This page is part of the Auxiliary section of the Beginner's Course of the
D.S. Dog Training Workshop - an element of the Dog Science Network
The Ethics of Dispensing Aversives
Try This Experiment
Take two fingers and lightly tap yourself on the nose. Did it hurt? If so, you used too much force. Try it again. What you want to do is to find the point where you are definitely making physical contact, but you are doing it so lightly that, while it is unpleasant, it is clearly not painful.
Now imagine that somebody else started smacking you on the nose with that same, unpleasant, yet painless two-fingered tap. Imagine that your boss started doing that. If you show up late for work he walks up and smacks you on the nose. You wouldn't like that, would you? Even though he always did it so lightly that it never hurt, it would still make you upset, because somehow, it's just intrinsically irritating as all get out.
For whatever reason, it is clearly so. Regardless of how lightly it might be done, getting smacked on the nose, be the subject canine or human, is pretty much always at least somewhat upsetting.
Thinking About What Your Dog Wants
Now you may be thinking, I can't go for that. I'm not going to strike my dog even if it is a painless experience, or use any sort of aversive for that matter. That sort of sentiment is, in general, indicative of a decent human being, so I certainly understand your reluctance. But is that really the kindest thing that you can do for your dog?
Put yourself in your dog's shoes (paws, or whatever) for a moment. What your dog wants more than anything in the world is the opportunity to spend quality time with you and the rest of the family. He wants to be with you all the time, so that he can share in your every activity.
By smacking your dog in a painless fashion, or punishing him with a similar aversive, you can train him faster and more thoroughly, to produce a far happier and an infinitely more functional companion than would otherwise be possible.
By using aversives in combination with two counterbalancing procedures, you can train a dog that is so well behaved that you can take him anywhere, and know that he will not cause a problem of any kind.
That means that instead of living much of his life locked up at home alone, your dog will be so well behaved that you will be able to take him with you everywhere that human policy will allow. So if your dog can't go somewhere with you, if won't be his fault, because he will be capable of a problem-free performance in any environment you'd care to name.
That is what your dog wants above all else. He wants to be with you. As you will soon surmise, getting tapped on the nose during training is not going to traumatize your dog, or ruin his day, or make him mean, or cause him any pain. In fact, it is not going to be any big deal to him at all, because your dog will take it for what it is, a correction from someone who loves him enough to teach him what he needs to know in order to participate fully in the everyday activities of the family. So an instant after being corrected, your dog will have already erased it from his thoughts.
You need to bear in mind that these corrective taps are just one part of a much larger program that is, in its totality, extremely rewarding for your dog. At the end of the day your dog will not drift off to sleep brooding about the times he was corrected. Rather, he'll enter dreamland ecstatic over his great life, and thinking about all the wonderful activities he was able to participate in because his near perfect behavior made that possible.
Remember that for a dog, socialization is the gift that goes on giving forever, because proper behavior is a fundamental prerequisite to full participation in the world of humans, which is what your dog wants more than anything on earth.