Canine Action Philosophy

Canine Action takes great pride in providing owner education to promote responsible pet
ownership throughout central Florida. We use the most current applications of positive reinforcement training to create a confident, obedient, well-adjusted pet.

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COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. What is positive reinforcement training?

It is a method of training that utilizes your dogs natural drives to capture and reward good behavior while bad behavior is corrected or ignored. If a behavior is corrected or ignored, not rewarded, it will disappear. Harsh physical corrections are never used.

2. What are drives?

Drives are anything that is rewarding and/or fun for your dog such as food, attention, petting, praise, as well as certain toys and games. For example, a dog that is crazy about retrieving can be rewarded for good behavior and obedience trained by utilizing this particular drive. Most dogs are very food-motivated; so we can use tiny, pea-sized treats as a reward.

3. If I use food for training, will my dog respond only if I have food in my hand?

This is a common question. A good positive reinforcement trainer will educate their students on the use of rewards and schedules of reinforcement. The food is used early on in conjunction with praise to capture a behavior. Once the behavior is understood by your dog, food is gradually thinned down to a intermittent schedule of reinforcement. This means that is is used randomly for reward while praise is used all of the time. This makes your pets behavior more consistent and predictable over time. If food is not thinned as a reward, you will definitely have a dog who knows when you have food in your hand and when you don't.

4. What about choke chains, prong collars, and shock collars?

If these training devices are used then you are relying on coercion to achieve your training goals. While these tools can be effective in removing unwanted behavior, your pet is responding out of intimidation and fear of punishment. This can be very damaging to your relationship if your dog begins to associate you with the punishment. Positive reinforcement training can enhance the human-animal bond by instilling a happy emotional response to the training process rather than a negative one.

Click here for printable information about what positive reinforcement training is and is not.