Plenty of praise?

[mudminnow]

I have recently seen some emphasis on a lot of praise for pups when training. While it won't hurt, I have seen just with my dogs, that it doesn't help much. Other people may have different experiences with it. But once the dog learned to buy a reward (ie. treat or retrieve) with a behavior, shaping a wanted behavior was easy. This article is not comprehensive and the author notes it's weaknesses, but shows that petting and verbal praise do not do a lot for training.

It has some controversial stuff about punishment, don't write off the whole article just because it says that punishment is not good. And I will also note that there is a difference between using food as a reward rather than a bribe. I think being able to understand shaping behavior of dogs with positive reinforcement is a great way to start a dogs training and won't interfere with force fetch when/if that comes in your training.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...mber_256727137

[HuntinCosta]

There is no one right way to train all dogs. Training detection dogs taught me a lot about dog psychology. Some dogs needed no praise and would work just knowing they were doing right. Other dogs needed a ton of praise and an uplifting attitude to keep them going. But the point is every one of them needs something different. Each dog is unique in their amount of drive, desire, and focus in training. That is what dictates the way they are trained.

[LabLuvR]

Dogs are like people, they all have their own personality and have to be dealt with accordingly. Our Australian Shepard is meek as a mice and all I have to do is look at her sternly. My lab, is a bit more hardheaded and needs a little "coaxing" every now and then.

[gundogguru]

What they said..