We Love Victoria Stilwell - A Fan Site

Victoria's new book "Train Your Dog Positively" is now available!!  Here is an excerpt from the introduction of the book:

"Positive reinforcement works great on easy dogs, but it's not really effective on severe aggression cases, is it?"

As one of the world's most vocal proponents of force-free dog training methods, I get asked this type of question frequently, usually by people who are pretty sure they already know the answer.  Over the past several decades, science and history have taught us so much about how dogs think, feel, and learn, yet some dog trainers and owners still believe the only way to communicate effectively with a difficult dog is to "teach it who's boss" and force it into some mythical state called "calm submission."  The issues arising from this common and fundamental misunderstanding of our canine companions are what motivate me every day to continue my work as a dog behavior consultant and educator.

There are many different terms used to describe the type of teaching methods I use: positive reinforcement, reward-based, force-free, and more.  Proponents of these interrelated philosophies have a shared belief that it is much safter, more effective, and humane to teach animals using this overarching concept: If you reward a behavior you like, it is more likely that the behavior will be repeated.  Similarly, if you ignore or redirect a behavior you don't like, it is more likely that incidences of that behavior will decrease.

That's a very simplistic synopsis of what reward-based training is and how it works, but that general concept with an awareness that dogs are not wolves trying to dominate us, so do not need to be controlled using dominance-based punishment techniques, and you have the recipe for what I call positive training throughout this book...