If you’re wondering whether you should spank your puppy as a form of discipline, then the answer is no. You shouldn’t spank your puppy as a way of behavior correction.
Unlike in the old days when beating your dog with a rolled-up newspaper was the default way of disciplining him, physical discipline has become obsolete and even punishable by law in some places.
Most importantly, physical aversion training for puppies is inefficient.
How Do Puppies Learn?
Dogs live in packs. A puppy learns good behavior by imitating adult dogs in its pack. If it misbehaves, the dominant dogs of the group correct him.
In your own home, you’re the pack’s adult that your puppy is looking to. You’re the dominant one in charge of their meal times, walking times, and so on. Having such control over nearly everything gives you leverage.
When you let your dog know you have complete control over all his favorable activities, he’ll start to pay more attention to you. You can use this to begin building his discipline.
Give your dog some snuggle time, a back rub, or a tasty treat when he does something positive, and he’ll try to do it again.
Withhold these treats when he misbehaves, and he’ll link the absence of positive reinforcement with bad behavior, so he won’t be keen on repeating it.
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Why Spanking Puppies Doesn’t Work
Not only is it inappropriate, but spanking a puppy is also inefficient. Dogs appreciate physical contact. You shouldn’t use it to hurt them in any way.
Overall, spanking your dog will eventually ruin your relationship with him. In addition, your dog might suffer from psychological issues like separation anxiety.
- Breaking Trust
Beating your dog in any way breaks the trust between you two. Your dog won’t be able to expect when you’ll hit him.
Correlating the touch of your hand with pain rather than affection will negatively affect your relationship with your dog and debilitate his confidence.
- Ruining Boundaries
As a reaction to beating, your dog might act overly dominant or overly submissive to compensate for their lost sense of safety.
- Running Away
Out of fear, your dog will probably hide away from you. He might also be tempted to flee the first chance he gets. If the dog is more confident, it might resort to aggression to threaten you.
- Showing Aggression
Aversive discipline will probably make your dog insecure.
Insecurity can make your dog aggressive so that it protects itself. After all, you’re the one who taught your dog to fear people by hitting him.
What to Do Instead of Spanking a Puppy?
Let’s face it. You have to use some sort of discipline to deter your dog from doing wrong.
The idea is to enforce an unpleasant stimulus when your dog misbehaves, so he learns this is bad behavior. Of course, “unpleasant” here doesn’t equate to painful.
There are two types of dog obedience training:
- Positive Obedience Training
- Aversive obedience training
As you guessed, punishment belongs to aversive obedience training techniques, including beating, spanking, and hitting dogs on their nose.
Punishment doesn’t have to be physical. You can use your voice, a tool like shaking a jar of coins, or even a gentle tug on the leash.
Constructive punishment aims to condition your dog to distinguish between bad and good behavior.
You have to be careful when punishing your dog; it has to be during his wrongdoing so that he can distinguish the behavior that results in punishment from others.
If you punish your dog after misbehaving, he might be confused about the reason for punishment. In this case, punishment will be pointless.
Here are four ways of constructive punishment you can use to discipline your dog without spanking.
- Take away their toys.
- Enforce time-outs in limited safe spaces.
- Use a stern voice to convey disagreement.
- Don’t give them attention.
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Why Positive Reinforcement Works
Dogs are so loving that they only want to please you and feel good about it. Nothing will make a dog repeat a behavior better than a treat.
Let’s consider an example: your puppy goes outside to pee. You give him an edible treat, a belly rub, or an affectionate “good boy” as a prize. Then, the puppy learns to associate going to pee outside with being praised.
Afterward, your puppy will try to repeat the behavior as much as possible to get praise and attention.
On the other side, if you spanked your puppy for peeing on the carpet, it’ll hurt him. But, more importantly, he’ll be confused about the reason for your punishment. Is it because he peed inside? Is it because he peed in front of you?
The puppy will never know why you’re punishing him.
Puppies Are Easier to Discipline
The good news is that puppies are more teachable and easier to discipline than old dogs.
Your puppy is a blank canvas, enthusiastic and eager to explore the world. Looking at this way, you can easily teach him desirable behaviors by rewarding them.
As with constructive punishment, you should provide positive reinforcements when your puppy is in the situation, not after it, so that it establishes a link between the behavior and reward.
To discourage bad behavior, withdraw your attention and praise when your puppy misbehaves.
If you praise them when chewing on their toys, don’t give them attention when they chew your shoes. They’ll learn to associate chewing toys with affection and chewing shoes with abandonment. After a couple of times, they’ll lose interest in your shoes.
Be Patient. Dog Training Takes Time.
Raising a puppy is all fun and games until it starts barking excessively, gnawing on your hands, or hysterically chewing your shoes.
You have a long journey ahead of you to train your puppy. Positive or negative, disciplinary techniques are only effective when they’re frequent and consistent.
Don’t expect to shout at your dog once for them to refrain from bad behavior. Instead, you should be patient and persistent during the obedience training phase of your puppy.
Paul has been creating content for the dog niche for many years. The information he shares comes his first hand experience growing up in dog lovers household and then owning multiple dog breeds of his own as an adult. Paul enjoys doing the hard research to collect, analyze and present our dogtemperament.com readers with the best answers to their questions.