The Truth About Punishment: Why It’s Not a Dirty Word

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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Oh, I can really hear myself.

Testing, 1, 2, 3. Is that too loud?

Um, yeah, I might turn that a little bit.

Cool.

That's better. Yeah, that's better.

You're stunning.

Cool.

It's the Dog People Podcast with your host, Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. And of course, joined as always by And we are joined by the expert, Max from Down Under Dog Training. Mate, today we're going to talk about something. It's a word I think that people find a little bit hard to deal with when it comes to talking about dogs.

Bit taboo these days, isn't it?

It is. The word punishment.

It has become a bit of a taboo and a bit of a dirty word, especially in dog training lately. And it can seem a little bit scary, but when you really break it down, it's— and when you really do it properly, it's really not and really shouldn't be. So I thought we'd go into that today.

There's a lot of people that will hear, you know, especially if you follow a lot of dog training online and that sort of stuff. You know, it is an industry where there is a lot of back and forth from both sides of the fence. There is the positive-only camp.

Yeah.

And we might do a podcast on that at some point and sort of navigate through that because that's a bit of a murky topic in itself.

All right.

But let's stick to what we're going to talk about today, which is the punishment side of things. And again, that word, even saying it, every time I say it, I want to say, but it doesn't mean smacking your dog.

Yeah.

I think when people think punishment, they instantly think of things like a lashing or imprisonment.

Yeah.

It's just, it's just firing squad. I wish there was a better word, but there's not. So let's just go with it.

Cool.

So let's just go with it. So at least in psychology and behavioural science, the definition of punishment is anything that reduces the likelihood of a behaviour from being repeated. Simple as that. Anything that weakens a behaviour, basically. So a punishment doesn't have to be this big act of violence that everyone thinks it can be. It can just be— it is anything that you're, in this instance, your dog views as punishing that will make it go, hang on, if this behaviour leads to that outcome, well then I really don't want to do that behaviour again. It's as simple as that.

It's as simple as a little like pop on the leash.

Well, it could be. And that's, that's the topic. Well, that's why we'll get into it a bit today is what each dog finds punishing and what each dog finds reinforcing is so, so different. For example, people go, I'd never hit my dog. I go, well, I hit my dog 50 times a day, but he loves it when we're playing and doing tug.

People's faces are mortified. I was about to stop you. Go, Max, Max, we don't want to get cancelled too soon, but you finished. It's okay. Right. I get it.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

There wasn't a— there was a full stop a bit later than you thought, but Yeah. Like what every dog finds punishing and reinforcement is entirely different. And that can sometimes make training a bit confusing. You know, a lot of people will say, oh, you know, if you spray your dog with a water bottle, it'll stop barking. Well, I can tell you, if you spray a golden retriever with a water bottle, it'll increase the barking. They find that hugely reinforcing. If you smack a lot of dogs, you might train out the behaviour, but create some other ones. But if you smack my dog or smack a lot of physical breeds, they'll think it's hilarious and fun. And they Love it.

So yeah, Kira loves to rough and tumble. So if I— I mean, when we're playing with the tug and stuff like that, I'm pushing her and like hitting on the side, and I mean, she loves it. She loves a bit of rough play.

Yeah, exactly. And that's it, is, you know, today we'll really talk about the principle, and maybe at some stage we'll chat about different methods. But once we really chat about the principle, hopefully you guys can take this away and understand it so you can learn how to apply this to your dog in a fair and effective way. So if we go back to the start, punishment is anything that will Reduce the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated or reduce the intensity of behaviour, anything like that that weakens a behaviour. And when we look at punishment, first thing we need to do is understand that there's actually 2 types of punishment. And when we're off air in the green room, which is the lounge room, Jack was asking, I read something about positive punishment. I was watching this video last night before I went to bed.

And it made no sense. Like, I didn't get to the end of the video. So like, it's not like the person didn't explain it. I just didn't get to the end of it. I thought, I'll just wait till you're here. But yeah, he's talking about positive punishment and in my head, and even he said, It doesn't sound right.

Yeah. So, the 3rd video in this series will talk about operant conditioning and the operant conditioning quadrant. But to get into that, we'll get into that a bit later. But with punishment, there's 2 types. There's your positive punishment and your negative punishment. So, positive doesn't refer to like positivity and positive vibes, and negative doesn't refer to like, oh, dude, that's so negative. It is purely mathematical in this sense. So, like you either add something in or you take something away.

Now I'm with you.

So, an example of negative punishment is Hey, you didn't do that right. I'm taking your ball. Hey, you didn't— haven't sit yet. I'm withholding your food. Hey, I'm going to take your freedom away and pop you in your crate. Things like that. Negative punishment is taking something away from your dog, and that could be freedom, that could be a resource, that could be anything.

Right. Okay. And then positive punishment is obviously the opposite, and it's adding some sort of— so like a leash pressure, maybe.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, spot on. Adding something in. That your dog finds punishing. That could be physical pressure, like a leash or grabbing the collar, pop on the leash. That could be social pressure, spatial pressure, stepping into the space. It could be, again, just adding anything into the situation or into the mix that your dog finds punishing. And again, we're not going to sit here today and go like, what's right or wrong, get into that whole topic of should you do this, should you do that. We're just explaining what it is.

Yeah, exactly. This is not us saying this is the right thing for every single dog to deal with. It's literally just explaining to you what this means.

Exactly. Yeah. We're not going to say whether you should or you shouldn't. We're simply saying like it exists. Anyone that denies its existence is silly. When people say that punishment doesn't work, I mean, by exact definition, it does work. It does reduce behaviour. But if you look at the bigger picture and zoom out, is if you use this effectively— and I use punishment on my dog, it's very effective. And anyone that meets Nelson and myself and sees us together will go, oh, you guys got a fantastic relationship. But then there's people out there who use punishment in a really shitty and toxic way that do Really damage, you know, dog training's reputation. They damage the relationship between their dog. And you can see that when you see those people and see their dogs together, you go, damn, that dog really doesn't want to be anywhere near you.

Yeah. And if they sort of— they almost flinch.

Yeah.

Like, they just seem a little bit timid.

Yeah, exactly. So, if you use, you know, punishment in the wrong way, you can do that. Absolutely. But, you know, that's what we're—

I guess that's what we need to do. It's the same with everything, though. I mean, you can always— a lead in the wrong hands can be dangerous to a dog or, you know, a gun in the wrong hands can be dangerous. You know, it's like it depends on the Everyone can take something to an extreme. Yeah. You know, and that's the problem. There are those trainers in the world that take those things to the extreme and give everyone else a bad name and give the process a bad name. We're like, well, no, hold on a second.

Yeah.

They're just taking it to an extreme.

Exactly. And most dogs need far, far, far less than most people think. Again, people think, you know, I'll go to these houses, they've got these big German Shepherds or a big old American Staffie or something, and they're always surprised by how effective the training is with such little pressure. They go, oh, I thought you're going to do this big thing and this big that. And no, like, I'm not loud. It's not this, it's not that. It's sometimes I'll have to say, did you catch what I did there? People like, oh, was that it? I'm like, yeah, that's all we need to do. Like, quite often, you know, again, punishment is just what the dog finds punishing. And once you understand the principle, you can find a method that works for your dog. Again, if you jump online and read, you can train out barking by spraying your dog with water. Again, that'll work for 50% of dogs. 50% of dogs will find it reinforcing. Or they'll say, if you shout at your dog angrily again, some dogs will go into their shell, some dogs will get activated. All so, so, so different. But if you guys understand that there's 2 types of punishment and how to use it and go, well, my dog has done something I don't like, I can either take something off them as a way of reducing the behaviour, or I can add something to the situation that's going to reduce the behaviour. But this is where you have to really know your dog and watch your dog and observe and see, was that perceived as punishing by the dog? Or did they actually quite enjoy that, or they didn't care about that? That's what we really have to be aware of.

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It's funny, I often find that the higher the drive of the dog, I often find that the stronger negative punishment is. Okay. So like we, you know, doing the, the bite sport stuff I'm doing at the moment with Nelson, I'm exposed to some pretty intense and some pretty serious dogs. And these dogs just have no perception of pain most of the time. If you would say, hey, I would, you know, yank your collar at 10 out of 10 pressure or take away your ball for 10 seconds, every single one of them would say, do the collar pressure. I'll take that any day of the week. Taking that ball away for me is the worst 10 seconds of my life. And then On the flip side, the lower the drive of the dog, you go, hey, I'll take away your ball. They go, I don't care, I don't care about it enough.

That's true. I mean, you see me with Kira when we're trying to, you know, I'm trying with, with putting it, making sure she stays in her place and that sort of stuff. Lead pressure to her really is not that big of a deal. She's like, meh. But when we're actually out training, and I obviously train, she, she loves the ball and we, the ball on the rope and, you know, we do the gundog stuff and that bits and pieces. If I'm trying to teach her something And she doesn't do it right, and I go, ah, and I don't give her the ball. The next time, guaranteed, she'll— if she doesn't get it right, she'll get closer to it. Oh yeah, it's quite amazing to watch, especially like I was practicing after you, um, put up a video of you and Nelson doing the heel work into the downs and kept walking. So her and I've been practicing that. The first time she sort of did a half-ass down, like slightly off the ground, down. Yeah, she goes down. Okay, didn't get the ball. And we go right straight back to heel, start walking down. Boom. She was down all the way to the ground, got the ball, and she's like, boom.

Negative punishment.

It is. And that's, that's what negative punishment for her is. She doesn't get her reward of the ball. So when everyone hears about punishment, they're like, oh, that's terrible. But all Kira didn't get was what she wanted, which was to chase that ball.

Yeah.

That was her negative punishment.

Yep.

And everybody said every dog is different.

As a balanced trainer, we're prepared to use, you know, all sorts of different methods and philosophies and principles in our training. And I guess a really simplistic way of looking at it is you've got to dangle a carrot and hold a stick, so to speak. And that's not literally like I'm not filling my pouch up with carrots. I'm not chasing around dogs around beating them with a stick, but I'm saying you've got to have a reason for the dog to do and a reason for the dog to not not do, so to speak. So what I always say to people, you know, we always, with all my pet clients, we'll try and build motivation. Hey, we want to give, going back to our dog currency episode, We need to develop a currency with your dog because the more motivated they are to pursue something and the more motivated they are in general, the more we can just use negative punishment. Hey, you'll either get this or you won't get this. And if that's— if taking away the carrot is hugely punishing to our dog, awesome. We don't have to be that tough on them. We can just go, cool, nope, you missed out on that time. I say to people, like, if you're not prepared to put in the work, like, you know, the less appealing the carrot, the bigger the stick needs to be. And I hate being an asshole to dogs. And I, in fact, I won't be. I'll just say to people, hey, like, this is the way I train. Like, I'll use punishment, but only to a degree. Like, I'm not going to be, you know, a dickhead to your dog. So it's best you either build your dog up.

Well, that's the thing. Build, build the drive. Build the drive.

Yeah, build the drive.

Exactly. That's funny. I was out the other day and this guy had his— I think it was a border collie of some form, but it was just like he saw me with Kieran. He's like, oh, can you teach my dog? I said, it's easy, mate. He said, what do you mean? I said, your dog. He said, he said, what? He said, your dog is obsessed with that ball.

Yeah.

I said, that's how you get the dog to do what you want. He's like, oh, she doesn't listen to me. I'm like, she's looking at you right now waiting for that ball. Yeah. I said, all you've got to do is teach her that when she listens to you, she gets the ball.

Yep.

At the moment, you're just giving her the ball whenever she's looking at you.

Yep.

So there's no, there's nothing there. So you've got the drive. You just need to now harness that into her listening. So that's it. Like building that drive. For some people it's easy. Like I see so many people in the dog park where their dogs are obsessed with the balls. Like you've got that drive.

That's right.

You've got that thing there. That's where you, you know, they don't get the ball, that's their punishment.

So makes everything easier.

Yeah.

And it's always really interesting. I'll, I'll quite often have— I'll have a lot of clients come to me who go, hey, look, I've been seeing one of these force-free trainers or positive-only trainers, and some stuff was great. My dog knows how to do a bunch of stuff, but the problem is they just won't do it, and I can't stop them from doing a whole bunch of other stuff that I really don't like. And we've gone down this, and I didn't believe in punishment, but now I'm open to it because this is kind of my last resort. And again, quite often these people have got punishment built up in their head.

That's again, it's the word, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's this negative connotation around that.

Yeah.

They go, I've heard these horror stories that probably none of them are true from these, you know, force-free trainers and whatnot. And quite often again, when they get to the session and we sit down there and we break it down, and again, we always go through the principles and we do like a lot of— we always do a lot of theory before we even get our hands on the dog so my client can understand what we're doing. We can break down, and so we're not troubleshooting on the dog. We'll Chat face to face and figure out, okay, what is this dog's likes and dislikes and how can we start to use this? And then again, quite often we actually do the punishment but go, oh, is that it? Is that all I needed to do this whole time? I just built up in my head as this huge thing and then all you did was, you know, move the dog away from the window. All you did was pop them outside. All you did was turn your eyes away from them or take the ball away from them. Or there's never this big thing. Again, when you know how to use it correctly and you know what you're looking for, it really doesn't have to be a big deal. So.

Yeah.

Again, going back to the start, by definition, punishment does work. It's just knowing how to apply it, looking for what your dog finds more aversive, positive and negative punishment, and then finding a method or a way of applying this that works for your dog. Because again, not all dogs are equal. And you're going to see that a lot when we talk about next episode with that reinforcement.

And if you've got any questions, as always around this topic, then please don't be afraid to ask them in the Facebook group. Just search the Dog People Podcast and, uh, yeah, we'll get your questions answered. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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