Just because you�ve had dogs for ten, twenty, even fifty years, doesn�t mean everything you say is automatically credible. Of course, it�s true that there is some plausibility to the claim that more experience is better - nobody wants a novice dentist - but there�s also the possibility that being experienced just means �being set in your ways�. There are some ethical pitfalls with the appeal to experience that we need to be careful not to fall into, whether we�re using it or listening to it.
Confirmation bias
The first is that experience can be colored by confirmation bias. Often there are arguments from experience on both sides of a debate, but experience only seems worth listening to if it lines up with what you already believe. A trainer could claim that you should only name your dogs Harold, because in her fifty years of dog training all dogs named Harold were good dogs, but we wouldn't see this as a good argument just because it comes from experience. Experience only has weight when it's combined with our own beliefs about how good the argument is.
Secondly, as an experienced trainer, if you�ve had dogs for many decades, you�re not likely to remember absolutely everything that�s ever happened with them. Confirmation bias also means it is a lot easier to remember facts that support the position you�re trying to argue for. Experience alone doesn't make you an authority.
Relatedly, having experience and being sure that your approach works well can lead to a rejection of more systematic, scientific approaches, either because of confirmation bias or because of a feeling that science can�t test for the �natural dog-sense� that decades of experience gives a person. This can be a problem. Although most people would agree that an experienced doctor, for example, is better than a novice, we regard a doctor who hasn�t kept up to date with any developments in medicine since qualifying with some suspicion. Having a �feel for� how sick a patient probably is can be useful but not as a substitute for knowledge. This is especially important if the patient is presenting with symptoms that would have been written off as �malingering� or �hysteria� not too long ago.
New discoveries are also being made in the science behind dog-human interactions; for example, most trainers now believe the majority of aggressive behaviors in dogs are grounded in fear, not anger or competitiveness. This has lead to a revolution in how these cases are treated. In dog training, many different approaches can �work�, but not all of them are equally ethical or effective. It could be that a very experienced trainer found an approach that worked and simply stuck with it, without seeing the need to try anything else. This doesn�t mean their approach is better, just that it meets a minimum subjective standard of �working� for that trainer. We can let our dogs down by assuming that we already have all the answers or that there is nothing new left to learn.
Subjectivity and specificity
Subjectivity and specificity are the final suite of problems with the appeal to experience. Just because a trainer has had decades of experience raising herding dogs on a smallholding, does not mean they are experts in how to raise a French Bulldog in a studio apartment. Breeds differ, living situations differ, individual dogs and owners differ, so simple experience may not be relevant.
We need to take special care with picking out relevant from irrelevant experience when we�re talking about behavior modification rather than more day-to-day issues in training. Dogs with emotional and behavioral problems pose very specific additional challenges. Whilst finding someone with the right kind of experience can be invaluable, the wrong kind of experience can make the problems worse.
If you, as a human, were having problems with a relationship, you might consider talking to a trusted older friend, or your parents - someone who has successfully navigated relationships and has probably dealt with most common issues. If, however, you found yourself having fits of uncontrolled rage, OCD or panic attacks, you would probably want to go to a psychiatrist - someone who has been trained to deal with these specific problems. People with depression, for example, are often told by loved ones just to think positive, or to try harder - well-meaning advice that may have helped non-depressed people get over a bad time, but can have detrimental effects by instilling a sense of guilt and failure in people with clinical problems.
So, how do we know when an argument from experience is a good argument? The answer is in whether the person using their experience to persuade you that they are right, is also giving you enough information to justify their argument independently. The explanation an experienced trainer is offering should be acceptable even if it came from a novice. Experience comes in as extra weight in favor of accepting this explanation rather than another - as I have said, talking to someone who has been there before can be a great help, so long as we take the time evaluate their claims.
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