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.

Punishment 102

When punishment "works"

It may "work" - if the punishment is strong enough and lasts long enough. Then the unwanted behavior may, for all practical purposes, disappear. You should remember that the affect of punishment is to suppress behavior, so you can never be sure if or when the behavior will come back.

It may "work" - if the punishment is used carefully to interrupt a chain of behavior allowing the trainer to teach and reward a better behavior, while never allowing the dog to "practice" the misbehavior. Of course, management without punishment will accomplish the same goal.

It may "work" - if the rules for using punishment are followed precisely.

Rule Number One  The dog identifies the correct behavior causing the punishment and there must be no chance that the dog will link the punishment to some other "cause". This requires exquisitely perfect timing and complete control of the environment.

Remember:   The same perfect timing will make you a superb reward based trainer.   The same complete control of the environment will make you a great reward based trainer.

Dogs are "associational" learners and they are highly visual in their perception.  So when punishment is delivered, the dog will tend to associate the punishment with whatever she is looking at or what she is near.  For example: if you yell at your dog every time she barks at people walking by your yard, she is likely to think those people walking by cause her to "get in trouble", so now she has even more reason to want to bark at them and make them go away.

A study of programs to teach people to stop smoking found, for those programs that used any form of punishment (even very mild ones) the most common reason people gave for leaving the program was "not liking their counselor".  One such program had the client put a rubber band around his or her wrist and snap it (causing mild discomfort) any time they saw or thought of a cigarette or smoking.  At every session, the counselor shows the clients a slide show (cigarettes, smokers, advertisements, ashtrays) and the clients practice snapping themselves.

Even though this was a very mild punisher, in addition to discouraging thoughts of smoking, it discouraged the clients from wanting to be near the person who was most often there when it happened, the counselor.  Your dog may learn to avoid you as well as the bad behavior.

Rule Number Two   The punishment must be something the dog will work to avoid every time.

You must know exactly which punishment will be the most effective at any given time and you must never be wrong.  Punishment based training is not very forgiving.

Rule Number Three   The punishment must be strong enough to interrupt or suppress the bad behavior.  It must be a great deal more punishing than the bad behavior is rewarding (most bad behavior is self-rewarding).  At the same time it must not shut down other behavior, much of which you may want now or later.

A punishment that is strong enough to do all this has a greater likelihood of being associated with more than the bad behavior you are aiming for and it is more likely to be associated with the person that delivers it, you.

Rule Number Four   The punishment must be consistently applied and perfectly timed EVERY time the misbehavior occurs.

Remember:   The same perfect timing will make you a superb reward based trainer.

Any time the dog does the bad behavior and isn't punished, the absence of punishment is the same as a reward for the bad behavior.  Also, that random non-punishment "reward" is on a variable schedule, the strongest kind of reward, which makes the bad behavior even stronger than if you'd never punished it in the first place.  See reward or reinforcement labels.

Gimme here:  Food on the counter is very tasty.  I only have to get it once to KNOW how great it is.  You have to be perfect at putting ALL food away EVERY time and you would have to punish your dog for even looking at food on the counter EVERY time she looked. 

Admit it, you don't even know what your human friends are looking at ALL the time.  Its much easier to teach your dog to look away from food on the counter and then reward her with even yummier food from inside the refrigerator.  I'm just saying.

Rule Number Five   A good behavior must be put in place of the bad one.

Nature abhors a vacuum.  You must have identified a new behavior to replace the bad one and you must teach it carefully and completely.  If you don't teach a new and better behavior, then the dog is likely to develop a new and equally bad replacement behavior.  It is much easier to teach the one good behavior you do want than it is to one-by-one punish away all the myriad of bad behaviors that might crop up by themselves.

See problem solving label.

Punishment 101

What is Punishment?

Punishment is anything your dog will work to avoid.  If a behavior is happening less often, then its being punished in some way, or extinction is in effect.  Extinction is what happens when a behavior doesn't get rewarded over a long period of time -- we'll talk more about that another time.

Punishment causes a suppression of all behavior, not just the one you want to get rid of.  In a way, suppression is like depression.  You might be depressed because your boyfriend dumped you, but you stop doing more than just boyfriend things, you stop doing much of anything.  A dog that doesn't do much of anything may seem to be better behaved, but he's probably not very happy.  Also, like depression, suppression doesn't last forever.

Punishment is done in two ways - adding a bad thing or taking away a good thing.  If you jerk or pop the leash when the dog pulls on the leash - that's adding a bad thing. 

Gimme here:  You don't have to be a doggie psychologist to know that its not any fun getting punished for being bad when you haven't learned how to be good.  I'm just saying...

If your dog pulls on the leash and you stop moving -- that's taking away a good thing.  In this case the good thing is getting closer to what she wants to sniff and when you stop you are taking away the chance to get closer.  If you wait until she loosens up on the leash and start moving forward again, you are rewarding her for keeping the leash loose.

The one who is receiving the punisher (in this case the dog) is the one who "decides" what is punishing and what is not and how much so.  What one dog hates another may like.  Squirting water at dogs is icky and yet most Labrador Retrievers love it.  Also, something a dog likes at one time, may be bad at another time.  A dog that normally loves people might find them scary when its dark outside or when they suddenly appear coming around a corner.  Sometimes that new scary impression can last a long time and affect the dog every time they see that thing.

Gimme here:  I loved horses when I was little; they were big and warm and they smelled nice.  Then when my person and I were walking in the woods, more than once the horses suddenly appeared on the road ahead of us.  I didn't know they were coming from side paths, so it seemed evil-bad to me.  For a long time after that I was afraid of them, until my person taught me that they really are okay. 

Primary punishment

"Primary" just means that its innate for the dog to avoid it.  It usually has to do with survival.  Such as: loud, harsh, or sudden sounds, a high-pitched-high-intensity stimulus, sudden loss of support, excessive heat or cold, anything that causes pain, some "bad" or "offensive" odors, and some tastes. Some dogs are especially fearful about things that aren't usually in this category.  For them, their extra sensitivity makes these "special" primary punishers and they won't respond normally to them.  For example, some dogs are especially noise sensitive and they often act fearful to very normal sounds.

Secondary punishment
"Secondary" means that in the beginning something is neutral, but then the dog learns to see it as a punisher.  Secondary punishers are taught to the dog by pairing it with other primary punishers.   Examples for dogs include: a word such as "NO!", an upraised hand, stomping your foot, certain postures, and grabbing toward the dog.   Humans have secondary punishers too, such as: frowns, insults, tone of voice, name calling, thumbs-down gestures, an "F" on homework, loosening the belt, and police lights and sirens.