“Bad dog! Bad dog!”
Even if you’re not a dog owner, I bet you’ve heard this phrase in abundance. The stern scolding is usually accompanied by the suffocating, abrupt tug of the leash or the demonstratively loud smack of a newspaper, and very often results in the guilty doggy whimpering or the dog fleeing with its tail between its legs. Then, the owner might think that Fido learned his lesson. But he most likely did not!
A select generation of trainers, including Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer” on the National Geographic Channel, strongly recommends the use of what is characterized as positive punishment. This is the classic Skinnerian theory of applying an aversive to reduce unwanted behavior.
For example, say you don’t want your dog to jump on visitors. The next time he jumps on someone, you could give him a hard slap on the snout, hoping he’ll associate the pain with that kind of behavior. Therefore, he’ll be less willing to jump on people. Millan euphemistically defines this punishment as “discipline.”
“Make sure you are offering your dog a complete package when you bring him into your world,” he encourages in a post on his website’s blog. “Along with exercise, food, shelter, affection, and love, offer him a healthy dose of rules, boundaries, and discipline. Don’t see discipline as punishment, simply as another gift you are giving your best friend to keep him happy and balanced,” the post declares, like a sweet but strangely dystopian fashion statement.
But there are many problems with positive punishment. First and foremost, it is not very specific. Dog trainer Pat Miller describes this trap in her book “The Power of Positive Dog Training”: Say your puppy is urinating on the living room carpet. Enraged, you scream and berate your helpless puppy, causing him to flee from you. Congratulations, Miller says, you’ve managed to scare your dog. But essentially, all you’ve taught him is that he shouldn’t urinate in front of you or on the living room carpet. Next time, he’ll simply urinate on a different carpet. The lesson you wanted to convey—”don’t urinate in the house”—was not associated at all.
Furthermore, a groundbreaking 1968 study conducted by Richard Solomon at the University of Pennsylvania showed that the dog will not get any message that he did something wrong unless you catch him in the act and punish him on the spot. But he will learn to fear… you.
There is no doubt that if applied mildly, positive punishment can effectively reduce unwanted behaviors, but it will also cause two unwanted side effects: fear and aggression. In 2009, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine distributed a survey to owners who had previously brought their dogs in to treat aggression problems. In the anonymous questionnaire, owners were asked to highlight the training tactics they had used on their animals in the past and also to describe their dogs’ reactions to them. Animal behavior specialist and University of Wisconsin professor Patricia McConnell describes the results on her blog: The more confrontational and, I would say, aggressive, the behaviors on the part of the owners, the higher the levels of aggressive responses from the dogs. 43% of dogs reacted aggressively when hit or kicked, 38% when they had their muzzles forcefully grabbed and an item forcefully taken from their mouth, 36% when they were muzzled or had a muzzle put on, 29% to a “dominance down,” and 26% to a jowl or neck shake.
“Violence begets violence, aggression begets aggression,” adds McConnell. Her conclusion is confirmed by additional studies. In 2008, Belgian scientists analyzed the behavior of thirty-three dogs from handling units in the Belgian army. They discovered that the dogs registered as “low-performing” were punished much more frequently than the “high-performing” dogs. These punishments included rough leash jerks and hanging the dogs by their collars. The following year, scholars from the United Kingdom analyzed in detail the results of a study that examined dogs in shelters, finding that humans’ attempts to impose dominance over dogs led to increased aggression.
“We should be teaching our dogs, not dominating and threatening them,” urges McConnell.
This means replacing the rolled-up newspaper with dog treats, the growling yells with happy praise, and the hard slaps with gentle pets/pats. Positive punishment is transformed into positive reinforcement, where good behavior is rewarded, which is better than punishing bad behavior. Writing in Live Science, Lynne Peeples describes a fundamental study that compared the two methods, with positive reinforcement clearly coming out on top.
In February 2004, a paper in Animal Welfare by Elly Hiby and her colleagues at the University of Bristol compared the relative effectiveness of positive and punitive methods for the first time. The dogs became more obedient the more they were trained with rewards. When, on the other hand, punishment was imposed on them, the only significant change was a corresponding increase in bad behaviors. The “discipline” that is Cesar Millan’s approach can lead to seemingly miraculous results on television. But in the real world, it is neither effective nor documented.
Translation and text editing by Giorgis Taxideftis
Original Title: Why You Should Never Hit Your Dog Author: Steven “Ross” Pomeroy Source: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/07/why-you-should-never-hit-your-dog.html
