We stand for a general decision for positive motivation.
We wrongly used to think that if a dog really understood a task and still was not doing it right, a correction was the only right consequence. ❌
But we noticed that if the dog had a potential correction in mind during the exercise, the positive reward lost its value.
Because of the pst correction, this potential negative consequence was in the foreground for many dogs and no longer the promised reward for doing the exercise well.
That's why we rethought! 💡
In the meantime, our dogs simply don't get what they desire the most if they make a mistake. So we refuse expected rewards, such as ball, admiration, treats, ...
Now the dog handler has to be very careful that the dog is really disappointed about not receiving his reward. Only if the lack of a reward is really annoying, the dog will try harder the next time during the exercise.
If the dog is not angry about it, but instead grabs another toy or does something else funny, it does not work.
For example, in the past we used to be convinced that we needed to use a whip during technical exercises in order to get a safe and quick sit. We used to like to talk about so-called "ensuring". But that always brought a loss of mood for the fundamentally positive motivation of the exercise due to parallel fear of the correction.
This new approach was, among other things, the reason for the new edition for our book 2018.📚