spiritdogs:
I do not believe in intimidating or causing pain to dogs.
I do not believe in intimidating dogs either. Never do I want a dog to fear me. But discomfort and pain is apart of life, and I have no reservations against using self corrections and tools such as the prong collar when they are necessary. Until then, I will train motivationally. And if I must resort to other areas of the learning theory, it will still be done in an upbeat, non-threatening manner. My training methods never include anger nor work to make any dog fear me.
But, it might be better to tell you what I do believe in, since some of you still think this is all about permissiveness and cookies, which it is not. I believe that any dog can be taught to exhibit the behaviors you want him to, provided he is capable of them, by means of lure/reward, clicker training, motivational training, or a combination thereof, and not necessarily using only food as a reinforcer, although I certainly use a lot of it for some dogs. The key to training with food is that you use it as a reinforcer, not a bribe.
If this was directed to me, I assure you I already know of the methods of positive reinforcement based training. It is the method I use and am partial to.
And, that you understand that the dog who is not motivated by food may well be motivated in other ways, but that doesn't mean that a non-food motivated dog must necessarily, or at all, be trained by force.
Of course not, there is this thing called a relationship and praise. As well as toys, and "real life reinforcers".
You can call a leash correction a yank, a pop, a suggestion, or an "I told him who was boss", but the one thing you cannot call it is positive reinforcement. It's punishment. That's the scientific definition, not the personal one.
Whoever said it was positive reinforcement? Surely wasn't me. A correction is punishment. There's no doubt about it.
The word "balance" really irks me sometimes, because it's just a euphemism for those who want to keep punishment in their arsenal, but aren't willing to say that they punish their dogs. Punish doesn't imply cruel, it just implies that you use either +P or -P
Again, I don't know who's refusing to state they punish their dogs. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If need be, I will use any and all spectrum of the learning theory. Because not only does positive reinforcement exist, but so does negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment.