18 DECEMBER 2020
Your dog may be the apple of your eye, but let s be honest: she is an animal, with her own instincts and idiosyncrasies, and there are going to be times when she makes you want to tear your hair out.
However much you want to, however, new research suggests that you should never yell at or otherwise punish a mischievous mutt.
According to a study released in pre-print last year and now published in
PLOS ONE, aversive training such as positive punishment and negative reinforcement can have long-term negative effects on your dog s mental state. Our results show that companion dogs trained with aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare during training sessions than dogs trained with reward-based methods the researchers write in their paper.
Credit: Ana Catarina Vieira de Castro
Dogs trained using aversive stimuli, which involve punishments for incorrect behavior, show evidence of higher stress levels compared to dogs trained with reward-based methods, according to a study publishing December 16 in the open-access journal
PLOS ONE by Ana Catarina Vieira de Castro from the Universidade do Porto, Portugal, and colleagues.
The researchers observed the behavior of 92 companion dogs from 7 dog training schools in Portugal that use either aversive methods (which use mainly aversive stimuli), reward methods (which focus on rewarding desired behaviours), and mixed methods (which combine the use of both rewards and aversive stimuli). They filmed training sessions and tested saliva samples for the stress-related hormone cortisol. Dogs trained using aversive and mixed methods displayed more stress-related behaviors, such as crouching and yelping, and showed greater increases in cortisol levels after training than dogs trained w
Training methods based on punishment compromise dog welfare, study finds phys.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from phys.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.