Controversial advice - Reinforce unwanted behaviour
Many of the problem behaviours are a product of unintentional reinforcement that comes at the wrong time. It's better to reinforce quickly to keep the behaviour short and put more intention into all of the interactions with your dog. Remember, it's not just during a training session that your dog learns!
How to use positive reinforcement with people?
This blog is about applying positive reinforcement to human learners. I talk from a perspective of animal trainer teaching human clients how to train their animals. It might not be applicable to you but I would encourage you to read anyway and see if there is anything you can apply to your life and your situation. Behavioural science principles are universal, can you recognise that?
What do you think about punishment?
Punishment is unavoidable. It’s a naturally occurring phenomenon but it’s not the most effective way of changing behaviour. Rather than leave it to chance of what our learner will do, let’s take responsibility for teaching the behaviours that will work functionally for us both.
Many times we don’t even bother trying to learn a new skill. We convince ourselves that it’s not for us. When what we could do is to find the first successive approximation and start learning through a fun and successful process.