What actually happened when you tried balanced training?

[lilith_eve]

I know that this forum tends to advocate for positive-reinforcement based training and the use of minimally aversive approaches, and I am highly supportive of that.

I have been working intensively for 6 months using exclusively R+ training, including several CC training sessions per week with other dogs to help our GSD mix improve her leash reactivity towards other dogs. We also put her on fluoxetine.

Our dog has seen some improvement using intensive CC training, but she still is far from where we hoped to be at this stage. To put this in context, previously, whenever she saw any dog, she would usually have a meltdown 50+ m away, including barking, snarling, and lunging. Now when we see another dog while out on a walk, she will start to whine before progressively ramping up, and as long as we quickly remove her from the situation, she is fine. However, we still can’t pass another dog on the sidewalk across the street without her getting pretty upset.

We have spent a large amount of time (e.g., hundreds of hours) and money in training thus far (e.g., multiple R+ trainers), and are evaluating whether she might need a change in training methods.

Given how large this forum is, I am curious to hear about others’ experiences who have experimented with punishment (paired with reward) for leash reactivity\**.*

***It would also be really helpful to know if your dog seems to have primarily fear-based reactivity, excitement/frustration, or more pure aggression.

***I am particularly interested to hear from people who actually tried incorporating these methods for a significant period of time (e.g., a few weeks to months) to have a sense of their actual effectiveness, rather than people who tried a few times and then stopped. These don't seem like a good barometer of effectiveness, given that I imagine these methods take time to work, just like CC does.

TLDR: I have been using R+ training exclusively for 6+ months and have seen some improvement, but not nearly as much as I would hope after spending a substantial amount of time and money. Curious to hear from others about their experience using minimally aversive punishment paired with reward-based training.

 

[obadimu]

@lilith_eve 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.

 

[bepnamanh]

@obadimu 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.

 

[obadimu]

@bepnamanh 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.

 

[christianseeker2]

@lilith_eve 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!!!

 

[bootsie1]

@christianseeker2 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!

 

[mykell]

@lilith_eve 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…

 

[hesta]

@mykell 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.

 

[mykell]

@hesta 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

 

[hesta]

@mykell 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.

 

[maizeemay]

@hesta 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.

 

[hesta]

@maizeemay 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.

 

[alicewonder]

@lilith_eve 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.

 

[servant1021]

@lilith_eve 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.

 

[marinde]

@servant1021 I'd love to know more about perception modification! Do you have any resources you can share?

 

[servant1021]

@marinde 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.

 

[marinde]

@servant1021 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.

 

[servant1021]

@marinde 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!

 

[mjr88]

@lilith_eve 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.

 

[lilith_eve]

@mjr88 Thanks! Really appreciate hearing your perspective.