Positive dog training and punitive dog training differ in their philosophies, techniques, and results.
Positive, reward-based dog training and punitive, punishment-based dog training differ in numerous ways that go beyond whether you should train with treats or if it’s okay to scold your dog. Their methods emphasize different philosophies and vary in terms of how behavior is changed, how to treat aggression, and more.
Positive vs punitive: changing a dog’s behavior
- Positive training uses rewards, motivations, and guidance to train and change a dog’s behavior. This might include the use of food, treats, toys, plays, attention, and opportunities to sniff and explore. Punitive training uses intimidation, fear, physical actions, and pain to change behavior. This might include leash jerks, collar corrections, spraying with water or citronella, hitting, poking, kicking, using prong collars, hanging by the collar, or using electric shock.
- Positive training teaches dogs what to do, while setting up their environment so they aren’t able to practice the unwanted behavior. Positive training sets the dog up to succeed, because they are guided and taught to do what the person wants. Punishment-based trainers tend to wait for the dog to do the unwanted behavior, and then punish him. This sets them up to fail from the outset; although it might teach the dog what not to do, it doesn’t tell the dog what the person or trainer wants instead.
- Positive reinforcement training involves finding the underlying cause of a behavior problem, such as anxiety or fear, and changing how a dog feels to help alter the dog’s behavior permanently and not just in that moment. Punitive training methods don’t usually emphasize this. Punishment almost always actually makes the dog’s insecurity even worse while decreasing the dog’s ability to learn.
Positive vs punitive: effectiveness and fallout
Studies have shown that positive, rewards-based training is more effective and reduces the likelihood of aggressive behaviors as compared to punitive training methods. Dogs taught with positive methods show fewer stress signals, show a better bond with their owner, and tend to respond more quickly to cues or commands. Positive reinforcement and force-free training also looks to find and treat the underlying cause, motivations and environmental influences of a dog’s behavior. This might mean reducing a dog’s anxiety, providing more routines, teaching new behaviors, and changing a dog’s emotional reaction to a situation.
A study published in the Journal of Applied Animal Behavior concluded that confrontational methods such as hitting dogs, intimidating them with punitive force, and using restraint techniques like the "alpha roll" do very little to correct dogs' behavior and in fact increase the likelihood that they will be fearful and aggressive. Behavior is closely linked to and influenced by emotions, so punishing a dog for unwanted behavior - while ignoring why the behavior is happening or its emotional effect on the dog--only serves to make things worse.
Many dogs that that have been subjected to punitive training and harsh techniques suffer compromised learning and behavioral issues as a result.
Positive vs punitive: treating aggression
Positive trainers understand that a dog showing aggressive behavior is usually stressed or has learned that snarling, growing, lunging or biting serves to meet the dog’s needs in some way. Positive reinforcement training aims to address and lower the dog’s stress, which is key to then training more positive, appropriate and safer behaviors. Instead of fighting aggression with aggression, a qualified positive trainer is able to truly change the way a dog feels about a situation, for the rest of his life, not just the way the dog is acting at that moment.
Punitive trainers don’t always focus on underlying causes and instead emphasize stopping a behavior. These methods might often appear to 'work' because they do indeed stop the dog’s behavior at that moment, but this success is usually short-lived.
Positive vs punitive: views on "dominance"
Positive reinforcement training understands that dogs are not looking to become alpha, top dog, or pack leader over us; most dogs simply want safety, security, and those things which generally make them feel good. Although social hierarchies do exist among dogs, studies have shown that such dynamics are not fixed; rather, they are constantly changing. Positive training involves consistent, reward-driven learning which helps guide dogs into making the right choices so they can live successfully with people.
Punitive training often involves some type of "dominance theory" that mistakenly espouses that social hierarchies among multi dog households and human/dog families are rigid, with an 'alpha' dog or person at the top of the hierarchy and other members of the human or canine family fitting underneath. This confusion of dominance and aggression comes from an incorrect, outdated theory of social behavior in dogs. Unfortunately, some professional trainers still adhere to the idea that dominance explains dog behavior, even though it has been shown to be incorrect.
Positive vs punitive: human-dog relationship
Positive reinforcement training helps and improves the human-dog relationship. This is done by understanding a dog’s motivations, using rewards to motivate a dog, creating a good association with people through those rewards, and never causing pain or fear.
Punishment-based training damages the human-animal bond and leads to mistrust, pain, fear, agitation, and increasing anger as the dog develops a strong negative association with the punisher.
In human terms, if someone scared or hurt you to get you to stop doing something, you will likely stop doing that action in order to stop the punishment towards you. But you are not very likely to respect, like, or trust that person; in fact, you might become tense and defensive every time you see them. The same thing happens with dogs.
The tragedy of dominance-based, punitive dog training
Punishment-based trainers often have a one-size-fits all explanation for problem behaviors, such as pulling on the leash, jumping up, destruction, barking, attention seeking, resource guarding, failure to respond to a command, and aggression of any type. They reference an outdated theory of "dominance" and insist the solution is to:
- Yank a dog harshly if he pulls
- Stop a dog from pulling by using a choke, prong, or electronic shock collar that will cause him pain if he tries
- Knee a jumping dog in the chest
- Keep a dog behind them when they go through a door
- Rub a dog’s nose in his excrement or urine to punish him for eliminating in the home
- Put a spray or shock collar on a dog to curb barking
- Ignore the dog completely whenever he demands affection
- Punish a dog by jabbing him with their fingers (supposedly recreating the "nipping" of a wolf mother to her offspring)
- Kick or "nudge"' a dog in the ribs to get his attention or to punish him for lunging
- Restrain or "alpha roll" him onto his back or side if he aggresses
- Keep a dog below them at all times, denying access to any high place such as a sofa or bed
All of the above techniques are prime examples of the least effective, most dangerous methods you could possibly employ when working with dogs – especially those exhibiting aggression or anxious behavior. These tools and techniques do little to solve the problem in the long term and can make a dog’s behavior much worse.
The tragedy of punishment-based training techniques is that people are being taught these methods without realizing they are making their dogs more unpredictable and dangerous. Punishment may bring temporary relief to a frustrated dog owner, but it damages the human-animal bond and creates mistrust, pain, fear, agitation, and increasing anger as the dog develops a strong negative association. Far from treating the underlying motivation of the behavior, punishment almost always actually makes the dog’s insecurity even worse while decreasing the dog’s ability to learn.
Think about the way you learn. When you are emotional, it is difficult to think rationally and clearly, because your "thinking" brain shuts down. Once you have calmed down, your body allows you to activate the "thinking" part of your brain again so that you can listen and learn, which in turn deactivates your emotional brain. The same principles are in play with our dogs. If a dog is trained using fear, intimidation or pain, that dog’s ability to learn is compromised.
If we respond to an aggressive dog with more aggression, not only do we compromise that dog’s ability to learn, but the long-term results from punitive treatment can range from disappointing to disastrous.
- Most aggression cases (including ) are not dominance-based issues, but rather stem from insecurity and fear. Therefore, positive training is truly the most effective, safest and most powerful way to change the way a dog feels rather than causing it to shut down due to fear and intimidation.
- Punitive methods might appear successful in the moment, but at what cost to your dog? At what cost to your relationship? And how long will those results last? Anyone can force a dog to do something, but there is nothing heroic, commendable, or reliable about physically or emotionally dominating and punishing an animal into compliance. Research shows that when dogs are treated with aversive, punitive methods, they often become more aggressive.
The beauty of positive training is that you can build a strong bond with your dog, achieve more lasting results, and teach harmonious compliance at the same time: the perfect recipe for a successful and fulfilling relationship.
