I am very careful introducing corrections to dog owners, not because the dogs at that point don’t need it, but because some people can’t be trusted to carefully implement proper corrections once I’m not there to supervise. Some people go over the top and go way beyond the homework and do things I would consider to be abusive.
Let’s define terms before we go any further. Trainers like to talk about the 4 quadrants of operant conditioning learning theory: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment and Negative Punishment. Reinforcement is used to increase the probability of a response happening in the future. Tell a dog to Sit, give them a treat, and the dog is more likely to Sit in the future. That’s an example of reinforcement. Punishment is used to decrease the probability of a response in the future. Tell a dog to Sit before you open a door, if the dog tries to step out the door when you open it, close the door before the dog can get out. The dog will be less likely to rush out the door in the future. I call this kind of Punishment a “correction”. Punishment isn’t to teach new skills; it is to reduce unwanted behaviors that are outside the boundaries of what the dog has originally been taught to do.
Some people take Punishment to the point of making it the only way the dog is treated and is taken to a point where its application is abusive. I had a lady with a young adult German Shepherd a few years ago. She was having difficulties with him before I met her, and I started out by trying to teach her to gently work with him. Instead, regardless of what I instructed, she muscled him around between lessons to the point he would bite her hands when she tried to put a collar on him, and still drag her down the street on a walk. Each lesson, I’d tell her to back off, and then the next lesson she’d tell me how she had been putting him in his place. She eventually jerked him so hard she broke the chain collar she used on him! She finally couldn’t handle him and gave him away. I never taught her to do this harsh stuff. In fact, I explained up front, again and again, why she should not do this stuff. She never really wanted to hear what I was saying or demonstrating. She saw what she wanted to see. I still don’t know why she hired me since she was determined to keep doing what didn’t work, regardless of the results she was creating.
When people come from a temperament or background that is inclined to using force as a first resort in training, it is difficult to get them to patiently work with their dogs and do things differently. When they aren’t getting instant results, they get irritated with their dogs and lose patience. Then they default back to forceful corrections that I never taught them to use, or to use corrections I did teach but in a forceful way that is well beyond what I instructed. I’ll see them tense up on the leash, start wanting to yank it, or to grab their dogs in some way, or start yelling. For example, some dogs are insecure in new training situations and won’t initially take a treat. These dogs need help to feel safe. Yet, I’ve seen owners grab the faces of their dogs to try and force their dogs to eat! I’ve had to step in and stop that stuff. As a trainer, you really don’t know what someone is going to do until they are faced with a dog that isn’t instantly doing things the way the owner wants.
I think I’m clear in demonstrating and explaining everything we are doing along the way, but there are a few who resort to abusing the hell out of their dogs. I can explain what to do, demonstrate myself doing it, but these people just don’t listen and by the next lesson I see them going way beyond whatever was taught and eliminating all the positive reinforcement techniques I showed them.
Sometimes a correction is the right answer to solving a problem. I will show a low intensity concept to people at that point. But some people then see this as a license to go over the top and way beyond what I instructed. I explain that we need to first teach a dog the right thing before we interrupt (punish) the wrong responses. Thus, I will get that dog to want to be in the foyer, or to calmly Sit at the door, long before we correct the dog for trying to go out the door without a release. The dog needs to know what to do before it is fair to correct wrong responses. And even then, that isn’t a license to go back to whatever harsh stuff people think is OK to do to a dog.
Another observation: once people start incorrectly and harshly punishing their dogs, it is hard to get them to stop and go back to using and believing in positive reinforcement as their primary tool. Inside, I always take a deep breath before introducing any kind of correction with any dog. If I think I can trust the owners, then I’ll give them something simple, very targeted, to do with a specific unwanted action by the dog. I then must see what happens from that point and into future lessons. Almost all the people I get are good. I screen out a lot of the bad apples, but you really don’t know someone until you have them work their dogs around distractions.
The problem is that you can’t completely and reliably train a dog purely with positive reinforcement. At some point, you must correct a dog for incorrect responses. Otherwise, don’t ever take your dog off leash and hope your dog never gets loose from you in public. Dogs punish each other, by the way. When puppies play too rough, the others give signals that they don’t like what is happening or will walk away from the play. That kind of punishment is programmed into them to teach proper play and bite inhibition. So, proper punishments are part of life. You need puppies and mama dog to punish the pups in the litter to have a well-adjusted adult dog. Hand raised puppies without littermates and without a mama are more prone to behavioral problems as adults since they miss all this important feedback.
Likewise, I try to positively reinforce good techniques with my human students. I teach them how to do things properly. I also correct responses that aren’t good for their dogs. Unfortunately, some people quit the lessons when I inform them that they must stop harshly reacting to their dogs.
A student sent me this the other day: “I just watched some jerk spank his dog on her butt in public at the farmer’s market because she was sniffing something at a stand. Normal dog stuff. And the pup was so sweet. Brindle pit bull girl with the sweetest smile. I thought if he does that in public what happens at home?”
That’s what I refer to as “punishment-based training”. You can’t properly train any dog with punishment like this. It never works. If that person was to become my student, I’d try to stop that kind of thing up front. But, when that kind of relationship has become the default, it is hard to change what the owners will do when I’m not around. Often long before I might get the chance to address this, the dog has now had enough and isn’t safe for the owner to handle any more, and they get rid of the dog somehow. And for the few I do get a chance to work with, it takes a long time to build the dog’s trust in the owner.
For some people, they are quick to get impatient, angry and lash out at their dogs. That is not the basis for proper training. Once the genie is out of the bottle with most people, it is hard to get them to put those responses away.
In traditional martial arts, they teach you a lot of mundane defensive techniques at the beginning. The most aggressive offensive techniques are reserved for the highest levels. They don’t want novices knowing stuff that they can’t be trusted with. Good instructors will kick out the bad students long before they get to top levels. They don’t want students defiling the art, and they don’t want innocent people to get hurt. Learn to defend before you learn to punch or kick. I use this kind of thinking when teaching dog owners. Show me I can trust you to give your dog a treat for Sitting in the foyer before I teach you how and when to close that front door.
I use a very light touch when training dogs. The positive reinforcements are heavily stressed, and the punishments are very controlled and used appropriately. I encourage every student to back off on their emotional impulses to do harsh things and to exercise patience to get good results over time. I start by taking away as many punishments as possible in the beginning, and then metering out any appropriate corrections once I see the students can be trusted with that information. I think that is the right approach.