An idiotic idea that I heard many times in my early days with Sharav was that it was wrong to tell a dog “No,” and that the proper way to train a dog was exclusively with positive reinforcement.
My view was that dogs, provided their needs are met, want to behave well, but need people to set guardrails for them and let them know what behavior is unacceptable. I targeted roughly twice as much praise as criticism for Sharav, and he thrived immensely from it.
Hundreds of people told me that Sharav was the best trained dog they had ever encountered.
With Tokyo at Yarkon park. Tel Aviv, January 2009. Click any photo to see more.