Teenage Tyrants
You were so excited to bring your new puppy home! All of their fluffy, cuddly cuteness made up for the potty accidents on your brand new rug, the trashed baseboards, and the endless stream of puppy biting. Finally, there’s a light at the end of this puppyhood tunnel as they turn six months! Their biting has curbed significantly, they’re pottying outside like a champ, and it feels like your hard work going to puppy class and training at home has paid off. Until it doesn’t.
At about seven months, your sweet puppy seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Their skills seem to be regressing, and suddenly they’re jumpy, barky, bitey, impulsive, and destructive maniacs! They’ll barely look up at you unless you’re holding treats (and even then it’s 50/50), and they somehow seem to have even more wild energy than they did when they were younger. They’re jumping all over your family, terrorizing the other pets in the home, whipping around the house in a frenzy and you just need it to stop!
Welcome to the messy world of canine adolescence. Between the ages of roughly 6 months-24 months, your dog is in their teenage phase. This is the time when your dog’s listening skills take a serious nosedive, their energy levels are at their highest, and their need for enrichment is at its highest. It’s also the time when their senses of smell and hearing become fully developed, and the world becomes a whole lot bigger and more interesting. To top it all off, it’s also also the time where they have their (mostly) adult body and a (mostly) puppy brain! It’s the perfect storm for behavior problems.
Unsurprisingly, this is the age where trainers get the highest number of phone calls. It’s sadly also the time when many dogs are dropped off at the local animal shelter. Many well-meaning pet parents just aren’t prepared for the realities of having an adolescent dog in the household. The sudden spike in behavioral issues can seem to come out of the blue, even if it’s developmentally normal and unavoidable!
This is the time when we see many frustrated, overwhelmed, and exhausted pet parents purchasing shock collars. We hear you. We understand, from both professional and personal experience, how difficult it can be to navigate life with an adolescent dog. (On another day, we can share the story about how Olivia’s teenager Jude made direct eye contact while he knocked over and shattered a priceless ceramic heirloom…). It would be amazing to just be able to push a button and have a moment of peace. Before you add that shock collar to your cart, please take a moment to learn more about the serious risks involved with their use.
What is force-free?
At Clickstart Dog Training Academy, we subscribe to Force-Free methodology as strictly as possible. We use positive reinforcement to teach our dogs how to be successful, and management to keep them safe in the process. We believe that:
Our dogs should experience no pain, no intimidation, no stress, and no fear in the name of training. This means no: physical or verbal corrections, shock collars, prong collars, choke chains, spray bottles, or other aversive consequences to suppress unwanted behavior.
Our dogs should work for the things that motivate them to build confident and enthusiastic learners. This means using: food, treats, toys, play, affection, attention, or access to other rewarding consequences to build good behavior.
Our dogs should be set up for success and have all of their needs for physical and behavioral wellness met. This means mental and physical exercise, enrichment, and freedom to exhibit natural behaviors in constructive ways.
What is punishment?
Punishment, by definition, means behavior has decreased in frequency. This can be accomplished by adding something unpleasant or aversive (positive punishment or P+), or by removing something desirable (negative punishment or P-).
Punishment is defined by outcomes. If the behavior does not decrease as a result, then punishment did not occur (even if it was aversive to the learner).
Punishment does not teach new or alternative behaviors.
Punishment must be severe enough to end the behavior to be considered punishment. An animal can otherwise become desensitized to aversive stimuli (like a prong collar correction, shock collar buzz, etc), and will require increasing intensities to even temporarily cease behavior.
If punishment works, why not use a shock collar?
We can’t deny that punishment, purely by definition, is effective in stopping behavior. So then why wouldn’t we build it into our training plans? Is it just because we’re soft-hearted cookie pushers who value ethics over effectiveness? We pride ourselves on promoting training methods that are ethical, effective, and educated, so let’s take a moment to use that education and look at the science of behavior.
The use of shock collars and other aversive strategies might be effective, but positive reinforcement has been documented in countless studies to be more efficient and effective, with longer-lasting results and no potential fallout. Even if we were stripping ethics from the conversation, positive reinforcement is a simply more reliable method for animal training.
Perhaps the most significant reason we don’t advocate the use of shock collars is the exhaustive collection of research on the negative effects they have! Hundreds of studies have been conducted and all point to the same things. The most common behavioral fallout directly resulting from shock collar use includes:
Learned helplessness: when an animal is exposed to an aversive stimulus that it cannot escape from, it will eventually stop trying to escape and shut down. (This is often mistaken as a ‘well-behaved’ dog)
Decreased ability to learn
Increased fear and anxiety
Increased aggression
Increased stress-related health problems
The Use of Choke and Prong, Common Fallout, Multiple Scientific Sources
Human directed aggression in domestic dogs: Occurrence in different contexts and risk factors
The effects of using aversive training methods in dogs- a review
Training Dogs With the Help of the Shock Collar: short and long term behavioural effects
The Effects of Combining Positive and Negative Reinforcement During Training
The Use of Shock, Consequences of Shock, Multiple Scientific Sources
Can Aggression in Dogs Be Elicited Through the Use of Electronic Pet Containment Systems?
Case Studies
Remember, teenage behavior is temporary, but the harmful effects of a shock collar can be permanent. If the studies linked above aren’t evidence enough, we have an unfortunately long list of case studies from our years in the behavior field.
Noise Phobia
We were called to come work with a maltese mix who was presenting with anxiety and fear in the house, especially in response to electronic sounds, after a single shock collar training session. The dog would enter a state of panic (uncontrollable shaking, drooling, dilated pupils, panting, and attempts to escape) upon hearing the kids playing video games, alarm clocks, microwave timers, UPS scanners, and any other high-pitched electronic sound. His owners shared that before a shock was administered, the electric collar they had used would beep. The dog required extensive systematic desensitization and eventual veterinary behaviorist intervention to function in the home, but he never returned to his baseline from before the collar was used.
Increased Aggression & Biting
An adolescent collie was referred to a “behaviorist” after growling at a vet tech during an exam of an infected patch of skin. The “behaviorist” administered a correction on a choke chain, and when the collie growled in response he was picked up off the ground completely, suspended by the choke chain, and then pinned to the floor until he yelped. Immediately following this incident, the dog began growling, snapping at, and biting family members. He demonstrated avoidance behaviors in any training scenario, even after the choke chain was removed from use. A slow re-introduction to positive reinforcement training and cooperative care was highly effective in undoing the damage caused.
Increased Fear & Anxiety
Years ago a young vizsla was growing up on a large plot of land that wasn’t fenced. The owners were advised to use a shock collar and an invisible fence to ensure the dog never wandered from the property. The day we arrived to walk her for the first time she was so excited. The family told us the e-collar was turned off. She followed us eagerly as we left the property but then she suddenly let out a yelp so piercing we thought she was seriously hurt. That was when we realized the e-collar hadn’t been turned off. She immediately cowered from us and it took weeks of training to show her that we weren’t a threat. We then had to address her fear of walks. She never fully recovered and had to be carried past the threshold - even when she wasn’t wearing her collar. Her body language on walks continued to be nervous and fearful.
So what can I do with my teenager instead?
First of all, we want to give you permission to feel frustrated! You are only human, and it’s perfectly normal to have an emotional response to your teenage dog’s obnoxious behavior. Instead of reaching for that shock collar remote and putting yourself and your dog at serious risk, reach out to us (or any force-free trainer) for guidance! Here are just a few of the resources we can offer you:
If you ever feel frustrated or overwhelmed, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Shoot us an email at clickstartdogacademy@gmail.com to start taming your teenage tyrant today!