Dogs from aversive schools showed more stress and more pessimistic outlooks
A quasi-experimental study of 92 companion dogs compared training schools and found dogs from aversive schools showed more stress behaviour, higher cortisol increases, and more pessimistic judgements in a cognitive-bias task.
“Dogs trained with aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare as compared to those trained with reward-based methods.”
Source details
Source
Does training method matter? Evidence for the negative impact of aversive training methods on companion dog welfare
Vieira de Castro et al.
PLOS ONE
Evidence level
Primary evidence
Credibility
Last reviewed
May 30, 2026
Why we included it
One of the strongest welfare studies in the field — measures both immediate stress and longer-term affective state via cognitive bias.