Why I Choose Positive Reinforcement Training

When I first learned about positive reinforcement, I knew nothing about training animals. I had worked as a dog groomer for over 20 years and was feeling a bit burnt out. On a quest to find something that would help breathe new life into my business, I came across a dog training course through the Animal Behavior College and decided that this might be just what I needed.

Everything I learned in the course about behavior and training made so much sense to me! I had been using some of the principles all along without really knowing or understanding why or how they worked, but now I had a clear path to applying these principles with purpose.

I became obsessed with learning about animal behavior and training. I joined all the Facebook groups, read all the books I could find, and took as many webinars and courses as I could afford. I learned about behavior quadrants and applied behavior analysis and quickly saw the application of what I was learning, not just for dogs but across all species.

When you learn about behavior quadrants first, it’s easy to choose which one you want to work in because it’s so clear which one is the most learner-friendly. It was also clear that depending on the species of animal and the behavior you wanted to teach, only one quadrant could be easily and effectively applied to all.

Unlike most people in the canine and equine industries, I was never really exposed to ideas about dominance, respect, or being the “alpha,” so I had no preconceived notions about how animals learned or should be trained. For me, the lack of a common language seemed like the only real barrier to my relationship with animals, and now here I was, learning that I could communicate with them through positive reinforcement.

“When you learn about behavior quadrants first, it’s easy to choose which one you want to work in because it’s so clear which one is the most learner-friendly.”

I had worked with horses when I was a teen but hadn’t been around them in years. Even so, when an acquaintance complained about not being able to catch or even touch her Mustang, I jumped at the chance to apply what I was learning with dogs to her horse and see if I could change the way she felt about people.

Not sure what to expect or how the training would go, I pulled from my years of experience around horses and my newfound knowledge about behavior and training and just winged it… It was a huge success! Within an hour, the horse was coming right up to us both and letting us pet her.

This seemed like a no-brainer for me. With immediate success, despite my lack of training experience, and a happy horse that wanted to be around us, why wouldn’t I continue to pursue training with positive reinforcement?

To date, I have worked with many more mustangs, from wild ones straight off the range who had never experienced human contact to ones that had been gathered, adopted out, and subsequently abused. I’ve also worked with donkeys, mules, and even zebras.

Some of the mustangs I’ve worked with, including my own, were considered untrainable by other trainers with many more years of experience than I. These trainers were struggling to train these horses with negative reinforcement (pressure and release) with these particular mustangs, but with all of them, training with positive reinforcement was an immediate success.

I train with positive reinforcement because the animals I work with enjoy working with me when I use positive reinforcement. I don’t have to resort to any kind of threat, intimidation, or discomfort to get the animals to do what I want. Not only does it work, but the animals don’t have to pay for my mistakes like they do with other training methods.

I have worked with all different equids, camels, antelope, water buffalo, different bovine species, various types of foxes, lemurs, genets, kinkajous, a fishing cat, clouded leopards, and a porcupine. They all responded so well to positive reinforcement that I can’t imagine why anyone would train with anything else. 🤷🏻‍♀️