Different Training Styles in Dog Sport Today

There are several training methods in the dog sport. Especially the Schutzhund program has a rich influence of many ideas, national and international. Because of these influences from everywhere there is no other dog sport which is as good organized and where the training is at such a high level.It doesn’t matter what kind of training you are practicing with your dog, because it’s only the end result who counts. The final result is the exam or trial. In this article I will try to give a synopsis of each different art, off course there will be more methods or mish-mash of different methods in practice but we will have to make a selection. There are four big groups of training arts; I will start from the old to the younger methods.

Correction Method

This training style is the oldest one, it is based on giving corrections when the dog does something what’s not required. The corrections are repeated till the exercise is good enough. For example : the dogs learns to follow on leash. The command “Fuss” is given and if the dog doesn’t follow correctly he will be corrected by pulling the leash. The pulling stops when the dog follows close enough. So we can say the dog is ignored when he does it correct. Every exercise is forced, which cause a lot of stress in the dog’s brain.

The dogs that are trained by this method are working correct, but are never happy. They obey out of fear for the correction. 2.

Correction & Reward Method

After the Correction method the Correction & Reward art became popular. Now we are speaking begin-halfway the 80’s. Still everything was learned by force and giving corrections as long the dog didn’t show the right behavior, but the training stopped when the stress became too high for a play with the dog’s toy. The toy was kept visible in the hand to motivate the dog. This was used for letting the steam (stress) flow away. The good thing about this type of new training was that the stress didn’t come so high anymore as with previous method. However after practicing this technique for a longer time, the dog became “trial smart”. The actual training always happened with the ball in the hand, visible for the dog. The dog was attracted to the ball constantly and when the ball was not there (on trials), the attention (or contact) between dog and handler were gone. 3.

Positive Reinforcement Method

(Clicker method) Begin-halfway of the 90’s a brand new training technique was demonstrated. The Clicker method. It was invented by American dolphin trainers and came true the US Obedience program in to the English Obedience and finally in to the Belgian IPO. The man behind this pioneer work was Mr. Geert De Bolster. In the beginning he was not taken seriously at all, IPO people said it was a joke. Slowly they began to see that this technique was not so bad at all, a club named OC Vlaendren (in Ghent) where the Belgian Top was training, became very popular with their members winning most championships. The clicker method became hot in a few months, however I must say only in the all breed clubs. The Belgian SV is still training the Correction & Reward method at this moment, this with a few exceptions off course. 4.

Belgian Mutated Positive Reinforcement Method

Recently developed after the millennium, the Clicker method is based on ignore the dog when he does something wrong (or not desired) and click and reward him when he does something right. This works very good, but is a bit slow in progress. As inventive as the Belgians are, they started to look for alternatives or better methods. These were found in correcting the dog when he does something wrong and reward him when he does something right, a mix of Correction & Clicker system. The corrections given are very light, this to avoid stress. Some people use Electric Collar on very; very light power, so that the dog only gets a unpleasant feeling when showing undesired behavior. Instead of clicking, the mouth is used to make a certain personal noise. This can be used in trials as the clicker is not useful there. This method works faster as previous method, is more efficient and can be used unnoticed on exams or