Why do we feel the need to punish?

I am not sure if you are asking a philosophical question or a practical one? Being a suzuki trained teacher... we believe 100% in positive reinforcement..... so much so that lots of times when you put 2 or more suzuki trained teachers in a room- you will never hear a complaint out of them ..... . We have learned to always look at something - even something bad - as something that can change to something better. we also know changing is always easier when a living thing feels good about themselves......BUT..... for people who grew up not hearing enough good things about themselves or grew up with people who were sarcastic - being positive is really hard for them. Most of the time people do what they have experienced...... it is hard to look at what you are used to and have to admit - "There's a better way".
Two saying I have up on my wall are
"Turn a Negative Aspect of your Performance into a Positive Skill to achieve" and
"You always play better when you feel good about yourself"

I am not sure the word punishment should ever be used in a teaching environment? either with dogs or people..... BUT, what should be used are reinforcements.... good, bad, indifferent? Now, some might say its just a matter of semantics whether you call a bad reinforcement a punishment? That could be argued - but a bad reinforcement is instant - it doesn't linger and teaches at the moment a student can change. Punishment is after the fact....
Oh well, I probably didn't answer your question - just food for thought. You're a Great Trainer and I am really happy I found you, Vinny and Liz.

Better stop - could talk about this all night long

My dog is very sensitive so all I really do is tell her 'no' usually. She does get over-excited meeting people who have high-pitched voices (weird, huh?) and then I just give her 'the look' and tell her to lie down and stay for awhile. The idea is that lying down will help her calm herself as well, not sure how much that happens but at least she isn't whirling around their legs for attention while we try to have a conversation!

I used to have lots of foster dogs around, and almost ALL of them invariably responded perfectly well to a simple loud 'NO' or 'HEY!' I really don't think further punishment is necessary for most dogs, to understand that they should discontinue their current actions. Surely there are exceptions, though - I've not dealt with dogs who were seriously trying to get their way or anything.

Oh :-O I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole. *Hides in corner*
Me: Zootooers scare me....
Lots of controversy on this one....

I have never had to punish my Zoe. She is a very soft dog and loves to work. Even when she was a puppy she was good and willing to learn. It isn't often that a dog like this one comes along and I don't kid myself that I was a great trainer, she is just a great student.

I took a hint from the Monks of New Skete - I made the mistakes, the dog didn't.

Now if you asked me about my kids that would be a VERY different story. They made some whopping bad mistakes.

When I rescued Danny Boy he was wild but he became very attached to me and timeouts in his crate were the worst thing for him so I used them. Otherwise a ton of reward based training helped to extinguish the worst behaviors. I always made sure he did what the nuns taught in school "avoid the near occasion of sin". No food available to steal, distraction from nuisance barking, and a ton of exercise to tire him out so that he would not be looking for things to do. I kept all this going until he got so old and feeble that he didn't have the strength to get into trouble.

We use time-outs for nipping. Or we ask the dog to go down for a 30sec period. If nothing works, I sometimes (if outside) have to physically re-strain her for a few seconds and she calms down (this one is a tricky one - it did not worked for me first, until a trainer showed it to me).

Our punishment involves positive/reward methods. For example, if one of our dogs is chewing on something we don't want them to chew on, we simply take it away, softly saying, "No." We then replace whatever it was with something that is "OK" and tell them "Good girl/boy."
We never yell at our dogs because all that does is scare them. In fact, they're not use to loud voices that if my husband and I have 'warm' debate on some subject, we'll look around and all our dogs will be hiding... We've learned to keep our voices down.
I believe dogs take on the energy level of their environment. If it is a 'calm' environment then they're nature will be calm. That's not to say that they're not energetic or playful - we just have a time to play and run and a time to be calm - they seem to be able to know the difference because they follow our energy.
We NEVER hit any of our dogs. Our hands are instruments of love and approval not to be feared.
So, in answer to your question, I guess we don't punish. We prefer rewards.
Here's another example: When we (people) enter the house, we usually come through the laundry room. We keep the door closed to the house. When we come in, it is natural for our dogs to be excited to greet us. We can hear them all excited on the other side of the door, barking.
We don't come through the door until they "Settle" - that is our voice tool for "we are not coming through the door until you settle down - so, if you want to see us, then you need to be calm when we come through the door."
It may take a moment or two, but, it usually works. This way, when we walk in, they are not jumping on us and we can walk into the house, put our 'stuff' down and, when we are ready to greet our dogs it is on a "sit" command and then the pets/pats and "at a girl/boy."
It takes time and patience to train dogs. We also have them trained on hand controls. My second language is sign-language and I often sign to my dogs - no voice commands just hand commands.
A lot of how I train my dogs comes from my corporate background. There are two types of management: 1. By intimidation or, 2. By motivation. Intimidation only causes aggression and resentment - motivation produces results.
Hope this helps.

we punish with a timeout if we catch our dog trying to pull something out of the trash. we keep the pantry close, but if we forget and come home...there is nothing to punish. by that time she'd have no idea what we were punishing her for. she'd just think, "well, my buddy is home...time for me to get a timeout."