In this episode, Annie offers a follow up to the previous episode, which featured a candid conversation with her husband about her ill-fated attempt to use punishment to keep him from showing her his uvula very time he yawned. Here, she points out some of the similarities and differences between using punishment with dogs and with humans. This episode touches on, among other things: -The long shadow punishment can cast -How language can offer clarification... or not -The subjective nature of "bad" behavior -Choosing appropriate punishers (and reinforcers) -The issue with a "Nothing In Life Is Free" approach to training -The importance of wisely selecting a training subject who isn't inclined to exhibit copious unwanted behaviors Notes: How I used punishment to train my husband to cover his mouth when he yawns (Part 1): - Parentonomics-- a book that discusses the trap of toilet training a child with jelly beans - Plenty In Life Is Free by Kathy Sdao - Have a question for our upcoming Q + A episode? Ask it at AnnieGrossman.com/ask

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Partial Transcript:



Annie:

Hello listeners. So last episode, if you heard it was a conversation with my husband, Jason, about an instance where I tried to change a behavior of his that I didn't like by using punishment and the episode was a conversation about this, this debacle, let's call it.

I got a bunch of questions about the whole thing. The specific behavior of course was that I was trying to get him to stop yawning with his mouth wide open. I was trying to train him to cover his mouth and the episode led to a lot of questions and I realized that it was sort of maybe like giving everybody a primary source without offering enough commentary and dissection about the whole thing. And I think that it's an anecdote that actually contains a lot of lessons that are applicable to all kinds of behavioral training, whether you're training a dog or your husband. Certainly  it was a failed attempt. So might be helpful if you go back and listen to that episode before listening to this episode. The real meaty part starts about halfway through if you want to cut to the chase.

The first thing I wanted to point out in looking at the whole incident, which Jason refers to as a “yawngate” is really how arbitrary and silly it is that, of course, that this was the thing I decided I was going to try and train. That this was the behavior that I was going to try and punish.



So often with dogs, we're inclined to categorize behaviors as a good behavior or a bad behavior. But in the end, they're all just behaviors. And whether or not they're good or bad depends on who is making the judgment.  Plenty of people would not be bothered at all by someone yawning without covering their mouths. And certainly working with dogs as trainers, we see all the time the things that are considered bad behaviors by one dog owner that someone else wouldn't mind at all.



For instance, lots of people don't want their dogs on their furniture and other people have no issue with their dogs going on their furniture. My dog barks at the doorbell and I have had people come over and comment on this as if it's an irony that I have a poorly behaved dog who barks at the doorbell when I am in fact a dog trainer.



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