Screaming & Punishments Can Traumatize Your Dog For The Rest Of His Life, Says Study

The hardest part of being a dog parent is scolding your canine to teach them discipline. The naughty little things that your furry friends do are surely loved by all but sometimes, you gotta be rude and strict with them. Also, it takes seconds for us humans to melt looking at their puppy eyes!

A recent study has put forth some heartbreaking facts that will certainly make you think twice the next time you decide to school your dog. According to a report in Science Alert, harsh training, punishments, and screaming can affect your dogs’ mental well-being for the long term.

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“Our results show that companion dogs trained using aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare as compared to companion dogs trained using reward-based methods, at both the short- and the long-term level,” the researchers said.

“Specifically, dogs attending schools using aversive-based methods displayed more stress-related behaviors and body postures during training, higher elevations in cortisol levels after training, and were more ‘pessimistic’ in a cognitive bias task,” they added.

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For the study, 42 dogs were recruited from obedience schools and 50 were picked from aversion training. Each dog was trained and filmed for 15 minutes and their saliva samples were tested for stress levels. Saliva samples were also taken when the dogs were resting and other signs of stress like yawning, lip-licking, paw-raising, and yelping, were noted too, reports NY Post.

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The study found that dogs who were trained harsh and screamed at during their training had more cortisol levels in their saliva. On the other hand, the ones who were trained lovingly had lesser levels of cortisol in their saliva proving they were less stressed as compared to the dogs who were trained harshly.

After a month, the dogs were studied again by the researchers. This time they were trained using a bowl full of tasty snacks on one side of the room. They kept both empty and snack filled bowls in a room and studied the approach of the dogs towards finding the bowl.

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It was found that dogs who were subjected to harsh training were hopeless about finding a snack in the bowl and were slow while the ones who were trained in a friendly environment were eager to find the snack.

This proved that reward-based training for your dog can help him be more hopeful and lively and have positive effects on his mental health.

So, no more yelling at your dogs at any cost! Be kind and loving to them!

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