The Art of Non-Violence
& Dog Training

by Paul Owens
with Norma Eckroate

I remember the first time I correlated dog training with the concept of violence. I had been studying yoga in India and had not trained dogs in quite a while. One day the next door neighbors adopted a new puppy, which they named Raju. They put her in the backyard where she began to bark and whine incessantly. Periodically the husband or wife would poke a head out the back door and scream at the pup to shut up. When the barking and whining continued, they would charge out the door and jerk her on the leash. Raju would eventually stop and they would go back inside, slamming the door in frustration behind them. Soon the whole noisy cycle of barking, yelling, jerking the leash, and going in and out of the house began again, with both dog and human emotions escalating in intensity.

A few days passed and I finally decided enough was enough. The poor puppy’s barking was quickly becoming a neighborhood noise nuisance. I felt compassion for the animal as well as the humans involved. It seemed time to put my experience as a dog trainer to good use. In addition, it occurred to me that several aspects of my yoga studies might be used to help in this situation. After all, there are many similarities between the learning principles that work for humans and those that work for dogs.

So I went next door and talked to the family. I explained that the puppy was barking because she didn’t have anything else to do and pointed out that, as dogs are social animals, she needed companionship. I suggested they bring her into the house so she could be with the family. They did so and, lo and behold, with the addition of a few other socialization exercises and training tips, the barking decreased to a tolerable level. And, of course, both the puppy and her humans benefited from the budding familial bond.

It was a  relatively easy process. A compassionate, nonviolent approach, along with the integration of some holistic perspectives, had benefited the puppy, her family, and, in fact, the whole neighborhood. I realized how different this episode was from the methods I had been taught long ago to get a dog to stop barking — such as yelling and threatening, pounding on the cage, and jerking on the leash. In retrospect, some of the methods I had been taught, now seemed downright violent.

On my return to the United States, my brother Tom adopted a young dog from a shelter and asked for my help in training her. Her name was Thunder. In the first session with Thunder, I jerked her leash to get her attention. It was nothing serious — just a kind of “pay attention” pop on the leash. This sweet, sensitive animal put her ears back, turned her head, licked her lips, and did everything she could to say, “Okay, I submit. Please don’t do that again.”  In a flash a shock ran through my body and a realization hit me. How quickly I had forgotten my experience in India. Without thinking, I had automatically used the primary method I had always used to “correct” a dog.

What was I doing?  I suddenly knew that an animal could be harmed when the collar is jerked but also that, in a less overt way, I could even be harming myself in the process. A window had opened and common sense came rushing up through my awareness, “Duh — it was never necessary to jerk a leash to shape behavior, Paul.”  Common sense just isn’t so “common” sometimes. In spite of having trained thousands of dogs and received numerous awards in competitive obedience, from that moment on, I irrevocably knew that the training methods I had always used were wrong for me. 

That episode began a new journey. Thousands of people have come through my classes since then. In many cases they expressed the same relief I felt, to know there is another way — a nonviolent way — to get their dogs to do what they ask of them.

The good news is that non-aversive dog training is becoming more popular. However, it is estimated that only twenty percent of professional dog trainers in the United States teach strictly non-aversive methods of dog training. Most trainers use a combination of both aversive methods and reward-based methods. That means there are about forty million dogs in the country that are still being subjected to human violence as part of the training process. The point is, the majority of the population simply doesn’t know that nonviolent training methods are available.

Taking the Lead In A Gentle, Empowering Way

Nonviolent dog training allows you to create a partnership with your dog using gentle persuasion based in kindness, respect, and compassion. This gentle persuasion is what the nonviolent dog training is all about. In this method, you use gentleness with a flexible yet non-compromising attitude. The spoken word is actually full of power — and part of this power is based in the silence before, after, and between the spoken words.

Throughout history there have been many who have eloquently expressed the power of gentle persuasion, including St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. One of my favorite examples comes from the plant world. The famous botanist, Luther Burbank, was the first to develop a cactus without thorns. He told the great yogi Paramahansa Yogananda how he did it:  “I often talked to the plants to create a vibration of love. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ I would tell them. ‘You don’t need your defensive thorns. I will protect you.’” Yogananda, Paramahansa, Autobiography of a Yogi, Self Realization Fellowship, 1946, page 411.

Nonviolence is not a new concept, but it is now taking root at a deeper level than ever before. Just as it is no longer acceptable to many people to punish a child by spanking, so, too, we are evolving as a species to eliminate violence in other arenas. For many years there has been a movement toward the use of nonviolent, “cruelty free” products — such as cosmetics that do not include animal products or involve animal testing. Now it is time to totally eliminate violence in the training of dogs and other animals.

Today many people are familiar with the concept of nonviolent animal training because of the success of the book The Man Who Listens to Horses, the best-selling biography of Monty Roberts. Roberts belongs to a lineage of animal trainers, going back to “horse whisperer” John Rarey in the mid-nineteenth century. Instead of “breaking” wild horses, these trainers use approaches in which the horse voluntarily decides to work with them.

Gentler, kinder, and less dominating methods of animal training have also been used for several decades to train dolphins, killer whales, elephants, and other animals. Karen Pyror was one of the pioneers in training marine mammals. Later, she incorporated nonviolent approaches in the training of other animals, including dogs, which she details in her groundbreaking book Don’t Shoot the Dog.

Pryor is one of a number of behaviorists who have shown us new ways to shape dog behaviors. A treat, a toy, or a scratch behind the ears, coupled with patience and consistency, and — voila — behavioral success. The point of my book, The Dog Whisperer, is that we humans have an equal role in the behavioral give and take equation. The fact that we can get a dog to sit or lie down when we ask is not the entire picture. In this philosophy, which is certainly not new, how we go about it is equally important. Our desire to elicit behavioral responses that correspond to our limited view of what is right, wrong, or simply appropriate, doesn’t justify violent methodology. The end never justifies the means. And might does not make right.

Continued in Part II: 
Responding Versus Reacting to Your Dog;
What Is Violence?;
The Cycle of Violence. continued
 

About The Author

Paul Owens began training dogs in 1972 and has earned several awards in competitive obedience. He is a certified evaluator for the Delta Society's Animal Assisted Therapy Program and a member of The National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors (NADOI), and the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT). His specialty is in the evaluation and behavior modification of aggressive dogs. Paul has studied, practiced and taught yoga and stress management (for humans) in the United States and India for more than 25 years. In 1991, he founded the non-profit educational organization Raise with Praise, Inc. Over the years Paul has taught and consulted for thousands of families and individuals working to improve the dog-human relationship. For more info, visit his website at www.raisewithpraise.com This article was excerpted with permission from his book "The Dog Whisperer", published by Adams Media Corporation.

This article was excerpted from



 "The Dog Whisperer: A Compassionate, Nonviolent Approach to Dog Training"
by
Paul Owens.

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