Many dog owners misunderstand how their pups think and operate, which can result in them reinforcing unwanted behaviors without even realizing it!
Example: When your dog growls at another dog on a walk, negative punishment (by taking away their favorite toy) might help get them to stop. Proper usage of all four quadrants will enable a successful training program and foster better relationships between you and your pup.
Positive Reinforcement
If you want your dog to learn new behaviors or alter old ones, a positive reinforcement approach may be just what’s needed. With this training method, rewards such as treats or verbal praise should they perform correctly.
Haylee Bergeland, CPDT-KA and pet behavior expert for Daily Paws has found this method effective when training service and police dogs, according to Haylee’s experience using it successfully with her own pups and those training service/police dogs as well. However, in order for it to work effectively these dogs must be highly motivated and practiced at this technique in order to master it successfully.
Some trainers also employ more assertive training methods, like kneeing the dog in the waist or shocking them with a collar shock, though these methods may be too intense for some pups. Sylvia-Stasiewicz notes that these approaches may work for certain dogs if trained to tolerate them; unfortunately most cannot and end up becoming distrusting and fearful dogs instead.
Negative Reinforcement
Some trainers utilize negative reinforcement techniques to train a dog something, which they do by withholding rewards that would otherwise motivate the unwanted behavior – for instance if a dog pulls on its leash, they remove its rewarding stimulus by stopping its walk – to make the action less likely in future because without that incentive walking won’t provide reward for pulling. This also deters future pulling actions by diminishing any enjoyable moments with walking! This technique makes future pulls less likely due to not getting to enjoy all its rewards as much.
Force-free trainers typically employ this form of training. Their philosophy holds that dogs shouldn’t be punished with pain or discomfort as this creates fearful relationships between dog and owner that may lead to aggression or bites from their pet.
Unfortunately, however, this method still relies heavily on aversives like ear pinches and shock collars, which can be extremely harmful to dogs. Furthermore, this training method does not build trust between owner and dog and it is often impractical when trying to teach obstacles or develop service dogs.
Positive Punishment
Positive punishment involves adding something unpleasant into a situation to stop certain behaviors from repeating themselves; this is the opposite of positive reinforcement which increases desired behaviors such as barking. Examples of this would include scolding your dog for barking or using an e-collar to correct leash pulling on leash; as dogs will only repeat behaviors which are rewarded, any unpleasant experience we provide them with reduces frequency of such behaviors like pulling.
However, this can also result in the inhibition of early warning signals such as growls and snarls (rewarding fear can shut down natural threat displays in dogs), and can make training consistently and humanely very challenging; that is why we do not permit tools or training techniques which use force, pain or discomfort as part of their instruction methods.
Negative Punishment
An aversive is any technique or tool which causes emotional or physical discomfort in dogs, such as shock collars, prong collars or the alpha roll. Such techniques are neither humane nor ethical – and could actually damage your relationship with your pup!
Remember that operant conditioning hinges on whether behavior increases or decreases in frequency; positive reinforcement adds something new while negative punishment takes away something already present, thus decreasing its frequency.
Example: When your dog jumps on you, simply ignoring them will make them less likely to do it again in future. This works similarly when taking away treats as rewards; it makes your pup less likely to leap up again!https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hl2aB1TrE1E