11/02/2025
I was driving through our small town on my way to walk my dogs the other day, when I passed a woman walking a young pup - probably about 12 or 13 weeks old. What should have been a happy moment watching someone out with a cute puppy, rapidly became a heart-sinking moment of feeling absolutely awful for that pup. The puppy was pulling hard on its leash and leaning away from its owner. But, most importantly, it's tongue was out, its ears were back, and it looked incredibly stressed out. As I got a bit closer the woman paused and gave three extremely hard leash checks on the leash, yanking the puppy back hard each time. The pup cowered a tiny bit and then moved back to the end of the leash to continue it's torturous little walk. My heart sank. Puppies don't understand how to walk on a leash, It's a new concept for them and because all dogs have an opposition reflex - meaning that they push into any sensation of pressure on their body, rather than move back from it. It is actually natural and fairly normal for pups to go to the end of the leash and to pull. By snapping at the pups neck with her leash (not to mention it could potentially be dangerous around a young, delicate, and developing neck), the woman was punishing the puppy and scaring it, which was why the puppy looked so stressed. It didn't know what it was doing wrong to get such a harsh correction and so it just became scared and continued doing what it was doing while getting increasingly more stressed out.
This is the difference between reward-based training and punishment based training. Punishing a dog without giving it any meaningful information about what you would rather it do instead, only causes stress because the dog doesn't know what to do. Often the dog will revert back to the same behavior since there's not another option that's been presented to it.
When I work with dogs, I show them what I wish for them to do by first getting that behavior- either through luring, shaping, or capturing - then I heavily reward that new behavior making it very valuable and attractive to the dog. Since dogs are so good at doing what works for them, they tend to choose the behavior that gets them the biggest payout - be it in the form of food, attention, or praise. Eventually the undesired, or bad behavior becomes less enticing for the dog as they are getting no reward for it. Had this woman shown her puppy how to walk on a loose leash and praised it for that, it probably would have been happy to walk along with her on a loose leash and also not been so scared or stressed by her.
A lot of punishment-based training techniques cause a huge amount of stress, fear, and anxiety in our dogs because they don't know how to behave or what we want. They become afraid to make choices for fear of being punished for that as well. For me it's a very easy choice. If I show my dogs what I want them to do, praise them and reward them for making the right choices, I end up with a dog who feels empowered and confident because they have been able to choose the things that work best for them. I also have trusting and willing partner because my dog loves to work with me and isn't scared or stressed out by me. If you need help working through any problems, or are interested in starting a puppy out correctly - don't hesitate to reach out! Your puppy will thank you!
