We have consulted with 3 trainers about training our aggressive 9 month old dog. Two of them said that you should not use food for training as it increases dominant behavior in dogs. Can you give us some advice?

Cindy,

I have recently purchased the videos "dominant and aggressive dogs" and "ecollar training" from your site. I have a 9 month old alpha female doberman and a 4 year old Golden Retriever. The doberman shows handler aggression, aggression towards our golden retriever and toward her bones/toys. I have watched both videos and we have implemented the back to basics approach where we ignore the dog for 2 weeks, keep her on a leash with us in the house at all times, removed all of the toys etc and things are going well.

We consulted 3 professional dog trainers and paid a lot of money to try and get some help managing this dog. Two of the trainers told us to absolutely not use any food rewards (which we had been doing). They told us that this increased the dominant behavior of the dog.

The videos we watched from your website showed techniques using food for markers and rewards. We are confused now as to where we should or should not use food rewards. Can you please give us some advice.