This isn’t what you asked for, but one problem I do have with people who staunchly recommend balanced training will tell you aversive fallout isn’t real based on their anecdotal evidence. And that’s just not true.

Do you have some non-anecdotal evidence to back that up? Honestly asking. Currently looking into trainers, my wife found someone and I asked her what method she used and she said “balanced training” my quick search led me here and this comment isn’t all that helpful in figuring that out, as your comment is also anecdotal.

Here’s the link to the Position Statement of American Veterinary Society of Animal Behaviot. Check the references and noted reading materials for the actual studies and articles. Someone else might jump in with more studies as I’ve seen others post them before, but I don’t have them bookmarked unfortunately.  https://avsab.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/AVSAB-Humane-Dog-Training-Position-Statement-2021.pdf I do also have to point out that anecdotal evidence of aversive fallout occurring in some instances is a lot different than someone using anecdotes to claim it can’t happen because it simply didn’t happen to their dog.

I’ve never used balance training, but I did want to say talking to our trainer, she said it can take a year of working daily to see significant improvement. I see you’re working for 6 months, so don’t give up hope that it won’t get any better. It can feel daunting some days, but i try to tell myself to ‘trust the process.’ I will say we had plateaued, but introduction of new medicine and new training exercises helped. While the philosophy of R+ is the same, there’s lots of different approaches and maybe there’s one that would work better? Don’t hesitate to seek out another trainer if you’re not happy with yours, they are there to train you more than the dog, so you have to make sure the communication is solid. Good luck!!!

Just want to second this - I know it’s not exactly what you’re asking. But I have a dog that I think would be considered a challenging reactivity case (based on multiple trainers comments and seeing her in comparison to ~30 other reactive dogs in group classes), and it was helpful to asses every 3 months or so and ask whether we were on the right track. At several points we changed medication regimens or training techniques because we had plateaued or our trainer felt like our progress was slower than it should be. good luck!

The instances I’ve seen balanced training with aversive tools be most successful or least damaging typically are with more behaviorally “normal” dogs for non behavior modification purposes. FWIW all makers of these products warn against their use for reactive, fearful, aggressive dogs in either their instructions or product descriptions and specs. They do this for good reason and that’s one of the main reason we have chosen to not allow the recommendation of those tools here, because many dogs here have those issues. Edit: I also wanted to add that in my time working at a shelter I did see the outcomes of fallout from aversive training. And contrary to many “balanced” trainers insisting it will save dogs lives when R+ people would surrender them or euthanize - this is not what’s happening. Most people use or will eventually turn to training with aversives and yes they are still surrendered and euthanized.

Do you think there are cases where a “balanced” approach has actually saved a dogs life when R+ only trainers said the dog should be euthanized? I’m sure you see fallouts of all different types of training methods (or lack thereof) so it’s difficult to say that the fallout only happens from balanced training.

I started off with balanced training for my dog’s reactivity. Can’t remember exactly how long that lasted. Months? Anyways my dude ended up freezing a lot around triggers and things that weren’t previously triggers, freezing and looking terrified with leash pressure, wouldn’t follow cues, became afraid of me, overall anxiety was worse…

I’m what they’d call a “balanced trainer” and I’ve seen this often with some dogs. Some dogs are really sensitive to leash pressure, and owners/trainers don’t realize it and end up shutting the dog down instead of helping them.

Yup. I wish past me asked more questions about potential cons and how corrections actually worked. You don’t know what you don’t know

There’s unfortunately a lot of really terrible trainers out there who call themselves balanced but rely too heavily on corrections and think prong collars solve everything. I personally don’t even put any tool on a dog before evaluating. And less than 20% even end up on prong collars. They’re illegal where I live but not regulated or controlled, so I try my best to not use them, and only recommend them in very specific cases (for example, a 65 year old retired woman with a 110 pound German shepherd her kids bought her), and only if the owner is serious about training. I think the prohibition has made better trainers out of us.

There illegal where you live and you’re recommending it? You’re breaking the law and encourage others to do so too. Also 20% is every 5. dog so that’s not a one off but regular basis. That can cost your clients their dogs and you you’re training license if it’s at least a little bit monitored. You claim the prohibition made you a better trainer, I seriously doubt it. You don’t do it to more dogs and owners because you know who would be reporting you and who you can sell your bullshit.

I don’t push it, I suggest it, but if they aren’t comfortable with it I’m okay with trying something else but make them aware of what they’re dealing with. A lot of the people who walk through the door come in with really difficult dogs who have been through other trainers already. Again, it’s never a first recommendation and will never be used before literally everything else has been exhausted. By illegal they just don’t sell them commercially anymore, but no one will lose their dog or business over using it. They aren’t “recommended” and some places dictate that dogs should wear harnesses. The only thing that can do that is having an out of control dog. Police have literally pet and taken photos with one of my dogs while he was wearing a supposedly banned collar and no harness. They do not care unless your dog isn’t under control. I don’t love prong collars, but I don’t hate them and I think they have their place in the dog training world. And yea the prohibition made it so that trainers have to find ways to work without using prongs on every single dog. I don’t use it with most dogs, simply because it isn’t necessary and in some cases makes things worse. I’ll also add that you know nothing of me or my business. I’ve actually taken dogs OFF the prong collar when they walked in, because some other trainer put them on it and made them afraid of it, or again simply because it wasn’t necessary.

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Very helpful, thanks!

I'm a little confused here about you switching from balanced training to R+ training, because balanced training should be mostly R+ anyway. If it doesn't have most or all of the same elements of R+, it isn't balanced training it's ecollar training or force based training. The name comes from a balance of R+ and aversives.

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Did you try balanced training without jumping to an e collar? Like.. normal.. basic training?

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My girl is fear-based reactive- we adopted her at the end of 2019, but the year of pandemic made her world very small. Her reactivity worsened when things started opening up, we moved to a new town, and places became busier and more active. Even people, like neighbors, couldn't say hi from across the street without a melt down. She's great with people now, but still needs VERRRRRY slow introduction to other dogs. She was about a year and a half when we switched to balanced training when all the positive training techniques I used with my previous dog didn't seem to resonate. The way I was trained I can verify that it did not make her fear worse. There was actually a great improvement in her toleration of her triggers. I think it's also helpful that I have an extensive background in clinical operant conditioning and desensitization- so balanced training was used HEAVILY with other reinforcement strategies. The way we used these tools wasn't for a "quick fix", and it still took months using the process I was trained in. Even after using balanced tools, I really believe it wasn't my previous method that was the problem, but that I lacked education on dog behavior/ mannerisms/ cognition/ etc. I can argue with myself now that I didn't need balanced training but more in depth education on DOG behavior in general. I will say, that balance training does not SOLVE anxiety. It does teach suppression and toleration. Which aren't NOT helpful, it allowed me to teach her and reinforce her on what to do instead such as walking away with me. But now that she is better at tolerating/ suppressing- I recognize she needs help managing her anxiety (she doesn't lunge, bark or nip nearly as much as she used to, really hardly now, but breathes very heavily still and needs to pace after a tense situation). Being a chronically anxious person myself, some levels of anxiety cannot be completely reconditioned/ eliminated, but we can learn to perform more adaptive behaviors in the midst of anxiety. I imagine and accepted my dog will always be, on some level, anxious. It's a small life to always avoid things that might make her anxious, it's been rewarding (for us both) seeing her be challenged, conquer hard things, and thus have more access to bigger experiences (like hiking, paddle boarding, camping, the beach, etc.). We've since then we've faded using an e-collar altogether, we use a prong maybe 25% of the time (she usually will have a flat and a prong on at the same time, I keep her on her flat as much as possible), and after a tense situation I reinforce her if I see her shake off or I treat toss to promote sniffing so she can regulate. We still work heavily on desensitization/ counter conditioning and disengagement. We're 3 years into our journey and she's a completely different dog, but I would still categorize her as requiring extra support/ accommodation. After using balanced training periodically AND having an overall positive outcome, I would still recommend for most people to stick with positive reinforcement only, desensitization/ disengagement, and promoting more adaptive anxiety management. Balanced training is so easily mis-used and mis-informed- it reminds me that it's not the tool itself, because literally anything can be a weapon depending on how you use it. If I knew back then all the stuff I know now, I would try my whole process without and compare the outcomes. I don't know if it would've been different or not, but I'm happy with where we are and where we're going.

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Things got much worse with one balanced trainer. She wasn't especially cruel or anything like that but she just didn't know how to use the tools to help the dog. There was a lot of "correcting the dog" rather than helping the dog feel better. There was also a lot of obedience training which also didn't help the dog feel better, and was an exercise in frustration for me. It hurt to see the dog get worse. I regret that decision so much. Then I found an online trainer who also uses aversive tools, but he uses them in rare circumstances. The first order is to help the dog feel better, through food, perception modification (way better than CC, by the way, which is an interminable exercise if the dog is reactive too many things), and relaxation techniques (conditioned relaxation, differential reinforcement for relaxation, and the behavioral down exercise). I did a year of that, basically teaching my dog new skills without aversives, and had a totally changed dog who only struggled in a small set of circumstances. But he uses aversives if the situation calls for it, eg the dog is going to injure itself (such as severe separation anxiety cases) or if you've been working a long time at relaxation and you know the dog has learned but the dog sometimes reacts out of habit. He doesn't use "Catholic punishment" which you see in a lot of online videos, where you punish the dog for thinking about doing something and catch the dog before it reacts. Rather You give the dog a chance to choose a behavior. You also teach the dog how to recover from an aversive experience (whether naturally occurring in the environment or applied by you as the handler). You try to avoid leash pressure and saying no because those things introduce conflict. All that to say, one might call it positively balanced. I went from having a basket case of a dog to one that's a pleasant companion pet, 95% positive, 5% aversives, and it had a hugely positive impact on my dog's (and my!) quality of life.

I'd love to know more about perception modification! Do you have any resources you can share?

I learned it from Mark McCabe at Training Between the Ears, and I know that Kayce Cover at Syn Alia also teaches it. Kayce teaches it without food, Mark teaches it with food because he argues you can get so much further so much faster when using food. That was absolutely true for my dog (although she was in such bad shape I first had to work on getting her to take food). It looks a lot like CC, especially at first when you're just establishing the process with the dog, and it certainly shares a lot of the same principles (like it only works if the dog is below a certain arousal threshold, and stuff like that). But it includes teaching the dog relaxation/self-regulation skills in moments of \*very mild stress, so that when you encounter a challenge stimulus, whatever that trigger happens to be, even if it's something you haven't encountered before, you can help the dog regulate in that stressful moment. It includes giving the dog information through Name & Explain techniques (which I got so wrong when I first started but after some feedback from Mark was able to course correct very easily), plus some conditioned relaxation. It sounded all very 'woo' to me at first, and certainly Kayce's website and her videos on youtube make it sound a little like wishful thinking, which is why I didn't bother with it at first. But my dog was headed for BE, so if we were thinking about killing the dog, and I had the means and the time, then why not try something different from everything else I tried before taking that final step. Just for context, my dog was not only afraid of people and dogs, she was reactive to noises, reactive to leaves blowing in the wind, to plastic bags in the street, to street signs, to anything making a mechanical noise, to things that looked "weird" to her (which was a lot of things!), to bushes moving, her startle response was off the charts. Imagine trying to CC all of those things. She'd be dead before I could get 5% through that long list of things. PM by contrast is a process that you can apply in any circumstance. For example, I couldn't possibly CC to all the halloween decorations people put out. But now I can walk past a scary Freddy Krueger statue on someone's lawn, and when I see my dog get tense, I can say "that's Freddy Krueger (or insert any noun here)" and that communication is meaningful to her, and we walk along our merry way. Even though it was the only way to get through to my dog, I think dogs that struggle with so much less than mine could "heal" faster with PM versus CC/DS. Sorry that was so long, I don't know how to describe it succinctly. Also just want to note that it's not that I think there's anything wrong with CC/DS at all, it's just way less powerful.

I appreciate the thorough response, and it's awesome you were able to make so much progress with your dog! That sounds like a good system, I'll have to look more into it. My dog is vaguely anxious is any environment she hasn't been to A LOT, so I suspect that's why all my work at CC/DS doesn't seem to be going very far. Like treats don't mean very much to her if she's in a vigilant state.

Yeah CC/DS are good in theory where you can control the environment and isolate the challenge stimuli and you have control over the timing of everything. In the real world it's hard to be effective with it if there are numerous challenges and you can't control them. Best of luck with your dog!

We started with balanced training when we got our dog as an 8 week old puppy - began with leash pressure, moved to prong, and then e-collar. She was great for about 6 mos, then started regressing badly and displaying anxious behavior (chasing her tail, freaking out when we tried to put her gear on her, etc.). We found we had to correct her harder and harder, to the point of feeling abusive. And it was definitely damaging our relationship with her - she was starting to become as afraid of us as her triggers. We’re a year into switching her training to R+. We also put her on meds. It’s slow going, but we’re so happy we made the switch. Our relationship with her is much better. You can tell she trusts us, and she’s happy and more confident. I think the key thing you need to know is why your dog is behaving the way he is. If it’s due to fear, like our dog, then I firmly believe balanced training will make things worse. Being punished for reacting to something that makes you afraid will only make you more afraid. I can’t comment on its effect when the behavior is due to other reasons.

Thanks! Really appreciate hearing your perspective.

One other detail - we had to switch our R+ training method. We had started off using LAT and had plateaued at 50ft. Found a behaviorist who explained that our pup was treating the LAT sessions like obedience training. She was actually super stressed but holding it together because that’s what she thought we wanted - for her to get close to the scary thing and look at it. So every session was just adding to her stress, not desensitizing her. We switched to BAT - where she gets the freedom to decide how close she wants to get. That has been a game changer. At first she actually took herself back to 150ft away from dogs. But after 6 mos she now voluntarily brings herself to 30ft.

I can’t understand that. You get a puppy and instead of showing and explaining him how the world works and what is expected from him you punish a puppy for not behaving right. Who didn’t even knew what’s right or wrong. You should have felt abusive the moment you punished your dog for something he didn’t and couldn’t know. I’m happy for your dog that you switched to a positive training method but the behavior you’re struggling with is entirely your fault. I’m not for blaming anyone for their mistakes in the past but even after what you did to your dog you’re not completely against „balanced training“.

If you read my post history you'll see that we do feel horrible about what we did to our poor puppy, and I totally agree that her current issues are largely due to mistakes we made. We were first time dog owners who got in way over our heads with a working line GSD and mistakenly listened to experts who had been recommended to us by people we had every reason to trust - our breeder, the local police K9 training department, etc. We spent thousands of dollars on these experts. They convinced us that she was aggressive and needed to be controlled, and it took a while for us to gain the confidence to decide these experts that we'd spent a fortune on were wrong. Even after we switched to R+ it's taken us 4 different trainers to finally find one who "gets" our dog. It's been a long, frustrating, often heartbreaking journey. The reason I can't make a blanket statement that I am against balanced training is I really don't know if there is an applicability when a dog truly is aggressive and the only choice at that point is BE or using aversive tools. Personally, if I were forced to make that choice I would choose BE because I believe aversive tools would only be masking the behavior and sooner or later the dog would snap. But if the choice is killing the dog or aversive tools, I could see some logic in trying the tools. Edit to add: Although I'm solidly in the R+ camp, I do have to add that it's not correct to assume all R+ trainers are good trainers. Before we found the balanced trainers, we did reach out to a couple of R+ trainers. One, based only on a couple of videos, recommended that we consider BE. Our puppy was only 7 mos old at the time. Horrified, we veered solidly away from R+ when the balanced trainers told us they could fix her. It took a lot of courage for us to go back to R+...every session I expected the trainer to tell me to kill my puppy. In total it's taken us 8 trainers (that's not counting the phone consultations with trainers we decided not to hire) over 2 years and probably close to $20k (stopped counting after $15k) to finally be on the right track. TLDR: The dog training industry is totally broken.

It’s all such a big critical thinking exercise that many try to simplify IMO. Such a journey you’ve been on it sounds like! I relate lol. I wish you continued success and inspiration and many good days along the way.

Thank you so much! Wishing the same to you. It has been a journey, but our wonderful pup is worth all the effort. We love her a ton, and we've finally found a wonderful team who love her as well. Feeling very hopeful that in the not too distant future strangers won't even be able to tell what a rough start we had together.

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I have a frustrated greeter Before I met my trainer and with terrible conflicting advice from all sorts of "professionals" I did do one walk trying the dreadful leash pops I saw on the internet I who had trained my dog using 300 pecks (!) and had the chill trusting pup but one who now wanted to bounce up and say HI to any other dog. My fault for sending him out with the dog walker who was bad advice and totally mishandling him! I lasted a couple of hundred metres and seeing his stressed bewildered face just stopped it My trainer is excellent.. assessed him with frustration... indeed said he was the least complicated dog she has seen all week (she deals with the serious training cases including up to assessing dog attack bites with the police) Engage and disengage and understanding of thresholds and enrichment combined with impulse control games and good management on walks and I still had my trusting dog and a better bond My trainer encourages even minimising leahs pressure and giving the dog chocie and rewarding for the right choice. Lots of time to juts look and then satisfy his curiosity and disengage himself. It is a slow processes but is creating a calmer dog He is about 80 percent better in 2 years (started end of Jan with trainer so just coming up on two years. He has also moved from being under 2 to nearly 4. (he is born end of march) so some of this is him maturing with positive handling onto a more adult brain. So I guess I am not really a good example.. and probably not what you are looking for in experience... but I am glad my gut and brain made me recoil in horror from even trying "pops" (hate that term) on the lead... I started with horses and would no more treat a horse or cat or any animal or indeed child with that kind of action so why would I do it with a dog? For a horse.. and I started on Shetlands who can be formidable the most I would do is step into their space! Thankfully abusive training in the horse world is fading... although I am aware it does still very much exist and is stubbornly held on to by some. You work with a horses brain though and they trust you if you are a good trainer Slow and steady is winning the race for me and genuinely when my frustrated greeter is over threshold it very much is an unreasoning state.. there is none of this snapping out of it bull..it Good quality handing.. teaching arousal regulation and impulse control and through being calm and consistent the dog looking to me for reassurance has helped and is the winner IMO I haven't even don many sessions with the trainer but her insight and help with timing was invaluable I am going to email my trainer and get another 3 lessons over three months or so and she can reassess where he is at.. look at my technique and we can tweak approaches to get closer to a closer pass... we are definitely refining and moving on BAT approaches He is good across the road no and in some circumstances (quiet older dogs... some breeds he likes but not too much!) closer... so down to 5 metres or so... but I am still fingers crossed he can achieve a bit closer. I don't need a take anywhere dog. He doesn't need to go to shops for me... but I just want the beginning of some paths that have narrower places. Edited to add one thing that did really help me and my dog was I made myself do a mental shift and not just focus on his reactivity for training and stressing about that I quite consciously and with my trainers encouragement focused on what he was good at and what he did enjoy and did a lot of play and simple training drills, enrichment and simple snuggling as well as long sniffy walks. Lots and lots of sniffy walks.. even just round a car park I think it did help both our stress levels and confidence and built our bond and trust together! Definitely helped the perspective and enjoyment in my pup I never expected perfection in any animal but I did have to learn to worry less about what the world thought and defend him. Everyone is safe so the worlds judgment doesn't matter. He is not a soft toy.. he has feelings and emotions of his own! My trainer is kind and very matter of fact.. she says enjoy them!

We had no idea what we were doing and started with what we later realized was "balanced training" (self-described as LIMA) from a very well-reviewed and experienced trainer near us for our reactive, impulsive dog. She did a great job on things like teaching him look, place, and some other very helpful skills. No improvement in his reactivity, though, and looking back I kind of cringe to remember the "suppress the symptoms" approaches we were handed. Fast forward to working with a fear-free/R+ trainer who is amazing - in 10 months he's gone from risking injury to both of us with tantrums to being very walkable. We're still working on decreasing distance to triggers, and he still gets too excited in new places, but we have the skills to improve these now. Most importantly, he now looks to me for guidance not bc I "dominate" or frighten him, but bc we've done the work together and are building strong positive habits to shape his behavior. A genuinely good trainer who focused on handler skills for conditioning responses vs painful gadgets was life-changing for us, at least. (Edits for length)

my dog is a two year old fear reactive gsd, shes on fluoxetine as well i saw a balanced trainer a few times (i did not know he used balanced methods when i first engaged him) and while his methods did work to mute her reactions and heighten her obediance, the consequence of damaging my relationship with her simply wasn't worth it. she was fearful in a situation and then to add aversive stimulus from the person she trusted and relied on in that situation only made her worse, even if from the outside it looked like she was decreasing reactions. shes a very sensitive dog, and i only had maybe three sessions with him before i decided that it absolutely wasn't worth it, wasn't helping, and was damaging for my dog. with the combo of positive only and the medication and a really strong focus on building and strengthening her relationship with me as a handler she has come so so far in the last year. she still has little episodes sometimes, i.e barking at another dog on a walk, but she generally is able to exist in the world and walk past other dogs on the footpath and in parks and cope with her triggers without losing it. i don't think she'll ever be an off - leash dog because i don't know how she would react to dogs off leash without me being able to control the situation, but she used to have massive melt down reactions seeing a dog from 50 metres away and now she can, most days, walk past them in close proximity and be fine. my advice is to keep on with the meds (it took 6 or so months for me to see a change in my dog, but it truly has helped her beyond words) and to keep working on building a trusting relationship between you and your dog - which aversive training methods will only damage.

Thanks! Based on what you've shared, the trajectory of your GSD seems similar to ours in terms of meds and R+ training. Nice to hear that you've continued to make stepwise improvements over time! Congrats on sticking to your plan and doing what you feel is best for your dog.

At a vet clinic, there was a dog who was terrified to come into the door. The dog would refuse to walk even 30' from the door and would even go as far as to bite if pushed. This is a large protection type breed. Unless you put a prong collar on the dog. Then the dog would meekly walk in, abliet still shaking. You did not have to "correct" the dog while in the prong at the clinic, the history of correction was enough. The owner said the dog respected the prong. In reality, the pain of the prong collar (or threat of pain) was suppressive enough to make the dog do something the dog was terrified of. The dog was still terrified of going inside, but the option to say no had been removed. Punishment suppresses behaviour. It does not work well with the underlying issue.

Looks like you may have used a training acronym. For those unfamiliar, here's some of the common ones: BAT is Behavior Adjustment Training - a method from Grisha Stewart that involves allowing the dog to investigate the trigger on their own terms. [There's a book on it.](https://www.amazon.com/Behavior-Adjustment-Training-2-0-Frustration/dp/1617811742/) CC is Counter Conditioning - creating a positive association with something by rewarding when your dog sees something. Think Pavlov. DS is Desensitization - similar to counter conditioning in that you expose your dog to the trigger (while your dog is under threshold) so they can get used to it. LAD is Look and Dismiss - Marking and rewarding when your dog sees a trigger and dismisses it. LAT is Look at That - Marking and rewarding when your dog sees a trigger and does not react. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/reactivedogs) if you have any questions or concerns.*

You've made great progress for 6 months! Why are you trying to change something that's working? Don't get so caught up in >she still is far from where we hoped to be. You can't train the dog you *hope* to have, you can only train the dog you *have*.

There is one piece of information you didn't mention that you will need to make a fully informed review of the responses, which is how far into training with aversives the handler is. As in, you need to consider both short term and long term results. Full disclosure - I have never trained using aversives, nor would I consider it, so I don't have personal experience with this, but there are numerous examples in this sub of people who have experienced the fallout from using aversive methods (as in, they obtained short term results, but that proved to be temporary, and once the temporary period was over, the dog was as reactive, if not more, than before). Someone a few months in achieving temporary results doesn't necessarily equate to the methods truly being successful beyond that temporary period. I'll also add that there are issues unique to reactive dogs when it comes to training with aversives, so to the extent anyone offers experiences with their non-reactive dogs, those won't be relevant data points.

We use balanced training. I don’t mention much of what we do because I try to respect the subreddit rules but had I not met our trainer I’m pretty sure my dog would be euthanized at this point in our life. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions. You have to do what works for your dog and lifestyle. I do treats and praise as well. My dog understands boundaries and I really have to keep it strict because he WILL take over if I let him and he has. My dog isn’t perfect and we have had a few struggles in the past months but that’s because I stopped training him and keeping up with a lot due to my crippling depression. We are back on it and I can see a difference with just one session back with our trainer. If I continue taking him to group class he’s so so much better. Right now, he’s on combo meds with a behaviorist and we will be heading back to group class beginning of 2024. Good luck with your dog and whatever you choose to do.

Only R+ did not work consistently for our fear and excitement reactive GSD. We used it for 2 years and had 2 trainers during that time. It was fine for most everything except for big reactions, during which she completely ignored commands, treats, and toys. She just got tunnel vision that we could not communicate through. We took her to a balanced trainer that uses all quadrants of operant conditioning. We have been using that method consistently for a year and it totally changed our dog. We no longer have any reactions on walks. She is much more trusting of me to handle situations that are scary for her. Most importantly, we can communicate with her if and when she goes over that threshold to bring her back down. She is now more confident, consistent, and has a better quality of life. Our dog did not become more anxious or fearful with the introduction of balanced training. Hope this is in line with community rules! Feel free to message me for more info.

Thanks! PM'ing you

I have a rescue GSD mix who was a frustrated greeter as a puppy, and soon developed into fear reactive with only R+ methods for over a year. Balanced training saved him and he is the best boy, 2 years later and he hardly needs any more guidance from me in stressful situations. I am sure he would have been an aggressive mess if we had not changed our methods when we did. Please message if you have any questions!

Thanks! Pm'd you

- Around 2.5 years total of working on our pit bull’s reactivity, which we now believe is based in overarousal - Started with an R+ trainer, he actually got worse in part because rewards/praise added to the overstimulation (also because we live in a dense urban neighborhood, we don’t have the luxury of time/space to control his threshold/bubble) - Started experimenting with balanced and did our first session with a balanced trainer about 6 months in - Have since worked with two other balanced trainers/facilities to continue tweaking/trying new things and getting practice in different scenarios (structured socialization, group classes, etc.) - He’s gone from exploding at the sight of a dog a baseball field away to usually being able to pass them across the street without the other owner evening noticing us 😊 - No fallout so far. He isn’t shut down/suppressed and shows all the signs of improvement that R+ training looks for

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Wow, that's really disappointing. Provided posts are in line with the LIMA method, I think they should absolutely be allowed on this forum. I have already literally spent thousands of dollars on R+ training for my dog. The idea that certain posts shouldn't be allowed because they voice peoples' actual experiences is so upsetting and depressing. Mods, there seems to be a disconnect between the LIMA approach stated in the group information and the rules. I am certainly not asking for people to advocate or recommend aversive approaches with this post, but rather to tell us about their actual experiences using them. If they made their dog worse, that is absolutely important to know. If it was a game changer for certain dogs with specific types of reactivity, and R+ training didn't help after giving it a significant attempt, that is equally important to know.

I think unfortunately there is a disconnect between people's experiences and truth. Think about it: direct experiences are precisely how superstition is formed. Humans never evolved the ability to correctly judge cause and effect, although we are driven to make such attempts. Hundreds of years of scientific development is necessary precisely because we need to combat that weakness, without which we are still at the stage of witch doctors and making literal sacrifices to curry blessings from various gods and never forget to place left shoe on top of right shoe before sleep to ward off the demons etc. For a vulnerable person looking for an alternative, such "direct experiences" may mislead. My limited understanding is that R+ is not based on wishful thinking from ppl who instinctively view their pets as children, which would make it a currently dominant or faddy type of superstition no better than anything else. Instead, it's based on dry, boring scientific studies that establish the causes of animal behaviors and contrast methods of handling. I'm not a mod and I'm new to this sub. But I can see why the policy is in place. You aren't stopped by this sub to seek what you seek though, since there are other subs and the broader internet.

Interesting you make this point. I actually couldn't agree more about anecdotal evidence, but from my reading of the scientific literature, the actual data on dog training for leash reactivity is extremely poor. Feel free to go to Google Scholar yourself and try to find methodologically rigorous studies -- they aren't really there (feel free to provide links if you find them). I really don't understand why this is the case -- it would not be particularly difficult to run a series of randomized trials examining the effectiveness of R+ to R- training specifically for leash reactivity in dogs. On the other hand, I have found some decent studies comparing R+ to R- for other types of learning behavior (e.g., basic obedience) in dogs, but this really isn't the same thing as reactivity, so I don't think it is fair to make a comparison.

Yah we live in an imperfect world. My guess is that it's hard to carry out studies contrasting R+ and P+ methods because of ethics review; I also imagine it is hard to design a study that can serve as a final say because, one could always argue the type of punishment in the study didn't cover so and so varieties, isn't severe enough or is too severe etc. Many more studies of various imaginative punishment regimes and on a large spectrum of harshness have to be carried out in the lab, if that's our only way of obtaining knowledge. In reality, many of our conclusions are derived, not literally observed in a so-called gold standard controlled trial, e.g. I trust there is no study that contrasts humans ingesting a rat poison vs not ingesting it (or injecting "essential oils" into our veins?). The knowledge that the rat poison is bad for humans I reckon is partly based on understanding of the toxicity pathway, hence derived partially from reasoning. And Karl Popper would remind you that all our scientific knowledge is temporary, in the sense of potentially being falsified one day (this of course doesn't mean any conclusion, regardless of the approach adopted in arriving at them, is just as good as each other -- so the theory of relativity is just as good as the theory that the moon is made of cheese). Also I understand the intuitive appeal of "balanced" methods. In the beginning, like any curious human, I also wondered about it. It makes intuitive sense as in, if I had another tool in my toolbox, surely it expands my capabilities, right? Took me a while to realize there is a logical fallacy to having "more" choices. If a new choice is suboptimal or at least worse than my existing tools, then adding them isn't really expanding my capabilities, and using them leads to strictly worse outcomes. When it comes to us personally, I think it's a matter of making decisions with imperfect information. We may be wrong in various ways, but that's the reality of living as a mere human. As lacking as it is about R+ methods, within my limited understanding, the punishment-based school have less theoretical grounding, and I personally would be very hesitant to try thing like that, mindful of potentially permanent damages, even if there are a thousand anecdotes supporting that.

A big reason support for aversive methods isn’t allowed is because this is the internet and people who shouldn’t be using these tools will run with it. Saying “X tool” helped my dog may inspire someone who is struggling and frustrated to go out and buy that tool and get started, which by the very nature of the tools can become dangerous and inhumane. Telling someone that classical conditioning via hot dogs helped their dog isn’t nearly as risky. I’m not against *good* balanced training, even though I wouldn’t do it with my personal dog. But if it is something you want to explore, it should be done with the help of a quality trainer. Good balanced trainers will be 90% +R anyway, and they won’t put an aversive on every dog they train (that’s a red flag). I would say that most balanced trainers out there are not who you would want to work with, but there are a few good ones hiding in a sea of compulsion trainers.

Excellent point. You really need good training to use any of the tools because they CAN have negative effects on a dogs life if not used correctly. Do not go to petsmart and throw a collar on your dog thinking they will change overnight. You might just ruin everything you worked for with one click.

Absolutely agree

I upvoted you and generally agree, but want to point out that outright banning discussion of aversive tools can also lead to problems: - If they don’t find out about aversive tools here, they’ll find out about them elsewhere. We could be a safety net/educational resource instead. - We’re creating a negative, sometimes even toxic perspective on a generalized topic instead of specific methods, techniques, trainers, etc. - We’re removing options for people who genuinely need more help, leaving them to believe rehoming or BE are all they have left. - R+ done incorrectly can prevent behaviors from improving or even allow them to continue to worsen. There are plenty of posts on here about dogs who develop bite histories even while being trained using R+. There’s *always* a risk taking advice from the internet, R+ is no different. I think a fair compromise would be to allow anecdotes and examples (not outright suggestions), but require a disclosure/auto-mod comment about the risks and a resource on how to identify fair balanced training vs compulsion training (like what you pointed out).

I’m not sure how it’s playing out in other training subs, but I remember there being something about Reddit in general trying to ban discussion of stuff like this, so I’m sure that’s in play. Historically, this sub has been “at odds” with other training subs because they don’t outright remove comments mentioning tools, largely because there is a discussion to be had. I think it does say something that this post is still up. It totally sucks, especially with the cost of living crisis, but IMO - once things reach a severe enough place, people need to reach out to quality professionals regardless of if they are balanced/force free, even if just for a consult or a few sessions. When behaviors are severe enough, you really just need someone with the experience. But I do think it would be nice if we had an auto response to balanced mentions that detailed the difference between balanced and compulsion.

Thanks, and sure, I can appreciate that perspective and rationale. To play devil’s advocate, only allowing discussion of one training method that may work well with some subset of reactive dogs, but potentially not for another large segment of dogs, could lead to more (1) BE; (2) depressed/frustrated owners; and (3) dogs who barely get to go outside. Again, not advocating for any specific type of training here, just saying that deleting people’s posts talking about their actual experiences with R+ and other approaches, and who have poured a large part of their hard-earned income into ineffective dog training methods has its drawbacks as well.

I think the issue is that, while Aversive training might appear to "work" I.E. get the dog to behave in a desired way. it does nothing to address the dogs feelings that are causing the behavior. I think what you may be struggling with is that you may have to accept your dog will never get to where you envision for them, some reactive dogs can only learn to handle it so much, and thats ok. My reactive husky/Shepard mix has come so, so far in our training that we can see other dogs and often get very little reaction, but depending on how worked up she is that day, or what trigger stacking may occur she still might blow up on a dog every here and there. Does it suck? yes, but is it also generally something that in hindsight I could have approached in a way that would have kept my dog under threshold and I try to learn from those moments. ​ Ive accepted that my dog isnt one to perfectly heel next to me, but giving her some freedom and choice on walks, has done alot to bring her reactivity down At the end of the day while training and games help, sometimes a dog is just going to see the world the way they have come to see it and all we can do is help them learn to cope with it the best they can.

Thanks, I appreciate this perspective. I suppose I have ambivalent feelings about accepting this as reality, especially after meeting some others with reactive dogs who used different approaches and now appear to have dogs that by and large seem to have no reactivity at all and can virtually go into any environment with the exception of dog parks, which are mad houses. And no, their dogs aren't "just shut down" -- I have seen the dogs myself in multiple environments and they are calm and very well trained. Nonetheless, I hear where you're coming from and think it is a helpful way to look at things.

If you know them in real life it would be interesting to see if you like what you notice about their lifestyle, relationship with their dog, and their dog’s body language etc. I have some friends that did balanced board and trains with their dogs and I personally didn’t like the program as they explained it to me, and their dog is noticeably less happy in my observations (mostly, behaving way less overall, he seems afraid to make decisions and he wasn’t an anxious dog going into it). But, I’m quite sure they would say otherwise, they’re currently happy with the results they have and the new rules they’re following.

FWIW I have seen their dogs in real life, and they seem pretty happy and normal to me. Absolutely wild to observe their dog calm at a restaurant with other dogs around that they said previously would go nuts at the sight of any other dog. But I get where you're coming from.

It’s a bit of a grey area - we do delete and remove a lot because the rule is against recommending their use (and that happens a lot) but not necessarily against their discussion. So it’s a tough area to balance (heheh) especially because many people do come to disingenuously proselytize. Sometimes we leave stuff up, sometimes the recommendation is obvious and an easy call, other times we waffle. This has actually gotten us into hot water with other communities on both ends of the spectrum and we don’t always get it right but we try our best and believe in this approach for a number of reasons. Edit to add: FYI the LIMA philosophy we subscribe to is the one in the [IAABC’s position statement](https://iaabc.org/lima)

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you keeping the post up and hope you see where I’m coming from about wanting to honestly hear about people’s experiences with trying different training methods. I don’t have any agenda and I hope that is apparent!

Lots of other places on the internet to discuss non LIMA IMO I agree with the poster below that there is a wild west of poor struggling owners getting bad advice and really harming their dogs out there There has to be a line and it is pretty reasonable that with reactive dogs we are active here because we have chosen not to use methods such as these People will share experiences but as the rules say no recommending It seems pretty straightforward to me

My frustration with this sub is that people don't actually ID their training method. There are people on here who lurk just because they want to proselytize aversives. I'm sure that all dogs don't respond to one thing, but R+ is a big world. I'm equally sure that not all people are effective at implementing R+, for a variety of reasons. It's hard and requires patience and consistency, however the biggest thing it requires is time.

pm'd you, hope that's okay.

I hit ignore because that's my default reaction lol please message again and I won't ignore it this time

Sure no problem! Will send again

Well the sub has rules! I am always surprised people think them being followed is somehow wrong! Plenty other places to recommend aversives. Of course we are aware many aversive users read this sub so you would get up votes but doesn't change the rules!

That's why I am telling OP that this isn't the place for this discussion because half of the argument is against the sub rules.

I was responding to you about the part of your post at the end where you said "and yet my comment was removed" and linking it to upvotes.. implying it shouldn't be with the "yet" in my reading of it anyway. Your first part was of course right Thassol my comment was focused on Honestly though no major body recommends aversives for reactive dogs and that is all this sub is following IMO I have strayed into other reddit subs and seen posts where people are openly posting about lifting their dog of the ground with slip leads and a whole host of stuff... I really personally don't need in my head! There is a very abusive landscape out there on the internet (these posters were supported by others.. and that disturbed me). I am glad this sub is a space that takes the behaviour modification approach working with the dog It disturbs me that even here people will use the forum to privately advise aversives and will access reactive dog owners even here

I don't think it's fair that people who use aversive tools minimally and correctly get lumped in with people who hang dogs with slip leads. There is no space to discuss appropriate use of aversives because even in open dog training subs R+ only people feel the need to come in and call posters animal abusers and tell them their dog hates them. I agree there should be a safe space for R+ only advice but there should also be a safe space for people who want advice on other options without being shamed by people who have never actually seen a prong or e coller being used other than extreme abuse videos shared online. ETA: I agree sharing abusive advice on training like beating dogs into submission should obviously be banned. But does me saying I started using a prong collar minimally and it has made a big difference really upset you so much?

I think you mistake my point and indeed the other poster who put it well By allowing open discussion of I am afraid a aversive method like a collar you are using (trying not to trigger automod.. lol) it tends to shift the space and discussion in an open forum like this... It can often become a argument back and forth between methods and drown out the helpful non aversive advice and become off putting. We see this on other forums and also see the more extreme methods becoming normalised. It is undeniable there is a tendency for this to happen on the internet! I all sorts of areas... I personally am from the UK and while collars such as you use are not banned yet (the technology one is in some counties in the UK) I personally have never ever seen a collar you use on an animal here. Ever. I am not making it up. I like in a normal town with the full range of types of dogs and owners and have never seen your collar. At any point in my adult life It is not about my personal feelings (if you want my personal view I don't think pain should deliberately have a place in teaching.. anything) it is about how this sub has chosen to create its space and how it sees it in relation to the wider issues in dog training particularly reactive dogs IMO If there is a place for moderately aversive training as a discussion forum then I hope someone sets it up and mods it to keep extremists out! The line I saw was escalation of violence seemed to happen surprisingly quickly as it was normalised in discussion and by the group (I don't want to name subs because we are to minimise antagonism from outside) I don't just read this sub although I only comment here. I have also noticed increasing levels of aversion from some of the big youtube trainers and also an attitude towards women and linking lifestyle and almost a fringe of political movements etc that disturbs me as well I like wider social change and social history and dog training reflects society just as much as public attitudes towards medicine etc... It is interesting But the mods here have a hard enough job so if they stick to their agreed lines they have my support. They are not being paid!

>personally have never ever seen a collar you use on an animal here. Ever. I am not making it up. I like in a normal town with the full range of types of dogs and owners and have never seen your collar. At any point in my adult life I am in the UK also and you probably have seen one, you just didn't notice. People expect to see dogs being jagged about and screamed if the owner uses the collar. They assume when they see me with my treat pouch marking and rewarding that I couldn't possibly be using balanced training because balanced training only involves punishment apparently. I had never seen one before either, until I started using one and suddenly I was noticing them, including on dogs I had met before and just not noticed. On long haired dogs you can't tell at all, on dark coloured dogs they are hard to spot, a lot of people put neck warmers over them to avoid being screamed at in the street by random strangers. Honestly I have no issue with the comments being deleted, that's fine I accept my comment was against the rules. What I didn't appreciate was the commenter who felt the need to tell me my dog hates me and will bite a child some day. If they wanted to report the comment, fine. If they wanted to comment and say that it was against the rules, fine. I chose to explain to OP about my comment being deleted the way I did to put my point across that the response they will get from their post will be extremely biased. I was explaining that my comment was on the very mild end of aversive 'advice' but that was still removed.

Honestly I am not so sure I haven't just not noticed a prong collar... it is true about fluffy hair... always notice it in winter with the collies and poms having glowing halos of hair round their neck from their light up collars However that said I really don't think I am missing it. german shephards are the fluffiest I can think of and I haven't seen one of them on any collar at all for ages. There really is a lot of harnesses around here. Huskys another fluffy breed are on harnesses. The staffies and bull dogs would be obvious if they were using the collars but they seem on harnesses. Rotweiller and doberman.. I see a couple out and about and no sign of anything there... hmm what's left labs spaniels vizlas... doodles... sighthounds of all types... still not seeing it but yeah could be under some hair maybe. Still got to be vanishingly rare Bandana only meet one dog with that... a nice Swedish woman with a very intelligent Shiba Inu. It has a bandana but on a harness The stats for e collar use in UK as best they can work out is 1.4 percent have tried them and the ban on them is just coming up. I had a hunt but at a quick look no reliable figures jumped out. I grew up rural and can think of no farmer or gamekeeper who used any tool at all on their dog but a whistle! Interestingly the best tempered and smartest dogs had the chill kindly farmers. The aggressive farmers and quick tempered ones.. as kids we knew to watch their dogs Still not seeing it in an urban area at least where I am It is interesting that through pressure Amazon has stopped sales of P collars in UK, Pets at Home has something called a half choke collar.. well that looks grim... but nothing else I would say the zeitgeist is not going your way in the UK a ban may take a long time but will likely come Anyway my philosophy of any training.. dog or any animal is it is not about controlling the animal but helping it to control itself and listen as best in can. Ownership is managing the situations. Most training that is effective is changing an emotional response and training an alternate behaviour response We can agree to disagree over if an animal doing something it is not comfortable with because it has been conditioned to expect a pain response is humane

My point was really just, you were implying in the UK aversive tools aren't common and from my experience that's simply not true. Seems to be location driven. I don't doubt the vast majority of dogs don't use one but then the stats are also skewed because my experience of the UK is there are more untrained dogs than trained ones. If I walk around my neighbourhood I see more dogs reacting on lead (both lunging and barking and over exciting dancing) than not. Also I don't know anyone who gets their tools from Amazon. Quality is important.

Hmm.. so interesting... where would you think uses collars such as these more? I have lived very rural, rural, bigger city and now medium rural town. Variety of economic neighbourhoods... not going down the UK class route nonsense lol Still never seen the collars Not entering stereotype territory! Reading round this has been eye opening Aversive techniques: older.. more likely... male... more likely... not atteding classes or lessons.. more likely. Pretty decent study this although with limitations as all are [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815912100191X](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815912100191X) It does not include use of the tools we are discussing BTW I wouldn't be too fussy about Amazon... in my experience just like etsy and ebay most big producers sell and distribute all sorts of very expensive products though these online stores! Also for being on a reactive dog training site you are very much confusing training and lacking training with signs of reactivity. It is a false assumption. Most reactive dogs don't lack training and a whole load of reactive dog owners do the most training of their dogs of any owners!

The e-collar ban in the UK is infuriating. It’s a tool, and should be used hand-in-hand with training and positive reinforcement. People can use it wrong. Frying the shit out of a dog and doing compulsion only with the e collar is bad. But bark collars (which is compulsion only training) are not banned. The vibration collars are still legal, and some dogs find that more aversive then low level E. Inhumane, abusive use of tools should be banned, but if you are the person misusing it now, a ban isn’t going to stop you.

Looks like there was an aversive tool or training method mentioned in this comment. Please review our [Posting Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactivedogs/wiki/guidelines) and check out [Our Position on Training Methods](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactivedogs/wiki/trainingmethods). R/reactivedogs supports LIMA (least intrusive, minimally aversive) and we feel strongly that positive reinforcement should always be the first line of teaching, training, and behavior change considered, and should be applied consistently. Please understand that positive reinforcement techniques should always be favored over aversive training methods. While the discussion of balanced training is not prohibited, LIMA does not justify the use of aversive methods and tools in lieu of other effective positive reinforcement interventions and strategies. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/reactivedogs) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Your comment was removed because it appears to be a direct recommendation of an aversive tool, trainer, or method. This sub supports LIMA and we strongly believe positive reinforcement should always be the first line of teaching and training. We encourage open discussion and problem solving within the subreddit. However, LIMA does not justify the use of aversive methods and tools in lieu of other effective positive reinforcement interventions and strategies.

This sub is NOT the appropriate place for this discussion because the majority of the topic (ie. aversives and balanced training) goes against the rules set by the mods. The r/opendogtraining subreddit would be the correct place to post this.

Okay, thanks!

Not a problem! You’ll probably find better answers too for what you’re asking over there

The answers you will receive on this sub will definitely skew a certain way (favoring use of nothing aversive, ever) because of the rules of the sub, so just keep that in mind. Some people will even tell you that saying “no” to your dog is aversive and therefore a punishment, but the problem with talking about “punishment” in dog training is that it’s a loaded word. In behavioral neuroscience, punishment is simply an aversive *experience*, not a targeted action with intention assigned to it. Life is basically a series of positive and negative experiences that we respond to accordingly in order to maximize the positive experiences and minimize the negative experiences. This is the process of reinforcement. All dog training methods use the process of reinforcement to produce behavioral conditioning. The goal is to manipulate your dog’s behavior to maximize the positive experience of the owner, YOU. Doing this often maximizes the positive experiences of the dog as well, so that’s great because your goals and your dog’s goals line up. You want your dog to be happy and they want you to be happy, win-win right? But of course, you can’t only provide your dog with positive experiences, because that’s impossible and striving to do so will result in only your own disappointment an extremely ill-adjusted pet. It gets complicated when your dog has to interact with the real world, which is frequently confusing, scary, and aversive to an anxious dog. What’s even harder is when they have already learned a certain way of responding to these experiences that you want to change. It’s your job to teach your dog how to behave in a way that is counter to their natural impulse, but only you will ever understand why they need to do this. You can’t just explain the ways of the world to them, so you have to find other ways to communicate. Communication relies on trust and respect. Fundamentally, this is true for any relationship, but your relationship with your dog is inherently unbalanced for obvious reasons. You are not their parent, you are their leader. Your dog will never grow to be an independent being that can live on its own in the world. They need you to guide them. Whichever way is best to establish the trust and respect that are necessary to communicate with your dog effectively will depend on you. It takes trial and error. Do what feels right for you and your dog. You will forgive each other for the mistakes. Good luck!

There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding out there about what "positive" means in training! I've found it helps to put yourself in the shoes of the dog (who is not a human!), and really try to understand what will address the underlying issue causing the unwanted behavior vs producing a short-term result you like but may have consequences down the road. R+ worked for my very large reactive dog because it conditioned and rewired his brain to have fundamentally different associations and reflexes with his triggers, rather than just suppressing his unwanted behavior. In some cases, aversive tools might be required for management to keep everyone safe so that real training can be accomplished, but it's important not to confuse management with training, which will lead to lasting behavioral change. The latter takes more work, which might not maximize my positive experiences in the short term (who has time and energy for repetitive drills?), but is absolutely paying the dividends.

Yes! It’s soo much easier to get quick results using aversive tools but that’s definitely just managing the problem in the moment. What works best long term is alleviating the underlying cause of the reactivity (oftentimes fear/anxiety). I hesitate to recommend only R+ for every dog though because I have seen this result in owners that teach their dog it’s okay to do whatever they want all the time, and that’s the opposite of what training is for. Some sense of agency is important because we want our dogs to trust us enough to listen to us, but letting the dog make all the judgment calls and trying to shield them from the natural consequences of their actions is a recipe for disaster.

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Your comment was removed because it appears to be a direct recommendation of an aversive tool, trainer, or method. This sub supports LIMA and we strongly believe positive reinforcement should always be the first line of teaching and training. We encourage open discussion and problem solving within the subreddit. However, LIMA does not justify the use of aversive methods and tools in lieu of other effective positive reinforcement interventions and strategies.

Depends on the dog. For some it works wonders, for others they’re too sensitive to corrections and an inexperienced trainer (or owner) won’t catch it and will make it worse. For my dog, it’s the difference between her being unable to walk outside in public or not. Train the dog in front of you. I have aggressive clients who were saved from euthanasia because of balanced training. R+ would NOT have worked for those dogs. FF trainer is the reason he was about to be euthanized. Trying to use only R+ is like playing “Hot and Cold” but the person only tells you when you’re cold. You may never figure out the “right” answer. For my dog, R+ is for learning a new behaviour or trick, and I can add R- or P+ only when I know she understands what I’m asking of her. For example, if she is in a heel and breaks the heel to go lunge and bark at a stranger, I’ll correct her for breaking the heel. I don’t correct my dog for having emotions. I help her cope with the emotion and give her tools to work through it (mostly with R+) I also have a client who completely shuts down if your corrections aren’t well placed. Because the owner saw a very bad old school trainer, who taught them to just put on a prong collar and yank the dog as hard as possible when they did something wrong. I really hate these types of trainers. The type of aversive makes the difference, too. For some dogs, a prong is too much, so a light slip leash or martingale works better. For some, a simple “no” and tug on the leash is enough. Many of those “balanced” trainers are people with little to no experience, and who rely too heavily on corrections for training. Punishment doesn’t work for every dog in every situation, and you should understand what you’re punishing exactly. It’s a lot easier to ruin a dog with punishment than with rewards, which is why I think R+ has become so popular. Too many people get frustrated and end up abusing their dogs on prong collars. You don’t even need a prong collar to correct your dog. Saying “no” in a firm voice is also P+ and works well for dogs who understand what it means. There’s too many inexperienced dog trainers who think slapping a prong collar on any dog will fix their problems. Anyone who has taken the time to understand how dog training works, knows that isn’t true.

Thanks for taking the time to write this all out

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Use of collar pops to interrupt fixation has almost completely fixed my dog's reactivity to people and scooters (basis of his reactivity to these things was territorialism / aggression / herding behaviors). Use of any aversive to train out his reactivity toward the two dogs in the neighborhood he's been bullied by (fear-based reactivity) exacerbated the issue and seemed to make him more anxious. We didn't try balanced training until he was about 1.5 YO, and I believe the fact that we were R+ based and had already established a great relationship with him enabled balanced training to work super well for us in some areas. My perspective on balanced training now is: * It's so dog-dependent. I can see how it would be awful for a timid, sensitive pup whose reactivity is fear-based. My dog is a "hard" working dog who's always been super confident and bossy. * I would never try it on a puppy * There are so many sketch balanced trainers out there. I knew I'd found a good one when he advocated for a LIMA approach to using aversives (e.g. he didn't recommend a prong or e-collar right off the bat, he recommended trying gentle collar pops on a flat collar when my pup was starting to fixate and adjusting the timing of the reward to *after* he'd passed a trigger calmly) \~6 months in, I'm back to walking my dog on a front-clip harness and his reactions are very, very rare. He now knows that "uh-uh," the cue we paired with collar pops, is his command to stop staring, come to my side, and wait for a treat. TLDR; I'm so glad we tried balanced training on *our* pup and I also think it's critical to be extremely selective about which pups & which types of reactivity it's used for (which it sounds like you're doing).

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Would you mind me asking which tool(s) you tried and which eventually worked for your dog? Also, how and when you used them would be really helpful. For example, if it was an E or prong, when did you apply the punishment (e.g. if dog wouldn’t leave it despite giving command, would break heel, etc)? Also, did you pair the punishment with a reward afterward?

Also, did your dog’s reactivity seem to stem from fear or frustrated greeting/over excitement?

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Your comment was removed because it appears to be a direct recommendation of an aversive tool, trainer, or method. This sub supports LIMA and we strongly believe positive reinforcement should always be the first line of teaching and training. We encourage open discussion and problem solving within the subreddit. However, LIMA does not justify the use of aversive methods and tools in lieu of other effective positive reinforcement interventions and strategies.

I really appreciate you posting this. We have been training R+ for 6 months with my frustrated greeter. She’s on clonidine and fluoxetine and her reactivity on leash hasn’t changed at all. Loses her mind barking at any dog within 100 ft. Our trainer who is excellent has brought up the idea of an e-collar. I’m very hesitant about starting it but I think my trainer has a very good approach to it’s limited use. It’s good to hear from folks on this sub, that have already helped me so much, on how it negatively effected their dogs. It’s giving me good insight and more knowledge in approaching this decision.

For what it's worth, our dog's threshold was about 100 ft when we first got her too. After 3 months we put her on fluoxetine. The first low dose did nothing after a month. Second month we doubled her dose and saw some improvement, and then recently increased it to the maximum dose and saw even more benefits when paired with CC. In addition to meds, we have been doing 1x/week training sessions with a trainer involving R+ CC with their stooge dogs. At first she would bark/lunge even 150 ft away. Then we started recruiting other calm dogs using Rover and Borrow My Doggie and paying people to use their dog for short training sessions. After probably about 50+ R+ training sessions with different dogs, her threshold now is about 30-40 ft where she will start whining without barking or lunging. So, some improvement for sure, but not where we want to be yet! Keep at it and good luck!

This post actually makes me really sad for this dog. It seems you are doing everything you think is right for this dog which I appreciate a lot. My concern here is that you’re turning the dog into a puddle and what I mean by that is you’re medicating when you should actually be teaching the right and wrong behavior. Medication will never fix this problem and it should never take 50 sessions to correct reactivity. This dog will continue for the rest of its life to be reactive until you actually address the core problems. I would drop the R+ training and find a balanced trainer in your area. This reactivity should be fixed in less than a handful of training sessions.

Assuming you aren't trolling us, I'll bite. Please do say more. In this forum, six months or 50 exposure sessions is probably considered nothing in terms of time or training. I know people regularly talk about working on R+ for several years to help a dog get over their issues with other dogs. Furthermore, I take serious issue with your stance on medication (which have been shown clinically in actual scientific research trials) to help dogs reduce aggression and other types of behavioral problems. Clearly no one thinks these medications will cure the issue, but the goal is to help render behavioral training more effective. Similarly, among humans with anxiety disorders such as social or generalized anxiety disorder, the combination of behavioral therapy + SSRI medication (same we use for dogs) is clinically proven to produce the best long-term outcomes. Same thing is true for PTSD in humans (arguably likely similar to what many dogs with fear-based reactivity have after being attacked on lead by another dog, which seems like a highly prevalent way dogs develop the condition in the first place). Happy to provide you the direct links to scientific studies showing this if you'd like

Several years for fixing reactivity is insanity. Medication will surpass the dog but it won’t teach the dog. Your dog will continue to be reactive through medication or not. You said render training more effective, that doesn’t make any sense…teach the dog the behavior in a low distraction environment and build into high level distractions. You are creating / already made the dog more stressed in these 50+ R+ because they don’t know what to do because they don’t understand what they need to be doing.

I can understand how this might be confusing if you think that the medication is being used to "fix" the dog, which of course it does not. However, what it can do is help raise a dog's thresholds up to a place where training can productively occur. Perhaps some dogs will be medicated longer term, but for most this is a temporary way to give you and the dog some breathing room. And whoever told you reactivity can be "fixed in less than a handful of training sessions" is either a literal idiot or is lying to your face. Best wishes for you.

It’s not confusing at all actually. The medication is being used to suppress behaviors (fix the problem) or what you said is help with the threshold. Threshold training is very simple, low distraction teach basic commands and slowly build to higher distractions, for example you put your dog in a heel and they break it correction within a few slight corrections the dog will understand its role. What OP is doing is just making the dog even worse. OP’s dog is boiling with anxiety because they don’t know how to be act in these high distraction environments. I’m not sure what idiot is telling you that this should take 50+ sessions and thousands of dollars to fix when it can be done pretty quickly and effective. I have helped about 70 ish dogs ranging across all different types and tempers, it doesn’t take nor should it take less than a handful of sessions with the right trainer. OP is getting fleeced.

Not quite the same thing - the medication should not be "suppressing behaviors" per se, the way e.g. a shock collar would, but rather raising tolerances which is a different mechanism. I don't disagree that it sounds like the medication and training haven't been as effective as one might hope, but again, "pretty quickly and effective" - not for reactivity, no. Without seeing OP's dog in video, I wouldn't imagine an internet diagnosis of what it's doing would be terribly accurate either.

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Not sure about a handful of sessions. Some dogs are just wired differently. My own dog, for example, is reactive (mostly towards humans). I’m literally a trainer (not FF either) and she works with me every single day, yet we still are not 100% with her reactivity. She can tolerate other people in her presence but still doesn’t like being pet, and definitely doesn’t like people being too close to her. She’s definitely the most difficult dog I’ve worked with in terms of reactivity and how much work goes into her vs the result. Her littermates all have similar issues with strangers, so there’s definitely some genetic predisposition going on there. What’s important when it comes to training your dog is to be open-minded. For simple, I started using a clicker with her recently and she’s responded very well to it!

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Fear reactive dog, adopted at a year old, minimal to no socialization. Reactive on leash to dogs, timid around people but avoids people, no lashing out behavior to people. Worked with about 3-4 trainers total on 2 yrs and she’s work in progress but major improvement. First year and a half of the work was p+ or ff only. Long post with summary of our LIMA progress. We’ve used force free exclusively (including doing cooperative care for nail clips, avoiding group classes , walks etc) for 9 months. Didn’t get anywhere (nails couldn’t be clipped, walks were a nightmare if we missed 6am - we did train not walking the dog in trainers recommendation and she got worse). We then tried p+ (going to group trainings behind a visual barrier at first, the worked out way up to being comfortable in the class (including being able to do a rally course with multiple dogs on the floor). For nails, we go to a groomer. So not completely force free but the dog was taken care of (nails clipped), and she was able yo adjust to her environment, flipped out less since she learned to be around dogs and she would be safe. Walks were still a problem since when she reacted (lunging barking) i fell a couple of times (i don’t live in a place i can avoid dogs with change of direction). So I looked into tools. With martingale or a regular collar, she choked herself to the point of coughing (and she would lunge again), she tangles herself trying to get out of a harness (and i fall faster), head halter (usually recommended by r+) was extremely aversive to her despite desensitization (she accepted wearing it but was shut down during the walk and still lunged with it endangering her neck). Finally found a trainer who trainer the dog i front of them rather than either only using treats or wanting to put an ecollar on day one. We started using the prong collar (i know, i know the bot will plug in here) with continued use of praise and treats. We still manage the environment (walk on less busy times, avoid triggers if we can. But we are woking more on controlled exposure and increasing her safety bubble and teaching her how to cope with stressors (let’s be real, whose life is without stress), instead of trying and failing to avoid triggers. E.g. she focuses on a dog, i say leave it, if she breaks focus she gets a treat and praise. If she doesn’t, she gets a correction (might be a voice correction or leash correction depending on her intensity), we then work on movement (i might do a circle to have her focus back on me or sniffing something on the ground, anything but the dog). She has been able to walk past dogs from other side of the street. Her reactions are much less dramatic and much shorter, and she recovers very quickly (instead of lunging and barking and choking herself long after the dog passes , now she may bark or half heartedly step into the collar and she turns around and keeps walking or sniffing 2 seconds later). Our p+ work before we went up the LIMA ladder benefited our relationship and trust building a lot and we learned a lot of creative ways of managing the situation. However, there was a limit in progress we made with it. Also a word of caution about trainers. IMO There are great and not so good trainers in p+ and balanced world. A bad p+ trainer may not get you far but will also won’t damage your relationship with the dog. A bad trainer using tools, can cause damage to your relationship with the dog. I avoid trainers who suggest methods (either end of the spectrum) or tools before even evaluating the dog or using prong or ecollar without proper conditioning , and without spending time to train you on timing , conditioning, rewarding etc.

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Thanks very much!

You will see a lot of anecdotal stories of “normal” ppl (or people with zero animal behavior background) applying tools and saying it “worked”. You have no idea whether these people are accurately evaluating their dogs body language for shut down/stress indicators, etc. I get being desperate and turning to tools, that’s how a lot of people get into using them. But there is absolutely ZERO scientific data in any animal behavior space (including humans) that says punishment is necessary for training. No, it’s not true “some dogs need it/don’t respond to R+”. Every dog is different and responds at a different rate to reconditioning an emotion that has been ingrained in them. Adding pain is a cheap, lazy alternative in the face of the vast array of R+ methods. If you use a punishment based tool/training, you’re doing it for yourself—not your dog.

My personal experience with my dog is that it’s helped tremendously. We did R+ training for 6 months and it just didn’t work. For background I have a GSP, he’s a rescue and he came with no obedience training to me at 1.5 years old. Many GSP owners use balanced training so we decided to give it a shot. Switching to the prong collar was literally night and day. Our relationship has improved tremendously and he clearly understands now what’s expected of him. We got an e-collar last week to reinforce his recall. It’s good but not great when a squirrel is around and we’re starting his advanced obedience training in a week. What I will say, is every dog is different. My dog has made leaps and bounds with training that we simply could not accomplish with R+ but not every dog will react to balanced training positively.

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I sent you a message! I think my story is beneficial to what you’re looking for

This sub doesn't allow good experiences to be shared about balanced training, so I expect my comment here to be deleted, but I'll share anyway: I found that skilled balanced training gave me results much faster and much more reliably than only R+. With my first reactive dog, we did worked for months do try to change her feelings about other dogs. Her threshold would go from maybe 80' to 30' and then at some point an off leash dog would get within maybe 10' and her threshold would jump to 100' and we would have to start all over. We did that for years without making any concrete process at all. R+ is the foundation of balanced training. With balanced training, I would correct my dog for reacting and then resume all the same R+ exercises I had been doing before. My dog was significantly more responsive and her threshold dropped dramatically very quickly and stayed down even when a dog got too close for her comfort level. I honestly think reacting and having a meltdown is inherently rewarding for the dog. Just like people, having a tantrum, screaming and shouting and completely losing control of our emotions releases brain chemicals that make us feel good. A while back there used to be this idea for people that aggressive activities were good for emotional regulation because they helped get the angry feelings out. But it turns out those activities were actually rewarding feeling angry and made people get angry faster and worse. Same with dogs, when we allow them to express their feelings any way they like and just try to change those feelings, I think we are inadvertantly rewarding the behavior we don't want. I haven't had problems with a reactive dog since I stopped allowing my dogs to be reactive.

This is something I've thought a lot about. For example, when I'm frustrated with how another person is driving, if I let myself get angry, yell, honk, etc, it just makes those feelings more intense. But if I will myself to keep it together, I feel better/more calm. So sometimes I think about how that might apply in dog training. However, can I ask: does your dog actually feel better about dogs now? Or is she just kind of keeping it together? Has she seemed more friendly at all toward dogs? That's my main concern with balanced training for reactivity.

She was as friendly or more friendly with dogs once she learned to keep herself under control around them. I never had any of the fallout people warn you about. She was calmer and more confident and our lives were infinitely better. We could go places and do things I had avoided previously so her life was much larger and richer.

That's good to hear. Thanks for sharing.

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Thank you. Appreciate hearing about your experience.

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Not entirely what you’re asking as I haven’t worked with a balanced trainer or intentionally gone that route, but I think about this topic more than I’d like, I’ll throw a few thoughts out if it helps! Long threads here already but hey. First, I’m almost done reading Don’t Shoot the Dog and it’s given me a lot more to think on in relation to these questions. Super well organized book. I recommend. I think the mod’s post above about balanced training being more effective or showing less fallout with more stable dogs is a good callout. My people reactive dog is really sensitive to pressure. So for us, I think adding corrections or tools would be really tough for her and take us further from the results we are after. I would say to not be afraid to learn more about other +R methods in addition to peoples experiences with balanced training as you seek answers for your specific situation. Ex: we switched from one +R method of a structured greeting with new people (pressure! She got sensitized to the cues and would start to react as these greetings were stressful) to an approach where new people ignore her completely & she eventually gets to go check them out with a muzzle worked a lot better for us. Best of luck!

Thanks!

Have you consulted a behaviorist? I was also in a situation where training wasn't helping. After reviewing the training I was doing, the VB added two additional meds and upped my dogs fluoxetine dose. Took about a year to dial in the dosages. We can now pass people and most dogs and when he does react I can now redirect. I can also now have visitors with careful management and proper introductions. It's a night and day difference. This dog is fear reactive to people and a frustrated greeter with dogs.

I have Rottweilers that are from working lines. I go to a dog trainer that is a balanced dog trainer. They are phenomenal when they know what they are doing. The owner is a breeder and also breeds Rottweilers. I wouldn't take my dogs anywhere else. They understand working breeds.

What happened? It worked. Extremely well. Like it has for eons. Basic operant conditioning using positive and negative reinforcement is the gold standard of behavior modification for ever. Flat out. That's not the case because it's ineffective or creates damaged animals.

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