Positive Punishers

               You may have read the title “Positive Punishers” and thought to yourself “this must be a way to give my birds consequences to their actions while still following a positive reinforcement training plan because it is called a positive punisher and positive reinforcement is wonderful.” I would have to say that this is not the case. Positive in positive reinforcement and positive punisher does not mean pleasant, good, or any other synonym. It talks about the addition (positive) or the removal (negative) of reinforcement and adversive. I probably just threw a lot at you at once, lets break it down.

               There are many different schedules of reinforcement. That is positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, the two you are probably most familiar with hearing, as well as a positive punisher and a negative pushier. Reinforcement is either adding (positive) something desirable to the animal to increase the rate of behavior or removing an adversive (negative) to increase the rate of behavior. An adversive is something the animal finds undesirable, either fearful of it, causes discomfort, or could be using force, depending on the circumstance and it comes in a variety of forms. For example, negative reinforcement can be you pushing your dogs butt down when teaching a sit. That is technically using force and negative reinforcement, but it is commonly used within the training community.

               Punishers decrease the rate of the behavior happening again. So, a positive punisher would be adding an adversive to decrease the rate of the behavior happening again, as a negative punisher is the removal of the ability to get something the animal likes. It is more common in force free, fear free training for someone to use a negative punisher and always avoid a positive one. An example of this is when the animal doesn’t do the behavior you cue, you turn your back and take the treats with you for 30 seconds or so, which would be a negative punisher, you remove the animal’s ability to get your attention and food, something desirable. A positive punisher would be smacking your animal, using an e-collar (as well as choke, prong, easy halter), squirting them with a water bottle, earthquaking your arm after a bite, etc.

               Positive punishers should be avoided at all costs. Using positive punishers is a way of punishing, yes, and it is listed because it does modify behavior. There is no argument on that. But, at what cost? Most of the “learning” that gets taught with positive punishers is actually your animal preforming escape/avoidance behaviors. So, they do a task to escape and avoid the consequences, which would be the adversive. Instead of your animal learning the behavior, they are learning how to avoid the adversive. Since positive punishers use coercion, positive punishers start to look like “do this, or else” and that is starting to use force. I know personally, I want my animals to learn new cues and behaviors willingly, not because I am forcing them by using an adversive. This also has an extreme effect on the animal’s psyche. It can lead to an increase in aggression within the animal, as an animal will quickly learn that aggression is a very powerful communication tool to get us away. The animal may become phobic or overgeneralizing to fear responses. You take away choice by using adversive. Choice is so powerful for an animal, especially because in captive care we already micromanage and control everything about their lives. Adding in more choice in their actions, what they participate in, and for how long can increase your animal’s mental state. 

               What can later develop when using positive punishers often or only is a concept of learned helplessness. This can be described as the animal learns that their behavior has little to ne effect on the environment. No matter what they do, it doesn’t not matter. It happens when there is a lack of choice. You will see a lack of motivation and complete withdrawal from your animal. Apathy Lethargy will also happen where you animal will become lethargic and less willing to interact, or freeze and turn away from you. This is less than ideal and shows a compromised relationship with your animal. An example of this that I have seen time and time again is an amazon parrot has the tendencies to not want to step up and will fly at their caretakers to attack if they come too close. My first thought is fear responses; the animal learns through aggression how to get us to move out of their comfort zone when we force ourselves into it (knowingly or unknowingly). So, the caretaker goes and gets the animals wings clipped, most of the time severely. Now, they can force themselves into their animal’s area and won’t get flown at. Then, to teach a step up, they grab another person, force the bird to step up, if the bird bites, they earthquake (or shake to throw the bird off balance) their arm or hand. This is a positive punisher, the addition of something the animal doesn’t like (the unsteady perch paired with their inability to fly) in order to decrease the rate of behavior (biting and aggression). So, the bird learns to stop biting, an escape and avoidance of the consequence of the earthquaking. Then, you pass the bird from person to person following the same criteria. If the bird doesn’t step up onto the other person, you trust your arm or hand to the bird starts to lose balance and grip and moves onto a more stable perch. Then you keep passing the bird back and forth and you see that the bird will start stepping up better and better each time. This is the learned helplessness coming in. You will likely find then when you put the bird back in its cage or on a perch, it will still be not willing to step up and more force is needed, or it will scream and frantically run away, or try to fly away. But in this example, flying will quickly stop because the bird learns it cannot, it is not on the floor in a vulnerable position, and can only step up to get out of the situation from a person that they are fearful of and using force. This is exactly how to not train a fearful animal who uses fight instead of flight. You can learn more about aggression from our other blog post here.

               Our interactions impact our animal’s behavior and welfare. Punishers give results quick, but at what cost? It has been scientifically proven that using positive reinforcement is the best way to modify behavior, and negative punishers is a type of punishment, if you so choose to use it, to use compared to positive punishers. If your animal has behavioral concerns, it is best to contact a professional that will formulate a training plan to boost your animal’s confidence, keep them engaged, allowing for choice, keeping your animals comfortable, using positive, force-free, training techniques using a scientific approach. Fluff and Feathers All Animal Training can do that for you through our online and in person training! Feel free to contact us to learn more!