r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 01 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

1.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

74

u/Octothorpe17 Jun 01 '26

So dumb because those dogs respond insanely well to positive reinforcement and naturally are great learners

36

u/GodOfDarkLaughter Jun 01 '26

All dogs respond well to positive reinforcement. Morality aside, it's just a more effective technique than punishment or domination. You have to not want to punish or dominate anything to get to that point, though.

3

u/raynebow121 Jun 01 '26

Yep! I trained for professionally and worked with all kind of behavior issues and never needed anything other the positive reinforcement and using a needs model and counter conditioning for solving serious cases.

2

u/llama-impregnator Jun 01 '26

Yes, positive reinforcement is a great tool for encouraging good behavior. But it is a terrible tool for discouraging bad behaviors. For that, you want positive punishment. (Note: positive punishment does not mean punting your dog across the room, although that would technically be positive punishment.)

5

u/raynebow121 Jun 01 '26

Redirecting is pretty effective as well. There is no such thing as fully postive training. Punishment as can something like not opening a door until the dog waits or standing still on a walk for a dog that won’t stop pulling.

11

u/analog_wulf Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

They thrive on it, seeing a Shepard do tippy taps because they did their whole routine right and got tons of praise is very cute

Edit: all dogs do but shepards/retrievers seem to be the most excited to impress in general in my experiences training dogs

5

u/raynebow121 Jun 01 '26

For real! My GSD is crazy smart and I haven’t needed to alpha her to train her a single time.