Dog Advice Topic: Reward vs Punishment Training

Bella,
I'm a first time dog owner and I've written to you a few times before about different types of training. You explained to me punishment training and reward training but I wanted to know what made Collins Canine choose to do reward training over punishment. What is your reasoning?
-New Trainer in Naperville

NTiN,
I'm going to refer this one over to Lisa since she makes these kind of decisions. I'm happy about them but it's really up to her!

Thanks Bella,
There are two basic reasons why I train using reward based training as opposed to punishment. The first is from experience and research; the second is purely personal.

Research and my own personal experience shows there can be severe side effects to punishment-based training. A dog trained using punishment will usually result in either a lump of fur so scared to do anything for fear of getting punished, or a wild dog that completely ignores everything because they have become so desensitized to the punishments that it doesn't mean anything anymore. On the other hand, the only side effect of using rewards is a possibility that the dog will not respond if they don't smell food. This only happens when dogs are not put on a proper reward schedule . Another issue with punishment is that the timing of the punishment has to be 100% accurate or else you are punishing the wrong behavior and the dog gets confused and either shuts down or ignores all punishment. Timing of rewards does have to be accurate but you aren't going to mentally damage a dog by rewarding a different behavior than you were trying to reward.

I also find that using reward "training" works much better in other areas besides dog training. Would you want to work for a boss who only told you the things you did wrong and never gave you a bonus or raise when you worked hard? Would you want to come home to a spouse or roommate who constantly nagged you about what you didn't do? Check with any management consultants, marriage counselors or successful business people and they will tell you that the way to motivate people is to reward their achievements, not concentrate on their downfalls.
Now I will be the first to say that dogs are not furry little people, but they do have confidence levels and they can be motivated to work. So in these ways they are the same.

On a personal note, I have trained dogs using punishment based training. That was basically the only way until about 8-10 years ago. I had some dogs that could handle it but then I had other dogs that would cower and yelp in fear if I just raised my voice. I felt horrible seeing them react like that. Again, I fully recognize that dogs are not furry people but I do love my own dog like a child and realize that most people feel the same way. I couldn't use those techniques on someone I love, so I don't expect my clients to either. In addition, I have seen much better responses with using positive reinforcement and I don't see why I would use anything else!

And that's the bark on the street!
Bark up!
Lisa Collins, CPDT - in for Bella this week

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