# Progressive Reinforcement Training for dogs?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-reinforcement-training-for-dogs/636053>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 27, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-reinforcement-training-for-dogs/636053 "2012-09-27T19:45:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-reinforcement-training-for-dogs/636053/21 "2012-09-29T00:17:56Z")

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> [@Sailboat](#):
>
> Errr…yeah. Although I think of it more as a “warning” than a punishment.

> [@araminty](#):
>
> I feel like you’re anxious about the term “punishment” - it has negative connotations, for sure, probably because of its use outside of animal training contexts… but since we’re all behavior experts here 🙂 we should be able to use the correct terminology.

Yes, if we’re using behaviorism terms here, “punishment” means anything that causes the future occurrence of the behavior to decrease. So if yelling “No!” at your dog decreases his future attempts to lunge at the cat, you are implementing positive punishment with your dog.

(And for further elaboration about which probably no one cares: “positive” in the term “positive punishment” means that a stimulus was added. In the case, the added stimulus was the yelling “No!” Negative punishment, on the other hand, is punishment by removal of a stimulus.)

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