My wife and I had a pile of
people over last weekend and we had four dogs here to share
it with us. Our two, Rachael's parents brought their dog and
we had my friend Ted's beagle.
The subject of dog
training
always comes up and Rachael's cousin started asking me
questions about punishment. He said that all of this
positive reinforcement stuff is good but every once in a
while you have to "teach a lesson."
I informed Rachael's cousin
that you don't have to go negative to "teach a lesson."
Lessons can be taught using positive or negative
reinforcement.
I added that the problem
with negative reinforcement is that when we use it, it
usually confuses the dog.
For instance, let's say the
dog has a chewing problem. Every time we leave the house the
dog finds something to chew.
When we come home and find
that the dog has chewed our shoes, couch or some other item,
we punish the dog. We yell, maybe smack the dog's bottom and
become very threatening.
The problem is that OUR
timing is all wrong. We are punishing the dog long after the
behavior occurred. The dog will start to associate the
punishment with homecomings.
The dog watches you leave
the house. When you come home he knows that you are going to
turn into a raving lunatic and start yelling and screaming.
This will cause stress in
the dog. Guess what dogs do when they get stressed?
THEY CHEW!
Now the very behavior we
were trying to prevent gets worse.
We get madder and madder,
increasing the amount of punishment.
The dog basically thinks we
are nuts.
Punishment can be very
effective when you want to stop a behavior, but it has to be
used properly. Used improperly, you can confuse your dog.
