Positive Punishment and the consequences.

Being a crossover trainer helped me out to understand in depth how “force” or “punishment” works in dog training and what are the pitfalls of using this as a training method. It took me some time to quit this “bad habit”. The biggest aid was given to me by a dog I had at that time. It was an English Setter “ Ser”, a dog that was unable to handle force at all. My old training technics were impossible to use due to his sensibility. He was not a “recover dog”. But still I had to help him out become a true hunting dog.

Up until now I run up to dog owners that “instinctively” use positive punishment in their everyday contact with their pets. By the term “instinctively” I describe a behavior given to a dog- that is similar in almost all dog owners - as a result of his actions, in similar situations. For instance, if a puppy bites my hands, I may as well slap him to let go…. Or if he pees on the carpet I hit him with a newspaper. It seems like almost everyone acts in the same way, as if this is in our D.N.A.

Positive punishment is clearly expressing aggression and can only cause aggression. In some dogs it can cause fear that may lead to future aggression.

When training if we use positive punishment it must be strong enough in order not to repeat it more than one or two times. We must pull the chocker very hard to correct the position of the dog when walking. But how can somebody know how hard to pull in order not to cause trauma to the dog or permanent damage. What if some dogs can’t stand this amount of force. And some dogs are so strong and they feel it easy to answer to this with aggression towards us or to others (dogs or people or both). In some cases dogs were put to sleep due to uncontrolled aggression.

Positive Punishment can also cause fear. Even if positive punishment works and the undesired behavior is reduced this may lead to generalizing fear towards people or environments or situations. Imagine a dog punished with an electric collar in order to deny being fed from others. Fear and frustration can be connected with the environment, specific movements or with people in general.

The timing when placing punishment is very important. Punishment must occur when the behavior is about to happen or within the next one or two seconds. Just as reinforcement must be delivered the next one or two seconds in order for the behavior to be repeated, the same punishment should be in time to help the dog understand what behavior is unwanted. Any delay more than that may just mislead the dog.

But does the dog really understands what behavior is unwanted? In most cases he doesn’t. We may punish our dog when barking, pulling and biting the leash on a walk and our intension is to make him behave but what we probably do is punish him for trying to reach other dogs or people and socialize.

When we punish an unwanted behavior we must be strict and punish every time. But yet there are times when punishment is not possible to be delivered. For all the times that the unwanted behavior is not punished, it is being reinforced. Therefore the unwanted behavior gets into a variable schedule of reinforcement thus the behavior is maintained and gets stronger.

Positive punishment can be affective only in our presence. That really means that a dog will behave only when we are present. If we want our dog to stop digging in the yard and punish that behavior, it will work only when we are around. If we go inside the house and the dog no longer sees us, he may as well dig again.

I can think of many other reasons why not to use positive punishment to suppress unwanted behaviors. And that may take a lot of words and paper. But what I believe is the most important is the fact that when using punishment our relationship with the dog is completely spoiled. Our emotional state is constantly tense. Our dog is in total distress. We are no longer companions but rivals.

Dimosthenis Moumiadis, H.Dip. CBP / MISAP / Trainer - Canine Behaviorist

Ambassador of Greece for International Society of Animal Professionals

Kynagon Dog Trainers Academy Translation into English: Koula Papadopoulou.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14