The pontifications of an animal behaviourist who doesn't get out much.....
In the dog world you won't readily find a trainer that never uses food to help get dogs to do the behaviours they need them to. We as dog professionals though, have divided ourselves up into "force free" where we don't use punishment or harmful methods, and then the other camp which are generally more of a "balance" between using rewards and reinforcers, but also not afraid or not against using methods that can be harsh or harmful to the animal.
When working with dogs in particular, but realistically all animals, the ability to convince them to do something with food is there to use. Bribery is a term often used to described this by those that don't have a greatly informed idea of how the training process happens.
Reinforcement of behaviours
Reinforcement is the process through which we encourage more of the same behaviour to happen.
Examples can be when we feed dogs for doing the behaviour we want, but really it's when dogs get any kind of good feeling as a consequence for doing something.
So, my question with that in mind is...that by motivating a dog with food rewards or reinforcers, are we using bribery?
Bribery
Defined as "the offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving of any item of value as a means of influencing the actions of an individual holding a public or legal duty."
So in order to apply this to dog world:
I assume what is meant is that we use food to influence the behaviour of the animal.
If this is all that is meant then yes ok... I can see that being the case. But, I think more importantly it changes the actions of what the animal was already going to do.
Don't you think there is a difference between saying "if you do this, I'll give you that"
vs
"Every time I do this, that happens"
By positively reinforcing behaviour - repeatedly giving something good as a consequence of a behaviour - you are making it more likely to happen organically. An offered behaviour based on reliable reinforcement in my opinion is a bit different to something used to influence or pressure a specific result like a bribe would.
What about punishment as a threat?
I do wonder if this actually is the case though with punishment.
A threat is something that hangs over you and makes you do a certain thing or behave a certain way. I think there are a couple of ways that this manifests with use of tools in the dog training sphere.
E.g.
Lets take a prong collar - this sits on the dogs neck and when they do something that causes tension on the collar, it tightens and causes the prongs to squeeze into the neck.
This doesn't just have to be when your dog does something wrong or that you wish to punish.
Imagine your dog wishes to sniff something but you don't realise that and they move forwards, tension is created and the prongs do their thing. We are in essence accidentally telling our dog not to move.
So is it possible to deem that the presence of the prong acts as a threat -- if you move you'll feel discomfort.
Use of punishment in training
Use of punishment in the form of a training method as a consequence for specific undesirable behaviours is very very hard to uphold effectively.
Studies show that it is far more beneficial to the dog, if we choose to be consistent, we know this, practice and consistency makes a dog more likely to do the thing we want. But in this case, we see that dogs are more likely to be without conflict and make better choices, with more success in training, if we pick one method and stick to it.
I have a fairly well established ethical and moral criteria that I apply to myself, which defines that I am unlikely to use punishment, force, pain etc to make an animal perform. But there are other reasons why its possible punishment isn't the best thing to choose for your dog.
Can you be there to punish every instance of the bad behaviour?
If you reinforce what you want, overtime they choose to do the thing you have trained them to do instead.
If you punish without creating a different behaviour to replace it, you are merely saying no, they don't do it when you are present and they suppress the associated feelings.
This post is more of a "thought piece" and by no means attempts to be the gospel on reinforcement and punishment but these are things you should consider when interacting with your dog. We don't choose what is reinforcing, and we don't choose what is punishment or pressure.
Let me know what you think!