GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - Like any scientific field, the science of how animals learn has changed drastically over the years. 

Unfortunately not everyone has kept up with the new research and some dog owners and dog professionals are still using outdated, abusive techniques to attempt to deal with problematic behaviour in pets.

"At the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology (Coape) International, we believe in the use of positive reinforcement and force-free training methods, as well as the ethical treatment of pets," says local Coape qualified behaviourist, George van Huyssteen. He offers some advice.

Things to consider before punishing your pet:

• The very top of the list is that any form of punishment will severely affect your relationship with your pet. When you punish your pet, you become untrustworthy and someone to be feared in his eyes instead of his safe place. That bond of trust is something to be protected and fostered, not shattered – which is what punishment does.

• A lot of the things we see as naughty are natural behaviour for pets. For example, chewing only toys instead of your shoes and not to dig in the flowerpots are things a dog needs to be taught. If you haven't put in the time to teach your dog the house rules in a force-free and positive way, you can't punish him for not knowing.

• Punishment may seem to work as it will often stop the problem behaviour immediately, but it doesn't teach the dog how you would like him to behave in that situation in the future.

• Punishment may make your pet fearful, and depending on his character, he may resort to aggression to keep the scary thing (you) away from him. As the majority of people will back away if a dog growls or lunges at them, all this does is reinforce in your dog that aggression works and is an appropriate way to solve dilemmas.

• The fall-out from punishing your pet will vary according to his personality. The ways your pet may react to punishment may vary from aggression, fear and hyperactivity (he is constantly vigilant because he sees you as unpredictable) to complete shutdown (if he does nothing, he won't get punished).

• Punishment does not deal with the cause of the problem. All it does is suppress the unwanted behaviour. As noted above, punishment will often increase fear, and if a strategy like aggression has worked for him before in a similar situation, he will be far less likely to give as many warning signals as he may have done before – things like tucking his tail, licking his lips, trying to get away from the person or growling. Dogs who have previously been punished tend to react faster and more intensely.

• In order for punishment to be effective, it has to happen immediately. Unfortunately, punishing your pet a few hours or even a few minutes after he has been "naughty" achieves nothing other than distrust as he can't connect the deed with the punishment. Instead, he is likelier to associate the punishment with what he had just done, such as coming to you when you called him.

• Punishment needs to happen every time your pet engages in unwanted behaviour. So, with something like barking at bicycles, you can punish him when you are home, but what about when you're at work or even in the bath? So, all he learns is not to bark at them when you're around.

• If you are trying to change behaviour by punishing your pet, one crucial point to remember is that if the unwanted behaviour hasn't stopped after you have punished him three times, the punishment is not working and to continue punishing is abuse. Instead, contact a qualified behaviourist who can help you find the cause of the problem behaviour and work on modifying that.

For more information, please visit www.coape.org.

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