THE BEST WAY TO TRAIN YOUR DOG || Ivan Balabanov explains the Training Without Conflict™ Methodology 

Wow, thank you!

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Thank you for the kind words!

Thanks for listening

Yes! Thank you! Glad to have you in the community!

Genuinely, thank you!! Truly a pleasure. Love your teachings

Thank you! Cheers!

Yes, these methods can be applied to all breeds, all energy levels.

Glad you enjoyed it!

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That's an interesting question. I just started watching Ivan's videos this week . Ivan likes games and it could be that the meaning is not obvious on the surface - for example, the conflict might refer to where and/or in whom, and so on. Non-self-conflicting training, for example. Interesting, and something I've been curious about. I'm not against things that could be considered damage or hurt - for example surgery if it saves a life or saves from suffering. I have this example from this month in my life. I'm helping manage a dog's fear problems.He was terrified of loud noises and road traffic. On a flat collar he could easily overpower the owner and hurt or kill them both in an accident in certain situations. I didn't know how bad it was. I trained him to heel moderately well and took him to slowly approach a road. However, several vehicles turned into the driveway and he became terrifically unmanageable. I tried a couple more times more slowly and carefully but he became agitated.He also remembers the incidents and attaches fear to the locations. So on an idea I tried a prong collar and went in different directions constantly, until he began to look to me to follow me. Then I went straight to the busy road from a different location and he had only a very mild anxiety right beside traffic, walking on loose leash. Within a week he goes ahead of me to the terror road with tail up. That took about half an hour of prong collar to solve a long term disability. It was like a great medicine, bitter taste but cured the psychological illness first pill. Now no more stress on his neck from constant pulling on leash.Worth it for his life. Pure luck that I tried that.

I appreciate your kind attitude towards dogs! :) 💝 Here are my thoughts fwiw and this is probably WAY TMI but this whole subject's really on my mind right now: (I realize this is very long. I promise you I'm not insane :) Ivan loves dogs more than anything in the world. Dogs don't work with someone the way they work with him if they are working from a place fear or lack of trust. There is lack of conflict because he works and communicates with them so expertly that the dog is a very clear and confident, thus no conflict. Additionally, there's no conflict within the dog as to whether or not the dog really wants to engage with Ivan because he knows how to make engaging with him a completely inviting experience. His entire philosophy is built on the idea that dogs are fascinating, completely deserving of respect "as a fellow creature" (as he so beautifully puts it) and that engagement and relationship is everything in dog training. Because he understands this, he can also incorporate some simple little aversives, that are not mean, do not violate the dog's trust, and help clarify, thus helping to further reduce conflict (in this case the conflict being confusion in the dog's mind- think "cognitive dissonance" in humans here). We all experience some little aversives here and there that shape everything we do and they're not damaging in any way. For example: we walk outside and it's very cold, we walk back in and get a coat. We aren't damaged, or scarred for life, we just are simply shaped by what's called operant conditioning. The unfortunate thing is that there are too many people out there who get into punishing dogs and they have no clue. Ivan is hugely positive reinforcement and is so fascinated by dogs, and their nature, and the relationship that we can have with them, that I'm sure he does not relate to those types of trainers. But on the other side of things, what many don't realize, is that the "positive-only" or "force-free" trainers are actually using force and aversives quite frequently in their training. For example: if you use your dog's daily food to train him or her throughout the day, you are forcing your dog to do things. There's nothing wrong with doing that per se, but the dog is certainly being forced to do something if the dog wants to eat. I mean, that's most definitely force! Also, a lot of positive only and force-free trainers are very against prong collars but have no problem using headhalters. I don't know about you, but every dog I've seen HATES headhalters. That is aversive to a dog if he hates it! There are plenty of dogs who barely notice prong collars. (I've put a prong collar on my neck and yanked it quite hard and honestly didn't really bother me as an average size female. Put a flat-buckle on and pulled back and it hurt like hell. But that's another conversation for another day...) but the head halter repeatedly FORCING the dog's head to turn is both force and aversive. Another example of aversives that trainers who claim not to use aversives do is advise that you ignore your dog when he/she jumps on you. That's very aversive! IMO, it's actually kind of sad. Your dog is happy and excited and wants to smell your mouth and say hi and you're supposed to just turn around or walk out of the room? Meanwhile the dog is left trying to understand what in the world they did wrong, poor boo boo, instead of showing the dog what you were wanting them to do instead which is sitting. (btw, I'm not saying to use aversive to get them to sit, but rather teaching them to sit here using positive reinforcement instead of using the aversives of ignoring, shunning them walking out). Techniques like THESE can be causes of conflicts within dogs actually. Ivan understands dogs so well, has a very very special and unique gift for being able to communicate with them that he is able to do so in such a way that there isn't conflict for the dog. That's just my take on him anyway. Ivan, please feel free to clarify if I'm not reflecting your philosophy correctly!

What do aversives have to do with conflict? If you know proper learning theory the use of aversives will never create conflict with the dog or the training you do with them. Unless of course you are writing from a human emontional stand point which is the case with most people who talk about aversives nowadays.

@@fredalmeida8170 That's limiting the questioning to only what is within "learning theory" and pegging it only within "human emotional stand point". What is your justification for doing those two things?

​@@thankmelater1254 That was not my point. My point was that Alexandria asked how is it called training without conflict if we are using aversives. And I replied by asking what is the relationship between using aversives and creating conflict. And let me add to that question, what does she even mean by conflict? She is objectively implying that the usage of aversives creates conflict. But conflict in what? If you know how dogs learn, teaching them through aversion or non-aversion will not be the most important thing. If you know how to properly communicate through signals and follow certain laws aversives will never create conflict between the relationship with the animal or the training of the animal. If you don't know how dogs learn, then that's another story.