The Humane Hierarchy, Part 1 of 2: Overview

Posted on May 21, 2013 by

I am a Humane Hierarchy trainer. That is the name of the roadmap I use to make ethical choices about the training methods I use. I’m going to describe the method in this post.

I don’t call myself a clicker trainer, although I have used one, nor do I call myself a force-free trainer, although that is certainly a goal, nor do I call myself “all positive,” since that could include positive reinforcement and punishment both. I do use the first two terms, along with several others, to refer casually to trainers who use those names and have similar goals to mine.

But the Humane Hierarchy is a concept I love, and a name I take on for myself comfortably and with pride. And I was born a non-conformist, and throw off labels as fast as anyone can put them on me. But this one I’ll take. Because it’s a non-label of a label. You’ll see.

Susan Friedman, PhD, published “What’s Wrong with this Picture: When Effectiveness is Not Enough” in 2008, and in that article proposed the Humane Hierarchy. The article is about incorporating ethics into the choices we make when training animals, rather than considering only “what works.”

I have written about Dr. Friedman frequently. She is a behavior analyst and strong proponent of humane, ethical treatment of all animals. Here is my review of her course on Living and Learning with Animals, and here is her website, Behaviorworks.org. Be sure and check the free articles.

The Humane Hierarchy is not a set of rules. It is a general ranking of training methods, starting with the least invasive for the animal and ending with the most invasive. Any person who uses it as a guideline must inform herself about the species of animal she is working with and carefully observe the behavior of the individual animal, because different animals will respond differently to different methods.

Dr. Friedman takes behavioral intervention seriously. It is a large responsibility to intervene in the behavior of an animal, and her approach directs the user to consider the animal first: its needs, wants, likes and dislikes. What does the animal want, and how can we figure out if there is an acceptable method for it to get it? It’s only fair, since in all cases we are the ones with the keys to the cabinet, the cage, the car. But that’s a pretty radical concept for a lot of people.

So here is her newest graphic of the Humane Hierarchy. To use it, think of a behavior of your animal that you might want to change. Then start at the bottom of the picture, in the little car, drive forward, and take every right turn. If the consideration on the side street is irrelevant or doesn’t work when tried with full information and skill, drive forward again and take the next right turn.

A graphic that shows 6 levels of behavioral intervention, starting with the least invasive at the bottom, going to the most invasive at the top. The graphic looks like a road going straight ahead, with a right turn for each behavioral intervention. They are, in order: Health, Nutrition, and Physical Setting; Antecedent Arrangements; Positive Reinforcement; Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behaviors; Extinction, Negative Reinforcement and Negative Punishment; Positive Punishment.

The Humane Hierarchy

Here is a link to a different version of the Humane Hierarchy graphic that may be visually easier than the roadmap version.

In a previous post, “But Every Dog is Different!,” I hope I showed that the claims that trainers who avoid force are somehow employing a cookie cutter method or limiting themselves are wrong.  This graphic makes it explicit, because here is the whole toolbox right here in front of us. No procedure is ruled out, although the speedbumps, caution sign, and stop sign warn us to take care as we reach the more invasive actions. The path a person will take will be absolutely different with every animal she trains.

(The fact that no procedure is ruled out does not mean that for me personally, and I dare say most people who use this roadmap, that certain commonly used tools are under consideration. If I ever did get to the positive punishment turnoff, unlikely in itself, you can be pretty sure I would not be strapping something around my dog’s neck to administer it.)

Someone who habitually shoots up to the end of the road with only a nod in the direction of the other turnoffs is showing their limitations. I don’t mean this in a snarky way. I mean that each turnoff and its method requires care, consideration, and often creativity to employ well.

And look, positive reinforcement is third on the list. The first two considerations are new to lots of people, and discussed much too infrequently in my opinion.

Part 2 of this post will give an example of every method on the map, all centering around a common theme: crate behavior. So come back to read about “antecedent arrangements” if you’ve never heard the term before.

Labeling

One of Dr. Friedman’s foci is that labels are not useful in observing and documenting behavior. “The dog is dominant” and “the parrot is acting hormonal” tell us nothing about actual behavior. One of the skills I am always working on, and which got greatly exercised when I took her class, was observing my dogs’ behavior and working on putting it accurately into words. That’s harder than it first seems! (Again I’ll refer to the great FaceBook group Observation Skills for Training Dogs. There’s the place to go practice.)

So even though I very much support the “Unlabel me!” campaign for our animals, as a writer I really struggled with some kind of term to refer to the type of training I do! I welcomed a term for my training approach. I sure didn’t need to write a paragraph about quadrants and force and aversives and management every time I refer to my training.

“Humane Hierarchy trainer” describes perfectly what I seek to do. It’s not a rubber stamp. I don’t have to qualify it or explain away anything. I just need to define it from time to time, since it is new to some folks. Thanks again, Dr. Friedman!

Closeup of the face of a caramel colored dog. Her eyes are squinted, her facial muscles are relaxed, and her ears are back. You can barely see a hand under her neck, petting her.

A commenter on one of my movies yesterday called Summer “dominant.” Is that a useful description for what she is doing here while I pet her?

Thanks for reading! Coming up:

  • Humane Hierarchy Part 2 (on Thursday, May 23, 2013!)
  • Movies, Translated
  • What’s in a Name?
  • Arguing with Logic and Grace
  • When Management Succeeds
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

 

Posted in Behavior analysis, Negative Reinforcement, Operant conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, Punishment, Reinforcement, Terminology, Training philosophy | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

But Every Dog is Different!

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

Cookie cutter in the shape of a dog. The dog is seated.But every dog is different!

This is another common argument against trainers who train without force. It usually goes like this:

  • But every dog is different! You can’t just use a cookie cutter!
  • But every dog is different! Why limit yourself to only one method?
  • But every dog is different! Some tools just don’t work with some dogs!

The implication is clear: Trainers who use primarily positive reinforcement are slaves to one method, which we apply to all dogs. We deliberately limit ourselves, despite the wealth of methods available to us. We ignore some of the tools in the toolbox. We are close-minded.

In addition, we just don’t seem to recognize, in the opinion of the person defending corrections, force, or “discipline,” that there are entire classes of dogs that can’t be trained to fluency without aversives.

We can’t classify the initial claim as a rhetorical fallacy. It’s true. Every dog is different. (We can say, “Duh!” though.)

So what’s really wrong with this picture?

This argument is usually put forth by “balanced trainers,” who believe in using both positive reinforcement and corrections. Typical of the latter would be collar pops, with some trainers performing those while the dog is wearing an aversive collar such as a prong or choke collar. Also corrections can certainly include shocks with a shock collar.

Balanced can sound good on paper. Show the animal both what’s right and what’s wrong and you’ll get there twice as fast! Many other writers have addressed this fallacy. (Deb Jones has a great post about it.). I will merely say here that this view ignores the scientific literature about the fallout from aversive methods, and also ignores what you lose (and the dog loses!) by combining the two. This article by Karen Pryor explains it.

Implying that trainers who use primarily positive reinforcement are “limiting” themselves by avoiding aversive methods is like criticizing a doctor who rules out treatments with dangerous side effects when safer and equally or more effective alternatives exist.

Whose Tools Are Limited Anyway?

Hurting, scaring, or annoying an animal is dead easy. You could bring me any vertebrate in the world and I would know how to do it. Let’s say a marmoset. I won’t get graphic, but it doesn’t demand any creativity or even much thought for me to know how to hurt it. It takes no finesse.

Likewise, startling any creature doesn’t require expertise. If I have the ability to change the temperature or environment,  add sounds, light, movement, or physical pressure, I could easily scare or bother it.

But if you asked me what marmosets really enjoy, I would have no clue. They are primates and I kind of think they live in trees. I don’t know what they eat. I would have to learn about the creature and observe it in order to know how to motivate it through positive reinforcement. Whereas hurt is universal.

The head and upper torso of a silvery marmoset, a monkey like primate. It has a white head and ruff, and ears that stick out.

Silvery Marmoset

And even though most of us are vastly more familiar with dogs than we are with marmosets, that’s exactly what we do. Force-free trainers study the heck out of any dog we train. How are dogs really different? As individuals. If we rule out deliberate use of aversives during training, we must treat each dog as an individual and learn what turns them on.

Treating each dog differently is built into the system of training with positive reinforcement. It can’t succeed without that.

I vastly improved my dog Summer’s agility weave performance by letting her play in the water hose after successfully performing the obstacle. However, if I were to turn the hose on my dog Zani after she did the weaves I would very shortly have a dog who would not weave at all. Clara and Zani love the flirt pole; Summer walks away from it. Although I can certainly condition them to like certain activities, it gives me real joy to discover the quirky things that they innately enjoy.

A black and tan hound mix dog chases a red toy attached to a flirt pole, a whip-like stick that you can attach a toy to and whirl it around

Zani and Clara love the flirt pole but Summer doesn’t

A light tan dog with a black tail and muzzle is ripping cardboard out of the hands of a person as a game

Clara and Summer love to rip cardboard but Zani doesn’t care to

A sable dog plays in a stream of water from a hose

Summer and Clara love to play in water but Zani hates it

Training with punishment doesn’t require a lot of study of the individual animal. And anyone who did put the amount of study into punishment methods that positive reinforcement trainers put into reinforcement would likely be called a sadist. The fact is that it is much easier to figure out how to hurt or stress a creature than it is to figure out the palette of things it loves best in the world, not to mention how to use them.

So who is it again who’s using a cookie cutter method?

How Badly it Hurts

It would have been fun to end the post on that zinger, but I have more to say. One of the things that triggered this post is a comment I read by a balanced trainer. She said emphatically that people who were talking about trainers hurting dogs had obviously never seen a dog in pain. She said dogs in pain acted panicked and lost their wits.

I hope I misunderstood her. If that is what she must see before she agrees that a dog is in pain, I feel really badly for her dogs. But it brings up a really important point. Not only do dogs likely have different pain thresholds, but breed and personality differences create differences in how much pain they show.

I believe that my 12 pound rat terrier Cricket is the physically toughest of all my dogs. I mean in literal ways. She flinches less for shots.  The pads of her feet are tough and her toenails aren’t sensitive. Both times she was badly injured by a big dog, she never let out a peep, during or after. But I may be wrong. It may be that she is more stoic. She may feel as much pain, but not show it.

We can’t know how much pain dogs are experiencing when they are physically punished. People who use punishment have to guess from the results they get. It only stands to reason that in some cases the dogs are probably more hurt than the trainer is aware.

With reinforcement, we also have to guess from the results we get. Some dogs may not be as obvious as others when something delights them. But if my dog is happier than I know because of something I have given her, there is no harm done.

What the Claim Usually Means

In my experience, when someone says, “But every dog is different,” what they are actually claiming is, “There are some classes of dogs that can’t be trained to fluency without aversives.” I say this because of what always follows the “different” claim: a discussion of types of dogs who are supposedly exceptions.

Who are these dogs? Here are some of the classes of dogs that supposedly require “different” methods that I saw mentioned recently:

  • hounds
  • bird dogs
  • “high drive” dogs
  • dogs with a high interest in chasing prey
  • bully breeds
  • really really big dogs
  • and always at least one dog belonging to the person defending aversives

When a force-free trainer gives examples of highly successful training with any of these types of dogs, they are met either with circular reasoning (“well it wasn’t really a high drive dog,” or “it wasn’t from working lines”), quibbling about the details, or silence.

What I honestly think the claim boils down to: it’s OK to use aversives on particular dogs or particular behaviors that are hard for that particular person to train to the degree of reliability or precision they want. And that most of the people who say “all dogs are different” believe that since they don’t know how to get the results they want without aversives, it can’t be done. And because punishment comes so naturally to all of us.

Results of Our Actions

Back to the marmoset. I said I could easily bother, startle, or hurt it. But one problem is that I don’t know enough to be sure which of these would actually happen. I might set out to bother it with a temperature change, and if it’s more sensitive than I guessed, I could injure or even kill it.

We think we are experts on dogs because they live with us. However, the same problem is present. A person could apply corrections as a part of training the dog to what felt like a reasonable degree and cause permanent damage. We read about extreme cases of this since they make the news or in this case, a peer-reviewed article. But injuries from aversive collars and even from the pressure of dogs pulling on flat collars are increasingly well documented.

I believe that balanced trainers are not trying to cause permanent injury to their dogs.  The handwriting is on the wall though, that they could be risking their dogs’ physical health if they use aversive methods, especially on the dogs’ necks. And the even more likely deleterious effects to their dog’s emotional health are well described in any Psych 101 textbook.

I think defending the use of aversives for “some dogs” is about our human susceptibility to the seduction of punishment, and not about treating dogs as individuals at all.

Thanks to April and Margery for their help with the ideas in this post, and Sonya for the cool cookie cutter photo.

Thanks to Clara for making me smile.

Link to the video of Clara and me ripping up cardboard together for email subscribers.

Thanks for reading! Coming up:

  • The Humane Hierarchy
  • Movies, Translated
  • What’s in a Name?
  • Arguing with Logic and Grace
  • When Management Succeeds
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

Posted in Operant conditioning, Punishment, Reinforcement, Terminology, Training philosophy | Tagged , , , , | 37 Comments

But What if Your Dog Runs Out Into Traffic?

Posted on May 6, 2013 by
A traffic light with three colored bulbs: red, yellow, and green. The red light is lit up.

Stop. It’s not safe to proceed.

Anyone who spends any time on FaceBook reading the arguments between trainers who train mainly with positive reinforcement and those who don’t has seen this question. Just lately I have seen three different versions of it:

  1. But what if your dog runs out into traffic? Are you going to save him by throwing cookies at him?
  2. But what if your dog runs out into traffic? You’re going to pull on the leash. That’s negative reinforcement and the same as using a shock collar.
  3. But what if your dog runs out into traffic? If you grab him that could cause stress, and I thought you’re supposed to be 100% stress free?

I’m going to answer these questions. Perhaps it will help others formulate their thoughts in these kinds of discussions.

The traffic question is an interesting meme. The underlying message is, “When push comes to shove, positive reinforcement training is ineffective. It’s dangerous because you have no acceptable way to control your dog. Your dog could die.”

There are further messages:

  • In #1, juxtaposing “cookies” with this life and death situation is both mocking and implies we have no methods of controlling our dogs.
  • In #2, the implication is, that although we can prevent our dogs by pulling the leash, if we do, then we are hypocrites because that causes pressure and that’s aversive. These folks are claiming that the bottom line is that there no way to distinguish between what we do and what shock trainers do.
  • And in #3, the subject is stress. This writer got the idea that we try to completely eliminate stress from our dogs’ lives, and that therefore we would let them risk their lives rather than grab them.

Here are the briefest responses I could come up with to the three versions of the question. I’m also going to describe an actual conversation I had about one of these that turned out all right.

  1. No, throwing cookies at a dog running into traffic would not be an effective way of stopping him. But with “cookies” (or more properly, positive reinforcement of all types) I can do the following: 
    • train him that staying by my side is the best thing ever;
    • use classical conditioning to teach him not to flinch from a collar grab or quick movement from me;
    • train a beautiful recall;
    • teach him a great “leave it,” which often generalizes well; and
    • train him to lie down on cue in all sorts of situations. I can use the “distance down” when coming to me would not be a good solution.

    Also I can use common sense. I don’t know anyone personally who would have their dog offleash in busy traffic, whatever kind of trainer they are. Those whose dogs are reliable offleash are likely to be very careful where they do that, plus they have all the above tools at their disposal.

  2. Likening pulling on a leash (in an emergency no less) with the habitual use of a shock collar to force a dog’s compliance is an example of the logical fallacy called the continuum fallacy. I will be discussing this further in a future post. But the short version is that just because there is a range of possibilities between two extremes does not mean that there is no meaningful difference between them. In this case the extremes are pulling on a leash to remove a dog from an emergency, which can constitute negative reinforcement, and using a negative reinforcement protocol with a  shock collar as a training method to make them come when called and perform other behaviors. It doesn’t matter that these have a small commonality (negative reinforcement). The respective quantities of aversive used (as a one time emergency move vs a regular method of training) are hugely different. You can see Jean Donaldson’s elegant rant on this subject here.
  3. The question about being 100% stress free misrepresents most trainers’ outlook and constitutes a straw man fallacy. That’s when you argue against a version of your opponent’s position that you or someone else made up, instead of what they are actually saying. Valuing kindness to our animals is quite different from claiming we can and should provide them a completely stress-free existence. And similarly to #2, what a person does habitually (try to make their pets’ lives as pleasant and fun as possible and build up a relationship of trust) and what she might have to do in an emergency (grab them in a potentially startling way) are completely different. You can break a person’s ribs doing CPR, but that doesn’t mean you condone going around punching them the rest of the time.

A trainer who promotes prong collar use recently asked question #3 on a FaceBook thread. He said that his question was genuine. He asked, “Do you allow your child to run into the street because holding their hand stresses them?” He said he really wanted to know because he was trying to understand. So I answered. Here is a slightly edited version of what I said.

I am going to take you at your word that your question is geniune. Good for you for asking and really wanting to know. But I find the question about allowing a child to run into the street rather than holding their hand very, very strange.

Like [the previous poster], I would have established a long time before that moment that holding my hand had very positive associations. But I will add that in any life or death situation, I would do whatever it took with a kid or a dog to physically prevent themselves from running into harm. Including something that might startle or even hurt them if necessary.

The point is that a training session is not a life or death situation. It is a controlled environment. There is no analogy between these two situations. And in the training I do with dogs I want them first to learn that I will protect them. I won’t hurt them. They can come to me for help. I am going to set them up to succeed from the beginning.

The second thing I want to teach them is confidence and competence in problem solving. Training does sometimes  introduce stress. But it needs to be added in a very controlled way. It is well documented with many, many species that fear and/or excessive stress are impediments to learning. So I will indeed, like other posters, be watching my dogs for signs of stress. The more I learn about dog body communication, the better I can do that.

I find the argument that we need to hurt or startle our dogs to help them develop life skills completely empty. (Not sure you said that exactly, but I certainly hear it a lot.) A mature dog has the cognitive ability of what, a two year old child? We are not preparing them to go out in the world on their own. (And even if we were, we wouldn’t have to hurt them.)

We are trying to prepare them for things they will likely encounter. And pain associated with or dealt out with by me (or other humans) is something they will encounter very infrequently as long as I have any say about it! It is something they can be specifically conditioned about, for instance receiving shots at the vet and other husbandry skills.

My correspondent wrote back and said he appreciated my answer.  He said he had recently seen some parents do the very thing he described (give up on grabbing their child in a potentially dangerous situation because it might upset her, and she did run into the street) and that’s why it came to mind. He said that he understood the other point of view better now, and pointed out that we even had some common ground: that some stress is OK and should be introduced gradually.

I panicked a little internally, wanting to write back “But our definition of stress is completely different!!” Then I thought to myself, just back off. We actually have a point of agreement. Don’t ruin it.

This person is not going to stop using a prong because of a Facebook conversation. My friends are not going to condemn me for my comments about stress that could be taken amiss or quoted out of context. Instead, why not just enjoy the moment and figure that one person out there who uses prong collars may stop believing force free trainers are like permissive parents? And that might lead to some other realizations, who knows? I really did appreciate his politeness and apparent interest.

Besides the irritation of hearing it with such repetition, I do not like the “traffic” question because I don’t think it is kindly to bring it up lightly as a point of argument. I have known of accidents to happen to dogs belonging to the most prudent people and the most careless. I’m sure none of them appreciate hearing the subject thrown up as a threat.

So I will end this by asking for comments about safety behaviors. What do you teach your dogs that could save their lives? I wrote a short post with a couple of videos about what I do: Safety Behaviors: Down at a Distance and Recalls.  I hope for comments about some other important behaviors and perhaps some videos. (Does anybody train extreme collar grabs?)

Tan dog is lying down in a grassy yard while a woman wearing a read sweatshirt holds her hand high in the air, palm forward

Clara downs on a hand signal

Here is a demonstration of Clara’s down at a long distance. I can’t claim that much credit for it. It’s a huge advantage with a ball crazy dog that they learn that the reinforcement can happen “out there” as well as near their handler, so it’s not a big leap for them to do stuff at a distance.

Link to the movie for email subscribers.

Thanks for reading! Coming up:

  • The Humane Hierarchy
  • Movies, Translated
  • What’s in a Name?
  • Arguing with Logic and Grace
  • When Management Succeeds
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

Posted in Dog training hints, Punishment, Reinforcement, Terminology, Training philosophy | Tagged , , , , , | 37 Comments

Operant Learning Illustrated by Examples

Posted on April 29, 2013 by

Many thanks to Ruth Byrn, Marge Rogers, and Susan Friedman for their generous assistance with the movie.

Sable dog is play-biting at a stream of water from a garden hose. She is all wet.

Does Summer’s weave behavior get reinforced by a spray of water?

 In the terminology of learning theory, positive does not always mean good. Actually it never means good. Likewise, negative does not mean bad. Also, reinforcement is not always about giving the dog something she wants. And punishment is not always about hurting, intimidating or confining her.

Got that straight?

If your head already hurts, skip ahead and watch the movie.  That’s why I made it. The purpose of this post is to introduce a movie that illustrates the four processes of operant learning with multiple examples, in hopes of clarifying the bigger concepts with those examples.  (Don’t worry; Feisty the stuffed dog stands in when bigtime aversives are used.)

Anybody still reading? Good.

A stuffed dog, brown and white, is in a crate. She is being sprayed with water from a spray bottle.

Does Feisty’s barking in the crate get punished by a spray of water?

To continue: Most of us have heard the term “positive reinforcement” and have a notion of what it means. The dog sits, you give her a cookie. That is by no means the whole picture, but it’s a start. But when the other terms start marching out, things get dicey. Negative reinforcement, negative punishment, and what, positive punishment? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

There is a certain amount of confusion that we just have to live with on this subject because of the terminology that B. F. Skinner chose.  In learning theory, positive means something is added. Negative means something is removed. They do not mean good and bad,  happy and sad, or moral and immoral. Susan Friedman points out that in the context of mathematics, no one mistakes a plus sign to mean something happy or morally desirable. It just means you add that thing. Likewise with a minus sign. You take the thing away, whatever it is.

So that’s our first job. Think math. Take away the glamor around the word “positive.” In learning theory it just indicates an additive operation. And “negative” indicates a subtractive one. Ergo our first set of definitions:

  • Positive means that something is added after a behavior
  • Negative means that something is taken away after a behavior

The thing that gets added could be something really great (a bag of cookies), or it could be something awful, like a kick in the stomach. Likewise the thing that gets taken away could be something you’ll miss, like that same bag of cookies, or it could be something that makes you sigh with relief when it stops, like a car alarm.

And that sets us up to talk about these “somethings” as consequences. Now we need to lose the idea that reinforcement is good and punishment is bad. Here is our second set of definitions:

  • Reinforcers are behavior-increasing consequences
  • Punishers are behavior-decreasing consequences

That sounds really dry, but that’s the way we need to think if we really want to understand this. We need to rid ourselves of the other definitions of these terms that leak into our head from pop culture.

Now let’s combine these four items into definitions of the four possible processes:

  • Positive reinforcement: Something is added after a behavior, which results in the behavior happening more often.
  • Negative  reinforcement: Something is removed after a behavior, which results in the behavior happening more often.
  • Positive punishment: Something is added after a behavior, which results in the behavior happening less often.
  • Negative  punishment: Something is removed after a behavior, which results in the behavior happening less often.

Here is a chart that shows the processes in quadrants. I used a circle, rather than the more traditional rectangle. We can still see that we are looking at four processes that vary on two dimensions (there’s the math again). My artist friend suggested the circle for use in the movie and I thought that was a great example of thinking outside the box….

Four quadrants of operant conditioning

Four procedures of operant learning arranged in quadrants

Good and Bad

Take a look at the definitions of positive reinforcement and positive punishment again. “Something is added after a behavior, which results in the behavior happening more/less often.” Do you see that they differ by only one word? “More” vs “less.”  So if  increases OR decreases in behavior can happen by adding things, those things must be pretty different if they are achieving the opposite result.

That’s why you will see many definitions of the procedures of operant learning that do describe the consequences as “good and bad” or “desirable and aversive.” They are not wrong, and those definitions can be very user friendly, especially when you are just starting out. Here is a great example of learning theory explained in very lay terms by trainer Leah Roberts. She uses “good” and “bad,” but carefully notes that these consequences are defined by the dog.

That’s the  caveat about using the good/bad terminology. We tend to have pretty strong ideas of what constitutes good and bad things, and they may be very different from how the animal responds. It’s the animal who matters, though. For instance, most of us would not classify yelling at a dog as “adding a good thing.” But yelling at a dog can reinforce what they are doing when we intend the opposite. Imagine a dog who has been locked outdoors all day and is now barking at the back door. Nothing happens, and nothing happens, then mom finally sticks her head out and yells, “Stop that barking!” and closes the door again. Social contact for a dog who has been starved for it. Do you think he will stop barking?

Likewise, we humans seem to love patting dogs on the head, and there are whole schools of training that claim that their dogs work for “petting and praise.” Well, I included a head pat in the movie. Here’s a big hint: it’s not in the positive reinforcement section!

Increasing and Decreasing Behavior

We have Skinner to thank for some of the terminology confusion, but also, reinforcement and punishment are intrinsically more tricky to understand than they first appear to be, even when you get the positive and  negative straight. If I give my dog a cookie when she sits, and she snarfs it down, have I just reinforced the sit? We don’t know! Part of the definition of reinforcement is that the consequence results in an increase in the behavior. So we don’t know if we have reinforced anything until the future, when we see whether the behavior actually increases.

Punishment is even more confusing because it appears to work right then. The dog barks, you yell at the dog, the dog stops barking for 30 seconds. Have you punished the barking? In the vernacular sense, anybody would say yes. In the Skinnerean sense, again, we don’t know yet. It got interrupted. But punishment has to do with future behavior. We only know if the barking has been punished if the barking decreases.

There are several uses of aversives portrayed in the movie that are very common in real life, done by people with the intent of punishing or negatively reinforcing a behavior. One example is when a dog barks in a crate. Some people keep a spray bottle of water next to the crate and give the dog a spray when he barks or whines. I’ve seen people do this day in and day out, even asking their friends to go by and give the dog a spray as a bonus. Are they punishing the barking? Apparently not. The barking has not decreased. Perhaps the dog likes being sprayed, or more likely in this context, there are other competing consequences of the barking that are reinforcing it.

Did Reinforcement or Punishment Occur?

That’s one more thing to consider: when you see the scenes in the movie, you do not see what other factors may influence the dog in real life. They might be from the environment or from her history. Back to the head pat in the movie: it’s in the positive punishment section. But honestly, Zani’s lying down on cue is not going to decrease because I patted her on the head one time after she did it, even though she clearly doesn’t care for it. She has been reinforced with food and play thousands of times for lying down. The one head pat, although unpleasant for her, will make hardly a ripple. But if getting patted on the head were the only consequence Zani ever got for lying down when I cue it, lying down on cue would decrease, and she would probably be avoiding me to boot.

So the predictions I give for each behavior in the movie (predicting that it will increase or decrease) would most likely be true if the consequence shown were the only consequence for that behavior.

A tan dog is stretched out with her mouth wide open, chasing a red and yellow toy on the end of a pole

Can we use this fun game to reinforce another behavior?

Terminology

You have probably noticed that I have not used the term “operant conditioning.” This is because of what I have learned from taking Susan Friedman’s wonderful course. One of the things the Applied Behavior Analysis folks focus on is precision in language. So although “operant conditioning” is an old and commonly used name for what I am writing about here, I am taking her lead and referring instead to “operant learning.” Because unlike in classical conditioning, we are not talking about a conditioned response at all. The processes that are commonly shown in quadrants are about learning via consequences.

And ah, quadrants! Susan kindly pointed out to me that there is no official term “The Quadrants” in Applied Behavior Analysis. (Guess what the original name of the movie was!) That’s so sensible, too. Why would you refer to four processes that are the cornerstone of so much of what you study “the sectors” or “the divisions”? We are discussing processes. That leads to another one: she uses “processes” for the organically occurring learning in life. She encourages the use of  ”procedures” when one is discussing intentional arrangement of consequences (i.e. training) by a human.

My use of correct terminology is a work in process. Obviously, any mistakes or unfortunate wordings in this post are my responsibility alone.

Purposes of the Movie

As I mentioned above, the main purpose of the movie is to give several examples of each of these processes to aid the viewers in developing an understanding of the underlying concepts. I had a couple of other reasons for making it, too. One is to show the rather wide variety of consequences that can be used in each of the four processes. Another is to set me up to write a post about the Humane Hierarchy, which is an aid to making training decisions in order to maximize empowerment of the animal.

And that leads me to what the movie is not: It’s not a training aid. All of these processes are not equally desirable! I am including portrayals of some extremely aversive consequences for educational viewing purposes only, and do not condone those practices. You may notice the green, yellow, and red colors in the chart. That is a hint of what I’ll be presenting in the post about the Humane Hierarchy.

The Movie

Finally! Here it is.

Link to the movie for email subscribers.

Thanks for watching! Stay tuned for all sorts of stuff, now that I have finally finished with this one!

  • The Humane Hierarchy
  • What’s in a Name
  • Cricket’s Safe Room
  • Arguing with Logic and Grace
  • When Management Succeeds
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

Posted in Behavior analysis, Operant conditioning, Punishment, Reinforcement, Terminology, Training philosophy | Tagged , , | 25 Comments

7 Great Benefits of Flirt Pole Play for You and Your Dog

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

Clara’s and Zani’s Experiences

If you have been following the blog, you may have seen that Clara is an absolute maniac for the flirt pole. It is right up there with playing ball in her list of favorite things.

a tan dog is stretched out at her whole length, chasing a toy on a rope attached to the end of a pole

Clara Stretching Out to Get the Toy

I waited quite a while before introducing Clara to the flirt pole because teaching “release the toy” was a real struggle with her when we played tug and ball. I had visions of her getting overly excited and breaking the flirt pole by pulling on the toy endlessly.

When I taught her to release a tug toy, I didn’t use food. I used the method of reinforcing the release with resumption of the game. I had a pretty hard time with that, since hanging onto, chewing on, and dismembering toys is very reinforcing to Clara, and I lacked experience teaching the behavior. You need pretty good timing. I finally got it though, and Clara was dropping the toy pretty consistently.

But it turned out that playing with the flirt pole actually improved Clara’s releases. First,  we lucked into the perfect toy. Marge Rogers gave me this skinny little tug toy from Dog Dreams Toys. It is perfect to chase, but not as fun to chew as, say, rabbit fur. Our flirt pole has a gizmo where you can attach different toys. It works and they do not come off! Second,  the flirt pole helped me make the game immediately exciting when she dropped the toy. I could zip it away instantly and irresistibly. Much more quickly than I could when we were playing tug. The right behavior (release on cue) was set up to predict more fun than the holding and chewing.

Here are two of Clara’s nice releases, so you can see what I mean.

Here is a link to “Releasing the Toy Means More Fun to Come” for email subscribers.

But enough about the flirt pole champ. We have an up and coming talent. Little Zani, the challenger.

small black and tan dog chases a red toy at the end of a rope on a pole

Zani Enjoying the Flirt Pole

I had first tried her with the pole months, maybe years ago. And Zani didn’t care for it. She was a little afraid of it, and I didn’t have the interest to work on that at the time. But Zani has developed methods of inserting herself into virtually every fun thing that happens around my house, and she finally had enough of watching Clara play with the flirt pole from the sidelines. One day she asked to play with it.

She went straight into drive! Fearsome little dog! She was so excited that half the time she just jumped into the air or snapped at me before she remembered to chase the toy.

small black and tan dog is leaping into the air, snapping at the sleeve of a woman holding a toy attached to a rope and pole

Zani Slightly Confused about What to Bite

She has a different style from Clara’s when she catches the toy. Clara grabs it and holds. She loves for me to grab it and tug with her. But Zani has to give it multiple killing shakes. I have long suspected that Zani is part Russell terrier. And yes, she does know how to kill small animals efficiently. But I don’t mind her “killing” the tug toy at all.

I hope you find Zani’s sessions as delightful as I did. I just loved how she would  jump around and snap before she got it together enough to chase the toy. If she were a bigger dog, it might have been a problem, but she is a small dog with great bite inhibition and a wonderful sense of fun. She always knows exactly where her teeth are. You can see in the still photo above that she is actually not quite connecting with my sleeve. That was the case every time she jumped at me.

Here is a link to “Zani Discovers the Flirt Pole” for email subscribers.

Benefits of Flirt Pole Play

  • It is great exercise.
  • It teaches coordination, for both the dog and the human! I am continually having to develop new “moves” as Clara learns to outwit my old ones.
  • You can use it to teach impulse control.
  • You may have a better chance of teaching a good release than with tugging.
  • The dog gets to chase something at high speed but also stays close to you (you are part of the picture).
  • She can’t run off with the toy, and thereby develops a habit of sticking around you with it.
  • As long as the dog has a reliable release, the human doesn’t have to move at all. It can be outdoor couch training!

The toy we are using is a Chase It toy purchased at CleanRun.

Note: I have heard that flirt poles are illegal in some areas because they are associated with fighting dogs. I have not determined any specific locations for which this is true, but I am certainly not condoning dog fighting or encouraging anyone to break any laws.

Thanks for watching! Stay tuned for:

  • The Quadrants Illustrated (almost done!)
  • Arguing with logic and grace
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)
  • Extinction

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

Posted in Enrichment, Fun, Play, Reinforcement, Toys and Play | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Digging It with Mom

Posted on April 17, 2013 by

Something light and pleasant to watch during a sad week.

Link to video for email subscribers.

A couple more fun “digging” oriented videos.

Rhodesian Ridgeback Gardeners: A classic.

Sleet and Wren’s new Amazing double trick! (When you see what Wren’s reinforcement is, you’ll understand. But it really is an amazing trick, too.)

Enjoy your pups.

20130417-101503.jpg

Thanks for watching! Stay tuned for:

  • The Quadrants Illustrated (almost done!)
  • Arguing with logic and grace
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)
  • Extinction

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

Posted in Enrichment, Fun, Reinforcement | Tagged , | 4 Comments

A Secret for Training Two Dogs

Posted on April 11, 2013 by
Tan and black dog lying down on a lavender mat

Clara on her mat during a difficult distraction

I think this is as close as I’ll ever come to a “how-to” blog. Here is my usual disclaimer: I am not a professional trainer and I have trained only my own dogs.

But there is a secret to training a dog to lie quietly on a mat, chair, or platform, unrestrained, while another dog is trained. I didn’t invent it. Sue Ailsby told it to me. I’m going to tell you the secret and discuss it conceptually. Once you get the concept, it all falls into place.

I will also put what I’m saying into practice and demo with my own dogs.

First, here’s what my dog knew how to do before we started. I think these are the basic necessities.

Prerequisites

  1. The dog already knows how to stay on a mat or other station for 5 minutes while being reinforced.
  2. She can stay with some moderate distractions. Here are some examples. You can walk 20 feet away and back again. You can trot by her or jump up and down. You can drop a treat a few feet away. You can toss one away from her (like you were tossing it to another dog). You can walk right by her with a  toy in your hand. The dog must already have experience with distractions, because another dog in the room who will eventually get a lot of your attention is a huge distraction.
  3. You either have cues that are specific to each dog, or you can work something out as a way to get Dog A to stay while Dog B comes with you, and a way to release Dog A without releasing Dog B. Frankly though, they can learn part of this as you go along. I include some suggestions.
  4. She knows the other dog and neither is aggressive or overly obnoxious towards the other.

Here is what Sue Ailsby said that made it all fall into place for me.  Sue said that when you start, you need to concentrate on the dog that is learning to wait on the mat. Sounds obvious, right? But lots of people who go about this task the first time, including myself, do it exactly backwards. We start taking the active dog through her paces, and throw a treat to the dog on the mat every once in a while. This generally does not work.

The other thing Sue said was to treat the dogs separately. Some people say to give the mat dog a treat every time the active dog earns one at first. Then thin the reinforcement down so that you give the mat dog a treat only sometimes when the other dog earns one.  (Emily Larlham does this in her excellent video on the subject.)

Sue recommends instead that each dog gets treats tied to what they are doing, so that the dog on the mat learns very clearly that she is getting reinforced for doing her job and it is not tied to what the other dog is doing. Sue’s method is a little harder for the human, but I think is very clear for the dogs. Each gets treated separately. (In reality, they frequently get treated in tandem, but I make a conscious effort to break the pattern as well.)

Dogs who live in households with other dogs learn very quickly that they don’t always get a treat when their sister does, and I think this is a good thing. So I like Sue’s method myself.

Cricket and Zani on mats in the kitchen. Good stuff tends to happen there!

Cricket and Zani on mats in the kitchen. Good stuff tends to happen there!

Showing the Dog She Is the Center of the Training

Here is how to apply what Sue said. We want to do everything we can to show the mat dog that she is the center of the training.

So first, ask yourself, when starting a training session with my dog, how does she know? Here is my own list.

  • I get out treats. A camera perhaps. (My dogs get very happy when they see me carry around the camera tripod.)
  • I often look in my Training Levels checkoff list binder.
  • I may gather some gear and props. A leash. A target object.
  • I take the dog I’m going to train by herself to a particular place. I have about 5 places in my house where I commonly train. If there are other dogs there, I crate them.
  • I look at that dog, talk to that dog, and generally orient my body towards that dog
  • I reinforce that dog. It if is a new or difficult behavior, I reinforce heavily.
  • I release the dog frequently or at least periodically (mini releases with the click; longer ones when we take a little break or set up for a new behavior)

All these things are what tell the dog that she is being trained. So to apply Sue’s recommendation,  I am going to get the “mat dog,” do all of these things, then bring in the active dog as a distraction.

How I Proceeded

  • I got out the treats as described above
  • I took Zani alone into my front room alone and cued to get her on mat.
  • I did a little mat training with the distractions I listed above.
  • Then I let Summer, the distraction dog, into the room but stayed focused on Zani and kept the treats coming.
  • When I started to do a few more things with Summer, I spoke quietly to her, trying to be as clear as possible that I was speaking to her alone.
  • I often turned my back on Zani to cue a behavior for Summer, then turned back to Zani and treated her.
  • With my back turned, sometimes I gave hand signals to Summer that Zani couldn’t see.
  • I started with Summer doing very easy, calm behaviors with minimal movement. I worked up to more movement, but kept a variety.
  • During our second session I did short duration behaviors with Summer, releasing her with “OK,” which is also Zani’s release word. I continued to be careful to speak directly but quietly to Summer. I treated Zani for staying every time I released Summer.
  • I did my best to be considerate of Summer, the active dog, who was probably getting less attention than normal when we train.

Releases

I started this project without having a completely clean system of releases for individual dogs. Ideally, I suppose I would have had that in place. There are several ways to go about this. Patricia McConnell, PhD, the eminent animal behaviorist, reported that her border collies could never learn individual releases from stays of the type, “Luke, OK,” because each dog would release on the “OK.” She instead taught them to release individually on a singsong call of their name (here’s her video demonstration). However, some people do direct separate cues to their dogs using their names. Emily Larlham who recommends this video as a prerequisite to her training multiple dogs video, demonstrates her dogs responding to individually directed cues, and she releases them separately in the latter video.

I have had moderate success with directing individual cues to my dogs without formally training that, just incorporating some habits into our day to day living. Like Dr. McConnell, I use a special version of their names to invite one to come with me and for the others to wait. But I actually think that teaching a dog to wait on a mat in the area while another is trained is a way of teaching the kind of differentiated individual response we are talking about. For me, there is some tolerance for error in that situation, as long as I don’t apply any penalty for a dog releasing when I intended the cue for another. It is neither as crucial nor as difficult as when you have a group of dogs all waiting to be cued to do the same exciting thing, such as go out the door.

Videos

The first video shows parts of Zani’s very first two sessions of staying on the mat while another dog is worked. I chose Summer according to my guideline #4 above. Clara could possibly be obnoxious to Zani if Clara is the working dog. We’ll work up to that.

Video link for email subscribers

The second video shows Clara doing what is for her a very advanced version. (I taught her the basics when she was about a year old.) She is staying on her mat while I work up to a pretty rowdy game of tug with Zani. She gets up one time when I accidentally say “OK” while tugging with Zani (I say it twice! Knock head on wall!). But she corrects herself immediately. Her head is clearer than mine!

Video link for email subscribers

What’s Next?

You probably noticed I didn’t switch the dogs back and forth. I plan to do that after each of my three dogs in training can successfully stay on their mat while I work either of the other two.

Sable dog on a mat on a sidewalk

Summer very pleased to be on her mat at an outdoor restaurant

The cool thing, though, is that once you can switch dogs back and forth fluently, Mr. Premack can come to visit (the Premack principle states that you can reinforce a behavior with another behavior) and we won’t have to keep that high rate of reinforcement for the dog on the mat. Her major reinforcement for staying quietly on the mat will be the chance to be the working dog. I already take turns with my dogs in almost all training sessions; the major difference will be that they are now closed into crates or the next room. Soon they’ll be right there where the action is. It sounds like win/win to me.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for:

  • The Quadrants Illustrated (almost done!)
  • Arguing with logic and grace
  • Level 1 Breakfast (quick behavior drills)
  • Extinction

Eileenanddogs on YouTube

Posted in Clicker, Cues, Dog training hints, Multiple dogs, Reinforcement | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments