Punishment 201

"Fallout" from using punishment

If not used perfectly, and sometimes even when perfect, punishment can have unwanted side affects.  These side affects can damage your relationship with your dog and may cause other behavior or emotional problems.  The Troublesome Thirteen fallout categories are:

Fallout Number One   Punishment differs from reward because it has no reliable effect on future behavior.  Punished behaviors aren't actually gone, they are only suppressed and can return at any time.  Punishment undermines confidence and suppresses all behavior, especially the dog's problem solving behavior.  This then is the reason guide dogs and bomb detection dogs aren't trained using punishment - they need to be problem solvers.  Punishment often suppresses a dog's natural warning cues, such as growling or posturing.  This is why behaviorists so often hear, "he just bit with no warning". 

Fallout Number Two   The one who is receiving the punishment is the one who "decides" what it is being punished for. Thus punishment may result in avoiding something you didn't intend (i.e. the dog still chases rabbits but now it won't go near peach trees) or an increase in the behavior if it was from fear (such as barking/growling at strangers or other dogs).

Fallout Number Three   The unwanted behavior may not happen when you are there and actually increase when you aren't there (i.e. when you can't enforce it). Punishment often creates smarter and more clever misbehavior. 

Gimme here:  If you punish your puppy for pottying in the house, you haven't taught them where they should potty, but you have taught them not to potty when you are around to see them.  Then that puppy may potty behind furniture or in another room and then you get to feel it squishy in between your toes. 

Even if you do get through the lesson about where-to-potty, you may discover that she doesn't want to potty when she is on leash because you are there and looking.  That can be a real nuisance when you are traveling, especially when its raining.  So, if you feel a burning need to hit someone with a rolled up newspaper for a house training accident, hit yourself.  I'm just saying.

Fallout Number Four   Poorly timed punishment breaks the dog's trust and creates harm to your  relationship by teaching the dog that you are sometimes bad to them for no reason.  If the dog hasn't learned the behavior you want and is punished during learning, the same harm to the relationship occurs.

Fallout Number Five   Even with perfectly timed punishment the trainer is associated with the punishment.  Dogs trained with punishment learn to do things to avoid the punishment... they also learn to avoid any situation that leads to punishment - they can learn to avoid you.

Fallout Number Six   When punishment is applied inconsistently and the unwanted behavior is self-rewarding, you create a situation of variable rewards, which has the effect of increasing the bad behavior.  Dogs trained by punishment learn that absence of punishment means they are doing right - "false positives" for a behavior being okay. Thus any time you cannot punish a bad behavior they are getting a reward that says that it is okay (on a variable schedule - the strongest of all). This is confusing, to say the least, and complicates the process of reducing bad behaviors.

Fallout Number Seven   When the behavior is "necessary" or self-rewarding, the punishment will only suppress it for a short while and then survival drives will cause the bad behavior to return, usually stronger than before.

Fallout Number Eight   When the trainer isn't ready with an good replacement behavior, the dog may create its own behavior to fill the void, which can be worse or no better than before.

Fallout Number Nine   Punishment is aggressive in nature and aggression begets aggression.  You may unintentionally teach your dog that it needs to defend itself - from you.  

A dog's physical response time is 5 times faster than a human response. Also, dogs have a jaw strength of 1500 pounds of pressure per square inch. So what we have is a dog who can respond to a situation very rapidly with the potential to do a lot of damage. Add to the mix the fact that he knows what he is going to do before you do. Why would you ever want to teach your dog that aggression is an good way to handle conflict between the two of you?

Fallout Number Ten   "Mild" punishment can gradually become tolerated until more severe punishment is necessary and needed more often to keep the behavior suppressed. In competition with self-rewarding behaviors, punishers eventually lose effectiveness unless extremely intense. And yet, punishers that are strong enough can even put a stop to survival-based behaviors.

Fallout Number Eleven   Punishment that only suppresses behavior without teaching a good replacement behavior can lead to obsessive behavior. In the case of punishment that suppresses behaviors innate to a specific breed, those drives become stronger and stronger until the reward for satisfaction overcomes the avoidance of the punishment.

Fallout Number Twelve   Punishment can become a conditioned positive reinforcer if your timing is imperfect or if you "show them you still love them" following punishment. Both cases will increase the frequency of the behavior you don't want.

Fallout Number Thirteen   Dogs trained with punishment may learn they only have to "behave" for someone who can punish them; i.e. to only respect someone who enforces rules with force. For those who can't enforce the rules they may be set up to be "at risk", at the very least they are set up to be ignored by the dog and unable to control it. Being "at risk" includes other family members, children, elderly people, neighbors and guests.