train with kindness
A recent study out of Portugal led by Ana Catarina Vieira de Castro has been receiving attention, including press from the Bark and Psychology Today, among other sources. The study emphasizes what positive reinforcement trainers know: dogs blossom and thrive when they are trained with kindness and exhibit stress under even mild aversive training conditions.
Of the 92 companion dogs in the study, 42 from “positive” training centers and 50 from training centers that relied on force and punishment, the dogs from what can only be called a negative environment demonstrated more signs of stress, including higher levels of cortisol, during training and were persistently tense and pessimistic post-training.
Read the full study paper, entitled Does training method matter? Evidence for the negative impact of aversive-based methods on companion dog welfare.
Dogs blossom and thrive when they are trained with kindness...
