International Guide Dog Day - When we know better, we train better

April 28, 2021

Did you know that International Guide Dogs Day always falls on a Wednesday? This year it is on April 28 and it gives me an opportunity to reflect on my career working with guide dogs and the evolution of our training.

12 years is short in Guide Dog Instructor years. Since 2009 I have seen the training evolve – and it’s awesome. We have moved from “testing” our dogs (setting them up to fail so that we can correct them) to setting them up to succeed so we can reinforce the behaviours we want to see more of!

When I started as a trainee Instructor, we could use some food in training but there was continuous debate between senior staff – “food is bribery, the dog needs to respect you without food”. Soon enough though, we had clients commenting: “Wow, my dog never located a button or a chair like this new dog can!” Yep, the new dog was trained with food as a reinforcer. The difference is that the previous dogs were trained with pats or praise as a reinforcer, or, perhaps the dog worked to avoid punishment. We noticed really quickly in training that not all dogs enjoy being patted while they are walking on the street, despite loving a cuddle at home. We saw that using food as a reinforcer had dogs enthusiastically and clearly learning what we wanted to teach and we got much more precise and effective outcomes.

Now in 2021 positive reinforcement training is gathering popularity and momentum. It is becoming better known that animals (and even us people) work harder and happier when working for reinforcement. Working to avoid a correction can mean that a minimum effort is put in – just enough to avoid the punisher.

Personally, I didn’t cope well in my early years of training. I felt perpetually confused or conflicted. Books I read, such as “Don’t Shoot The Dog” by Karen Pryor, explained the limitations and disadvantages to training with corrections and punishment. However it was explained that Guide Dogs are different. They are special dogs. They need to keep safe a person who is blind. One statement was that “they have strong necks, so a sharp jerk on the leash doesn’t hurt the dog”. I repeated that statement to others as I taught them to correct their dogs properly. I know now that the above statements are myths. There is no animal species or dog breed that requires corrections more than another does. This begs the question – why does it work if it doesn’t cause pain or discomfort? The answer is that it works because it causes pain or discomfort. I send out my apologies to those dogs and clients of the past, who I have taught in this way.

I still hear some of these statements about respect, leadership, bribery and other concerns using positive reinforcement, but that is getting less frequent. More clients are asking how to work more positively with their dogs, more staff are taking an interest and, impressively, more managers are employing staff who are advocates of positive reinforcement training. People are seeing the benefits – more precise and effective outcomes, decreased training times, fast-tracking the client-dog bond and teaching in a more gentle and joyful way. And the dogs? They are looking so much happier and more enthusiastic.

As Maya Angelou is so often quoted “when you know better, do better”. I am grateful that we, as a community are doing so much better! There’s still a way to go, but the ball is rolling in an exciting direction.