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Location: West Sussex UK
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 2,044
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Originally Posted by
Adam Palmer
Thank you mini.
1. Anytime you use an aversive you will use positive punishment (when you apply it) and negative reinforcment when you remove it. It's the timing of both that's important for sheep chasing.
Interestingly anytime you use pr you also ue negative punishment.
2, no punishment doesn't (and shouldn't) create a fear response. To do so would reduce the dogs capacity to learn. Punishment (or aversive) simply create avoidance behaviour.
To use the analogy of people. You don't fear bright sunlight you simply avoid it when it gets too hot.
Adam
Hi Adam ~ on point 1 ~ I note that you now agree that using an electric shock collar is positive punishment. It is using an aversive to stop or reduce the occurrence of a behaviour. Whilst, technically I agree that stopping something aversive is negative reinforcement, and therefore will increase the likelihood of a behaviour occurring, I still don't agree that it is used effectively in the way you describe you it. I have said several times that the way you use ecollars (stopping the shock when the dog does the correct nehaviour, i.e. looks away from sheep) will not be effective. It is confusing for the dog, the dog could do several things at the same time & won't know which one stopped the shock. I don't think this is effective & easy way for anyone to learn correct behaviours because they are not being shown the correct behaviour. It is almost down to luck that the dog looks away from the sheep ~ it could look at the sky, or at you, or at its owner, or at its feet. And anyway, if the shock is being used effectively as a punishment, it is more likely that the dog is scared, confused, fearful etc ~ again, this is not a good state for a dog to be in when you are trying to teach it something.
On point 2, I really don't understand how you can say that punishment doesn't & shouldn't create a fear response. The quote from the AVSAB position statement that I gave in my previous post says "
even when punishment seems mild, in order for it to be effective it must elicit a strong fear response". I didn't make this up ~ you're very welcome to look at the AVSAB site for yourself. I think that the wealth of knowledge & experience that these professional behaviourists have between them far outweighs anything that you or I have in the world of canine behaviour!
Just because punishment causes avoidance behaviour doesn't mean that there is no strong fear response. I'm petrified of large spiders so I avoid them ~ but I still experience a huge fear response when I see one! And
of course experiencing strong fear reduces the capacity to learn ~ this is what I've been saying all along & is one of the main reasons I don't like the use of +ve punishment in dog training (apart from the fact that I think it's unethical & cruel to deliberately hurt another sentient being).
As far as your analogy of sunlight goes, this is completely different. Sunlight has many benefits too, helping the absorption of various necessary chemicals, providing warmth, helping crops grow etc etc. Yes people have learnt that staying too long in the sun can cause sunburn (or worse) so most people take precautions like using sunblock or not staying in the sun for too long. This obviously doesn't make us completely avoid the sun, just avoid staying out in it too long. In operant conditioning terms, it is not sunshine that is the punishment; it is the resulting pain from sunburn that is the punishment. The change in our behaviour is that we don't stay out in the sun for too long ~ not that we avoid going out in the sun completely, or that we fear the sun!