July 05 | Clean Run

Browsing through my collection of old dog training books, I picked up The Amateur Trainer, published in 1929, and sub-titled, "Force System Without the Whip." Haberlien, it seems, developed a modern system of dog training far superior to old-fashioned trainers. In another book, The Spaniel and Its Training, F.H.F. Mercer had developed a system of dog training that far surpassed the inferior methods of his predecessors; he wrote his book in 1890. I grabbed book after book, on a mission. Sure enough, virtually every dog trainer’s methods surpass those who came before—books from 1938, 1940, 1965, 1980, up to this century—all contained the secrets that less competent predecessors were not privy to.

The progression from a traditional to a new method generally follows the same course. The person in question starts looking for new methods when the old methods do not yield the desired results. The new method does yield the desired results: the trainer concludes that the old method is faulty and the new method is not. To further compound belief, most people who are using this new method share similar experiences: they enjoy training more, their dogs are happier, their accomplishments soar. Clearly this method is the secret to success. The missing information is that people who are having success with another, perhaps more traditional method don’t usually see any reason to switch. Why switch when they’re getting the results that they want. As such, these trainers don’t participate in the discussions about the old versus new methods because they haven’t had any need to learn the new methods.

Although it is tempting to believe that one has the answer, especially when all the pieces suddenly fall into place with spectacular results after years of frustration and less than stellar performances—there isn’t one answer. Over the last 30 years my training skills and methods have constantly evolved. Each dog has been trained differently from the one before him, although the changes have mostly been gradual tweaks from year to year as I’ve studied, learned, and re.ned my techniques. The observable differences between the methods I use with my current dog and the methods I used with my first dog in 1974 are immense, but the intangibles aren’t all that different. My first dog came to each lesson with a sparkle in her eye and joy in her demeanor: we were going to do something together, something fun, and she couldn’t wait. Not privy to the moralizing or arguing about "laws of training" that we people obsess with, she didn’t know that a leash correction would kill her enthusiasm, that without treats she had no motivation to work. Gee, she didn’t even know that terriers aren’t supposed to like training! Poor dog, she really didn’t know much, did she?