Category: Advanced Stuff ¤
  Author: Kathy Povey ¤
   Title: Punishment as a Training Tool ¤

Punishment done well IS helpful information (as is reinforcement).  
Why do you think that punishment has to cause fear pain?  It lets 
the subject know what is not acceptable, so the subject then knows 
it needs to try again if it wishes to receive reinforcement.  Now, if I
actually
liked it when my instuctor told me I was wrong, then it wouldn't
be punishment, because I didn't find it aversive.  But then, if I liked
it when the instructor told me I was wrong, I would deliberately
try to be wrong more often.  The frequency of the incorrect behavior
would increase, not decrease.

There seem to be many people out there who think P+ has
no place in dog training.  I think these people do use punishment,
and simply choose to call it something else (eg. NRM).  But this
is just like the people who say they don't correct their dogs, they
give them "motivational pops."  (If those pops were so motivational,
then the dog would learn to repeat incorrect behavior in order to
receive a pop.)  Trainers who equate punishment with fear and
pain have their heads stuck in the sand right next to the J & P
trainers that think that food training is bribery and won't hold up
in the ring.

Kathy Povey
Heelhusky@aol.com