18 DECEMBER 2020 Your dog may be the apple of your eye, but let's be honest: she is an animal, with her own instincts and idiosyncrasies, and there are going to be times when she makes you want to tear your hair out.
However much you want to, however, new research suggests that you should never yell at or otherwise punish a mischievous mutt. According to a study released in pre-print last year and now published in PLOS ONE, aversive training such as positive punishment and negative reinforcement can have long-term negative effects on your dog's mental state. "Our results show that companion dogs trained with aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare during training sessions than dogs trained with reward-based methods" the researchers write in their paper.