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Home Pets The Woof
Gang The
WOOF Gang: Canine and punishment

The
WOOF Gang: Canine and punishment

Friday, 19 March 2010 04:25
Laura Garber

A positive dog trainer is a trainer who uses
positive reinforcement, the reward of
good things for good behavior,
and negative punishment, the removal of good things for bad behavior.  A
truly positive trainer would strictly use only positive reinforcement and
negative punishment in training.  So, though I am primarily a positive
trainer, I must admit that I am not strictly so.  I do believe in the use
of positive punishment, the application of bad things for bad behavior.
However, I feel that it is important that the dog (or whatever organism the
learner is, humans included) needs to know the right answer before being
punished for choosing the wrong one.

As an example, when dogs jump up in
greeting, some trainers suggest using positive punishment such as catching hold
of their front paws and not letting go, or kneeing them in the chest, in order
to make jumping up less desirable.

Laura
Garber

For
starters, I would never apply the latter technique: Inflicting
pain will likely mar the fabric of the relationship I have with this dog,
something I find an unacceptable casualty regardless of the end
result.

My approach would be to reinforce an alternative behavior that I
would prefer. Sitting, for instance, is a very polite greeting. With practice in
many situations and with many people, I would train the dog to offer sits rather
than jumping up. Having equipped the dog with the correct answer, only then
might I consider punishment for inappropriate behavior.

But how do you
punish your dog in a way that's effective but not harmful?

1. Timing is
absolutely critical: the punishment needs to occur within one second of the
behavior to be effective.  Punishment delivered later than this is
inhumane, as it is punishment without cause.  The typical example of this
is punishing a dog for having peed in the house while you were at work.  If
you punish him upon returning home, he will assume he’s being punished for the
last thing he did, which was most likely greeting you, rather than the potty
accident he had hours ago.  And you wonder why he slinks away when you come
home from work!

2. Ideally, the punishment is impersonal. Punishment that
is clearly delivered by the handler can damage the relationship, as I mentioned
above. This is the problem with punishments such as using a spray bottle for
counter-surfing. Rather than training him not to counter-surf, you’re just
training him not to counter-surf when you’re around.  It’s far better to
use a booby trap, like a motion-activated Sscat air canister.

3. The
punishment must be appropriate and sufficient to inhibit behavior. Too often,
handlers will deliver either too harsh or too mild a correction. Your dog might
stop pulling on the leash with a prong correction, but eventually he or she
develops a tolerance that makes it a mere nuisance.

4. Be aware that
punishment may have unintended consequences, particularly in shy or fearful
dogs. I’ve known dogs to become afraid of the entire kitchen when all the owner
wanted was to dissuade counter-surfing. I’ve counseled owners with dogs who have
become afraid of the backyard as an unintended consequence of an electronic
fence.

Given all my warnings, I must come clean:  I recently used
positive punishment.

I was helping a handler work with a shelter dog who
was leaping up and grabbing the leash, playing tug-of-war with it.  This
dog was putting a very dangerous twist on this fairly annoying behavior, though,
as she was leaping high in the air and grabbing the leash as close to the
handler’s hands as she could, often catching clothing or body parts in the
process.

I was afraid someone would get hurt -- me included. So I decided
we needed a Gentle Leader head collar to get better control of her head and had
sent the handler to get one. That's when I discovered the perfect
punisher!

With the handler’s departure, the dog stopped the behavior and
looked longingly in the handler's direction. The game had lost its luster
without her favorite person. What better punishment than for him to leave the
room when she played her dangerous game? (Some might argue that abandoning a dog is an extreme
example of negative punishment, but I consider the severity of actual
abandonment to be far beyond a time-out, which is the removal of one’s
attention. This is a finer point that is better left for another
time!)

We tried the new approach
when the handler got back. I asked him to waggle the leash handle a bit above
her head. If she leapt to get it, he was to mark the moment with a stern
“Uh-uh!  Too bad!” and turn and leave abruptly.

He could return to
her if she offered polite behavior.  If she didn’t lunge at the leash when
it was waggled, then she was rewarded with attention and a treat (Don’t forget:
I am a positive trainer!) Wouldn’t you know that, within minutes, she was
walking nicely on the leash and not grabbing it in her mouth!  It had only
taken a couple of repetitions for her to learn this valuable lesson – an example
of an appropriate and sufficient punishment.

Before anyone gets the wrong
idea: Punishment is my least favorite training technique, but it has its place.
It is something I will absolutely consider using when necessary, particularly
for behaviors that are dangerous in nature. However: Positive methods are the
easiest to deliver, the most forgiving of mistakes, and the least likely to
cause harm -- to the dog and the relationship.

Dog trainer Laura
Garber, CPDT, is committed to deepening the bond between dogs and their people.
For this reason, she regards training as an exercise in building relationship
rather than obedience. Such an approach promises greater understanding and
symbiosis within our family packs, and this is what inspires much of her
writing.   Laura lives in Hoboken, NJ and works with private clients
in the Hudson County and beyond.  For more information, log on to
www.myWoofGang.com or contact her at

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript
enabled to view it

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