Getting Physical

Throughout the process of training or re-training of your dog, one of the best tools you can use is pressure and release. This concept is nothing at all new and has been used throughout history in animal training.

There are various different types of pressure. Physical pressure is perhaps the most obvious, actually touching the dog and affecting him in that way. However, you can also place pressure on your dog using your position and stance, body language and eye contact, amongst other things.

When conducting initial training of young dogs, as new behaviours are being learned you may use pressure in the form of restraint on a lead during food refusal, or guiding with a pointer whilst teaching the recall to sit. The pressure is of a gentle nature and is used to position the dog, NEVER to chastise him. At the point the dog achieves the desired behaviour the pressure is immediately released. The release of pressure is the dog's reward and this is something which is easily understood by a dog.

There are many specific tools which use the principle of pressure and release, head collars being one of them. These tools can be very useful for training, however, if used incorrectly they can also cause far greater problems than they were intended to solve. Often this is because there is no release. Without the release you have not shown your dog what the correct behaviour is, and the constant pressure becomes the norm to him.

Non-physical pressure is also a powerful training tool when used with the appropriate release. Eye contact and body language are so powerful in fact, that they can be used to entirely replace vocal commands. Dogs suffering from deafness couldn't be trained otherwise. The Alpha of the pack rarely if ever needs to use violence to prove himself. Staring at an offender and maintaining the stare until the other looks away or ceases the behaviour is often enough. Having said that there are some cases where a low level of physical pressure may be used by the Alpha in the wild, and these are closely matched with the physical pressures mentioned above.

At home I am able to move my dogs around the house without speaking to them. As they do so I can move them into a desired sit or down in any part of the house by using pressure and release eye contact and body language.

This article is not intended to be an all embracing description of pressure and release training. If done wrong this sort of training can cause major problems. I do not recommend attempting any sort of pressure and release training without professional input.