This week’s topic is the significance of trainer certifications:
“Will knowing a trainer’s certification help you find the “Best” trainer?”
In this episode, I discuss:
- The significance of different training certifications
- Why finding the “best” trainer should not be your first priority
- Why puppy class is fantastic, but not a requirement
Visit our website, madcapradio.com for further reading.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist
and this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
Oh, look at that.
(00:21):
Today's question is one that I wrote
into the Puppy Culture discussion group.
By way of background, I'm doing a booklet
to help puppy owners find a safe
puppy class, an appropriatepuppy class for their puppies.
And this was my question.
(00:44):
Tell me what your bottom four or five
dog trainer certification programs are.
More than five,if you feel it's important.
What would be the ones that raisean immediate red
flag for youwhen you see them after a trainer's name?
I'm trying to help puppy ownerssteer clear of bad trainers.
(01:06):
I know the good certification programs.
It's the bad onesthat I really don't pay attention to. So
this generateda lot of interesting conversation.
A lot of people did answer the question.
But, you know, a lot of peoplegave some pushback about it, saying, well,
(01:27):
you know, you can’t identify a good ora bad dog trainer by their certification,
and I agree with that to an extent thatprobably what I should have said was, I'm
looking for safe versus unsafe for puppiesand I'm going to expound on that.
Let's start with
(01:47):
the proposition.
And the proposition is that
while I'm not going to wadeinto the debate
on different methods of dogtraining or using aversives
as an adult dog or balance trainingor any of that other stuff, I'm just
you know, when it comes to adultdogs, I'm not even going there.
(02:10):
But I'm going to say unequivocally,
there is never any reason
to use an aversive on a puppy.
Puppies are the equivalent of nursery
school aged children.
(02:30):
You would never hit a three year old
and you would run from anybody
who suggested that you do that.
And the same should be truefor your puppy.
I'm extremely interested
in the science in this areaand any new studies that come out,
(02:52):
and I'm not an ideologuewhen it comes to training methods at all.
But every study
that I am aware of,and there are a number of them,
there's Megan Heron study,there's a number of studies about dogs
trained with positive reinforcementversus aversive.
There's the studies about puppiesbeing scared in the first year of life
(03:15):
and how that can have a detrimental
outcome for themin terms of both dog and human aggression
and how an aversive training method
is probably the most likely way a puppy,
a young puppy is going to be scaredor have a negative experience.
And zero studies
that show any benefit, any upside at all
(03:39):
to using punishmentand aversives on a puppy.
There's two main arguments
that people bring up on this subject.
Number one, that it's natural
that the mother will use aversiveson the puppy,
that the mother will quote correct,unquote, the puppy.
(03:59):
And that also is wrong.
Maybe from an evolutionary point of viewit's advantageous
to the mother to sometime use aversiveor punishment on her puppies
to resource guard from her puppies,to be defensive about weaning the puppies.
Because remember, from an evolutionarypoint of view,
(04:22):
her primary game is to breed again,produce more.
If those puppies don't actually need
to nurse from her anymoreor need to eat the food that she's eating,
she really doesn't careif the puppies are damaged emotionally.
I mean, it's a prettysimple equation, right?
(04:45):
Natural is not always best.
And indeed, as we mentioned in PuppyCulture, this has been studied
and damns who use confrontational methodsto wean their puppies,
in fact, those puppies do turn out
to have more social handicaps.
(05:06):
They're more socially inhibited, they'reless outgoing, they're more fearful.
And then the damsthat use non-confrontational retreat
or just not snappingand pinning and growling at them,
those puppiesgrow up to be more confident,
more outgoing,more likely to play with humans.
So, you know, yes, it's natural,
(05:29):
but you have to ask what nature's game is.
And nature'sgame is not the individual puppy.
You know, nature doesn't careabout the individual puppy.
Naturecares about survival of the species.
We as breederscare about individual puppies.
We as puppyowners care about individual puppies.
So I'm just going to knock that argumentright out of the box
(05:52):
because it's just, it's true,maybe in some senses that in the wild
the puppies would experiencesome degree of aversives in nature.
But, you know, a lot of puppiesare going to die and a lot of puppies
are going to be psychologicallynot what we think is optimal for us.
(06:13):
Again,as Suzanne Shelton is always saying,
there's nothing natural about dogbreeding and domestic dogs.
Okay?We're not looking for a natural outcome.
We're looking foran optimal outcome for us.
And what we want is not natural.
We want a friendly dogthat is outgoing and happy.
(06:33):
And, you know, that's that's just notwhat nature, nature provides suspicion,
suspicion and fear are the thingsthat keep dogs alive in nature.
So. All right, cross that one off.
Then the other argumentthat people used was,
well,you know, it's wrong to give puppy owners
(06:56):
a list of certifications and saythese are good ones and these are bad ones
because a certification doesn't indicatewhich trainer is a good trainer.
That there are some quoteunquote, balanced trainers
who will do a much better job with puppies
than pure positive trainers.
(07:16):
And, you know, I can't argue with that.
I don't disagree with that.
Certainly some of my top dog training
mentors have not been abovedipping into all four quadrants.
I mean, certainly they've usedsome suppression on dogs at times.
(07:40):
And I've done seminars all over the world
and frankly been aghast at how
lacking in basic training,mechanical skills,
a lot of pure positive trainers are.
Just an inability to slice and diceand shape behaviors,
which a lot of these balancetrainers are a lot better at that.
(08:05):
So while that's true that this is not,
you know, separating trainersby certification is not going
to identify the better trainers,what it is going to do
and this is what'simportant to me as a breeder
is it's going to identify why the trainers
(08:29):
who are ethically bound not to use
aversives and punishment on puppies.
And it's going to separate those trainersfrom the trainers
who are highly skilled and trained
in using aversive methods.
(08:49):
A trainerthat is highly skilled and trained
in using a pinch collar, a shock collar
or any kind of other
aversive, has that in their toolkit?
Okay, It's a possibility.It's on the table.
And if they're really good at it,
it's probably somethingthey're going to reach for.
(09:11):
You can argue with me,but I'm going to tell you I never, ever
want to hear that that was used onany puppy of mine because it's wrong.
So I'm not sayingthat this is going to help people
find the greatest trainer in the world,but it's going to keep puppy owners safe.
It's going to keep them in a place.
(09:31):
If you go with a petprofessional guild trainer, I mean,
they take an ethical oath that they'renot going to use any aversives.
So as a dog breeder,when I send my puppy owners out
and listen,I do partner with my puppy owners, okay?
(09:53):
I help them find trainers.
That's one of the things that we work onbefore I place the puppy.
We've selected a trainer for them,but even so,
sometimes the puppy owners will take itupon themselves or they'll go to a trainer
and they can't get in the classand they see another trainer
(10:14):
and they think like,Oh, this is this is okay.
They don't understand what's going on.
And again, as a breeder,I feel like I'm just sending my puppy
owners out into literally a minefieldthat like that,
there's no way they're going to be ableto negotiate this.
There just isn't. So
(10:36):
making it very black and white.
Okay.
And saying these trainers,you'll be safe with these trainers,
not that they're going to bethe best trainers in the world,
but they're not going to do an alpha roleor a scruff
or put a pinch collar on your dogor a shock collar on your dog, traumatize
your puppyand basically send you to behavior
(10:59):
modification boot campfor the rest of your life with that dog
That, none of that's going to happen.
If you go to a petprofessional guild trainer.
They may stink.
They may not successfully teach your puppy
how to lie down or walk on leash,but who cares?
I don't care.
There's so many resources online.
(11:20):
We've got our own puppy course, With OpenArms and a Level Head puppy course.
I teach you how to teach your dogto do anything.
It's not rocket science, okay?
There's a lot of really competent,
positive trainers.
It's not hard to find one.
So again, if you happen to hiton a bad positive trainer,
(11:44):
the worst thing that happens isyour dog doesn't get trained.
If you hit on a bad trainerthat uses aversives and punishment
on your puppy, your puppy can be justmessed up for life, quite frankly.
It only takes one traumatic experience
for a young puppy to be traumatizedfor the rest of its life.
(12:06):
Why would you take that risk?
I am a huge
proponent of puppy classand without a doubt,
when you can get into a good puppyclass, it's a gift.
But you know what?
A good puppy class is not a requirement.
(12:26):
It's a luxury.
And frankly, training is way overrated.
The important thing about puppyclass is more that the puppy just
learns to
do some kind of trainingactivity in public.
Okay.
It's just the concept that we were here.
(12:48):
We focus on our owners.There's these other puppies.
I'm experiencing all this stuff,the ramping up, the ramping down,
the entry, the exit,all that sort of stuff is important.
But the real meat of it,like how well your puppy
is trained at the end,I mean, it doesn't really matter.
The best dog I ever had.
(13:10):
You all know her, Daphne.
The best dog did not know how to lie down.
Yeah, I know. Dirty secret.
My dog did not know how to lie down.
I mean, eventually I did train herbecause we, we needed a rally title
for our Versatility awardswhen she was like eight years old
(13:31):
I'm like, alright,I guess I need to train this dog now.
But, you know, training,
she she,she knew how to walk on leash, basically,
I did
trainer in agilitysome but she didn't know how to lie down.
It didn'tnot affect my enjoyment of that dog
the most challenging
(13:52):
and frankly unpleasant dogto live with that I ever had
was Ruby, who, by the way, was ranked
nationally in APDT rally.
The APDT doesn't do rally anymore,but in the day they were the first ones.
I think if not one of the first ones,the first ones to do rally.
(14:13):
And she was top five in the country.
Top five in the country.
But oh my gosh,what a terrible dog to live with.
She actually enjoyed disliking other dogs.
She was so dog aggressive and,
you know, a lot of the reasonwhy I'm the dog trainer I am today
is because I just had to train that dogto within an inch of her life
(14:36):
in order for her to interfacesuccessfully in public.
And frankly, around the house, she was,I would say, indifferent to people.
I mean, she would like people if she feltshe had a use for you at that moment,
but she wasn't, you know, warm and fuzzykind of dog.
I loved her dearly, dearly,
(14:56):
and didnot take away from my love for the dog.
But she was a terrible dog to live with.
I'm just going to say it,but very well trained.
My point here is Ruby,
you know, I got at four
and a half months old, DaphneI raised from birth.
Is that the big differencebetween those two dogs?
(15:18):
I mean, I think a lot is genetic,but I think a lot really did have to do
with Ruby, you know,having had a different set of hands
raising her in the beginning.
So I guess what I'm saying to you is that
how you teach something
is much more importantthan what you teach.
(15:41):
And you can live very happilywith an untrained dog.
So don't feel thatif you can't find a safe dog trainer
that you have to runto a bad training class,
or that you should reallylook at balanced trainers for your puppy
because you know,they may be able to get you better results
(16:03):
because the result you're looking foris that you have a dog
that's a pleasure to live withand not a behavioral project.
And the people that are going to be ableto most reliably deliver that to you
are the peoplewho are not going to use aversives
and punishment on your dog.
(16:23):
If you liked this podcast,you'll love our Puppy owner course
available at madcapuniversity.com.
If you're a breeder,check out our breeder course
also available at madcapuniversity.com.
Breeders, if you want to get your puppyowners started the right way,
(16:43):
check out our bulk discountsfor multiple copies
of our puppy course at puppyculture.com.
Well that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist
and this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
Oh, look at that.
(00:21):
Today's question is one that I wrote
into the Puppy Culture discussion group.
By way of background, I'm doing a booklet
to help puppy owners find a safe
puppy class, an appropriatepuppy class for their puppies.
And this was my question.
(00:44):
Tell me what your bottom four or five
dog trainer certification programs are.
More than five,if you feel it's important.
What would be the ones that raisean immediate red
flag for youwhen you see them after a trainer's name?
I'm trying to help puppy ownerssteer clear of bad trainers.
(01:06):
I know the good certification programs.
It's the bad onesthat I really don't pay attention to. So
this generateda lot of interesting conversation.
A lot of people did answer the question.
But, you know, a lot of peoplegave some pushback about it, saying, well,
(01:27):
you know, you can’t identify a good ora bad dog trainer by their certification,
and I agree with that to an extent thatprobably what I should have said was, I'm
looking for safe versus unsafe for puppiesand I'm going to expound on that.
Let's start with
(01:47):
the proposition.
And the proposition is that
while I'm not going to wadeinto the debate
on different methods of dogtraining or using aversives
as an adult dog or balance trainingor any of that other stuff, I'm just
you know, when it comes to adultdogs, I'm not even going there.
(02:10):
But I'm going to say unequivocally,
there is never any reason
to use an aversive on a puppy.
Puppies are the equivalent of nursery
school aged children.
(02:30):
You would never hit a three year old
and you would run from anybody
who suggested that you do that.
And the same should be truefor your puppy.
I'm extremely interested
in the science in this areaand any new studies that come out,
(02:52):
and I'm not an ideologuewhen it comes to training methods at all.
But every study
that I am aware of,and there are a number of them,
there's Megan Heron study,there's a number of studies about dogs
trained with positive reinforcementversus aversive.
There's the studies about puppiesbeing scared in the first year of life
(03:15):
and how that can have a detrimental
outcome for themin terms of both dog and human aggression
and how an aversive training method
is probably the most likely way a puppy,
a young puppy is going to be scaredor have a negative experience.
And zero studies
that show any benefit, any upside at all
(03:39):
to using punishmentand aversives on a puppy.
There's two main arguments
that people bring up on this subject.
Number one, that it's natural
that the mother will use aversiveson the puppy,
that the mother will quote correct,unquote, the puppy.
(03:59):
And that also is wrong.
Maybe from an evolutionary point of viewit's advantageous
to the mother to sometime use aversiveor punishment on her puppies
to resource guard from her puppies,to be defensive about weaning the puppies.
Because remember, from an evolutionarypoint of view,
(04:22):
her primary game is to breed again,produce more.
If those puppies don't actually need
to nurse from her anymoreor need to eat the food that she's eating,
she really doesn't careif the puppies are damaged emotionally.
I mean, it's a prettysimple equation, right?
(04:45):
Natural is not always best.
And indeed, as we mentioned in PuppyCulture, this has been studied
and damns who use confrontational methodsto wean their puppies,
in fact, those puppies do turn out
to have more social handicaps.
(05:06):
They're more socially inhibited, they'reless outgoing, they're more fearful.
And then the damsthat use non-confrontational retreat
or just not snappingand pinning and growling at them,
those puppiesgrow up to be more confident,
more outgoing,more likely to play with humans.
So, you know, yes, it's natural,
(05:29):
but you have to ask what nature's game is.
And nature'sgame is not the individual puppy.
You know, nature doesn't careabout the individual puppy.
Naturecares about survival of the species.
We as breederscare about individual puppies.
We as puppyowners care about individual puppies.
So I'm just going to knock that argumentright out of the box
(05:52):
because it's just, it's true,maybe in some senses that in the wild
the puppies would experiencesome degree of aversives in nature.
But, you know, a lot of puppiesare going to die and a lot of puppies
are going to be psychologicallynot what we think is optimal for us.
(06:13):
Again,as Suzanne Shelton is always saying,
there's nothing natural about dogbreeding and domestic dogs.
Okay?We're not looking for a natural outcome.
We're looking foran optimal outcome for us.
And what we want is not natural.
We want a friendly dogthat is outgoing and happy.
(06:33):
And, you know, that's that's just notwhat nature, nature provides suspicion,
suspicion and fear are the thingsthat keep dogs alive in nature.
So. All right, cross that one off.
Then the other argumentthat people used was,
well,you know, it's wrong to give puppy owners
(06:56):
a list of certifications and saythese are good ones and these are bad ones
because a certification doesn't indicatewhich trainer is a good trainer.
That there are some quoteunquote, balanced trainers
who will do a much better job with puppies
than pure positive trainers.
(07:16):
And, you know, I can't argue with that.
I don't disagree with that.
Certainly some of my top dog training
mentors have not been abovedipping into all four quadrants.
I mean, certainly they've usedsome suppression on dogs at times.
(07:40):
And I've done seminars all over the world
and frankly been aghast at how
lacking in basic training,mechanical skills,
a lot of pure positive trainers are.
Just an inability to slice and diceand shape behaviors,
which a lot of these balancetrainers are a lot better at that.
(08:05):
So while that's true that this is not,
you know, separating trainersby certification is not going
to identify the better trainers,what it is going to do
and this is what'simportant to me as a breeder
is it's going to identify why the trainers
(08:29):
who are ethically bound not to use
aversives and punishment on puppies.
And it's going to separate those trainersfrom the trainers
who are highly skilled and trained
in using aversive methods.
(08:49):
A trainerthat is highly skilled and trained
in using a pinch collar, a shock collar
or any kind of other
aversive, has that in their toolkit?
Okay, It's a possibility.It's on the table.
And if they're really good at it,
it's probably somethingthey're going to reach for.
(09:11):
You can argue with me,but I'm going to tell you I never, ever
want to hear that that was used onany puppy of mine because it's wrong.
So I'm not sayingthat this is going to help people
find the greatest trainer in the world,but it's going to keep puppy owners safe.
It's going to keep them in a place.
(09:31):
If you go with a petprofessional guild trainer, I mean,
they take an ethical oath that they'renot going to use any aversives.
So as a dog breeder,when I send my puppy owners out
and listen,I do partner with my puppy owners, okay?
(09:53):
I help them find trainers.
That's one of the things that we work onbefore I place the puppy.
We've selected a trainer for them,but even so,
sometimes the puppy owners will take itupon themselves or they'll go to a trainer
and they can't get in the classand they see another trainer
(10:14):
and they think like,Oh, this is this is okay.
They don't understand what's going on.
And again, as a breeder,I feel like I'm just sending my puppy
owners out into literally a minefieldthat like that,
there's no way they're going to be ableto negotiate this.
There just isn't. So
(10:36):
making it very black and white.
Okay.
And saying these trainers,you'll be safe with these trainers,
not that they're going to bethe best trainers in the world,
but they're not going to do an alpha roleor a scruff
or put a pinch collar on your dogor a shock collar on your dog, traumatize
your puppyand basically send you to behavior
(10:59):
modification boot campfor the rest of your life with that dog
That, none of that's going to happen.
If you go to a petprofessional guild trainer.
They may stink.
They may not successfully teach your puppy
how to lie down or walk on leash,but who cares?
I don't care.
There's so many resources online.
(11:20):
We've got our own puppy course, With OpenArms and a Level Head puppy course.
I teach you how to teach your dogto do anything.
It's not rocket science, okay?
There's a lot of really competent,
positive trainers.
It's not hard to find one.
So again, if you happen to hiton a bad positive trainer,
(11:44):
the worst thing that happens isyour dog doesn't get trained.
If you hit on a bad trainerthat uses aversives and punishment
on your puppy, your puppy can be justmessed up for life, quite frankly.
It only takes one traumatic experience
for a young puppy to be traumatizedfor the rest of its life.
(12:06):
Why would you take that risk?
I am a huge
proponent of puppy classand without a doubt,
when you can get into a good puppyclass, it's a gift.
But you know what?
A good puppy class is not a requirement.
(12:26):
It's a luxury.
And frankly, training is way overrated.
The important thing about puppyclass is more that the puppy just
learns to
do some kind of trainingactivity in public.
Okay.
It's just the concept that we were here.
(12:48):
We focus on our owners.There's these other puppies.
I'm experiencing all this stuff,the ramping up, the ramping down,
the entry, the exit,all that sort of stuff is important.
But the real meat of it,like how well your puppy
is trained at the end,I mean, it doesn't really matter.
The best dog I ever had.
(13:10):
You all know her, Daphne.
The best dog did not know how to lie down.
Yeah, I know. Dirty secret.
My dog did not know how to lie down.
I mean, eventually I did train herbecause we, we needed a rally title
for our Versatility awardswhen she was like eight years old
(13:31):
I'm like, alright,I guess I need to train this dog now.
But, you know, training,
she she,she knew how to walk on leash, basically,
I did
trainer in agilitysome but she didn't know how to lie down.
It didn'tnot affect my enjoyment of that dog
the most challenging
(13:52):
and frankly unpleasant dogto live with that I ever had
was Ruby, who, by the way, was ranked
nationally in APDT rally.
The APDT doesn't do rally anymore,but in the day they were the first ones.
I think if not one of the first ones,the first ones to do rally.
(14:13):
And she was top five in the country.
Top five in the country.
But oh my gosh,what a terrible dog to live with.
She actually enjoyed disliking other dogs.
She was so dog aggressive and,
you know, a lot of the reasonwhy I'm the dog trainer I am today
is because I just had to train that dogto within an inch of her life
(14:36):
in order for her to interfacesuccessfully in public.
And frankly, around the house, she was,I would say, indifferent to people.
I mean, she would like people if she feltshe had a use for you at that moment,
but she wasn't, you know, warm and fuzzykind of dog.
I loved her dearly, dearly,
(14:56):
and didnot take away from my love for the dog.
But she was a terrible dog to live with.
I'm just going to say it,but very well trained.
My point here is Ruby,
you know, I got at four
and a half months old, DaphneI raised from birth.
Is that the big differencebetween those two dogs?
(15:18):
I mean, I think a lot is genetic,but I think a lot really did have to do
with Ruby, you know,having had a different set of hands
raising her in the beginning.
So I guess what I'm saying to you is that
how you teach something
is much more importantthan what you teach.
(15:41):
And you can live very happilywith an untrained dog.
So don't feel thatif you can't find a safe dog trainer
that you have to runto a bad training class,
or that you should reallylook at balanced trainers for your puppy
because you know,they may be able to get you better results
(16:03):
because the result you're looking foris that you have a dog
that's a pleasure to live withand not a behavioral project.
And the people that are going to be ableto most reliably deliver that to you
are the peoplewho are not going to use aversives
and punishment on your dog.
(16:23):
If you liked this podcast,you'll love our Puppy owner course
available at madcapuniversity.com.
If you're a breeder,check out our breeder course
also available at madcapuniversity.com.
Breeders, if you want to get your puppyowners started the right way,
(16:43):
check out our bulk discountsfor multiple copies
of our puppy course at puppyculture.com.
Well that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
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