Dog training ..without punishment or intimidation

[Nielsio2]

[view:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cdcyrOMehg:640:385]

http://www.youtube.com/user/kikopup

[Arius]

 

If you're not using one of these to train a dog, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Pepin]

Arius, could you provide more of an explanation as to what you are talking about? I really have no idea what that is a picture of.

[Arius]

It's a clicker.  Clicker training is a type of operant conditioning.  It is, by far, the most effective method for training animals.  It involves no no intimidation, force, or punishment.

The principle was discovered by a student of Skinner.  Essentially, the brain associates sensory information and proximal stimulus with immediate behavior.  For example, if I shake a tree and an apple falls out (and I like apples), I'll be more inclined to repeat the behavior of shaking the tree in the future.  In the case of training dogs, the animal is conditioned to respond positively to the sound the clicker makes (there are a bunch of websites on the exact process).  Once the animal is conditioned, any behavior which causes the clicker to go off is reenforced and any behavior which fails to produce a click is exhausted.

The actual process of training with a clicker is simple.  You stand there with the conditioned animal and observe behavior.  If the animal behaves in a way you approve of, you press the button.  If the animal fails to behave in a way you approve of, you don't press the button.  You can include verbal commands if that's something you need.  It is even possible, once several animals have been conditioned to the clicker, to coordinate behavior between multiple animals.  For example, I have a dog and a cat.  They were both juveniles when they started living with me.  They could not interact peacefully when they began living here.  I conditioned both to the clicker.  By placing two, clicker-conditioned animals in the same room, I could monitor their interactions and approve or disprove of specific behaviors.  They are now able to interact peacefully and autonomously, as they have internalized the behaviors which I conditioned.

There are two significant benefits to clicker training.  First, while the process of conditioning the animal to the clicker can involve food, clicker training doesn't.  Training a dog with food results in the animal associating food and reward.  This can cause a wide array of odd food-related behaviors (overeating, scrounging, begging, etc).  Second, the relationship between person and dog is just better.  Dogs have a natural set of social skills.  They demonstrate all sorts of strange behavior as part of their inbuilt communication process.  People don't natively understand the majority of the communication dogs produce.  Dogs don't natively understand people at all.  Through a cooperative training process, a dog can learn how to better respond to human body language and speech.  If a dog has not been conditioned to expect punishment for bad behavior,
it will be significantly less stressed-out.  Why is this good?  Dogs
act-up when their over stressed.  Worse, people tend to interpret dogs'
fear and stress responses as attacks.  Clicker training involves no
punishment.

A story:

My dog was obviously abused as a puppy (not by me).  When he started living with me, he responded fearfully to any object a person was holding.  I assume his previous owner had beaten him with random objects.  If I picked something up too quickly, he would cower, skulk-away, and submissively urinate.  Obviously, this was a serious problem.  I solved it with the clicker.  The dog and I stood in the kitchen.  I'd reach for an object on the counter.  If the dog did nothing, I'd push the button.  Eventually, if the dog did not react to my holding something, which I picked-up quickly, I pushed the button.  It took about three hours of training, over the course of a week, for the dog to become completely comfortable with my picking things up, showing them to him,ans tossing them at the counter.  The dog no longer responds badly to people holding objects.

 

 

 

[Pepin]

Thanks for the explanation, quite useful. I feel like this would help out a lot with my brother's dog, who I have been taking care of over the last month or two.

[Jeffrey Slater]

how do you all feel about the dog whisperer?  I'm not sure if I would consider his techniques to be communication or pschological intimidation, especially when he is working with really aggressive dogs.  I mean, with dogs it is not like you can explain what you want from them so you have to use things like touch, tone, and attitude to communicate what it is you want.  I guess there is a fine line.

[Nielsio2]

 

how do you all feel about the dog whisperer?  I'm not sure if I would consider his techniques to be communication or pschological intimidation, especially when he is working with really aggressive dogs.  I mean, with dogs it is not like you can explain what you want from them so you have to use things like touch, tone, and attitude to communicate what it is you want.  I guess there is a fine line.

 

The sidebar of r/dogtraining:

 

 

Prohibited content:

• memes
  
  
• photos or videos that lack clear dog training applications
  
  
• Recommending dominance as a training solution. Dominance theory has been discounted and should not be used as a basis for making decisions about dog behaviour or training, so forget about being alpha in your pack.
  
  
• Recommending the use of aversives like pain, fear, or intimidation to train dogs. We do not support positive punishment to control or train dogs. Prohibited methods and tools include shock collars, prong/pinch collars, choke collars, leash checks, spray bottles, spray collars, alpha rolls, hitting, and kicking.
  
  
• Recommending programs, publications, or sites that support dominance theory or positive punishment.
  

 

 

[Jeffrey Slater]

Sorry to be so persistent, but I'm still not sure I understand dominance theory versus its alternatives.  

I can understand how the collar techniques and psychological intimidation techniques that Ceasar uses are not OK, but what about things like setting boundaries for your dog (like, don't get on the couch, or don't jump on people when they come in the door, or don't bark at the neighbor's cat when it walks by the window)?  That seems to me like a form of dominance over your dog, would you agree?  Also, what about the stuff like waiting until they are calm to give them food or affection?

I guess the line is still a little blurry for me between 'dominance' and 'communicating my desires'.  

[Arius]

I guess the line is still a little blurry for me between 'dominance' and 'communicating my desires'.  

If the dog doesn't do what you want, what happens?

If the answer is: Retry training without negative consequences for the animal, then it's not dominance.

If the answer is: Apply consequences animal perceives as negative, then it's dominance.

 That seems to me like a form of dominance over your dog, would you agree?

It's all about how you set boundaries.  Like this, suppose a woman wants to set personal boundaries with a male co-worker.  She could spray him with pepper spray every time she sees him or she could explain her personal boundaries.  Both solutions will work, but one is excessive for the desired goal.  In the case of animal training, it is not necessary or productive to use wild-dog-attack level interactions to reduce a dog's excitement for nearby cats.

[Jeffrey Slater]

That makes a little bit more sense, but I am still confused about what that kind of non-dominant communication with the dog would look like.  Is that where the clicker comes in?

[DaisyAnarchist]

I dunno, I think Cesar has some valid techniques. If you want to establish property boundaries with your animal, it seems necessary to assert some authority. He's not intimidating the dogs so much as he is establishing clear communication. Of course, feel free to argue that. I haven't really compared it to other methods. 

[Jeffrey Slater]

I also want to get opinions about dogs that have developed aggressive personalities.  It could be argued that using some of the more forceful collar techniques and psychological intimidation techniques on a dog who has gotten into an aggressive state (what Ceasar would call 'red-zone') is a form of self defense.  

[Nielsio2]

 

That makes a little bit more sense, but I am still confused about what that kind of non-dominant communication with the dog would look like.  Is that where the clicker comes in?

 

 

These Youtube channels have dozens and dozens of examples what it looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/user/kikopup/

http://www.youtube.com/user/tab289/

[Nielsio2]

When Dog "Behavior Problems" Are Opportunities in Disguise

[view:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhfQLrt2-JQ:640:385]

Blog post: http://3lostdogs.com/how-to-live-with-a-high-energy-dog-without-losing-your-mind/

[Wesley]

I would like to show my appreciation for this thread. I grew up with dogs and did much of the training. I rarely used punishment and as a kid somewhat "saved it for the really bad things" like most parents say they do with their children.

 

More recently (post FDR), I had been at my girlfriend's parents house where her parent's and her brother's dog are and I couldn't eve bring myself to punish in anyway and would just try to be respectful of the dogs and they always seemed to do pretty well with me. I still had some issues with leash pulling and such characteristics that I kept having the feeling that there must be a better way to so this rather than checking the leash every once in a while. I felt really bad when I would see them punish their dogs in various ways.

 

My girlfriend and I are now looking to adopt a dog and so I did some research and thought I would check out this forum and got this thread which has some great solutions for only using positive reinforcement to train and how to solve potential behavior problems that may arise through training, play, or giving the dog a job. I am much more excited to do a sport or give the dog puzzles. It seems much more enjoyable than classic dog training.

 

I have ordered a book and a couple clickers for my girlfriend and I to read more thoroughly before we get a dog and reference once we have a dog.

 

Thanks for sharing these sources!

 

(Plus a bump for any pet owners out there. I understand it works for some other animals too.)

[wdiaz03]

It's a clicker.  Clicker training is a type of operant conditioning.  It is, by far, the most effective method for training animals.  It involves no no intimidation, force, or punishment.

 

 

If The dog is sitting in a corner as expected how often would you have to click the clicker to tell him he is doing good?

every minute? every 15mins?

 

wouldn't it make more sense to use the clicker for the incorrect behavior?

[Wesley]

First of all, early in a learned behavior you use the clicker where later it becomes unnecessary. If my dog was just learning a mat or something in the corner, then even touching a may may be treated. Later, it would be after a longer period (maybe once in 15 minutes) and later, the clicker would be mostly unnecessary for that behavior.

 

Now, there are a couple reasons why you mark good behavior.

 

1. You want the dog to like the sound of a clicker and to not punish or threaten the dog. If you mark bad behavior, then the clicker becomes the same as a verbal chastization that leads to the dog becoming aggressive or sulking in the corner whenever you get the clicker out.

 

2. Training would be almost impossible. Lets say you are getting a dog to learn to sit by marking sitting. Literally every other possible behavior would have to be marked as bad in order for the dog to finally get in the sitting position. This also would unlearn behavior as once you are teaching laying down, sitting would be marked as a bad behavior. Instead, you show indifference to things the dog has already mastered an reward the desired behavior. It becomes a game of "try to figure out what will get me rewarded"