When is punishment (potentially) justified?

Liesje

Kim, that is a great post.  We both know I'm willing to go quite a bit farther in one direction when it comes to training but I completely agree with your main points.

If anyone feels the need to question my relationship with my dogs they are fully welcome to observe any of our training sessions.

Personally I don't feel the need to constantly re-hash the same disagreements about what punishment is with those people who admittedly have no experience with it.

I don't really approach it like that though.  I don't have this spectrum of tools and methods that I move down as I am not getting the results I want.  Punishment is just one way to train, just like +P, -R, etc.  If +R is what I believe to be the *best* method for the dog for five out of five things I want to train, then that's the method I'll use every time.  I don't look at it from the point of view of whether I'm willing to inflict pain or whether I'm trying to avoid "resorting to" this or that....if the method makes sense for the dog given the context of the training, then I'll use it.  I'm thinking in the context of my normal training, not just life or death situations or saving a poorly trained dog that is at risk of being put down.  I can only speak for my experience with my own dogs, the two that I have extensively trained, and they don't have temperament or behavioral issues, they are not at risk of serious danger either in our environment or getting dumped at a shelter.  They are good quality dogs, very healthy with great drive for hard work and a strong, balanced temperament to back it up.  What other people feel they have to "resort to" in order to "save" a dog is not really any of my business.  I justify my training based on the dogs' willingness to get out and work over and over again.  Regardless of what methods I might consider, if my dog doesn't want to learn the exercise/behavior I have in mind and doesn't already possess some natural drive and instinctive ability to perform the behavior, I'm not going to train it at all.

Kim's point about punishment not having to be pain or fear-inducing is obviously very legitimate in terms of the scientific definition of punishment.  My problem with any thread of this nature is that when the wider dog-owning public hears the word "punishment" it means something entirely different to them.  To someone who is not trained in operant conditioning terminology, punishment often means correction by physical or verbal means.  So, they hear punishment and think "collar correction" or "no" rather than what we think of in the purely scientific sense.  There really is no way to avoid punishment, in the scientific sense, because it happens to dogs environmentally without any interference from humans.  Dog picks up one stick and it becomes a toy.  Dog picks up another stick and it hurts.  Dog learns, through positive punishment, not to pick up sticks that used be attached to rose bushes!  That doesn't mean that we humans must choose expediency over a method with a specific humane hierarchy.  I think we must always be very clear about methodology and stop talking about punishment in broad terms.  I want consumers to ask trainers, "What *specific* methods will you use to train my dog, and what methods are off limits?"  Too many trainers today are couching what they do in terms designed to make pain-inducing devices seem more benign.  I want people to understand that you can't make an aversive into a non-aversive just by hearing a human say that it's non-aversive. 

oranges81

Jen, I'm gonna jump in and say I'm one of those people who use both. When I work with Maze, it's both -R and +P. In Rally O, I use punishment for some behaviors like her heel. She loves to forge and have her nose on the ground, as a result, I'll tighten the leash around my back and tap her under the chin to lift her head. She walks nicely at my side she gets a loose leash and freedom to sniff WHEN we're done. In Sandy's world, punishment can be with holding a treat from her or telling her no to the dead bird. *shrugs*

My problem with your method is that she continues to forge and continues to "need" the punishment.  I think that if you must repeatedly "correct" a dog for that behavior, then they simply haven't learned the correct behavior, and you are just nagging, not teaching.   If she were my dog, I think I would try to reconstruct the heel using clicker training, so that she is rewarded for keeping her nose up and remaining by my side.   (If the punishment was sufficient it would have stopped the behavior.  It didn't, so it wasn't severe enough - of course, no one is suggesting that you would even want to be that nasty to the dog in an effort to permanently stop the behavior - and that's why I suggest training an alternative that can be heavily reinforced.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xx_e4S-vHM&list=PLB200FA46C5298128&index=2&feature=plpp_video

oranges81

Ann, she gets heavily rewarded when in the proper spot. And actually her forging behavior has all but vanished. So I really don't punish her at all during a proper heel. LLW's, I don't care if she sniffs or forges.

spiritdogs

I had to laugh at the description of dogs as "organisms" - of course they are, but it's funny anyway to think of them that way:-)))

Haha... you can laugh at me for that.

I apparently didn't get that either. I'm glad that has been clarified. 

griffinej5

spiritdogs

I had to laugh at the description of dogs as "organisms" - of course they are, but it's funny anyway to think of them that way:-)))

Haha... you can laugh at me for that.

I apparently didn't get that either. I'm glad that has been clarified. 

 This is a lovely little chart that appears in a chapter on using punishment, in the book, "How Dogs Learn," by Mary Burch and John Bailey. My scanner won't cooperate, so I will type it out here.

Steps That Should Precede the Use of Aversive Punishers with Dogs

Functional Analysis and Behavioral Diagnostics of Problem Behavior (why is the dog doing this?)

Any Medical Problem Treated as a First Priority

Use Positive Reinforcement Techniques

Environmental Solutions, if Appropriate

Modify Trainer Behavior and Other Training Variables

Punishment Implemented as a Last Resort (by a qualified trainer)

It is also noted that, "the use of aversive punishment procedures can be justified only if the problem behavior presents a threat to the dog's well-being or the safety of other people or animals." They are essentially suggesting adherence to the same standards as would be used in prescribing the use of an aversive punishment for a human (and I like it, but then again, I happen to really like Drs. Burch and Bailey). 

 I can train my fish using only R+, and my fish also doesn't have the environment where it can engage in potentially life threatening behaviors.

griffinej5

 I can train my fish using only R+, and my fish also doesn't have the environment where it can engage in potentially life threatening behaviors.

Good point.

 Here's an interesting little bit of info I learned yesterday.  Children, typical children, children with developmental disabilities, when given an opportunity to select a treatment for a problem behavior, will often select a treatment that includes a punishment component (in combination with a reinforcement component) over a reinforcement alone option, or reinforcement + extinction. They tend to select the one where they are most successful (and nobody is showing them any data).  We don't know about dogs, but it should be possible to create a situation where the dog could select the consequences it would experience, and see if dogs would show this same type of preference.