06/07/2023
Have you ever heard of balanced dog training?
A lot of trainers will use these terms such as Positive Only, R+, or Balanced Training. Most people don't really understand what they mean though.
What these are describing has to do with Operant Conditioning. How you teach any living organism is by using Operant Conditioning. It was originally discovered by B.F. Skinner in 1937. It is commonly used in psychology, and since dog training has to do with psychology it is how we train dogs aswell.
In operant conditioning, there are 4 quadrants to teaching a behavior. There is positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. The easy way of understanding what those terms mean is like this:
Positive - Adding a stimulus
Negative - Taking away a stimulus
Reinforcement - Making a behavior occur more often
Punishment - Making a behavior occur less often
So when we talk about Positive only or R+ dog training, they are only using Positive Reinforcement to train your dogs. Which means they are only adding a stimulus (treats/toys) to encourage a behavior to continue happening. As a balanced trainer, I use all 4 quadrants depending on what the dog needs. This does not mean I am right and they are wrong. As long as the dog is well behave, healthy, and happy, the method doesn't matter.
