Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25 (2018) ivevi

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Journal of Veterinary Behavior
journal homepage: www.journalvetbehavior.com

Editorial

Beware the misdirection offense: the truth about shock, aversives
and punishment
There are a number of interesting and valuable papers in this
issue, but two are important: Masson et al. (2018) and Todd
(2018). These papers will be widely cited because they make related
cogent arguments about the primary issue that is at the core of
living with other individuals: alignment of behavioral priorities
and desires. Masson et al. (2018) reviews the data that support
the ineffectiveness and dangers of using electric shock/ecollars/
e-stim/shock to address unwanted behaviors, while Todd (2018)
takes a broader view and asks why it is so difﬁcult to convince people to try non-violent redress at ﬁrst, rather than at last, or if ever.
Alignment of human behavioral priorities and desires with those
of others, regardless of species, is potentially fraught with miscommunication, misunderstanding, and struggle. That characterization
is true if both parties are behaviorally normal, and becomes
extreme if either or both parties have pathological behaviors.
As behaviors deviate from our priorities and expectations, or
from ‘normal’ e and we can see the parallel in our daily political
liveseone or both parties may attempt to control the behavior of
the other. At the core of all punishment based strategies, including
the use to shock/e-stim collars, is this issue of control.
By itself, control is not necessarily evileit can be a life-saving,
humane choice. However, in all situations involving shock/e-stim,
positive punishment and negative reinforcement the goal is
remarkably singular: to stop a behavior. When we make a singular
decision to emphasize only a cessation of something, we do so
regardless of whether the behavior has been selected for and/or is
species typical, contextually appropriate, a variant of normal, and
conveying information about the target’s underlying physical, physiological, cognitive and emotional states that could inform the reasons for the behaviors and the mechanisms driving them. In the
absence of answering these focal questions (Table 1) pertaining to
the behavior, the decision to intervene to effect cessation is based
only on unilateral desire. In complex social interactions, such a decision is neither rational, nor informed, but it’s a painfully common
human response.
If we wish to become more humane and promote better welfare
and mental health for the non-human animals in our care and lives,
when faced with a behavior we wish to stoperegardless of the
speciesewe must logically and stepwise work through this list of
questions. Doing so will suggest potential interventions at each
level, and roles for human behavioral responses. This list of questions will almost never suggest use of any aversive method available to simply stop the behavior. Police departments have a
pyramid of force that is determined by a very similar list of questions, and ‘stop at any cost’ is a rare choice, indeed. The reasoned
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2018.04.005
1558-7878/Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

action approach discussed in Todd (2018) has similar goals and
has been used to explain and predict behavior change within human social systems. It can also work in settings where humans
work and interact with non-human animals.
Before we can enact the preferred strategies recommended by
Ziv (2017), Todd (2018), Masson et al. (2018) we must address the
imperative to simply stop a behavior and ask how this intent, alone,
has affected training and interventional approaches.
The overwhelming majority of studies using shock highlight
injurious physical and/or behavioral outcomes that constitute risk
across contexts (Ziv, 2017; Masson et al., 2018). The data are such
that, as Masson et al. (2018) note, these outcomes are no longer
arguable. Yet most studies using aversives/punishment like
e-stim/shock never evaluate these costs which accrue when aversives are used to attain a diminution or cessation of easily witnessed, undesirable behavior. This is remarkable since if the
intervention had been pharmacological, no one would be permitted
to evaluate any outcome without also evaluating these costs to and
risks for the recipient. Without such evaluation, any assessment of
effect iseat bestepseudoscientiﬁc.
Were one seeking to license or justify the use of a pharmacologic
intervention for such behavior the following steps would be
mandatory: one would be constrained to detail the pathology and
support using data deviations from normal, report and support a
mechanism of action, show that this intervention was superior to
some other or that it made a tangible difference in the behavior,
in the direction anticipated and that there were no or extremely minor ancillary changes that are not in a direction considered desired
or normal.
In terms of the latter, were the intervention an aversive like
shock, those seeking to license it as a treatment would have to
show that it did not interfere with normal behaviors, augment
stress or cause physical or physiological change. Rather than
demonstrating an understanding of why such requirements are
crucial, some authors (Fernandes et al., 2017) have instead chosen
a ‘misdirection offense’ which suggests that aversive methods cause
no more pain, stress or welfare compromise than do other situations in which dogs routinely ﬁnd themselves. Such misdirection
is found in the authors’ admission that “..at least at some level,
aversive-based methods generate stress in dogs.” (Fernandes
et al., 2017; page 11). The accompanying assumption is many other
things in the lives of dogs also generate stress, so the aversive intervention is no more damaging that routine life events. It would logically follow that until we can learn how relatively unpleasant such
life events are, there is no reason to avoid aversive interventions.

Editorial / Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25 (2018) ivevi
Table 1
Questions to ask about all behaviors one wishes to modify or stop
1. Is this a behavior that has been selected for (e.g., canine herding behaviors)?
2. Is this a species typical behavior (e.g., feline urine spraying)?
3. Is this behavior contextually appropriate (e.g., growling and lunging only at
people who are truly risks to the dog’s or human’s safety)?
4. Is this behavior a variant of normal (e.g., licking fur), or is this behavior
abnormal, deviating in form, frequency, intensity, duration or context
from the range of ‘normal’ (e.g, chewing and licking the skin and leg until
bone is exposed)?
5. Does this behavior convey information about the target’s underlying:
a. physical state?
b. physiological state?
c. cognitive state?
d. emotional state?
6. What does the above information tell us about the global reasons or drivers
of the behaviors and the physiological, neurochemical mechanisms driving
them?

Such reasoning is pseudoscience. Such conclusions beg the
question of context, and context drives every facet of behavior.
The cessation of a behavior we do not desire may not be in the
best interests of the individual exhibiting the behavior, and as a
result of stopping that behavior, we may do other harm to which
we are blinded unless test for such harm. These are basic scientiﬁc
treatment principles. If we want those with whom we interact,
regardless of species, to exhibit a different behavior we need to
work through the logic in Table 1, consider our choices and do
everything possible to encourage alternate behaviors as suggested
by the responses to the questions. If we do not do this we must
realize that there are no pinpoint surgical excisions with aversives,
and this concern grows with frequency, intensity of stimulus and
lack of discretion. While we might attenuate what we perceive to
be an undesirable behavior, all surrounding afﬁliated behaviors,
many of which might be normal or appetitive and so could have
lead to beneﬁcial learning, also cease. As a result, we deprive the animals in our care of choice and ﬂexibility, and there is no doubt
those are welfare violations.
As appalling as this misdirection offense is, it is not the biggest
failing of those who support (or at least do not contest) aversive
methods, including e-stim/shock. The biggest failing of those who
defend such aversives is that efﬁcacy data are lacking. Simply, there
are few well designed studies comparing outcomes of shock/punishment/aversives and other non-aversive interventions (but see
Ziv, 2017 and Masson et al., 2018 for reviews).
Were we to treat aversives as we do pharmacologics, we would
require a comparison with another methods of redress, in a way
that was biologically meaningful (e.g., counts of behaviors, combined predicted changes in physiological parameters, et cetera). I
would argue that for a method to be effective we would need measures that demonstrate less stress and distress as a result of the
intervention, and that substantiate the replacement of more problematic, distressing and out of context behaviors, with those that
are more contextual, more normal, and more beneﬁcial to the
patient.
Within this scientiﬁc framework, which is no more than would
be expected to say that a pharmacologic intervention may prove
useful, no study has supported the superior efﬁcacy of the aversive.
There is a likely reason for this outcome: telling someone what not
to do never helps them to learn an appropriate or desired behavior,
and the only thing shock or punishment does is to tell you what
someone doesn’t want, which has nothing to do with truly modifying behavior (Overall, 2006).
The simple truth is that we should abandon aversives because
they lack efﬁcacy. Aversives, including shock/e-stim, fail three
essential levels of scientiﬁc testing.

v

 They fail the test of logic. If you want someone to do something
differentetell them what it is, not simply what you do not want
for them to do. In a world where there may be only one correct
answer, no one is likely to ﬁnd it by iteratively stumbling
through one wrong answer after another. In fact, we have
excellent data on what occurs when this happens, and it’s
called ‘learned helplessness’.
 The ‘side effect’ proﬁle is not desirable or supportable.
 There are no replicable data supporting efﬁcacy.
So want can we do? It is time for us to stop being susceptible to
misdirection and instead focusing on data-driven care of those for
whom we have oversight. The importance of the Masson et al.
(2018) and Todd (2018) papers is clear and we will see applications
their approach in other papers in this volume.
Breed bans could be construed as the ultimate form of ‘punishment’ for perceived risk. But do they work? Mora et al. (2018) examined fatal dog bites in Spain against a backdrop of breed-based
regulations. Rather than supporting bans, their research supports
the establishment of an excellent reporting system for all bites,
and an inter-disciplinary approach that can understand and provide
redress for both human and canine factors contributing to bites.
In a survey study, Luño et al. (2018) sought to evaluate the extent
of owner reported ‘emotional eating’ in dogs. One interesting
ﬁnding of this study was the owner report that their perception
of emotional easting was associated with being an unhappy dog
who did not eat when the owner was absent. These are both classic
autonomic nervous system responses to social stress, suggesting
lack of social contact for some dogs may be viewed as punishing.
Marion et al. (2018) illustrate the role of early social contact in
moderating aggressiveness to humans in livestock-guarding dogs.
Quite simply, dogs with minimal human contact as pups, have
less ﬂexibility in behavioral responses with humans. This is an
extreme version of telling them what not to do, but not telling
them what behavior you think is desirable. Not surprisingly, this
strategy results in outcomes fraught with risk.
Uccheddu et al. (2018) vividly demonstrate why assumptions of
mechanism can be dangerous. We seldom have excellent neurologic data on cases that have behavioral presentations, so this
case is valuable. It’s a reminder to those who believe that aversives
“ﬁx problems” that what you need to ﬁx and what you think you
need to ﬁx may be two quite different things.
Testing outcomes is critical even when asserting a positive interventional effect in a system that delivers only rewards. In a well
designed study, Naik et al. (2018) evaluated meal feeding vs. a
food dispensing toy on overall activity in client owned cats. Using
accelerometer generated activity counts (an objective measure)
there were no differences in activity when the cats were meal fed
compared with when they obtained their food from a food toy.
The authors wisely raise the issue of multiple unmeasured, unconsidered beneﬁts which has relevance for those who think they understand how their intervention will affect change.
Beugnet (2018) assessed litterbox preferences in a ﬁeld study of
cats who were patients at a veterinary practice, again with some
unexpected results. Anticipating that cats may prefer some newer
substrates, this well designed, well analyzed study supports why
it is so important to actually collect the data in a comparative
manner. These cats did not behave as anticipated.
Cognitive bias tests (Mendl et al., 2009) are being increasingly
used to assess behavioral, cognitive, and emotional damage in
rescued, neglected, impaired or damaged animals. While we have
objective measures of changes in physical state, most measures of affective state have not been objective. Cognitive bias is one way of
assessing how affective state alters function. The typical prediction
is that the impaired individual can recognize rewards and

vi

Editorial / Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25 (2018) ivevi

non-rewards, but has difﬁculty interpreting or exploring ambiguous
signals. That result was not supported here for rescued equids
(McGuire et al., 2018) and the discussion of why that may be the
case is important. Likewise, Muñoz et al. (2018) failed to detect any
anticipated effect of equine stereotypies on performance in thoroughbreds. Attribution of mechanism to outcomes without testing is risky.
Thompson and Haigh (2018) highlight the importance of exclusion, the perception of exclusion and devaluation of some types of
knowledge in scientiﬁc skepticism of disciplines like equitation science. The arguments reviewed parallel those by trainers using aversive methods in dogs. While scientiﬁc training should enhance the
ability to evaluate effectiveness of interventions and handling strategies, one need not be a scientist to have excellent observational
skills and a logical mind that makes clear correlations. The ability
to test those correlations is something that must be taught, but
the ability to make them accurately need not require the type of
formal training that can be so emotionally off-putting for horse or
dog people. There is an apocryphal story about the evolutionary
biologist, Ernst Mayr, when he was scientiﬁcally classifying the
large avifauna of New Guinea birds by species. The residents of
New Guinea had their own naming and classiﬁcation system and,
when compared, of hundreds of birds, Mayr’s scientiﬁc system
and the native system clustered only 2 bird species differently.
There is no replacement for excellent observational skills. One
less obvious point from this paper is that if scientists are viewed
as only telling equestrians that they are wrong, cooperation is unlikely. This theme of punishment, as we have seen, crosses species
and disciplines.
Torcivia and McDonnell (2018) evaluate the effects of positive
reinforcement-based systematic desensitization and counterconditioning on the behavior of ponies used in a teaching lab. These
ponies had developed fears and related undesirable behaviors as
sequelae to being used to teach students physical exams. The documentation of improvement is one of the commendable outcomes of
this work. Such interventions could also play a role in preventing
such outcomes, and may also have a role in teaching students
how to better learn to approach physical examination, perhaps by
starting on a model.
Interestingly, the same themes discussed above about effects of
aversive experiences on behaviors are relevant for designing a humane handling setting for guinea pigs used in animal-assisted therapy. Gut et al. (2018) sought to assess factors affecting stress and
well-being in a complex, well designed study. Their ﬁnding that
the inability to choose to retreat and actually retreat was associated
with freezing behavioresimply stoppingeshould give pause to
those who think that cessation of behavior, alone, is desirable.
The nuanced approach taken in this study is a model for welfare
studies, especially of species for which we may not think we have
all the answers.
Every paper in this issue, without deliberately seeking to do so,
supports the conclusion of Ziv (2017), Todd (2018) and Masson et al.

(2018) that aversive practices including shock and entrapment have
no role preventing or amending undesirable, problematic and pathological behaviors. Furthermore, such techniques are a threat to
welfare, mental and emotional health and well-being. It is past
time to move on to humane interventions that favor how we now
know learning works at the neuronal level. The data have spoken,
and we should not be misdirected.
Karen L. Overall
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
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