It’s Impossible to Punish a Dog
“Does Lyndz really believe it’s impossible to punish a dog?”
Unless you’re a professional trainer, you probably can’t imagine how punishing a dog is impossible. You’ve seen it happen with your own eyes! Whether it be the family dog growing up or watching a celebrity trainer on TV, you have watched a dog receive a sharp tug on a leash, an electric shock, a time-out, or just the words “bad dog.” And yes, those things can be punishers — but they can’t be used to punish a dog.
First, let’s look at why this is.
What is punishment?
Two areas of psychology — classical conditioning and operant conditioning — form the basis of modern-day training. Punishment falls into the operant category. This area of psychology has a specific definition of punishment.
Punishment “is a consequence delivered after a behavior that serves to reduce the frequency or intensity with which the behavior is exhibited.” (Friedman, 2001). If your dog jumps on someone and you zap him with a shock collar when he jumps, your dog will jump less frequently. He will also be less enthusiastic when he does jump. This is an oversimplified example, but it’s accurate enough for our purposes.
Note that punishment decreases a behavior. That’s why you cannot punish a dog. A dog is not a behavior. A dog exhibits behaviors, like sitting or jumping, and these behaviors can be reinforced (increased) or punished (decreased). But you cannot increase or decrease the frequency nor intensity that a dog is a dog — it is always, and fully, a dog.
Now you might think, “That’s just semantics. Is there really a difference between, ‘I punished the dog’ and ‘I applied a punisher to the dog in order to punish the behavior?’ What does it matter?”
If we allow ourselves to think in terms of punishing the dog, our attempts to punish will happen at the wrong time. We will punish the wrong thing. This can confuse our dogs and decrease both their welfare and their trust in us.
Let’s look at two examples.
Toilet training
Let’s start with an example we can all agree on — it is wrong to rub your dog’s nose in its poop. It’s cruel. When you know it’s impossible to punish your dog, you’ll also know why it doesn’t work.
Bob comes home from work. Penny comes to greet him at the door. As Bob pets her, he realizes he can smell dog poop. He looks up to see dog turds on the living room floor. Bob is angry. Bob decides to punish his dog. He drags Penny over to the poop and rubs her muzzle in it.
That is how you’d punish the dog. But if you realize you cannot punish the dog, only the behavior, you know this is futile.
The behavior of pooping in the house happened several minutes, if not hours, before Bob came home. The behavior isn’t there to punish anymore. If Bob attempts to punish the dog, he will instead punish Penny’s most recent behavior. The last thing Penny did prior to the punishment was to greet Bob. By believing he could punish the dog, Bob instead reduced a behavior he enjoyed — that of Penny greeting him.
Come when called
Jill is outside in a park with Gus when she decides she wants Gus to come to her. She calls for Gus a few times. Each time Gus ignores her and continues to run around the park. Eventually Gus tires and he finally heads towards Jill. Jill is upset Gus ignored her for so long. When Gus reaches her, she punishes her dog. She grabs his collar, gives it a little jerk, and says, “Bad dog.”
Ignoring Jill’s calls didn’t happen a long time ago, yet it wasn’t the most recent behavior. The last thing Gus did was to go to Jill — which is the exact behavior Jill wanted. When she thinks she’s punishing her dog, she’s actually punishing the behavior of coming when called. Gus will think twice about obeying that cue again.
Nothing good comes from punishing the dog
When dog owners think in terms of “punishing the dog,” they set themselves and their dogs up for failure. A focus on punishing the dog means the owner is not focused on the dog’s behavior. They are at risk of punishing behavior they want. It also means they’re doing something unpleasant to the dog for no good reason. That reduces the dog’s welfare.
Although the examples I give are physical punishers, this applies to any punisher, including time-outs. A time-out might not be painful like physical punishment, but it’s still aversive. It confuses your dog when received at the wrong time.
Alternatives to punishment
As a professional zoo animal trainer, I highly recommend using science-based, positive reinforcement training methods with any animal. I do not recommend the use of physical punishment at all. I believe the use of time-outs can be okay. Their use should be infrequent, and again, used to punish the behavior and not the dog.
But if you’re like me and don’t want to punish, what else could you do instead?
For the toilet training example, I am a fan of Dr. Ian Dunbar’s approach. The gist is that the dog is kept in a small room with a toilet area when not under the watchful eye of a human. The dog is taken out frequently for toilet breaks and reinforced with treats the dog loves. Dr. Dunbar suggests freeze-dried liver, which I have also found to be the bee’s knees for both dogs and cats. If you want to read more, check out his full pdf on housetraining.
For coming when called, I would give a small reinforcement for coming that one time, even if slow. After that, do not allow the dog to run off-leash until some remedial training has been done to build up the strength of the “come” behavior. When your dog is once again coming readily when called, be sure you are not accidentally weakening the behavior.
For example, if you are at the dog park, don’t call your dog to you only when you are ready to leave. If your dog likes the park, then having to leave is a punishment. If your dog gets only punishment for coming when called at the park, your dog will stop coming.
Instead, call your dog periodically during his playtime. When he comes, reward him with praise or a game. You might even walk your dog to the car, give him some treats, then walk him back to the dog park for more playtime. If you call your dog to you ten times, but leave and go home only once, then 90% of the time your dog gets some good stuff from you AND gets to keep playing with his dog friends. Those are good odds, and your dog will continue to come when called, even at the dog park.
These are some generalized examples of how to handle these dog behavior challenges. Training plans may need to be tweaked for each unique dog and situation.
“Training is simple, but not easy.” — Dr. Bob Bailey
When we bring an animal into our homes, we owe it to them to teach them the rules of living with us. Training is a form of interspecies communication we can use to teach these rules. It can be difficult at times. Keep in mind it’s impossible to punish a dog and you prevent yourself from making an entire category of training mistakes. From your dog’s perspective, your training becomes more predictable and easier to understand. It’s a win-win for you and your dog and betters your relationship.
Happy training to you and your pupper!
