Imagine this scenario: you are a mother of a 5 month old child who is EXTREMELY curious. You just so happen to be on the phone for work because life happens.While you are on the call your lovely kiddo somehow manages to slide a chair over to the utensil drawer and grab a shiny silver fork out of the drawer. You don't see this and little johnny heads towards the nearest outlet with said fork in hand, when you look up from what you are doing he is less than an inch away from sticking the fork in an electrical socket.
Now lets pause, what was your gut reaction in that situation (wasn't to bribe him with cookies right?)
It was probably something along the lines of pull him away from the wall OR confiscate the fork maybe even give Johnny a light spanking. If any of those examples were what you would have done... congrats you would have just CORRECTED little Johnny. If thats the case why is correcting dogs such a taboo in our society?
Does that mean we love dogs more than kids (I sure hope not!) OR does it mean that we as a society understand the benefit of correcting negative behaviors as they present themselves. We believe in the idea of teaching kids right from wrong, what about dogs?
Is it inhumane to correct a dog for counter-surfing when the contrary means running the risk of allowing them to ingest something they shouldn't have? Is it cruel to make your reactive dog stay in one spot while guests are coming in the house? If you correct my dog for going after the cat, are you a psychotic animal ABUSER??? Society and A handful of well meaning " dog lovers" seem to think so.
So many people seem to think that shoving cookies down a dogs throat is the cure all to everything, well I'm here to tell you it's not. "Purely Positive" training as its commonly called is a scam at best and downright dangerous at worst. Treats are a WONDERFUL tool and I use treats more than any other tool in my "toolbelt" but it has its limits, and a major flaw of only using treats is that most dangerous and "annoying" behaviors are in some way pleasurable for our dog. Therefore the act of doing the undesirable (to us) thing creates a dopamine surge for them.
So how do we combat this? By making the desireable thing undesirable, and how is that done? With corrections.