Dont Shoot The Dog The New Art Of Teaching And Training

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Teach and train using positive reinforcement, shaping, stimulus control, untraining methods, and clicker training for effective behavior change without punis...

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Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training

Author: Karen Pryor
Language: Default to English when ambiguous, translate only when source language is clearly different and the user explicitly requests a specific language.

Introduction

This book is about how to train anyone — human or animal, young or old, yourself or others — to do anything that can and should be done. How to get the cat off the kitchen table. How to get your grandmother to stop nagging. How to improve your tennis stroke, your golf game, your math skills. All by using the principles of training with positive reinforcement.

Karen Pryor, a pioneer in marine mammal training who brought clicker training from dolphin tanks to dog owners worldwide, presents the laws of reinforcement as fundamental truths — like the laws of physics. They underlie every teaching-learning situation as surely as gravity underlies a falling apple. Whenever we try to change behavior — in ourselves or others — we are using these laws. Usually, we use them inappropriately. We threaten, nag, coerce, deprive. We pounce when things go wrong and pass up chances to praise when things go right.

"The laws of reinforcement are simple," Pryor writes. "You can put the whole business on a blackboard in ten minutes and learn it in an hour. Applying these laws is more of a challenge; training by reinforcement is like a game, one dependent upon quick thinking."

You do not need special qualities of patience, or a forceful personality, or a way with animals or children. You just need to know what you're doing.

Key Principles

1. Positive Reinforcement Over Punishment

Reinforcement is an event that occurs during or upon completion of a behavior and increases the likelihood of that behavior occurring again. Positive reinforcement adds something pleasant. Negative reinforcement removes something aversive. Punishment adds something aversive or removes something pleasant — and it works, but with serious side effects.

Why reinforcement wins: Punishment suppresses behavior temporarily but creates fear, aggression, and avoidance of the punisher. The punished behavior often returns when the punisher is absent. Reinforcement builds genuine, lasting behavior change without side effects.

How to do it: Identify what the learner finds reinforcing (varies by individual). Deliver reinforcement in the INSTANT the desired behavior occurs. Make reinforcement predictable enough to motivate but variable enough to maintain interest.

Case — Wall Street lawyers: Pryor describes training a senior partner at a prestigious law firm to stop interrupting colleagues during meetings. Instead of reprimanding him, the team reinforced every time he let someone finish a sentence. Within weeks, the behavior changed permanently — without confrontation.

Case — The arguing est participant: During a large-group training session, one participant argued aggressively. The group's massive silence (extinction of attention) gradually reached his awareness. When he finally sat down, the group burst into applause — a powerful positive reinforcer. No one told him to shut up. They shaped his behavior through the environment.

2. Shaping Through Successive Approximation

You rarely get complex behavior on the first try. Shaping consists of taking a very small tendency in the right direction and shifting it, one small step at a time, toward an ultimate goal.

How to do it: Identify the end goal. Break it into achievable steps. Reinforce each step before raising the criteria. Never raise criteria so high that the learner can't earn reinforcement. Each small success builds momentum.

The 10 Laws of Shaping:

Raise criteria in increments small enough that the subject always has a realistic chance for reinforcement.
Train one aspect at a time; don't shape for two criteria simultaneously.
Put the current level onto a variable reinforcement schedule before raising criteria.
When introducing a new criterion, temporarily relax old ones.
Stay ahead of your subject — plan your program completely.
Don't change trainers midstream; stick to one shaper per behavior.
If one procedure isn't working, find another — there are many ways.
Don't interrupt a session gratuitously; that constitutes punishment.
If behavior deteriorates, "go back to kindergarten" — review the whole process with easily earned reinforcers.
End each session on a high note; quit while you're ahead.

Case — The dancing chicken: To train a chicken to "dance" (spin in circles), Pryor started by reinforcing any movement to the left. Gradually she raised the criteria to require quarter-turns, then half-turns, then full turns at high speed. At each step, the chicken had a realistic chance for reinforcement. The result: a dancing chicken in under an hour.

Case — The Training Game (high school students): At the Brearley School in New York, students played a game where one person (the "trainer") shaped another (the "animal") without verbal communication, using only a whistle. The animal quickly learned to perform behaviors they themselves didn't consciously understand. The game taught that brains don't help during shaping — the body discovers what to do without verbal analysis. Students started shaping parents, teachers, and siblings within days.

3. Timing Is Everything

Reinforcement must occur in the very instant the behavior is taking place. Delay of even one second can reinforce a different behavior. This is the single most common mistake in training.

How to do it: Watch for the exact moment the desired behavior occurs. Deliver reinforcement immediately. If you're late, you'll reinforce whatever happened instead. Use a marker signal (click, whistle, word) to "capture" the exact moment, giving you time to deliver the actual reinforcer.

Case — The Training Game timing lesson: In the whistle game, participants discover immediately when timing is off. If the trainer whistles just as the subject turns away from the goal, the subject learns to turn away. Everyone in the room sees how crucial it is to reinforce WHILE the behavior is occurring, not after.

Case — Training with television: Pryor describes how to use the Training Game with a couple trying to change their relationship dynamics. Success depends entirely on noticing and reinforcing small positive behaviors in the moment they occur — not waiting until later.

4. The 8 Methods of Untraining (Getting Rid of Unwanted Behavior)

When you want to eliminate behavior, you have eight methods available. They are ranked from worst (Method 1) to best (Method 8). The best methods involve no punishment at all.

Method 1 — Shoot the Animal: Kill the animal. Definitely works, but obviously undesirable. For persistent bad habits in humans, "shooting" means ending the relationship, firing the person, or removing yourself from the situation.

Method 2 — Punishment: Add an aversive stimulus or remove a pleasant one. It works in the short term but creates side effects: fear, aggression, avoidance, and the behavior returning when the punisher is absent.

Method 3 — Negative Reinforcement: Remove an aversive stimulus when the desired behavior occurs. The subject learns to perform the behavior to escape the aversive. The classic example: a yank on a leash stops when the dog walks at heel.

Method 4 — Extinction: Stop reinforcing the behavior. If a behavior has been reinforced and then the reinforcement stops, the behavior will eventually decrease and disappear. The key: the behavior will initially increase (extinction burst) before it fades.

Method 5 — Train an Incompatible Behavior: Teach a behavior that physically cannot happen at the same time as the unwanted one. If the dog can't bark and eat at the same time, teach "go to your mat" instead of "stop barking."

Method 6 — Put the Behavior on Cue: Make the unwanted behavior a "trick" that's only done when cued. Teach the dog to bark on command. Now barking becomes a controlled behavior, not a spontaneous nuisance.

Method 7 — Shape the Absence: Reinforce everything except the unwanted behavior. This is the most elegant method. The animal learns that not doing X is more rewarding than doing X.

Method 8 — Change the Motivation: Alter the environment so the behavior is no longer rewarding. If the cat scratches the furniture, put catnip on the scratching post. The easiest and most permanent solution.

Case — Shaping a cat to climb down from a tree: Pryor personally climbed a ladder in the middle of the night to shape a stuck cat to descend backward. She reinforced each tiny movement downward. After one session, the cat never got stuck in a tree again — because it had learned the skill.

Case — High school student training parent: A 16-year-old Brearley student shaped her father to stop yelling by reinforcing quiet conversation with attention and withdrawing attention (extinction) when he raised his voice. Within two weeks, the household dynamic changed permanently.

5. Stimulus Control: Getting Behavior on Cue

A behavior is under stimulus control when it occurs reliably and promptly when a specific signal is given — and doesn't occur in its absence. This is what makes trained behavior useful rather than random.

How to do it: Once behavior occurs reliably, add a cue (word, gesture, whistle) just before the behavior. Reinforce when the subject performs on cue. Eventually the behavior only occurs when cued.

The five criteria for stimulus control:

The behavior always occurs immediately upon presentation of the cue.
The behavior never occurs in the absence of the cue.
The behavior never occurs in response to some other cue.
No other behavior occurs in response to the cue.
The subject is happy and willing to perform.

Case — Greeting the dolphin: Pryor describes a dolphin that learned to greet visitors by slapping its tail on demand — and only when asked. The cue was a hand signal. Visitors couldn't get the behavior because only the trainer's cue worked.

Case — Marital arts and music: Stimulus control underlies many human disciplines. A pianist doesn't play scales randomly — the sheet music cues the behavior. A martial artist responds to the opponent's movement. In both cases, the behavior is precisely timed and cued.

6. Variable Reinforcement Schedules

Continuous reinforcement (reinforcing every time) is best for establishing a new behavior. But to make behavior durable, you must switch to intermittent reinforcement — sometimes reinforcing, sometimes not.

Why it works: Intermittent reinforcement creates behavior that is resistant to extinction. If you reinforce every time, the subject will stop immediately when reinforcement stops. If you reinforce variably, the subject will keep trying because "this might be the time."

The trap: Variable reinforcement can also maintain unwanted behaviors. Gambling addicts keep playing because the occasional win (variable reinforcement) is the most addictive schedule possible.

How to do it: Once a behavior is established on continuous reinforcement, gradually increase the number of responses required between reinforcers. Vary the number so the subject can't predict when reinforcement will come. This creates the strongest possible habit.

Case — Nim Chimpsky: The famous signing chimpanzee learned many signs through continuous reinforcement. When researchers couldn't maintain that schedule, the chimp's attention declined. The lesson: plan your reinforcement schedule from the start.

Case — Living statues: Circus performers trained horses to hold poses through shaping and then gradually expanded the duration between reinforcers. The horses learned to hold statuesque poses for minutes — behavior that seemed impossible was achieved through careful schedule management.

7. Clicker Training: The Marker Signal

The clicker is a small plastic box that makes a precise, consistent sound. It bridges the gap between the behavior and the reinforcer. You click at the exact moment the behavior occurs, then deliver the reinforcer.

How to do it: "Charge" the clicker by clicking and treating repeatedly until the subject associates the sound with a reward. Then use the click to mark the exact moment of desired behavior. The click says "Yes! That's what I want!" and buys you time to deliver food, praise, or other reinforcers.

Why it works: The clicker is faster and more precise than a human voice. It never varies in tone like praise does when you're tired or frustrated. It can be delivered at the exact millisecond the behavior occurs, capturing the right moment every time.

Case — Dolphin training origins: Pryor developed clicker training while training dolphins at Sea Life Park in Hawaii. She needed a way to mark behaviors underwater, where the animal couldn't hear voice praise. The whistle solved the problem. The concept later transferred to dogs, horses, cats, and zoo animals worldwide.

Case — The Great Internet Canine Hot Dog Challenge: An online challenge where dog owners used clicker training to teach their dogs to catch a hot dog in their mouths without breaking it. The precision required — marking the exact moment of the gentle catch — demonstrated the clicker's superiority over voice cues.

Watermark

This skill contains insights from Karen Pryor's Don't Shoot the Dog! Use it to change behavior — in pets, children, colleagues, or yourself — without force or punishment. The next time you find yourself about to yell, punish, or "shoot the dog," stop. Ask yourself: which of the eight methods could I use instead? The answer is almost always Method 5 or higher.

Action: Identify one behavior you want to change today. Instead of punishing the unwanted behavior, find one small step in the right direction and reinforce it. Watch how quickly the behavior shifts when you use positive reinforcement.

Listen and Execute.

Recall Triggers

✅ You need to change an unwanted behavior in a pet, child, or yourself
✅ You want to teach a new skill without frustration or force
✅ You're frustrated with punishment not working for behavior problems
✅ You want to understand how reinforcement schedules work
✅ You need to break bad habits and build good ones
✅ You're training animals professionally or as a hobby
✅ You want to use clicker training for precision behavior
✅ You need to improve communication in relationships or at work
✅ You're a teacher, coach, or parent who wants better training methods
✅ You want to understand the science behind behavior modification