Why a Blog?

I am a +R based dog trainer.

This means that I choose to train dogs primarily through techniques and methods that employ the use of positive reinforcers and good consequences to facilitate canine learning.  These ways of training do not include the deliberate incorporation of physical or verbal corrections.

This is currently a topic of hot debate in online groups and discussion forums, and I often have responses to those who object to this kind of dog training in those formats.

While I often do discuss those objections with those who make them in the formats where I read them, very often there is more that I don't say for various reasons.  Therefore, this blog will serve as a place where I can express my responses, thoughts on the topic of dog training, usually +R based dog training, freely, honestly, and openly.

I do not claim to be an expert dog trainer.  I certainly am not.  

I do not aspire to training feats worthy of high accolades.  

First and foremost, I love my dogs and I enjoy training them and participating in certain activities with them.  I have a great interest in Positive Reinforcement Based dog training and I have gone out of my way to learn as much as I can about it.

Some say that only highly skilled and extraordinary people can successfully train through reinforcement.  But I am an ordinary person and it works for me.  So, while not an expert, I am an average person who uses this sort of training on a daily basis.  That is the only point of view that I am coming from, or claim to come from!

One last point.  I am not starting this blog to be negative or to criticize anyone else.  It is a vehicle for my own self expression about something toward which I have a high level of interest.  There are people out there with whom I do not agree.  Much of what I write is in response to what some of them say and write publicly.  It is not intended as a personal slam or insult, but as my honest response.  I believe that discourse, expression, and learning are very positive things.  And those are the exact intention of this blog!

 

This is Tessa.  She is a former stray who was semi-feral when I adopted her.

Through +R based dog training, she has become a confident and happy member

of our household.  She has lovely manners, and enjoys running with me as my

Agility partner