Punishing Out Warning Signals: Reality or Myth?

[michele5611]

Saw this on Emily's facebook

www.seespotrunkennel.com/blog/punishing-out-warning-signals-reality-or-myth/

[michele5611]

Be sure to read comments too.

[megan]

I find this interesting..... I've always understood the "punishing out the growl" reference to mean you COULD punish out the growl. It depends on the dog and their genetics, their temperament, their ability to form connections and learn things, etc. It is different for every dog and that although it's not something that happens often, you unfortunately don't know if the particular dog you're working with is at risk for that until after you've already done it, at which point, you are effectively screwed. Basically, the point is that causing even one dog to stop growing and go straight to a bite is an issue because you are essentially risking that dog's life, and who knows what else.

Now, I have to ask this: the woman who's post this is claims she hasn't experience this in 15 years of training. Either she's really effective at using punishment and never once created a behavior she didn't like (chances of this are slim to none, IMO), or she's not ONLY suppressing aggressive behavior.... but that she's more than likely suppressing ALL or MOST behavior by the dog(s), so the behaviors appear to be "fixed" but in reality, the dogs learn to simply do nothing at all because any other behavior they have tried results in a physical correction (learned helplessness much?).

I'm curious what other people's thoughts are.

[RealPitBull]

I didn't read yet, just don't feel like I can handle crap pouring out of the mouths (or keyboards) of aversive trainers. Is the author an aversive/punishment based trainer?

It's not that I think they are all liars, it's just that I've found most of them to be so completely ignorant of dog behavior, they have no idea what's going on/why things do or do not happen when it comes to training and behavior mod.

[emilys]

Mar 25, 2013 14:22:54 GMT -5 RealPitBull said:

I didn't read yet, just don't feel like I can handle crap pouring out of the mouths (or keyboards) of aversive trainers. Is the author an aversive/punishment based trainer?

It's not that I think they are all liars, it's just that I've found most of them to be so completely ignorant of dog behavior, they have no idea what's going on/why things do or do not happen when it comes to training and behavior mod.

Is she an aversive trainer? She calls herself a "balanced" trainer, so the answer is......... yes

(insert smiley of your choice, since I still can't seem to do it without wiping out my whole post... )

[michele5611]

FYI here is what she means by "balanced"

www.seespotrunkennel.com/blog/what-i-mean-by-balanced/

[pitbullmamaliz]

I had innumerable brain cells die while reading the comments.

[ames]

I didn't read the comments yet just the article (thanks for sharing) but know I am also guilty of saying this. What I did like was this part which I cant KNOW just from a few examples from someone I don't know that well. I will try to keep the below in mind though, it's really the situation that determines why a growl is happening more than the actual growl.

"Undoubtedly, many dogs are pleading to avoid conflict with their growl. But I suspect others are saying something closer to “Bitch, don’t even think about taking my bone!” Bottom line, there’s a difference between the headspace of a dog that growls at his owner for attempting to move him off the couch, and one that growls at his owner out of fear of a beating."