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Hi Ann, Congratulations on celebrating the little wins and on helping owners try new tools.
I personally struggle a bit with the idea of forbidding equipment at the door, as a blanket policy. If I see a dog wearing a prong and they are distressed, that’s different, and I will immediately address it, but if they come into the building walking nicely and the owner and dog are happy, I’ll tend to let it ride a week or two, and see where we can go.
I figure most owners are doing the best they can with what they know and they are there to learn. I also know how HARD it is to walk into a learning situation with a dog that you (maybe) can barely control, how scary and intimidating that can be for the pet parent. To remove a tool that they are comfortable with, essentially handicapping them before (or during) the first class. A policy of “not in our building” could make them not attend or return. Then where do they go? To the trainer down the street who uses aversive tools primarily. That’s not our goal, is it!?
Especially when there is a real size differential, where a human might be injured by a strong pulling dog, trying to move them to some other equipment without a proper introduction (as in GL desensitization) can be detrimental or even create other problems. Again, unless I see that the dog is wincing, or is super-reactive, which is exacerbated by pain, I’m likely to hold off making immediate equipment changes until I’ve built up some curiousity and buy-in on positive reinforcement.
I find that many owners approach me on the second or third class to ask about using different tools, which puts us in a better place to move forward together.
I’m not at all trying to diminish your celebration – we are absolutely on the same page about wanting to help pet parents train without pain and create great relationships with their dogs. I just want to open the discussion about the timing of these critical conversations.
What do you think?
As a side note – it looks like we’re having a very similar discussion over in this thread – check it out!