I've been reading "Decoding Your Dog," written by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. It's an amazing book and there's a chapter called Aggression Unleashed: Do Dogs Mean to Be Mean? I'd like to share a bit of information here. 4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs every year. Most dog bites to people result from fear and self-defense on the part of the dog. Preventing and minimizing the risk of biting includes being sure that your dog is not placed in a situation in which she feels threatened enough to bite. Force-free training emphasizes positive reinforcement and avoids leash tugs, shock, physical manipulations, and threats. Keep these things in mind:
1. Dogs have no agenda. They live in the here and now and will protect themselves if frightened.
2. Dogs in our home rely 100 percent on us, their human family, to feed, walk, shelter, and love them. It is important to extend this to humaneness in training.
3. Any training method-including use of aversive tools, such as shock collars or other sources of pain-can result in a "well-behaved" dog who performs the commands, but may be quite frightened and unreliable. In fact, studies have shown that using these types of training devices and techniques increases anxiety in dogs and diminishes their interactions with humans who use them. Ethical and humane methods train just as effectively and result in less stress and, therefore, less risk of fear-related biting.
4. Science-based training relies on well-established principles of learning. If your goal is to have a happy dog who is eager to do the things you ask her to do, use positive reinforcement to ensure this will happen.