Be More Dog: The Human-Canine Relationship in Contemporary Dog-Training Methdologies

One way of conceptualizing the changes that have taken place in the methodology (or methodologies) of dog training in the past two decades – towards methods that are, very broadly, kinder and gentler – is to speak of a growing respect for the dog’s subjectivity and canine specificity. Because contemporary training methodologies are beginning to be influenced by the non-anthropocentric way of thinking that characterizes “the animal turn,” these changes carry with them not only recognition of canine specificity but also a certain readiness for change in the human half of the training pair. Donna Haraway, through the notion of “becoming with” (2003, 2007), speaks of the reconceptualization of the process of training from an activity that turns the dog into a well-behaved member of an anthropocentric society, into an activity that irrevocably alters both partners as it creates them (Haraway 2007, 17). While Haraway’s focus is on merging and blurring of human/animal boundaries in the process of “becoming with”, other accounts of the dog training revolution build on the emergence of an even more literal desire to become dog and experience dogness; a desire than stands in stark contrast to the traditional understanding of training as the harnessing of the canine’s abilities for human benefit. The title of a recently published overview of contemporary training methods “Your Dog is Your Teacher: Contemporary Dog Training Beyond Radical Behaviorism” (Pręgowski 2015) posits that, in the human-animal encounter within the framework of training, it is the human who follows the dog’s lead, renouncing the claim to control associated not just with “traditional punishment-based training” but also with the newer behaviorist techniques based on positive reinforcement.