Punishment combined with shaping [was:RE: [Click-l] Introduction and encouragement]

[Kellie]

>I'm totally not a purist and I do what I can.  My experience is
>that as long as you don't punish in association with the clicker, you
really can't go
>wrong.  At worst you will make slower progress than if you do "everything
>right."  I've even caught myself getting the food to Molly before
>the click, but she seems to be catching on (as am I).

It's far better to get the food to the dog before the click than to get it
to the dog too long after the click!

I have to share some info about new research and the combining of punishment
and shaping procedures in training.  A graduate student at UNT is doing her
thesis work on just this subject, and the results are pretty clear so far.
More dogs will be tested as time goes on, but so far, this is what has
resulted.  The research is called Poisoning the Cue, a term coined by Karen
Pryor, and the supervising behavior analyst on the research is Dr. Jesus
Rosales who has appeared at some Expos.

One dog was trained to come using the French word for "come" and the
traditional method of pulling on the leash until the dog learns to come to
avoid being dragged by the leash.
The same dog was trained to come using the Spanish word for "come" and pure
shaping with the clicker.

The dog learned to come reliably with both cues, and no longer needs to have
his leash pulled or to be clicked on each and every response, but when he is
called with the French cue, he drops his head, walks in a curve, wags his
tail slowly, averts his eyes, licks his lips and takes as long as he can get
away with to get to her.  When he comes with the Spanish cue, however, he
bounds over so quickly the time can barely be recorded, his tail wagging a
million miles a minute, his head up and all the signs we would all refer to
as the sign of a happy dog.

Same dog.  Two methods.  SAME BEHAVIOR.  He still has to come to her.  He
still has to come quickly.  But it is obvious that he is a very unhappy dog
when he is called using the French word and a very happy dog when he is
called using the Spanish word.

So, training with punishment sometimes and with the clicker at other times
is not without risks.

Also, I have one dog who was raised in an aversive environment and another
who was "fresh" except for having lived in a shelter for a few months.  The
difference in the ease of training these two dogs is astonishing. The little
guy has never been punished in relation to training (I have no idea what his
previous life was like.  He was a year old when I got him and had been in
the shelter for 4 months.)  I can teach this little dude new stuff in a few
minutes that takes me months- literally months- to teach my other dog.

The problem with punishment is not that it doesn't work.  It DOES work.
That's why everyone resorts to it so easily.  But it has a whole host of
side effects that screw up your outcome.

I choose to try every positive method at my disposal before resorting to
punishment for this reason.  Punishment, for me, is a last resort, and I
always consider it a failure on my part, not  the result of an animal who
can't learn through positive methods.

Kellie