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Dog Training Workshop, and an element of the Dog Science Network
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Positive Dog Training
The "positive" dog training movement is led by Karen Pryor, who wrote the popular dog training book, Don't Shoot the Dog.Positive dog training, which is also called positive reinforcement training is characterized by a number of claims, none of them true, some of which are listed below:
- The false claim that every permutation of punishment is harmful and that no form of punishment can ever have a beneficial effect on a dog.
- The very odd and altogether untrue claim that there is something about dogs that somehow, renders them incapable of learning from unpleasant experiences and that as a result, punishment does not "work" on dogs.
- The false claim that scientific research condemns the use of punishment in any form.
- The false claim that B. F. Skinner supported the use of positive reinforcement in isolation and in the absence of punishment.
- The false claim that the methodology that they (the positive dog trainers) endorse is close enough to the science-based approach pioneered by B. F. Skinner for it to be characterized as being a behavioral method.
The fact that the "positive" dog trainers claim to be behaviorists is a great embarrassment to many true behaviorists, who are ashamed to be associated with them and their anything but scientific, touch-feely, politically correct methodology.