What is Pressure in Bird Dog Training?

Intro

Many studies have compared the use of positive and negative reinforcement techniques in dog training. There seem to be more and more trainers and dog enthusiasts denouncing the use of pressure as a means to train dogs. In fact, there are over 9 countries around the world that have banned the use of Electronic collars, or E-collars. States like San Francisco and New York have proposed bills to ban or eliminate the sales of E-collars. Yet, in the hunting dog world, these tools are considered necessary by most owners and trainers. Where is the disconnect? In this article, I am going to break down what pressure is, how it's used, and why so many hunting dog trainers still rely on it. Stick with me through this one as we work through understanding pressure from a first principles perspective.

Defining Pressure

So what is pressure? To properly discuss the use of pressure, it is first necessary to define it. When it comes to behavioral training, there are four commonly accepted methods to change or teach a behavior. Those are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. The easiest way to understand these is you are either adding or removing something and that something is either positive or negative. See the figure below for examples.

Adding something positive would be positive reinforcement. This will encourage the dog to perform the behavior in the future in hopes of another reward. Removing something negative would be negative reinforcement. Pulling up on a leash until a dog sits is the classic example. Lifting up on the leash applies a negative stimulus to the dog, and once it sits, the pressure is released. In this way, the dog learns to turn off pressure by sitting. When we refer to pressure, we are referring to either positive punishment or negative reinforcement. Both of these involve the use of negative stimuli, a.k.a pressure.

Examples

With topics like pressure, it is important to look at real-life examples to understand the nuisances that surround it. I want to walk through a few case studies to further define what is or isn’t pressure. 

Case Study #1

Action: Using an E-Collar to teach a dog recall.

Intent: Teach the dog to avoid pressure by coming when called which improves the dog’s recall.

Stimuli: The stimulation from the collar.

Is it Pressure: Yes, this is one of the most common examples people think of when talking about pressure. Using an E-collar to teach behaviors is a classic use of negative reinforcement. 

Case Study #2

Action: Closing the door on a dog’s kennel when it tries to come out prior to being released.

Intent: Teach the dog to wait patiently before coming out of its kennel.

Stimuli: Door closing.

Is it Pressure: Yes, while it is a lower form of pressure the result is the same. The dog learns to avoid the negative stimulation of the door being closed. The stimulis is negative, making it a form of pressure. This is an example of positive punishment. A negative stimulus is being added to prevent a behavior from happening in the future.

Case Study #3

Action: Saying “No” to your dog when it does something you don’t want ie. jumping on a table.

Intent: Prevent the dog from jumping on the table. 

Stimuli: The word “NO”

Is it Pressure: Yes, often people do not consider verbal commands as pressure, but for commands like “No”, the intent behind them is the same. In this example, there is no other reason to say “No” when a dog jumps besides preventing it from happening again. We are trying to signal to the dog that jumping is undesirable. Dogs are very good at understanding tonality and inflections in our voices. Increasing or decreasing volume and tonality could either increase or decrease the level of pressure. Saying “No” is an example of positive punishment.

Case Study #4

Action: Using a leash on a walk and periodically the dog pulls on it.

Intent: Keep the dog from running away.

Stimuli: Collar tightness when pulling.

Is it Pressure: Yes, even though the dog is applying the pressure to itself, that does not change the stimulus it experiences. Dogs that run to the end of a leash at full speed and get yanked to a stop, quickly learn how long their leash is. They will avoid running out to the end of it in the future. The same concept applies when a dog pulls on a leash. They are feeling the same negative simulation as when they get yanked hard. They are not capable of knowing if the stimulation is self-inflicted or if it was applied by you. They only know it is happening. In the example of leash pulling, the stimulus felt is typically not high enough to prevent the behavior from happening in the future which is why it continues. Depending on how the dog experiences the event, this could either be an example of positive punishment or negative reinforcement. A hard yank would be positive punishment and a dog that stops pulling on the leash and learns to avoid it would be negative reinforcement.

Risks

If pressure exists in everyday life like the examples described above, why are more dogs not showing signs of stress and anxiety? In fact, most dogs are excited to go on walks and often prove that by pulling on their leash as if they are sled dogs. The reason is, as with anything, the dose makes the poison. The risk behind pressure isn’t that it's guaranteed to cause harm, it's that it has the potential to. With positive reinforcement, there is zero chance of causing a dog stress by giving it too good of a reward. That’s one of the reasons positive reinforcement is so safe. Even if your timing is bad, you reward the wrong behavior, or your reward is over the top, your dog will not experience increased anxiety. That makes it a very safe method for dog training both for experienced and inexperienced handlers. Pressure on the other hand requires a deeper understanding from the trainer. With pressure there is the potential to punish the wrong behavior, causing confusion for your dog. It is also possible to apply an unnecessarily severe punishment, which can turn a dog off from training altogether. In the example of an E-collar, the trainer isn’t able to feel the level of pressure they are applying, which can lead to excessive use of it. Because we are human, at times we have compromised emotional states. Maybe we had a bad day at work or received bad news. Feeling frustrated or angry can quickly lead to the use of excessive pressure, even though on another day that wouldn’t have been the case.  All these examples are potential negative consequences of using pressure and should be considered when determining what is right for you.

Benefits

If pressure wasn’t an effective training method it wouldn’t still be used by so many trainers. One of the aspects that makes using pressure appealing, especially when compared to positive reinforcement, is the ability to show a dog what not to do. In most of the case studies above, positive punishment was used to teach the dog not to do something. By introducing a negative stimulus, you can deter unwanted behaviors from happening. A common example of this would be teaching a dog the “Place” command. There are two aspects to a good “Place” command. The first is going on to the place. You can teach that with either positive or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement would be rewarding the dog every time it went on the place. Negative reinforcement would be applying pressure, typically leash pressure, and then releasing it when the dog is on the place. Both of these are effective methods. The second part of the “Place” command is teaching the dog not to leave. In this case, it becomes hard to use positive reinforcement to teach that behavior. The most common method is to reward the dog for staying there. In the beginning, you reward every couple of seconds, then slowly try to increase the time between rewards. The goal is for the dog to want to stay on the place in anticipation of the next reward. To teach this using pressure, you would apply pressure anytime the dog went to leave the place. Using the leash example, anytime the dog goes to leave, the trainer applies upward pressure on the leash to put the dog back into a “Sit”. By doing this you are teaching the dog they can avoid leash pressure by staying on the place. Both methods are effective, but what happens in the positive reinforcement method if the dog sees something even more enticing than a treat? What if a squirrel runs by, or a bird lands right next to the dog? That brings us to the next advantage of pressure, it's scalable.

Bird dogs are bred to have high prey drive, it's what allows them to go out and look for birds. We have honed that drive over countless generations and it’s one of the reasons we love working with these dogs. The desire they show for their work is infectious, and they truly love it. It’s hard being around a dog doing what it was bred to do and not have a smile on your face. The downside is, that unless they have been trained to avoid it, that drive applies to all creatures. A squirrel running by a bird dog is as tempting as a bird flushing, if not more. If we continue with the “Place” example, there is no treat on this planet better than chasing a live squirrel. If you train in a sterile environment, you can keep things like that from happening, allowing you to have success in your training session. But we are raising bird dogs, there is nothing sterile about the environment we are going to ask them to perform in. Which means we need to train in the same environment we hunt in. If we do that, the odds of a squirrel or some other critter making an appearance are almost guaranteed. When that happens, it becomes very hard to control the dog with positive reinforcement. If the dog decides chasing the squirrel is more rewarding than the treat, they’ll opt for the ladder and chase the squirrel. Using pressure, on the other hand, allows us to scale the pressure to match the level of distraction. If you are training in a low-stimulation environment, you can use low amounts of pressure to get the behavior. If you are training in a high-stimulation environment, like where we hunt, you can scale the pressure up. The goal isn’t to punish the dog, the goal is to have the ability to get the dog’s attention. If we are always matching the level of pressure to the level of distraction, we can avoid using excessive amounts. In the same vein, we can not only regain control of hectic situations, but we can benefit from them. Training through high-stimulation situations, like a squirrel running by, will make it easier the next time because the dog has learned. In this way, pressure allows you to remain in control of your dog even in the highest stimulation environments. For bird dogs, those environments happen every day we hunt with them.

Exploring the Fringe

To really understand arguments like the use of pressure, I think it’s important to explore the fringe examples. In the bird dog world, that would be high-level competition both for pointing and retrieving breeds. In these competitions, dogs are judged both on obedience as well as intelligence. In retriever field trials, one of the make-or-break pieces for a dog can be how they perform in water. A dog that avoids the water, or even skirts it slightly, will usually be dropped from contention. That means the dog has to decide whether to get in the water or not. At the highest levels, these decisions are anything but black and white. The water entries at an Open All-Age event are typically at very long distances, and heavily angled. Heavily angled means the dog has the option to run the shoreline prior to getting in the water. The problem is, that running the shore would take them off their line. A decision like that would undoubtedly cause a dog to be dropped from contention. So how do you train a dog to get in the water when it is 200 yards away from you? You start close, make it easy, and train their decisions. How do you train their decisions though? You can’t give them a treat, or tell them good job the moment they get in the water. That would cause them to lose focus and again break their line. So rewarding becomes very difficult. What if they choose to skirt the water? The only option to correct this with positive reinforcement would be to go back and simplify. The issue is, if they skirt the water and are able to make the retrieve, they have been rewarded for skirting the water. Without a way to keep them from making the retrieve, they will develop a pattern of skirting. On the other hand, If a trainer chooses to use pressure they have the option to apply it the moment a dog decides to not get in the water. By doing that, they make it more likely the dog chooses to get in the water in the future. Depending on where the dog is in training, the trainer can adjust the level of pressure. They could choose to stop them and give a stern “NO”. Then help them perform the correct behavior and allow them to make the retrieve. For young dogs just learning, that is usually all that’s required. 

The same goes for pointing dog field trials. In these trials, the dogs are expected to be hundreds of yards away from their handler in search of birds. They need to find, point, and hold the birds until their handler flushes them. After flushing, they are expected to stand perfectly still until they are released to go do it again. If the dog is being trained with positive reinforcement, what options does the trainer have if the dog breaks on a bird 400 yards away? As with the retriever example, breaking can quickly become a habit if nothing is done to change it. In this instance, it becomes very difficult to show the dog what behavior is expected in a timely manner. Even then, there are few rewards you could give a bird dog that are better than actual birds. The use of pressure in these situations allows the trainer to make a correction from long distances, precisely at the moment it is needed. 

Training dogs to compete at the highest level is very nuanced and requires a lot of skill and understanding from the trainer. The training tactics we use need to apply at all levels of training if they are to be considered the “best” way to train. Exploring the level of training required at the highest level of competition can help illustrate any gaps that might exist in a given method.

Finding a balance

Most arguments against the use of pressure are that it is used either excessively or improperly. Both of these result from a skill deficiency on the part of the trainer. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When trainers only have a couple of tactics to train dogs, you wind up with situations where the tool applied is not the best for the job. Using high amounts of pressure on more timid dogs can cause the dogs to shut down entirely. The same goes for positive reinforcement for dogs that are highly assertive or aggressive. Often positive reinforcement is ineffective at changing those kinds of behaviors. A skilled trainer treats each dog as an individual and chooses the right tool for the particular situation. Owners sending their dogs to be trained should, at a minimum, expect to receive the same dog back, but ideally a better version. Your dog should not come back from training less enthusiastic, or more timid. They should come back with the same if not more excitement about the work they do, and the skills to do it. There are far too many horror stories of dogs who loved swimming before training, then upon return are afraid to get in the water. I believe this is a complete failure on the part of the trainer, and owners deserve better. A balanced training approach allows trainers to, in many cases, improve a dog’s enthusiasm for its work. By only applying the amount of pressure necessary and mixing in positive reinforcement when it's deserved, it is entirely possible to get the best of both worlds.