Labonte Canine Services

As an advocate of inductive police dog training I feel like a lone wolf who left her family in order to search for a pack of my own. At first I had difficulty hunting, as wolves favorite prey are large ungulates, and it is nearly impossible for a wolf to bring one down by itself. Lately, like the lone wolf, I have become naturally stronger and have begun to specialize in hunting the moose.

Fortunately many parts of Police K-9 training is already using inductive techniques. Detector dog work, tracking, searches for persons are done motivationally with a reward or apprehension at the end to motivate the dog.  Nearly all the functions we use police dogs for on the street are taught with motivation.

Unfortunately, the hard part,  the "control" (or obedience) of these functions is almost always taught compulsively at this time.

I now feel I am now hunting the moose because perfecting control work inductively (non-compulsively) gives me and the teams I train much better results.

My results are described in the following 8 benefits of inductive training.

1. You end up with a dog who wants to work,  not a dog who thinks he has to work.
2. Inductively trained dogs need less retraining in obedience work than compulsively trained dogs. They want to work, they do not try to avoid it.
3. Training with inductive methods in the long run takes no longer than training with compulsive methods, and many cases goals can be achieved sooner
4. Highly bred working dogs with extreme levels of drive and high pain thresholds can only be taught effectively using inductive methods. Compulsion on these dogs only causes handler aggression and a need for more intense compulsion.
5. Inductive training is much more fun for the dog, handler and trainer
6. Fewer injuries to dog and handler. Many get carried away with their methods and hurt dogs, sometimes the compulsive equipment inadvertently hurts dogs (leashes, electric collars, whips etc..). This in turn makes dogs more handler aggressive and causes the handlers themselves to sustain injuries.
7. Public perception of an inductive dog program is much better then the public perception of a compulsive dog program. I am referring to the recent shutdown of the NC State Police canine program.
8. Induction enhances rather than hurts the relationship between the handler and dog.


Benefits of compulsive training.

1. Give the appearance of getting initial results in a more timely fashion.
2. Compulsion can make a weak dog look strong to people who cannot tell aggression from a dogs natural drives.
3. Inductive training is harder to train the trainer, it requires much more knowledge of your subject. (it is especially hard to train someone who is used to compulsion).
4. Induction takes time, work, knowledge and skill to train a dog.
5. You have to have a dog that can be motivated to train inductively. With compulsion you can train out of fear.
6. Induction must be used alone, as soon as any amount of compulsion is used, the fun and trust levels start coming down. (This is not to say that with induction the dog should not be able to take abuse coming from an adversary. Quite the opposite, because of the trust and relationship with the handler, this fight with the adversary becomes a form excitement for many inductively trained dogs).

The effects of compulsion can often be seen in handler aggression, in inter-dog  aggression, in stress produced by training during control exercises during bite work, and in situations where the handler is under stress like certifications, competitions, demonstrations and unfortunately, during real patrol work. The better trainers and handler have minimized the effects of compulsion and stress.  But not all handlers are that good, so many problems still exist.  How many handlers have said, "My dog never did that before" at a certification. Chances are that stress is causing the new behavior.

I know the traditional handlers are saying, "But I do reward my dog during obedience. I pet him and praise him for doing well."  If petting and praise were enough reward for most dogs, it would be easy to train dogs. My experience has shown me that petting and praise may work for some Golden Retrievers, but they aren't a true reward for most working dogs.  If they were reward enough, than compulsion trainers wouldn't have to put a leash on the dog to train.  If you are training compulsively, then petting and praise may be rewarding for the dog because they tell the dog that he won't be corrected again.  In this context, they become a "reward" only because they signal to the dog that no more discomfort will follow.

Motivational and non-compulsive training techniques are not revolutionary, but were scientifically proven to work better than punishment or negative motivators by B. F. Skinner many decades ago.  Dog trainers have traditionally used compulsive methods because most of the time they accomplished what the trainers wanted, and these are the methods that have been passed down from dog trainer to dog trainer. Marine mammal and wild animal trainers have always used non-compulsive techniques because they cannot resort to compulsive techniques.  Putting a leash on a grizzly bear or a dolphin is not an option the trainer can live with (literally!).

Often trainers fail to use positive methods correctly or to their best advantage because their training mindset is based on compulsion and “making” the dog do something by force or by limiting its options. Training without compulsion takes a 180-degree shift in thinking - the dog does the behavior because he wants to, not because he has to.  This means that his behavioral options are not limited by what he has been taught. He chooses to do the behavior. This change in attitude creates a powerful bond between the dog and trainer, and makes the dog a partner in working situations, not a slave whose behaviors are limited by fear of corrections for certain actions.  The dog thinks about what he is doing.

I know that some trainers will tell you that dogs do not think.  Well, sometimes they don’t seem to think if they are trained by compulsion.  To achieve a quick response using force, the dog must react without thinking or considering its options.  Motivational training teaches the dog to consider its options and make decisions about what he will do next.  This response becomes automatic from habit and because the dog learns that choosing to comply results in a reward.

On the street with a police dog, the dog’s ability to think is an invaluable asset.  All of the dog’s natural abilities are put to work for the handler. All the situations that are encountered in real work can never be duplicated during training.  I would much prefer to have a thinking dog at my side instead of a preprogrammed machine that has learned to react because he fears punishment.  A positively trained dog is a partner who can lead or react when the handler can’t see, hear or smell what is out there.   The better compulsively trained teams also achieve this same state, but because of the compulsion used to teach obedience, there will be a time when the dog will be unsure of what he should do.  The advantage of non-compulsive training is that the dog never feels this way.