Faster isn’t better…or is it?

In the litany of illogical excuses to ban and condemn punishment one is especially ludicrous and most often deceitful and malicious. That rule is “faster isn’t better”. This is usually stated in the context that people who use punishment use it as a short-cut, because it’s easier. Then it is stated that positive methods are “better” somehow because they take longer.

If you swallow that, be prepared to check your brain at the door. In reality, the “faster isn’t better” excuse is exactly that – an excuse. There is no logical reason why faster isn’t better or that slower is. That is because it’s a single factor in what is most often a multiple criteria behavior problem. Ideologues and “un-thinkers” prefer single factor solutions that allow them to recite sound-bites. Consider that reinforcement and punishment are roughly opposite effects. No single factor makes one preferable over the other unless you give a specific context. EG: If I was examining a photograph, I wouldn’t say that lighter is better than darker without giving a specific example. Likewise, stating that darker is better without a specific context is stupid. There are several points here that prove the illogic of the argument.

  1. Reinforcement and punishment do the same thing: This argument fails to acknowledge that the two opposing effects do two different things. One increases behavior and the other stops it. An analog to ‘slower is better’ is hitting the brakes because it’s a faster way to stop the car. Hitting the gas pedal is the worst way to stop the car. This form of dichotomy is like saying that “two is always better than one”. Now add the context of discussing a tumor. Nope. I’ll stick with just the one, thanks.
  2. One of the polar opposites is always beneficial and that the other is either bad or somehow only used out of laziness: i.e. ‘Slower is better’ is just as stupid as ‘faster is better’.
  3.  Speed is never a factor in creating the best solution: Sometimes speed is of the essence – like emergency medical treatment. Not all behavior problems must be solved instantly but almost all behavior problems include a timeliness factor. Pet owners have limited budgets, limited time and limited patience. If your solution takes too long, the dog goes to the pound. You may despise people who do this but it does not change the fact that if the solution to their problem was immediate they would have kept the dog.  If you are standing on railroad tracks as a train is approaching, slower is decidedly deader. Faster saves your life.
  4. The only purpose of using punishment is to affect an immediate change: Punishment is intended to stop a behavior, now, and leave a lasting inhibition to prevent a return. Positive reinforcement can do neither.
  5. A practitioner is limited to using a single effect:  Why would any rational person expect one polarity to solve all problems? Skilled behavior control uses both positive and negative. Sometimes the sequence makes a big difference in the outcome. Without a specific context, this is impossible to determine in advance. Good trainers and behaviorists don’t make cookie cutter rules that force or prevent the use of any behavioral effect. As death is the most often result of unacceptable behavior, anything “less than death” is up for consideration. Logic, skill, intent and experience dictate what needs to be done.
  6. Context is Meaningless: Never examining the rule in context where anyone could make up their own mind about the validity. If I said to a doctor, never cut off a leg, gangrene would make my rule stupid. If I said that a topical ointment is the only treatment for all illnesses, a compound fracture makes my rule stupid. Forrest Gump said it best – stupid is as stupid does. Myopic rules are almost always stupid.
  7. The Motives of the Punisher are Always Bad: The speaker implies the motives of the person using punishment. This does not allow for any other reason someone might use punishment. It is a dismissive attempt to control the conversation by tossing out an ad hominem attack. i.e. Claiming a person used punishment only because it was faster implies a thoughtless, dismissive brute. One might counter that the person who uses the wrong tool because of an ideological belief is calloused, selfish and uncaring about the fate of the animal or their own.

That is why I maintain that this perspective is simply an evasion. By removing any context the speaker gets to assert superiority without any way to question their claim or examine the results of their assertions. For instance, if a dog is on “death row” and won’t be adopted unless it stops jumping on potential adopters, the time element is real and fatal. Solve it now or the dog dies. This is unfortunately the real-life example of the National Lampoon magazine pitch of 40 years ago. It happens tens of thousands of times in shelters across the country, every day. Stop the behavior now and the dog lives. Take your time and the dog dies. The person who denigrates punishment is ethically responsible for promoting a concept that clearly kills hordes of dogs that otherwise might live. That’s because if the behavior had been stopped in the first place, the dog wouldn’t be on Death Row at a shelter. It would have stayed in its original home. What kind of a twisted individual would support a methodology that is most often lethal and then pretend to be humane or loving?

Additionally, the “shoot the dog” edition of National Lampoon didn’t just make the threat of killing a dog to get subscribers. It also offered a “how to” article for those who are casual about death. The article was called “Last-Aid Kit”. It was about doing things to make people die without contortions so they would have a better looking corpse. This included killing them quicker to reduce struggling. For some reason, people thought that was in bad taste. Here, tasteless art imitates cruel life. Ask an anti-punishment ideologue about “faster isn’t better” and you’re looking in the face of National Lampoons imagined Last-Aid specialist. Their world doesn’t have all the bloody, painful and fearful experiences that go along with emergency medical treatment. They want the animal to have a good looking corpse rather than going through the transitory and harmless effects of life-saving punishment.

If you doubt my statement consider the following ironies. They hate fear but “rehabilitate” fearful dogs. (meaning fear is transitory and can be fixed) If fear itself is so traumatic, why not euthanize dogs that have been affected by fearful events? They hate pain but rescue injured animals. If pain is so terrible, why not euthanize all dogs that are in pain? You see, if the problem with punishment is behavioral trauma due to pain and fear, one should be barred from doing anything that would cause fear and pain because it would harm the animal. Yet the same people who say that  are willing and ready to inflict pain and fear if the problem is physical. (In all states it is illegal to fail to provide proper veterinary care, regardless of fear or pain that may come from that treatment.) Why wouldn’t the fear and pain associated with treating a compound fracture or cancer also ruin the dog?

A dog is far more likely to die from unacceptable behaviors (no matter how innocuous) than all medical reasons combined. If it is moral for emergency vets to inflict massively invasive cutting, hacking and slicing to save a dog, why is the trainer or behaviorist limited in how they stop a lethal behavior? Is an amputated leg somehow less invasive than being hit in the head with a rolled up towel or a momentary shock from a shock collar? Note: If you believe that shock collars are evil, consider this. Containment systems – think Invisible Fence – are in use all over the country. They work by applying an electric shock when the dog approaches the edge of the property. If there is inherent damage in electric shock to inhibit behavior, hundreds of thousands of dogs should be displaying aberrant behavior and there should be a one-to-one ratio of dogs in such containment and behavioral trauma. Livestock kept in “hot wire” fenced areas should also be traumatized. Sorry, that isn’t the case. The dogs simply don’t try to leave the yard and the cows graze and chew their cud.

The “faster isn’t better” believer isn’t interested in these real contexts that contradict their catechism. They can’t logically defend their position so they attempt to silence any opposition through suggestions of dark consequences for disobeying their rules. What they really want is to have the victim die, peacefully – somewhere else. Their world doesn’t have time limits on survival or any other context based in reality. They promote rules that lead only to the reality of death – not some tasteless joke in a magazine.

After 8 years of working in shelters and killing tens of thousands of animals, I don’t find dark humor particularly offensive. It is the reality of dark practices that bother me. Humor, regardless of bad taste is imagined. Dark realities come true. i.e. It’s not a tasteless article about killing something pleasantly that is dark – that is what euthanasia describes. The sickness is in opposing and damning that which would preserve life – like the Last Aid expert who attacks EMT’s because they would save the victim. The bottom line is that faster or slower isn’t a logical argument, either way. It’s about preserving life through whatever means are necessary in a context of time, money and resources. If it takes weeks to stop a dog from bolting out the door, he’s dead. If it takes minutes, he lives. Anyone who opposes the latter opposes, not my use of punishment, but life itself.

If you want a context and my evidence, take a look at these two videos. The first is procedural. The second gives a real context. Note: The first one was shot live. The dogs really did bolt out the door when a neighbor kid showed up. Dogs that bolt die primarily from being hit by cars. The second video is about a tangible threat that if the dogs ever again went out the door, Maricopa Co. Animal Control would kill them. That’s the same Maricopa County that just saved a Pit Bull that mauled a child. These dogs simply bull-dozed a neighbor’s poodle. That’s who made the threat. There’s no ethos involved. It’s all about whether they pick you as a target. Caution: They hit what they aim at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThMeca2IbMw

And in a true life or death context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYDfBBqv1OE

 

 

 

 


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