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I wanted to share an opinion piece by one of the local training centers near me. On the topic of using punishment during training where appropriate. I think its an important reminder that punishment has an important place in training when needed. We really need to do better about convincing ourselves and others that it does, and that a moment of discomfort far outweighs a forever decision such as death!!
Source: Indiana K9 Learning Center, LLC
"I want this page to be fun, educational, helpful and the topics worth sharing. Today I want to talk about something controversial in the dog world. Anyone being nasty or disrespectful will have their comment deleted and they will be banned. Keep it respectful, even if you disagree, and please ask questions if you have any.
I wanna talk about punishing dogs.
We're in a place in America where we can't discipline our dogs without fear of judgement. Purely positive training sounds nice, but it's not real. There is NO SUCH THING as purely positive training. There's definitely NO SUCH THING as stress free training.
Here's an example. If you're teaching your dog to sit using food reward, and you withhold it until you get the desired behavior, you are causing that dog stress. He wants the food but he can't have it until he performs an act...how is that NOT stressful?
Death before discomfort. It's an actual phrase in the dog world. Owners, shelters, rescues and some trainers will recommend euthanasia on a perfectly healthy, trainable dog. Why? Because the "positive only" approach with that particular dog doesn't work. The dog needs punished for certain behaviors so they will stop doing them and the trainer can start teaching them better choices. For example, when we get dogs in that won't stop jumping on people, how do we reward a sit? They never sit so we punish the jumping (takes less than a minute to stop the jumping) and then we reward approaching a human without jumping. It's SO EASY.
The photo I posted is my facility manager's dog Blaze. The director at SBARC called us to see if we could help him. Dog aggressive, biting humans, a real jerk of a dog. Within two weeks he was no longer doing any of the behavior that had put him on the euthanasia list. He's a beloved family member that's great with other dogs and all humans. Discomfort before death saved Blaze's life.
So what's a proper punishment? It's whatever works for the dog. We don't decide. The dog does.
Jeff Gellman holds his RV seminars all around the world, including here. At every seminar there are people who's dogs are pretty much holding them hostage in their own home. The dog dictates where the humans sit. Friends and family no longer come over. They can't take their dog for a walk. If a person living in their home was putting these kinds of restrictions on their life it would have been over in a day, but when it's a dog it's allowed to happen. Why? Because we've been told that punishing a dog is abusive.
At one of Jeff's seminars last year he had an attendee who was disabled. Her large dog had started lunging at other dogs and pulling her wheelchair over, pulling her out of it. She'd been injured as well. She'd been to five other trainers and they weren't able to fix the problem. Jeff explained that the dog needed to be punished before the dog reached the point of lunging, which is the "loading" phase (that's when a dog first sees something or someone, it's mouth closes, eyes dead on target, and it's intensity is rising quickly). By punishing mindset of the dog during the loading phase you can change the behavior BEFORE the dog is lunging and hurting the owner. He then explained what "bonking" is. It's taking something that physically won't hurt the dog (a rolled up towel, a roll of paper towel, a small pillow, etc.) and saying NO firmly and smacking the dog with it. It startles the dog but it doesn't hurt it. Some dogs vocalize, some don't, but it's a rare dog that bonking doesn't have an effect on. Anyway, Jeff explains about loading, bonking, gets permission from the owner, and they proceed to play it out. As soon as the dog loads on another dog Jeff says NO and bonks the dog. They replay the scenario a few times and soon the dog is walking his disabled elderly owner in close proximity of other dogs without loading at all, much less lunging and injuring her. The owner was happy, the attendees learned something, everyone was fine.
He posted the entire video online, including describing the process, and someone cut it down to just him bonking the dog...and the dog world went nuts. Death threats, threatening to shoot his family, rape his young daughters, you name it he's had it directed at him. None of these people care a whit about the disabled owner being hurt by her own dog's actions. And what about the five trainers that took her money and couldn't fix the problem? Where's their culpability in this situation? Why did the person cut it down? Why not just share the entire video?
How many of you have punished your dog? ***raising hand*** I have, and I'm not afraid to do it. If it got to a place in America that I couldn't punish my dogs' bad behavior I wouldn't own any dogs. I refuse to have a dog control my home, my plans, my life. The last time I bonked #timmydammit was when he saw someone pull in and he postured at the door towards their dog walking by. I said NO and hurled my cell phone at him. It bounced off his butt, he scurried away, and when the dog came by again he looked at it, then looked at me and stayed laying down. Was that abusive? Many will say yes. Many will say I should have given him treats when the dog went by so he would associate good things when he saw that dog. Bullshit. He needs to associate posturing like an arrogant little asshole with something negative.
Maybe the worst thing about the hot topic of punishing dogs is that no one is thinking about the humans in the scenario. The owners, the public at risk, the kids in the home. Humans have started caring more about the dogs than they do other humans. To me that's more abusive than bonking a dog with a towel. "
Source: Indiana K9 Learning Center, LLC
"I want this page to be fun, educational, helpful and the topics worth sharing. Today I want to talk about something controversial in the dog world. Anyone being nasty or disrespectful will have their comment deleted and they will be banned. Keep it respectful, even if you disagree, and please ask questions if you have any.
I wanna talk about punishing dogs.
We're in a place in America where we can't discipline our dogs without fear of judgement. Purely positive training sounds nice, but it's not real. There is NO SUCH THING as purely positive training. There's definitely NO SUCH THING as stress free training.
Here's an example. If you're teaching your dog to sit using food reward, and you withhold it until you get the desired behavior, you are causing that dog stress. He wants the food but he can't have it until he performs an act...how is that NOT stressful?
Death before discomfort. It's an actual phrase in the dog world. Owners, shelters, rescues and some trainers will recommend euthanasia on a perfectly healthy, trainable dog. Why? Because the "positive only" approach with that particular dog doesn't work. The dog needs punished for certain behaviors so they will stop doing them and the trainer can start teaching them better choices. For example, when we get dogs in that won't stop jumping on people, how do we reward a sit? They never sit so we punish the jumping (takes less than a minute to stop the jumping) and then we reward approaching a human without jumping. It's SO EASY.
The photo I posted is my facility manager's dog Blaze. The director at SBARC called us to see if we could help him. Dog aggressive, biting humans, a real jerk of a dog. Within two weeks he was no longer doing any of the behavior that had put him on the euthanasia list. He's a beloved family member that's great with other dogs and all humans. Discomfort before death saved Blaze's life.
So what's a proper punishment? It's whatever works for the dog. We don't decide. The dog does.
Jeff Gellman holds his RV seminars all around the world, including here. At every seminar there are people who's dogs are pretty much holding them hostage in their own home. The dog dictates where the humans sit. Friends and family no longer come over. They can't take their dog for a walk. If a person living in their home was putting these kinds of restrictions on their life it would have been over in a day, but when it's a dog it's allowed to happen. Why? Because we've been told that punishing a dog is abusive.
At one of Jeff's seminars last year he had an attendee who was disabled. Her large dog had started lunging at other dogs and pulling her wheelchair over, pulling her out of it. She'd been injured as well. She'd been to five other trainers and they weren't able to fix the problem. Jeff explained that the dog needed to be punished before the dog reached the point of lunging, which is the "loading" phase (that's when a dog first sees something or someone, it's mouth closes, eyes dead on target, and it's intensity is rising quickly). By punishing mindset of the dog during the loading phase you can change the behavior BEFORE the dog is lunging and hurting the owner. He then explained what "bonking" is. It's taking something that physically won't hurt the dog (a rolled up towel, a roll of paper towel, a small pillow, etc.) and saying NO firmly and smacking the dog with it. It startles the dog but it doesn't hurt it. Some dogs vocalize, some don't, but it's a rare dog that bonking doesn't have an effect on. Anyway, Jeff explains about loading, bonking, gets permission from the owner, and they proceed to play it out. As soon as the dog loads on another dog Jeff says NO and bonks the dog. They replay the scenario a few times and soon the dog is walking his disabled elderly owner in close proximity of other dogs without loading at all, much less lunging and injuring her. The owner was happy, the attendees learned something, everyone was fine.
He posted the entire video online, including describing the process, and someone cut it down to just him bonking the dog...and the dog world went nuts. Death threats, threatening to shoot his family, rape his young daughters, you name it he's had it directed at him. None of these people care a whit about the disabled owner being hurt by her own dog's actions. And what about the five trainers that took her money and couldn't fix the problem? Where's their culpability in this situation? Why did the person cut it down? Why not just share the entire video?
How many of you have punished your dog? ***raising hand*** I have, and I'm not afraid to do it. If it got to a place in America that I couldn't punish my dogs' bad behavior I wouldn't own any dogs. I refuse to have a dog control my home, my plans, my life. The last time I bonked #timmydammit was when he saw someone pull in and he postured at the door towards their dog walking by. I said NO and hurled my cell phone at him. It bounced off his butt, he scurried away, and when the dog came by again he looked at it, then looked at me and stayed laying down. Was that abusive? Many will say yes. Many will say I should have given him treats when the dog went by so he would associate good things when he saw that dog. Bullshit. He needs to associate posturing like an arrogant little asshole with something negative.
Maybe the worst thing about the hot topic of punishing dogs is that no one is thinking about the humans in the scenario. The owners, the public at risk, the kids in the home. Humans have started caring more about the dogs than they do other humans. To me that's more abusive than bonking a dog with a towel. "
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I stared right back like, Go ahead, make my day! 
Did you want him to run me over?" 
