We use positive reinforcement centered training plans to modify behavior. But what does that mean, and how does that differ from other training methods? There are a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions about dog training, dog behavior, and animal behavior in general. To make a long story short, humans have been trying to use punishment as a technique for changing animal behavior for a very long time. What scientists have found, through thousands of studies of hundreds of different species, is that if you are trying to teach any organism, any new behavior, punishment - decreasing the likelihood of a behavior - is not as effective of a teacher as reinforcement - increasing the likelihood of a behavior. Animals learn faster, with more retention, and with better accuracy when we use positive reinforcement centered training plans to modify behavior.

We want to be good teachers, but we can’t refrain from ever punishing our dogs?

Sometimes we have to employ management strategies to prevent our dogs from being able to practice problem behaviors.

Those management strategies often rely on removing access to reinforcement, and when reinforcement is taken away or out of reach, that can surely act to punish behavior.

But using management strategies and taking away access to reinforcement is psychologically different for our dogs than adding something aversive, like a buzz on an e-collar or a correction on a prong collar, in an effort to get them to stop performing a behavior.

Even with the option of taking away reinforcement to punish behaviors we don’t like, the premise of our training methods is always to teach and reinforce behaviors we want to see and set our dogs up for success, so that we don’t have to rely on management strategies, and certainly so that we never have to use aversive tools to punish behaviors we find dislikable.

As Dr. Friedman puts it in her Living and Learning with Animals course, “Procedures that rely on the presence of aversive stimuli and resulting escape-avoidance behaviors have been well researched and shown to have serious disadvantages (Azrinand Holtz, 1966).”

Behavior modification that uses escape-avoidance training methods have been linked to increases in aggression, over-generalized aversion to other stimuli in the environment, escape-avoidance behavior, and increased apathetic behavior, also known as shut down behavior.

Training doesn’t have to be scary for your dog!

Quite the opposite, it should be really rewarding.

To read more about positive reinforcement and its uses in animal training, visit www.clickertraining.com.

Fill out the form below to get in touch with our team. If we don’t have any job openings listed on our website at this time, we’re likely not hiring.

However, we’re always open to having you shadow our group classes. It’s unpaid, but it will give you great experience with dog training and will help us get to know you better.

Yes! If you’re interested in becoming a dog trainer, you’re welcome to apply to join our program.

It’s unpaid, but it will provide an excellent opportunity to shadow our Certified dog trainers and learn what is takes to be a professional dog trainer.

No experience neccesary, but we do ask that you commit to the full duration of the class!

At Urban Pawsibilities, our motto is learn together, live together.

We are here to help you develop a better dialogue with your dog because clear communication and reinforcing expectations help us both live our best lives.

Your dog‘s learning process is quite straightforward. We are going to analyze behaviors that we see, and deliberately change them through systematic reinforcement of new or alternative behaviors.

Your learning process will be more challenging. To change our dog’s behavior, we ultimately must change our own behavior.

We have to be calm and collected at the right times; and in our experience, it’s needed most at times when we are feeling frustrated and frazzled.

Our program is designed to help you develop the skills you will need to be able to teach your dog new behaviors, maintain those behaviors, and modify existing behaviors.

Throughout the process, you will learn how to read your dog’s body language and better understand your dog’s threshold for stimulation. We will also help you build a vast store of management and prevention options that you can employ between training sessions.

It is our goal that by the end of our sessions, our clients have learned how to communicate their needs with their dog and live happier lives together because of it.

If we’re actively hiring, you’ll see a job posted above.

Incase there isn’t a job listed, we still encourage you to fill out the form below and send us your resume.

We’re growing fast and will always reach out to this pool of applicants first BEFORE posting the job online, so it’s the best opportunity to be considered for any future openings.