110 years of Dog Trainers
When the average dog owner thinks of dog training, they often think of big-name trainers on TV, or they think of agility. However, dog training is a much broader topic of discussion and can help us better understand why we do many things that we do now. Many dog training students are familiar with names like Pavlov and Skinner, but they may not be as familiar with the men and women who populate the past hundred years or so of dog training and sports.
If we start in the 1890s in Germany, Captain Max Von Stephanitz was impressed with the herding dogs he observed in the mountains of his homeland. He purchased his foundation dogs and began breeding them. One of the core values he had related to dogs was that they should be used for work, and he strongly believed that if his dogs were not used for meaningful (to him at least!) work, they would eventually die out and disappear. So he began to train his dogs in obedience, tracking and demonstrating their uses to the police and military. During the First World War, a contemporary of Von Stephanitz, Colonel Konrad Most, trained dogs for the German military. His book Training Dogs: A Manual was the very first modern book about training dogs.
Following the First World War, interest began to grow in the use of dogs to help blind people to navigate around the world. Dorothy Harrison Eustis, an American living in Switzerland, trained the first dog to be widely accepted in this role; Kiss, a young German Shepherd who was renamed Buddy, was partnered with Morris Frank, a young man from the United States who made it his mission to gain acceptance for guide dogs by the public. Largely through his efforts, the guide dog became the hero of blind people across America. As a result, guide dogs are probably the most accepted of all assistance dogs.
The 1920s also saw the rise of Rin Tin Tin, the most well-known German Shepherd of film. Rin Tin Tin was found in a trench in France as a puppy and brought back to the states by Lee Duncan. Rin Tin Tin was a favourite on the silver screen from 1922 until the 1950s, although the original Rinty died at age 16 and was buried in Paris. In 1938, he was joined on screen by Lassie, originally played by a rough collie named Pal. The following year, Terry, a Cairn Terrier, joined these distinguished dogs on screen as Toto in the Wizard of Oz. Dogs doing incredible things on screen no doubt inspired people to begin looking at their dogs differently. Dogs could obviously do things with us.
Concurrent with the rise of the use of guide dogs and dogs on screen came a poodle breeder, Helene Whitehouse Walker, who was aware of behaviour tests that were being held in England for working dogs. Walker began to approach dog clubs and breeders with her ideas for holding tests of obedience. In 1933, 8 dogs competed in the first obedience trial in Mount Kisco, New York. In 1937, Walker and her good friend Blanche Saunders took to the road showing off the things dogs could learn. Saunders was famous for riding her bicycle with her poodle beside her, leaping easily over a string of hurdles. Dog training had a foothold in the United States.
During the Second World War, Dogs for Defense in the USA, recruited civilian dogs to assist in the war effort. Civilian dogs in Canada, Britain, and Europe were also recruited. Dogs were being accepted more and more as trained partners to us in a wide variety of situations. After the war, many of these dogs returned home with new skills, making people even more aware of the skills that dogs could learn.
It is interesting to note that Colonel Most, who wrote the first dog training manual just before the First World War, was also one of the first trainers to formalize a curriculum for training dogs in the Second World War and, following the war, used his understanding of training to teach people to train and handle guide dogs for veterans. His writing at the time anticipates the work of Skinner and shows that he was using both primary and secondary reinforcers, shaping, fading and chaining.
As training began to become widely accepted by the public, obedience trials began to become more popular. A German immigrant, Josef Weber, became one of the first people to develop obedience tests in the United States through the American Kennel Club. His experience training dogs for the Berlin Police Force can be seen in the reflection of the exercises that were chosen to demonstrate the partnership that a dog and handler can have. At the novice level, the dog and handler march together in a pattern, showing that a stranger can approach and examine the dog who is required to stand, stay and come when called in a very formal pattern. Dogs are also asked to sit and stay for a minute and then lie down and stay. These exercises are supposed to demonstrate “traffic manners,” but they do look a lot more like what you might expect on a parade ground!
In 1954, Blanche Saunders published one of the first books directed at the general public. The Complete Book of Dog Obedience set out how to offer obedience training classes. Based largely on negative reinforcement, her book advised that food should not be used as a bribe, although it could be used from time to time to overcome problems. Instead, she used modelling where she would press on the dog’s body to form the stationary behaviours she wanted and release the pressure when the dog adopted the target behaviour. She also used a snare collar to “correct” errors by applying a collar pop when the dog moved out of a desired position when heeling or to elicit coming when called. Although today we would likely consider her methods to be heavy-handed, throughout the book, the reader is advised to be fair and use praise and touch liberally to strengthen behaviors. Ms. Saunders was one of the earliest people to offer in-person seminars, and she taught obedience classes at the ASPCA in NYC from 1944 to 1961.
Perhaps the biggest name familiar to the average dog trainer in the United States in the 1960s would be William Koehler. Bill Koehler was a former military trainer who made his name as Disney’s head dog trainer. In 1962, he wrote out his training program in a book where he promised a large sum of money to anyone who could present a dog who did not learn the tasks within, provided they followed his instructions exactly. His methods were primarily based on negative reinforcement and positive punishment, but they have the distinction of providing readers with a fairly reliable set of instructions that would allow them to train their dogs to a specific set of criteria. For example, Koehler advised that all dogs should be kenneled for at least an hour ahead of training sessions in order to focus the dog’s mind on his work. Perhaps his biggest contribution to the field was the assertion that dogs with behaviour problems were not irredeemable.
In 1963, Clarence Pfaffenberger wrote a book called a New Knowledge of Dog Behaviour. In this book, a series of connected anecdotes leads the reader through what was known then about the importance of early handling and socialization for puppies, particularly those that were to go on to become guide dogs. This book is still relevant today and contains one of the most accessible sources of information about raising young dogs successfully and what can go wrong when you neglect important milestones.
In 1965, Winnifred Strickland, an AKC obedience judge, wrote a book called Expert Obedience Training for Dogs, where we finally begin to see food being suggested for some training activities, although primarily for tricks, not for obedience skills such as sit, down, stay, come when called or walking on a leash. While most of her work still relied mostly upon negative reinforcement techniques, one of the most important contributions she brought to the field was the idea that dogs could and should live in our homes and share our lives.
In the 1960s and 70s, Barbara Woodhouse, the Irish-born British dog trainer, popularized dog training first through her schools and writing and later through her television show in the early 80s. She firmly believed that there were no bad dogs, only bad owners. While this sentiment is attractive, it has brought many people a great deal of heartache when they are faced with a dog whose behaviours they cannot resolve. In her books, she allowed that if a dog’s problems cannot be resolved after consulting a trainer or a veterinarian, “if the faults are too great, it is kinder to put a bad dog to sleep.” Woodhouse was one of the first trainers to advocate for positive reinforcement, but she suggested that a calm and quiet voice would be sufficient to encourage the dog to repeat desired behaviours. She stopped short of encouraging people to use food in training. She recognized the importance of teaching the dog the skill before using negative reinforcement or positive punishment in training. The “Woodhouse Way” recommended using a chain collar and lightly jerking the collar to gain the dog’s attention, which caused many later trainers to reject her methods completely. Woodhouse was famous for her gentle and kind demeanor with the dogs she handled, and her no-nonsense and decisive instructions to the people who were learning how to train. This combination was very attractive and rocketed her television show to international success.
Hot on the heels of Barbara Woodhouse, we find the first of the truly modern dog trainers in Dr. Ian Dunbar. If you are at a seminar today and you hear people referring to “Ian” there is only one person they might be referring to. Ian Dunbar is a veterinarian from the UK, who came to the United States to earn his doctorate in Animal Behaviour at UC Berkeley, where he developed the first off-leash puppy socialization and training classes in 1982. As a student of animal behaviour, Ian was aware of the importance of early experiences in developing a puppy to its fullest potential. With a string of books, seminars, a television show, and videos, and later with an online presence, Ian Dunbar has likely had the biggest impact on the field, moving us away from punitive and heavy-handed methods and popularizing “lure and reward” training. In 1993, Ian founded the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, which has become the largest dog trainer organization in the world.
Shortly after Ian Dunbar opened his puppy training school, Karen Pryor burst into the dog training world with a vengeance with her book, “Don’t Shoot The Dog.” “Don’t Shoot The Dog” was a complete game changer for many dog trainers because we finally saw science-marrying practice. Karen explained the science of training to us, and the ground was prepared for a more complete understanding of how learning happens. Shortly after she published her book, she teamed up with Gary Wilkes and began presenting clicker training to those serious dog trainers who were interested in fine-tuning their performances. Wilkes and Pryor stopped working together in the late 1990s, and Karen moved on to found Clicker Expo, one of the most well-known dog training conferences in the world. It can be argued that Karen has had the next greatest influence on dog training after Ian Dunbar.
In the early nineties, dog trainers around the world found one another online and we began to share information with one another about the science and how we were each applying that to our work with dogs. This shared knowledge reached an inspired trainer from Montreal, Canada. Jean Donaldson wrote a book called “The Culture Clash” that really helped people to understand dogs as feeling, thoughtful beings who could learn most effectively through the use of positive reinforcement.
The dog training revolution that occurred from 1900 to 2000 has been incredible and has continued into the current day. Young trainers today often don’t realize now that they are the recipients of a body of knowledge that is really recent, turbulent and exciting. There are so many more trainers that could have been included in this overview, and we only hope that you can see how rich the history of dog training has been in just the past hundred years. The real question is, where will dog trainers today take the field? We have so many resources now that we have the advantage over trainers from years ago. We can learn the science, easily compare our techniques, and access coaching and evaluation, all from the comfort of our own desks!
Looking to expand your knowledge? Join our Shelter Dog Training Mentorship instructed by Sue Alexander CPDT-KSA CBCC-KA CDBC.