Why Punishing a Puppy Doesn't Work

I'm Dale Buchanan, and this is Puppy Talk, the podcast that offers free advice and tips for raising a happy, healthy, and obedient puppy. For more information on this podcast, visit us online at puppytalkpodcast.com. Welcome to Puppy Talk episode number 140. Today we're going to do a very important topic that I've been wanting to do for quite a while. This one is about why punishing your puppy doesn't work. Let's get started. Let me first just start by saying that puppies are not miniature adults. They are babies, learning how the world works. Punishment often creates confusion, fear, and damage to trust, while teaching and reinforcing creates understanding and lasting behavior change. Have you ever caught your puppy chewing on a shoe, having a potty accident on the floor, jumping on guests, or nipping at your hands and thought, how do I punish this behavior? I get calls about this all the time, people asking me how they punish their puppy. If I can teach them how to punish their puppy when they do something wrong, I explain to them that's not what dog trainers do. I also have current clients that want to know how they punish their puppy for certain behaviors. And I tell them, that's unethical. We don't do that. We don't punish puppies. Our job is to teach them. We want to teach the puppy what we want them to do and not focus on what we don't want them to do. We'll get to that later on in the podcast. Just remember that puppies are learning every day. Puppy training should focus on education, not punishment. Think of it like this: if you have a business and you have a new employee and that employee's first day, they're making mistakes. You're not going to get mad at them and start shouting at them and tell them, no, no, no, stop, stop. You're doing it all wrong. You're going to pull them aside and train them and then put them back on the job with the training. And then if they make a mistake at that point, that's a different story. Either the trainer wasn't that good or the employee just isn't that motivated to work for that company. With puppies, we really want to focus on training, not punishing. Like I said earlier, your puppy is a baby. Many owners bring home an eight-week-old or nine-week-old puppy and expect perfect potty habits, no chewing, no play biting, no jumping, no barking. Yet the puppy has only been on the planet for a few weeks. Puppies don't open their eyes until they're three weeks old. Then they start moving around, interacting with their littermates, getting corrected by the mother, and learning how to behave properly amongst other dogs. And hopefully the breeder is handling them and getting them socialized with a variety of different people, and they're starting to see new things and hear new things, and their nose is working and they're smelling a lot. And that's from three to eight weeks old. And eight weeks old, usually people will get a new puppy between eight and ten weeks old, somewhere around there, sometimes 12 weeks. So the puppy hasn't been doing much in life. They're brand new to the world, literally. Another key point to remember is that puppies aren't trying to be difficult. They're exploring, learning, they're making mistakes, they're trying to make decisions. We don't punish toddlers for not knowing algebra. We teach them. Puppies deserve the same mindset. Be a teacher, be a leader for them, and teach them what you want. Why punishment often fails. Problem number one, punishment doesn't teach. The puppy learns what not to do, but never learns what to do instead. I've always said this in every podcast episode, in every article I've written. Focus on teaching what you want the puppy to do, not what you want them to stop doing. Here's an example. Puppy jumps on guests. The owners will yell, they'll grab them, they'll push them off, they'll say off, down, no, stop, whatever. The puppy may stop briefly for a few seconds, and they're going to go back to jumping on people again because they never learned how to greet people appropriately. Problem number two with punishing is it creates fear. The puppy may begin associating people with punishment, hands with punishment, owners with unpredictability. I see this a lot with rescue dogs. People go up to them and they try to pet the dog, and the dog runs behind the owner with the tail tucked because at some point, most likely, not always, but the majority in this case, they were yelled at or they had a hand raised above them and they were threatened and they have fear for people that reach out to them or come and approach them. And this is a big problem that I've seen a lot recently. And it's something that's really hard to change if it can be changed at all, because it's embedded into that puppy's mind. Remember that everything that the puppy learns from four to 12 or 16 weeks old is embedded into them. This is what their associations are. That's the critical period of what they learn. So creating fear in them at that age is probably going to be a lifelong process of them having fear with whatever the trigger is. So you don't want to punish them at that age. It's very important. In fact, I barely even use corrections with puppy, young puppies at all. If I use a correction, it's a sound like uh-uh, something like that. It's very gentle, very mild correction. I don't think that using the word no or stop or anything that's harsh is going to teach them anything. So we don't use it. It's not part of a puppy training program. Problem number three with punishing a puppy is that it damages trust. Remember that you're trying to build a relationship with your puppy. My job as the trainer is to teach the owners how to build a better relationship with the puppy. And trust is the foundation of the relationship and of all training. Puppies should see the trainer and the owners as mentors, leaders, guides, not threats. I go to a house today with an elderly gentleman who's really nice and really sweet to his puppy. The puppy loves him. It's a great Pyrenees, a 90-pound dog. It's a very big dog. The dog doesn't listen to him very well because he's very nice and gives it too much affection. But when I give the puppy a command, I say, hey, go lay down on the rug, go lay down next to us on the floor. But you don't need attention all the time. So no need to try to jump on us or mouth us. And the puppy just lays down. It doesn't even question my authority at all. And I'm not yelling at it. I'm just telling it what I want. And every single time that I've given the puppy any direction, it follows me exactly. As I was leaving the house of that same client, the puppy wanted to follow me out of the house. And I just moved into the puppy space. And I said, Riley, go sit on your rug and stay. I said it just like that. And he stayed and he watched me walk out the door. And the owner said, I need to learn how to do that. I said, We're going to work on it. That's what I'm here for. We'll work on it next week. So those are some reasons why developing trust is very important. And I've often said this your puppy can love you, but not trust and respect you. Problem number four with punishment is timing is difficult. Many punishments happen after the behavior. And the puppy often has no idea why the owner is upset. I had somebody that I talked to on the phone said, our dog bit somebody when they try to take a bone away. And I said, What did you do? They said, Well, I sat the dog down and I said bad dog and I slapped it, and my husband slapped it. And I said, No, no, that's not, that's not a good idea. First of all, it's after the fact. They don't associate it with the resource guarding that you described to me over the phone. And secondly, that's not going to teach the puppy anything. So try not to do that anymore if they resource guard again. But luckily, there haven't been any problems because we're working with the puppy with obedience training and we're preventing the resource guarding now. Here are a list of common puppy behaviors that people punish. Potty accidents. Why punishment doesn't work? The puppy simply doesn't make the connection yet. I heard people say we should rub the nose of the dog in the urine after they make a mistake in the house. No, you don't do that. That doesn't teach them anything. That doesn't help the situation. A better approach is better supervision, a puppy schedule, prevention by keeping them on a leash or in the crate using management, and reward success when they go outside in the grass. That's a better option to prevent them from having accidents in the house. Puppy playbiting is another thing that people often punish, but it doesn't work. Because puppies explore with their mouths. A better approach to puppy play biting is to interrupt the behavior with an uh-uh and then redirect their mouth to something to chew on because they're teething, such as toys or a bully stick or something like that, that's a puppy soft chew that's approved for them that they can chew on without breaking their teeth. Another thing that's important to note that if the puppy's overstimulated, they're going to play by it. So end the over-stimulation by giving them a little time out, letting them settle down and calm down. And the mouth of the puppy is not near your hands. So you're going to just separate them from you just briefly with a leash or something like that, or give them something else to chew on on the carpet or on their bed. And then when they do that, you reward that behavior. We'll get to rewarding behaviors in just a minute, a little bit more. The next thing that people punish often is chewing. Why punishment doesn't work for chewing is because chewing is a normal puppy behavior. They're going to chew. Are they going to chew on your shoes, your clothes, your furniture, your carpet, or are you going to puppy proof the environment and give them something else to chew on that's more appropriate, like I mentioned earlier? Bully stick, uh, nylobone for puppies, uh deer antler, something like a collagen stick or something that's good for them that they can chew on, and reward appropriate choices. So when they don't chew on furniture, you reward them and let them know they're doing the right thing. The next thing that people often punish is jumping. Punishment doesn't work for jumping because jumping gets attention. And puppies are going to do more of what they're getting attention for. So if the puppy's jumping and you're pushing the puppy down and saying down, which means to lay down, and they say down and pushing, and then the puppy's going to jump more because it's a fun game. Another thing about saying down when the puppy jumps is when I'm teaching the puppy to lay down after the sit, it's go sit, down, stay, come, and then I say down and the puppy starts jumping. Somewhere along the way, the owner had taught the puppy that down means to jump. So you can't be talking to them when they're jumping, and you can't be touching them when they're jumping. In fact, you can't be talking or touching a puppy anytime they're doing an unwanted behavior. You've got to interrupt it with this sound, uh-uh, and then redirect it to something else and reward that behavior. For jumping, we teach four paws on the floor, four on the floor, and reward calm greetings. When they greet people and they're standing, sitting, or laying down, four paws on the floor without jumping, they get a reward, they get praise, they're going to do more of that. There's value in not jumping. What to do instead of punishment? Like I said earlier, teach desired behaviors. Instead of focusing on mistakes, focus on teaching success. Ask this question to yourself before you get upset at your puppy. What do I want my puppy to do? What do I want them to learn? How can I help them learn? How can I help them succeed? An example is instead of jumping, like I said, they sit for greetings. Instead of play biting, they grab a toy. Instead of chewing furniture, you give them something else to chew on. Reward good behaviors. I often go to clients' homes and find out that they've never praised their puppy, they've never told their puppy they're doing a good job. They never reward the puppy when the puppy is making voluntary decisions on an ongoing basis that are good. But you have to do that. Start noticing when they're making good decisions and tell them, good boy, good girl, good dog. The decisions that they make that are good could be calm behavior, just in general, good choices. They lay down on their own and they stop bothering you. Quiet moments where they are very calm and not barking and not running around the house trying to get in trouble. And chewing on their toys and chewing on their bully sticks and their other things instead of the furniture. When they're doing those things, you just look at the puppy and say, hey, that's a good dog. Good job. And then they'll know that they're doing something well. Instead of punishing them with corrections and harshness, let them know when they're doing something good. Your job as the owner, and my job as the trainer, is to set the puppy up for success. That's it. You're teaching them things that are going to set them up for success. A big part of that is management. You want to make sure that you use baby gates, crates, a leash in the house. I always recommend people get a slip lead, keep the puppy on a slip lead in the house. The only thing they could do is start chewing the slip lead if they don't have something else to chew on. It's not a big deal. You get a cheap leash and you put it on them in the house, and that's all you have to do. You might have to go through two or three leashes. That's fine. Never let the puppy out of your sight. If you can't watch them, they are going to get themselves in trouble for quite a while until they're an adult. So you want to prevent mistakes whenever possible with great management. Here are the long-term benefits of not punishing your puppy. We're teaching instead of punishing. What it creates with the puppy is trust with you. They enjoy learning, they recover from mistakes quickly, they feel confident, they understand expectations. Here's an important point Training isn't about controlling or directing or barking orders at a puppy all the time. It's about helping them succeed and learn how to make good decisions on their own without you having to tell them every second. The goal isn't to catch your puppy doing something wrong. The goal is to catch your puppy doing something right and rewarding them for doing it. That's extremely important, and I can't drive that one home enough because most people only focus on the negative of the puppy and never focus on the positive. But when we're raising a puppy, we have to be very positive. Proof is in the pudding. I've got Dixie, she's six and a half years old. She's a great dog. I got her 10 weeks old, and I use these techniques when I raised her. And I have tons of videos that I show my clients when I work with them. And they say, How did you get that dog to do that on the first day, on the second day? I said, I use the methods that I'm teaching you. In review, keep in mind the following points. Puppies are learning, not misbehaving on purpose. Punishment often creates confusion and fear. Teaching creates understanding. Reward the behaviors you want more of, not what you don't want. Focus on guidance rather than correction. I want you to do something with your puppy this week. Look for three good choices your puppy makes every day and reward that puppy. Either give them a treat, give them a praise. But don't do this. Don't be patting them on the head and saying their name, because then that's going to get them too excited. Just from a distance, just say, good dog, good girl, good boy, or throw them a treat on the ground if they're on the ground and say, that's a good dog. You may be surprised how quickly those good choices start happening more often, because remember, as I said, puppies are going to do more of what they're rewarded for and praised for, and less of what they're that you don't want them to do, what they would normally get corrected for. I hope you enjoyed the information in this podcast. If you have any questions about the episode, you can reach me through the website, puppytalkpodcast.com. Have a great day.