When I first got my Shiba puppy, Sephy, I wanted to do my very best for him. My breeder recommended that I check out Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer for good dog training techniques. After 4 days, I took Sephy to the vet and she recommended that I return him because he was mouthy and not well behaved. The vet technician recommended that I check out Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer and taught me how to implement alpha rolls. I had already fallen in love with Sephy and was not about to give up on him so I bought some DVDs of The Dog Whisperer and started to do alpha rolls. The results were bad. Shibas are a feisty, stubborn, strong-willed breed, and my little Shiba fought every time I did an alpha roll on him. While he would be slightly subdued after an alpha roll, he would quickly go back to chewing everything, running around crazily and knocking over stuff, jumping on every piece of furniture, mouthing on me and other people, etc. Life became very difficult and Sephy was driving me insane.

I signed Sephy up for a SIRIUS puppy class to help with his socialization and I also got a private trainer who is versed in aversive type techniques. At the time, after watching The Dog Whisperer, I was under the impression that I could only be leader of the pack if I showed my Shiba who was boss through more forceful aversive techniques. Sephy responded extremely well to my private trainer, whom I will call "Tim" (not his real name). Tim is extremely good with dogs and fearless. My Shiba would act out from time to time and mouth over his arms. He was able to easily stop this with some leash jerks (using a flat collar). One time Sephy even placed his jaws on Tim's neck while being held but Tim kept on holding him and had no problems calming Sephy down. Tim taught me how to train Sephy by using leash jerks/corrections. He cautioned me against over correcting and to always try and set Sephy up for success. He also instructed me not to give eye contact during corrections and whenever possible to try and redirect the source of corrections away from myself. Sephy enjoyed his weekly 1 hour lessons with Tim very much and always gave Tim many kisses. This experience showed me that aversive techniques can sometimes work well if implemented by an expert with the right temperament.

At home, Sephy responded pretty well to my leash jerks initially. However, when Sephy was extremely excited, e.g. when meeting other dogs, my jerks would have no effect. Tim ultimately recommended that I try out the prong collar and showed me how to fit it and put it on properly. DO NOT try to slip a prong collar over your dog's head like you do a choke chain. Refer to Prong Collar Info for proper instructions on how to use a prong collar. People commonly refer to the prong collar as providing power steering for leash jerks. I.e. the prong amplifies the force of your leash jerks. The prong collar was extremely effective initially. I was always worried about hurting Sephy, so my leash jerks tended to be too soft. With the prong collar, they were just right. 

At this time, I also enlisted the services of a dog walker/trainer. This dog walker whom I will call "Betty" (not her real name) is also a trainer and prescribes to the Cesar Milan, leader of the pack type training. This suited me well because Betty did leash jerks and I thought consistency in techniques would be a good thing. However, things started to go down hill from here. Sephy became extremely sensitive towards handling when he got home from walking with Betty. Furthermore, Sephy would constantly challenge Betty by leash biting, mouthing, and doing alligator rolls (rolling on the ground to resist moving). Sephy also discovered that Betty really dislikes his high pitched Shiba scream and would constantly do this to great effect. Betty did her best in trying to control Sephy but her flavor of discipline was clearly not working well with Sephy. Finally she wanted to escalate her leash jerks by going to a choke chain. Given the disturbing statistics on choke chains I decided that choke chains are not an option. For more on the dangers of using a choke chain, check out this article.

At this point, the leash jerks were also becoming less and less effective for me. Sephy was becoming habituated to them. He was also starting to fight back by doing leash biting. I was not implementing the leash jerks quickly enough so sometimes they were more like tugs and thus had no effect. I was probably also over correcting and my leash jerks did not have enough force even with the prong collar. To continue with aversive techniques, I would have to escalate the force of my leash jerks or switch to the electronic collar. The advantages of the electronic collar is that you can very easily and accurately adjust the force applied and the source of the aversive stimulus is less clear. With leash jerks, it is clear that the force is coming from the leash and sometimes (if not redirected) from you. As a result, your dog may sometimes decide to fight with the leash or worse with you. This is less of a problem with electronic collars because the source of the pain is obscured and there is no leash to fight with. However, I was unwilling to go down this path without first exploring all other possibilities.

I stopped dog walking with Betty and researched other trainers. This time I checked out all types of trainers rather than just the Cesar Milan, aversive type trainers. While doing this, I received a fair amount of insults, scolding, and rabid preaching from trainers of the other camp, the reward based camp. I always think it is rather ironic that many of the books and people who support the use of reward based training (positive reinforcement training) would resort to aversive techniques (insults, rabid preaching) when trying to "convince" other people of the effectiveness of their reward based techniques. Luckily, there were several rewards based trainers who practiced what they preached and based on their advice, I got the book Bones Would Rain From the Sky by Suzzane Clothier. After reading a few chapters, I decided to stop using aversive techniques and try using a purely rewards based system.

I would like to say that the rewards based system worked like a charm and from then on everybody lived happily ever after. Reality, of course, is a bit messier. First of all Sephy gets bored easily, with everything, even his food. For the rewards based system to work I had to identify a variety of treats that he liked and cycle through them so that he remains motivated throughout the day. I also got a greater variety of toys and used external opportunities, such as meeting other dogs and meeting people, as rewards. Walking on a loose leash was a bit more challenging, at first, but stopping or sometimes even doing a 180 when the leash gets taut works well most of the time. An exception is when Sephy gets really excited, for example, when he sees another dog or a cat. In these situations you need to desensitize your dog to the stimulus. One way to do this is to move away until you are at a distance where your dog is no longer lunging or pulling. When your dog is calm, reward him and continue doing so if he stays calm. You can then call his name and reward him for giving attention to you. Once you are comfortable doing this, you can start moving closer and closer to the dog or cat. If your dog starts lunging, pulling, barking or whining, move back and start the calming and name attention exercises again from a farther distance.

I am a lot happier with a purely rewards based system because frankly I do not have the temperament for implementing an aversive correction with enough force for my Shiba. I was also losing Sephy's trust because I was over correcting and not protecting him from other people (e.g. dog walker) who were also over correcting him. Sephy is responding much better to the rewards based system and seems to be more relaxed and happy. Being an adolescent, he still misbehaves occasionally, but a lot less so than when I was using leash jerks. Sephy, I think, also has a temperament that is not appropriate for aversive techniques. He is very strong willed and stubborn. As a result he almost always responds to an aversive stimulus by fighting back. The greater the stimulus, the more threat he feels, and the more he fights back. This is not to say that aversive techniques will never work with him. As I discussed before, under the hands of an expert trainer (Tim), Sephy actually responded well to leash jerks. However, I have not seen him respond so with anyone else. There are three important lessons that I learnt from all this:

• Try out the techniques yourself. Do not take someone else's word for it when they tell you that technique- X will never work for your dog because of reason- Y.
• The "best technique" is different for every dog-owner pair. So called "experts" will try to brow beat you into using their favorite techniques by using moral arguments and/or by telling lies. The truth of the matter is that all aversive techniques are involved in delivering an unpleasant stimulus to your dog. Some techniques such as the leash jerk and the electronic collar deliver pain. Saying that such techniques do not deliver pain and is only used to get your dog's attention is rubbish. For such techniques to work effectively, it must deliver the proper level of pain so as to motivate your dog to follow your command which will ultimately stop the pain. On the other hand, aversive techniques may get more consistent and prompt responses to your commands because pain is a strong motivator. The effectiveness of the different techniques will depend on your training skill (timing, delivery of stimulus), on your temperament, on your dog's temperament, and on the current level of trust and respect between you and your dog. Be honest and let your own moral compass steer you.
• Start out with rewards based techniques. With rewards based techniques there is no danger of losing your dog's trust and/or injuring your dog physically or mentally if you make training mistakes. You may then tweak your training by adding in aversive techniques as necessary. I would start first with the non pain and non dominance based ones, e.g. water spray, loud noise. If you find after a few weeks (at least 3-4 weeks) that you need some stronger discipline then consult a rewards based trainer first to see if you can trouble shoot the problem areas. Also make sure that you are following the Nothing In Life Is Free (NILIF) program. If this fails to bring results, find a good aversive based trainer and start with leash jerks using a flat collar first. You may then progress to other aversive methods, as necessary, based on the advice of your trainer. Remember always that there is a danger of things going really wrong with aversive techniques. Your dog may misbehave more, get destructive or aggressive, lose respect and trust for you, get stressed and break down completely, run away, or get injured. Always get direction from a good trainer before trying out pain or dominance based aversive techniques.