Positive or Negative re inforcement?

One of the most common arguments you will hear in dog training is regarding positive or negative reinforcement. I would like to weigh in here with my opinion. First to explain the difference between the two. Positive reinforcement is when the trainer marks the desired behaviour with a positive reward, such as a food treat or praise etc. This method is very effective in teaching the dog to do something, its not so good in teaching the dog not to do something. Negative reinforcement is marking the unwanted behaviour with a negative marker such as a leash correction etc. This is very good for discouraging unwanted behaviour but not so good for teaching new behaviours. So it stands to reason that a mixture of both of these would be the ideal way to train a dog. This is what is known as Reward based training, or balanced training. Its what you will find in most all of my training programs. You would be correct in assuming that reward based training is by far the most successful, but you will have no trouble finding people who will argue this into the ground. These people usually like to call themselves Purely positive trainers. They sometimes have success in teaching desired behaviours to low drive family pets, & having the dogs perform these movements in the comfort of their own home is often achieved. Its when the dog is under various levels of distraction that the compliance often disappears, as this form of training has no way of correcting unwanted behaviours. Dogs that are highly strung, problematic, high drive etc often fall out of the reach of purely positive trainers. I personally have no problem with what ever type of reinforcement a trainer may choose, it's when that trainer decides to proclaim to have found the new way, & make claims of being driven by moralistic responsibility or its when they try & fool dog owners into feeling guilty for choosing a method other than theirs. I have found that people making such claims do so as they cant provide the desired results & need to rely on guilt to keep a client. Strangely, they will tell you that - R is immoral, cruel & outdated, but have no problem using it on their clients… The ironic side of this topic is that, those who feel that training can be categorised into -R or + R know very little about training. The type of reinforcement used in training is a small part of the training system only, not the training method. For example, the way that rewards are introduced, delivered & the dog interprets them is of far greater importance than the type of reinforcement used. However the main focus of a dog trainer shouldn't be the reinforcement, or the reward method or introduction, it's working within the temperament of the dog. Take a dog that doesn't have a massive food drive, plying it with food starts out as ineffective & will end up causing stress in the dog. A trainer that doesn't understand drives & nerves in the dog will not recognise the early signs of stress & keep on adding it. This will prove very ineffective in training the dog & as you have read, it was nothing to do with reinforcement or the training method. A good trainer will keep the temperament of the dog within his control at all times. Often Purely Positive trainers will regale us with their tales of the old jerk & pull trainers knocking spirit out of dogs, well the tales they regale are usually of their history of training dogs or second hand hearsay. I would guess that when they did use -R they did not posses the skills required to work within the temperament of the dog & caused problems that way. Of course they will always have handy the name of someone who has trained a dog using only + R, the amount of time this took or an example of the dog working, or any proof that only + R was used is never available. There is not, anywhere in the world, anyone who has trained a Police Service Dog using Purely Positive methods only. Police service dogs need to be confident, high spirited & high drive dogs that posses a high level of obedience under the highest distraction. If its not good enough to provide results under those circumstances, is it good enough for your dog? My advice is not to get wrapped up in the type of reinforcement used, but the way in which the trainer can read the dog & work within it's temperament.