"Cookies won't stop an aggressive dog from attacking"

“A cookie won’t stop an aggressive dog from attacking” is something I hear frequently as an argument against positive reinforcement-based training.

Here’s a little secret:

I have yelled at my dogs.

I have scruffed them.

I have yanked their leads back.

I have told them “no”.

Of course I’ve done all these things at some point in the past two decades of dog ownership. I am only human, and management fails sometimes.

If a dog is about to eat something dangerous, I might yell. If they have slipped their collar, I may have to scruff them to catch them. If a dog I’m handling lunges at traffic, I’ll probably yank the lead back to prevent us both getting run over. If they are about to walk over something dangerous, like broken glass on the road, I may shout “no”.

The thing is, these things occur when something’s gone wrong. If a dog is in a situation where they are about to cause harm to themselves or someone else, you can bet that I will use force or a very loud voice. It’s a last resort, but I’m not just going to be stood there waving a cocktail sausage, and I doubt any trainer in the world would.

That’s not what training with positive reinforcement means, it’s not just relying on treats when a dog sees red, hoping it’ll mitigate the situation.

It’s about avoiding the dog seeing red, gently showing them better and safer coping mechanisms. It’s about not having to mitigate a situation, but instead culturing an environment where force, aversives and punishments aren’t required. I will use force if management seriously fails to prevent a catastrophe from occurring, but I’m not relying on it to teach dogs. Just because I’ve had to do it as a last resort, doesn’t mean I’d ever choose it.

I totally agree, a cookie won’t stop an aggressive dog from attacking. But carefully timed cookies, given at an appropriate distance over time can counter condition the aggressive response. It can help dogs at an emotional level, not just at surface level. That’s the training. Not thoughtlessly throwing in treats like you’re throwing notes at a stripper, whilst the dog goes mental.

Yeah, I’ve punished my dogs. I’m not proud of it. But it will never be part of my training plan. It’s a last resort, for when things have totally gone wrong. Good dog training is more complex than putting them in a situation where they’re set up to fail, then punishing them for behaving exactly as expected. I aim for errorless learning, where the dog is helped as much as possible to make those good decisions, so they’re more likely to choose that option in the future. But sometimes things don’t work out that way.

If a dog is about to eat something dangerous, I might yell, but then I’ll set up a training plan to help with impulse control around food.

If they have slipped their collar, I may have to scruff them to catch them, but then I’ll work harder on recall to ensure there’s a better measure if it happens again.

If a dog I’m handling lunges at traffic, I’ll probably yank the lead back to prevent us both getting run over, but then we will do a lot of counter conditioning around traffic to help prevent them feeling the need to lunge in the future.

If they are about to walk over something dangerous, like broken glass on the road, I may shout “no,” but then we will go home and practise emergency stops so that we are prepared for next time.

A cookie won’t stop an aggressive dog from attacking, but lots of them given at the right time, paired with good training can help prevent the dog from feeling the need to react in the future.