The Punishment Stigma (And How It Is Hurting You And Your Dog)

00:00 — Kati introduces punishment as a behavior-training topic and argues that proper punishment is not…

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe of Diamond Canine Dog Training, and for today, let's talk some more about punishment. Such a dirty word, <laugh>. So by today's standards anyway, uh, it's become kind of taboo. I mean, the word is just taking on the same basically meaning as abuse, and it is not okay. So proper punishment is not abuse. So when I think of abuse, I think of number one, people either severe neglect or people taking out their emotions on their dog in a way that could be physically damaging, okay?

And we don't do any of that. So, uh, it's pretty rare that I get angry. I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes <laugh>, sometimes certain dogs, I have had dogs that can really push my buttons. Um, but you know, we don't, we don't act on that obviously. So, you know, if a dog really pushes my buttons, I usually just put them away.

Um, the point in punishment is to modify behavior. It is not to lash out at the dog. So if somebody does that, then that is not the correct way to punish a behavior. So it's purely a modification, a behavior modification tool. Um, it should not be a way for somebody to express their emotions, their frustration, their anger. That is not the point. When you properly punish a dog's behavior, you do not need to yell. And I'm not saying that yelling is damaging, I'm not opposed to yelling. I think sometimes that actually can be problematic in some situations.

But, um, all I'm saying is it doesn't involve frustration or anger. Um, proper punishment is simply providing a consequence that you think will change the behavior and does change the behavior. And I say that because by definition, in behavioral science, by definition, punishment is something that reduces a behavior. So if you provide a consequence and it actually does not reduce the behavior, then by definition it is not a punishment. So that's not my rule, that's the dictionary. So punishment is necessary. That is literally by definition how you reduce and eliminate behaviors. So it's really important as a dog owner to know how to do that.

03:00 — A consequence qualifies as punishment only when it reduces the behavior.

And when I, I think about

<laugh>, I was gonna say, when I think about the minute percentage of people I actually meet that know how to do that, but I don't think I've ever met any <laugh>, not really. Uh, not in terms of my clients anyway. So it's pretty safe to say that about 100% of my clients when they came to me, did not know how to punish a behavior. And so that's noteworthy because I think a lot of people think they know how to, I think a lot of people think that they are, but they're not. And most of the time, all they're really doing is yelling and screaming.

And that's not a punishment. Number one, you're getting angry and frustrated and emotional, which can be counterproductive. And number two, you're not actually providing a consequence. So we wanna take that and flip it around most of the time, and that's what we do.

So I teach people instead of screaming and yelling, how to just mark the bad behavior with a word, usually the word no, and then actually provide a tangible consequence that is significant enough that the dog will change their behavior in the future. And that's it, guys. It's not super complicated. Uh, you just have to know that process and execute that process. Those two simple steps. And you have to listen to the dog in terms of what is valuable to them. And obviously we want to use consequences that are safe. We don't wanna hurt our dogs in the sense that we don't wanna harm them, right?

It might be uncomfortable for a second, but we don't wanna do anything that's going to cause any harm. Um, and there are lots of ways to do that. So, and I'm not going to go into depth with that today.

I have before. I'm sure I will in the future. It's on, you know, my social media. It's on, you know, you can find the information. But I think we definitely, this is something that needs to be talked about because it saves lives, guys. First of all, it makes people's lives better because they're dealing with behaviors that they don't need to deal with. I've met so many people that are dealing with behaviors that their dog has been doing for years, years, and I show them how to properly punish the behavior and it goes away. Do you understand that?

Like, do you understand how powerful that is and what a significant change that can be in someone's life? You know? And while we're on the topic, this is kind of a side side note here, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna try not to go off on a tangent or anything, but you know, if you listen to, you know, any kind of, um, you know, self-help or, or like literature to, to just improve yourself and better your situation and, and that sort of thing, one of the things you may come across is, you know, some of the more minor things in your life that seem minor anyway, some of the small things, but they're these small things that you have to deal with every single day and they just kind of start to get to you, right?

And you don't realize how much it's bothering you. And here, I'll give you an example, right? So it's usually something that sounds really stupid. So I have a cat, snowflake, the cat, she helps me with my dog training a lot. <laugh>, if you follow my social media, I'm sure you've seen her, but she has her own little kitty crate that I use when I have to contain her for any reason. And in her crate, I keep her little food dish and her water bowl and everything, and she has a little mat in there. Um, well it used to be a blanket.

I would just put in like one of the little doggy blankets or something in there for her. And every time she would eat, she would then proceed to try to bury the remnants of her food by, you know, scratching at the floor in her crate.

And so then her blanket would of course get all bunched up and she would basically stuff her blanket into her food and water bowl, which is disgusting, you know, and she has wet food and obviously water is wet and then her blanket is all nasty and gross. And <laugh>, I don't know if you can hear the puppy whining in the background. He just came in <laugh> said Doby puppy. Um, so her blanket would get disgusting, right? And I don't mind fixing that once or twice, but it became like multiple times a day. And even when the blanket didn't get disgusting, it was all bunched up and every time I walked by it, I'd have to reach in and and fix the blanket.

08:00 — Kati describes using consequences to stop her cat from repeatedly disrupting its crate blanket.

And so day in, day out, day in, day out, and these little things, they start to grate on you and they really affect your quality of life.

So if you have any little things like this in your life, pay attention to them and fix them. Stop and actually give it the attention it deserves and fix it because these moments add up. But anyways, like I said, I'm gonna try not to go off on a full on tangent here, um, on these side topics. But imagine if you have those things with your dog. And imagine if you have a lot of those things with your dog, okay? Maybe it's not a, a major behavior, maybe it's not like a deal breaker or something super dangerous, but it just grates on you every single day.

And then that poisons your relationship with your dog too, right? 'cause it annoys you. Don't let your dog do things that annoy you. So do you know how much better it can make your life and make other people's lives if they just knew if they could just get their hands on the information to just stop the behaviors, right? And so I talk a lot about ecos. I'm primarily an eco trainer, at least when we're talking about adult dogs. And, you know, teaching your dog to do behaviors like coming when called and laying down and going to place and walking in a heel, trying to teach them to do things is a little bit harder.

It takes more effort, more time, more patterning. It takes a skillset. But when we're talking about knocking behaviors out, guys, most of the time it's a two step process.

And people's lives change dramatically just by executing those two simple steps. Mark it with a no follow up with a punishment. A safe, effective means of punishment. Okay?

So, and I know that word bothers people and that's why I use it. So I use the word correction a lot too, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't like shying away from the word punishment because it's not a bad word. It's not evil. It doesn't mean anything bad, it's not harmful. In fact, it is absolutely necessary. It is healthy. We all have punishment in our lives, and if you try to remove that from somebody's life, you're doing them a huge disservice. That is a very unnatural way to live. You're literally trying to remove a piece of reality and pretend it doesn't exist.

So especially people that do that with their children are doing them a huge disservice because when they're adults and they have to function in the real world, punishment is very much a part of the real world. So you're not helping your dog by not doing those things. But you know, if you can make your day that much better and your life that much better, and your relationship with your dog gets that much better by knowing how to knock out these behaviors that are just gring on you every day, that's huge. And then we haven't even talked about the behaviors that are like truly dangerous.

Trust me, proper punishment saves lives, guys. So I think it's so funny, these organizations that talk out both sides of their mouth all the time. You know how we only believe in positive training and it's been shown, blah, blah, blah, blah. And of course there's no actual data to back that up. It's all just smoke and mirrors. Cherry picked statistics or statistics that are actually meaningless, but sound good. Um, of course, you know, and if you have half a brain, you can figure that stuff out when you read it. But, um, organizations that say, you know, they only use positive methods and evidence, science-based methods, these are all red flag words by the way.

<laugh>, evidence-based, scientifically proven, blah, blah, blah, blah, methods, um, you know, and they don't hesitate to like prescribe medications up the wazoo for things. And I'm, I'm not anti-medication, but it's usually not needed.

Um, you know, but when that stuff doesn't work, which is pretty much all the time, <laugh>, when that stuff doesn't work, they don't have any more answers. They just kind of disappear, right? Because the only answer left is to put your dog down, right? If you're actually dealing with something dangerous or something intolerable, rehome the dog and basically just give the problem to somebody else. Okay? That's not really a fix <laugh>, okay? Or put your dog down. So these are people that tell you you shouldn't use a prong call or you shouldn't give your dog a correction.

13:00 — Organizations opposing prong collars, corrections, and e-collars may leave owners with euthanasia as their…

You shouldn't use an e-collar. You shouldn't shock your dog for doing bad things. But when you're unable to fix the problem, they just sort of slink off into the shadows and they don't have any more answers for you. Or sometimes they'll just outright tell you, you should just put your dog down, something wrong with your dog. You should put 'em down when the fact is, and I know people that have done that, guys, they've never tried punishment and they put their dog down. You know what? Probably nothing wrong with their dog could have fixed the problem.

Not always. Yes, there are some dogs that just are never going to be safe enough. I talked about this on my first episode. I've been there, I had one of those dogs, they're out there. But do you know how many other dogs like that I've met?

Only one time in my career have I suggested to a client that they should probably put their dog down. And that dog wasn't actually as bad as the dog that I owned. Um, because this dog had really more specific issues. Whereas the dog that I had owned, it was like across the board. Like she couldn't go anywhere, do anything. She was never, okay. Um, this dog had pretty specific issue areas, um, but it was the only dog that I've come across in my career where I felt like we weren't gonna make enough progress. Uh, and I didn't feel like there was anyone else out there that could help her make the progress she needed to help.

Um, she needed to make, to make this dog safe enough to stay in her house. So only one time have I ever recommended potentially behavioral euthanasia because it's really, really, really uncommon that dogs are that bad.

Like, you can take the worst of the worst. And if you know how to properly use punishment, and in those cases I recommend drastically changing your lifestyle with the dog too. 'cause you need maximum leverage. But punishment is the big missing piece, okay? And so these organizations that are like, oh, no, no positive methods only, you know, they can't fix aggressive dogs. They can't, they can't really fix anything, but nevermind like aggressive dogs. And what is the alternative? What is going to happen? So these organizations, as far as I'm concerned, have blood on their hands.

They are killing dogs. So they pretend to care, but they are responsible for the death of these dogs because there is hope and they do have a chance and they could change. And nobody, literally nobody has given these dogs the information

We have withheld the information that they shouldn't do those behaviors, and then they get put down. Is that fair? Does that sound fair? Does that sound compassionate to you? No, it sounds pretty freaking awful. But that is the truth. That is where we're at today. So I'm here to tell you, and this is all I really want, <laugh>, this is all I really wanted to communicate in this episode today is punishment is not a bad word. Use that word. Get more comfortable with it, okay? Learn how to do it properly without anger, without yelling, without frustration, without emotion.

17:00 — Training without punishment leaves behavior-prone dogs vulnerable to escalating unwanted behaviors.

Learn how to reduce behaviors, guys. That's all it means. That is literally all it means. I, I wanna take that word back, but also I wanna make really clear that if you are trying to raise a dog and train a dog without any punishment, you are trying to create a super unnatural environment. And for a lot of dogs, that results in a super unnatural set of behaviors. <laugh>, okay? Meaning a lot of dogs become super anxious or super nervous like the dogs I have now or super aggressive. And when I say dogs that I have now, I mean I that I have here for board and train.

So if your dog is prone to any of those things and you put them in an environment that is absent punishment, it just takes over like an infection. So think about that, right? Because that's why some dogs are fine and some dogs are not. It, it depends a lot on their genetic makeup and it depends a lot on the family they're in and what that dynamic looks like. But if your dog has the genetic propensity within them in their DNA, they have a propensity to tend toward a certain set of behaviors.

And then you put them in that environment where maybe the dynamic also sort of encourages those behaviors. And then that environment is also absent of any punishment. So you can really only increase behaviors. What do you think you're gonna get? Your train's gonna go right off the rails. Right off the rails. So you're not doing yourself any favors. You're not doing your dog any favors that's in your head. Okay? So I understand like the human perspective. I am a human. Like I know where people are coming from. I get it, especially given all the crap out there that they've read, seen and heard.

I get it. But at some point you have got to balance your emotional decision making with some logical, rational decision making. You have to believe what you see over what you hear. You have to think logically about behavior and what encourages it and what discourages it. And you have to think logically about the fact that your dog is not a child and you can't ground them and you can't take away their electronics. That isn't going to work. <laugh>, okay? But, so that's it guys. I just wanted to rant today a little bit about punishment because that word has taken on just such a terrible stigma.

And every time I'm on the internet, every time I'm on social media, I see all these quote unquote professional organizations speaking out against ecos, remote callers, shock callers, whatever you want to call them, speaking out against corrections against punishment, and actually literally making false statements about it.

So I want you to think about not just what the big obvious things are that your dog does,

But maybe what some of the more minor, more annoying things are that your dog does. Start small. Even like, if this just makes you uncomfortable and you're not sure about it, start small. Learn how to bonk your dog with like a cotton towel. And it does have to be a real bonk. You can't throw it like your little baby. Okay? So watch some videos. There's some good bonking videos out there. Um, you know, and there are other things you can use too. Again, I'm not gonna go totally into detail with that right now. Um, but go after something small okay?

And see if you can knock it out. And that might help build your confidence and your comfortability level a little bit. Okay? You see, hey, I was actually successful. I actually changed my dog's behavior. 'cause most people have never really done that before. They're just managing it or they're just dealing with it and it's not good for you guys. It's not good for you, it's not good for your dog. So learn how to knock some behaviors out. Okay? And that's it for today's episode. So don't forget to hit subscribe so that we can do this again real soon and I'll see you guys next time around.