Understanding the Problems with Punishment: An Interview with Dr. Karolina Westlund.

If you've followed me at all for any length of time you'll know that I am fervently in

favour of training that treats a dog with kindness and that means training a dog without

resorting to punishment or aversive.

And I'm totally committed to ethical, force-free, kind training, not just because I think it's

the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do, but also because any other form of

training, training that is punitive, is risky and it's damaging and it's just not the right

approach.

And the evidence shows us that.

And that's why in today's episode I am so excited to share with you a conversation that

I had with the fabulous Dr. Carolina Westland.

Now about five years ago, maybe longer, 2016 I think she wrote this article, this fantastic

article about the effects of punishment, so what happens when we use punishment to

train dogs.

And recently, earlier in 2023, Carolina updated that blog because, in case you missed it,

and I kind of hope you did miss it, there was a huge storm in the dog training world

early in 2023 about the use of aversives.

Now aversives are a controversial topic at the best of times, but for whatever reason,

and I won't go into it here, but there was an extra controversy about the use of aversives.

And so Carolina dug out this amazing blog, and you can find a link to the blog in the

show notes because I highly recommend that you go and read it in full, but she went back

to that blog and she updated it.

And today I'm diving into a discussion with her about the blog.

I'm asking her lots of questions that really piqued my interest, based on my interest being

piqued when I read the blog.

And I think you'll find what she has to say just fascinating.

Hello and welcome to the Be Right Back Separation Anxiety Podcast.

Hi, I'm Julie Naismith, dog trainer, author, and full-on separation anxiety geek.

I've helped thousands of dogs overcome separation anxiety with my books, my online programs,

my trainer certification, and my Separation Anxiety Training App.

And this podcast is all about sharing my tips and tricks to help you teach your dog how

to be happy at home alone too.

Hey Carolina, it's so good to have you here today.

And we're talking about this amazing blog that you wrote on punishment back in 2016,

but that you refreshed recently.

Tell me about that.

Why did you go back and decide to revisit it?

Since my own learning is constantly evolving and changing, after a while, after a year

or two, I often change my thinking on a topic.

So I wrote that one back in 2016, and it was updated in 2019, I think, so it was high time

to revisit it again.

And also the second reason was, actually, because given the latest upheaval in the dog

training community, there's been a lot of discussion on the use of aversives, I felt

that we needed an updated resource on the potential fallout of punishment.

Yeah, and it's interesting as well because, I mean, when did you update the blog?

Was it about February this year, 2020?

Yes, I think so.

And then just 10, maybe 10 days, maybe two weeks ago, we got the announcement from England

that they were following the rest of the UK and lots of countries in Europe and banning

shot collar.

So it's kind of, it's been, I thought, wow, so timely that you revisited that in February.

And it all resurfaced again about 10 days ago, so I keep telling people, go and read

Carolina's blog.

So yeah, your timing has been immaculate.

It's a very detailed blog, so I recommend people grab a cuppa, find a few minutes and

sit down and really focus on it because if you are at all interested in the way we work

to change animal behaviour, and punishment particularly, you'll love it.

But Carolina, for today's podcast, you talk about 20 problems in this blog, and then you

divide them into almost three main groups.

Can you just talk to me about those three main groups and broadly explain what you mean

by them?

Yeah, absolutely.

So over the years, I've read articles and I've been part of discussions about the downsides

of punishment.

And it struck me that there's so many of them.

There's not just one potential adverse effect.

There's at least 20.

I've written about the 20 that I could come up with, but I'm sure there's more.

And I realised that these could be sorted into these three buckets, if you will.

So one of the buckets is, so the reason why people punish is because they want to get

rid of an unwanted behaviour.

Yeah.

So one of the buckets then is what actually happens to the unwanted behaviour?

And we could have three outcomes.

It could be that it diminishes, so the punishment may be effective.

And now, while that does happen, it's very, very inconsistent in that that does happen.

It could have no effect, that you punish the behaviour and nothing happens.

And we know that one of the situations where this occurs is when the unwanted behaviour

has become really habitual, because habits tend to become a bit disengaged from the consequence

that maintain the habit.

They're released by a stimulus.

The stimulus is there that tells the animal to do a specific behaviour.

And originally, that behaviour led to an outcome that the animal wanted.

But over time, the connection to that outcome is reduced.

So punishment tends to not work on behaviours that have been very well established and habitual.

Interesting.

And habits can be so powerful for good as well, can't they?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We can turn that on its head and say, you know, we can also choose to form habits that

are good.

Yeah, yeah.

But for the unwanted habits, punishment is just not a good idea at all.

It will have very little effect, typically.

Is that why when people, for example, who continue to smoke and know that one of the

consequences might be, you know, all these diseases that they develop, they don't stop

smoking, you know, not knowing that stuff could happen.

They do it despite knowing that stuff could happen.

Yeah.

But it's, yeah, absolutely.

But it's also that it's an addiction.

True.

Yeah.

So you've got this little monster in your brain saying, smoke it, smoke it.

You know, that's really hard to turn down, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And the third thing that can happen is that it can actually increase the unwanted behavior,

which is really weird.

And I think that people don't realize this.

Yeah.

But there are at least a couple of situations.

One of them is when the animal is showing fearful behavior.

Because punishment, at least if we're talking things that cause pain or discomfort to the

animal, and these things tend to cause a fear reaction in the animal.

Yeah.

And when the animal gets fearful, he'll show his fear repertoire of behavior.

Yeah.

And if those, that repertoire of behavior is among the unwanted behavior, you punish

the animal and you're actually increasing, or you intend to punish the animal, I should

say, or the behavior.

Right.

And you're actually, you know, reinforcing it because it's shown more often.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's often unnecessary also.

It's not like we have to use it to change behavior.

No.

And there are many other solutions.

Yeah.

So we've got at least 20 problems.

Yeah.

This is one of the buckets.

Yeah.

This is the behavior bucket.

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah.

The next one.

Sorry.

The next one would be the animal bucket.

It's looking at what else happens to the animal.

OK.

So we're doing something that's uncomfortable and it might change behavior and it might

not.

But what else is going on?

What are the side effects essentially?

So the effects on the animal are also unpredictable and it depends on a number of different factors.

But some documented effects that people have seen sometimes are that they start showing

superstitious behavior or apathy or fear or aggression or avoidance behavior or reduced

learning, to mention a few.

Right.

So to me, the problem is the unpredictability of punishment techniques used by ordinary

buy these gadgets because this blog post was really about shock collars.

Yeah.

And you buy these gadgets and you just strap them onto the animal and not knowing the first

thing about behavior can really blow up in your face.

Yeah.

So not only could the unwanted behavior actually get worse by the use of corrections, but we

could potentially see these humongous side effects and a number of other unwanted behaviors

could pop up.

Yeah.

So that would be the second bucket.

And you talk about, you know, ordinary people buying these gadgets, buying these devices

and these potential problems arising.

But to be clear, these 20 plus problems, they can also happen whether somebody is supposedly

highly skilled in using one of these tools or not.

So it's not, oh, it's because people don't know how to do this.

Many of these problems relate to just the process itself, not who's doing it.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Not who's doing it, but I'm thinking that hopefully the pros would understand the risks

a little bit.

Yeah.

And just by the way that these things are marketed, it seems that the random people

on the street don't realize that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think, unfortunately, in most countries in the world, dog training is an unregulated

profession.

So it's really hard to say that everybody who sticks a sign up and says they're a dog trainer

would understand this.

Yeah.

You are right.

Yes.

That is a good point.

Very variable.

Yeah.

Very variable.

Yeah.

Anyway, so the third bucket then would be the effect on the punisher, on the person

doing the punishment.

Yeah.

And it's interesting because imagine then that your dog is doing something that you're

annoyed by.

Let's say he's barking, for instance.

So bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.

And then you administer a punisher.

So you do something, you zap him with this electric collar, for instance, and he turns

quiet.

So essentially, you have just been negatively reinforced because you were exposed to an

aversive stimulus, the barking, and then you did a behavior, the zapping, and then the

barking stopped.

And so this, I think, is what maintains the behavior in the person is that we think it

works because we often see this very, at least very, what do you call it, momentary

stop in the problem behavior.

And we think, oh, it works.

And then it might be that the animal starts barking again five seconds later.

But that doesn't, to our brain, it doesn't matter because our brain is already infused

with all those neurotransmitters signaling, woohoo, it worked, it worked, it worked.

And it could also be positively reinforcing because we, like, we've got power over another

living being.

And so it's reinforcing, and therefore we do more of it.

Oh, that's so interesting because I've often wondered, you know, when I'm thinking about

the dog training community, the dog training professionals, let's call them professionals,

people who take money for dog training, I often think that using, you know, that these

tools can be reinforcing, positively reinforcing, because if they get those seemingly quick

results, clients love them.

They get, if they're posting a video on TikTok, it gets tons of views because, you know, in

one minute the dog has stopped the problem behavior.

Yeah.

So it's positively reinforcing and it's negatively reinforcing.

Interesting.

And we also think it's working when it's not.

So we think that this is short because very often you will see a short break in the unwanted

behavior.

Yeah.

And very often it will come straight back again.

And we see that break and we think it's working.

And then we don't realize that actually, since it's returning, the definition, the modern

definition of punishment is really that it should diminish behavior.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But very often that's not what happens.

We don't see that diminishment of behavior because it comes right back again.

And I think that's problematic because then it's not punishment by definition.

We might call it abuse perhaps even.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, the fascinating thing, there's so many fascinating things in this conversation,

but when I think about the trainers that I work with who work primarily with separation

anxiety, I say often, you know, the training sessions that you have or the way clients

can often feel like this, they can feel wholly unrewarded because often you're not seeing

a change in the dog session to session.

Yeah.

It's not dramatic.

It can be very variable.

Even though that variability might not mean that the learning isn't going on in the dog's

brain, we're just not seeing that change in behavior.

And it can be tough because you are not getting instant hits.

Whoa, this dog has now stopped barking.

This dog is now... because it's a very slow, steady change.

It's not that kind of reinforcement.

Interesting stuff.

So those are the three then.

Effects on one's behavior, on the animal, and on the punisher.

Yeah.

And also I might add to that last one is also that it could sabotage the relationship we

have with the animals.

And also I'm not saying that all these 20 things happen every single time we punish

an animal, but the potential is there.

Just like when you take a drug and you open up that sheet of horrific side effects and

you read through them and you just go, oh my God, I hope that doesn't happen.

That, you know, some of those things are going to be, you know, common side effects and some

are going to be more unusual.

And I think it's highly context dependent also.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's fair enough.

So let's talk a bit more about those 20 problems then.

As I say, go and read the blog.

If you haven't read Carolyn's blog, go and read it.

I highly recommend it.

But we'll talk about some of the more salient or important of the 20 problems.

So what do you think those are if we were to dive into those?

Well, I guess one thing to say is that we often punish again because we want to get

rid of a specific behavior.

And we might think that that is all that we're doing.

But there are so many different side effects of using punishment and some of them might

be much worse than the original problem.

And I think that my top three of the really nasty side effects would be fear, which is

a very common side effect to being exposed to a painful or scary or, you know, uncomfortable

stimulus.

Yeah.

Or aggression, that they start showing aggressive behavior.

And then the third thing would be that the quality of the relationship might be compromised,

affected.

If the animal starts associating you with unpleasant things, he might start avoiding

you.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so let's just dig into those a little bit.

How does using a punishment, how does that relate to a dog developing fear then?

Well, the moment the animal perceives the aversive stimulus, it's aversive because the

animal doesn't like it.

So it will trigger some sort of negative emotional state in the animal.

And if it's painful, fear will very often be involved because fear is triggered by pain.

That causes a fearful reaction.

And fear involves, you know, freezing, running, hiding, and all kinds of body language signals,

you know, indicating that the animal is in a fearful state.

And so we will get this physiological and behavioral reaction to the punisher.

And then we also get this learning component that the animal then starts, OK, so this was

dangerous, something bad happened here.

I need to learn about the situation so that I can avoid it in the future.

Right.

And so they'll look around and they'll say, OK, I'm in the kitchen.

Mom is here.

I'm standing with my front two feet on the rug.

And that's when bad things happen.

So that emotion of fear might get triggered by stimuli associated with the zapping or

the punishing situation.

So they might become fearful of mom if she was there.

They might become fearful, you know, avoid the rug.

Yeah.

They might be in the kitchen but just not walk on the rug because that was the feeling

of the rug underneath the feet was associated with the unpleasant experience.

Or they might avoid the kitchen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we see these ripples spreading and it's highly unpredictable what stimuli or what

events in the environment will get, quote unquote, infected, what the animal will come

to associate with the scary thing.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

That association, it's the association of the dog trying to piece together this, well,

what was it?

What was it about what happened in my environment and the context that made that bad thing happen?

And it's trying to put together all these associations, right?

Yeah.

So he's trying to learn.

And, you know, it's completely natural and adaptive, you know, to use an ethological

term, you know, the behaviors that increase survival and reproduction, if you will, that

learning about where, when and how and in the presence of whom scary things happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if people aren't clear on this, because I'm sure most people listening to this podcast

haven't used these tools, but you can think about, vets are a really good example, aren't

they?

Because most dogs don't love having stuff done to their bodies.

And, you know, we can do a lot of things to help dogs have more pleasurable and easier

times with the vets.

But over time, lots of dogs just develop a fear of the vets.

And you can see often that spreads, as you described it, you know, the dog will start

getting nervous in the reception and then it might be the car park and then it might

be the journey to the vets.

Yeah.

And so on.

And so that's a very good example.

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

That the restraint and the handling that occurs at the vet is an unpleasant stimulus.

And we get this fear learning that can infect anything that is a reasonably reliable predictor

of, yeah, of going to the vets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, you mentioned this when we've chatted previously, just an aside, body handling

is a really big deal for an animal, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting that restraint is typically a much bigger deal than pain.

Right.

For many animals.

Yeah.

Because they can't escape.

Yeah.

Pain is a fear trigger in and of itself, but so is restraint.

Yeah, absolutely.

And if you think of it, that's what typically happens when you're caught by a predator,

is that the predator has you in their clutches and they're holding on to you.

And so that's also one of the reasons why aggression is often triggered is because animals

then use aggression to get out of that situation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mentioned aggression being one of the potential side effects.

So that's two roads that the animal can go down.

He can go down the fear road and you might see, you know, a freezing, fleeing or even

becoming shut down.

Or he might go down the aggression road and start retaliating instead to get out of the

situation.

So this fight and flight is really a very common side effect of punishers involving

pain, I think.

And both of those are about trying to stop that or trying to get away from it, trying

to avoid it, trying to escape it.

So both of those are about, I need this thing not to happen to me.

Yes.

Interesting.

So we've got the problem with fear.

We've got the problem with potential aggression.

And then the other big salient problem that you wanted to raise was about the relationship.

Yeah.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And again, it's the same thing there.

It's the classical conditioning that the animal comes to associate you with bad things happening.

Yeah.

Or not just you.

Any person or any living being, you know, it could be other dogs, other, you know, if

the cat is in the room, when the animal is getting zapped, he might associate the cat

with that unpleasant experience.

And he might associate, you know, your two-year-old with that unpleasant experience.

So it's highly unpredictable.

But anything that anyone who happens to be in the neighborhood or in the environment

when the zapping happens could potentially become associated with it.

Right.

So the animal will start fearing that person.

And how do you control that?

How do you possibly...

You can't.

You can't.

I mean, because a lot of times this punishment is used in, quote, real-life situations.

So you can't put the dog in a box and administer this punishment because the punishment is

often related to something that the dog's doing in the home or on the walk or whatever.

So it's not like you can say, everybody get out of the way while I shock the dog or, you

know, completely neutralize the environment while I shock the dog.

No, no.

You know, I don't know if we should go into how to best administer punishment so that

it works.

But that sounds like a recipe for complete disaster, what you just mentioned.

Because, you know, the idea is that the unwanted behavior should be going on when the shock

is administered.

No, there are so many ways to get rid of unwanted behavior.

Now, I've even asked around because I was interested in this because some behavior consultants

use this hierarchical, ethical thinking called the humane hierarchy whereby you start the

intervention with making changes to the environment and then you do positive reinforcement and

then you do all these other things before you, as a final thing, resort to punishment

perhaps.

And so I was interested in how often do people actually get to that last step.

And I've been asking around and it's like the really good behavioral consultants, they

never get there because they can evolve those situations without them.

Even though we might have the tool of using punishment, it's on a shelf somewhere collecting

dust because we're not using it.

We're using these other techniques that do work and that do not cause fear or aggression

or compromise the relationship that are, in fact, even fun and interesting for the animal.

Yeah, and you mentioned the word aversive.

I've got a question about that.

Could you just expand on what you mean by something the dog finds aversive?

If we were to define it, I would say that something aversive is something that the animal

is willing to work to get rid of.

Just like something that's repetitive is something that the animal is willing to work to get

access to.

So positive reinforcers, the animal is willing to work to do behaviors to get access to them.

And aversive, unpleasant stimuli, is something that the animal will do behaviors to get rid

of, to escape or avoid.

Yeah, and so going back to humane hierarchy, I think there are many of us who don't like

that as a model, just don't think that that's an appropriate model to use for a number of

reasons.

One big reason is that everybody has a different tolerance of how far to go along that scale

and how quickly to move along that scale.

That's quite important to me.

So there's the whole, oh, I only use it as a last resort, but last resort happens to

be every training session that I do with every dog.

Right, OK, so that's your last resort.

And to me, there's the kind of the slippery slope thing of, all right, if we say that

all these could potentially be used, and they can, I get it, I get how that, you know, we

had a chat beforehand, didn't we, about how this stuff works.

But like, take separation anxiety, for example.

I'm certain that some dogs who, if they are crated and confined for long enough, will

eventually give up on their behavior, the problem behavior, which is driven by their

fear of being alone.

To some dogs, I am sure eventually, I've seen it, I've seen some dogs eventually just give

up because the process of being crated is so horrific that if getting out of the crate

means stopping the crying because they're petrified, they may well do that.

But for me, the process to get them there is just not humane.

That's just not an acceptable way of getting to that change in behavior.

I have another concern with that humane hierarchy, and it's that we're assuming that we're

having increased intrusiveness on every step of the way, and I'm not sure that's the case even.

Right.

I can think of situations where positive reinforcement, you know, that sort of, we're

looking at the situation formally as positive reinforcement, but it's actually unpleasant

to the animal.

And I can think of situations where we're using formally negative reinforcement, and

if we're looking at the animal's emotional reaction to it, it's quite fun.

So I would rather we look at the animal's emotional reaction to the approach that we're

taking rather than this highly structured and formalized way.

And it's also, it's going to be so incredibly context dependent, depending on the animal

and your skill as a trainer and how, you know, your reinforcement history and the relationship

you have with that animal and so on and so forth.

So it's really, there are many things to do, and there are many things to try that are

not unpleasant to the animal.

Yeah, and I think it's so critical that, you know, if we're talking purely from a training

perspective, not, you know, living with a dog, but if we're training dogs, if, as dog

professionals, we cannot tell that that dog is finding a process unpleasant, if that is

positive reinforcement, yep, if we cannot tell that that dog is finding, sorry, we intended

it to be positive reinforcement.

But if we cannot tell in that session that dog is finding whatever we're doing scary,

intimidating, unpleasant, uncomfortable, then we should not be taking money from people

for being dog trainers, because we should be fully aware of, you know, the dog's response

to that process, not just blindly going ahead because we think it will work.

It sounds like we're in full agreement.

No, I told my showbox about that one.

It's like, I mean, yeah, you know, it's just, we should be, we should be so aware of their

state, and we're not.

We're just blindly continuing with our processes because we have this belief that our process

is best and it will work.

I want to ask you another question about that also, that whole thing about, you know, sometimes

dogs respond in a way that we didn't expect, based on the process that we're using.

And the classic one that comes up over and over is, when I put a shock collar on my dog

as we're about to go out of the house for a walk, he gets really excited.

So how can you say he doesn't like being shocked?

Yeah.

So I'm supposing that when you're putting that collar up to go for a walk, you're also

going for a walk.

Yes.

Right?

So he's expecting the walk.

Yeah.

And in that context, you know, if you weigh these two experiences, the positive experience

of the walk and the aversive experience of being shocked, the positive experience might

weigh higher.

Now, I would also say that it depends, because I can just, for full disclosure, I don't work

hands-on with dogs myself, so I don't know this to be true, but I could expect that for

some animals, putting the collar on could lead to just an increase in arousal because

they then know that something aversive might happen.

And so we see this increase in arousal that doesn't necessarily have to mean that it's

positive emotional excitement.

It could also be negative.

I don't know your take on that.

Yes.

All of the above.

So it could go both of those.

It could be that the animal is excited and the shocking is such a small piece of the

experience that it doesn't really matter.

Or it could be a huge piece of it and we can have a strong negative emotional reaction

with a lot of arousal.

Yeah.

And also, it's a collar that's not doing anything at that moment.

So it could also, going back to what you talked about, about association previously, it could

also be that that collar only becomes intimidating when the dog is at the dog park or when the

dog is walking past livestock because that's where the collar gets used.

Oh yes, of course.

That's a very good point.

That the collar per se is not a good predictor for the animal that something unpleasant is

going to happen.

Yeah.

Because it doesn't get shocked in the hallway as it's going out the door for the most part.

Yeah.

Lots of dogs love going for walks but don't like harnesses on the other hand.

So that's an interesting one.

But once the harness is on, the dog forgets.

But also, to me, this is a bit like the dog at the vet.

How many times do you see dogs at the vet who, is this the right word, they look a bit

conflicted because they know that bad things happen to them in the exam room, but they

also know that there's a shower of treats that happens in reception.

So they kind of go, oh, this is the place I get treats.

Oh, but wait a minute.

It's also the place where, oh.

That whole thing, what did you describe?

It's just arousal.

They're just like, oh, what's happening?

Yeah.

And I think they're also in conflict.

Yes.

It's this ambivalence and this not knowing what's about to happen.

Yeah.

Typically, the ambivalence causes arousal.

So if they know that good things are going to happen, they might not get as aroused.

Yeah.

Or if they know that bad things aren't going to happen.

But this not knowing can really spike the arousal, I think.

Yeah.

And I think an overall point as well is that, and you sort of mentioned it when you're talking

about aversives, is that it's not for us to decide whether the dog finds something pleasant

or unpleasant.

That's the dog's decision, and we need to observe and work that out.

Yeah.

And so I want to come on to something that you write in the blog, which I absolutely

loved.

And since rereading the blog back in February, I don't know how many times I've used this

similar kind of rubric to help my trainers through problems they've been having.

I loved it.

Oh, right.

And it was about when you talk about, okay, so if you are a trainer who uses punishment

and you're thinking about, should I make this decision about punishment?

You talk about two things.

You say, well, hang on, ask yourself, would you rather assume that punishment is problematic?

And I'm quoting here, I think, from your blog, when in fact it isn't.

So would you rather assume that punishment is problematic when in fact it isn't, or would

you rather assume that punishment is not problematic when in fact it is?

I love this whole section.

Tell me a bit more about that.

You call it an experiment in the blog.

Tell me a bit more about that.

So it was actually triggered by an email I got after.

So I published the revision of the blog post, and then just the next day I got an email

from someone and said that you're wrong, you know.

Punishment isn't problematic and you should learn from some balance trainer how to use

it properly.

And so then I went back and I did another little small edit just the day after.

So luckily that you saw it after that second edit then.

Well, anyway, because essentially she could be right.

I mean, I could be wrong.

Let's say I made that mistake that I'm publishing this blog post and I'm vastly inflating an

issue that is really negligible.

Let's say that punishment isn't a big deal and in fact it's useful and those 20 problems

don't exist.

So what's the worst that could happen then if we don't use punishment?

Dogs will get trained with cookies.

Yeah.

Dogs will get trained with cookies.

Isn't that too bad?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in the case I was discussing in this blog post, it's also because, again, this blog

post was triggered by an ad that I saw where people using shock collar, a remotely controlled

shock collar to get a dog to stop counter-surfing in the kitchen.

So essentially, so the worst that could happen then would also be that if I'm wrong but we're

still saying that don't use punishment and the reader doesn't use punishment and also

again, if this is the worst case scenario, let's say that we're using the cookies but

it's not working.

Yeah.

So then he'll keep stealing from the counter.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that's the sort of the worst thing that can happen if I'm wrong is that the cookies

are not working and the dog is stealing from the counter.

Yeah.

And we might have to keep putting the cookies away in the cupboard to stop the dog stealing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then in the scenario too is that the people using punishment are wrong.

The punishment is problematic.

Now these 20 problems do sometimes happen.

Not all of them, but you know, it's like Russian roulette.

You know, sometimes things just blow up literally in your face.

And so...

But that's so important.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Because you say so many important things.

I keep interrupting you just because you're going to say so many brilliant things.

But that's hugely important, that Russian roulette point, because you don't know.

You don't know.

I think you said this earlier, but I just want to state this again.

You don't know which of these 20 plus problems you might encounter.

Yeah.

You know, it's like sitting down at a card table and getting a really shitty hand or

getting a good hand.

You don't know which hand you're going to get.

You don't know.

You don't know.

Yeah.

So to continue this thought experiment, let's say it's the person using punishment who is

wrong.

They're neglecting the real problems with punishment.

And the critical question then is, what is the worst that could happen if you use punishment

on the dog who is counter-suffering?

So the worst that could happen would be perhaps that your two-year-old is in the room while

punishment is being administered.

The animal goes into aggressive attack, attacks the two-year-old, mauls him.

And, you know, we can stretch this as far as we want.

Maybe the child is just, you know, a few stitches and he'll be all right, but probably we'll

have to euthanize the dog.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or perhaps the child dies, you know.

Kids get killed by dogs.

Yeah.

That happens.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just comparing these two, what's the worst outcome that could happen?

And the second bit of that, how would you rather be wrong?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that.

So which mistake would you rather make out of these two if you're wrong and the worst

thing possible happens?

Yeah.

Would you have the animal counter-suffering or would you have your child dead and the

dog euthanized?

Yeah.

Yes.

And it's so important, I think, to think of it in that way.

And just as an aside, for those listening who work with separation anxiety, whether

you've got a dog with separation anxiety or whether you're a trainer, how I've been using

it with my community is to say one of the big problems, big challenges we face often

when we're doing defensivization is when we're watching a dog, we can have doubts.

We can think, oh, I think this dog actually isn't scared.

So I think this dog is, you know, maybe frustrated, but not full-on blown panic.

Yeah.

The risk of localization.

So I think, you know, there's often people want to let the session run on.

They want to just keep going until the dog stops the behavior naturally without us ending

the session early.

My take on that is, OK, the problem we have is we could let the dog just keep barking

and barking, and it could just be the dog is a bit frustrated, and 10 minutes later

it goes quiet and never does it again.

But we don't know that.

The dog might actually just escalate into a bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger panic.

And now we've got a situation where a dog has just had an hour in a panic on its own.

We know the impact that big, fearful, dangerous situations can have on a dog.

So what's the worst thing that could happen if we come back and end a session?

We've just come back and ended a training session.

What's the worst thing that could happen if we let a dog who's in a panic continue

to panic for an hour, two hours, three hours?

We could potentially have just gone right back to square one with that dog's learning

that being home alone is fine.

How would you rather be wrong?

How would you rather be wrong?

Yes, love it.

Thank you.

But, and there's a but, so coming back to, not separation anxiety, but there's a big but,

and I don't know if the person who contacted you said this, the but was, wait a minute,

because actually the only way to stop this dog from being euthanized is to use a shot

collar.

So no, I disagree with you.

If I do what you say and don't use a shot collar, this dog will die.

So how often do we hear that?

Tell me what you think about that as an argument.

Yeah, I have heard that argument as well, yes.

And it's often phrased as if those two options are the only ones.

It's a classical ethical dilemma that you either have to punish the animal to resolve

the situation or you have to euthanize the animal.

Yeah.

And in such cases, we would have to choose the most humane option, choosing the option

that best eliminates suffering and improves the animal's quality of life.

And I can think of scenarios where euthanasia would be the most humane option.

Yeah.

And if we are using that humane hierarchy thing, I can think of scenarios where well

executed punishment would perhaps be the most humane option out of those two options.

But the thing is that I don't think that those are the only two options out there.

Yeah.

I really don't think so.

I think that in 99.9999999% of cases, that assumption, that punishment is the only thing

that's going to work.

I think that assumption is faulty.

And I think that very often the solution is still out there.

We just have to find it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And as people, as my mentor Jean Donaldson would say, in the trenches, day after day

after day after day, working with these, you know, difficult cases that people say you

can only resolve this with the use of aversives.

And they are doing it every day without using aversives.

So, yeah, it definitely can be done.

I think the important point there is you made, these aren't, it's that ethical dilemma.

These aren't the only two choices.

So we shouldn't be presenting it as that.

It's tricky.

It's kind of being slippery about things as far as I'm concerned.

And also in today's day and age, we don't have to invent the wheel and find that solution

on our own.

There's so many examples of people solving really difficult problems without resorting

to punishment.

And they're sharing their techniques and expertise.

You are.

And so many other people are doing that.

There's courses and blogs and discussion groups.

Yeah.

Dogs that chase.

Dogs that are on the same trail as snakes.

Dogs that chase.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But there's also no doubt in my mind that the most difficult behavioral problems will

need several people's input.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, we must also acknowledge that it is difficult finding the good advice because

there's so many people that want to help.

And so there's so much information out there on the internet, but some of it is quite bad.

Yeah.

So it's finding the good information out of that minefield of alternatives that can be

difficult.

It's so tricky.

I tell you what, ever since being in this world and getting a better understanding of

where to find good information, you being one of them, it's changed my view on articles

I might read on health or science.

Oh, yeah.

Because I've read articles in publications that I really trust and really value, and

they've talked about separation anxiety, and it's just made me want to scream.

So then I think, oh, so that article they had about gut microbiomes?

Oh, yeah.

Maybe not.

Yeah.

Maybe not.

Yeah.

It kind of makes you question everything, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, I should say that one of my main problems with the use of punishment isn't

this hypothetical scenario that, oh, let's say if you can solve 99.99999% of all cases,

should you then not be allowed to use punishment in the last fraction of a milli per mil?

Yeah.

You know, that discussion isn't so interesting for me.

You know, if people use those types of intrusive techniques after everything else has failed

and they have consulted with others and they've come up short, that's not where we should

put our efforts, I think.

It's that these devices are still sold over the counter to the unsuspecting dog owner

who doesn't know anything about learning and behavior, and they just go home and strap

them on their dog and start zapping away.

That is where we should focus our efforts, teaching them alternatives, I think.

Yeah.

And that's why I love some of the initiatives from people like the Pet Professional Guild

about there needs to be more transparency about these devices, because the number of

times you'll ask people, well, how does this work on your dog?

Oh, it just sends a message.

Oh, it's just a communication.

How does it communicate?

Well, it's just, you know, so they're not being told.

And I think, you know, so many people when they find out really how these things work

and they only work when they hurt and they only work when they scare the dog, they're

like, well, I didn't know that.

And if you read the packaging, no wonder, no wonder they didn't know it.

Yeah.

So I think that's where we should focus our efforts.

It's a really good point.

It is a really good point, yeah.

On the people that don't know and the packaging being, as you say, very misleading.

Very misleading.

And it's okay to do that.

So we were just talking about problems and solutions.

There's something else I've heard you say that, again, I use all the time now.

And you talk about, you know, when you look at a behavior, an animal's behavior, let's

talk about dogs' behavior, because that's what, you know, the dog podcast.

Often what we're talking about as problem behavior to us is a solution for the dog.

The dog is doing that because it solves a problem.

Yeah.

So our problem, their solution.

Tell me a bit more about that.

Yeah.

Mind flip, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

It's just, you know, if you're looking at what the animal is doing, they are doing a

behavior that solves a problem for them.

So that behavior is somehow reinforced, typically, that they get something that they want or that

they get away from something that they don't want.

So to them, that behavior is like, yay, I found a solution to my problem.

Hooray.

Yeah.

And they don't realize that what they're doing, the choice of behavior is actually annoying

to us.

So to us, that is the problem.

Yes.

And I think that very often the solution to our problem is by finding some other solution

for the animal to their problem.

Yes.

Yes.

So asking them to please show some other type of behavior to resolve their issue.

Or if it's a, you know, fear related issue that we, or separation anxiety, that we change

their emotional state in relation to that context so that they don't feel the need to

do those behaviors anymore.

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

And that you can keep trying to put a lid on their behavior, but until the dog feels differently,

you know, there's a really good chance it just keeps.

Oh, yeah.

Really just keeps popping up again.

And that's also one of the things, of course, that can happen with punishment is that if

you punish one unwanted behavior, the animal might then find another solution.

That's even more annoying to us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just love that concept.

It is so true.

I mean, it all makes sense to them.

It's just hang on a minute.

I'm doing this because I'm scared.

I'm doing this because I'm hungry.

I'm doing this because I like people.

What about it don't you like?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm showing normal doggy behavior.

I'm barking.

I'm scratching.

I'm getting into things and eating.

And yeah.

What's the problem?

Yeah.

I don't understand.

Well, actually, that is one of the problems with punishment as well, isn't it?

It's confusing.

Hang on a minute.

This doesn't make sense to me.

But when I do this thing that I think is good, something bad happens.

What?

Oh, goodness.

I just love the conversation so much.

And I could go on forever, but I know that people have had, you know, I don't want to

do a three hour podcast.

But let's just finish on a, well, I think this has been a really positive conversation.

So I'm not going to say finish on a positive note because it's been positive throughout.

Let's talk about anybody who's listening to this podcast saying, yeah, but, yeah, but

I've got a dog who's doing this and it's really challenging.

What advice do you give to them about where to seek help or what approach to training

they should use?

Well, I think that finding a trainer who is part of a larger team of people so that this

person is willing to seek help if they can't resolve the problem.

I think that, you know, not being too proud to ask around to, you know, to have a veterinarian

on board because very often unwanted behavior in the animals in our care can be understood

in terms of a medical condition of some kind.

So that would be a first thing.

I think that this person is part of a team or has sort of not too much pride in discussing

with others.

And then I would, I would seek somebody either with a Lima or a force free approach or a

least intrusive, minimally aversive approach.

And I think the really good ones, they don't get to the point where they use punishment.

Yeah.

Absolutely don't.

So that's not a concern for me.

Yeah.

But again, just back to that, this expression, it takes a village to raise a child.

But sometimes it takes a group of behavioral experts.

If your problem is really difficult to resolve, it will take behaviorists and ethologists

and veterinarians and perhaps even neuroscientists to resolve those really difficult challenging

behaviors.

Yeah.

And I really think we need these multiple behavioral disciplines to fully understand

behavior and to be able to deal with the most difficult cases.

Yeah.

That's a really good point.

Yeah.

And also, another thing is I think that we also were this, if we look at the world of

animal training this last decade or so, it's been extremely focused on the behavioral analytical

perspective with the ABCs and what happens immediately before the behavior and what does

the behavior look like and what happens immediately after.

But now I think we're starting to see a trend shift where we're also moving away.

We're taking a few steps back and we're looking at the animal's overall mood state.

Yeah.

Whether his emotional needs are met.

Yeah.

No, because if we can change the mood, we change perception.

Yeah.

And decision making and behavior.

So sometimes that's all we need to do is change the mood.

And the unwanted behavior that's been annoying us so much, that will just melt away.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's such a good point.

I think that is a shift.

And I think it's a good shift.

It's a really good shift for the guardians and it's a really good shift for the dogs

too.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying that we don't need the behavioral analytical perspective.

I think we do.

But I think that we need these multiple lenses to look at behavior.

Yes.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Wholeheartedly.

Oh, thank you.

That has been such an amazing discussion.

I'm sure people are going to love it.

And if you've got to the end of this podcast episode and you haven't read the blog yet,

make sure you check out the show notes because I will put the link to the blog in the show notes.

And we'll also link to Carolina's website.

She's got some fabulous courses that I've just was chatting to Carolina before we started

that I'm going to take one because her courses are so brilliant.

So you can check out more of her blogs.

You can check out her courses on her website too.

So Carolina, thank you so much for today.

It's been an absolute pleasure.

Julie, thank you for having me.

It's been great.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Be Right Back Separation Anxiety Podcast.

If you want to find out more about how I can help you further, head over to julienasmith.com.

Meanwhile, if you enjoyed listening today, I would love it if you would head over to

wherever you listen to your podcasts and consider rating my show.

Thanks so much.

Good luck with that training and bye for now.

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