Clicker dog training tips, articles, and information
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
CLICK OR JERK?
Pat Miller© 1997
Approximately 2850 words
CLICK OR JERK?
Let The Dogs Decide
It’s a sunny summer day, and you’re taking a stroll around the neighborhood. You pass a park and notice a dog training class in progress. The instructor is standing in a meadow with a dozen dogs and owners circling her. Each of the dogs is wearing a shiny metal chain collar, and from time-to-time when a dog forges ahead or lags behind the owner jerks on the leash to bring the dog back to heel position, then pets and praises it. You hear an occasional “No!” issued in a commanding tone. The dogs appear well-behaved, and all of them are doing the same thing at precisely the same time.
You continue on, and reach another park where you see another training class. This is a more ragged-looking bunch, although also well-behaved. A half-dozen dogs are walking in different directions with their owners, turning, stopping and starting up again apparently at random. The dogs are wearing regular flat collars. Some of them also wear something around their noses that looks like a muzzle, but on closer inspection you realize it is more like a horse halter. There is no jerking, but there is much treat-tossing, talking and laughing, and you hear a lot of “Yes!” and an occasional, odd, clicking noise. Since you have been thinking about signing your dog up for training, you pause to ponder the obvious differences between the two groups.
These are both beginning dog training classes. They both can produce dogs that are well-trained. The main differences between the two are the methods used in training, and the philosophies and behavior theories behind those methods.
The Training Continuum
All dog training techniques fit somewhere on a long continuum, from seriously harsh and abusive punishment-based methods at one extreme, to pure positive reinforcement at the other. As is often the case with extremes, neither of these is likely to be very practical or effective, nor will you find many trainers who recommend them. Most trainers use a combination of techniques that place them somewhere between the two ends of the continuum. Which side of center they are on defines them as primarily compulsion-based trainers or primarily positive ones.
Within the dog training community the debate about methods is generally good-natured, albeit spirited. Hackles get raised when trainers, who tend to be an opinionated lot, disagree on the very best method to resolve a particular canine behavior challenge. But when the dust settles, good humor returns, and on at least one e-mail list trainers tease each other and mock themselves with self-deprecating labels like “Treat Slinging Weenies” (TSW’s) and “foodies.”
Why the huge diversity in training philosophies? Because there are, in fact, several different training approaches that can successfully teach a dog to do what we ask. We can teach our dog to sit by saying the word “sit,” jerking up on the collar and pushing down on her rump to force her to sit, then patting her on the head, verbally praising or giving her a cookie. We can lure her into the sit position by moving a treat over her head, then saying “Yes!-Sit” when she does. And we can choose to wait until she decides to sit on her own and then give her a verbal marker and treat reward for sitting.
Behavioral Terms
In behavioral terms, training is known as “conditioning behavior.” We really aren’t teaching our dog any new behaviors when we train. She already knows how to sit, lie down, stay in one place, walk by our side, or come running to us from far away -- when she wants to. She just may not know how to do it (or may not choose to do it) when we ask her to. Training is conditioning (or teaching the dog) to reliably give us the behaviors we ask for, when we ask for them.
In classical conditioning, as first described by Pavlov, there is an association between a stimulus and a response, or behavior. (A stimulus is something that elicits a response.) This is the famous “ring a bell, the dog salivates,” experiment that most of us are familiar with. Classical conditioning can generally be used to teach only very simple behaviors.
Operant conditioning is most commonly used for training, because it can be used to teach complex behaviors and behavior “chains.” (A behavior chain is a series of behaviors strung together.) With operant conditioning there is an association between a behavior and its consequence. The dog does something, then something happens as a result of the dog’s behavior. There are four ways that this works.
1. Positive reinforcement: The dog’s behavior makes something good happen, so the desired behavior increases. For example -- when the dog walks next to you without pulling on the leash, she gets a treat (treat = good thing).
2. Positive punishment: The dog’s behavior makes something bad happen, so the undesirable behavior decreases. For example -- if the dog pulls on the leash, her neck gets jerked to bring her back to heel position (jerk on neck = bad thing).
3. Negative punishment: The dog’s behavior makes something good go away, so the undesirable behavior decreases. For example -- when the treat is used as a lure to keep the dog walking in heel position, she may jump up to get it. The treat is hidden until she stops jumping. Every time she jumps up the treat is hidden, until she stays on the ground as the treat is offered (treat = good thing; hidden = “goes away”).
4. Negative reinforcement: Dog’s behavior makes something bad go away, so the desired behavior increases. For example -- a no-pull harness puts pressure on the dog’s chest as long as the dog puts pressure on the leash. When the dog stops pulling, the pressure stops. (pressure = bad thing; no pulling = bad thing “goes away”).
Compulsion Training
Old-fashined, compulsion-based training works on the philosophy that we have to show the dog who is boss. She must do what we say, and quickly. If she doesn’t, we immediately correct her or she will learn that she can ignore our commands. The primary tool for compulsion trainers is positive punishment, often followed by a treat, a pat, and or verbal praise to keep up the dog’s enthusiasm for the training process. 20 years ago, traditional trainers abhorred the use of food treats as praise. This thinking has changed in the last decade, as more and more “foodies” have demonstrated the effectiveness of food as a training motivator.
Compulsion training works, as demonstrated by decades of well-behaved dogs. A skilled trainer uses the minimum amount of force necessary to get the job done. Proponents argue that the small amount of discomfort this may cause is worth the end result of a reliable, promptly responsive dog. It can be problematic, however, with very assertive or independent dogs who don’t take kindly to being pushed and pulled around and may decide to argue back. You must be prepared to use enough force to get your message across quickly, and be willing to escalate the level of force if necessary. Techniques like scruff shakes and alpha rolls only work if the trainer is strong enough to persevere if the dog fights back. Many owners and trainers are either unwilling or unable to use this kind of force with their dogs – thank goodness.
Timid, submissive or sensitive dogs may also not do well with positive punishment. Forceful corrections can cause them to melt into a puddle on the floor, and a slight miscalculation can cause irreparable damage to the owner’s or trainer’s relationship with the dog.
Yet another concern about compulsion training is the possible damage to a dog’s throat from a standard choke chain collar, which can exert tremendous pressure on a dog’s trachea. They are not recommended for puppies under the age of six months, yet it is more and more widely accepted that starting puppies in training classes at the age of 10 weeks is ideal, in order to take advantage of a pup’s important socialization and learning period. Prong collars reputedly distribute the pressure more evenly around the neck and are less likely to do damage, but many owners understandably shy away from using the medieval looking spikes on their tender baby puppies.
Clicker Training
“Clicker trainers” is a slang term for trainers who use positive reinforcement as their first method of choice, combined with an audible reward signal to mark right behavior. These trainers operate on a different training philosophy from the compulsion trainers, preferring to get the dog to offer the desired behavior voluntarily, then mark and reward it when it does. (The marker signal, or “bridge,” can be the Click! of the clicker, a whistle, some other mechanical sound, or a word. “Yes!” is frequently used to mark a right behavior.) Since all living creatures tend to repeat behaviors that are rewarding, behaviors that are repeatedly marked and rewarded by a dog’s owner get offered more and more frequently. Behaviors that are ignored (not rewarded) tend to go away, or “extinguish.”
Take, for example, the puppy who wants to jump up on everyone. Dogs greet each other face-to-face, so it is natural for our dogs to want to greet our faces. Plus, when they are cute little puppies we pick them up and cuddle them in our arms, thereby rewarding them for being “up.” Small wonder that so many dogs jump on people!!
Many of the suggested compulsion approaches to correcting jumping behavior actually reward the very behavior we are trying to extinguish. When the dog jumps up, she touches us. That’s a reward. We look at her. Eye contact is a reward. We speak to her to tell her to get off. We are paying attention to her -- that’s a reward! We reach down to push her away. We touched her -- another reward!! For some rowdy dogs, even the time-honored “knee her in the chest” is an invitation to start a rousing game of body-slam.
The positive reinforcement approach relies on the principal that behaviors that are ignored will extinguish. But how do you ignore an enthusiastic, obnoxious canine who is leaping up to greet you nose-to-nose, inflicting multiple bruises and lacerations in the process? Just standing still doesn’t work; she gets all kinds of self-rewards by jumping all over you. Instead, we turn our back on the dog and step away. As the dog tries to come around to face us, we do it again. Turn away and step away. Turn away and step away. Over and over. Sooner or later (and with most dogs this happens much sooner than you would imagine) the dog gets frustrated and confused, and sits down to puzzle out your bizarre behavior. Bingo! Now you turn toward her, tell her “Yes!” and feed her the treat from the stash you keep in your pockets in anticipation of opportunities just like this. You can also pet her and praise her. If she jumps up again, repeat the process. Before you know it, she will have figured out that in order to get the attention she craves as quickly as possible, she needs to sit when she approaches you, not jump.
Clicker trainers use primarily positive reinforcement, but will also use varying degrees of negative punishment, negative reinforcement and positive punishment, depending on the dog and the individual trainer’s own comfort level and skill with the various methods. The jumping up example above actually uses negative punishment -- the dog’s behavior (jumping up) causes something good (you) to go away. Then, when she sits and you give her a treat and attention, it is positive reinforcement -- the dog’s behavior (sitting) causes something good (treat and attention) to happen.
Proponents of positive reinforcement training claim that a training approach based on rewards rather than punishment builds trust in the human-canine relationship and encourages the dog to think for herself and freely make deliberate choices of rewardable behaviors rather than living in fear of being punished for making a wrong choice. Positive-trained dogs often tend to be more willing to think for themselves, choose “right” behaviors, take risks, and offer new behaviors than do dogs who have been physically corrected for making mistakes.
Of course, it is not always possible to ignore a dog’s inappropriate behavior. Some unwanted behaviors are self-rewarding, destructive or unsafe, like barking at the mail carrier, chewing electrical cords or chasing cars. All trainers use a variety of approaches to correct unwanted behavior, but clicker-trainers generally apply methods that stop short of harsh physical corrections.
One such method is management. It is easier to prevent unwanted behaviors than it is to correct them. It is far easier to keep your dog properly confined in a fenced yard or on a leash than it is to stop a dog with a strong prey drive from chasing cars, cats, joggers or skateboarders. While you are managing the behavior, you also work to train a better level of control so that she becomes more reliable around highly enticing stimuli.
Another approach is the use of a “No Reward Marker” or NRM. The NRM is a signal to let the dog know she made a mistake. It is not applied angrily, just used in a neutral tone to let the dog know that the behavior didn’t earn a reward. Commonly used NRM’s include “Oops,” “Try Again,” or the sound “Uh!” or “At!” A properly-used NRM tells the dog that the behavior offered was not the one requested, and encourages the dog to try again.
Yet another positive behavior-correction method is to ask for (and reward) an incompatible behavior. A dog can’t lie on her rug in the living and bark at the visitor on the front porch at the same time. If we teach her that the doorbell is the cue to go lie down on her rug and stay there, she will no longer greet your guests with her sometimes unwelcome exuberance.
The Ongoing Debate
There is no lack of debate between trainers about the effectiveness of their various training approaches. Compulsion trainers believe that an aggressive dog must be physically corrected for the least sign of aggression: hackles raised, intense stare, growling. This teaches the dog that the behavior is not acceptable. Clicker trainers believe that this supresses the dog’s warning signals, but that the aggression is still there, waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed without warning on some hapless victim.
Positive reinforcement trainers suggest that a better approach is to change the way the dog thinks about the aggression-causing stimulus by associating it with positive things. Take a dog who wants to bite children. If every time he sees a child he gets a treat before he has a chance to act aggressive, he will begin to associate the presence of children with “Good things happen.” Eventually he will be eager to see children, and the aggression will fade. Aggressive behavior is not lurking beneath the surface, because the dog no longer thinks of children as a threat; they are now a source of good things.
Clicker trainers tend to believe that force-based training dampens a dog’s enthusiasm for learning, and “stifles their creativity.” Compulsion trainers may mistakenly assert that reward-trained dogs won’t perform reliably under stress. Clicker trainers say that violence elicits violence, and that many dogs who are euthanized for biting were made worse by physical corrections. Compulsion trainers argue that their methods are faster, and that sometimes the use of force can cause quicker behavior changes that save a dog’s life whose owner is at the breaking point and on the verge of sending the dog to the shelter.
Most trainers agree that owners apply whatever training methods they are using with varying degrees of skill and success. Trainers from both sides of the continuum talk about owners who “just don’t get it.” Other arguments aside, it would seem logical to conclude that much more harm can be done by an owner improperly jerking on a collar than by one who tosses a few extra treats.
Deciding on what training methods to use is a personal choice. Pet owners left to their own devices are more likely to follow their hearts and choose a gentle, non-violent training methods, while those owners who have been conditioned by past trainers and the pressure of competition to believe that a little “pop on the collar” won’t hurt the dog, will more quickly accept force-based training.
In the end, our dogs tell us the truth. We can find pet dogs and obedience show ring competitors from both training styles that are happy, reliable, willing workers. We can find dogs from both training styles that are poorly trained and out of control. But in general, a larger percentage of dogs in a compulsion-based class will grudgingly comply with commands or look bored or disgruntled than will dogs in a positive reinforcement class, where enthusiasm usually abounds among all students in the class, two-legged and four-legged alike.
Now let’s go back to our imaginary stroll around the neighborhood. You’re ready to sign up for a class, and just have to decide which one. Just put yourself in your dogs place for a moment and ask yourself which kind of class she’d prefer to go to. She’ll give you the answer.
Peaceable Paws LLC
Pat Miller, CPDT, CDBC
301-582-9420
www.peaceablepaws.com
Pat Miller is a Certified Dog and Horse Behavior Consultant and Certified Professional Dog Trainer. She offers classes, behavior modification services, training clinics and academies for trainers at her 80-acre Peaceable Paws training facility in Fairplay, Maryland (US), and presents seminars worldwide. She has authored “The Power of Positive Dog Training,” “Positive Perspectives,” “Positive Perspectives 2,” and “Play With Your Dog.” Miller is training editor for The Whole Dog Journal, writes for Tuft’s University’s Your Dog, and several other publications. She shares her home with husband Paul, five dogs, three cats, five horses, a donkey and a potbellied pig. www.peaceablepaws.com
Approximately 2850 words
CLICK OR JERK?
Let The Dogs Decide
It’s a sunny summer day, and you’re taking a stroll around the neighborhood. You pass a park and notice a dog training class in progress. The instructor is standing in a meadow with a dozen dogs and owners circling her. Each of the dogs is wearing a shiny metal chain collar, and from time-to-time when a dog forges ahead or lags behind the owner jerks on the leash to bring the dog back to heel position, then pets and praises it. You hear an occasional “No!” issued in a commanding tone. The dogs appear well-behaved, and all of them are doing the same thing at precisely the same time.
You continue on, and reach another park where you see another training class. This is a more ragged-looking bunch, although also well-behaved. A half-dozen dogs are walking in different directions with their owners, turning, stopping and starting up again apparently at random. The dogs are wearing regular flat collars. Some of them also wear something around their noses that looks like a muzzle, but on closer inspection you realize it is more like a horse halter. There is no jerking, but there is much treat-tossing, talking and laughing, and you hear a lot of “Yes!” and an occasional, odd, clicking noise. Since you have been thinking about signing your dog up for training, you pause to ponder the obvious differences between the two groups.
These are both beginning dog training classes. They both can produce dogs that are well-trained. The main differences between the two are the methods used in training, and the philosophies and behavior theories behind those methods.
The Training Continuum
All dog training techniques fit somewhere on a long continuum, from seriously harsh and abusive punishment-based methods at one extreme, to pure positive reinforcement at the other. As is often the case with extremes, neither of these is likely to be very practical or effective, nor will you find many trainers who recommend them. Most trainers use a combination of techniques that place them somewhere between the two ends of the continuum. Which side of center they are on defines them as primarily compulsion-based trainers or primarily positive ones.
Within the dog training community the debate about methods is generally good-natured, albeit spirited. Hackles get raised when trainers, who tend to be an opinionated lot, disagree on the very best method to resolve a particular canine behavior challenge. But when the dust settles, good humor returns, and on at least one e-mail list trainers tease each other and mock themselves with self-deprecating labels like “Treat Slinging Weenies” (TSW’s) and “foodies.”
Why the huge diversity in training philosophies? Because there are, in fact, several different training approaches that can successfully teach a dog to do what we ask. We can teach our dog to sit by saying the word “sit,” jerking up on the collar and pushing down on her rump to force her to sit, then patting her on the head, verbally praising or giving her a cookie. We can lure her into the sit position by moving a treat over her head, then saying “Yes!-Sit” when she does. And we can choose to wait until she decides to sit on her own and then give her a verbal marker and treat reward for sitting.
Behavioral Terms
In behavioral terms, training is known as “conditioning behavior.” We really aren’t teaching our dog any new behaviors when we train. She already knows how to sit, lie down, stay in one place, walk by our side, or come running to us from far away -- when she wants to. She just may not know how to do it (or may not choose to do it) when we ask her to. Training is conditioning (or teaching the dog) to reliably give us the behaviors we ask for, when we ask for them.
In classical conditioning, as first described by Pavlov, there is an association between a stimulus and a response, or behavior. (A stimulus is something that elicits a response.) This is the famous “ring a bell, the dog salivates,” experiment that most of us are familiar with. Classical conditioning can generally be used to teach only very simple behaviors.
Operant conditioning is most commonly used for training, because it can be used to teach complex behaviors and behavior “chains.” (A behavior chain is a series of behaviors strung together.) With operant conditioning there is an association between a behavior and its consequence. The dog does something, then something happens as a result of the dog’s behavior. There are four ways that this works.
1. Positive reinforcement: The dog’s behavior makes something good happen, so the desired behavior increases. For example -- when the dog walks next to you without pulling on the leash, she gets a treat (treat = good thing).
2. Positive punishment: The dog’s behavior makes something bad happen, so the undesirable behavior decreases. For example -- if the dog pulls on the leash, her neck gets jerked to bring her back to heel position (jerk on neck = bad thing).
3. Negative punishment: The dog’s behavior makes something good go away, so the undesirable behavior decreases. For example -- when the treat is used as a lure to keep the dog walking in heel position, she may jump up to get it. The treat is hidden until she stops jumping. Every time she jumps up the treat is hidden, until she stays on the ground as the treat is offered (treat = good thing; hidden = “goes away”).
4. Negative reinforcement: Dog’s behavior makes something bad go away, so the desired behavior increases. For example -- a no-pull harness puts pressure on the dog’s chest as long as the dog puts pressure on the leash. When the dog stops pulling, the pressure stops. (pressure = bad thing; no pulling = bad thing “goes away”).
Compulsion Training
Old-fashined, compulsion-based training works on the philosophy that we have to show the dog who is boss. She must do what we say, and quickly. If she doesn’t, we immediately correct her or she will learn that she can ignore our commands. The primary tool for compulsion trainers is positive punishment, often followed by a treat, a pat, and or verbal praise to keep up the dog’s enthusiasm for the training process. 20 years ago, traditional trainers abhorred the use of food treats as praise. This thinking has changed in the last decade, as more and more “foodies” have demonstrated the effectiveness of food as a training motivator.
Compulsion training works, as demonstrated by decades of well-behaved dogs. A skilled trainer uses the minimum amount of force necessary to get the job done. Proponents argue that the small amount of discomfort this may cause is worth the end result of a reliable, promptly responsive dog. It can be problematic, however, with very assertive or independent dogs who don’t take kindly to being pushed and pulled around and may decide to argue back. You must be prepared to use enough force to get your message across quickly, and be willing to escalate the level of force if necessary. Techniques like scruff shakes and alpha rolls only work if the trainer is strong enough to persevere if the dog fights back. Many owners and trainers are either unwilling or unable to use this kind of force with their dogs – thank goodness.
Timid, submissive or sensitive dogs may also not do well with positive punishment. Forceful corrections can cause them to melt into a puddle on the floor, and a slight miscalculation can cause irreparable damage to the owner’s or trainer’s relationship with the dog.
Yet another concern about compulsion training is the possible damage to a dog’s throat from a standard choke chain collar, which can exert tremendous pressure on a dog’s trachea. They are not recommended for puppies under the age of six months, yet it is more and more widely accepted that starting puppies in training classes at the age of 10 weeks is ideal, in order to take advantage of a pup’s important socialization and learning period. Prong collars reputedly distribute the pressure more evenly around the neck and are less likely to do damage, but many owners understandably shy away from using the medieval looking spikes on their tender baby puppies.
Clicker Training
“Clicker trainers” is a slang term for trainers who use positive reinforcement as their first method of choice, combined with an audible reward signal to mark right behavior. These trainers operate on a different training philosophy from the compulsion trainers, preferring to get the dog to offer the desired behavior voluntarily, then mark and reward it when it does. (The marker signal, or “bridge,” can be the Click! of the clicker, a whistle, some other mechanical sound, or a word. “Yes!” is frequently used to mark a right behavior.) Since all living creatures tend to repeat behaviors that are rewarding, behaviors that are repeatedly marked and rewarded by a dog’s owner get offered more and more frequently. Behaviors that are ignored (not rewarded) tend to go away, or “extinguish.”
Take, for example, the puppy who wants to jump up on everyone. Dogs greet each other face-to-face, so it is natural for our dogs to want to greet our faces. Plus, when they are cute little puppies we pick them up and cuddle them in our arms, thereby rewarding them for being “up.” Small wonder that so many dogs jump on people!!
Many of the suggested compulsion approaches to correcting jumping behavior actually reward the very behavior we are trying to extinguish. When the dog jumps up, she touches us. That’s a reward. We look at her. Eye contact is a reward. We speak to her to tell her to get off. We are paying attention to her -- that’s a reward! We reach down to push her away. We touched her -- another reward!! For some rowdy dogs, even the time-honored “knee her in the chest” is an invitation to start a rousing game of body-slam.
The positive reinforcement approach relies on the principal that behaviors that are ignored will extinguish. But how do you ignore an enthusiastic, obnoxious canine who is leaping up to greet you nose-to-nose, inflicting multiple bruises and lacerations in the process? Just standing still doesn’t work; she gets all kinds of self-rewards by jumping all over you. Instead, we turn our back on the dog and step away. As the dog tries to come around to face us, we do it again. Turn away and step away. Turn away and step away. Over and over. Sooner or later (and with most dogs this happens much sooner than you would imagine) the dog gets frustrated and confused, and sits down to puzzle out your bizarre behavior. Bingo! Now you turn toward her, tell her “Yes!” and feed her the treat from the stash you keep in your pockets in anticipation of opportunities just like this. You can also pet her and praise her. If she jumps up again, repeat the process. Before you know it, she will have figured out that in order to get the attention she craves as quickly as possible, she needs to sit when she approaches you, not jump.
Clicker trainers use primarily positive reinforcement, but will also use varying degrees of negative punishment, negative reinforcement and positive punishment, depending on the dog and the individual trainer’s own comfort level and skill with the various methods. The jumping up example above actually uses negative punishment -- the dog’s behavior (jumping up) causes something good (you) to go away. Then, when she sits and you give her a treat and attention, it is positive reinforcement -- the dog’s behavior (sitting) causes something good (treat and attention) to happen.
Proponents of positive reinforcement training claim that a training approach based on rewards rather than punishment builds trust in the human-canine relationship and encourages the dog to think for herself and freely make deliberate choices of rewardable behaviors rather than living in fear of being punished for making a wrong choice. Positive-trained dogs often tend to be more willing to think for themselves, choose “right” behaviors, take risks, and offer new behaviors than do dogs who have been physically corrected for making mistakes.
Of course, it is not always possible to ignore a dog’s inappropriate behavior. Some unwanted behaviors are self-rewarding, destructive or unsafe, like barking at the mail carrier, chewing electrical cords or chasing cars. All trainers use a variety of approaches to correct unwanted behavior, but clicker-trainers generally apply methods that stop short of harsh physical corrections.
One such method is management. It is easier to prevent unwanted behaviors than it is to correct them. It is far easier to keep your dog properly confined in a fenced yard or on a leash than it is to stop a dog with a strong prey drive from chasing cars, cats, joggers or skateboarders. While you are managing the behavior, you also work to train a better level of control so that she becomes more reliable around highly enticing stimuli.
Another approach is the use of a “No Reward Marker” or NRM. The NRM is a signal to let the dog know she made a mistake. It is not applied angrily, just used in a neutral tone to let the dog know that the behavior didn’t earn a reward. Commonly used NRM’s include “Oops,” “Try Again,” or the sound “Uh!” or “At!” A properly-used NRM tells the dog that the behavior offered was not the one requested, and encourages the dog to try again.
Yet another positive behavior-correction method is to ask for (and reward) an incompatible behavior. A dog can’t lie on her rug in the living and bark at the visitor on the front porch at the same time. If we teach her that the doorbell is the cue to go lie down on her rug and stay there, she will no longer greet your guests with her sometimes unwelcome exuberance.
The Ongoing Debate
There is no lack of debate between trainers about the effectiveness of their various training approaches. Compulsion trainers believe that an aggressive dog must be physically corrected for the least sign of aggression: hackles raised, intense stare, growling. This teaches the dog that the behavior is not acceptable. Clicker trainers believe that this supresses the dog’s warning signals, but that the aggression is still there, waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed without warning on some hapless victim.
Positive reinforcement trainers suggest that a better approach is to change the way the dog thinks about the aggression-causing stimulus by associating it with positive things. Take a dog who wants to bite children. If every time he sees a child he gets a treat before he has a chance to act aggressive, he will begin to associate the presence of children with “Good things happen.” Eventually he will be eager to see children, and the aggression will fade. Aggressive behavior is not lurking beneath the surface, because the dog no longer thinks of children as a threat; they are now a source of good things.
Clicker trainers tend to believe that force-based training dampens a dog’s enthusiasm for learning, and “stifles their creativity.” Compulsion trainers may mistakenly assert that reward-trained dogs won’t perform reliably under stress. Clicker trainers say that violence elicits violence, and that many dogs who are euthanized for biting were made worse by physical corrections. Compulsion trainers argue that their methods are faster, and that sometimes the use of force can cause quicker behavior changes that save a dog’s life whose owner is at the breaking point and on the verge of sending the dog to the shelter.
Most trainers agree that owners apply whatever training methods they are using with varying degrees of skill and success. Trainers from both sides of the continuum talk about owners who “just don’t get it.” Other arguments aside, it would seem logical to conclude that much more harm can be done by an owner improperly jerking on a collar than by one who tosses a few extra treats.
Deciding on what training methods to use is a personal choice. Pet owners left to their own devices are more likely to follow their hearts and choose a gentle, non-violent training methods, while those owners who have been conditioned by past trainers and the pressure of competition to believe that a little “pop on the collar” won’t hurt the dog, will more quickly accept force-based training.
In the end, our dogs tell us the truth. We can find pet dogs and obedience show ring competitors from both training styles that are happy, reliable, willing workers. We can find dogs from both training styles that are poorly trained and out of control. But in general, a larger percentage of dogs in a compulsion-based class will grudgingly comply with commands or look bored or disgruntled than will dogs in a positive reinforcement class, where enthusiasm usually abounds among all students in the class, two-legged and four-legged alike.
Now let’s go back to our imaginary stroll around the neighborhood. You’re ready to sign up for a class, and just have to decide which one. Just put yourself in your dogs place for a moment and ask yourself which kind of class she’d prefer to go to. She’ll give you the answer.
Peaceable Paws LLC
Pat Miller, CPDT, CDBC
301-582-9420
www.peaceablepaws.com
Pat Miller is a Certified Dog and Horse Behavior Consultant and Certified Professional Dog Trainer. She offers classes, behavior modification services, training clinics and academies for trainers at her 80-acre Peaceable Paws training facility in Fairplay, Maryland (US), and presents seminars worldwide. She has authored “The Power of Positive Dog Training,” “Positive Perspectives,” “Positive Perspectives 2,” and “Play With Your Dog.” Miller is training editor for The Whole Dog Journal, writes for Tuft’s University’s Your Dog, and several other publications. She shares her home with husband Paul, five dogs, three cats, five horses, a donkey and a potbellied pig. www.peaceablepaws.com
Friday, January 29, 2010
Both Ends of the Leash: Fear Reduction
A gentle hand or a tasty treat doesn’t reinforce fear, it reduces it
By Patricia B. McConnell, PhD
It was one in the morning, and I was wide awake. Thunderstorms had been rolling like waves over the farm all night, and this one was so loud I thought the windows might break. Lassie, my 14-year-old Border Collie, lay panting beside me. She’s almost deaf, but the combination of a falling barometer, lightning flashes and the crashes of thunder were enough to send her into a panic. As we lay there together, I stroked her soft old head, thinking about the advice to avoid petting a dog who reacts to thunder. “You’ll just teach them to be more fearful,” according to the traditional wisdom. Only one thing: It’s not true.
We’ve been taught for ages that trying to soothe frightened dogs just makes them worse. It seems logical, in a cut-and-dried, stimulus-and-response kind of way. Your dog hears thunder, he runs to you and you pet him. Voilà, your dog just got reinforced for running to you when it thunders, and worse, for being afraid of thunderstorms in the first place. But that’s not what happens, and here’s why. First, no amount of petting is going to make it worthwhile to your dog to feel panicked. Fear is no more fun for dogs than it is for people. The function of fear is to signal the body that there is danger present, and that the individual feeling fearful had better do something to make the danger, and the fear that accompanies it, go away.
Think of it this way: Imagine you’re eating ice cream when someone tries to break into your house at midnight. Would the pleasure of eating ice cream “reinforce” you for being afraid, so that you’d be more afraid the next time? If anything, things would work in the reverse—you might develop an unconscious discomfort around ice cream. However, you sure as heck aren’t going to be more afraid if a burglar arrives because you were eating chocolate mocha fudge the first time it happened.
There’s another reason petting your thunder-phobic dog doesn’t make him worse, and it couldn’t hurt to take a deep breath before you read it. Research on thunder-phobic dogs suggests that petting does not decrease the level of stress in the dog receiving it.* If it doesn’t decrease stress, how could it act as reinforcement? Before you write describing how your loving touch calms your own dog, please note that (1) I didn’t do the research; (2) my own dogs stop pacing and whining when I pet them during storms; and (3) I don’t care what the research says, it makes me feel better, it doesn’t hurt anything, so I do it anyway.
Studying Stress
Humor aside, it’s important to be specific about what the study actually found. The authors measured the production of cortisol, a hormone related to stress. They found that cortisol levels did not decrease when the dogs were being petted by their guardians during storms. (The most important factor in decreasing cortisol was the presence of other dogs.) Interestingly, another piece of research on social bonding found that although cortisol levels decrease in people when they are interacting with dogs, cortisol does not decrease in dogs in the same context.** However, in both species, other hormones and neurotransmitters increased, including oxytocin, prolactin and beta-endorphin—all substances that are associated with good feelings and social bonding. So, while petting your dog during a storm may not decrease cortisol levels associated with stress, it is still possible that something good could be happening.
On the contrary, it’s just not possible that petting your dog is going to make her more fearful the next time there’s a storm. Warnings that you’ll ruin your dog by comforting her are reminiscent of the advice from the 1930s and ’40s to avoid comforting frightened children by picking them up. That perspective was tossed out long ago by psychologists, when research made it clear that having parents they can count on when life gets scary creates bold, stable children, not dependent or fearful ones.
Classical Approach
The greatest damage that’s done with outdated “don’t pet the dog” advice doesn’t relate to storms, but to the pitfalls of trying to explain classical counter-conditioning (CCC). CCC can be a profoundly effective way to change behavior, because it changes the emotions that drive the behavior in the first place. A typical example in applied animal behavior is having visitors throw treats to a dog who is afraid of strangers.
Understandably, many a client has asked, “But isn’t giving him treats when he’s barking and growling just going to make him worse? Won’t he get reinforced for barking and growling?” The answer is no, not if his behavior is driven by fear. Remember, fear is no fun, and a few pieces of food, no matter how yummy, aren’t going to override the brain’s desire to avoid it.
Tossing treats (or toys) to a fearful dog can teach him to associate approaching strangers with something good, as long as the treat is really, really good, and the visitor is far enough away to avoid overwhelming the dog. CCC is one of the most important tools in a trainer or behaviorist’s toolbox, yet it can be hard to convince people to try it. It feels like rewarding a dog for misbehaving, and in our punishment-oriented, “you’ve got to get dominance over your dog” society, it is tough for some people to do. But that’s exactly what I did to cure another Border Collie, my Pippy Tay, when she developed a fear of storms many years ago.
CCC is one of many ways you can help a thunder-phobic dog. I’ve used some of the following with good success, either on their own or, in Pippy Tay’s case, combined with other methods: pheromone therapy, wraps, acupuncture, acupressure, diet change and, in serious cases, medication. If your dog is afraid of storms, you’d do well to consult a behaviorist or veterinary behaviorist for assistance in choosing the method that is right for you and your dog.
Thunder Treats
Pippy and I would run outside and play ball every time a storm loomed. Pip loved ball play, and I wanted her to associate the feelings she had when fetching with a drop in barometric pressure. Once the storm rolled in, we’d go inside and I’d feed her a piece of meat every time we heard thunder, no matter how Pip was behaving. I wasn’t worried about her behavior; I was focused on the emotions inside that caused the behavior.
I even put thunder on cue. “Oh boy, Pippy, you get thunder treats!” I’d say each time we heard the thunder growl. Mind you, these words would come through clenched teeth at three in the morning, but for two summers, I chirped about thunder treats, pulled out the drawer beside the bed and fed Pip after each thunderclap. By the end of the summer, Pip stopped lacerating my face with panicked attempts to crawl inside my mouth to hide from the storm. She began to sleep through moderately loud storms, not even waking up to beg for treats when the thunder rolled. She came over to me when things got really loud, but with little of the panic she’d shown before.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should share that as Pip improved, I became conditioned in the other direction. I began to dislike storms, because even the quietest of them required that I stay awake long enough to hand Pip a treat after each thunderclap. And now that Pip is gone, it seems I’ll have to start again with Lassie. Sigh. Maybe I should give myself a piece of chocolate every time I hand a treat to Lassie!
Fear Is Contagious
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the one way you can make a fearful dog worse, and that’s by becoming scared yourself. The emotion of fear is so compelling that it is easy to spread around. “Emotional contagion” is the ethological term used to describe the viral spread of fear within a group, and it’s a common occurrence among social species. If you want your dog to be afraid of thunder, strangers or other dogs, just get scared yourself. If you’re afraid of storms, it is entirely possible that your dog will pick up on it and become more nervous.
However, if you are scared (and who isn’t sometimes?), all is not lost. You can calm things down by concentrating on your body—slowing down your breathing and your movements, changing your posture to one of confidence and relaxation, and speaking slowly and calmly (if at all). These actions have the beneficial effect of altering your own emotions as well as your dog’s. The calmer you pretend to be, the calmer you’ll actually feel.
I kept that in mind last night as I cooed, “Oh boy! Thunder treats!” and fed Lassie tasty snacks from the bedside table. I had a lot more reasons to be scared than she did—she didn’t know that the basement was flooding, the white water crashing down the hill was threatening to take out the barn, and the roads were washing away all around us. All she knew was that every thunder roll predicted a piece of chicken, and that I seemed to think it was a great game. She settled down relatively soon, but I lay awake for hours. I guess it really is time to put some chocolate in the drawer beside the bed. If, the next time they see me, friends notice that I’ve gained a lot of weight, they’ll know it’s been a stormy summer.
*Nancy Dreschel, DVM, & Douglas Granger, PhD. 2005. “Physiological and behavioral reactivity to stress in thunderstorm-phobic dogs and their caregivers,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 95:153–168.
**J.S.J. Odendaal & R.A. Meintjes. 2003. “Neurophysiological correlates of affiliative behaviour between humans and dogs.” The Veterinary Journal 165:296-301.
www.patriciamcconnell.com
www.theotherendoftheleash.com
By Patricia B. McConnell, PhD
It was one in the morning, and I was wide awake. Thunderstorms had been rolling like waves over the farm all night, and this one was so loud I thought the windows might break. Lassie, my 14-year-old Border Collie, lay panting beside me. She’s almost deaf, but the combination of a falling barometer, lightning flashes and the crashes of thunder were enough to send her into a panic. As we lay there together, I stroked her soft old head, thinking about the advice to avoid petting a dog who reacts to thunder. “You’ll just teach them to be more fearful,” according to the traditional wisdom. Only one thing: It’s not true.
We’ve been taught for ages that trying to soothe frightened dogs just makes them worse. It seems logical, in a cut-and-dried, stimulus-and-response kind of way. Your dog hears thunder, he runs to you and you pet him. Voilà, your dog just got reinforced for running to you when it thunders, and worse, for being afraid of thunderstorms in the first place. But that’s not what happens, and here’s why. First, no amount of petting is going to make it worthwhile to your dog to feel panicked. Fear is no more fun for dogs than it is for people. The function of fear is to signal the body that there is danger present, and that the individual feeling fearful had better do something to make the danger, and the fear that accompanies it, go away.
Think of it this way: Imagine you’re eating ice cream when someone tries to break into your house at midnight. Would the pleasure of eating ice cream “reinforce” you for being afraid, so that you’d be more afraid the next time? If anything, things would work in the reverse—you might develop an unconscious discomfort around ice cream. However, you sure as heck aren’t going to be more afraid if a burglar arrives because you were eating chocolate mocha fudge the first time it happened.
There’s another reason petting your thunder-phobic dog doesn’t make him worse, and it couldn’t hurt to take a deep breath before you read it. Research on thunder-phobic dogs suggests that petting does not decrease the level of stress in the dog receiving it.* If it doesn’t decrease stress, how could it act as reinforcement? Before you write describing how your loving touch calms your own dog, please note that (1) I didn’t do the research; (2) my own dogs stop pacing and whining when I pet them during storms; and (3) I don’t care what the research says, it makes me feel better, it doesn’t hurt anything, so I do it anyway.
Studying Stress
Humor aside, it’s important to be specific about what the study actually found. The authors measured the production of cortisol, a hormone related to stress. They found that cortisol levels did not decrease when the dogs were being petted by their guardians during storms. (The most important factor in decreasing cortisol was the presence of other dogs.) Interestingly, another piece of research on social bonding found that although cortisol levels decrease in people when they are interacting with dogs, cortisol does not decrease in dogs in the same context.** However, in both species, other hormones and neurotransmitters increased, including oxytocin, prolactin and beta-endorphin—all substances that are associated with good feelings and social bonding. So, while petting your dog during a storm may not decrease cortisol levels associated with stress, it is still possible that something good could be happening.
On the contrary, it’s just not possible that petting your dog is going to make her more fearful the next time there’s a storm. Warnings that you’ll ruin your dog by comforting her are reminiscent of the advice from the 1930s and ’40s to avoid comforting frightened children by picking them up. That perspective was tossed out long ago by psychologists, when research made it clear that having parents they can count on when life gets scary creates bold, stable children, not dependent or fearful ones.
Classical Approach
The greatest damage that’s done with outdated “don’t pet the dog” advice doesn’t relate to storms, but to the pitfalls of trying to explain classical counter-conditioning (CCC). CCC can be a profoundly effective way to change behavior, because it changes the emotions that drive the behavior in the first place. A typical example in applied animal behavior is having visitors throw treats to a dog who is afraid of strangers.
Understandably, many a client has asked, “But isn’t giving him treats when he’s barking and growling just going to make him worse? Won’t he get reinforced for barking and growling?” The answer is no, not if his behavior is driven by fear. Remember, fear is no fun, and a few pieces of food, no matter how yummy, aren’t going to override the brain’s desire to avoid it.
Tossing treats (or toys) to a fearful dog can teach him to associate approaching strangers with something good, as long as the treat is really, really good, and the visitor is far enough away to avoid overwhelming the dog. CCC is one of the most important tools in a trainer or behaviorist’s toolbox, yet it can be hard to convince people to try it. It feels like rewarding a dog for misbehaving, and in our punishment-oriented, “you’ve got to get dominance over your dog” society, it is tough for some people to do. But that’s exactly what I did to cure another Border Collie, my Pippy Tay, when she developed a fear of storms many years ago.
CCC is one of many ways you can help a thunder-phobic dog. I’ve used some of the following with good success, either on their own or, in Pippy Tay’s case, combined with other methods: pheromone therapy, wraps, acupuncture, acupressure, diet change and, in serious cases, medication. If your dog is afraid of storms, you’d do well to consult a behaviorist or veterinary behaviorist for assistance in choosing the method that is right for you and your dog.
Thunder Treats
Pippy and I would run outside and play ball every time a storm loomed. Pip loved ball play, and I wanted her to associate the feelings she had when fetching with a drop in barometric pressure. Once the storm rolled in, we’d go inside and I’d feed her a piece of meat every time we heard thunder, no matter how Pip was behaving. I wasn’t worried about her behavior; I was focused on the emotions inside that caused the behavior.
I even put thunder on cue. “Oh boy, Pippy, you get thunder treats!” I’d say each time we heard the thunder growl. Mind you, these words would come through clenched teeth at three in the morning, but for two summers, I chirped about thunder treats, pulled out the drawer beside the bed and fed Pip after each thunderclap. By the end of the summer, Pip stopped lacerating my face with panicked attempts to crawl inside my mouth to hide from the storm. She began to sleep through moderately loud storms, not even waking up to beg for treats when the thunder rolled. She came over to me when things got really loud, but with little of the panic she’d shown before.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should share that as Pip improved, I became conditioned in the other direction. I began to dislike storms, because even the quietest of them required that I stay awake long enough to hand Pip a treat after each thunderclap. And now that Pip is gone, it seems I’ll have to start again with Lassie. Sigh. Maybe I should give myself a piece of chocolate every time I hand a treat to Lassie!
Fear Is Contagious
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the one way you can make a fearful dog worse, and that’s by becoming scared yourself. The emotion of fear is so compelling that it is easy to spread around. “Emotional contagion” is the ethological term used to describe the viral spread of fear within a group, and it’s a common occurrence among social species. If you want your dog to be afraid of thunder, strangers or other dogs, just get scared yourself. If you’re afraid of storms, it is entirely possible that your dog will pick up on it and become more nervous.
However, if you are scared (and who isn’t sometimes?), all is not lost. You can calm things down by concentrating on your body—slowing down your breathing and your movements, changing your posture to one of confidence and relaxation, and speaking slowly and calmly (if at all). These actions have the beneficial effect of altering your own emotions as well as your dog’s. The calmer you pretend to be, the calmer you’ll actually feel.
I kept that in mind last night as I cooed, “Oh boy! Thunder treats!” and fed Lassie tasty snacks from the bedside table. I had a lot more reasons to be scared than she did—she didn’t know that the basement was flooding, the white water crashing down the hill was threatening to take out the barn, and the roads were washing away all around us. All she knew was that every thunder roll predicted a piece of chicken, and that I seemed to think it was a great game. She settled down relatively soon, but I lay awake for hours. I guess it really is time to put some chocolate in the drawer beside the bed. If, the next time they see me, friends notice that I’ve gained a lot of weight, they’ll know it’s been a stormy summer.
*Nancy Dreschel, DVM, & Douglas Granger, PhD. 2005. “Physiological and behavioral reactivity to stress in thunderstorm-phobic dogs and their caregivers,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 95:153–168.
**J.S.J. Odendaal & R.A. Meintjes. 2003. “Neurophysiological correlates of affiliative behaviour between humans and dogs.” The Veterinary Journal 165:296-301.
www.patriciamcconnell.com
www.theotherendoftheleash.com
Sunday, January 24, 2010
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