Why positive reinforcment works during training and why punishment doesn't
Training a dog can be a frustrating experience for both the owner and their beloved pooch, but it doesn’t have to be! You may have heard of positive reinforcement training under many different terms such as reward-based training, positive training, R+ training, force-free training, or science-based training. Whichever term you prefer to use, this article will guide you through what positive reinforcement is, and why it works. Most importantly, it will cover why punishment absolutely doesn’t work and often leads to even worse issues with the dog being trained.
What is positive reinforcement anyway?
Positive reinforcement is something almost every human has encountered at some point probably without thinking about it – it isn’t just a term we use when training animals.
Here’s an example: your toddler has spent the day playing with numerous toys and now the living room is looking rather messy. You ask your toddler, “Hey, could you help me tidy up? Then we can have a treat.” Your toddler helps tidy up his or her toys and gets a reward in the form of a treat – be that ice cream, a small toy, or a cute sticker to place on a chore chart.
In slightly more scientific terms, the treat is considered a desirable or pleasant “stimulus” which is introduced after a specific “behaviour” has taken place (in this case, tidying of toys).
We end up seeing positive reinforcement in all sorts of ways as we mature into adulthood - a raise at work for good performance, a simple “well done!”, or we can even positively reinforce ourselves by saying something like, “If I get this work done today, I can spend the weekend relaxing.”
During dog training, an example of positive reinforcement could look like this:
An owner is training their dog to sit. Whenever the dog sits, he gets a treat.
Here, the required “behaviour” is to sit, and the “stimulus” to sit is the treat. The introduction of the treat AFTER the sit occurs reinforces that the behaviour (sit) will reoccur more often.
Offering a dog a reward for expected behaviour in this way increases the likelihood that they will sit again when asked to.
Other examples of positive reinforcement in dogs include:
• Praise
• Playtime (throwing a ball, tug rope, etc.)
• Walks
The reward doesn’t always need to be a treat - it can be whatever your dog loves as long as it is given immediately after the desired behaviour!
The benefits of positive reinforcement when training dogs
We can now see how training using positive reinforcement can result in getting the desired behaviour from your dog, but there are numerous other benefits to training this way!
Establishing effective, clear communication
Dogs can be very eager to please their owners, and positive reinforcement makes it clear to them that they did the correct thing. Because of this, it leads to your dog being willing to learn, listen, and carry out the correct behaviour knowing this will lead to making you happy (and perhaps a tasty treat or an exciting toy!). It teaches your dog to also work out which behaviours you dislike, perhaps now they know that sitting politely in front of you is far more likely to get them a reward as opposed to jumping up at you.
In this way, we are establishing a clear line of communication which works for both owner and dog.
Stronger bonds with your pooch
Lots of us dog owners consider our canines to be more than just a pet; they’re part of the family, a friend, and loving companion. Using positive reinforcement training strengthens the bond between owner and dog, providing a level of trust and confidence that isn’t seen with other methods of training. Other training methods might teach a dog how to respond to certain commands or behaviour, but an owner who positively reinforces their dog builds a stronger relationship and a mutual understanding. Dogs trained using positive reinforcement vs. aversive training also show strong social bonds with their owners.
Mental Stimulation – a great boredom buster!
Boredom in dogs (and other animals) can often be a big contributor when it comes to behavioural issues. Dogs in particular act out their frustrations in ways that their owners don’t find particularly favourable (think chewed pillows, digging holes in flower beds, etc.) which can often lead to conflict within the household and general frustration for both the owner and pet. Positive reinforcement training keeps dogs engaged mentally as well as working towards desired behaviours. Training sessions that work on their issues can burn off energy and keep them stimulated mentally.
Consistency and practice
Although most dogs don’t show a great deal of patience to begin with, habitual positive reinforcement training results will start to show over time. Every member of the household becomes part of the process and handles the training in the same way during each session, including offering the same positive reinforcement. This provides consistency for your dog and helps them to understand what behaviours you want them to show (and exactly what they’ll get for doing so). This allows your dog to build trust that they will be rewarded for their efforts and, in turn, learn to be more patient as they know the reward will always come provided that they continue to behave.
If all this talk about positive reinforcement has you confused, that’s normal! Get in touch, and we can discuss your pet’s requirements.
Why punishment doesn’t work and its effects on dog welfare
Before we talk about why punishment doesn’t work during training, it is vital that we point out what we mean exactly by “punishment.” The term punishment refers to any aversive methods such as harsh physical correction, use of choke/prong/e collars, and other “tools” used that will inflict harm on the dog.
Unclear communication, wrong conclusions, and learned helplessness
We talked about clear communication in the article “positive reinforcement and its benefits” and how this kind of training teaches your dog what is and isn’t acceptable. One major problem with punishment training methods is that they only teach your dog what NOT to do and not what TO do. It’s easy to see why this can quickly become a problem. As a human, you wouldn’t expect to be told not to do something or that something was wrong without someone also explaining the right way to do it. That’s how we learn. It’s also how animals learn - both companion and wild. An animal in the wild won’t continue to do something that hurts it, but it will also try new ways to get around a potential problem. A young animal who never learns how to access food in the wild will quickly starve; it may take it a few tries to catch a meal, but it eventually learns by trial and error.
By punishing a dog, the trainer is essentially giving the dog no way to fix a problem behaviour. This is sometimes called “learned helplessness” (a term that is also used when talking about children learning), where constant aversive stimuli (punishment) during training teaches the dog that everything it does causes punishment, so it eventually stops trying. In this case, punishment is taking away the trial-and-error part of the learning process.
Punishment isn’t clear to a dog; they often can’t figure out what they’ve done wrong. How is your dog to know that pulling isn’t the correct thing to do on walks when you haven’t given it any indication (other than punishment) about what is correct?
A very common example of this is if a puppy pees in the house. An owner yells or gets upset, and the dog might be put in a crate. This seems logical - after all, this stops him from peeing in the house, right? But it also means that the pup might misunderstand why. Was it not okay to pee in that particular spot? Right there under the kitchen table? Okay, maybe next time he’ll do it somewhere else. You can see why this quickly becomes a confusing thought process for a dog to understand. This is because the punishment (yelling, being confined to a crate) has created the opposite of CLEAR communication. With no way to logically fix the problem, the puppy may just pee in the house again.
The correct way to fix this problem would be to immediately take the puppy outside and show it where it SHOULD pee, positively reinforcing this behaviour when he does so to create a lasting chance that the behaviour will happen again!
Emotion and mistrust lead to fear
Human emotion often comes in to play when using punishment. In most cases, the owner is angry, upset, or frustrated with their dog, and these emotions can further complicate the relationship they have, particularly when the dog isn’t seeing any positive emotions from the owner.
This is also where the idea of, “Showing your dog you’re the leader” falls flat. Intimidation, physical correction, and force aren’t teaching your dog that you are the boss.
What this teaches them is that you are a confusing and often unpredictable person to be around. This leads to mistrust, not respect. It certainly doesn’t lead to the dog learning who the leader is. Why would anyone follow someone who can’t reliably explain why not to do something and instead yells and gets angry?
This mistrust can inevitably lead to fear, which by itself isn’t a great way to prove that you’re a leader or the boss but can also lead to potentially more dangerous outcomes such as fear-based aggression, further adding to the problematic behaviours.
Degradation, detachment, and lack of motivation
Punishment training can also be extremely degrading for your dog. Earlier, we talked about strengthening the bond between you and your dog by building confidence and trust through positive reinforcement. Punishment does the opposite of that, leaving your dog detached from you and unmotivated to continue training.
Imagine you make a mistake, either at work or at home. Maybe this upsets someone and they respond with yelling or aggression. How does that make you feel? Does it encourage you to do better? Are you motivated to correct the problem? You would likely instead feel ashamed, degraded, or unmotivated. You might even react with your own yelling, which just further complicates the problem.
A dog trained through punishment methods likely feels the same way and is then unmotivated to continue training. This ties in once again to a lack of clear communication.
Welfare Implications
Going over the reasons why training using punishment is ineffective, its easy to see why positive reinforcement-based methods work better. Still, even without the reasoning behind its ineffective nature, there are also welfare issues to consider, such as:
• Higher overall stress levels during and after training
• Higher levels of avoidance behaviours during training such as moving away, body turning, crouching, or lying down on the back or side in response to punishment techniques
• Higher cortisol levels both during and after training
• Greater levels of pessimistic behaviour, where a dog expects fewer good things to happen and more bad things. This may make them more timid, cautious, and likely to give up when things bother them.
If your dog has already received negative reinforcement training
Believe it or not, it’s quite common for new owners to subject their dog to punishment training. This is not always because the owner is abusive or purposefully wants to hurt their dog; they just want fast results, and tools like choke collars may bring about desirable results. It doesn’t help that there are trainers out there who will continue to use these methods, not realising, or ignoring that negative reinforcement has long-term implications on a dog. Often owners are left in the dark about these implications.
The good news is, Wiser Whiskers can help a dog that’s learned unhelpful training techniques, it isn’t uncommon for us to experience dogs that not only were left with their initial issue unsolved but also picked up a further problem on top it, please don’t be embarrassed if this is the case! We’re here to help, and all of our training programmes are created to suit not just your dogs specific needs and behavioural issues, but also your specific lifestyle needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions or need help with your dog!