he needs to solve the problem himself by modifying the force of the bite and not to do it so hard the next time. This is a continuous and VERY necessary learning process throughout puppyhood, adolescence and adulthood. 

The secret to all good animal training is to understand that behaviours that are rewarded are likely to happen again. The rewards develop and strengthen the behaviour - they 'reinforce' the behaviour.  Dolphins have been taught this way for years and modern trainers now realise that dogs trained the same way will give equally fantastic performances.

In the late 1930s Professor B. F. Skinner from Harvard discovered that rats and all animals can be taught to perform a series of complex operations voluntarily in order to obtain the benefit of obtaining an essential need such as a piece of food.

Skinner's views that there was no need for punishment in training any kind of animal were at first ridiculed and/or ignored. However, over the years, many people seeking to improve human and animal education have increasingly understood his ideas and adopted his methods.

Positive reinforcement for training dogs was first used in Australia in 1976 at the Kintala Dog club in Melbourne founded by the late David Weston.

In 1966 he had acquired a Miniature Schnauzer puppy that he took aged 6 months to a nearby dog obedience club. He says, "during the next few years I worked hard at learning and applying the knowledge which the club had to offer, and as a consequence I became a Kennel Control Council certified instructor, a full panel obedience judge and President of the Club. During this period 'Fred'  gained his Companion Dog (C.D.) and Companion Dog Excellent (C.D.X) titles.

However, I became increasingly disenchanted with the method of training used by dog clubs in general. Much of the knowledge that supported their method appeared to be based on archaic principles and involve a great deal of punishment and compulsion. Training essentially consisted of jerking the dog in the neck with a choker chain, physically pressuring it into position, and growling at the dog using commanding voice tones.

When the dog responded in a way that was favourable to the handler it was rewarded with a pat and verbal praise. Many of the responses generated were accompanied by a strong fear reaction in the dogs, as could be seen by the lowering of their ears and tails, and an unwillingness to return voluntarily to the handlers''.  ( 'Dog Training , the Gentle Modern Method '(1990) - page 9)

At Kintala Dog Club traditional training methods with check chains, physical force and manipulation were totally banned by David Weston.  More than 30 years later his gentle modern methods are still used there exclusively.

Nowadays many other dog clubs and organisations such as the RSPCA also prohibit the use of check chains. They only use positive reinforcement methods where:

* A new behaviour is broken down into several individual parts, each of which is learned before taking the next step.
* The dog is set up to succeed at every step.
* Any improvement is rewarded - at first usually with food. Food is essential to survival and therefore a much more powerful motivator than a non-essential such as a pat or praise.
* A poor behaviour is simply ignored. The punishment is "not rewarding" and the habit soon extinguishes - as with humans where a poor joke is not rewarded with laughter.
* Once a desired behaviour is learned, food is almost phased out and given on a random basis once in a while. It is replaced with other reinforcements such as praise, toys or life rewards doing whatever the dog most wants to do next.
* The dog realises that it has the ability to affect what happens to it. It will be paid, or reinforced, in return for working correctly.
* Training becomes a win/win situation with both sides co-operating with each other rather than it being an adversarial war of wills. 

Many dog trainers have seen the incredible results of positive reinforcement training with the family pet dog, as well as in dog sports and competitions. Reward based reinforcement training makes rapid progress and is fun for both teacher and student. These trainers have welcomed the accelerated learning curve, as well as the vitality and initiative to experiment, that comes when animals learn because they want to and not because they have to