It's been done before but...

[MiseryBusiness]

Recently there have been a lot of posts regarding 'Pack Theory' and 'Dominance Theory' and I thought we could all share our thoughts.

I posted on a thread recently to ignore the advice the OP had been given about ''being the pack leader'' and was told that if I didnt believe in Dominance theory I must treat my dog like Paris Hilton and carry them around in a handbag and pamper them like babies or some such rubbish.

I have found reading The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson and Ian Dunbar's online books and training methods very enlightening. My DH used to worship Ceaser Milan until I set him straight.

i think everyone is in agreement about using positive training most of the time, and it doesn't have to be a constant handing of treats. Plus reward is after the desirable behaviour, not willy-nilly feeding sweets in the hope the dog 'likes' you.

Corrections are also not about spraying water or electric collars or anything drastic. It can be an assertive no or a time out or whatever else works for the dog. The point is when the dog does something undesirable, like steal, you have to let it know that this is not acceptable. It doesn't mean shouting, but a calm, assertive response. Only the owner knows what works best for their dog.

Combine the two, and it is great - the dog understands the pattern - I sit and wait for my food I get a reward, food and praise. I steal food, I get a reprimand and/or a time out or whatever. It is great to wait for food and no fun to steal. At some point, the pattern becomes imprinted in their brain and they will be great around food with everyone.

It is all about creating calm, well socialized dogs who fit in with us and their community. It makes them happier and us more relaxed as well. A variety of training methods work for different dogs and situations, and I don't see the point in being rigid about it - building relationships, human and canine, is understanding what makes each one tick and tailoring our approach to that. It is not a one size fits all.

I dont think anyone on this thread referred to positive training as feeding their doggy sweeties so he'll like me but maybe I missed that post?

Calm assertive leader is the type of thing CM bangs on about and he doesnt do any dogs any favours.

It's not like I've never told my dog no. I just prefer not to. They learn better and quicker with positive training than they would if I kept shouting no at them to get them to stop difficult behaviour. Dogs respond to positive treatment. Shouting no at them over and over just makes them think you get stressed when they behave in a certain way and to try and avoid that which is not how I'd like to bring my dogs up.

I'd rather my dog behaved well because they want to and its exciting not because they are trying to avoid stress.

I'm not sure about Pack Theory. I never believed in it before, but lately have seen behaviour from my dogs 'pack' that goes against what I thought .

We have a pack at work - and I use the word pack in the same way that you'd say a school of fish or flock of sheep - NOT in a CMilan way. I have 1 dog (sometimes 2). Boss has 4 dogs. Friend has 6 dogs. Friend has 2 dogs.

We walk every day - generally with mine, bosses, 2 of 6 and 2. Sometimes the whole lot. Dogs are all different shapes and sizes: 1 Mutt, 2 Rottie, 2 Cocker, 3 Springer, 2 Working Cocker, 2 Lab, 1 Toller. The Springers do their own thing, always searching for Pheasant etc, all the others play. The oldest dog is one of the Cockers, she's very much a princess and is spoilt rotten, however she really seems to be the 'Boss'. If the Rotties are play fighting she ignores it for a while, but then will sharply bark - and the Rotties stop dead. All the other dogs roll in front of her. Whereas they play fight all the time with each other, they wont play with her. When we meet up all the other dogs approach her first and if she grumbles they lay down / roll.

Another thing I've noticed is with the Toller - she is 'new' only 8 months old. She was accepted into the pack really easily (all the dogs are friendly - no agression) but if she goes overboard, she seems to be told off by the others. Eg my Mutt loves to play, is probably the friendliest of the dogs and certainly the fastest/craziest. Her and the youngest Rottie play the most. She was playfighting with the Toller and the Toller went a bit too far - nipped her ear and drew blood. MuttDogg yelped and Young Rottie went mad, ran over to them both and barked really aggressively in the Tollers face until she lay down and rolled over.

So to me, both those examples are of Dominance/Pack theory - but then I don't believe in it. So like I said, I'm confused.

My younger Rottie will break up squabbles by putting himself between two dogs, or if one is annoying others by excessive jumping on them, humping etc, he'll push them off. Definitely seems to think it's his job to 'police' doggy interactions when we're in a group.

It's fascinating to watch dogs interacting in a group (I hesitate to say 'pack') - they definitely have all kinds of social conventions and roles going on, but it's more complex and probably more fluid than the traditional 'pack theory' model would suggest.

There are also big differences in how dogs interact with each other, and how they relate to humans, often the pack theory stuff seems to imply it's the same, i.e. the human owner needs to act like the 'alpha' wolf. I don't think it works that way and anyone trying to do that is probably just going to confuse their dog!

I was out walking with borrowed Springer yesterday. I've just heard two owners in the park discussing "leave it" command. One owner said he had trained dog by administering a quick sharp nudge with his toe (not exactly a kick but near it) when dog touched anything like leftover chicken bone on the road, other owner said his dog was so cuddly and lovely he didn't have heart to discipline him for sniffing around picnics etc. Another person I met told me "leave it" could be conditioned by positive treat method (alternative treat to the scavenged food available) It was a fascinating example of three different ways of approaching problems of dogs stealing food. First (strict) owner said being cruel at start was preferable to his dog being poisoned by eating poisoned bait etc/upsetting people by taking food from their plates at picnics.

I'd never heard of reward based training until I read threads in Doghouse. The dog I'm looking after is a six month Springer and I think his owners do a combination of strict old fashioned methods "no", and mostly reward based. It has opened a whole new world of ways to Deal with Children.

Everything I could "discipline" my children to do, Homework, room tidying, table laying, all the chores, I am beginning to see you could train your children to do in a reward based positive way. It is so blindingly obvious that I don't know why people don't relate the Dog training and Child training a bit more. It is about empathy and involvement, not spoiling, or layng down the law. Has no one ever written a book on the subject?

"First (strict) owner said being cruel at start was preferable to his dog being poisoned by eating poisoned bait etc/upsetting people by taking food from their plates at picnics"

With one of ours, we used a rattle-can (as advised by a behaviourist) to teach/reinforce the 'leave' command for pretty much this reason - we felt that 'leave' had to be absolutely non-negotiable, for his own safety as much as anything.

It did work, though with hindsight I wonder if we could have done it just as well using purely positive/reward-based methods.

Definitely agree there are parallels between dog and child 'training'! Of course it's not exactly the same, but many of the basic principles apply in both cases.

It seems to me that a lot of modern parenting techniques are becoming more positive/reward-based now anyway. Hardly anyone I know smacks their child as my parent's generation used to, a few use time-outs, but a lot of it seems to be about praising good behaviour, not rewarding 'naughty' behaviour with attention, distracting the child from something you don't want them to do by giving them something else.

I'm even less expert on parenting than I am on dog-training though, so can't really comment too much on that side of things...

I'm still not keen on rewarding dogs with food. The dogs I know (in the pack) that have been trained like that are all food centric and I dont think that works well around kids at all.

MuttDog was trained with a combination of a firm 'No' followed by a lot of fuss. She is brill around food - you can leave a full plate on the sofa next to her and she wont even look at it. We stopped her begging by simply ignoring her and giving her nothing if she begged. If she didn't beg we always gave her something off the plate at the very end of the meal and lots of 'good girl' fuss. It was actually very easy - I'm sure it wont go as well with our next dog (Sods Law).

Interesting discussion.

With the whole 'stealing food' issue i think that the actual word "stealing" is a very human concept. Taking something that isn't yours without its owners consent has huge neurological implications which require understanding of ownership and consent and also rather more abstract moral and empathic brain functions. I wouldn't punish a toddler for stealing food as it has no concept of what stealing is yet.
There is food. I like food. I am hungry. I eat the food.

So while I am certainly no expert in dog behaviour or psychology it helps me to understand my dog when I look at how it behaves in a much more simplistic non adult-human fashion.

A dog eating a plate of food that has been left on the sofa because you have nipped to the loo is just a dog eating food. Stealing(human concept) is bad. Eating (dog concept) is normal.

So if a dog eating food in certain situations is undesirable (to us humans) then train an alternative behaviour. So here I have trained my dog (using +ve reinforcement) to wait for an "OK" command before she eats anything.
I haven't used any punishments in that training because I don't want my dog to establish any neurological associations with food and 'bad things happening to me'.
I think the downside of using aversive around food is that you are likely to instill in the dog a belief that 'sometimes bad things happen to me while I am eating food' and you are then much more likely to get a dog that waits until you have gone out before it eats something.

LtEve I will always use food treats with the clicker when i am teaching my dog a new behaviour. It is so quick and easy to do. I love it. She loves it. Job done. When the new behaviour is established I cut back on the food treats (using the gambling / jack pot strategy) and also replace food rewards with play rewards (balls), which are much higher up the reward heirachy for my dog anyway.

Ahh yes, I've just realised that Mutt wont eat her dinner, or treats unless we say OK - we've been doing that unconsciously . Saying that though, I wouldn't want to get between her and a piece of cheese!

That makes sense Slubber re the treat training - my bosses dogs have always had treats, and she can't walk without them. There is no doubt she loves them, but everything they do has food at the end. It means that 2 of her dogs are terrors with food - will watch every mouthful, drool if you are eating and will take food/growl around food. They are also all overweight, despite at least 10 miles walking a day.

From what you are saying I suppose it's just that my boss got the treat training 'wrong' and the fact that she has never reduced the amount of treats she gives them.

We use treats for training purposes, but the dogs are absolutely not allowed to grab food off people, or beg at the table. We've always been consistent about not sharing what we're eating with them, or feeding scraps from the table at mealtimes - any 'begging' attempts are strictly ignored, and they don't bother even trying now, as they know they will not get anything!

Training treats shouldn't make a dog overweight either, normally you'd use very tiny amounts per treat, and if you end up using a lot in a particular training session, you just reduce their meals by the appropriate amount.

Positive training doesnt have to always be treats, it can be whatever your dog loves, even toys etc.

Ian Dunbar has a lot online about how to gradually decrease treats.

Slubber - I think you are right about the stealing thing. She doesnt see it as strealing, just eating so I would rather no shout or punish. I would hate her to feel uncomfortable about eating.

Interesting discussion, one of the most useful concepts I got from reading 'the Culture Clash' was that dogs don't understand the concepts of 'naughty' v 'good' behaviour, they have desires and then assess if it is 'safe' to fulfill them.

For example my youngest dog wants to get up onto the table to look for food, he never does it if someone is in the room because he knows he will be told off, so of course the minute we leave the room it is then safe and he does it. Because of the intermittent nature of the reward, there isn't always something tasty on there, he is more strongly reinforced in this behaviour.

Of course the obvious solution is not to leave anything rewarding on the table but until I have managed to train the DC I can't see that happening!

So the Husky upthread that the owner felt was being deliberately naughty was not, it was stressed because it could see it's owners outside and wanted to be with them, to alleviate stress it turned to chewing cushions which had the wonderfully positive reinforcing result of bringing the owner to them. QED.

Just to say totally disagree with everything Flatbread says.

Another major reason for positive training is the willingness of the dog. If you see a clicker trained dog they will positively be bursting to get training, working. playing with their owner.

See a dog that has had dominance training who will never be so eager to work. why should they walk to heel if you are going to jerk their neck to put them into position but a positive trained dog will be skipping along trying to get as close to your legs as possibly because the end result will be pleasure.

I want happy, willing contented dogs and KNOW the way to go is positive training.

Mothership you put it more succinctly than I did. Yy absolutely agree re desires and is it safe to fulfill them.

LtEve, yes I suspect your boss is doing it wrong. A really interesting book that helped me to understand why constantly treating is not the best way to do it is Karen Pryor's Don't Shoot The Dog. I actually think it is a rubbishy misleading title as it explains the principals on which all animals learn, not just dogs. Anyway yes, once you've established a new response to a cue (command) using treats +++ at the start you'll get an ultimately much stronger response to that cue in the long term if you don't treat every time. It's all to do with gambling.
'If I come back this time will I get to chase the ball'

I rarely take food treats out with me on a dog walk. I have a tennis ball or a Kong Wubba. Depnding on the circumstances/ distractions I reward my dog with a retrieve/ play with the ball about 1:4 times for each recall.

With begging for food at the table you can Brucie-bonus good behaviour using +ve reinforcement. So not only will my dog get sweet fanny adams for sitting at the table drooling she might get a reward if she goes and lies in her basket while we are eating.
Result: dog who lies in basket automatically while we are eating. Happy humans. Happily expectant dog.

Totally agree with minimu too. I wish there was such a thing as a mobile canine MRI scanner. I would LOVE to see what happens inside my dog's brain when I bring out the clicker. I suspect it lights up like Blackpool illuminations.

dogs don't understand the concepts of 'naughty' v 'good' behaviour, they have desires and then assess if it is 'safe' to fulfill them

Of course no one is saying dogs have a moral compass. They don't really care if they pee in the house or in the garden, whether they sit or take food without asking, whether they sit on the sofa or their own bed and whether they chew furniture or their toys

They just react to instinct, stimuli and conditioning, there is nothing inherently good or bad about anything. It is us humans, who have them as part of our family, decide what behaviour we want and what we want to discourage, and condition them accordingly.

If a dog does not steal food, it is not because it understands any moral concept, it is because it is conditioned to wait for a signal before taking food. Similarly, a dog that does not dig in the garden, is not doing it for aesthetic reasons, but because of conditioning.

A dog who has a strong bond with their owner and looks up to them, will want to please, whether they get a treat or not. The key is to provide simple signals, and do so in a calm and consistent manner. There is a lot to be said for a pragmatic approach of rewarding good behaviour with a smile or quick caress and correcting undesirable behaviour similarly in a calm and unfussed way. OTT squealing with joy 'good boy', loads of treats are no substitute for calm leadership and bonding with the dog.

The positive reinforcement school has a lot to offer, but the gross simplification and a blindness to coupling it with any form of correction makes this shallow approach just a fad (maybe it is just an MN thing?). Hence when there are behaviours you cannot change, you say 'ignore it' or worse still, let the dog condition you to put the butter away as some of the posts suggested to the person having issues with a resource guarding, growling dog.

The suggestion there was to reward the dog, even if it continues growling and resource-guarding. That is just nonsense as it signals that growling is rewarded by treats. The fact that so many people are hanging on to that as the gospel is both scary and hilarious.

Maybe it's just a MN thing? Really? It seems your are always on the look out to discredit MN Doghouse regulars. How many of the other DH regulars squeal at their dogs? I dont remember minimuu's advice to click, treat and squeal anytime recently but maybe I missed that thread too.

Please do go and read some of the books that have been recommended on this thread, as far as I'm aware they were not written by MNers so you'll be safe and then you'll know where we are coming from.

You always seem to read what you want to read and ignore anything that may contradict your theory, strange non?

Anyways, I wish I had my camera on me today. I walk into the living room to find Ddog1 with her head and 2 front paws in my handbag! Maybe she has been reading this thread when my backs been turned!?

Thorndike 1874 - hardly a fad Flatbread

"maybe it is a MN thing" just highlights your lack of knowledge - definitely not a MN thing just a recognised method of training that has been used for many decades.

Ignoring is a very powerful way of changing behaviour. You might even like to call it a negative reinforcer. When a dog jumps on you, it's doing so for attention; even saying 'no' (however calmly you say it) is giving attention and therefore rewarding the behaviour.

Not all dogs want to please, and it has nothing to do with the strength of the bond with their owner. Alaskan malamutes are well known for having an amazing bond with their owners, but also for being very independent and stubborn dogs. They won't do something just to please you; they want to decide for themselves. Huskies are similar. (This is one reason they are not recommended as pets unless you know what you are getting into).

Not following pack theory does not mean 'OTT squealing' or that 'growling is rewarded with treats'. That sounds like a 'gross simplification' to me.

Incidentaly this positive reinforcement stuff even works on cats. At the shelter down the road from me they train the long-term resident cats to sit and to jump through hoops. It gives the cats something to do (environmental enrichment) and it also makes them stand out from the other cats, hence helping them to find a home.

absolutely works on cats - I have clicker trained my cat to wee and poo in the loo. I am a bit stuck on how to get him to flush but maybe if I shout at him and squirt him in the face he will do it for me - he is a dominate ginger lad after all!

Chickens as well, rats are dead easy to clicker train with a clicker.

Our geese have been clicker trained to go into their pen at night.

I agree with you redwing. Ignoring can work as a negative reinforcer. Great when the dog is jumping and you ignore the 'attention-seeking'. Not so great when the dog is stealing food or ignoring your commands. These situations require a different response.

I also agree that not all dogs want to please as much, and that training methods should be tailored to the personality of your own dog.

The growling being rewarded by treats is a pretty accurate representation of what happened when a poster followed the advice of giving her dogs treats even if he continued to show signs of growling and guarding behaviour. The advice was to give a treat BEFORE the dog did anything positive to deserve the treat.

The squealing bit was just my observation of some women in the park with out of control dogs who were obviously scared of their husky pets. They evidently think they could compensate the lack of control over their dog, with loads of food and constant praise.

I think positive reinforcement is great. The issue I have is people saying it is the only solution for all dogs in all situations. And the need to demonize all other approaches.

Minimuu that's funny!

Flat, ladies you saw in the park squealing at out of control huskies = just an MN thing, is that it? I don't see how they are relevant.

I have a problem with approaches that say you should alpha-roll your dog, hit your dog or use electric shocks to correct it. I also have a problem with seeing everything through the lens of dominance, because it means misunderstanding dogs and their behaviours, and hence can do a lot of harm. Unfortunately these approaches are surprisingly common. At worst they lead to dog bites, injured people and dogs being pts.