“Punish or Perish”

This year, millions of dogs will die because of a lack of positive punishment. Their common failing is behavioral, not medical. This behavioral malady is composed of several innocuous and lethal behaviors: jumping on people, darting out the front door, destroying property and biting. Each of these behaviors can be stopped through operant means – but not if your only tool is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement cannot create inhibitions that will prevent an animal from offering normally occurring behaviors. Only positive punishment is capable of stopping a behavior, cold. If you wish to slow down or stop the slaughter, you must be able to skillfully punish a behavior. That presents a bigger problem. Virtually every academic institution and many professional psychological associations tacitly endorse and enforce a bias against the study or practice of positive punishment. Because of this bias, there is not a single text, course, instructor, practical examination, internship or certification that would qualify an academically trained behaviorist to use punishment safely, effectively and humanely. So, while millions of carcasses are hauled to land-fills, major institutions decry the behavioral effect that would save their lives — positive punishment. This presentation will include a robust discussion of positive punishment. This will include a summary of the rules governing the practical and effective use of positive punishment and live demonstrations of these rules on real animals.

(Note: My demo-dogs at the workshop were two Doberman males – a father/son pair. Three days prior they had ripped each other seriously in a deadly serious fight. They were festooned with stitches on their heads, necks, ears and shoulder. I had them lying side-by-side within less than five minutes. As I described details of how I solve these types of problems, they went to sleep next to each other.)