I have read and heard in numerous places that when training dogs it does no good at all to punish them some time after they do something wrong. That to actually change their behavior you need to catch them in the act, and a punish them then. If you punish them at a later time they may LOOK like they are sorry, and understand they did something wrong, but all you are actually seeing is them showing submission to a pack member higher up in the pecking order. They lack the brain power to connect being shouted out now with crapping on the rug an hour ago.
While that kind of makes sense, I’d be interested to see if anyone has studied dog behavior and experimentally measured this assumption. And if so, what the results were.
A dog guilty look is a subconscious response by the dog to please its master/alpha. It has nothing to do with the dog feeling guilty or the dog having done anything wrong:
Correct. Waiting even a few minutes is too long, let alone an hour.
That study only really show that humans were bad at judging dog’s expressions (and that researchers like confusing boxers ). What I was really after is someone who has shown experimentally dogs are incapable of making that connection.
I have been told that you can make the connection between behavior and punishment by literally “rubbing their noses in it.” You bring them back to the spot where they dug a hole, messed up the carpet, chewed on something, etc. put their face right in it, and then scold them.
I don’t have any scientific evidence on this, but it seems to have worked in getting my brother’s lab to stop digging in the backyard.
That all depends on what one would want to accomplish. If it is to just blow off steam for something that didn’t go to well then it just may. The problem is the poor critter is unsure of why?
It is easy to see an animal that has been treated in a like manner, they are very skiddish. Fortunately there are laws today to redirect the punishment to the proper party.:
Cannot provide the study you are looking for, however I am sure it is out there. There is much interest in “learning”. In fact, googling temporal contiguity learning in dogs gives a pile of interesting work (some of which conflicts with other papers).
Anecdotaly, I can tell you that when my dog was chasing deer, it took only one shock from a shock collar, paired with a shouted “NO” to teach her not to chase deer. The shock and “NO” were given as she began to chase. The next time she saw deer in my yard and tensed, I yelled “NO” and she dropped like a stone.
Right, but the point is that when you think the “dog looks guilty” its not because its remembering a past event, its because you are giving it an accusatory look. Its simply a tool evolution put in dogs to so they make better pets or pack members. We anthropomorphize this into thinking the dog has mental capabilities it doesnt have. So the idea that we can punish animals because of something done earlier from their guilty looks is flawed. I am skeptical that dogs have the mental powers to remember things and categorize them as “good or bad.”
Punishing a dog at all is unnecessary if you train the dog correctly and positively and are present in the dog’s life.
Seriously, as far as I know, you can get any behavior that’s correctable corrected with positive leadership.
So your question is mostly a moot academic point IMHO. I mean, in theory, you can punish a dog and get some results, but since you can get better results without punishment, why would you? I understand that it’s perhaps easier to punish than to learn how to lead, but this is a relationship you’re building, and it seems to me it would behoove you to work harder for a better, more positive relationship.
Well positive reinforcement is good if you want to teach the dog something new, but if you want to correct some of their already-present negative behavior it’s going to require a physical correction. But I’d argue that a properly timed correction isn’t punishment, it’s just discipline (and there’s a big difference).
While I understand what you are saying, and agree 85%;), let me pose a hypothetical. You are walking with your dog off-lead. A squirrel gets the dog’s attention and the dog darts after it, narrowly avoiding being hit by a car.
Is punishing the dog unnecessary? It seems that it would be an ideal situation to correct the behaviour. While future positive work I can see here, why not let the dog know you do not like what it did?
Agreed. I think the main difference here is discipline versus punishment. Dogs don’t understand human punishment, like spanking or time out. What they do understand is discipline given at the right intensity level and the right moment, to let them know that you, the pack leader, did not approve of what they did and that you’re in charge of the situation, not them.
If true, how do you account for the fact that dogs learn where they are supposed to urinate or defecate (house=bad; outside=good)?
If my dog gets sick and poops or pees in the house, she’s remorseful (she’s a Boston Terrier; her normally perky ears lay flat, and she drops her head and hides), and for good reason, since there was a lot of cursing and yelling when she used to do that. When she (normally) poops or pees outside, she has no such reaction, since I’ve previously rewarded that behavior. That suggests to me she has sufficient mental prowess to learn what’s considered good and what’s considered bad.
As to the OP, I don’t subscribe to the “rub their nose in it” form of housebreaking. But I will hold the dog over the stain, make them smell it, sternly command “outside” (our code word for a walk, which she’s learned), and then place her outside. I don’t know if that has any merit, but it seems the most logical thing to do, in my estimation.
She’s not remorseful. She associates the presence of her feces/urine in the house with you asserting your position as alpha dog. The doesn’t connect that you don’t want her to defecate/urinate inside the house.
I guess this diverts from the OP (and GQ), so I apologize for the hijack, but this doesn’t follow to me. I believe that, when I eat before I offer her food from my plate, I’m asserting my position as alpha dog, too. But her reaction is very different; she’s very attentive, and ready to respond to every command (“sit”), but certainly not “stressed”, as she is when she defecates or urinates in the house.
At the very least, I think it’s evident that dogs have memory. And that they know, from memory, that certain behaviors will elicit a hostile response from the Alpha Dog. So they try to avoid those behaviors. Other behaviors (fetching, for example) are rewarded by the Alpha Dog, so they gravitate towards those behaviors. If this isn’t learning what’s “good” and “bad” (in the sense that a toddler might understand it), I don’t know what is.
And how exactly do you propose to get a determined, hard-necked dog to stop pulling your arm out of its socket on the leash? Stopping didn’t work, nothing did, so we got a variety of correcting collars - the one that works like a charm is the Illusion, which has a framework to keep the correcting part high on the dog’s neck instead of down where he doesn’t care about it. It’s hardly traumatic for him, just tells him what not to do.
How do you know this? If you punish them at the time of doing something bad then they have made a Pavlovian response to that thing. When they attempt it again their nervous system will warn them that its a bad thing. Thats not the same thing as remembering that 8 hours ago the dog wasnt supposed to pee in the basement and that when you got home he’s going to feel bad, remember, and accept punishment for that.
I think we attribute to many animals an intelligence and foresight that is not there. Other than other complex social apes like us, they probably dont have all these mental powers.
). What I was really after is someone who has shown experimentally dogs are incapable of making that connection.