What Is The Most Suitable Punishment For A Dog?

When we hear the word punishment we relate it to something negative, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. It has been shown that in both humans and animals what works best is the so-called positive reinforcement: motivating and encouraging, but without going over mistakes. We could say that this type of discipline is a hidden punishment, because after all, it aims at the same thing: to improve a behavior. Now, given our dog’s bad behavior, what is the best punishment?

Types of punishment to avoid

There are negative punishments (let’s call them that) that we will have to avoid at all costs, as not only will they not be able to improve the behaviors we want, but they can also physically and mentally harm our dog.

• Physical punishment. It never hurts to say again that physical punishment is a form of mistreatment and will not bring anything as a result, it just harms the animal and makes it fear you. On the other hand, the dog can get used to this type of punishment and less and less understand why you punish him.
• Verbal punishment. Yelling or insulting your dog will not make him obey you. Remember that he doesn’t speak your language and that he won’t understand you better because you scream louder.
• Lock it up. Locking up a dog when he does something wrong won’t improve the situation much either. The animal will not understand why and will only cry, increasing the animal’s anxiety and anguish. The effect is the same if you put him in the yard and don’t let him in, he will feel locked in the same way.

Negative punishment does not get positive results, and worse, the dog can get used to it believing that his way of life is normal and will never learn any lessons. Also, the bond you have already established with him will break, as he will always connect your presence with something negative.

Now, there is another type of “punishment” that will teach your dog lessons he will never forget.

The positive reinforcement, the perfect punishment

A mother invented a method called the green pen. Tired of seeing that as much as she marked with a red pen the mistakes her daughter made in school lessons without results, she decided to use a green pen to mark what the girl did correctly. The more green marks it had, the better it would do to increase them, and it worked!

This is called positive reinforcement, rewarding what is done correctly rather than punishing what is done wrongly.

If you want your dog to learn a voice command such as the “come” command, it’s a little obvious that at first, out of ten times you call him, he comes only once. If you get angry all nine times, the dog will see no sense in obeying you.

However, by rewarding good deeds, however few, you will encourage your pet to be obedient and everything will be easier.

Now, there are also times when we must punish our dog, but how do we do that?

Verbally with a firm but not rude tone of voice. Looking him in the eye and catching the animal by the neck gently so that it doesn’t leave our presence while we talk to it. Don’t dwell on it, it should be something short.

Educating a dog from the first months of life is essential for it to have excellent behavior throughout its years with you. Teach with love through positive reinforcement supported by perseverance. Perseverance and patience are undoubtedly the best way to educate a dog and avoid punishing him in the future.

There are many myths about how to teach a dog not to bite things, not to urinate around the house and about many other matters, but remember: any behavior that causes fear in your animal will not help the pet to improve and neither will you love more, but the opposite.