There is a list out there on the internet of 10-12 reasons why punishment is problematic. As with most unrealistic ideologues, those who wish to espouse that perspective never use logic to examine what they have said. As an exercise in balancing the scales, I offer this list as complimentary to the other one. I no more believe these things than I do the other list. That is because I don’t look at abuses to determine proper use and I have no bias in favor of either behavioral effect. Neither can be determined good or bad without providing a context for their use and an examination of their outcome. So, here goes. These are things that are problematic about using positive reinforcement. I have added the most important problem with positive reinforcement at the end of this list.
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I work with a lot of aggression and have for about 35 years. I spent 8 years in shelters and saw it daily and handled it when I saw it. That is the proving ground for a lot of the things I know. Here is a concept that is often promoted that needs to be debunked. Animal behaviorists say that if you punish aggression you will simply submerge the warning signs. If they say that, then they did it wrong. They didn’t go back “upstream” and apply the punishment before the animal was aroused. When aroused, the dog’s brain focuses on resistance and aggression to get them through the fight. The best place to see this is a vet clinic. The dog learns the “warning signs” of a painful procedure and ironically goes “upstream” to initiate the violence earlier in the sequence. The logic is this – if there is a sequence and you keep applying what should cause a suppression of the behavior and all you suppress are the “warning signs”, you don’t really understand how to make a specific behavior connected to a specific consequence. Continue reading →

Evidence Based Knowledge
In behavioral science there is a term that defines their gold standard for knowledge – evidence based. They use this term to discount anecdotal information and give the stamp of approval to specific concepts that are believed without question. New information may only be accepted after rigorous examination designed to produce incontrovertible evidence. Ideally this process will yield knowledge that can be trusted implicitly. In reality it creates an orthodoxy that is immune to examination or advancement. That is because the evidence is filtered by existing ideology. Unless you prove things their way, it’s not accepted. Their evidence-based knowledge can and does exclude anything they don’t want to acknowledge. So far, this gold standard of knowledge has produced a consistent outcome. It protects and serves the gate-keepers of behavioral science. It does not advance the human understanding of behavior in the real world. Instead of living up to its promise of creating a body of dependable knowledge it bars the entree of valuable information.
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Of all the disconnects between dog owners and their dogs, the biggest, most glaring, completely illogical, widely held and damaging myth is that dogs can be spiteful. Nope. Nada. Nicht. Ain’t happening.  To understand my adamant belief that doggie spite doesn’t happen, conduct this simple experiment based on actual events.  Continue reading →

Our dogs’ bodies are designed to elevate particular physiological functions when they need an immediate boost. These include rapidly escalating blood pressure, heart-rate and respiration. Blood is pumped to the extremities to oxygenate muscles that might be needed to fight or flee. The brain shuts down pain receptors that might cause it to slack its fight or flight because of being damaged from hunting or defending itself. In nature this process works most of the time. In captivity it can lead to problems. Sometimes the animal gets the signals wrong and jacks itself up for no reason. Continue reading →