My friend Marie had this quote on her Facebook page this morning:
“TACT – The Art Of Making A Point Without Making An Enemy”
Isaac Newton
Brilliant but strange dude Isaac Newton was. He suffered two nervous breakdowns, survived the bubonic plague, invented calculus and once stuck a needle in his eye to study optics.
Anyway….
….his quote is great but very difficult to do in some situations.
Recently I started working with a family that has a very nice, smart cute puppy. The family surprises me by how much research they have done on dog training.
They have even questioned me on some of what I am teaching them.
Can you believe that? Questioning me, the Amazing Dog Training Man.
Actually it is great and I encourage them to keep up with their reading and then to check back with me so I can set them straight.
Seriously, it is great that they are doing so much reading but they are coming against the same problem that most new dog owners face which is…..
…..confusion.
Much of the information that they read is about positive reinforcement. That the only way to train your pup is with positive reinforcement and praise. Which is correct. If you are training and you want your dog to do something for you, you use positive reinforcement to encourage and increase the chances of the behavior happening again.
The problem is when we want the puppy to STOP doing a behavior. This is where we run into trouble and if you talk to five different trainers there is a good chance you’ll get five different answers.
Luckily, you tune in here everyday so I can help make sense of all of this and guide you through the murkiness and despair facing you as a new dog owner.
Let me break it down for you:
Behavior is split into four quadrants:
You have positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, negative punishment and positive punishment.
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT EXAMPLE: Dog comes running to you when you say come. You give your dog treat – you gave your dog something that she liked to increase the chances of the behavior happening again.
NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT EXAMPLE: An annoying noise in your car goes off until you strap on your seatbelt. An unpleasant situation that happens until you perform a certain behavior.
NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT EXAMPLE: Puppy is driving you nuts with biting your hands and pant legs. You can’t take it anymore so you put the little guy in a crate taking away his freedom. Negative punishment is taking something away from the dog. In this situation his freedom was taken away.
POSITIVE PUNISHMENT EXAMPLE: Your dog is barking and you say “QUIET” and then squirt him which stops the behavior. Something unpleasant happens to the dog that stops the behavior.
Pretty simple stuff so far, right?
Much of the information you’ll find today only wants you to use the first quadrant – positive reinforcement.
The problem is that you cannot STOP behavior with positive reinforcement. You can only reinforce behaviors using it.
This is an endless topic of discussion between dog trainers.
And they disagree on this probably more than anything else. Which is why you become confused when you enter the dog training rabbit hole.
So here’s the deal. All four quadrants are used to change behavior. There are situations where one of the quadrants will be used and this does not mean that you are harming or hurting your dog.
The good news is that the Good K9 Manners Program shows you how to STOP unwanted behaviors using different methods that can help you today.
Here’s where to go NEXT:
Best,
Eric
.