The Coercion/Persuasion Equation
What's the difference between coercion and persuasion? In the end, perhaps it comes down to rationalization.
Look at your dog and say “Sit.” Now consider what that means. Assuming you have trained that behaviour, it generally means that your dog should position itself with its bum on the floor. But let’s go a little deeper. Is it a command; an imperative that means “do what I told you or you will not be allowed to do anything else until you comply”? Or is it a request; a suggestion that “if you do what I have asked, I will reward you with something you enjoy”?
We train our dogs for lots of reasons but one of the most common is to help us manage them in our lives. We teach behaviours like “sit” that help keep our dogs still for short periods. We teach “down” for much the same reason, a way to manage the dog’s movement. Recalls and a few other behaviours perform similar management roles. The real question I want to address here is how we get our dogs to do those behaviours in response to our cues or commands.
This way or that way
There are essentially two ways of getting our dogs to do what we want. We can persuade them that doing the behaviour we are asking for is going to be beneficial for them in some way (i.e., a food treat, play, or other reward). Or we can coerce them into doing what we want by making it clear with threats or intimidation that not doing what we ask will cause bad things to happen for them (i.e., physical punishment, deprivation, or some other unpleasant outcome). Modern reward-based training methods rely heavily on persuasion to motivate the dog to cooperate by providing rewards for desired behaviours. More traditional training methods rely on coercion by using physical leash corrections or other unpleasant methods to punish the dog when they do not offer the desired behaviours.
You could say that both approaches are “effective” in that skilled trainers who use either coercion or persuasion will get the behaviours they want. But there is more at stake here than whether or not the dog sits when you say “Sit.” Coercion and persuasion have very different effects on the mental and emotion well-being of a dog. How you train and the approach you use can mean the difference between an enthusiastic learner who is willing and eager to do what you ask and a cautious dog who complies in order to avoid some unpleasant outcome if they don’t do what you ask.
The Coercive Approach
When I first learned to train dogs (40 years or so ago now) it was common to teach a dog to “heel” by jerking on the dog’s leash whenever they moved ahead or lagged behind while walking. That leash jerk would tighten a metal “choke chain” to tell the dog that they had strayed from the correct behaviour and that it was not acceptable. It was a credible threat to my dog’s well being. “Do it right or else” was the clear message of that kind of training. If I needed to step up my coercive training, prong collars and shock collars were more threatening alternatives I could to employ to get results.
I can tell you from experience that you can teach a dog using coercive methods but it’s hard on the dog and it’s hard on the human. It’s hard on us humans because no one wants to be deliberately mean to their dog. But we rationalize and tell ourselves that it’s necessary to get the behaviour we want. It’s hard on the dog because they don’t know what they don’t know. They are doing their best to figure it out and they don’t have the option to just leave. It can be frustrating for everyone involved.
Training with coercion raises an interesting question about what the dog learns during this kind of training. In order for coercion training to work, all of the threats and intimidation must at least be credible. The dog must believe that you “mean business” and are prepared to follow through on your threats. So, in addition to any behaviour that you may teach with these methods, the dog also learns that you are capable and willing to inflict pain or discomfort on them when they don’t perform.
That’s an interesting position for a dog to be in - the same person who provides them with food, water, affection, and security is also the person who can threaten, frighten, and intimidate them. If the trainer is not very skilled, those unpleasant things might seem very random. Imagine the anxiety of a training session where you don’t know what is expected and have to work to avoid punishments for not knowing the correct behaviour. It is understandable that most dogs trained with coercion adopt a cautious approach to life preferring to only act if they are sure they won’t be punished for reasons they don’t understand.
The Power of Persuasion
When I started learning modern training techniques 20 or so years ago, behavioural science helped me understand how the coercive training I used for years got me what I wanted. Surprisingly, it also explained a lot of weird challenges in my relationships with my dogs that I never understood. Having a better understanding of science of behaviour allowed me to explore the persuasive side of dog training with much better results than how I used to train.
Psychologist and behaviourist B.F. Skinner famously said “Consequence dictates behaviour.” In other words, the things that result from an animal’s behaviour choices will determine whether or not the animal is likely to repeat that behaviour in future. It perfectly explained the coercive training I used in the past - if my dog did something other than what I asked, he was punished and would be less likely to make that “mistake” again. Modern training uses persuasion to teach a dog - when the dog does what you want, give them something they really like! If consequence really does dictate behaviour, my dog should be more likely to try that behaviour again.
But let’s not think that our dogs are just machines that can be manipulated. Just as with coercion, there is more going on with this persuasive approach than getting the behaviour we want. Using a reward-based approach to teaching my dogs shows them that I have a lot of really great things and that I am willing to give them out for simple behaviours. As you might guess, my current dogs find me a lot more fun to be around than the dogs I trained using coercion. Those weird relationship challenges seem to have disappeared as well.
Some of this and some of that
The reality of living with dogs is that they will do things we like (e.g., snuggling, walking nicely) and things we don’t like (e.g., jumping up on guests, stealing food). Behavioural science suggests that we encourage the behaviours we like and discouraging the behaviours we don’t like. All too often we try to mix some of our encouragement of good behaviour with discouraging behaviours that aren’t quite right. That can be confusing for our dogs.
“Balanced Training” is a popular term used by many dog trainers these days. It seems to suggest this kind of blending of persuasion to do the right thing with coercion to force out unwanted alternative behaviours. It can all sound very logical and enticing but it is really a confused approach. It’s confusing in part because it is defined very differently by different trainers and it can be hard for the average dog owner to understand what it all means. More importantly, you have to decide from moment to moment whether you want to punish the dog for NOT doing something or reward the dog for DOING something that you want. If that sounds tricky, imagine what it’s like for the dog!
These kinds of “yes/no” approaches where you reward correct behaviour but punish variations in the same training session can be unnecessarily stressful for the dog. My dog might literally never know what’s coming next. As the trainer, I know what I’m looking for but my dog is just trying their best to figure it out. All of the trust and good feelings I generate by using rewards in a session might be wiped away by coercive attempts to enforce correct behaviour when trying to eliminate incorrect behaviours.
Every dog will, at some point, do something that we don’t want. It could be jumping up in greeting, chewing on shoes, or even barking out the window. These are all behaviours we need to interrupt. To a certain degree, I may need to use coercion to let my dog know that an unwanted behaviour is “not ok” and needs to stop. But that interruption is just the starting point. If I am going to ask my dog not to do something, I need to give them an alternative that would be more acceptable.
And this is where we get into the careful and thoughtful blending of the Coercion/Persuasion Equation.
The not-so-simple math
Something I see all too often is a dog owner attempting to lure their dog into a situation that dog finds uncomfortable. The owner has a cookie or other food treat just beyond the reach of the dog in hopes that the dog will want the food more than they want to stay out of the situation. This is one way that our attempts to persuade our dog actually becomes coercive. What is going on here is that we are depending on the dog’s instinct to get the food to override their caution at an uncomfortable situation.
It breaks down like this. The dog is not doing the thing we want. So we offer up more and more enticing rewards to get the dog to do it anyway. If the dog does it, we got what we wanted. If the dog doesn’t do it, they are just being stubborn or weird or something. But do we consider that the dog may have a good reason for not doing what we ask? It could be an unfamiliar situation, it could be that the dog doesn’t really understand what is being asked, or even that the dog is not feeling well.
Positive training and behavioural science has pointed the way to using rewards to encourage and teach our dogs. Used wisely, rewards are an incredibly effective and efficient way to teach our dogs. But they can also be used in ways that a dog can find stressful. Imagine being asked to do something you find scary like walking through a bad part of town at night. And when you say “no” you are offered $10,000 to do it anyway. Now you have to face the stress of deciding if doing the scary thing would be worth the risk for the $10,000. If this sounds familiar, it should. Television shows like “Fear Factor” have entertained millions on this very premise.
Is it fair that we put our dogs in these stressful situations when we use rewards to coerce them to behave in a certain way? Well, yes and no. You could be forgiven if your answer to that question is “It depends.” There are a lot of things to take into account - the dog’s history, their level of anxiety, possible alternatives to using coercion in that instance, how much the dog trusts us, etc. For me, the most important question is WHY do I need my dog to do this thing right now?
Wants and needs
There are lots of ways to lower the stress and anxiety of coercive situations. Perhaps it might be best to take a step back and get my dog used to less intense versions of the thing that they are resisting. Perhaps I need to teach my dog new or better coping strategies before asking them to do something difficult. Or it might be that I don’t need my dog to do this thing at all right now and we can just do something else.
In my experience, most of the coercion that happens in a dog’s life comes down to their owner not getting what they want and trying to “force” the issue. That call I hear so often at the dog park, “Fluffy! Cookies!”, is a classic of persuasion turned into coercion as Fluffy gets clipped onto her leash and marched out of the park after she gets her cookie. Coercion is easy to see when punishment is involved but it’s less obvious when it is disguised as a reward. Just because your dog wants a reward does not mean that they are completely comfortable with what they have to do to get it.
The danger of this kind of coercion through rewards is that it de-values the rewards. Sure, you get the behaviour you wanted right now. But your dog has also learned a valuable lesson - rewards might come with a very high price and it might be better to avoid it next time. Then it becomes a game of sorts. An arms race of offering ever more valuable treats and other trickery and soon nobody knows what to trust anymore.
Just because we want our dog to do something does not mean that we need get the dog to do it by any means necessary. Sometimes it’s better to stop, think, and do the math to decide whether we are persuading our dog or coercing them. It can mean the difference between a happy and cooperative relationship with our dogs or a frustrating one where we trick our dogs and they trick us.
Until next time, have fun with your dogs!
If you enjoy these essays, the most important thing you can do is to share them with others. Pass them along in emails, send a link to a post or to the website, post about what you read here on your social media accounts. Spreading the word means a bigger and better conversation about our dogs and how we work with them.
Good article Eric. While I thought I always used persuasion ,there is one instance I can think of where I now realize I am using coercion! I shall now alter my approach to this situation. Thank you
The other thing that happens...especially when folks think they are being "balanced" but may not have a really good grip on mechanics or the necessary thought involved in training a living thing....is we confuse the heck out of the dog and they may end up not knowing what will and won't get punished. I see this more often than I'd like in my foster work.....dogs who won't offer ANY behaviour unless they are absolutely clear it won't be the "wrong" behaviour.
And...a hair off the topic,.....the confusion about what is and isn't a reinforcer (or a punisher for that matter). The idea that praise and petting are reinforcers that dogs will inherently work for makes me nuts. They CAN be reinforcers, but they are conditioned reinforcers....and so many dogs see that tone of voice as an indication that they won't get punished....or that tone of voice has been associated with a primary reinforcer (food, for instance) so it tells the dog they did the right thing.
Nice article, Eric!