All About “Dog Behavior”

Many dog owners use punishment as a tactic to train dog behavior. Dog Behavior punishment can take many forms: verbal, physical or postural. A dog will see any form of punishment as an undesirable activity perpetrated on it and may or may not associate the punishment with the dog behavior that the human is displeased with especially if the punishment is not doled out immediately as the dog behavior is being done.

If for instance, an owner returns home to find that the dog has upset the garbage can and spilled out all the contents all over the house and yells at the dog and perhaps hits the dog. The dog does not understand that the dog behavior of getting into the garbage can has anything at all to do with the owner yelling or hitting him. The dog will simply connect the return of “the master” with the fact that the master was displeased with the dog and the physical and verbal punishment will make the dog fearful of the owner returning home.

Dog behavior punishment that is verbal, physical or postural towards a dog will have an eroding effect on the trust that a dog has in being treated fairly by “the master”. The dog will start to fear the hand if physical punishment is used and will start to shrink anytime the hand comes near the dog even if the owner’s hand is coming towards the dog to pet the dog.

If punishment is the method you choose to use in correcting dog behavior, it is best that the “perceived punishment” not come from you, but comes from the dog’s environment. This is why noise works well as a punishment. When the dog is “caught in the act” of undesirable dog behavior and the human can grab a shake can, an air horn, or some other loud noise-maker and have the noise sound as soon as the undesirable dog behavior happens. Do so in a manner that the dog will not see the owner making the noise than the dog will not associate the owner with the punishment for undesirabl dog behavior. This way the dog will avoid the dog behavior (so as to avoid the noise) even when the owner is not around.

Often times when we catch a bad dog behavior after some time has passed and the dog is around at the time we notice the act having been done, (a book chewed, a garbage can rummaged through hours after the damage has been done) and the dog is crawling or slinking around as if “guilty”, we humans think, aha! the dog knows he has done something bad. We would of course be wrong! A dog is not capable of moral judgments. They have no sense of right and wrong dog behavior. A dog is not acting “guilty”, but is doing a submissive posture in response to a harsh tone of voice or a threatening posture from us.

If you and your dog are in a situation where any of the above sounds familiar and punishment has not worked to correct the undesired dog behavior, maybe it is time to look into positive reinforcement as a tactic for shaping your dog’s behavior.

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