Probably hundreds, if not thousands, of articles have been written about the four quadrants and what those mean for training. I could probably spend quite a while talking about different methodologies and how they utilize these quadrants in training. Instead I would like to break it down how I have for my students in the past giving you a quick and dirty overview of what they are. I highly suggest further study into the topic because it will help you understand how your dog understands and processes information.
The four quadrants Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment and Negative Punishment. Positives add something, negatives remove something. Positive reinforcement is the easy one, dogs behavior causes something good to be added. Negative reinforcement is the removal of something bad thus the behavior increases. Positive punishment is the addition of something the dog views negatively to decrease behavior. Negative punishment is when the behavior causes a good thing to stop and thus the behavior decreases.
In all of these you will find a slight grey zone in which people argue about what is or isn’t something is. This is due in slight to it being dependent on individual dogs as well as the subtleties of individual handlers.
The most common method you will find in the general pet obedience community is the positive only methodologies which relies heavily on the addition of rewards to get the proper behavior to increase. Dogs learn best when they are rewarded for the right choice. This is a fact established in much animal training, not just dogs. Denying however that there are other methodologies or even failing to understand all for quadrants and how it pertains to a dog learning can be detrimental in the long run. Training should be easy and something you can repeat everyday. In setting clear behaviors and boundaries dog learn better I encourage everyone to find a method that works best for them utilizing whatever quadrants and methods work best for that pair. Don’t force your dog and yourself into a box if you want to succeed in the long run.
Much training can be done by removing the ability to make improper choices and rewarding for proper choices. But that is the next topic.
Till then,
~Happy Tails~
Strange Encounters of the Dog Kind 