Zuckerbrot und Peitsche
Too much sugar and you end up with a dog that can’t cope with stress — folds the second life gets tough. Too much whip and you’ve got a flat, unmotivated dog that’s more worried about messing up than actually trying.
The balance is where the magic is.
Where It Comes From
The phrase “sugar & whip” is something I picked up from Bart Bellon when I did his NePoPo® Silver School. Being Belgian, a lot of Bart’s phrasing comes from direct Flemish translations, which makes it stick in your head. The original phrase is Zuckerbrot und Peitsche — sugarbread and whip. It’s the same idea as “carrot and stick,” but I like sugar and whip ‘cos I just think it lands better when we’re talking about training.
Bart lays it out within NePoPo® like this: Negative → Positive → Positive.
The Negative is the metaphorical whip — a pressure that tells the dog “do something to change this.”
The first Positive is the relief when the pressure stops.
The second Positive is the actual reward — food, play, praise.
So the whip isn’t about punishment for the sake of it. It’s communication. And the sugar isn’t about making everything easy either. It’s about showing the dog the way forward and building resilience.
(Quick side note: I know we’ve already spoken before about Positive and Negative meaning addition and subtraction, not good and bad. This is where the language can muddy the waters. In NePoPo®, “Negative” is basically something unpleasant or nagging, and “Positive” is something good. That’s where dog training gets tricky — half the battle is figuring out what the words are really pointing at.)
Too Much of One Thing
If a dog only ever gets sugar — food, ease, softness — they end up fragile. Like a football player who’s only ever had easy sessions: the second the match gets hard, they crumble.
If a dog only ever gets whip, they stop trying. Flat, worried, no initiative. Like a player who’s only ever been hammered by the coach — eventually they just give up.
Bart’s football analogy nails it. Too much sugar? The coach adds a little whip to toughen the player up. Too much whip? The coach adds sugar to rebuild confidence and drive. Our job as trainers and owners is to spot which way the balance needs tipping.
Sugar & Whip in Real Life
Every dog decides for themselves what counts as sugar and what counts as whip.
Take Sam:
At the park, she’ll take food, but her ball on a rope is way more rewarding.
In town, food suddenly has more value because the environment is calmer and her arousal is lower.
That’s her sugar.
On the whip side, Sam can handle a collar correction without drama — it’s clear, it makes sense to her, and she just cracks on. But if I shout? She falls apart. She’ll avoid me and shut down. For her, shouting is far harsher than the leash pop will ever be.
And that’s the point — every dog is different. What crushes one dog might bounce straight off another. Loads of people think shouting is punishing, but then their dog just potters off and carries on doing the same thing. Clearly, it wasn’t punishing at all for that dog.
And then there’s the spray-bottle crowd. Some dogs find being squirted with water incredibly aversive, others barely blink. Owners often feel better about it though — “it’s only water, nothing cruel.” But suggest a leash correction and suddenly the reaction is “that’s harsh.” Funny thing is, for the dog, the spray might actually feel worse. That’s the human element — we filter training tools through what we think would bother us, instead of watching what the dog is actually telling us.
Teaching Pressure
This is why I teach dogs how to understand and turn off pressure in a controlled way. Pressure stops, reward comes — Negative → Positive → Positive. Once they’ve got that concept, you can use it anywhere: guiding on leash, adding clarity to cues, even correcting if needed.
Dogs that have had too much whip need building up with loads of sugar — play, rewards, encouragement.
Dogs that have had too much sugar need to learn that pressure doesn’t mean the world’s ending — it can be just a nudge, a guide, a clear “do this instead.”
The Takeaway
Every dog is different. What works for one won’t work for another. That’s why I like a balanced approach — more tools in the toolbox, more ways to get the balance right, more ways to train the dog in front of me to get the best out of them.
Dog training is nuanced. You’ll never cover every possibility in a single post. But the big question to ask yourself is:
👉 Does your dog need more Zuckerbrot oder Peitsche? Or maybe they’ve already got the balance nailed.