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Thanks very much for your answer! I was wondering about how you avoid poisoning a cue or how you would respond to the “Pavlov is always on your shoulder” criticism of using punishment in dog training. On the opposite end of the spectrum, do you ever see corrections becoming positively reinforcing with certain trainers’ timing or certain dogs? Watched a few seminars by Kathy Sdao, where she said this was a problem with balanced training vs “old school training,” referencing the work of Murray Sidman in rats, where he showed that shocks can be used to teach new behaviors after they’re repeatedly paired with food (summary here http://www.kathysdao.com/articles/what-not-to-pair/).
Definitely makes sense that it’s important to be careful not to have the onset of the correction follow the command. I’m still confused about the command/correction timing though. I thought that during escape conditioning with a leash, that leash pumps would begin momentarily before saying the command (SIT) and that they would end immediately after the dog sat? If they begin at the same time isn’t some learning blocked? Or is the command/correction timing different once they’re learned how to escape the correction?
I had been thinking of your command structure as the dog first being given an opportunity to complete a positive reinforcement trial (with variable reward schedule) as signaled by their name. If the dog didn’t respond, he would be given a warning about the onset of a negative reinforcement trial (NO), which he had a small window to avoid by responding. If he still didn’t respond, he would have to complete a negative reinforcement trial.
