There is a misconception that positive reinforcement is simply using food in training. “My dog isn’t food motivated” or “What if he isn’t hungry” are common remarks to hear when discussing positive training. Some people believe that a dog cannot be trained to recall off chasing a squirrel through positive only methods because chasing that squirrel is the most reinforcing thing for the dog, thus he will ignore the chance to simply earn a food reward. When dogs fail to heed a command in order to receive a food reward, often punishment such as shock collars, choke collars or other methods are resorted to. Many trainers feel moving to punishment tools is justified since the positive method has ‘failed’.
I pride myself on being a ‘positive trainer’ in that I will not use shocks, prong collars, chokes or physical force in my training. There is a myth that positive training does not get reliable results or that some dogs cannot be trained with it. Positive methods are sound and will work with any dog, but you must deploy them skillfully.
Full dog approach
Knowing what behavior change you want in a dog isn’t enough. A full history and detail of the dog’s living conditions and history is required so you can understand what is influencing the behavior. A dog that is jumping or barking needs to be trained to be calm and quiet. However if the dog lacks exercise, is isolated, or excessively confined, or perhaps subjected to inconsistent training (maybe a doggie daycare he goes to encourages jumping and barking!) then the picture starts to get clearer as to why this dog is always hyperactive. All private training should start with a full profile on the dog’s routine.
Rather than force, shock or punish the dog for jumping, I’ll look at ways to improve his living conditions so hyper behavior decreases. Stuffing food in a chew toy for example reinforces calm behavior. While punishment may reduce the behavior, the underlying cause of the behavior is still there. Without addressing the influences, the animal may manifest those emotions in other undesirable behaviors later on. Now we are ready to train.
Classical Conditioning is on your side
Classical conditioning is happening all the time. By pairing positive reinforcement with learning, the dog will enjoy training instead of simply tolerating it to avoid punishments. When you are consistently pairing training with reward, the dog starts to see you, the environment and training as enjoyable. Training is then always viewed as a fun and positive experience. By using positive reinforcement you can use classical conditioning to make things your dog may fear or dislike into predictors of reward. This will change the dog’s emotional state and have an impact on his behavior. Punishment training can classically condition your dog in the opposite direction, to dislike whatever was around him at the time of the punishment – and prompt further aggressive or fearful behavior later.
It’s not all about food
Positive reinforcement is not just about feeding. It’s critical to vary your rewards and use what is reinforcing for that dog in that moment. An open door, a ball toss, a sniff of a pole - Positive training is about putting what the dog wants under your control. A dog that is being rewarded with liver treats every-time will blow that reward off should they favor something else. Positive trainers know the overall message that needs to be clear is “I control what you want, listen to me first”. When the dog understands this message, he is happy to perform behavior, provided he has actually been ‘trained’ to a high enough level.
Positive training involves keeping the environment under temporary control until we build a strong habit so the dog will listen to our cue because he has been conditioned to do so in order to access environmental reinforcement.
Training for success
Learning follows 4 distinct periods:
Acquisition: During this phase, dogs are given continuous reinforcement in order to build a new behavior. We also control the environment by starting training in a no distraction environment so the dog will focus on training. It’s also important the dog has been trained for basic things such as attention before moving onto training a difficult behavior like heeling.
Fluency: The duration of a behavior is increased, slowly small distractions are added. The distractions remain under our control. Trainer Jean Donaldson popularized a method called “push, drop, stick”. Five repetitions of a behavior are performed with a certain level of distraction and difficulty. If the dog performs the behavior 5 times correctly, difficulty is increased. If the dog performs the behavior only 3-4 times, the exercise is repeated. If the dog fails to perform the behavior 3 times, you drop the difficulty to a level that he will succeed at. The behavior to reward ratio should also be increased to 2:1 and is slowly increased until the dog is performing the behavior several times for 1 reward.
Generalization: The behavior is practiced in different areas with increasing levels of distraction. Build the behavior slowly and with only one increase in difficulty at a time. You would not build a 2 minute stay in a house, than expect a 5 minute stay at a dog park. This is just as unreasonable as expecting your son to make a professional sports league after a couple practices at the local arena. During this phase rewards are greatly reduced since the behavior is lasting longer and with increased difficulty. Variable schedules of reinforcement are introduced so the dog is randomly rewarded for correct behaviors, and thus will repeat them since he doesn’t know when the reward will come. Habits are now being formed.
Maintenance: In the final phase you have trained in a number of areas, built up a strong behavior, and now just need to ensure the dog has a chance to practice occasionally. Differential reinforcement is critical at this stage, so the dog only receives a reward for the best and quickest manifestations of the behavior and thus it continues to improve.
Premack Exercises
It’s critical the dog learns that ignoring reinforcement and listening to instruction first is the path to reinforcement. Premack's Principle suggests that if a person wants to perform a given activity, the person will perform a less desirable activity to get at the more desirable activity. You must change a dog’s perception about how to obtain environmental reinforcement.
Setup a partner who tempts the dog with food in a closed hand. Have the handler recall the dog away from the food. Once the dog listens, the partner runs over and gives the reward. Increasing difficulty with an exercise like this can get a dog running passed open food to run to the foodless handler time and time again. If you’re on a walk with your dog, stop and ask for a sit. He will learn once he sits, the walk resumes, thus reinforcing the sit. Over time the dog will sit immediately on the first cue after just one or two walks.
My method of teaching ‘leave it’ involves leashing the dog and tossing food out of his reach while saying ‘leave it’. Once the dog stops straining on leash at the food and looks at me, he is rewarded – sometimes by me, or sometimes by being allowed to reach the food. This teaches a loose leash towards reward, focus on me, and a “Leave it” behavior that brings his focus back on me and away from what he just saw being thrown. After a while you can remove the leash because the behavior has now become a habit. This method is much more pleasant for a dog than the old traditional style of snapping the leash when a dog went for the forbidden item.
Repetitive re-instruction with negative reinforcement
This is an idea that Ian Dunbar has used for many years. If a dog has had a high level of training yet fails to heed a command, the command is given again and the dog is restricted from gaining any reinforcement until he listens. It’s critical that a dog obey a command once it is given, but this is something that is trained and practiced, not forced through painful or scary punishment.
If a dog fails to sit at the door, repeat the instruction. Since the door will not open unless the dog listens, he will eventually comply to get what he wants. There is nothing wrong with repeating the cue if you feel the dog does in fact know the cue (based on previously sound training) and he is choosing to ignore it because he is focused on the reinforcement (open the door already!). Once he learns the door will not open until there is compliance, he will obey. Thus there is negative reinforcement through the relief of stress and frustration by the door opening (oh, I have to listen to YOU when I want things!). Similar exercises can be setup with chasing prey and playing with dogs.
Using this principle consistently the dog will learn to simply obey the command the first time to cut down on the delay of reinforcement.
Ian Dunbar says about this method:
“The secret to success is to never give up. The dog learns that she has to sit following a single command before being allowed to play once more. This technique is extremely effective, works surprisingly quickly, and prevents the need for physical restraint or aversive punishment. “
When a dog doesn’t listen
Before simply doling out punishment, review the above. Is the dog’s lifestyle a problem? Did you follow 4 phases of learning correctly or are you asking a dog that just learned stay in the house to now do the behavior on a busy street? Does the dog have a good history of Premack training and handler attention? Have you insisted on commands in the past or gave up and let the dog run off? Did you control the environment and build a habit before allowing the dog more freedom of choice?
Positive training will work for all dogs, but it depends on the skill of that trainer. A successful positive trainer does simply more than toss out cookies!
Professional athletes train every-day and for many years to reach a high level. Your dog is your best friend. Take the time and effort to train him how you would like to be trained if he was holding the leash.
Showing posts with label punishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label punishment. Show all posts
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Whole Picture
I often shudder when I see trainers offering to "Board and Train". This means you give up your dog to someone who then "trains" the dog and returns it to the client. Normally this is offered by trainers who use punishment methods and would prefer a client not see them punishing or hurting the dog, for fear the client would object and then take their business elsewhere. Punishment trainers want you to see the finished product, and never the process at which this is arrived.
As I've said in other posts, you can train with punishment, but its no fun for the dog, and it comes with a large number of risks. Why use this method when we have a perfectly good alternative that provides no risk and equal results? Positive reinforcement is the best way to train. (and my dog agrees!)
The biggest issue however is training is a very subjective word. Most Pet owners want a dog that "behaves" - meaning they can walk nice on leash, not aggressive with other dogs or people, and has no anxiety that would lead to them destroying the house when left alone. While a board and train might teach your dog 'commands' like stay, come, sit, down, etc - its very unlikely the above mentioned issues would be corrected.
Complex behavior like aggression and anxiety cannot simply be fixed by a training session. The whole life of the animal must be looked at, this isn't something you can 'board and train' away. Whenever I do a consultation I ask a large number of questions usually along the lines of:
1) What does your dog eat (food is very important for both overall health but low nutritional intake can actually promote aggression and low-tolerance thresholds)
2) Where does your dog sleep and spend most of this time (social exclusion and boredom can drive stress and promote aggression or anxiety)
3) How do you treat your dogs issues now? What methods have you tried in the past (More often than not owners can do a lot of damage or make situations worse, snatching items away for example can lead to guarding aggression)
These are just some examples of the questions that are important to me on a consultation. I generally have 2 goals for a dogs life to promote a healthy mental state:
Goal 1: dogs energy level is met with an acceptable amount of physical OR mental exercise for that dog.
Goal 2: Dogs social time (and freedom) with both family and other dogs / people is increased as much as possible.
Trainers who do not look at the whole picture of a dog do a large dis-service to not only the dog but to the clients. Learning fancy commands is nothing if your dog is living a miserable life and will display other very unwanted behaviors.
Dogs are very much like humans in that our quality of life effects our overall mood - we need to look at the whole picture of a dogs well being if we truly hope to help them live in our world.
As I've said in other posts, you can train with punishment, but its no fun for the dog, and it comes with a large number of risks. Why use this method when we have a perfectly good alternative that provides no risk and equal results? Positive reinforcement is the best way to train. (and my dog agrees!)
The biggest issue however is training is a very subjective word. Most Pet owners want a dog that "behaves" - meaning they can walk nice on leash, not aggressive with other dogs or people, and has no anxiety that would lead to them destroying the house when left alone. While a board and train might teach your dog 'commands' like stay, come, sit, down, etc - its very unlikely the above mentioned issues would be corrected.
Complex behavior like aggression and anxiety cannot simply be fixed by a training session. The whole life of the animal must be looked at, this isn't something you can 'board and train' away. Whenever I do a consultation I ask a large number of questions usually along the lines of:
1) What does your dog eat (food is very important for both overall health but low nutritional intake can actually promote aggression and low-tolerance thresholds)
2) Where does your dog sleep and spend most of this time (social exclusion and boredom can drive stress and promote aggression or anxiety)
3) How do you treat your dogs issues now? What methods have you tried in the past (More often than not owners can do a lot of damage or make situations worse, snatching items away for example can lead to guarding aggression)
These are just some examples of the questions that are important to me on a consultation. I generally have 2 goals for a dogs life to promote a healthy mental state:
Goal 1: dogs energy level is met with an acceptable amount of physical OR mental exercise for that dog.
Goal 2: Dogs social time (and freedom) with both family and other dogs / people is increased as much as possible.
Trainers who do not look at the whole picture of a dog do a large dis-service to not only the dog but to the clients. Learning fancy commands is nothing if your dog is living a miserable life and will display other very unwanted behaviors.
Dogs are very much like humans in that our quality of life effects our overall mood - we need to look at the whole picture of a dogs well being if we truly hope to help them live in our world.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Management vs Training
I often get asked the question, when my dog is lunging or growling at another dog on a walk - what should I do? My answer is usually the same - get outta there, go home, and call a trainer.
Whenever a dog is in an aroused state of mind, its very difficult to train him or do any proper behavioral correction. A lunging, snarling dog at the end of a leash is not going to be susceptible to any type of behavioral correction that will cure his problem.
Many people will try snapping the leash, grabbing their dog, or even pinning their dog when they get leash reactions like this. None of these things train your dog not to react in that way. Why? Because the behavior is usually being driven by emotion, and you can't punish away emotion.
Imagine I took you up to the top of your home and dangled you off the roof. You are in a huge panic because you feel your life might be in danger. What if I then pull out a gun, point it at you, and demand that you stop panicking and being afraid. Will that work? What will your emotion state be after that happens? If I then take you up to the roof and dangle you off without the gun - will your fear of heights be gone?
This is very similar in dog training. A dog that is being punished via leash corrections, pinning or even shouting isn't having his emotions changed, and thus the behavior will likely not change - or even worse - it might change to something else.
Many dogs that are punished for growling will stop growling - however instead they next time go straight to biting without the warning growl. A leash reactive dog punished in this way, while his behavior may change, could never be trusted off leash as his emotions would still be the same, and out of fear or aggression he may attack.
All proper behavior corrections in dogs take place "sub-threshold". That means when I correct behavior - I never actually want to see the negative behavior again. If your dog growls at other dogs, I want to work with him so that I never see him growl again. This means I always keep him at a level just below his 'threshold' of growling. As we work through behavior modification, we move the dog closer and closer to thing he had the problem with - other dogs etc, all while keeping him under his reactive threshold. The general goal is to usually show and teach the dog other acceptable behaviors he can display, or to relax his fear and show him there is no reason to be afraid.
Using the roof example - a professional therapist would gradually expose you to higher and higher surfaces, ensuring you were OK with one height before moving higher. A professional human therapist would not pull you up to a roof and hold a gun to your head - however in dog training this type of thing seems to happen all the time (Think choke collars and shock collars).
Dogs can learn when they are afraid - but usually not the things we want! Fear is a huge teacher for dogs, but the lesson is usually to 1) Avoid the thing of fear or 2) use aggression to make it go away - neither of which is usually a desirable outcome.
Trying to train when your dog is afraid or in a frenzy just doesn't work.
If you find your dog is reactive on leash, call a (good)trainer and don't keep trying to micromanage the situations - you'll likely make it worse and certainly won't make it better.
Whenever a dog is in an aroused state of mind, its very difficult to train him or do any proper behavioral correction. A lunging, snarling dog at the end of a leash is not going to be susceptible to any type of behavioral correction that will cure his problem.
Many people will try snapping the leash, grabbing their dog, or even pinning their dog when they get leash reactions like this. None of these things train your dog not to react in that way. Why? Because the behavior is usually being driven by emotion, and you can't punish away emotion.
Imagine I took you up to the top of your home and dangled you off the roof. You are in a huge panic because you feel your life might be in danger. What if I then pull out a gun, point it at you, and demand that you stop panicking and being afraid. Will that work? What will your emotion state be after that happens? If I then take you up to the roof and dangle you off without the gun - will your fear of heights be gone?
This is very similar in dog training. A dog that is being punished via leash corrections, pinning or even shouting isn't having his emotions changed, and thus the behavior will likely not change - or even worse - it might change to something else.
Many dogs that are punished for growling will stop growling - however instead they next time go straight to biting without the warning growl. A leash reactive dog punished in this way, while his behavior may change, could never be trusted off leash as his emotions would still be the same, and out of fear or aggression he may attack.
All proper behavior corrections in dogs take place "sub-threshold". That means when I correct behavior - I never actually want to see the negative behavior again. If your dog growls at other dogs, I want to work with him so that I never see him growl again. This means I always keep him at a level just below his 'threshold' of growling. As we work through behavior modification, we move the dog closer and closer to thing he had the problem with - other dogs etc, all while keeping him under his reactive threshold. The general goal is to usually show and teach the dog other acceptable behaviors he can display, or to relax his fear and show him there is no reason to be afraid.
Using the roof example - a professional therapist would gradually expose you to higher and higher surfaces, ensuring you were OK with one height before moving higher. A professional human therapist would not pull you up to a roof and hold a gun to your head - however in dog training this type of thing seems to happen all the time (Think choke collars and shock collars).
Dogs can learn when they are afraid - but usually not the things we want! Fear is a huge teacher for dogs, but the lesson is usually to 1) Avoid the thing of fear or 2) use aggression to make it go away - neither of which is usually a desirable outcome.
Trying to train when your dog is afraid or in a frenzy just doesn't work.
If you find your dog is reactive on leash, call a (good)trainer and don't keep trying to micromanage the situations - you'll likely make it worse and certainly won't make it better.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Leash Dog-Dog Reactions
I'm not sure if its TV shows or just natural human reaction but it seems that whenever a dog reacts/lunges/barks at another dog while on leash, the reaction of the owner is to always jerk the leash and yell at the dog.
Even dogs that are simply tugging to investigate or greet another dog while on leash are routinely jerked back into walking position by many owners.
Many people I believe are at a loss for what to do when your dog is reacting either aggressively or curiously to another stimulus while on leash, and both require very different methods of treatment - however one thing in common is that jerking your dogs leash doesn't help.
If your dog is reacting aggressively to another dog/person/stimulus jerking the leash and yelling at the dog will start to classically condition your dog. The dog is going to start to form this picture in his mind:
Dogs show up = my neck hurts and I get jerked around thus = dogs are bad news.
Now many people will observe that if your jerk a dog enough he may stop to react (yup we see this on TV shows) - this is true, but that doesn't mean his reaction is cured, but rather suppressed. Likely that same dog, once free of his leash, would react on his building emotional state that dogs = bad and an attack is very likely. This is not a dog you could trust off leash when he is "safe" from his punishers.
So jerking your dogs leash does nothing to cure or fix the emotional state of WHY he is reacting that way, but simply temporarily suppresses it. If your an addicted smoker, I can tie your hands up and take away your cigarette package and then stand back and say "Look he's not smoking" and thus claim my solution has cured you.
The problem of course is soon as you have your free will and mobility back, you'd head right out to buy another pack.
The key is to cure the emotional state of why the dog is reacting, and the only true way to do this is through that same pattern of classical conditioning.
Instead of dogs = my leash jerked = dogs are bad, you change the equation in your dogs mind to:
dogs = I get lots of treats thus = dogs are awesome!
I won't go into all the finer detail of how this is done, these types of corrections are best done with the help of a qualified trainer. If you'd like to learn more however there's plenty of books in my online store that cover this topic, FIGHT! by jean donaldson is a good one.
The key point to note here is that your not creating an expectation that your dog will get a treat every time another dog shows up. What your doing is changing the emotional state, so that even if he doesn't get a treat when a dog shows up, the past history of that happening will give him a positive view of the approaching dog, instead of a negative one. Phasing out the treats will still leave your dog with a positive mindset, even when the treats are no longer flowing freely. You can also train operant behaviors around other dogs if you need to, like sitting or coming to you if off leash.
If your dog is simply trying to investigate something, say he wants to sniff that pile of poop on the sidewalk, is jerking him away going form an equation of:
poop = my leash getting jerked = poop is bad?
Not likely (but it could), but it will certainly lead to other issues.
First, it will damage your relationship with your dog. Whenever you inflict pain on your dog, your not going to be his most favorite person, that's just universal for all species.
Second, Your dog isn't going to have any clear expectations on how to get what he wants. Unless you've trained him to "leave it" jerking him away from things doesn't teach him why he shouldn't be going after that object, or how to avoid the punishment. What else can't I sniff at along this walk? How do I stop from getting jerked around so much? If you don't answer these questions for you dog, he's going to be hopelessly confused and upset.
So in short - if your dog does something you don't like on leash, please don't make your first reaction to jerk him around. Certainly if your dog is lunging or about to attack you need to manage the situation, but once everyone is safe, please don't be the person that stands there yelling "NO" and jerking up on the leash well after the encounter has passed, your not doing your dog, or yourself, any favors.
Even dogs that are simply tugging to investigate or greet another dog while on leash are routinely jerked back into walking position by many owners.
Many people I believe are at a loss for what to do when your dog is reacting either aggressively or curiously to another stimulus while on leash, and both require very different methods of treatment - however one thing in common is that jerking your dogs leash doesn't help.
If your dog is reacting aggressively to another dog/person/stimulus jerking the leash and yelling at the dog will start to classically condition your dog. The dog is going to start to form this picture in his mind:
Dogs show up = my neck hurts and I get jerked around thus = dogs are bad news.
Now many people will observe that if your jerk a dog enough he may stop to react (yup we see this on TV shows) - this is true, but that doesn't mean his reaction is cured, but rather suppressed. Likely that same dog, once free of his leash, would react on his building emotional state that dogs = bad and an attack is very likely. This is not a dog you could trust off leash when he is "safe" from his punishers.
So jerking your dogs leash does nothing to cure or fix the emotional state of WHY he is reacting that way, but simply temporarily suppresses it. If your an addicted smoker, I can tie your hands up and take away your cigarette package and then stand back and say "Look he's not smoking" and thus claim my solution has cured you.
The problem of course is soon as you have your free will and mobility back, you'd head right out to buy another pack.
The key is to cure the emotional state of why the dog is reacting, and the only true way to do this is through that same pattern of classical conditioning.
Instead of dogs = my leash jerked = dogs are bad, you change the equation in your dogs mind to:
dogs = I get lots of treats thus = dogs are awesome!
I won't go into all the finer detail of how this is done, these types of corrections are best done with the help of a qualified trainer. If you'd like to learn more however there's plenty of books in my online store that cover this topic, FIGHT! by jean donaldson is a good one.
The key point to note here is that your not creating an expectation that your dog will get a treat every time another dog shows up. What your doing is changing the emotional state, so that even if he doesn't get a treat when a dog shows up, the past history of that happening will give him a positive view of the approaching dog, instead of a negative one. Phasing out the treats will still leave your dog with a positive mindset, even when the treats are no longer flowing freely. You can also train operant behaviors around other dogs if you need to, like sitting or coming to you if off leash.
If your dog is simply trying to investigate something, say he wants to sniff that pile of poop on the sidewalk, is jerking him away going form an equation of:
poop = my leash getting jerked = poop is bad?
Not likely (but it could), but it will certainly lead to other issues.
First, it will damage your relationship with your dog. Whenever you inflict pain on your dog, your not going to be his most favorite person, that's just universal for all species.
Second, Your dog isn't going to have any clear expectations on how to get what he wants. Unless you've trained him to "leave it" jerking him away from things doesn't teach him why he shouldn't be going after that object, or how to avoid the punishment. What else can't I sniff at along this walk? How do I stop from getting jerked around so much? If you don't answer these questions for you dog, he's going to be hopelessly confused and upset.
So in short - if your dog does something you don't like on leash, please don't make your first reaction to jerk him around. Certainly if your dog is lunging or about to attack you need to manage the situation, but once everyone is safe, please don't be the person that stands there yelling "NO" and jerking up on the leash well after the encounter has passed, your not doing your dog, or yourself, any favors.
Monday, October 18, 2010
The Sphere of Influence
The sphere of influence is a term I use when discussing classical conditioning. Classical conditioning as we know pairs a neutral stimulus with a conditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus takes on meaning for the animal.
The most popular example is using a clicker followed by a presentation of food, so that the animal comes to know that "click" means food. However dogs see the world very different than us, and aspects of their reality are difficult to comprehend as we can never see the world quite as they do.
One thing that is widely proven through science is that dogs discriminate far closer than we do when forming associations. For example a dog that is not socialized to Black men may display fear if approached by one, even if the dog has been well socialized to White men, Asian men, Indian men, etc. A dog may also fail to respond to reward training if he has been conditioned that the reward will only be present if your bait bag is on your belt.
Enter the sphere of influence. When classically conditioning it's critical to be mindful of all the things your influencing. This counts for both positive conditioning but is very important to be aware of if a dog is being trained with punishment (P+).
When we want a dog to feel good about something - we pair it with food or other pleasurable items. However we must be sure we are pairing the right object in the dogs mind.
If I want to cure dog aggression, I am going to give lots of treats whenever other dogs are present - so my aggressive dog replaces the bad feelings about other dogs, with good feelings. I want to counter condition him that dogs = treats and good things with the end mental result to be dogs = good things (and thus not to be attacked).
However the sphere of influence may instead teach him that me wearing my sweater = good things, or my shoes = good things or walking in the neighbourhood = good things and not other dogs. I cannot be sure which condition the dog is focusing on, if at all. In order to get the dog to focus in on other dogs, I need to insure I change the surroundings and conditions to many different situations, while keeping the one constant I want to focus on the same - in this case other dogs.
If I ignored this principle, My dog would likely have good feelings about a number of different things, however I could never be sure how strong that feeling would be, nor to which circumstance it would be directly associated to.
This is specially concerning if punishment is involved. Consider this example:
"The father of the family is very frustrated with the family dog who is always peeing in the house. The fathers ritual when he comes home is to take the keys out of the door, find the dog and slap him for the pee he discovers each day when coming home. The dog is becoming more and more fearful each time the father comes home. One day the mother comes home around the same time the father usually does, and removes the keys from the door and comes inside. The dog attacks and bites the mother putting her in hospital. The dog is euthanized due to his 'unpredictable' attack on someone who never harmed him."
What really happened here? Because the dog was being punished with a regular set of criteria - he was conditioned to a number of factors, and any number of those may have pushed him over the edge. So the dog learned that
a) a certain time of day predicts punishment
b) sound of keys jingling coming out of door predict punishment
c) the father's presence predicts punishment
However it only required condition a and condition b to be present in order to get the reaction from the dog. The mother was an unfortunate victim of the classical conditioning sphere of influence that was taking place each time the dog was punished. The punishment became too much and finally caused the dog to lash out in a preemptive strike towards what he believed would be a punishment based on classical criteria.
Take another example - a dog gets hit by a car. Just before hitting the dog the car honks it's horn. This dog could be scared of cars, a horn sound, the specific area in which the accident happened, or even the weather at the time of the incident from now on. All these items were simultaneously conditioned from this one incident (conditioning happens much faster with a fear emotion).
So in summary - be very mindful of this sphere of influence in both the positive and negative (punishment) applications
Positive - change the other criteria for reward in each situation keeping one constant to focus on the exact object you want to pair.
Punishment - be aware that any dog that has been punished in the past may have associated the impending punishment with any number of critera including your sex, clothing, sounds or location. Just because we know the dog may be in a safe place far away from the punisher - he doesn't make this same safe association that a human would.
The most popular example is using a clicker followed by a presentation of food, so that the animal comes to know that "click" means food. However dogs see the world very different than us, and aspects of their reality are difficult to comprehend as we can never see the world quite as they do.
One thing that is widely proven through science is that dogs discriminate far closer than we do when forming associations. For example a dog that is not socialized to Black men may display fear if approached by one, even if the dog has been well socialized to White men, Asian men, Indian men, etc. A dog may also fail to respond to reward training if he has been conditioned that the reward will only be present if your bait bag is on your belt.
Enter the sphere of influence. When classically conditioning it's critical to be mindful of all the things your influencing. This counts for both positive conditioning but is very important to be aware of if a dog is being trained with punishment (P+).
When we want a dog to feel good about something - we pair it with food or other pleasurable items. However we must be sure we are pairing the right object in the dogs mind.
If I want to cure dog aggression, I am going to give lots of treats whenever other dogs are present - so my aggressive dog replaces the bad feelings about other dogs, with good feelings. I want to counter condition him that dogs = treats and good things with the end mental result to be dogs = good things (and thus not to be attacked).
However the sphere of influence may instead teach him that me wearing my sweater = good things, or my shoes = good things or walking in the neighbourhood = good things and not other dogs. I cannot be sure which condition the dog is focusing on, if at all. In order to get the dog to focus in on other dogs, I need to insure I change the surroundings and conditions to many different situations, while keeping the one constant I want to focus on the same - in this case other dogs.
If I ignored this principle, My dog would likely have good feelings about a number of different things, however I could never be sure how strong that feeling would be, nor to which circumstance it would be directly associated to.
This is specially concerning if punishment is involved. Consider this example:
"The father of the family is very frustrated with the family dog who is always peeing in the house. The fathers ritual when he comes home is to take the keys out of the door, find the dog and slap him for the pee he discovers each day when coming home. The dog is becoming more and more fearful each time the father comes home. One day the mother comes home around the same time the father usually does, and removes the keys from the door and comes inside. The dog attacks and bites the mother putting her in hospital. The dog is euthanized due to his 'unpredictable' attack on someone who never harmed him."
What really happened here? Because the dog was being punished with a regular set of criteria - he was conditioned to a number of factors, and any number of those may have pushed him over the edge. So the dog learned that
a) a certain time of day predicts punishment
b) sound of keys jingling coming out of door predict punishment
c) the father's presence predicts punishment
However it only required condition a and condition b to be present in order to get the reaction from the dog. The mother was an unfortunate victim of the classical conditioning sphere of influence that was taking place each time the dog was punished. The punishment became too much and finally caused the dog to lash out in a preemptive strike towards what he believed would be a punishment based on classical criteria.
Take another example - a dog gets hit by a car. Just before hitting the dog the car honks it's horn. This dog could be scared of cars, a horn sound, the specific area in which the accident happened, or even the weather at the time of the incident from now on. All these items were simultaneously conditioned from this one incident (conditioning happens much faster with a fear emotion).
So in summary - be very mindful of this sphere of influence in both the positive and negative (punishment) applications
Positive - change the other criteria for reward in each situation keeping one constant to focus on the exact object you want to pair.
Punishment - be aware that any dog that has been punished in the past may have associated the impending punishment with any number of critera including your sex, clothing, sounds or location. Just because we know the dog may be in a safe place far away from the punisher - he doesn't make this same safe association that a human would.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Shock Collars
Shock collars are a big subject in the world of dog training. People who are opposed to them are vehemently (and usually angrily) against them. Those that promote them are very defensive of their stance.
I'm writing this post because I recently saw a Halifax training site, that is very heavily promoted, making use of what they refer to as "E-collars". E-Collars stand for electronic collar, which is a nicer way of saying 'shock' collar.
On this site they had 2-3 videos showing how great E-collars work - and I was really curious to see this. I was curious to see how a site was going to get customers when they are going to post videos of dogs being shocked. Upon watching them though I discovered the real ugly truth about this training method - they actually DON'T want you to see it up front!
One video showed a trainer and dog (a Shepard mix) doing an obedience routine with many sits, downs, lots of eye contact, and various obedience work being done on an agility style pause table. This dog was already trained and thus wasn't shocked once during the video. The premise of the video was to see how great E-collar training can make your dog - but without actually showing the method itself.
The second video showed how great E-collars are for curing aggression. This video showed an out of control dog, lunging and snarling in one clip - then faded to the same dog behaving perfectly and walking calming. Again - no shocks, no method shown, just final product.
The third video showed an 8 year old girl or so 'training' a rottie. Once again it was deceiving because the girl never actually 'trained' the dog - he was clearly trained very well. The little girl proceeded to walk around with the dog at perfect heel position, and give a number of commands. The shock collar was on the dog, and the trainer was filming. I'll mention the importance of this later.
Some people might ask, well I only want a trained dog, I am only interested in the final product, why should I care how a professional gets to the finished product? I don't need to watch my mechanic work on my car, I just want it to work when I pick it up.
Well dog training is very different - cars aren't alive, dogs are. The method used to train your dog is going to have a total effect on his personality, relationship with you and others, and may or may not cause other problems. This same training company says their training methods are 'based in science' however science is quite clear that punishment should be a last resort for training - and must be used extremely carefully to avoid lasting behavioral damage.
Stephen Lindsay in his excellent book "Handbook of applied dog behavior and training vol 1" lists 20 different concerns that you must be aware of when using punishment training. A whole chapter in this very long (420pg) book is devoted to the science of punishment in training and various experiments done on animals throughout the ages on punishment training. He lists well over 40 scientific papers in his review.
His conclusion in this matter: "Punishment should be used only after other positive training options have been carefully considered or exhausted."
Furthermore - the Veterinary Behavior Society of America states: "The AVSAB's position is that punishment is not appropriate as a first-line or early-use treatment for behavior problems. Modification should focus on reinforcing desirable behaviors, removing reinforcement for inappropriate behaviors, and addressing the emotional state and environmental conditions driving undesirable behavior."
The Canadian Veterinary Society states: "Recent years have seen a shift towards reward-based methods, such as clicker training and the use of food, toys and praise as motivators. Animal behaviourists conclude that training techniques that employ punishment rather than rewards-based methods do not improve dog obedience and actually increase problematic dog behaviours.Confrontational methods of training such as the use of physical force, rolling dogs, growling, or staring dogs down may increase the likelihood of aggressive responses in dogs. The use of shock collars is associated with short-term and long-term negative consequences including fear and anxiety.
I go into more detail on why punishment isn't effective on my site - but the biggest problem I see with punishment is a very general one. Dog training is generally done BY the owner - with guidance and direction from the trainer. This means that most training being done on the dog isn't by a professional, but rather the owner.
When I run obedience classes I give homework to my classes - without practice there is no way a group of dogs can learn any behavior reliably in an hour. We discuss success and failure through the 6 week class and work on improvement. I want pet owners who feel like they can communicate and train their dog without always needing a professional trainer.
As with any new skill, people make mistakes. Some people are more skilled and catch on - others take more time and make more errors. When I do clicker training I see people clicking at the wrong time, forgetting to click, giving food at the wrong time, not phasing out food in time - you name it. I have older people that may take extra explanation, and children that are overly eager and excited. We coach and work through the errors and issues to improve everyone's skill.
With clicker and food training - this isn't a big deal. Worse case scenario is the dog takes longer to train and maybe gets a lot of extra food that maybe he didn't really need. A wrong click or a wrong food delivery won't hurt anyone. People also get frustrated and sometimes want to give up but we talk through it.
With punishment however - errors can cause serious psychological damage and aggression. This is specially true if the owner is getting frustrated. This is also not a method that every dog will respond to. I normally see shock collar demonstrations on Shepards and other large, tough breeds - I have yet to see an E-collar on a pug or king charles spaniel. Every dog however likes reinforcement - and it doesn't have to be food - it can be play, toys, freedom, whatever.
So the bottom line here is if you make mistakes using positive reinforcement methods - you might not have a well trained dog until you sharpen your skills - if you make mistakes using punishment, you might have a highly aggressive dog, or one that shuts down and lives a miserable life of fear and frustration. Or worse case, you don't notice anything is wrong with the dog until he bites your neighbours kid.
Remember the little girl from the video? Well one issue with punishment is the behavior falls apart if the conditions during punishment are no longer present. For example if the trainer is the only person shocking the dog, he may not listen to the little girl unless the trainer is present. In the video the trainer is there filming - so the dog obeys the girl because conditions for punishment in place.
There is no reason to need to resort to punishment unless positive methods have failed, and this will very rarely happen. I would also argue that no matter how well behaved a punishment trained dog is - I would never trust one around my children or loved ones. Punishment can build a ticking time bomb of aggression. People and animals alike who are consistently subjected to punishment will only take so much before they explode. Why even take that risk?
I'm writing this post because I recently saw a Halifax training site, that is very heavily promoted, making use of what they refer to as "E-collars". E-Collars stand for electronic collar, which is a nicer way of saying 'shock' collar.
On this site they had 2-3 videos showing how great E-collars work - and I was really curious to see this. I was curious to see how a site was going to get customers when they are going to post videos of dogs being shocked. Upon watching them though I discovered the real ugly truth about this training method - they actually DON'T want you to see it up front!
One video showed a trainer and dog (a Shepard mix) doing an obedience routine with many sits, downs, lots of eye contact, and various obedience work being done on an agility style pause table. This dog was already trained and thus wasn't shocked once during the video. The premise of the video was to see how great E-collar training can make your dog - but without actually showing the method itself.
The second video showed how great E-collars are for curing aggression. This video showed an out of control dog, lunging and snarling in one clip - then faded to the same dog behaving perfectly and walking calming. Again - no shocks, no method shown, just final product.
The third video showed an 8 year old girl or so 'training' a rottie. Once again it was deceiving because the girl never actually 'trained' the dog - he was clearly trained very well. The little girl proceeded to walk around with the dog at perfect heel position, and give a number of commands. The shock collar was on the dog, and the trainer was filming. I'll mention the importance of this later.
Some people might ask, well I only want a trained dog, I am only interested in the final product, why should I care how a professional gets to the finished product? I don't need to watch my mechanic work on my car, I just want it to work when I pick it up.
Well dog training is very different - cars aren't alive, dogs are. The method used to train your dog is going to have a total effect on his personality, relationship with you and others, and may or may not cause other problems. This same training company says their training methods are 'based in science' however science is quite clear that punishment should be a last resort for training - and must be used extremely carefully to avoid lasting behavioral damage.
Stephen Lindsay in his excellent book "Handbook of applied dog behavior and training vol 1" lists 20 different concerns that you must be aware of when using punishment training. A whole chapter in this very long (420pg) book is devoted to the science of punishment in training and various experiments done on animals throughout the ages on punishment training. He lists well over 40 scientific papers in his review.
His conclusion in this matter: "Punishment should be used only after other positive training options have been carefully considered or exhausted."
Furthermore - the Veterinary Behavior Society of America states: "The AVSAB's position is that punishment is not appropriate as a first-line or early-use treatment for behavior problems. Modification should focus on reinforcing desirable behaviors, removing reinforcement for inappropriate behaviors, and addressing the emotional state and environmental conditions driving undesirable behavior."
The Canadian Veterinary Society states: "Recent years have seen a shift towards reward-based methods, such as clicker training and the use of food, toys and praise as motivators. Animal behaviourists conclude that training techniques that employ punishment rather than rewards-based methods do not improve dog obedience and actually increase problematic dog behaviours.Confrontational methods of training such as the use of physical force, rolling dogs, growling, or staring dogs down may increase the likelihood of aggressive responses in dogs. The use of shock collars is associated with short-term and long-term negative consequences including fear and anxiety.
I go into more detail on why punishment isn't effective on my site - but the biggest problem I see with punishment is a very general one. Dog training is generally done BY the owner - with guidance and direction from the trainer. This means that most training being done on the dog isn't by a professional, but rather the owner.
When I run obedience classes I give homework to my classes - without practice there is no way a group of dogs can learn any behavior reliably in an hour. We discuss success and failure through the 6 week class and work on improvement. I want pet owners who feel like they can communicate and train their dog without always needing a professional trainer.
As with any new skill, people make mistakes. Some people are more skilled and catch on - others take more time and make more errors. When I do clicker training I see people clicking at the wrong time, forgetting to click, giving food at the wrong time, not phasing out food in time - you name it. I have older people that may take extra explanation, and children that are overly eager and excited. We coach and work through the errors and issues to improve everyone's skill.
With clicker and food training - this isn't a big deal. Worse case scenario is the dog takes longer to train and maybe gets a lot of extra food that maybe he didn't really need. A wrong click or a wrong food delivery won't hurt anyone. People also get frustrated and sometimes want to give up but we talk through it.
With punishment however - errors can cause serious psychological damage and aggression. This is specially true if the owner is getting frustrated. This is also not a method that every dog will respond to. I normally see shock collar demonstrations on Shepards and other large, tough breeds - I have yet to see an E-collar on a pug or king charles spaniel. Every dog however likes reinforcement - and it doesn't have to be food - it can be play, toys, freedom, whatever.
So the bottom line here is if you make mistakes using positive reinforcement methods - you might not have a well trained dog until you sharpen your skills - if you make mistakes using punishment, you might have a highly aggressive dog, or one that shuts down and lives a miserable life of fear and frustration. Or worse case, you don't notice anything is wrong with the dog until he bites your neighbours kid.
Remember the little girl from the video? Well one issue with punishment is the behavior falls apart if the conditions during punishment are no longer present. For example if the trainer is the only person shocking the dog, he may not listen to the little girl unless the trainer is present. In the video the trainer is there filming - so the dog obeys the girl because conditions for punishment in place.
There is no reason to need to resort to punishment unless positive methods have failed, and this will very rarely happen. I would also argue that no matter how well behaved a punishment trained dog is - I would never trust one around my children or loved ones. Punishment can build a ticking time bomb of aggression. People and animals alike who are consistently subjected to punishment will only take so much before they explode. Why even take that risk?
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