Animalcrackers, your dog will only respond to stern commands because that is what has become the cue for him. He has learned that the stern voice IS the cue. He's become conditioned to that. I can whisper commands and my dog gives the correct response, that is...with the commands that I've conditioned him to with a softer voice. If my dogs are wrestling too loudly in the living room (don't want too much wild stuff inside) and I'm in another room, I might holler out, "Enough!" Or if they're barking at the top of their lungs. But for most things, obedience commands, it is very quiet. With "stay" for instance, it's really become a default behavior, where I don't even have to say "stay" (sometimes I do quietly, if I think he's zoning out) but normally, I just walk away, no hand signal or verbal. If I step off with my right foot, that means stay (if he's in a sit at heel position for example) and if I step off with my left, it means for him to walk with me. It's about conditioning.
I just believe that some people really need to step out of their little world, get off their agenda and actaully think with their "educated" minds what they're really saying half the time.
And just which people would that be? And why? Do you disagree with people like Jean Donaldson, Pat Miller, Ian Dunbar, Patricia McConnell, PhD, Karen Pryor who has been a marine mammal trainer as well as a dog trainer, very very reputable scientists/behaviorists with advanced degrees in behavior?
I've never seen a dog in my entire life that learned to walk on a leash without leash jerks, EVER.
Where have you been all my life? LOL. You've been immersed in that kind of training and nothing else. Maybe that's why you haven't seen a dog learn to walk on a leash without leash jerks.(?)
I absolutely have not had to use leash corrections. Loads of dogs are trained without jerking on the leash. Behavioral law states that reinforcement for a behavior will make it much more likely that the behavior will be repeated in the future. We all want the good things and will perform behavior which gets us the good thing.
My Doberman walks beautifully on a leash. (I don't do much that way with my Chihuahuas) The only time he has pulled (now that he's been doing this for a while) is sometimes in the beginning of a walk when he's super excited to get a move on. I've been practicing a lot more because I'm in Seattle visiting (still) and I just use a leash more. After a couple of weeks of being here, he's stopped that even.
At any rate, one step of tension in the leash. Walk stops. After about 3 tries, he remembers or realizes that this is not a fun walk if he does that and he gets back near me again, he gets told how wonderful he is, then the rest of the walk is nice.
I can hold the leash with about 2-3 ft of slack and put my hands in my pockets and we stroll along. He stays right next to me. So, the only aversive he gets is that he has to stop walking for a second until he gets back closer to me.
One of the reasons people have trouble and think they have to use stern voices and stern leash corrections etc is because they've conditioned their dogs to THAT. Anything milder won't have meaning. A person can change that by gradually re-introducing the new cue. Mixing or using both types of training (not using stern aversives and sometimes using stern aversives) does not work as well. When a dog-human relationship is that of a partnership rather than a dictatorship and he doesn't do things to avoid an aversive, and that's how the whole relationship runs, these gentler training methods work beautifully. Throw in the avoidance here and there and you lose the opportunity to make PR run well....like a car that has all it's engine parts in place, but not gas. People need to get it out of their minds that "do it because I'm the boss." And start engaging their dogs. The whole collar jerk, stern voice thing disengages a dog. They're thinking how to avoid that and not about what you're trying to teach them. It's like if you were taking piano lessons and hit a wrong note and the teacher yelled at you or took your fingers and stuck them on the right key abruptly. Would that make you nervous or feel a little rotten? Or would it be better if the teacher gently showed you which key you were missing and then said, "there....that's it." Which way would you rather learn. Compare dogs to people? Sure, in many ways. Dogs have emotions and feelings.
To say that some dogs don't learn using behavioral law is false. All mammals learn by behavioral law. Animals that are much harder to train than dogs are trained this way. Motivators, reinforcers may vary. Some dogs may need a longer time to practice free of distractions than other dogs. Some dogs may need to have extra focus training if they're unfocused or need more exercise before practicing. But all dogs learn by condition response and by reinforcement. If you think that only stern commands work, remember this: that cues or commands aren't what drives behavior. Reinforcement is.