Eight Rules for Punishment (and why we shouldn't use them)

Thank you - I enjoyed reading that andit made a lot of sense.  The 8 rules are actually on another link WITHIN that link, so here they are:

Eight Rules for Using Punishment:

1. The punishment must be something the animal dislikes and something the animal does not expect.

2. The punishment must suppress behavior. (This is, in fact, the very definition of something that is a punisher.) If something is being used for punishment, but it does not suppress behavior, it’s ineffective and often just plain abuse.

3. The punishment must be of the perfect intensity. Too much and there will be negative fallout. You’ll end up hurting your relationship with the animal and loosing more than just that behavior. Too little and the punishment will only serve to desensitize the animal and build resistance.

4. The punishment must happen immediately after the behavior it is to be associated with. Otherwise, a clear enough association between the wrong behavior and the punishment will not be made.

5. The punishment must be associated with the behavior, but not with the trainer. Otherwise, the trainer becomes part of the punishment and the animal starts fearing and disliking the trainer.

6. The punishment must happen every time the behavior occurs. If punishment does not happen every time the behavior occurs, the behavior gets put on a variable schedule of reinforcement. Depending on the behavior and how often the punishment actually occurs, the animal could decide that performing the behavior was worth the risk of getting punished.

7. There must be an alternative for the animal.

8. Punishment must never be used to the extent that punishment outweighs positive reinforcement (from the animal’s perspective, not yours!)

The only one I don't wholly agree with is No5.  There have been times when I have delivered punishment to my son, and I don't think he fears or dislikes me.  Provided the punishment is reasonable AND there is an alternative AND he has fair warning so that he can stop what he is doing and escape the punishment, then I see no reason to disassociate punishments from me.  After all, I am his motherm not his friend at play group.  I think we have a similar relationship with dogs.  (I am not sure what the equivalent to a warning is in dog training language - is it conditioned punisher?  Actually I know that is completely wrong, but it might be something like that.)  In short, as long as all the other 7 rules have been followed, and as long as you use punishent sparingly, I think you can break this one.

Finally a link that might help others understand what i have been saying all along!

The people that go to spiritdogs to "rehabilitate" their dogs (after they saw it on TV) are exactly those people that jump to a "level 7" of correction and they had the behavior "over the top"

I would have to disagree on the part of "The simple answer is that dogs are very good at corrections and we are not very good at it." I'm sure there are people out there (myself included) that follow these 8 rules almost to perfection. Those are the people spiritdogs will never see at her office

But because spiritdogs will never see those people that means they dont exist, that the only ones that exist are the ones that "over correct" and need help because they dont understand where they were wrong. Maybe they didnt even affect the dog's behavior and only ran it's natural course.

Too many "researches" and positive trainers base their opinion on that (or cleverly use that to sell their own services). On the people that over correct. They dont really get to study the other side of the spectrum, they can't study the people that just stayed home because they were able to do it correctly. The researches themselves probably did it wrong and based they research on that.

Thats why i said before that those rules wont be followed by stupid people, lower "dog IQ people" will jump to a "level 7" of correction for a "level 0.5" of bad behavior.

espencer

Finally a link that might help others understand what i have been saying all along!

The people that go to spiritdogs to "rehabilitate" their dogs (after they saw it on TV) are exactly those people that jump to a "level 7" of correction and they had the behavior "over the top"

I would have to disagree on the part of "The simple answer is that dogs are very good at corrections and we are not very good at it." I'm sure there are people out there (myself included) that follow these 8 rules almost to perfection. Those are the people spiritdogs will never see at her office

But because spiritdogs will never see those people that means they dont exist, that the only ones that exist are the ones that "over correct" and need help because they dont understand where they were wrong. Maybe they didnt even affect the dog's behavior and only ran it's natural course.

Too many "researches" and positive trainers base their opinion on that (or cleverly use that to sell their own services). On the people that over correct. They dont really get to study the other side of the spectrum, they can't study the people that just stayed home because they were able to do it correctly. The researches themselves probably did it wrong and based they research on that.

Thats why i said before that those rules wont be followed by stupid people, lower "dog IQ people" will jump to a "level 7" of correction for a "level 0.5" of bad behavior.

Those techniques are not for everybody and are too complicated to follow for some. Just like some people can fix their own car, most of us will have to go to a mechanic to do so, the mechanic might think think that ALL people out there does not know how fix a car because he only sees the people that need his help (mechanic = dog trainer = researcher, etc.)

If you read the entire article, I think you would find that the point is that, because it's so hard to meet ALL 8 conditions, punishment should almost never be used.

Also, I see many people who use punishment, whether its a little or a lot.  Usually, they are frustrated because they have used punishment and it hasn't worked.  They forgot the most important parts - rewarding the good behavior and teaching an alternative behavior that they like.  They are so anxious to "stop" the dog from doing what they don't like, that they can't even see how smart a dog they actually have, and how easy it is to teach him to do just about anything, once they find out how to do it, and what motivates their dog.

Chuffy

The only one I don't wholly agree with is No5.  There have been times when I have delivered punishment to my son, and I don't think he fears or dislikes me. 

But, your son may be capable of understanding that a dog is not capable of.   Dogs make associations, but they may make them differently than we perceive, so I think Number 5 is there so that we don't accidentally have a dog make the wrong one.

spiritdogs

because it's so hard to meet ALL 8 conditions, punishment should almost never be used.

Maybe for the average Joe it is. I dont find it hard whatsoever and you know other forum members that will tell you the same. However, the amount of "average Joes" out there might significantly out number the amount of people that can do it successfully.

spiritdogs

Also, I see many people who use punishment, whether its a little or a lot.  Usually, they are frustrated because they have used punishment and it hasn't worked.

Could you re read my "mechanic example"?

I agree with Chuffy, my dog does not fear me or dislike me either (and i know other forum members who would tell you the same so it's not only my dog)

I agree with Chuffy, my dog does not fear me or dislike me either (and i know other forum members who would tell you the same so it's not only my dog)

I think that corvus would have agreed with this before, but, as posted on another thread, it took starting a dog from day one with all positive, to realize what corrections had done to her other dog - not that her dog didn't love her, but it could have been a much more mutually rewarding relationship.  corvus and ron2 are now, apparently in the same boat.

 Anne -- Casey is great. She is who I send all my local rescue families to for training. I love that you shared her article!

 Chuffy, your son may not fear or dislike you for using punishment, or maybe he does. He probably is able to discriminate when he should fear you. However, you have probably unknowingly used strategies to address the side effects of punishment, such as noncontingent reinforcement, which have helped to prevent him not liking you. Most pet owners though, do not follow these rules of using punishment, and don't know anything about addressing and preventing side effects of punishment.

espencer

I agree with Chuffy, my dog does not fear me or dislike me either (and i know other forum members who would tell you the same so it's not only my dog)

Since you guys introduced the human analogy, I'll mentioned that many abused people seem to like their abuser. The simple fact that my dog isn't scared is not enough of a reason to employ aversive methods.

spiritdogs

I agree with Chuffy, my dog does not fear me or dislike me either (and i know other forum members who would tell you the same so it's not only my dog)

I think that corvus would have agreed with this before, but, as posted on another thread, it took starting a dog from day one with all positive, to realize what corrections had done to her other dog - not that her dog didn't love her, but it could have been a much more mutually rewarding relationship.  corvus and ron2 are now, apparently in the same boat.

Yeah. Pen adored me, and that's the insidious thing about it. You just don't know when it's all you've ever looked at. How can you? I rabbit on about it because it broke my heart. I'd very much like to prevent other people coming to the same horrible realisation I did. Everyone always says "But I correct my dogs and they love me. They don't fear me." and all I can say is "Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. I was wrong. I really hope you are not."

I am with Chuffy, I don't totally agree with #5, but for a different reason.  *If* you train with punishments/corrections, depending on the circumstances there ARE times when the dog should associate the correction with a person.  There are also times when the dog should not (as #5 is saying).  There are also directional corrections.  I'm not advocating for training with corrections, but I think it undermines the dog's intelligence to assume that they process ALL corrections the same way, or that they should process all corrections the same way.

The rest make perfect sense.  Numbers 7 and 8 should be at the top, IMO.

 I'm going to disagree with everyone's disagreement on number five, based on what we know about humans and punishment. With humans, we want the person to know exactly what behavior is being punished. One side effect of punishment is escape/avoidance. If the punisher is associated with a person, environment, etc, that escape/avoidance can be escape/avoidance of the environment, or person delivering the punishment. (As for my source,I'm not going to give you an APA citation, but it's Applied Behavior Analysis by Cooper, Heron and Heward, and the CBA Learning Module Series by Behavior Development Solutions... I'll have to go open that up to see where their info on that comes from).

There are definitely specific situations where if you are using a correction, aversive, physical punishment...whatever the heck you call it....it's because the dog needs to know who is controlling it.  An example would be introducing the bark and hold behaviors when the dog is being sent into the blind.  Often the helper is doing just as much line-handling as the handler.  The dog not only is learning and being rewarded for the correct behaviors, but he needs to learn to respect that person and the person's space.  Control is a major part of this type of work so the interactions between dog and handler, and dog and helper are crucial.

Another example which often goes hand-in-hand with training the bark and hold is working the dog's civil and fight drives.  A dog does not work in defense or fight just based on a trained behavior.  A person has to instigate those drives.

Here the dog is on a harness attached to a back-tie and also on a line which is attached to a fursaver collar on a dead ring (not the prong though it looks that way, the tab is on the prong and not being used) and being controlled by the helper.

My general feeling (which I think is along the lines of what we discussed in Corvus' recent thread) is that if I have any concern that a correction/punishment/aversive will effect my dog such that he looks at me with any level of fear, avoidance or distrust, I would not use that method at all, not even if there was a way of doing it by tricking the dog into not knowing where it came from (e-collar, for example).

Corinthian

Since you guys introduced the human analogy, I'll mentioned that many abused people seem to like their abuser. The simple fact that my dog isn't scared is not enough of a reason to employ aversive methods.

I agree. A lot of arguments I hear for punishment (and I am hearing them in this thread) is that "my dog still likes me, I don't think he's scared of me, he listens to me." And I all I want to say is "So what?" The fact of the matter is, I will never agree with unnecessarily causing your dog purposeful discomfort/pain/displeasure/fear/etc. I do not understand why people still feel the need to purposefully cause their dog to feel unpleasant stimuli (leash corrections, verbal corrections, e-collar shocks, etc) when they simply do not need to. There are options. Now, I'm not going to argue too much with someone using occasional corrections (and has trained with mostly positive reinforcement) who's training a dog in SchH or herding, or whatever.... They obviously know the benefits of positive reinforcement (esp. if they use a clicker), and are making an educating decision to use a correction on occasion. And though I may disagree, I'll get over it. What I feel bad for are the dogs whose handlers/owners use a significant amount of punishment, not enough reinforcement, and punishment is their first line defense against behaviors they find unacceptable.

And I think the argument that owners don't recognize fear/distrust/unhappiness in their dog trained with punishmet is definitely valid. Karen Pryor discusses this in her newest book, and she says there have been tons of people she has met, trained, or advised, that after switching to all positive clicker training, can tell the difference in their dogs, and that it's heartbreaking to realize. There is an obvious difference in behavior and body language between dogs trained with all positive, dogs trained with mostly positive and some corrections, and dogs trained with mostly corrections. I've seen it, and it's motivated me to not use punishments on my dog.

spiritdogs

But, your son may be capable of understanding that a dog is not capable of.   Dogs make associations, but they may make them differently than we perceive, so I think Number 5 is there so that we don't accidentally have a dog make the wrong one.

I'll grant that using punishment is a risk, and should be used sparingly, but I don't think that correct use of punishment causes the dog or child to be scared of it's owner/parent, unless the punishment is quite severe.  In that case, I agree it should either be disassociated from the owner, or better yet avoided altogether. Remember the "levels" of punishment mentioned in your article - would a dog be "afraid" of his playmate, or another dog, or its dam, if a level 1 or 2 punishment was delivered?  No, I think a more pertinent point is the impact on the dog's (or child's) ability to learn, and as I have said before, I don't believe that this is as simple as being "afraid" to offer new behaviours....  I think there is more to it than that.