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Health & Fitness

How to Punish Your Dog

Marion O'Neil CPDT-KA, CTDI's profile picture
Marion O'Neil CPDT-KA, CTDI, Neighbor

Marion C. O’Neil CPDT-KA

All punishment is not the same. There are two forms of punishment: positive and negative. To most people positive punishment sounds much nicer than the negative option.  In dog training, adverse methods like spray bottles, shake cans, alpha roll, scruff shakes, pinning, leash corrections, ear pinching, yelling, choke chains, prong collars, shock collars, and anything else that hurts or intimidates a dog is positive punishment. This is also called compulsion training. Think of it as a mathematical equation; you’re adding something to the situation.  Whatever the label, fear and pain have no place in dog training or in any kind of animal training.  If you are hurting your dog or causing it to fear learning from you, you are doing it wrong. Here’s why:  It’s totally outdated!  Humans don’t like to learn while in a state of fear and  

Marion C. O’Neil CPDT-KA

All punishment is not the same. There are two forms of punishment: positive and negative. To most people positive punishment sounds much nicer than the negative option.  In dog training, adverse methods like spray bottles, shake cans, alpha roll, scruff shakes, pinning, leash corrections, ear pinching, yelling, choke chains, prong collars, shock collars, and anything else that hurts or intimidates a dog is positive punishment. This is also called compulsion training. Think of it as a mathematical equation; you’re adding something to the situation.  Whatever the label, fear and pain have no place in dog training or in any kind of animal training.  If you are hurting your dog or causing it to fear learning from you, you are doing it wrong. Here’s why:  It’s totally outdated!  Humans don’t like to learn while in a state of fear and neither do dogs.  It’s counterproductive and ruins the trusting relationship with the most trusting animal. Using positive punishment methods for training is like using a cassette player in the age of the iPod. Positive reinforcement with negative punishment is the cutting-edge, progressive, and fastest way to train a dog. Period.

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So what is negative punishment?  If two puppies are playing, and one puppy hurts the other puppy, the hurt puppy goes away.  If a puppy nips us while playing, the human should go away for 5 seconds then return.  If the puppy nips us again, we go away again.  You are what the puppy wants.  Basically what you’re saying to the puppy is, “I’m taking my toys and going home if you can’t play right.” This is negative punishment.  Think of it mathematically: You are taking something away that your pet wants. You are the reward or what the puppy wants to play with. Taking T.V. privileges away from your child for unacceptable behavior is an example of negative punishment.  If you’re trying to change an unwanted attention-seeking behavior like jumping, you have to figure out what is reinforcing that behavior.  So, when the dog jumps on you, if you look at the dog and tell him to get off while pushing him off, you’re looking at, speaking to, and touching your dog. Isn’t that reinforcing the attention-seeking behavior 3 ways? In order to change a behavior, you have to change what is reinforcing that behavior. If the dog jumps on us, we should ignore the dog and turn away.

Please seek a Certified Professional Dog Trainer for proper techniques. You can find a local trainer at www.apdt.com and www.ccpdt.org.  By forging Negative Punishment with Positive Reinforcement we now have a modern, scientific way to train.

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