What Was Dexter’s Crime?

Over at Growing Up Guide-Pup, Katie Burland Poremba tells the tale of Dexter who was twice abandoned to kill shelters:

What was his crime? Being humongous, young, strong, and silly. That was it. A terminal case of no manners. “‘Incorrigible,’ it was said. Dexter was one of the many silent victims of the R+ movement, which advocates the use of only positive reinforcement in training. He had been turned into the shelter twice, because he was not a dog that responds 100% to R+. Perhaps if he had been taken in hand by a phenomenal R+ trainer with excellent timing and a true talent for training, maybe. Herein lies one of the problems: the average dog owner is not cut out to train a high-drive, incredibly strong, adolescent dog with only R+. These dogs need a little guidance and some boundaries to go along with all that bounce. But because of the prevailing attitudes in most dog training available to the average dog owner, corrections are synonymous to abuse.

The end result is Dexter. A Weimaraner-Viszla mix that was twice relinquished to a kill shelter, because potential death at the end of a hypodermic needle at ten months of age was considered kinder than a leash correction and the word ‘no.’ Many people will tell you that the notion that R+ can cause things like this to happen is a myth. I am here to tell you I own that myth. He’s drooling on my foot as I type. And he’s my service dog.”

Dexter is her service dog. 

Bomb proof.

A solid canine citizen, rather than another dead dog tossed onto the burn pile created by the failed theory of pure positive dog training.

Read the whole post here >>  https://growingupguidepup.org/the-punishment-of-positive-only/