My wife and I got a 5 month old border collie about 3 months ago. The approach that ended up working for us was to use positive reinforcement for
almost all the things we wanted trained, and then only use negative reinforcement for one or two things we
really didn't want him to do.
We chose to punish (spank/"bad dog"/shake an empty soda can with pennies inside it) for only two things: pottying in the house, and chasing/herding the cats.
We think they were good choices for the negative reinforcement because they were things we really wanted to stop ASAP, and they happened relatively infrequently, so it's not like he was being constantly punished.
At 8 months old, he's now an ideal citizen of our house.
I do think the breed had a lot to do with the success of this technique, though. Border Collies are smart (I'm told they have the intelligence of a 4 y/o?), so I think him being able to quickly learn things, and him being able to connect things beyond just one step was important.
By "connecting things beyond one step", I mean, I suspect with a less-intelligent dog you might have the problem of like, if they potty outside and then you wait to give them a treat until you're inside (because the dog is distracted by them if you have them outside) they might not get that the treat is for pottying.
We chose to punish (spank/"bad dog"/shake an empty soda can with pennies inside it) for only two things: pottying in the house, and chasing/herding the cats.
We think they were good choices for the negative reinforcement because they were things we really wanted to stop ASAP, and they happened relatively infrequently, so it's not like he was being constantly punished.
At 8 months old, he's now an ideal citizen of our house.
I do think the breed had a lot to do with the success of this technique, though. Border Collies are smart (I'm told they have the intelligence of a 4 y/o?), so I think him being able to quickly learn things, and him being able to connect things beyond just one step was important.
By "connecting things beyond one step", I mean, I suspect with a less-intelligent dog you might have the problem of like, if they potty outside and then you wait to give them a treat until you're inside (because the dog is distracted by them if you have them outside) they might not get that the treat is for pottying.