Last week I was enlightened that in my previous post “A Lesson in Training Mechanics” might have been a little too in-depth. Regardless of the 2 hours I spent breaking down a 3 minute training session. I am here to remedy that with the above video which only took me 30 minutes to edit. I am happy with this.

I like to feature different species on my blog and how to train them because you don’t need to train them any differently from each other. The way I train a budgie to “come” the exact same way I train a dog to “come.” 

Sure there are some differences when you factor in ethology, age, food used, etc. But the training plans largely remain very similar to each other. This is because positive reinforcement is a safer choice when working with potentially dangerous species. Dogs are often used and abused when it comes to training because they have been domesticated to work with humans. We (as a species) use force and extreme forms of punishment because we can use it without facing immediate punishment ourselves. Do all dogs attack you if you yank on a prong collar? No. If they did I doubt there would be much of a rift in the dog training community as there currently is.

Domestication, in my observation, seems to dull the side effects of aggression, escape, avoidance, and depression when using aversive tools. Now that isn’t to say that dogs will not show these undesirable side-effects. Dogs tend to bounce back rather quickly from stressful situations when compared to undomesticated species, like parrots. However, when used consistently it often creates a ticking time-bomb where the side effects will happen “out of the blue” and without warning in a situation that wasn’t appropriate, or the dog will inappropriately over-react. 

There is of course much more to be said about the topic and I feel a little insecure about about not going more in-depth. Though I suppose I can cover it in a blog post at a later date.

See you in the next one.