Spray Baths Are Positive, Not a Punishment

It baffles me when people use water, especially spray bottles, on their animals to ”correct” behavior. Using a spray bottle is a positive punisher, which means you add something aversive to the environment following a behavior in order to change behavior. So, the water would be “aversive” or something the animal doesn’t like. To learn more about positive punishers, read our blog post here.

I WANT my animals to enjoy water. It makes baths easy. It means it can be a secondary reinforcer. It gives my animals skills and confidence. I made sure Tootsie, the basset hound in the video, was desensitized and rewarded for going into water willingly from a young age, since I had the privilege of getting her young. It’s to the point where I cannot shower alone cause she loves the water that much!

My birds love water now, but they all used to HATE getting a bath. I don’t want to say because they were sprayed to correct behaviors, owners didn’t know they had to bathe their birds, or other forms of either neglect or abuse because I don’t know the history of a lot of my birds, and I don’t want to assume things that could affect my training or how I handle them. I just know there was training needed and experimenting to find what the bird prefers in order to be successful.

If you are wanting to get your birds to enjoy showers, feel free to contact us to set up an online behavior consultation to learn how!