Ring Out the New, Ring In the Old: A Return to Off-Leash Puppy Training

Sometimes old methods are new again (because they’re still useful). photo: Bay Woof; AdobeStock

We often assume that newer is automatically better. But when we look at dog training over the past 100-plus years, we see a mix of highs and lows, of one step forward, one step back. 

So let’s take a look at how we got to where we are now - and where we should be headed. 

Early Dog Training

Until the early 1900s, sheepdogs and gundogs were usually trained off-leash as puppies. In fact, after spending a week in the American Kennel Club library reviewing books written in the 1700s and 1800s, I found references to training practices such as luring and shaping and to classical and operant conditioning before they were named as such. I also found many other training techniques still in use today, though now with lengthy scientific names or snappy acronyms. I even discovered a delightful little book about off-leash, lure/reward, gundog puppy training. Though these books recommended far too many physical corrections, dog training pre-1900 was mostly natural and based on common sense.

Then in 1910, a trainer named Konrad Most published a seminal book that formalized on-leash dog training for military and police dogs. Most’s training technique had a mantra: Command-Correct-Praise. Leash “corrections” were frequent and praise was limited. On-leash dog training classes were serious business and probably not much fun for dogs or humans. 

In the years that followed, Most’s book or variations thereof were used or rewritten by thousands of competition dog trainers worldwide. His methods were also adopted by most Kennel Club dog training groups, which, for a long time, were the sole training option available to the increasing number of companion dogs and their owners. 

Enter Off-Leash Lure/Reward Training

I first lectured about lure/reward training during a on-week dog behavior and training course at the UC Berkeley Extension in 1972. Drawing on the way my father and grandfather had trained their gundogs, this technique was based on common sense and positive reinforcement. And it was effective. 

A decade later, I put my lecture into practice and started SIRIUS® Puppy Training to teach off-leash, lure/reward training for companion dogs and their human families. This program used a simple training sequence: (1) request, (2) lure, (3) response, and (4) praise/reward. The copious praise and occasional rewards reinforced the dog’s response, making it more likely to occur in the future. In other words, it used positive reinforcement to get a desired result.

The reward component also reinforced the classical, associative relationship between (a) the owner’s verbal request, which is often difficult for dogs to learn, and (b) the lure movement, which is easy for most dogs to understand. The combination of the lure and reward helped dogs learn the desired response following each request and understand the meaning of the owner’s verbal instructions (once a dog can comprehend our words that becomes the most effective means for quickly resolving behavior and training problems and radically decreasing non-compliance).

Of course, the off-leash component of these classes was also key. Training puppies off-leash helps them learn solid bite-inhibition and prevents the otherwise normal, adolescent development of wariness and fear towards unfamiliar people or dog-dog reactivity. After just a single off-leash class session, most puppies were free of anxiety, stress, fear, reactivity, and aggression. Additionally, their owners mastered off-leash, distance, and verbal control by using short training interludes within 55-minute off-leash play sessions (look inside our classes at siriuspup.com).

Scaling Up

Lure/reward dog training proved to be quick, easy, effective, and a whole lot of fun for dogs, their people, and trainers. In fact, after a decade of seminars and workshops around the world, by the late 1980s, off-leash puppy classes were being taught all over. 

To coordinate all these new puppy trainers, in 1993, I founded an Association of Puppy Trainers at a mini-conference at the Peninsula Humane Society. The following year, we held a seven-day Doggy Education Extravaganza in Orlando, where we renamed the group the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT). In 1999, the Annual APDT Conference welcomed 1,500 trainers and nearly 300 dogs. Lure/reward training was scaling up and dogs and their humans were benefitting.

Then the Drop Off

But by the early 2000s, I noticed fewer dogs were attending conferences and the number of demonstrations and lectures about training dogs seemed to be dropping off. Instead, there were more presentations about ancillary topics like learning theory, nutrition, holistic medicine, ethology, ethics, business promotion, and neuroscience. As a result, the entire profession of positive-reinforcement dog training began to change. 

First, some trainers started to insist that luring was “cheating” and that dogs learned better if they learned by themselves. This despite the fact that luring is clearly quicker, easier, and more effective than waiting for a dog to respond on its own. Also once a dog has learned something, they’ve learned it, no matter how they were taught. 

In addition, without teaching cued behaviors via lure/reward training, it became impossible to objectively quantify response reliability, making it hard to monitor progress and effectiveness. Worse, there were no longer effective verbal means for correcting misbehavior or for offering verbal guidance to get dogs back on track quickly when they erred. Praise, glorious praise, was replaced by a click and a treat. A click!? Really? In essence, our voice was being removed from dog training: no instruction, no praise. 

At the same time, many trainers moved away from the off-leash puppy classes that had reliably prevented predictable temperament and training problems. Instead, roughly 85% of positive reinforcement trainers now offer only individual consultations (many by Zoom) to deal with anxiety, stress, fear, reactivity, aggression, hyperactivity, and non-compliance in adult dogs. These are all problems that the dog training profession has allowed to develop by moving away from prevention in the form of off-leash puppy classes.

In fact, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior states: "Behavioral issues, not infectious diseases, are the number one cause of death of dogs under three years of age." Prevention is the only logical and practical solution - so let’s get back to preventing problems pronto. Find the complete AVSAB statement here.

Bringing Back Off-Leash Puppy Training

Today, positive reinforcement risks becoming a shadow of its former self. It’s become increasingly time-consuming, unnecessarily complicated, considerably less effective, devoid of applied scientific method, and - most damning - more impersonal. With all the new bells and whistles, this essential question remains: Are dogs being trained, and if so, how well and how quickly?

I believe we’re now overdue for a return in dog training: back to the natural, common-sense, easy, time-efficient, effective, and outrageously enjoyable way. That’s why my new year will be spent resuscitating off-leash puppy classes. 

To that end, I’m founding a new Association of Puppy Trainers. For three months, I’ll provide free educational resources for anyone who would like to become an off-leash puppy trainer. For the remainder of the year, I’ll be ruthlessly promoting to veterinary practitioners and pet stores the urgency and importance for new puppy owners to safely socialize their pups before three months of age. That means exposing them to loads of different people in the home and the community, letting puppies acclimate themselves to the overwhelming sensory smorgasbord and general cacophony of our human environment. It also means registering their new family member for an off-leash puppy class to nip incipient, developing temperament problems in the bud. 

All of which is a long way of saying newer isn’t always better. For the sake of our dogs, let’s start the new year right and get back to leash-free, positive-reinforcement puppy training. A generation of dogs will thank us.