It was interesting to watch the dog's progress & the result of applied 'pressure'. I think in such a situation you simply have to really know the dog in question. Some could handle it with ease, like this one in the video, others could not. My Felix is definitely in the 'not' category. If he's unsure or hesitating about something, I have to let him do 'whatever it is' on his own. Putting physical pressure on, as demonstrated here, would make the situation way worse & him more hesitant/fearful. Left to his own devices, and timeline, he tends to overcome most issues quickly & has great 'bounce-back' after something scares him. So, know your dog. 😉

I guess in a situation where you didn't really know the dog well, and it wasn't something critical that the dog had to do right then & there, it would be better to err on the side of caution & not use this type of pressure/flooding. You run the risk of sensitizing the dog & making it worse. Going slower has a pretty low risk of fallout. But obviously there are many dogs out there who can handle something like this & end up being OK, or even better for it.

 

I did not enjoy seeing this at all.
Doing this kind of thing to either of my dogs would be disastrous. If I did that to my young dog it would be likely to damage the trust he has for me and that trust would have to be built up again. I suspect the same would be true for many, many dogs. But I would never do that to my dog.

And I would never even consider doing something like this to any dog when it was something so completely trivial as whether or not the dog wanted to get into a pool! Just because the person thinks it is a good idea for the dog to go into the pool for some reason is no excuse for flooding a dog and making it go into the pool when the dog is afraid. It is totally unnecessary and inappropriate.

 

It was interesting to watch the dog's progress & the result of applied 'pressure'. I think in such a situation you simply have to really know the dog in question. Some could handle it with ease, like this one in the video, others could not. My Felix is definitely in the 'not' category. If he's unsure or hesitating about something, I have to let him do 'whatever it is' on his own. Putting physical pressure on, as demonstrated here, would make the situation way worse & him more hesitant/fearful. Left to his own devices, and timeline, he tends to overcome most issues quickly & has great 'bounce-back' after something scares him. So, know your dog. 😉

Definitely a know your dog situation
But that raises the question, how do you know your dog can't handle it unless you try something like this? Which goes back to you have to pressure the dog at some point. Maybe? IDK?

Personally I want my dog to be able to handle pressure and if I can be the one to do it, to manage the whole situation, control the level of pressure, the situation, the duration, I feel that's way better than ending up in a situation where the dog really does "have to" for something.
In that sense, I'm totally game to try things like this out to both understand my dog better, and also encourage that confidence, and success in my dog.

I guess in a situation where you didn't really know the dog well, and it wasn't something critical that the dog had to do right then & there, it would be better to err on the side of caution & not use this type of pressure/flooding. You run the risk of sensitizing the dog & making it worse. Going slower has a pretty low risk of fallout. But obviously there are many dogs out there who can handle something like this & end up being OK, or even better for it.

Yeah, I think sometimes playing around with something that's not critical makes it easier though because the human is less stressed about the whole thing working and can be more patient and less emotional. Even without the leash pulling, luring alone is a form of "pressure" especially if the toy or treat is something the dog is really motivated for.

I actually prefer it to be leash pressure than a lure because I don't want to "poison" the reward, and I don't think luring a dog into doing something they don't want to do is cool. I do have an issue with that in general.

And yes, some dogs can handle stuff like this much better - which raises another question about temperament and what good breeders should be aiming for. Personally I think a dog who can handle pressure is a good thing, not because I think it's wise to train with pressure or anything, but because I think resilience is so valuable in a pet dog - which is where most dogs are going to end up, even purpose bred ones.

I'm enjoying the different takes on this though! Thank you for your thoughts!

 

Personally I want my dog to be able to handle pressure and if I can be the one to do it, to manage the whole situation, control the level of pressure, the situation, the duration, I feel that's way better than ending up in a situation where the dog really does "have to" for something.
In that sense, I'm totally game to try things like this out to both understand my dog better, and also encourage that confidence, and success in my dog.

Absolutely! Sometimes life isn't perfect & we have to take a 'suck it up, buttercup' stance. Our dogs are no different. I think the more opportunities we give our dogs to 'have choice' and the outcome is good/very good (at worst, neutral-ish) while developing a solid relationship of trust with them (got yer back, Jack!) the more they'll be unphased by us putting them into a situation of 'gotta do it'. I'm all for 'cooperative care', but some things are non-negotiable'.

Couple of examples - When Felix first came to our home (brought by his foster Mom & Dad, 3 hour car trip, for a trial run) he was petrified when he first entered our home. He hopped up in a chair, hunkered down & refused to leave that room (even when we managed to get him out of the chair) Would NOT willingly walk through the sunroom doorway into the rest of the house's interior. Could I have dragged him through? Well, sure! but I didn't think that would be a very good introduction to our home. Instead, I took him back outside (via the dog door he had come in through) and returned inside via the front door, which leads to the rest of the main level. Once that happened, he was more than willing to be walked around from room to room, including both ways through the sunroom doorway (that he had just been refusing to walk through)

At the time, he didn't know me from Adam. WHY should he have followed me through somewhere potentially dangerous? Now that he knows & trusts me, I am more willing to push him a bit in uncomfortable situations (but always keeping in mind that he has a fabulous rebound & if I CAN, letting him work through something is the fastest way to a mutually satisfactory conclusion) First time we hit a creek crossing on a hike he was pretty much "Yeah, Hell to the no!!" But he had no choice (we weren't going back, through the creek was the only possible option) so I did put a bit of 'pressure' on & O...M...G... !!! He lived! He did NOT melt!! And... he now actually likes wading in streams & rivers! LOL! Ellie was pretty much the same way about getting her feet wet in the beginning. Now, she still doesn't do it for "fun" like Felix does, but she will follow me across a creek crossing without issue.

I totally agree about poisoning a food lure. I have two on opposite sides of the spectrum. Ellie is over-the-top foodie (she would eat a rock if you handed it to her!). Felix is more or less 'Meh! I eat to live..." about food (Unless it's a hunk of raw sirloin. THAT he will scarf up without a second glance! lol) So, while I'd be hard-pressed to poison food with E, I have to be very careful with F. He'll go off something that he used to eat vigorously, because.... I probably have no idea! He really is well named. Definitely VERY much a 'Cat-dog'! lol

 

Dragging the dog into a swimming pool takes the concept of flooding to a whole new level.

Humor aside, I have a few thoughts after watching the video:
1) The dog seems to be a puppy old enough to be past its first fear stage and young enough not to be in its second fear stage. It's a pretty adaptable age.
2) The dog looks like it's a Labrador. Well bred Labs tend to be pretty bomb proof. They also tend to enjoy water.
3) I'm going to assume this trainer has been working with the dog prior to this video. Somebody has at least introduced the dog to bumpers and taught it to enjoy playing with them.
Soooo...if someone was going to force a dog out of its comfort zone by dragging it into a swimming pool and asking it to play...the odds of this particular dog coming out ok were better than most.

It's definitely possible, with the right dog and the right relationship, to ask the dog to do something scary. In some sports - herding, IGP, agility - it's probably even a good thing to push the dog a bit out of its comfort zone. The dog is going to encounter situations that are scary and challenging. The dog needs to learn how to think through the situation instead of falling to pieces.

However, there's a difference between a savvy trainer pushing a solid dog to the next level...and some impatient yahoo overfacing a dog that is no way no how capable of handling what's being asked of it.

 

Dragging the dog into a swimming pool takes the concept of flooding to a whole new level.

Ha ha! I missed that - funny

I don't think it matters that much in the bigger picture, but I wouldn't call that dragging the dog into the pool. From what it looked like to me, she simply held the leash so the pup couldn't back away, making it so the only way the pup could escape the pressure was into the pool. Thus negatively reinforcing getting into the water. Classic escape/avoidance training.
Nothing inherently wrong with escape/avoidance training, and it's not inherently unkind either IME.

The biggest problem with this sort of leash "pressure" is that it immediately activated oppositional reflex making the whole thing seem more forceful - both for the person watching and for the dog experiencing it. It wasn't that the trainer was pulling, it was that the dog was having a big old oppositional reflex reaction.
There are better ways to make something non-negotiable without activating the oppositional reflex. Like simply pick the pup up and bring him into the water.

And of course she could also have simply shaped the behavior. There's no rush to get the pup in the pool, so shaping every successive approximation would have gotten him in too. But I get it, if you're a busy trainer, with only a limited amount of time to work with the dog, then shaping may take too long. And for all I know she did try shaping and chose this way instead.

Shaping can be weird too though. Penny likes to look like I beat her when I put a harness or coat on her, so one winter I decided to really work on shaping the harness. Made it 10X worse. She started anticipating the whole event, slowing it down just prolonged the agony. I went back to popping it on her right before we're going out (which she loves) and she bounced right back to tolerating it. It's still not her favorite thing, but she tolerates it because it means fun outing.

So yeah, there's a lot of other options here, and for all we know she tried them (or didn't) but at the end of the day, the outcome made me smile, happy lab who has just discovered the joys of water - what's not to love?!

I've done plenty of what I call non-negotiables with my dogs over the years, the "yeah you don't want to but it's going to happen" type situations.
Just the other day Penny had a tick on her eyelid and I "forced" her to be still and removed it, she hated every minute, but it was super quick, I jollied her up afterwards, and all was forgiven. She also knew the tick was on her eyelid and she realized after I messed with it, it was gone. So there was an element of "oh, mom fixed it" too.

That's the trust piece.
And I think we get it wrong sometimes assuming always giving the dog choice and agency will build trust, and taking that agency away will automatically erode trust. It's so much more nuanced than that. Sometimes telling the dog they don't have a choice is a relief for them. Sometimes telling the dog they don't have a choice and giving them that fun outcome like the lab pup had actually builds trust.
I know with Penny, every time I've asked her to do something she didn't want to do and she succeeded, she puffs up about it, and over time she has come to realize that when mom encourages her to do something scary it ends up feeling good.

It's all just cool and interesting to me