Could some dogs just need negative reinforcement?

[Dekka]

My dog is happy, she enjoys her training sessions and her favorite place is the petstore (where I do a lot of training) and her training club where correction is utilized.

I can't speak for your dogs, I can't speak for John Smiths dogs. I can only speak for mine and her enjoyment speaks pretty loudly

Just to play devils advocate... could it be cause she doesn't know any different?

When I started training I was 'balanced' Kaiden was ecstatic to get to the training hall! BUT he became a lot more successful and focused after I ditched the corrections. (in one case the gentle aversive was causing the problem. He lagged, I gave little leash pops, he moved up, but then lagged again. I ditched the leash all together (at home) and c/t for proper heel and ignored lagging. 2 sessions the lagging that had been plaguing us for months disappeared)

I am glad your dog is happy.. but that doesn't mean she NEEDS corrections. Just you like to use them.

 

[corgipower]

I've used corrections. Ares was trained using a combination of corrections and rewards. He was a very enthusiastic worker. Lots of bounce in his step, lots of sparkle in his eyes. He was such a serious worker - never was one for playing or cuddling. He was miserable when I retired him.

Since retirement, I've watched him become more social, I've watched him become more playful, I've watched him become more trusting. I very much believe that the corrections did have a negative impact on our relationship and that now that he no longer receives any our relationship has very much improved.

With his entire repertoire of known behaviors -- he was trained through AKC utility, schutzhund 2 obedience, novice agility, odor detection, area searches and a handful of tricks -- it is the tricks that he offers. He'll come over and sneeze, shake, wave, spin. Those are the behaviors he likes. Those are the behaviors that were taught with only positive reinforcement. Sure, if I ask for obedience exercises he'll perform them beautifully and eagerly, but he never offers them.

I'm still getting the hang of positive reinforcement. I still own a prong collar. It's currently collecting a lot of dust. As I get better at using positive methods, I find I really haven't any need for corrections.

 

[corgipower]

And touching a flame burns. I could get rewarded till the cows come home for not touching that flame but the act of getting burned and hurt doing it is going to dissuade it from happening again any time soon.

You also know that it was the flame that caused the pain. Take a dog digging in the yard. He might realize that the correction was for digging. Or he might think it was for digging in that one spot. Or he might think it was for being in the yard. Or he might think it was for smelling the grubs in the soil. Or he might think it was for seeing a bunny a few feet away. We really don't know what he thinks the correction is for and there's a huge risk of creating associations of fear or pain with things we don't want to create such associations with.

 

[Criosphynx]

About three years ago I was in the "balanced" group as well...my dogs were happy...they were obediant...I was thrilled.

Then I adopted a dog that would shut down if you talked to her...even the mildest mildest verbal correction destroyed her. Thats when I made the switch.

Iam currently raising a puppy on no corrections...just neg punishment...redirects and lots of incompatible behaviors...iam beyond impressed with him...and NO hes not an easy dog...hes reactive to boot.

I will not go back to balanced...the clicker dogs are a different beast.

also working with wildlife you learn quickly that corrections do not work. (unless you don't like your fingers)

I think Dekka nailed it...you use them because you want too, or your are better at that technique.

we all have used them...and might still occasionally (we are human)...its getting stuck there that is the problem

 

[Doberluv]

You also know that it was the flame that caused the pain. Take a dog digging in the yard. He might realize that the correction was for digging. Or he might think it was for digging in that one spot. Or he might think it was for being in the yard. Or he might think it was for smelling the grubs in the soil. Or he might think it was for seeing a bunny a few feet away. We really don't know what he thinks the correction is for and there's a huge risk of creating associations of fear or pain with things we don't want to create such associations with.

Exactly. :hail:

When you use your own brand of logic without understanding how dogs operate, you do them a disservice. You're attributing human cognitive abilities to dogs. There is no reason (based on learning behavior and the science of how dogs learn, at any rate) to use scoldings, collar pops, choke chains, prong collars or any other kind of pain or fear with a dog. Avoidance training has potential to cause a lot of harm, even that you might not recognize, but someone who is very use to reading dogs probably would. Well....and do. I see that a lot. I see it, for one place, on The Dog Whisperer show a lot. In his show, most of the cues the dogs send off are VERY obvious. And with some other dogs handled by other people, the signs may be more subtle.

They learn beautifully without all that. I've been in both camps too. And my more recent dogs and I have a much better relationship and training goes much smoother than it did in the past.

 

[Linds]

A wagging tail is NOT always an indication.

Who talked about tail wagging? Anyone that thinks tail wagging always means the dog is happy is a moron. Period.

This does not mean they wouldn't have been trained faster or happier with out them though.

I guess that depends on the behavior, the handler, who's watching, the dog and the actual method. And the other question is- which is which creates a more accurate and dependable behavior? But I think that depends on the same thing.

There are physiological stress (distress) responses to aversives.

Of course there are. That being a bad thing is what we haven't agreed on.

But if I have to take a road trip with my dogs I want it to be a pleasant trip for all of us.

Completely agree. That's why if training and learning stopped being an overall fun and enjoyable experience for my dogs I would change my method.

Just to play devils advocate... could it be cause she doesn't know any different?

Of course it's a possibility. I dislike discounting anything completely.

But, if she's still happy to be there and enjoys learning I can't say it's damaging too her. And since she's a pretty sensitive dog and does begin to shut down easily I'm thinking it's not hurting her.

We really don't know what he thinks the correction is for and there's a huge risk of creating associations of fear or pain with things we don't want to create such associations with.

And she doesn't know what the reward was for either. That's why you are consistent with what you reward and in my case correct so that the dog does get the whole picture and learns what is wanted and what is not.

You know, I keep hearing that "If you correct them for being too exuberant to see children then they are going to associate it with the child causing them pain" or something similar. And that very well could be a possibility but I have yet to see it.

Kaylee loves other dogs, Kaylee had trouble controlling herself when on a leash and another dog wanted to play. With a combination or redirection, reward and correction she has improved ten fold. And as soon as she gets the ok she's as happy to see them as she was a year and half ago.

I have a friend with a dog that LOVES children. They are the highest distraction for her and has gotten corrected for going over to them without permission. She still loves them to death and gives them her butt to scratch as soon as allowed.

Ok, if anyone else replied while I was still typing this or I missed someone's comment I'm sorry. I must have gone to post this three times only to see someone else had posted

 

[Criosphynx]

You know, I keep hearing that "If you correct them for being too exuberant to see children then they are going to associate it with the child causing them pain" or something similar. And that very well could be a possibility but I have yet to see it.

its basic CC....same law that makes the dog associate the handler with a correction. Perhaps children are so reinforcing that that wins out over your correction in that context.



have you ever owned or trained a reactive or aggressive dog? Lots of the things we are refering to become much much more obvious in a dog with heightened emotions.

 

[Linds]

have you ever owned or trained a reactive or aggressive dog? Lots of the things we are refering to become much much more obvious in a dog with heightened emotions.

Yes, I do

 

[corgipower]

have you ever owned or trained a reactive or aggressive dog? Lots of the things we are refering to become much much more obvious in a dog with heightened emotions.

So very true. Nyx, who is extremely reactive, was the reason I had to really start learning how to train without corrections. Until her, I was still using corrections -- although less and less often.

 

[Criosphynx]

So do you correct a dog that is having an outburst? Why/why not?


Oh Cp I don't know what I would have done with a reactive dog three years ago *shutters*

 

[elegy]

Sadly we don't live in that utopia and not everyone ends up with a puppy that has never had the chance to do an unwanted behavior

but that's not a very good excuse for punishment. and i think there are very few puppies in this world who haven't ever done an unwanted behavior. my puppy certainly wasn't one of them.

when i got luce out of the shelter, my marvelous, wild, dog-aggressive, reactive, over the top luce, i used a lot of punishment. and it worked some for some things, but i kept having to punish, jerk, yell. as hard as i could jerk her on a prong collar, she didn't care beyond that moment. maybe if i'd been bigger, stronger, crueler i could have suppressed her behavior. instead, i learned how to work with her to change it using positive methods, instead of constantly pitting myself against her.

i am lucky that i chose such a rock-solid stable dog to jerk around. i could have caused a lot of damage to her. oh sure i used treats too, but that doesn't excuse what i did to her, ineffectively and unnecessarily.

once i learned how to use positive reinforcement instead of relying on punishment, she really started to come along. her behavior actually changed. i didn't have to keep shutting down her reactions because she learned not to react.

i know that this is just one dog in a countless number of dogs. i know that the plural of anecdote is not proof. but i also know that my experience with my dog is not terribly remarkable and that many other people have learned the same lesson.

 

[Doberluv]

About three years ago I was in the "balanced" group as well...my dogs were happy...they were obediant...I was thrilled.

Then I adopted a dog that would shut down if you talked to her...even the mildest mildest verbal correction destroyed her. Thats when I made the switch.

Iam currently raising a puppy on no corrections...just neg punishment...redirects and lots of incompatible behaviors...iam beyond impressed with him...and NO hes not an easy dog...hes reactive to boot.

I will not go back to balanced...the clicker dogs are a different beast.

also working with wildlife you learn quickly that corrections do not work. (unless you don't like your fingers)

I think Dekka nailed it...you use them because you want too, or your are better at that technique.

we all have used them...and might still occasionally (we are human)...its getting stuck there that is the problem

Such a good post. It's so true....(we're human). From Patricia McConnell's book, The Other End of the Leash...how she describes herself getting upset when her dog and her friend's dog were under the table and got in a squabble. Her first reaction was to holler and react excitably. She said that she knows better. She's a phd in behavior and yet she reacted in too volitile a way. And then she said, "but there's a catch. I'm primate." LOL. I love that and it's so true. So, yeah....most of us will react too much or in the wrong way to things sometimes. But it doesn't mean it's something that dogs understand.

 

[Dekka]

I have seen it. I have seen it in a few dogs learning to be reactive. One was a foster dog I got back. They had effectively trained Joey to dislike and distrust new people. He bit, and bit badly. The owners had tried to correct his normal puppy exuberance, so he learnt new people = bad.

It took a fair bit of work to get him to the point he could be fostered by someone else. He is still not great with new people.. and he had been a happy well socialized 6 month old JRT when he left here.

 

[Romy]

You know, I keep hearing that "If you correct them for being too exuberant to see children then they are going to associate it with the child causing them pain" or something similar. And that very well could be a possibility but I have yet to see it.

Kaylee loves other dogs, Kaylee had trouble controlling herself when on a leash and another dog wanted to play. With a combination or redirection, reward and correction she has improved ten fold. And as soon as she gets the ok she's as happy to see them as she was a year and half ago.

I have a friend with a dog that LOVES children. They are the highest distraction for her and has gotten corrected for going over to them without permission. She still loves them to death and gives them her butt to scratch as soon as allowed.

I have yet to see a dog trained through corrections that can be totally trusted to behave when nobody is around to watch (correct) it. My question is this:

Has using corrections for approaching children without permission resulted in a dog that will wait/ask for permission first? Is she bombproof? Or is she pretty good, until her threshold is crossed and then she lapses back into bouncing at the kids. What if nobody is around to police her? Does she manage to ignore/be polite with children then?

I trained my dog as a service dog under the mentorship of a professional trainer. We used 100% positive reinforcement and he IS bombproof. I can put him in a down/stay, lay a whole, raw, fryer chicken carcass across his front legs and leave for 5-10 minutes, come back and he will not have budged or touched that carcass.

He wanted to eat our chickens bad. He was so bad he would lunge at them through the fence and foam at the mouth. He would get so fixated on them that he literally couldn't tear his eyes off them when they were in his field of vision. He's a borzoi, and has extremely high prey drive. It took 2 months of intensive control training, but here he is now, off leash WITH the birds:

None of that would have been possible through the use of aversives. At best he would have just shut down around the chickens, at worst he would slaughter them the moment my back is turned. We don't leave them unsupervised on purpose, but part of the issue was the chicken's are a bunch of ninnies and sometimes do dumb things like fly into the dog pen. Every time that has happened he has glanced at them, then gone back to whatever he was doing before.

 

[corgipower]

And she doesn't know what the reward was for either. That's why you are consistent with what you reward and in my case correct so that the dog does get the whole picture and learns what is wanted and what is not.

You know, I keep hearing that "If you correct them for being too exuberant to see children then they are going to associate it with the child causing them pain" or something similar. And that very well could be a possibility but I have yet to see it.

I've seen it.

Not only have I seen it, I've created it and am in the process of fixing it.

Ares gets very defensive around dogs. When he was a pup, he was overly friendly with other dogs and in training him for competition I was told to never let him play with other dogs. So I'd correct him for trying. It didn't take long for him to start blaming other dogs for him getting corrected. He'd strike first thinking it was the other dog's fault and anticipating pain. It took me getting Nyx and being forced to learn new ways of doing things before I realized the root of the problem. Ares didn't start out DA. The most interesting piece is that Ares isn't DA when I'm not there. Nyx and Ares do fine together until I approach, then Ares gets worried about getting in trouble and he directs it at Nyx. I've started giving him treats when Nyx and Tyr get in his space. I wasn't sure at first because Ares is a hardcore resource guarder and I didn't want to use food when they were together, but he hasn't once shown guardiness when I'm giving out the treats and he is starting to relax around them.

Nyx forced me to learn how to not use corrections in the face of exuberance. She's very low threshold and very high drive. She got one correction when she was younger and was in prey/play drive. The correction caused frustration and triggered her fight drive which led to her turning on me and squaring off. The next thing that happened was she started showing fear when faced with what she was corrected over trying to play with.

Yes, they might not know what the reward is for, but the fallout isn't as risky.

 

[Doberluv]

Good example Romy. Great pics. And Corgi....yes, another example. I could type pages and pages of examples where punishment being associated with the non targeted behavior creates big behavior problems. Almost every dog I work with has this for the cause of his aggression or fear problems.

You know, I keep hearing that "If you correct them for being too exuberant to see children then they are going to associate it with the child causing them pain" or something similar. And that very well could be a possibility but I have yet to see it.[/QUOTE]

Well, you have yet to see a lot of things, I see because this is extremely common. I get paid to counter condition dogs who have associated the wrong thing with punishment and have become aggressive toward that which was in their environment that they paired pain or fear with. A dog barks at kids on bikes and gets scolded for what the owner has in mind....the barking. The dog doesn't know its the barking that he's being attacked for. The dog pairs it with the kids on bikes. I have recently had two clients' dogs who were scolded, jerked, hollered at for barking at visitors coming to their door. Those dogs both have bitten people who come to their house. Instead of pairing visitors with food or something else really good, they were tied to pain and fear. Dogs strongest influence in learning is association. They are not that aware of their onw behavior....at first. That is a well known fact among behaviorists and trainers.

My Lab Bonnie was like yours Romy....without that sight hound extreme prey drive. She use to hunt and kill wild rabbits though, like nobody's business. She was a real hunter. But she use to hang out on our neighbor's lawn while their chickens walked around and one hen liked her so much, she'd come right up to her and peck at her around her face and Bonnie just thumped, thumped her Lab tail and never hurt those chickens.

So that you have yet to see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It may mean you have a narrow frame of reference. A dog here and there that doesn't develop problems doesn't say much. Lots of dogs will tolerate a lot. But you never know just which or at what point will be over their tolerance threshold. That is why punishment...harsh aversives is risky business. AND what's more....totally unnecessary in training. It just has no place in training.

 

[corgipower]

So that you have yet to see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Yup.

I didn't see it in Ares even though it was there for 9 years. I had a lot of learning to do about dogs and how they create such associations before I saw what had happened to my own dog and had been going on with him for so long.

 

[Doberluv]

Linds...would you answer this? IF you discovered that you could train your dog without a choke or prong collar, without leash pops, without punishment, and train him to an advanced degree, would you? Would you be interested in giving some examples of behaviors your dog displays where you believe adding punishment is necessary or preferred? And why you feel punishment is necessary or preferred. And then we can take those examples and offer alternatives to punishment? Would you be interested in going that route? In other words, if you could get the behavior you want without adding punishment of any kind (not talking about removing or preventing reward for unwanted behavior) would you?

Here are some good articles on the problem with punishment. There are many, many more. I just quickly grabbed a few. But they are informative and no one in their right mind could minimize the sources.


The dog trainer's trainer | Dog Time - Ian Dunbar takes on Cesar Millan

The problem with punishment

Aversive or Punishment? | Karen Pryor Clickertraining

Behind the Behavior Blog Archive AVMA Conference: The Controversy

 

[corgipower]

Oh Cp I don't know what I would have done with a reactive dog three years ago *shutters*

Oh I was totally unprepared for her. I had to take a crash course in reactive dogs and training without corrections. Two years later, I'm still struggling and often feel like I'm in over my head. But she continues to improve slowly, and that's certainly better than no improvement.

 

[Doberluv]

I had trouble with Lyric too Corgi, with dog reactivity. And at first, I made it worse by tightening up on the leash and sometimes scolding him...reverting back to old habits intermittently. I had to get a grip and go through specific desensatizing exercises and try not to have to use the leash to direct him. He improved a lot. A leash really shouldn't be used for training. It is to keep them safe....from running off in front of a car or getting in a fight with other dogs or keep other people safe. Forcing or placing a dog into a particular position or telling him he's doing the wrong thing or showing him what you do want should not come through the leash. It should be done by capturing, shaping....rewarding the best examples of the behavior and working up...using better rewards for better behavior, the best rewards (jack pots) for the best behavior. Rewarding better behavior and building upon that will squeeze out the rotten behavior as long as it isn't reinforced inadvertantly. There will be no time for rotten behavior if the dog is kept busy with rewardable behaviors. LOL.