Why Dog Obedience Training Doesn't Work

My Partner has had a lot of clients in the recent past who have taken their dogs to obedience classes and then had to call her in to help. Indeed more than one dog had been excluded as being "uncontrollable", which begs the question - what are they for?
Tony Knight, who wrote this article a little while ago is a true expert in this field and a great guy. Read it to the end, I think you'll find it a real eye-opener. 

WHY OBEDIENCE TRAINING DOESN’T WORK

A controversial statement? Maybe. But I’d go even further and say that obedience classes could actually be damaging for your dog. And in a moment I’ll tell you about a few incidents that will make you think twice before you book your dog into an obedience class.

This Is Probably Going To Make Me “Mr Unpopular” I know I’m risking the wrath of the majority of the dog training world by publishing this, but I think it’s an important enough issue to risk being very, very unpopular. Because as long as they can still convince you that obedience training is the best way to train your dog, we’re going to continue to hear heart-breaking stories like Bronwyn’s below.

My thinking is this at least when you’ve read this you’ll be able to make a more informed choice about whether your dog needs obedience classes or not. So how could it be that obedience classes are not the answer when it comes to training your dog? After all, there are obedience training classes running all over the world, full of people desperate to bring their dogs to heel, as it were. The costs of these classes can run from the cheap and cheerful to the downright extortionate, all claiming to be the right way to solve those annoying or sometimes even dangerous behaviour issues.

I’ll come right out and say it: Obedience training is the equivalent of building a house without laying any foundations. With the foundations of your dog training missing you’re likely to end up with a dog that performs some tricks (such as sit, fetch, roll over, paw), but still jumps up, pulls on the lead, bites, barks non-stop, chews everything, is aggressive and generally misbehaves. Bronwyn’s story below brilliantly illustrates this point.

But before I tell you about Bronwyn, you’re probably thinking what authority I have to be making such outrageous statements? So I ought to introduce myself.

I’m Tony Knight and I’ve been in the dog training business for over 10 years. I’m known as a Dog Listener (in fact on my travels I’m referred to as  “The International Dog Listener” but telling you that sounds a bit too much like blowing my own trumpet).  I work 1-2-1 with dog owners but the majority of my work is training dog trainers. There are Dog Listener Trainers all over the world now and demand for my training just keeps on growing. Why? Because these dog trainers know that using Dog Listener methods will increase their success rate in training dogs way beyond that of any of their “rival” dog trainers - and that’s very good for business.

But enough about me: Bronwyn came to us when she had given up hope of being able to keep her dog Nemo from being put down. She’d tried everything – obedience training, extreme exercise, drugs (and a few other things she’s not proud of). She was at a complete loss what to do next.

The irony was that Nemo was regularly winning blue ribbons for obedience training, and Bronwyn had even become an obedience trainer herself. He was a real life Lassie who could have been on TV with all the wonderful tricks he could perform, yet at home would bite her and her husband on a regular basis.

“He’d already had six homes and we were worried he’d be put down”. Bronwyn told me. “He started biting us badly… every time we approached him. It was often over food. Something would be on the bench. He would jump up to get it. I would go to pull the plate away or in actual fact sometimes I even tried – I am not very proud of – smacking him, and he would turn around and bite.”

“We resorted to obedience because that’s the first place you look up... and I got so involved in that because it was the only thing I thought was the solution, I actually became an obedience instructor.”

Bronwyn explained that she also had a number of dog behaviourists come in who emphasised the control approach telling Bronwyn to make Nemo sit for absolutely everything in his life. One behaviourist even told her to utterly ignore Nemo for two whole weeks!

“We were going so over the top with controls. We got to the point where if a visitor came in I could tell him to drop and he wouldn’t go near them, but I could see he was still panting, his eyes were wide open and he wasn’t relaxed… We tried everything, including drugs. You just want to keep him alive. Other trainers recommended exercise, so we had a dog walker running him morning and night, racing 5km pulling us on a sledge, and he was still the same… Something would happen and he would bite and we just didn’t understand why… We were at the point of putting him down… I was convinced he was damaged.”

When Bronwyn finally discovered the missing piece of the puzzle (the foundations I mentioned earlier), it was purely by chance, but it completely changed their lives. “The biting literally went in days… We were speaking his language and he was like „Finally!‟ Now we have a very relaxed dog”.

The key to helping Nemo was to put in place the bit that matters most to a dog.

Bronwyn‟s story is by no means an isolated case; we get feedback from dog owners like that all the time. I’ve heard people say that they can’t understand why their dog is so unruly when it knows how to sit or that their dog is so good in obedience classes but as soon as they’re out the door is pulling them along on the lead, just like before.

Obedience classes can’t even hope to give you a well trained, relaxed and happy dog if they’re not teaching the key piece of training information that made such a dramatic difference to Nemo. And in my experience and many other dog owners – they’re not.

It’s commonly believed that once you’ve got some obedience classes under your belt – that’s it, your jobs done. But the idea that obedience classes alone will solve all behaviour problems and give you a well trained dog is pretty misguided if not misleading... Because What Matters Most To Your Dog Is Who Is Leader Of Their Pack – That’s The Missing Piece of The Puzzle

Instinct tells them that their survival depends on having a leader they can trust to make the decisions and keep them safe. Trouble is, if they don’t think you’re the leader, they’ll take the job on themselves - and this is a recipe for disaster – because they’re living in a human world that they don’t understand.

We think this is the biggest single cause of dog behaviour problems today. In the wild your dog might well be a natural leader, but in a human world, like anyone else with a job they can’t cope with, they end up living in a constant state of anxiety.

The result is all those problems that drive us mad – things like barking excessively at everything that moves, chasing cars, or roller skaters or cyclists, pulling on the lead, chewing up the house when you’re out, peeing on the carpet (or worse), being aggressive to others, jumping on your visitors... and the ultimate sin, akin to signing your own death warrant, biting.

Let’s get back to some obedience commands you’re taught and take a closer look at a couple of them...

SIT! One thing that perplexes me about getting a dog to sit is why it’s seen as so important?

Some trainers say you must teach your dog to sit every time before you cross the road.

Picture the scene, the dog and owner are out walking the streets in the pouring rain (which some people actually do, and don’t need to – but that’s another subject entirely). They arrive at the kerb. “Sit”, the owner tells the poor drowned rat at their leg. Have you ever seen a look in your dog’s eye, a look that says “YOU sit! See how you like it!”

Worse, imagine there’s a massive heat wave and the temperature of the streets is in the nineties. Before you ask your dog to sit, do the equivalent of a parent testing the baby’s bathwater with their elbow experience how comfortable it is. You may be surprised…….

The way the obedience trainer approaches training your dog can also be hazardous.

One lady told us she was being taught to get her dog to sit by pushing down on its hind legs. 

The dog was resi sting so the trainer told her she wasn’t being “firm enough” and demonstrated how on the dog, the dog yelped, but sat. Later she noticed her dog was limping and a visit to the vet confirmed that the dog had chronic hip dysplasia.

I’ve heard many stories like that and every time I do it makes me angry. Sad too, because neither dog nor owner needs to go through that - ever.

HEEL! Bringing the dog to heel, and I mean literally to heel as is taught by many trainers, results in poor dogs getting yanked around or even hit by people believing that the dog should be permanently behind the leg. Worse still are those so called humane “shock collars” (how anyone can use the word “shock” and “humane” in the same sentence beats me) that are used to stop dogs straying too far from your side. I always thought the goal was for the owner and dog to be relaxed out on a walk together, yet these rigid controls often mean owners get frustrated and dogs get hurt.

A question I’m often asked is:

“How can a dog that follows commands so well in an obedience class still think they’re leader of the pack?” As people who know me will testify, I like to give analogies to help people understand the point I am making. So here goes.... 

When my sister and her family came to visit me, my nieces would invariably want to go and play in the playground in the park opposite the house.

Now, like all good adults we would go and supervi se them. We didn‟t choose which rides they wanted to play on – our job was to make sure they were happy. So you push them on the swing (not too high), push them on the roundabout (not too fast) and sit on the other end of the see-saw (not too hard). A fun form of slavery to be certain, but the adult served its purpose.

However, when the time came to go back home, who led who across the street? The girls had been making all the decisions in the park for sure, but now it was the real world, full of potential hazards, Uncle Tony took over the decision making and saw them safely across the road.

So, an obedient dog can still be the decision maker in the pack, just as the parent is still in charge even if following the orders of the kids in the playground.

I have witnessed dogs that, in the obedience environment will perform all the tricks brilliantly for their owners, but as soon as it’s time to go home they’re dragging their humans out of the room at full speed. 

You see, it is fine to perform all the commands to make the kids happy, but when it comes to the real world, those in charge take over. This can be perplexing or even deeply upsetting to owners who don’t understand why Rover is a star in the class and a nightmare at home.

Now we’re not saying don’t teach your dog commands, they’re easy enough to do, especially when they know you’re Pack Leader and it could help keep them safe. For instance to have them 'wait' (in the car before jumping out) and 'stay' (for practical safety) and “come” (for a cuddle) all make perfect sense.

We are saying loud and clear don’t expect Obedience classes to be the answer to all your dogs’ behaviour problems. You might be disappointed.

We’re also suggesting that you ask about the training approach of Obedience Trainers before committing to a class. If they seem keen on using dominance tactics or force give them a wide berth!

You Can’t Start Icing Without The Cake

I want to finish with another analogy... Obedience training and its many other relatives are like icing on the cake – all very pretty but incredibly flimsy without an actual cake underneath. The slightest bit of pressure will collapse the whole structure. I teach people how to make the cake. Once you have that in place then you can ice away to your heart’s desire.

Or not. It’s your choice.

Tony Knight