07/20/2026
Punishment is just as nuanced and skillful an endeavour as reinforcement. The emotional part of our punishment is effective because we spend 8 to 10 weeks finding our dogs’ happy place. Hiking, playing, building a relationship. Then, when it’s time to end dangerous behavior, we apply positive punishment. We include an emotional aspect in our punishment, leveraging that relationship. We use our tone, volume, body language to get disappointment, anger, sadness, a “how could you do this?” vibe.
Most of the dogs that come to us are unhappy. Aggressive dogs are not happy. Either the cause of their aggression (fear, anxiety) or the management (no off leash, no play, no walks) causes the unhappiness. We build happiness and introduce punishment to end dangerous behavior. The goal being the dog is happy here 98 percent of the time and only unhappy when being punished for dangerous behavior 2 percent of their time here. Why choose that 2 percent? The aggression greatly declines or completely goes away!
With punishment, you can go out in time and down in intensity or up in intensity and down in time. Where that lies depends on the dog in front of you. Positive punishment drastically reduces or eliminates a dangerous behavior. If that’s not happening, you are not applying punishment. You are using high level negative reinforcement.
The number of professional trainers who don’t understand that is highly concerning. It means they cannot effectively rehabilitate serious behavioral issues in dogs.
