Death before Discomfort?- holes in the ‘positive only’ training ideology

I sat on the floor in disbelief.

Siobhan - my collie, my girl, my #1 demo dog, my coworker and friend of nearly 12 years was breathing raggedly. Her head and muzzle were swollen beyond recognition. Her eyes were glassy.

Her vital organs & all systems were shutting down. But she continued her fragmented, agonal breathing.

I had spent the last 24 hours with her, medicating her continuously to try to control her pain, and praying for a miracle.

The rattlesnake that had bitten her packmate, Trinity, had also gotten her. But I had rushed Trinity to emergency care before I knew Siobhan had taken a bite as well. And in my haste, I had forgotten my cell phone at home.

My partner couldn’t call me to tell me to come home and get Siobhan, and he couldn’t leave and bring her, either - as we had a houseful of tiny, brand new pups at home.

When I got back from the ER vet, hours later, leaving Trinity in their care, I came home to the nightmare of a dog who was outside the time frame of medical assistance. Too much time had passed since her snakebite for antivenin to be effective or safe.

So, we begin treatment at home, as we had with so many dogs before her. And we prayed that the bite was a ‘dry bite’ - where the snake doesn’t release venom. Dry bites are still incredibly painful and often cause as much swelling as a ‘wet bite’ does. But we had nursed multiple dogs through both wet and dry bites in the past, without antivenin, and with a lot of luck.

Maybe she would make it.

And then she didn’t.

Siobhan passed away in my arms, on my kitchen floor, a little less than 24 hours after being bitten by a rattler in our own backyard.

I know the above is hard to read. This happened over 8 years ago, and was still incredibly hard to write.

But it’s time to talk about something. And it has less to do with rattlesnakes and dogs - and more about dog training.

There is a movement in the dog training world that isn’t new, but it IS dangerous.

It is a way of thinking that can only be described as ‘dogmatic’ - Definition by dictionary.com: Dogma - “a prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group”

The particular group I’m talking about here has lots of really great sounding names for themselves:

“Force Free”
”All-Positive”
”Science Based” (this one is REALLY an oxymoron)
”Purely Positive”

All of that sounds great, right? But there is a hidden danger in subscribing to many of these trainers’ belief system - the belief that ALL dog training and all lessons we teach our dogs should involve NO NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES, or DISCOMFORT - ever.

Because I opened this post with the story of losing Siobhan to a snakebite, I’m going to continue that thread, just to show you how dangerous falling prey to their line of thought can be.

On a social media post about Dog Events in a certain area, there was a recent post advertising a snake-avoidance clinic. The use of an electronic collar as an aversive to teach dogs to avoid snakes was the method of training to be used by the trainers at the clinic. These were trainers with many years and dogs’ worth of experience with snake proofing, or snake aversion/avoidance training.

A battle cry went up in the comments of the post by the “positive only” contingent.

Many wanted to argue that you could just as effectively teach a dog to avoid snakes with positive-only techniques (read: food rewards, motivational play, and praise) as you could using an aversive tool like an electronic collar that delivers a mild static shock if the dog shows interest in the snake.

Now, let’s take a quick time-out to talk about my OWN experience with snakes and dogs. In the last 16 years of living west of Horsetooth Mtn, I've experienced 12 rattler bites to my dogs - including the fatal one to Siobhan, and that same snake that put Trinity in ICU at CSU for 5 days to the tune of $7000. Luckily, Trinity survived.

I pull at least 5 rattlers out of my dog yard every year.

For the last 8 years, I have religiously done snake avoidance training with my personal dogs, and we offer it through Front Range K9 Academy to countless client dogs.

And yes, we use aversives (e-collar training), paired with strong positive reinforcement for avoidance (again, this can include food rewards, play, and tons of praise).

You know what? I've only had 3 bites in those 8 years since we began yearly proofing using aversives - and all of those were likely 'surprise bites' (meaning the dogs did not know the snake was present), given the location of those 3 bites.

Yet, I'm still pulling as many snakes out of the yard every year...so that means the snake population hasn't decreased.

The math is clear. We had 9 bites in the first 8 years without aversive snake avoidance work. That's more than a bite per year.

I've had only 3 bites in the last 8 years.

The training is effective, and while I love positive reinforcement training techniques, I would never risk my dogs' lives by relying ONLY on positive reinforcement for something as important as snake avoidance.

”But you’re using fear to train them!” is the cry from the “positive only” crowd.

Yes. I am.

I WANT my dogs fearful of the snakes, and I can guarantee you, when done correctly, they have a healthy fear of the ‘danger noodles’, and I'm ok with that.

The momentary discomfort the dog feels from an e-collar will never compare to even a dry bite from a rattler. If you doubt this, take a look at a couple of pictures of early snakebites to my dogs, below.

I, for one, am not interested in putting death before discomfort when it comes to my dogs.

And yet, the outcry at the use of electronics, for something as important as snake avoidance training would have you think it was the worst sort of abuse.

But again, let’s look at what these “positive only” trainers are proposing. They’re saying that every dog out there can be trained to avoid snakes without anything but some warm and fuzzy words, and some cookies.

But how about the dogs who are NOT food motivated? How about the dogs with extremely high prey drive that will go after any and every critter in their path?

Would you like to risk those dogs’ lives with a cookie?

Let’s be clear. Can some dogs be trained effectively this way? Probably.

But for me, “probably” isn’t good enough. I refuse to buy into the idea that death (or the risk of it) is a preferred state of being over a momentary discomfort.

There are many, many holes in the “positive only” training argument. But I’ll leave you one more to ponder on your own.

I would wager that most, if not all, “positive only” trainers have their dogs vaccinated against deadly diseases like parvo and distemper.

I would also wager that most, if not all, dogs feel some degree of momentary discomfort from those vaccines. In fact, some dogs have painful reactions to vaccines that can leave swelling and tenderness for several days.

Yet, when a dog is subjected to a mildly uncomfortable sensation in the attempt to do everything possible to prevent a lethal snakebite, the method, tool, and thinking are vilified.

When a dog is subjected to a mildly uncomfortable sensation in the form of a vaccine to also save it from possible pain and death, the all-positive crowd is silent.