Dog training tip o' the day: Punishment will shut down behaviour but it may not address the underlying cause.

Dog training tip o' the day: Punishment will shut down behaviour but it may not address the underlying cause. 

Imagine you have a pot of water on the stove. The heat is turned on beneath it and gradually the water begins to boil. Then the water begins to boil over. "No problem," you say, "I'll solve the problem of the overflowing water by putting a lid on the pot!" The lid solves the immediate problem of water spilling out of the pot. However the heat underneath is still on and the water continues to boil. You just can't see it. Eventually the water boils over again, more strongly this time. The lid rattles, hot water pours out and you have a mess on your hands from a problem that you thought you'd previously fixed. Turns out you only masked your problem temporarily.

Now, to apply this to dogs, imagine you're walking your pup down the street and she sees another dog approaching. She barks, growls and lunges. You're displeased with this behaviour and don't want it to happen again (so embarrassing!) so you punish your dog by jerking the leash and telling her to knock it off to stop the behaviour. This may get her to snap out of her threat display, but it doesn't address the underlying issue. It doesn't turn the heat off under the pot, it just puts a lid on it. Your dog is likely still anxious (and may in fact be more anxious now since the leash correction and reprimand was pretty unpleasant too). That anxiety is the heat below the pot which is causing the explosive behaviour.