At Petcademy we teach humane, positive reinforcement based, training. We do not believe or practice punishment based training methods because we believe they are ineffective at addressing the core of the dog’s issue, inefficient, unnecessary and fundamentally unkind.
In dog training, techniques rooted in punishment are typically used when attempting to stop a dog who is engaging in an undesirable behavior, such as jumping, pulling on leash, barking or growling. By definition, punishment is something that makes a behavior unlikely to reoccur in the future. Often, trainers use what they call “corrections” in order to punish a behavior. A correction can be any kind of aversive stimuli intended to punish and therefore decrease the frequency of the undesirable behavior (e.g. a leash correction, shouting “no,” an electric shock).
Common tools used when attempting to use punishment include:
- Choke collars
- Prong collars
- Shock collars
- Citronella collars
- Ultrasonic collars
Common methods of training using punishment include:
- Yelling
- Alpha rolling (flipping a dog on its side and holding it there)
- “Popping” the leash (commonly called a leash correction)
- Using physical force (kicking or hitting a dog)
- Causing pain or fear in any other way
While punishment may successfully get rid of some behaviors, there are several downsides to using punishment when training a dog. This is because punishment:
- Requires that a bad behavior needs to occur to begin with. In order to punish a dog, an unwanted behavior must first take place. Once a behavior exists in a dog’s repertoire, it has most likely been reinforced in some way and is therefore likely to occur again. Using smart management tools, it is often possible to make sure unwanted behaviors don’t occur in the first place, in which case there is nothing to punish.
- Can cause pain and increase a dog’s fear, frustration and arousal level. An increase in fear, frustration and arousal may exacerbate or provoke new and unwanted behaviors. For instance: A dog who is punished for growling may learn to not growl but may instead decide to bite during moments when he previously growled.
- Inhibits learning and creativity. We want our dogs to be eager and willing to learn new things and be confident in all environments. Punishment-based training often leads to dogs that are “shut down,” as they grow used to walking on eggshells, so to speak. They may become so afraid to do the “wrong” things that they don’t try to figure out what the “right” things are. A “shut down” dog is one who may choose to do nothing rather than working to “offer behaviors” we can reinforce.
- Is subject to human error and bad timing, meaning that we often accidentally punish the wrong behaviors. Have you ever seen someone spend ten minutes trying to retrieve their off leash dog, only to scold or punish them when they eventually catch them? Most people would expect that scolding to serve as a punishment for playing keep away, but in reality, punishments tend to apply to the behavior that immediately preceded them- in this case coming back to their guardian! Even if you do get your timing right, it fails to address the fact that the bad behavior is occurring because it has somehow been reinforced—either intentionally or unintentionally.
- Relies on stopping a dog from engaging in a behavior without teaching the dog what to do instead.
- Can weaken the dog/owner bond.
- May be attempted by a dog owner but understood by the dog as nothing more than attention. This is often the case when people try to punish a dog using yelling or other vocalizations. In such cases, a behavior may actually be reinforced rather than punished.
- As the animal habituates to the punishment, the strength of pain-based punishment must often be continually increased in order to remain effective. This can lead to serious injury.
Positive reinforcement-based training is not about simply ignoring bad behaviors; it’s about using smart training to avoid using punishment ineffectively, unnecessarily and inefficiently. Here are some ways to train without relying on punishment:
- Teach a dog that the behavior they’re engaging in is ineffective. You can do this by figuring out how the behavior is being reinforced and then figuring out how to keep it from being reinforced in the future.
- Manage the dog’s environment: Be proactive. If a dog is unable to handle certain freedoms, then don’t put them in a position where they will likely fail. Gates, crates, tethers and leashes can go a long way!
- Focus on creating new associations that will change behaviors. If you are working on keeping a dog from jumping up during a greeting, try dropping treats as someone approaches in order to teach the dog that a person’s approach means great things appear on the ground.
- Teach an incompatible behavior: If your dog jumps at people who come through the door, teach the dog to run to his crate when people enter your home. If your dog barks at the doorbell, teach him to bring you a toy whenever it rings.
- Be generous with your rewards: Make sure to reinforce lots of behaviors you like whenever they occur. The more information you give your dog about good behaviors that “work,” the less time and energy will be expended engaging in “bad” behaviors.