From:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29169229/
Bird brain? Animal smarts surprise experts
The term 'bird brain' should be replaced by 'brainy birds,' say researchers
By Randolph E. Schmid
updated 9:04 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2009
CHICAGO - Monkeys perform mental math, pigeons can select the picture that doesn't belong. Humans may not be the only animals that plan for the future, say researchers reporting on the latest studies of animal mental ability.
"I suggest we humans should keep our egos in check," Edward A. Wasserman of the University of Iowa said Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Wasserman, a professor of experimental psychology, said that, like people, pigeons and baboons were able to tell which pictures showed similar items, like triangles or dots, and which showed different items.
Story continues below ↓
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This is the definition of a concept, he said, "and the animals passed it with flying colors."
He spoke at a symposium on "Animal Smarts," where researchers discussed the latest findings in the mental abilities of animals.
In the last 20 years there has been a major revolution in the understanding of animals, added Nicola S. Clayton, a professor of comparative cognition at the University of Cambridge in England.
Animals not only use tools, there is evidence that some of them save tools for future use, she said.
"Planning ahead was once thought to be unique to humans," Clayton said. "We now know that's not true."
For example, she said, crows have been seen stashing food away for the next day and even finding ways to protect it from being stolen.
The term "birdbrain," is obsolete, she said, and should be replaced by "brainy birds."
Speaking of crow intelligence, Alex Kacelnik, a professor of behavioral ecology at the University of Oxford in England, noted the "master tool user of the avian world," the New Caledonian crow.
These birds have been shown to not just use tools, but to make their own by twisting and bending pieces of wire to fish food from places they couldn't reach otherwise.
"What we are describing about the abilities of different species is that human abilities are expressed, sometimes, in other species," Kacelnik said.
Jessica Cantlon of Duke University noted that "number sense" seems among the shared evolution of many primates.
Cantlon and Elizabeth Brannon have studied how human adults and babies, lemurs and monkeys think about numbers without using language.
After seeing the same number of objects repeatedly in different-looking groups, infants notice when the number of objects is changed, they found. So, too, do macaques.
Indeed, college students and macaques seem equally able to roughly sum up sets of objects without actually counting them.
That abiliity can be useful to the macaques in determining whether there is enough food to remain in an area or to get a sense of how large their group is compared to competing groups.
They are currently working to see if monkeys can recognize the concept of zero.
Some people may be uneasy as new studies find increasing similarities between animal and human mental abilities, Wasserman said.
The aim is to learn how much thinking ability is general throughout the animal kingdom, he said, "the evidence that we collect constantly surprises us."
lördag 25 april 2009
Human behaviour: Science: Responses to Racism Don’t Meet Expectations
Science: Responses to Racism Don’t Meet Expectations
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2009/0108sp_racism.shtml
Even though racial prejudice is strongly condemned around the world, blatant acts of racism still occur frequently, and this inconsistency could suggest that, as humans, we do not always reflect how we feel with our behavior. Now, a recent social experiment by Kerry Kawakami from the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto and her colleagues seems to confirm this idea.
In the form of a novel field experiment, these researchers compared peoples' predictions of how they thought they would feel after witnessing a racist situation to how they actually responded to racism in real-life situations.
Their findings, reported in the latest issue of Science, imply that we are not as good at gauging our own emotions as we like to believe.
In their experiment, Kawakami and her colleagues asked a large group of non-black individuals (the forecasters) how they would feel if they witnessed prejudice against a black individual. Then, they tested a separate group of non-black people (the witnesses) to see how they actually react after witnessing racism towards a black person.
The mock victim of this racism was aware of the objectives of the experiment, but the results still demonstrate that few of the witnesses to racism actually reacted as the forecasters predicted they would.
After the forecasters made their predictions about how they would react to an anti-black slur, the separate group of witnesses were led into a room and introduced, one by one, to a black and a white "confederate," both posing as fellow participants in the study. After a brief moment with each witness, the black confederate would excuse himself from the room to retrieve his cell phone, and gently brush into the white confederate on his way out of the room.
For a control group of witnesses, this incident would pass without comment. But for two other groups of witnesses, the white confederate would make a racist comment about the black confederate. In front of one group of witnesses, the comment was "moderately racist," and in front of the other group, the comment was "extremely racist."
Moments later, the black confederate would return to the room, and the experiment would proceed. The witnesses completed a brief questionnaire to determine their mood at the time, and were then asked to choose either the white or the black confederate to work with for the next portion of the study.
Whereas most of the forecasters had predicted feeling repulsed by the racist comment and stated that they would shun the racist offender, only a small percentage of the witnesses did what was predicted of them and chose the black confederate to work with.
In light of these findings, the researchers suggest that racism may persist in part because people who believe they would take action in the face of a racist act may actually respond with indifference when the situation arises. They acknowledge that these findings can be interpreted in many ways, and they even offer alternative explanations of their results.
For example, the non-black forecasters might have recognized the social sensitivity of the issue and responded in ways they believed to be acceptable, rather than admitting their true feelings.
However, the authors say that forecasters were assured of their anonymity, and that these findings might provide important information on actual responses to racism that could help to create personal awareness and inform interventions.
Brandon Bryn
8 January 2009
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2009/0108sp_racism.shtml
Even though racial prejudice is strongly condemned around the world, blatant acts of racism still occur frequently, and this inconsistency could suggest that, as humans, we do not always reflect how we feel with our behavior. Now, a recent social experiment by Kerry Kawakami from the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto and her colleagues seems to confirm this idea.
In the form of a novel field experiment, these researchers compared peoples' predictions of how they thought they would feel after witnessing a racist situation to how they actually responded to racism in real-life situations.
Their findings, reported in the latest issue of Science, imply that we are not as good at gauging our own emotions as we like to believe.
In their experiment, Kawakami and her colleagues asked a large group of non-black individuals (the forecasters) how they would feel if they witnessed prejudice against a black individual. Then, they tested a separate group of non-black people (the witnesses) to see how they actually react after witnessing racism towards a black person.
The mock victim of this racism was aware of the objectives of the experiment, but the results still demonstrate that few of the witnesses to racism actually reacted as the forecasters predicted they would.
After the forecasters made their predictions about how they would react to an anti-black slur, the separate group of witnesses were led into a room and introduced, one by one, to a black and a white "confederate," both posing as fellow participants in the study. After a brief moment with each witness, the black confederate would excuse himself from the room to retrieve his cell phone, and gently brush into the white confederate on his way out of the room.
For a control group of witnesses, this incident would pass without comment. But for two other groups of witnesses, the white confederate would make a racist comment about the black confederate. In front of one group of witnesses, the comment was "moderately racist," and in front of the other group, the comment was "extremely racist."
Moments later, the black confederate would return to the room, and the experiment would proceed. The witnesses completed a brief questionnaire to determine their mood at the time, and were then asked to choose either the white or the black confederate to work with for the next portion of the study.
Whereas most of the forecasters had predicted feeling repulsed by the racist comment and stated that they would shun the racist offender, only a small percentage of the witnesses did what was predicted of them and chose the black confederate to work with.
In light of these findings, the researchers suggest that racism may persist in part because people who believe they would take action in the face of a racist act may actually respond with indifference when the situation arises. They acknowledge that these findings can be interpreted in many ways, and they even offer alternative explanations of their results.
For example, the non-black forecasters might have recognized the social sensitivity of the issue and responded in ways they believed to be acceptable, rather than admitting their true feelings.
However, the authors say that forecasters were assured of their anonymity, and that these findings might provide important information on actual responses to racism that could help to create personal awareness and inform interventions.
Brandon Bryn
8 January 2009
Questions about ‘aversive’ training By Tim Hyland
Questions about ‘aversive’ training By Tim Hyland
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/research/030509.html
Cesar Millan is one of the superstars of the canine world.
As the host of the National Geographic Channel show, “Dog Whisperer,” Millan has rocketed to fame based on his ability to reform and save misbehaving, over-aggressive dogs. It’s something he accomplishes through “firm” discipline—a “firm correction, a firm grab on the neck, which is what dogs do to each other,” as he says on his web site.
Millan’s show attests to his success, and he’s earned millions of loyal followers.
But according to a new study from Penn’s School of Veterinary Science, Millan’s approach may not be quite so effective as he makes it out to be. In fact, the study suggests “firm” discipline—and so-called “aversive” discipline techniques, in which dogs are corrected using aggressive measures—may actually backfire, making dogs more likely to lash out at other dogs, people and even their owners.
According to the study, published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, 25 percent of dogs trained with “aversive” techniques react to their training with an aggressive response of their own. Dogs trained in a more positive, encouraging manner, by contrast, showed almost no aggressive behavior.
“It’s really the first study of its kind—it’s a kind of pilot study,” says Meghan Herron, a Penn Vet resident and the lead author of the study. “But it’s just the start of the science that needs to happen.”
Herron says the idea for the study came from her experience at Penn Vet, where aggressive behavior is far and away the No. 1 reason why people seek the help of behavioral veterinarians.
To attempt to understand the roots of this aggression, Herron and her colleagues—Frances S. Shofer and Ilana R. Reisner, both from the Department of Clinical Studies—wrote up a 30-question survey for dog owners who visited the hospital. The survey asked the owners what kind of techniques they used to control their dogs’ aggression and what kind of results they had seen. The owners were also asked where they had learned about the training techniques they used.
In total, 140 surveys were collected. The researchers found that the most commonly used methods of training included such aggressive techniques as hitting the dog (43 percent), growling at the dog (41 percent) and physically forcing the dog onto its back (31 percent). This, despite the fact that these techniques showed the tendency to produce the direct opposite response owners sought. A quarter of the dogs trained with aversive techniques showed aggressive behavior in response.
Herron says these techniques can fail because, rather than helping owners exert “dominance” over their pets, they instead make dogs fearful. That fear, then, manifests itself in aggression.
Even still, the aversive methods persist, simply because they’ve been around so long. The popularity of “Dog Whisperer” doesn’t help matters.
“It’s a very popular [school of thought],” she says. “If you look in the old textbooks, they basically say if your dog is aggressive you need to assert your dominance. This idea has been around for a long time.”
That’s why Herron says it will likely take years of work to begin to convince owners of the potential flaws in aversive training. That work will most likely take the form of studies like hers, as others in her field work to produce evidence supporting an idea that she and her colleagues already believe in: That positive training is more effective than negative training.
“In the behavioral field, they’re cheering [about this paper],” she says. “But we’ve been on this page for years. It’s the public … and the vets that we want to reach.”
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/research/030509.html
Cesar Millan is one of the superstars of the canine world.
As the host of the National Geographic Channel show, “Dog Whisperer,” Millan has rocketed to fame based on his ability to reform and save misbehaving, over-aggressive dogs. It’s something he accomplishes through “firm” discipline—a “firm correction, a firm grab on the neck, which is what dogs do to each other,” as he says on his web site.
Millan’s show attests to his success, and he’s earned millions of loyal followers.
But according to a new study from Penn’s School of Veterinary Science, Millan’s approach may not be quite so effective as he makes it out to be. In fact, the study suggests “firm” discipline—and so-called “aversive” discipline techniques, in which dogs are corrected using aggressive measures—may actually backfire, making dogs more likely to lash out at other dogs, people and even their owners.
According to the study, published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, 25 percent of dogs trained with “aversive” techniques react to their training with an aggressive response of their own. Dogs trained in a more positive, encouraging manner, by contrast, showed almost no aggressive behavior.
“It’s really the first study of its kind—it’s a kind of pilot study,” says Meghan Herron, a Penn Vet resident and the lead author of the study. “But it’s just the start of the science that needs to happen.”
Herron says the idea for the study came from her experience at Penn Vet, where aggressive behavior is far and away the No. 1 reason why people seek the help of behavioral veterinarians.
To attempt to understand the roots of this aggression, Herron and her colleagues—Frances S. Shofer and Ilana R. Reisner, both from the Department of Clinical Studies—wrote up a 30-question survey for dog owners who visited the hospital. The survey asked the owners what kind of techniques they used to control their dogs’ aggression and what kind of results they had seen. The owners were also asked where they had learned about the training techniques they used.
In total, 140 surveys were collected. The researchers found that the most commonly used methods of training included such aggressive techniques as hitting the dog (43 percent), growling at the dog (41 percent) and physically forcing the dog onto its back (31 percent). This, despite the fact that these techniques showed the tendency to produce the direct opposite response owners sought. A quarter of the dogs trained with aversive techniques showed aggressive behavior in response.
Herron says these techniques can fail because, rather than helping owners exert “dominance” over their pets, they instead make dogs fearful. That fear, then, manifests itself in aggression.
Even still, the aversive methods persist, simply because they’ve been around so long. The popularity of “Dog Whisperer” doesn’t help matters.
“It’s a very popular [school of thought],” she says. “If you look in the old textbooks, they basically say if your dog is aggressive you need to assert your dominance. This idea has been around for a long time.”
That’s why Herron says it will likely take years of work to begin to convince owners of the potential flaws in aversive training. That work will most likely take the form of studies like hers, as others in her field work to produce evidence supporting an idea that she and her colleagues already believe in: That positive training is more effective than negative training.
“In the behavioral field, they’re cheering [about this paper],” she says. “But we’ve been on this page for years. It’s the public … and the vets that we want to reach.”
torsdag 23 april 2009
Irene Pepperberg interview (cognintion in parrots)
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/animals/pigeon_spotting.htm
Irene Pepperberg interview (cognintion in parrots)
Irene Pepperberg interview (cognintion in parrots)
tisdag 21 april 2009
How to lead a less stressful life by following the example of baboon troop in East Africa
Yesterday I watched a really good documentary on TV. Incidentally it supported my personal views on how we humans should reorganise our society both politically and in practice. We have a lot to learn from these baboons!
It is ironic that a baboon troop can rise above "how it's always been done" and flourish and that we humans, as a species, are taking so long to learn. We flaunt our "big brains" and "rising above animals" for what? To perpetuate a way of living that is making most of the world inhabitants miserable (looking for proof? switch on the news).
Results like these are, if anything, black and white proof that there are both good and bad ways to organise a social group.
The documentary was aired on Swedish TV yesterday on "Veteskapens Värld" watch it here:
http://svtplay.se/t/102814/vetenskapens_varld
Blurb:
"Den orättvisa stressen
Livet i en babianflock är inte alltid så hälsosamt för den som står längst ner i rang. Det vet neurobiologen Robert Sapolsky som har studerat babianer på nära håll. Men stress slår också till extra hårt hos människor som befinner sig långt ner i hierarkin. En långtidsstudie på 28 000 människors hälsoutveckling i Storbritannien visar att social status spelar en avgörande roll för hur vi mår. Stressen sätter sig i blodet, i hjärnan, den borrar sig in i kroppens celler och gör oss sjuka. Programledare är Mia-Marie Hammarlin. Gäst efter filmen är Monica Åberg Yngwe, doktor i folkhälsovetenskap.
Programinformation
Se de bästa vetenskapsdokumentärerna som finns på den internationella marknaden."
---
Killer Stress website:
http://killerstress.stanford.edu/
On the site is a great clip that pretty much sums up one of my favorite parts of the documentary. Where his original thought that "low rank = more stress" is not as simple as it appears to be. The answer turns out to be more complex than this. Low-ranking individuals that have a lot of friends and spend a lot of time grooming each other can be in good health and have low stress at the same time as a high-ranking individual can have high-stress if this individual is highly aggressive and very reactive.
---
Article from:
http://www.pbs.org/remotelyconnected/2008/09/stress_portrait_of_a_killer.html
"Killer Stress"
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
BY AMANDA HIRSCH
About the author
Author's site
My name is Amanda, and I am a workaholic.
-- a recovering workaholic, that is.
I used to live and breathe work; when I wasn't physically at the office, I was there in my mind -- wondering if the email I sent struck the right tone, strategizing how to get through the next day's to-do list. The smallest annoyance could send me into a fury. (I hear I was a lot of fun to live with.)
I'm better now, but I share this autobiographical insight so you know that when PBS invited me to review "Stress: Portrait of a Killer," I had more than a little bit of personal interest in the topic.
The program is a co-production of National Geographic and Stanford University starring Dr. Robert Sapolsky and a host of other researchers studying the science of stress, illustrating how our social status affects our stress level. This is true for all primates, it turns out, not just humans; to wit: in a baboon troop, dominant males are far less likely to exhibit stress than their subordinate troop-mates, as evidenced by the increased presence of stress hormones in subordinates' blood. A study of government workers in Great Britain shows similar results: the lower your rank in the civil service, the more likely you are to exhibit high levels of stress, and its attendant health issues -- even though all workers have access to the exact same level of medical care.
Stress, we learn, is closely related to feelings of control. We see the senior civil servant who controls her own workload tending to her lush garden, remarking that she's never had any real health problems; contrast this with the lower-level worker who's out sick half the time, and talks about feeling so overwhelmed by his workload that it's like skidding in a car on ice.
The film contrasts these social and psychological sources of stress with the biological origin of stress as a survival response. Think of the zebra, stressed in the wild when the cougar comes a' hunting; its heart races, and its body shuts down all but the most essential processes, flooding the zebra's system with the stress hormones that help it propel itself to safety. Unfortunately, we humans have the same physical reaction in situations where our sense of control - not our survival - is at stake.
The results are dire. As the body goes into emergency mode, it shuts down all non-essential processes, including things like growing and healing. It's one thing to shut these processes down while you run from a cougar, and quite another to shut them down for days or weeks at a time. Accordingly, research study after research study links high levels of stress with severe health problems, from blocked arteries to ulcers, not to mention diminished mental capacity - it turns out stress kills brain cells. As one of the researchers, Dr. Carol Shively, concludes, stress isn't an abstract concept -- it's a critical health issue demanding serious attention.
.
So, how do we fix it? I like Dr. Shively's advice best: the answer, she says, is to change our values as a society. We need to stop prizing ambition over all else, and celebrating the over-achievers who can walk and chew gum and type on their Blackberries all at the same time. But is such a fundamental change in our values and behavior possible?
One troop of baboons, we learn, was able to pull it off - to change the fundamental nature of their society and reduce stress all around. When the troop's alpha males all died - victims, tragically, of tuberculosis, which they got from tainted meat in the dumpster of a nearby nature lodge - the remaining males did something amazing: they were nice. More to the point, they weren't aggressive toward subordinates; suddenly, being a subordinate didn't feel worse than being dominant. The troop as a whole became more harmonious; as rank became less related to quality of life, the baboons who were lower on the totem pole were able, simply put, to chill out.
As Dr. Sapolsky summarized: the cause of stress isn't just your rank, it's what your rank means in your society.
The program's lessons resonate for me. For example: even though I was a manager at my former job, which sounds pretty alpha, I was a middle manager, with a lot of responsibility and no real authority. What's more, the politics of my organization drained me. Now, as a freelancer, I expend far less energy assessing or defending my rank (my dog is happily subordinate). I control my own schedule, and fill my days with activities of my choosing - balancing time spent on work with time spent writing for pleasure, practicing yoga, performing with my improv troupe, volunteering, and more.
Clearly, there's no one-size-fits-all prescription for a low-stress life. For some people, freelancing would be more stressful than working in an office. The take-away, then, is to look at your own life, and figure out how to reduce your own sources of stress - and, how to reduce the stress you may cause other people (in other words: how to be a nicer baboon).
What do you think? Can you see parallels between the research in the program and your own life? Share your thoughts using the comments feature below
----
Description of documentary below taken from:
http://www.pbs.org/stress/
A National Geographic Special
Stress: Portrait of a Killer premieres Wednesday, September 24, 2008. Check Local Listings to see when it is airing on your local PBS station.
Robert Sapolsky and an olive baboon share a quiet moment on the Talek River, July 2007 (Credit: John Heminway)
The stress response: in the beginning it saved our lives, making us run from predators and enabling us to take down prey. Today, human beings are turning on the same life-saving physical reaction to cope with 30-year mortgages, $4 a gallon gasoline, final exams, difficult bosses and even traffic jams — we can't seem to turn it off. So, we're constantly marinating in corrosive hormones triggered by the stress response.
Now, scientists are showing just how measurable — and dangerous — prolonged exposure to stress can be. Stanford University neurobiologist, MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, and renowned author Robert Sapolsky reveals new answers to why and how chronic stress is threatening our lives in Stress: Portrait of a Killer, a National Geographic Special. The hour-long co-production of National Geographic Television and Stanford University was produced exclusively for public television.
In this revelatory film, discoveries occur in an extraordinary range of places, from baboon troops on the plains of East Africa to the office cubes of government bureaucrats in London to neuroscience labs at the nation's leading research universities. Groundbreaking research reveals surprising facts about the impact of stress on our bodies: how it can shrink our brains, add fat to our bellies and even unravel our chromosomes. Understanding how stress works can help us figure out ways to combat it and mitigate negative impacts on our health.
Coveted female Saffi and dominant male York enjoy the shade of the banks of the Talek River. Masai Mara, Kenya, August 2004 (Credit: Randy Bean)
For over three decades, Robert Sapolsky has been working to advance our understanding of stress — in particular how our social standing (our place in various hierarchies) can make us more or less susceptible to the damaging effects of stress. Throughout the film, he weaves the grim realities of the impact of chronic stress with his wry observations about 21st century life.
"The reality is I am unbelievably stressed and Type A and poorly coping," says Sapolsky. "Why else would I study this stuff 80 hours a week? No doubt everything I advise is going to lose all its credibility if I keel over dead from a heart attack in my early 50s. I'm not good at dealing with stress. But one thing that works to my advantage is I love my work. I love every aspect of it."
Robert Sapolsky prepares to draw the blood of an anesthetized baboon as Masai villagers look on. Masai Mara, Kenya, August 2004 (Credit: Randy Bean)
The film is based partly on Sapolsky's best-selling book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: Stress, Disease and Coping. In addition to his professorship at Stanford, Sapolsky is a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. He is also the author of Monkeyluv, A Primate's Memoir and The Trouble with Testosterone, a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist.
Scientists from the University of North Carolina, the University of London, Rockefeller University and the University of California, San Francisco share their compelling insights into how stress impacts the body, giving stress a new relevance and urgency to our increasingly complex lives.
For more information about stress and Robert Sapolsky — including clips from the documentary, a video Q+A, links to podcasts, books and more experts on stress — visit the film's Web site at http://killerstress.stanford.edu/.
Find out how much you know about killer stress. Take the National Geographic Stress Quiz.
See how professionals balance stress with success at a LinkedIn "Answers" forum begun by Robert Sapolsky.
Stress: Portrait of a Killer was co-produced by Stanford University and National Geographic Television. The partnership is the first of its kind in the country and features a major research university joining forces with a distinguished production and educational institution to create original and compelling programming in the areas of science and technology for television audiences.
The senior executive producer of Stress: Portrait of a Killer was John Bredar. It was written and directed by John Heminway. The executive producer from Stanford University was Randy Bean.
Funded and Produced by:
© 2008 NGHT, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Text by Randy Bean and Ellen Stanley. Photos courtesy of John Heminway and Randy Bean.
It is ironic that a baboon troop can rise above "how it's always been done" and flourish and that we humans, as a species, are taking so long to learn. We flaunt our "big brains" and "rising above animals" for what? To perpetuate a way of living that is making most of the world inhabitants miserable (looking for proof? switch on the news).
Results like these are, if anything, black and white proof that there are both good and bad ways to organise a social group.
The documentary was aired on Swedish TV yesterday on "Veteskapens Värld" watch it here:
http://svtplay.se/t/102814/vetenskapens_varld
Blurb:
"Den orättvisa stressen
Livet i en babianflock är inte alltid så hälsosamt för den som står längst ner i rang. Det vet neurobiologen Robert Sapolsky som har studerat babianer på nära håll. Men stress slår också till extra hårt hos människor som befinner sig långt ner i hierarkin. En långtidsstudie på 28 000 människors hälsoutveckling i Storbritannien visar att social status spelar en avgörande roll för hur vi mår. Stressen sätter sig i blodet, i hjärnan, den borrar sig in i kroppens celler och gör oss sjuka. Programledare är Mia-Marie Hammarlin. Gäst efter filmen är Monica Åberg Yngwe, doktor i folkhälsovetenskap.
Programinformation
Se de bästa vetenskapsdokumentärerna som finns på den internationella marknaden."
---
Killer Stress website:
http://killerstress.stanford.edu/
On the site is a great clip that pretty much sums up one of my favorite parts of the documentary. Where his original thought that "low rank = more stress" is not as simple as it appears to be. The answer turns out to be more complex than this. Low-ranking individuals that have a lot of friends and spend a lot of time grooming each other can be in good health and have low stress at the same time as a high-ranking individual can have high-stress if this individual is highly aggressive and very reactive.
---
Article from:
http://www.pbs.org/remotelyconnected/2008/09/stress_portrait_of_a_killer.html
"Killer Stress"
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
BY AMANDA HIRSCH
About the author
Author's site
My name is Amanda, and I am a workaholic.
-- a recovering workaholic, that is.
I used to live and breathe work; when I wasn't physically at the office, I was there in my mind -- wondering if the email I sent struck the right tone, strategizing how to get through the next day's to-do list. The smallest annoyance could send me into a fury. (I hear I was a lot of fun to live with.)
I'm better now, but I share this autobiographical insight so you know that when PBS invited me to review "Stress: Portrait of a Killer," I had more than a little bit of personal interest in the topic.
The program is a co-production of National Geographic and Stanford University starring Dr. Robert Sapolsky and a host of other researchers studying the science of stress, illustrating how our social status affects our stress level. This is true for all primates, it turns out, not just humans; to wit: in a baboon troop, dominant males are far less likely to exhibit stress than their subordinate troop-mates, as evidenced by the increased presence of stress hormones in subordinates' blood. A study of government workers in Great Britain shows similar results: the lower your rank in the civil service, the more likely you are to exhibit high levels of stress, and its attendant health issues -- even though all workers have access to the exact same level of medical care.
Stress, we learn, is closely related to feelings of control. We see the senior civil servant who controls her own workload tending to her lush garden, remarking that she's never had any real health problems; contrast this with the lower-level worker who's out sick half the time, and talks about feeling so overwhelmed by his workload that it's like skidding in a car on ice.
The film contrasts these social and psychological sources of stress with the biological origin of stress as a survival response. Think of the zebra, stressed in the wild when the cougar comes a' hunting; its heart races, and its body shuts down all but the most essential processes, flooding the zebra's system with the stress hormones that help it propel itself to safety. Unfortunately, we humans have the same physical reaction in situations where our sense of control - not our survival - is at stake.
The results are dire. As the body goes into emergency mode, it shuts down all non-essential processes, including things like growing and healing. It's one thing to shut these processes down while you run from a cougar, and quite another to shut them down for days or weeks at a time. Accordingly, research study after research study links high levels of stress with severe health problems, from blocked arteries to ulcers, not to mention diminished mental capacity - it turns out stress kills brain cells. As one of the researchers, Dr. Carol Shively, concludes, stress isn't an abstract concept -- it's a critical health issue demanding serious attention.
.
So, how do we fix it? I like Dr. Shively's advice best: the answer, she says, is to change our values as a society. We need to stop prizing ambition over all else, and celebrating the over-achievers who can walk and chew gum and type on their Blackberries all at the same time. But is such a fundamental change in our values and behavior possible?
One troop of baboons, we learn, was able to pull it off - to change the fundamental nature of their society and reduce stress all around. When the troop's alpha males all died - victims, tragically, of tuberculosis, which they got from tainted meat in the dumpster of a nearby nature lodge - the remaining males did something amazing: they were nice. More to the point, they weren't aggressive toward subordinates; suddenly, being a subordinate didn't feel worse than being dominant. The troop as a whole became more harmonious; as rank became less related to quality of life, the baboons who were lower on the totem pole were able, simply put, to chill out.
As Dr. Sapolsky summarized: the cause of stress isn't just your rank, it's what your rank means in your society.
The program's lessons resonate for me. For example: even though I was a manager at my former job, which sounds pretty alpha, I was a middle manager, with a lot of responsibility and no real authority. What's more, the politics of my organization drained me. Now, as a freelancer, I expend far less energy assessing or defending my rank (my dog is happily subordinate). I control my own schedule, and fill my days with activities of my choosing - balancing time spent on work with time spent writing for pleasure, practicing yoga, performing with my improv troupe, volunteering, and more.
Clearly, there's no one-size-fits-all prescription for a low-stress life. For some people, freelancing would be more stressful than working in an office. The take-away, then, is to look at your own life, and figure out how to reduce your own sources of stress - and, how to reduce the stress you may cause other people (in other words: how to be a nicer baboon).
What do you think? Can you see parallels between the research in the program and your own life? Share your thoughts using the comments feature below
----
Description of documentary below taken from:
http://www.pbs.org/stress/
A National Geographic Special
Stress: Portrait of a Killer premieres Wednesday, September 24, 2008. Check Local Listings to see when it is airing on your local PBS station.
Robert Sapolsky and an olive baboon share a quiet moment on the Talek River, July 2007 (Credit: John Heminway)
The stress response: in the beginning it saved our lives, making us run from predators and enabling us to take down prey. Today, human beings are turning on the same life-saving physical reaction to cope with 30-year mortgages, $4 a gallon gasoline, final exams, difficult bosses and even traffic jams — we can't seem to turn it off. So, we're constantly marinating in corrosive hormones triggered by the stress response.
Now, scientists are showing just how measurable — and dangerous — prolonged exposure to stress can be. Stanford University neurobiologist, MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, and renowned author Robert Sapolsky reveals new answers to why and how chronic stress is threatening our lives in Stress: Portrait of a Killer, a National Geographic Special. The hour-long co-production of National Geographic Television and Stanford University was produced exclusively for public television.
In this revelatory film, discoveries occur in an extraordinary range of places, from baboon troops on the plains of East Africa to the office cubes of government bureaucrats in London to neuroscience labs at the nation's leading research universities. Groundbreaking research reveals surprising facts about the impact of stress on our bodies: how it can shrink our brains, add fat to our bellies and even unravel our chromosomes. Understanding how stress works can help us figure out ways to combat it and mitigate negative impacts on our health.
Coveted female Saffi and dominant male York enjoy the shade of the banks of the Talek River. Masai Mara, Kenya, August 2004 (Credit: Randy Bean)
For over three decades, Robert Sapolsky has been working to advance our understanding of stress — in particular how our social standing (our place in various hierarchies) can make us more or less susceptible to the damaging effects of stress. Throughout the film, he weaves the grim realities of the impact of chronic stress with his wry observations about 21st century life.
"The reality is I am unbelievably stressed and Type A and poorly coping," says Sapolsky. "Why else would I study this stuff 80 hours a week? No doubt everything I advise is going to lose all its credibility if I keel over dead from a heart attack in my early 50s. I'm not good at dealing with stress. But one thing that works to my advantage is I love my work. I love every aspect of it."
Robert Sapolsky prepares to draw the blood of an anesthetized baboon as Masai villagers look on. Masai Mara, Kenya, August 2004 (Credit: Randy Bean)
The film is based partly on Sapolsky's best-selling book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: Stress, Disease and Coping. In addition to his professorship at Stanford, Sapolsky is a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. He is also the author of Monkeyluv, A Primate's Memoir and The Trouble with Testosterone, a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist.
Scientists from the University of North Carolina, the University of London, Rockefeller University and the University of California, San Francisco share their compelling insights into how stress impacts the body, giving stress a new relevance and urgency to our increasingly complex lives.
For more information about stress and Robert Sapolsky — including clips from the documentary, a video Q+A, links to podcasts, books and more experts on stress — visit the film's Web site at http://killerstress.stanford.edu/.
Find out how much you know about killer stress. Take the National Geographic Stress Quiz.
See how professionals balance stress with success at a LinkedIn "Answers" forum begun by Robert Sapolsky.
Stress: Portrait of a Killer was co-produced by Stanford University and National Geographic Television. The partnership is the first of its kind in the country and features a major research university joining forces with a distinguished production and educational institution to create original and compelling programming in the areas of science and technology for television audiences.
The senior executive producer of Stress: Portrait of a Killer was John Bredar. It was written and directed by John Heminway. The executive producer from Stanford University was Randy Bean.
Funded and Produced by:
© 2008 NGHT, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Text by Randy Bean and Ellen Stanley. Photos courtesy of John Heminway and Randy Bean.
torsdag 16 april 2009
Article: If You're Aggressive, Your Dog Will Be Too, Says Veterinary Study
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217141540.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2009) — In a new, year-long University of Pennsylvania survey of dog owners who use confrontational or aversive methods to train aggressive pets, veterinary researchers have found that most of these animals will continue to be aggressive unless training techniques are modified.
The study, published in the current issue of Applied Animal Behavior Science, also showed that using non-aversive or neutral training methods such as additional exercise or rewards elicited very few aggressive responses.
“Nationwide, the No. 1 reason why dog owners take their pet to a veterinary behaviorist is to manage aggressive behavior,” Meghan E. Herron, lead author of the study, said. “Our study demonstrated that many confrontational training methods, whether staring down dogs, striking them or intimidating them with physical manipulation does little to correct improper behavior and can elicit aggressive responses.”
The team from the School of Veterinary Medicine at Penn suggest that primary-care veterinarians advise owners of the risks associated with such training methods and provide guidance and resources for safe management of behavior problems. Herron, Frances S. Shofer and Ilana R. Reisner, veterinarians with the Department of Clinical Studies at Penn Vet, produced a 30-item survey for dog owners who made behavioral service appointments at Penn Vet. In the questionnaire, dog owners were asked how they had previously treated aggressive behavior, whether there was a positive, negative or neutral effect on the dogs’ behavior and whether aggressive responses resulted from the method they used. Owners were also asked where they learned of the training technique they employed.
Of the 140 surveys completed, the most frequently listed recommendation sources were “self” and “trainers.” Several confrontational methods such as “hit or kick dog for undesirable behavior” (43 percent), “growl at dog” (41 percent), “physically force the release of an item from a dog's mouth” (39 percent), “alpha roll”physically -- rolling the dog onto its back and holding it (31 percent), “stare at or stare down” (30 percent), “dominance down” —- physically forcing the dog down onto its side (29 percent) and “grab dog by jowls and shake” (26 percent) elicited an aggressive response from at least 25 percent of the dogs on which they were attempted. In addition, dogs brought to the hospital for aggressive behavior towards familiar people were more likely to respond aggressively to some confrontational techniques than dogs brought in for other behavioral reasons.
“This study highlights the risk of dominance-based training, which has been made popular by TV, books and punishment-based training advocates,”Herron said. “These techniques are fear-eliciting and may lead to owner-directed aggression.”
Prior to seeking the counsel of a veterinary behaviorist, many dog owners attempt behavior-modification techniques suggested by a variety of sources. Recommendations often include the aversive-training techniques listed in the survey, all of which may provoke fearful or defensively aggressive behavior. Their common use may have grown from the idea that canine aggression is rooted in the need for social dominance or to a lack of dominance displayed by the owner. Advocates of this theory therefore suggest owners establish an “alpha” or pack-leader role.
The purpose of the Penn Vet study was to assess the behavioral effects and safety risks of techniques used historically by owners of dogs with behavior problems.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2009) — In a new, year-long University of Pennsylvania survey of dog owners who use confrontational or aversive methods to train aggressive pets, veterinary researchers have found that most of these animals will continue to be aggressive unless training techniques are modified.
The study, published in the current issue of Applied Animal Behavior Science, also showed that using non-aversive or neutral training methods such as additional exercise or rewards elicited very few aggressive responses.
“Nationwide, the No. 1 reason why dog owners take their pet to a veterinary behaviorist is to manage aggressive behavior,” Meghan E. Herron, lead author of the study, said. “Our study demonstrated that many confrontational training methods, whether staring down dogs, striking them or intimidating them with physical manipulation does little to correct improper behavior and can elicit aggressive responses.”
The team from the School of Veterinary Medicine at Penn suggest that primary-care veterinarians advise owners of the risks associated with such training methods and provide guidance and resources for safe management of behavior problems. Herron, Frances S. Shofer and Ilana R. Reisner, veterinarians with the Department of Clinical Studies at Penn Vet, produced a 30-item survey for dog owners who made behavioral service appointments at Penn Vet. In the questionnaire, dog owners were asked how they had previously treated aggressive behavior, whether there was a positive, negative or neutral effect on the dogs’ behavior and whether aggressive responses resulted from the method they used. Owners were also asked where they learned of the training technique they employed.
Of the 140 surveys completed, the most frequently listed recommendation sources were “self” and “trainers.” Several confrontational methods such as “hit or kick dog for undesirable behavior” (43 percent), “growl at dog” (41 percent), “physically force the release of an item from a dog's mouth” (39 percent), “alpha roll”physically -- rolling the dog onto its back and holding it (31 percent), “stare at or stare down” (30 percent), “dominance down” —- physically forcing the dog down onto its side (29 percent) and “grab dog by jowls and shake” (26 percent) elicited an aggressive response from at least 25 percent of the dogs on which they were attempted. In addition, dogs brought to the hospital for aggressive behavior towards familiar people were more likely to respond aggressively to some confrontational techniques than dogs brought in for other behavioral reasons.
“This study highlights the risk of dominance-based training, which has been made popular by TV, books and punishment-based training advocates,”Herron said. “These techniques are fear-eliciting and may lead to owner-directed aggression.”
Prior to seeking the counsel of a veterinary behaviorist, many dog owners attempt behavior-modification techniques suggested by a variety of sources. Recommendations often include the aversive-training techniques listed in the survey, all of which may provoke fearful or defensively aggressive behavior. Their common use may have grown from the idea that canine aggression is rooted in the need for social dominance or to a lack of dominance displayed by the owner. Advocates of this theory therefore suggest owners establish an “alpha” or pack-leader role.
The purpose of the Penn Vet study was to assess the behavioral effects and safety risks of techniques used historically by owners of dogs with behavior problems.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania.
måndag 23 mars 2009
An excellent forum post about loose leash walking...
...and dog training in general:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Click_To_Calm_List/message/7842
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Click_To_Calm_List/message/7842
Re: [Click_To_Calm_List] Re: leash anxiety
Hi, I mainly lurk, but this is such an interesting subject, and I do have
strong views....
I had two rescue GSDs, and at 15 months they had never worn a collar let
alone been on a lead, so I had what might be called some interesting
experiences, and at the time, very little positive help. Internet help
mainly consisted of repeating the old and tried methods which I knew and
which hadn't worked for me. For instance, with one dog I tried the stop
every time the dog forged ahead method. Fine, apart from the fact that a
five minute walk took three quarters of an hour, we could do that, but she
couldn't connect the stop start with a continuous walk, no way. Head
harness? Just sat down and refused to move....
Eventually I succeeded, but whether it was just age, experience, or one of
the methods I used, I couldn't say. I believe there is a way for every dog,
but considering the pairing of any dog and any human is a pairing of two
unique beings, it can take time to find what works for you. Clicker
training came along just a tad too late for our early days....
One thing I believe many people forget, or do not heed, is that it is
counter-productive to start using a method if you can't use it each and
every time. Look at the number of dogs in classes that behave beautifully
to heel in class and then pull like a demon on the way out to the car....
IMO we are taught to watch our dogs for the response we want, and click and
treat. What some people forget is that dogs watch us, and wait for the
response THEY want - if they get it once - then it can take a long time for
the hope to fade it won't happen again.
I have a theory about learning anything. Before you start, look at the line
of books on the subject in the book shop. How many are there claiming the
quick way, the easy way, etc. If there are plenty then there is NO quick or
easy way, because you wouldn't need a book to tell you. I have yet to find
a book titled the Easy, Quick way to learn to love Chocolate....
So, IMO we often create or exacerbate the situation by our own anxieties -
which travel down the lead like an electric current. It isn't easy to relax
with a pulling dog, but I think, whatever method works for you in the long
run, the first thing is to relax, think about it, and say to the dog, we are
going to get through this together, you and I...
Just my thoughts
Brenda
söndag 22 mars 2009
The Misbehavior of Organisms
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Breland/misbehavior.htm
THE MISBEHAVIOR OF ORGANISMS
Keller Breland and Marian Breland (1961)
Animal Behavior Enterprises, Hot Springs, Arkansas
First published in American Psychologist, 16, 681-684.
---
Interesting stuff!
I have seen similar things happen in my dog training. That some behaviours seem to be self-reinforcing.
Often it seems that instinctual behaviour is incredibly reinforcing! I wonder what to do about it without using aversives since some behaviour is very hard to manage. It certainly seems that if some behaviour is allowed to repeat itself the very fact that it is allowed to repeat itself it very reinforcing to the organism (in this case dog). So much so that no reward I can think of is more reinforcing.
One example is chasing birds. I thought perhaps I could use the Premack Principle on the bird-chasing (reward: allowed to sometimes chase birds on a variable schedual). Noch unfortunately has an incredibly strong prey drive so I resorted to managing the behaviour instead (keeping him on lead when we walk past birds). Perhaps I can use Premack later but right now it's not working at all -- he gets waaaaay to excited and cannot concentrate if he's allowed to chase them even once. All other learned behaviour breaks down for almost the whole walk after that.
Another one is barking. It seems if I ignore that, or try to teach incompatible behaviour (such as holding something in mouth) it still doesn't help (tries to bark with object in mouth). I have a friend whose dog will take and then spit out normally high-reinforcement treats to bark.
So far the I have been addressing the "managing" part of this situation. I have boiled the stimuli down to being noise reaction, anticipation and proximity (to stimulus). So baby gate has helped -- he can see people coming in but he is not so close (not seeing at all doesn't help -- he needs to see the people coming in to know what my desired behaviour is: being quiet and greeting ppl without jumping -- enthusisam is fine but making a sound or jumping is not good). This also enables me to use the opening of baby gate and letting him out to say hello as a reinforcer, together with ending up back behind the baby gate as negative reinforcement.
Barking, though, has een a slightly harder nut to crack. Here I have in fact resorted to using a water spray. But being quick to fade this out and instead take every opportunity to reward and even food reward silence. Progress so far! I do not know though, how I would have achieved silence to reward without the water spray.
occasionally resorted to using the water spray here *sigh*
THE MISBEHAVIOR OF ORGANISMS
Keller Breland and Marian Breland (1961)
Animal Behavior Enterprises, Hot Springs, Arkansas
First published in American Psychologist, 16, 681-684.
---
Interesting stuff!
I have seen similar things happen in my dog training. That some behaviours seem to be self-reinforcing.
Often it seems that instinctual behaviour is incredibly reinforcing! I wonder what to do about it without using aversives since some behaviour is very hard to manage. It certainly seems that if some behaviour is allowed to repeat itself the very fact that it is allowed to repeat itself it very reinforcing to the organism (in this case dog). So much so that no reward I can think of is more reinforcing.
One example is chasing birds. I thought perhaps I could use the Premack Principle on the bird-chasing (reward: allowed to sometimes chase birds on a variable schedual). Noch unfortunately has an incredibly strong prey drive so I resorted to managing the behaviour instead (keeping him on lead when we walk past birds). Perhaps I can use Premack later but right now it's not working at all -- he gets waaaaay to excited and cannot concentrate if he's allowed to chase them even once. All other learned behaviour breaks down for almost the whole walk after that.
Another one is barking. It seems if I ignore that, or try to teach incompatible behaviour (such as holding something in mouth) it still doesn't help (tries to bark with object in mouth). I have a friend whose dog will take and then spit out normally high-reinforcement treats to bark.
So far the I have been addressing the "managing" part of this situation. I have boiled the stimuli down to being noise reaction, anticipation and proximity (to stimulus). So baby gate has helped -- he can see people coming in but he is not so close (not seeing at all doesn't help -- he needs to see the people coming in to know what my desired behaviour is: being quiet and greeting ppl without jumping -- enthusisam is fine but making a sound or jumping is not good). This also enables me to use the opening of baby gate and letting him out to say hello as a reinforcer, together with ending up back behind the baby gate as negative reinforcement.
Barking, though, has een a slightly harder nut to crack. Here I have in fact resorted to using a water spray. But being quick to fade this out and instead take every opportunity to reward and even food reward silence. Progress so far! I do not know though, how I would have achieved silence to reward without the water spray.
occasionally resorted to using the water spray here *sigh*
lördag 28 februari 2009
Envy in dogs
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1092637/Why-dogs-jealous-Scientists-reveal-pets-complex-range-emotions.html
http://www.theworld.org/node/23069
onsdag 21 januari 2009
Super video about getting attention in the midst of distractions
This is along the lines of what I have been doing with Noch -- great and powerful stuff! Yay!
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about positive reinforcement and training with aversive (so-called traditional training) and we both reached the conclusion that our dogs that we have now don't respond very well to aversives -- only becoming more agitated if they are used (I am a crossover trainer with a clicker dog -- when I get frustrated my behaviour can break down into anger - I'm only human! I'm working on this though!). For example if her dog when it was a puppy went a bit "bezerk" (black labrador) no aversives in the world would work (following the "any attention is fun" principle, even negative attention such as scolding) only ignoring her dog would have an effect. And then rewarding or giving affection when he was exhibiting good behaviour (all four paws on the ground etc.) to cement what is the "preferred" behaviour. Funny thing is that another dog that she babysits came to the same conclusion! Pippi is an adult dalmation and would growl at Zigge when he tried to play with her, this didn't really work and eventually she reached the same conclusion -- ignoring works! Being angry doesn't!
ALSO clicker training I find makes me feel really good! I'm always in a good mood no matter what my dog is doing. Whereas if I am concentrating on the misbehaviour that my dog is exhibiting it gets me in a bad mood and makes both me and dog feel like a failure. Personally, I prefer feeling happy!
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about positive reinforcement and training with aversive (so-called traditional training) and we both reached the conclusion that our dogs that we have now don't respond very well to aversives -- only becoming more agitated if they are used (I am a crossover trainer with a clicker dog -- when I get frustrated my behaviour can break down into anger - I'm only human! I'm working on this though!). For example if her dog when it was a puppy went a bit "bezerk" (black labrador) no aversives in the world would work (following the "any attention is fun" principle, even negative attention such as scolding) only ignoring her dog would have an effect. And then rewarding or giving affection when he was exhibiting good behaviour (all four paws on the ground etc.) to cement what is the "preferred" behaviour. Funny thing is that another dog that she babysits came to the same conclusion! Pippi is an adult dalmation and would growl at Zigge when he tried to play with her, this didn't really work and eventually she reached the same conclusion -- ignoring works! Being angry doesn't!
ALSO clicker training I find makes me feel really good! I'm always in a good mood no matter what my dog is doing. Whereas if I am concentrating on the misbehaviour that my dog is exhibiting it gets me in a bad mood and makes both me and dog feel like a failure. Personally, I prefer feeling happy!
fredag 16 januari 2009
lördag 15 november 2008
Incredibly charming border collie photography
http://threewoofs.blogspot.com/
So charming! And "narration" that made me laugh too...! :)
So charming! And "narration" that made me laugh too...! :)
tisdag 28 oktober 2008
Timing and latency and short sessions
I have been pretty successful with my clicker training so far. Noch has been a brilliant student.
But I realise that I can working on getting better, as I said in my last post, and so I am formalising my training and keeping a log.
But geeze, it sure as hell is hard to keep a log and stick to the set goal for that training session! I realise I train intuitively a lot -- which can actually be good and bad. Bad because it probably makes Noch's job confusing if the actual goal changes. I do see the advantages to keeping to one training session=one goal. I also see the advantages of forcing oneself to write down that one goal and how to reach it on paper.
I have also realised that my training sessions may be a bit on the long side(!)
Apparently a good rule of thumb is 5 repetitions to one training session.
Then break for a short while (go write in you log).
Then do another training session.
In total a training period should last about 5 mins maximum. This means that you have time for approximately 2-4 training sessions in one training period. Wow! So short eh? I can see that clicker training really doesn't have to take a lot of time at all.
These incredibly short sessions put a lot of pressure on the handler to set up good criteria -- which is great! It also keeps the dogs perky and bright eyed and loving it (and ending when they still want more). Of course it is painful for the handler to stop when the going is soooo good! But I think it is one of the keys to getting the dog to lvoe cliker training.
The repetitions themselves have some timing critera too: latency (the time between signal and offered behaviour eg. handler standing up and waiting, handler presenting target, handler giving command) should be between 0,2-3 seconds depending on the nature of the excercise. 0,2 seconds being for commands/signals the dog already knows, 3 seconds being for when the dog is starting to learn a new behaviour. When you are free-shaping this latency can be increased to 5-10 seconds.
Again this strikes me as really fast! But it does make sense -- in practice this means for example presenting a target and after 3 seconds of the dog failing to touch it the target gets removed and hidden behind my back for 5-10 seconds. It is then presented again for 3 seconds. These 3 seconds in other words is the window in which the dog has to present his behaviour.
Additionally you want to avoid letting the dog do two incorrect repetitions in a row, and really really avoid three incorrect repetitions in a row. If this is happening you may want to consider that your criteria are too high and you may need take them down a notch so you are setting your dog up to suceed.
My book advises 5-30 min training passes per "go".
This means 3-6 training periods each containing 2-5 training sessions containing in turn 5 success/fail repetitions.
So much to think about! Geez, I am now SURE that Noch has the easy end of this bargain!
Lastly -- I found a brillant way of teaching loose-leash walking that I am dying to try! It echoes my thoughts of pondering if you could use horse rein signals with a pulling dog. I mean we humans instinctively pull on our dogs to communicate with them through the leash. Actually no different than using a bitless bridle on a horse. In the same way that pulling on a horse that hasn't been taught to move away from pressure is meaningless, so is pulling on a dog -- it will only be met with resistance. Sometimes I even ponder if it is possible to teach a dog to canter and trot and do groundwork like horses -- it would be fascinating to try! Anyhow Shirley Chong has this great way of building up to loose leash walking that is based on her experince with teaching race horses to have soft mouths again:
http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/LLW/LLW%20Step%201.html
But I realise that I can working on getting better, as I said in my last post, and so I am formalising my training and keeping a log.
But geeze, it sure as hell is hard to keep a log and stick to the set goal for that training session! I realise I train intuitively a lot -- which can actually be good and bad. Bad because it probably makes Noch's job confusing if the actual goal changes. I do see the advantages to keeping to one training session=one goal. I also see the advantages of forcing oneself to write down that one goal and how to reach it on paper.
I have also realised that my training sessions may be a bit on the long side(!)
Apparently a good rule of thumb is 5 repetitions to one training session.
Then break for a short while (go write in you log).
Then do another training session.
In total a training period should last about 5 mins maximum. This means that you have time for approximately 2-4 training sessions in one training period. Wow! So short eh? I can see that clicker training really doesn't have to take a lot of time at all.
These incredibly short sessions put a lot of pressure on the handler to set up good criteria -- which is great! It also keeps the dogs perky and bright eyed and loving it (and ending when they still want more). Of course it is painful for the handler to stop when the going is soooo good! But I think it is one of the keys to getting the dog to lvoe cliker training.
The repetitions themselves have some timing critera too: latency (the time between signal and offered behaviour eg. handler standing up and waiting, handler presenting target, handler giving command) should be between 0,2-3 seconds depending on the nature of the excercise. 0,2 seconds being for commands/signals the dog already knows, 3 seconds being for when the dog is starting to learn a new behaviour. When you are free-shaping this latency can be increased to 5-10 seconds.
Again this strikes me as really fast! But it does make sense -- in practice this means for example presenting a target and after 3 seconds of the dog failing to touch it the target gets removed and hidden behind my back for 5-10 seconds. It is then presented again for 3 seconds. These 3 seconds in other words is the window in which the dog has to present his behaviour.
Additionally you want to avoid letting the dog do two incorrect repetitions in a row, and really really avoid three incorrect repetitions in a row. If this is happening you may want to consider that your criteria are too high and you may need take them down a notch so you are setting your dog up to suceed.
My book advises 5-30 min training passes per "go".
This means 3-6 training periods each containing 2-5 training sessions containing in turn 5 success/fail repetitions.
So much to think about! Geez, I am now SURE that Noch has the easy end of this bargain!
Lastly -- I found a brillant way of teaching loose-leash walking that I am dying to try! It echoes my thoughts of pondering if you could use horse rein signals with a pulling dog. I mean we humans instinctively pull on our dogs to communicate with them through the leash. Actually no different than using a bitless bridle on a horse. In the same way that pulling on a horse that hasn't been taught to move away from pressure is meaningless, so is pulling on a dog -- it will only be met with resistance. Sometimes I even ponder if it is possible to teach a dog to canter and trot and do groundwork like horses -- it would be fascinating to try! Anyhow Shirley Chong has this great way of building up to loose leash walking that is based on her experince with teaching race horses to have soft mouths again:
http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/LLW/LLW%20Step%201.html
måndag 27 oktober 2008
Setting critera when clicker training
Well I am pondering how to go about the incredibly challanging task of teaching Noch how to pass other dogs without going beserk (he looooves other dogs and will bark and jump around in excited frustration and forgets I exist).
I am thinking it comes down to me improving my training skills. Things like timing and setting him up to suceed seem incredibly important. But I am a bit lost as to how to go about it without getting frustrated and (being the crossover trainer that I am) resorting to negative reinforcement in sheer frustration...
So I've ended up reading my clicker book again "Klickerträning för din hund" (in swedish) by Morten Egtvedt and Cecilie Köste. A brilliant book, but unfortunately not-so-great layout. The font they've used for the body text is sans serif making it hard to read. An eyesore for someone like me who works with layout on a day to day basis. But yeah, apart from that it's full of brilliant advice. I think I am going to start a training log to help me hone my criterion-setting skills (and have a clear training plan).
But yeah the one thing I wanted to mention was the following (summarised and partly quoted from the book):
Dog trainers using positive reinforcement set their dogs up to suceed, so that they may have lots of opportunities to reward their dogs for good behaviour.
Dog trainers using negative reinforcement set their dogs up to fail, so that they get lots of oppotunities to correct their dogs.
That thought I found really really interesting!! And made me go "ahhh.... oh yeah".
Lastly a You Tube video, some really good criterion-setting-up going on here:
I am thinking it comes down to me improving my training skills. Things like timing and setting him up to suceed seem incredibly important. But I am a bit lost as to how to go about it without getting frustrated and (being the crossover trainer that I am) resorting to negative reinforcement in sheer frustration...
So I've ended up reading my clicker book again "Klickerträning för din hund" (in swedish) by Morten Egtvedt and Cecilie Köste. A brilliant book, but unfortunately not-so-great layout. The font they've used for the body text is sans serif making it hard to read. An eyesore for someone like me who works with layout on a day to day basis. But yeah, apart from that it's full of brilliant advice. I think I am going to start a training log to help me hone my criterion-setting skills (and have a clear training plan).
But yeah the one thing I wanted to mention was the following (summarised and partly quoted from the book):
Dog trainers using positive reinforcement set their dogs up to suceed, so that they may have lots of opportunities to reward their dogs for good behaviour.
Dog trainers using negative reinforcement set their dogs up to fail, so that they get lots of oppotunities to correct their dogs.
That thought I found really really interesting!! And made me go "ahhh.... oh yeah".
Lastly a You Tube video, some really good criterion-setting-up going on here:
tisdag 14 oktober 2008
Snowball the dancing cockatoo
Just some links about the now world-famous dancing cockatoo(!)
Article:
"Snowball's chance,Cockatoo's extremely rare sense of rhythm may help explain how the brain relates to music. By Adam Loberstein, August 14, 2008."
Video that goes with the article:
http://video.signonsandiego.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=2073032&item_index=2&all=1&sort=NULL
Article:
"Snowball's chance,
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080814/news_1c14bird.html
Video that goes with the article:
http://video.signonsandiego.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=2073032&item_index=2&all=1&sort=NULL
måndag 29 september 2008
Lots of thoughts after a Natural Horsemanship workshop
I don't know where to start really as there are a million thoughts in my head after my workshop yesterday.
Firstly, I found it really interesting to listen and watch an experienced horse-person working with all kinds of horses. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and truly expanded my knowledge of animal training. It reinforced some ideas I have learnt through other avenues of animal training and learning.
Defining your goals and how you intend to get there
One of the first things that comes to mind it the fact that you want to have clear goals and only work in small steps so that you are set up to succeed. When training horses this means preparing a "tool box" of foundation behaviours that will be the groundwork for more complex behaviours later.
When it comes to horses, the goal of the training in the first stages is to (as in all training it may help to write it down and clarify it to yourself):
1) Trust human handling -- i.e. the handler must be able to touch the horse anywhere and have the horse stand still
2) As handlers we must be able to move our horses in any direction
3) As handlers we have to teach our horses to "think backwards" i.e. reverse -- this can be used to stop a forward moving horse too -- when a horse is moving forward we can ask it to start thinking about moving backwards, the horse then slows down and then stops, at this point we stop asking for backward-thinking and we have a horse that has stopped (I found this quite clever)
4) We must teach the horses to be attentive to us -- here it is up to the handler to keep their horse "on it's toes" -- this means vary the excercises you do with your horse(!) Nothing should be "just habit" because in this state of mind no learning takes place.
I found all of these things very interesting and saw parallels to other animal training, of course foundation behaviours are always slightly different depending on what animal you are working with and, perhaps most importantly what you goal with training that animal is. For example teaching a horse to be ridden is vastly different from teaching a tiger at a zoo to present it's tail for blood sampling. The concept of training behaviour-wise is the same (the animal will offer behaviours that are rewarding) and yet the goals and hence the path there are different.
Dominance-theory and animal training
This leads me to the whole dominance-issue.
It seems that the equine world is suffering from too much dominance theory too. Not that it does not exist. I did not say that. I do believe that horses (or dogs) have heirarchies. BUT I also believe that the whole dominance-issue is given too much weight. I don't really think that animals are so stupid to believe that we are a horse or dog on two legs. We are a different species and what we ask of our horses and dogs is VASTLY different from what the "alpha" individual would ask from it's herd or flock.
Dominance theory is fine, but when applied to learning it can go a little awry. I think that learning about horse behviour in the wild can only do you good -- it may help you to understand and predict certain reactions your horse has to it's environment. But learning to read your horse can only be achieved by mutual communication with your horse. The exercises used in Natural Horsemanship are a brilliant example of teaching a horse a way that you can communicate what you want to it. A nice side effect to this is that the horse will learn to trust and respect your decisions because you are giving it a fair chance to do the right thing i.e. "if you do this for me I will promise you a pleasant experience". The only problem I have with the actualy teaching of these things is that they are done with a light form of negative reinforecement, granted not a seriously bad form of negative reinforcement, but negative reinforcement all the same. One teaches each exercise with a combination of punishment/reward where the reward is a removal of the negative stimulus. It works and is hardly "mean" but I think I would prefer to teach the same exercises with a clicker. Mainly because you will reinforce what is right and there are lots of good side-effects to rewarding good behaviour as opposed to teaching and animal to escape negative stimulus. And a friendly pat is not as motivating as food in the end. (Just let a human choose between a friendly pat or $50 - I think I'd choose $50 hands down, I would also approach the next lesson with much more enthusiam). Here's a great article on the natural Horsemanship foundation "games" combined with clicker training:
http://www.naturalhorse.co.uk/training/7games.htm
But yeah, back to dominance.
Here's food for thought when it comes to using dominance-theory to your advantage and when to set it aside:
---
Here is a fascinating study that suggests that your interactions with other horses will effect interactions with a horse. The conclusion is to make training easier you should line up your horses in paddocks so they can watch you train. Then start your training day with the most dominant horse and work your way down the hierarchy!
DrO
Anim Cogn. 2008 Jan 9;
Horse sense: social status of horses (Equus caballus) affects their likelihood of copying other horses' behavior.
Krueger K, Heinze J.
University of Regensburg, Biologie I, Universitatsstrasse 31, 93053, Regensburg, Germany, Konstanze.Krueger@biologie.uni-regensburg.de.
Animals that live in stable social groups need to gather information on their own relative position in the group's social hierarchy, by either directly threatening or by challenging others, or indirectly and in a less perilous manner , by observing interactions among others. Indirect inference of dominance relationships has previously been reported from primates, rats, birds, and fish. Here, we show that domestic horses, Equus caballus, are similarly capable of social cognition. Taking advantage of a specific "following behavior" that horses show towards humans in a riding arena, we investigated whether bystander horses adjust their response to an experimenter according to the observed interaction and their own dominance relationship with the horse whose reaction to the experimenter they had observed before. Horses copied the "following behavior" towards an experimenter after watching a dominant horse following but did not follow after observing a subordinate horse or a horse from another social group doing so. The "following behavior," which horses show towards an experimenter, therefore appears to be affected by the demonstrator's behavior and social status relative to the observer.
...
I've been doing this for years. I let the young ones loose to watch everything before its their turn. Usually they have a "oh, me too, me too" attitude by the time its their turn. Other people said I was crazy thinking that it made a difference and said I was just lucky to have nice horses.
One filly was watching as I showered everyone else with the hose one day until she couldn't stand it and shoved in to be next in line. When her turn was done, she still hung around to be squirted.
They always get to watch the farrier do all their friends first. Makes for some very interesting looks as they twist their head around to see exactly what's going on. Then when its their turn, they've never been a problem (well, until it gets boring and they want to go back to play)
I also clicker train and always let the newbie loose to watch a session with a more experienced horse. With the exception of one horse, all have jumped right in to give it a try.
In my experience, the reverse of this is also true. If you let them watch an obstinante horse or a refusing horse, they will also try the same tricks or take the "not me either!" attitude.
---
Source: http://www.horseadvice.com/horse/messages/7/240095.html
---
In reading some of the posts regarding herd dynamics and others on Mark Rashid, I thought I'd tell you about a lecture I went to by Mark at Kah-Ne-Ta Indian Reservation in Oregon.
Mark spoke about how some people consider assuming the alpha role to be essential in training horses. In other words, become like the dominant horse. When an alpha says, "Move!" the others say, "How far?"
Mark said that he's spent plenty of time watching horses in the wild. He said that he learned many things, one of which was that horses can be pretty boring as they generally just eat, drink, poop and sleep.
When things did happen though, it was usually initiated by the alpha horse. When the alpha horse walked into a group, everyone scattered. They wanted to get as far away from the alpha as possible.
Sure, the alpha was the baddest horse around but nobody wanted to be near him or her.
Mark realized that this herd scenario was telling him that if none of these horses wanted to be close to the alpha, then why would he want to present himself as an alpha to his horses? It was the horses that were kind to each other that had the closest knit groups. Kindness proved to make his horses actually choose to be with him.
Studies have been done which prove that animals, as well as humans stop learning when placed under stress. In fact if the stress is great enough, they can actually forget some things that they've previously learned.
I guess what all this tells me is to teach and associate with horses with kindness-above all: kindness.
To me kindness brings with it a feeling of calm. When an animal is calm, he is in the best possible mode for learning.
The clicker is always kind. It doesn't lack for respect, but sets up rules in a way that horses can easily understand and follow. It helps the horse achieve and at the same time gives him credit for being an individual.
---
Source: http://www.angelfire.com/az/clickryder/different.html
I believe dominance theory is great tool to have in your animal behaviour box, but in your animal training box it's not very useful. It is more useful to see your self as a benevolent teacher with endless patience. A teacher to be respected because they are fair and don't wack you over the head with a ruler. A teacher that lets you make mistakes but who also, without fail, helps you to succeed. In this way your animals will come to respect you and yes, you will become "alpha" in the sense that you will be someone worthy to follow and listen to.
One of the reasons why I think dominance theory is not that great when we train is because the nature of what we want to train. Like Mark Rashid points out and the horse trainer this weekend himself pointed out, we are asking our horses to do very strange things -- things that no alpha horse would be asking the rest of the herd to do. No alpha horse pokes another horse in the side and asks him to move one step and then stand still, instead they usually say "scram, this is my pile of hay". No alpha horse puts a bridle on another horse and no alpha horse gets on top of another horse and asks him if they can for a ride! In the same way no alpha dog puts a leash on another dog and asks him to go for a walk. This are unnatural, human, ideas. And yes, in my belief training ANYTHING unnatural is essentially "trick-training". Training a bird to land on your finger, training a dog to stay on command, training a horse to move away from pressure -- these are all "tricks" we humans want to train our animals to do.
But before people who are allergic to the words "trick-training" get upset -- oh what great and practical tricks they are! They help our animals to coexist peacefully in a world that is adapted to humans. We are giving them tools to harmoniously coexist with us. What great joy it is to see a brilliant partnership and two-way communcation between a horse and rider or dog and handler.
When an animal is in a reactive state of mind this is not condusive to learning
Right the next thing I am thinking about is reactivity. All animals can be reduced to a reactive state of mind. A reactive state of mind is not condusive to learning. It was wonderful to see this in action this weekend. A horse was asked to trot around the handler on a lunge line -- being in a reactive state at that moment the horse reacted to the swishing of the rope and "fled" to the extent of the line and trotted around in an energetic trot. Here he was not thinking, just running. The guy who had the course pointed this out and said "right now he isn't learning to we want to try to ask him to slow down" with a flick of the lunge line (the horse had previously been trained to respond to this cue for "back up") the horse slowed down. Suddenly there was a change that I may have missed if he hadn't made us aware of it. The horse slowed to a trot that was very "thoughtful" each step he was taking was as if he was thinking about it and his ears were moving around as if in great thought and concentration. He seemed to focus his ears on the handler, then on hs steps, then on the surroundings, then on the handler again and really seemed to be thinking about things. Whereas earlier he seemed to only have one thought as it was "argh, scary rope, I had best run from swishy thing". I could really see how reactivity is not condusive to learning.
I see the same thing in training my dog and bird -- if a simulus is too strong they only have space in their minds to react to that particular stimulus. It doesn't matter if the stimulus is fear-induced of interest-induced -- if it is too strong it will block out other thoughts. Some trainers appropriately call this "becoming blocked". The key it seems to all animal training is to begin training in an evironment that is condusive to learning. This often means in an environment where the animal is calm and comfortable. For dogs it can mean at home in the living room. For birds (who are highly reactive) it can mean around the saftely of their cage. For horses it can mean a familiar paddock close to home. Only when the training progresses can you ask for the same behaviour but in a slighlty more challenging environment.
Also one thing to be prepared for it a break down in the "quality" of the behaviour as the animal slowly becomes used to performing this familiar behviour in an unfamiliar environment.
Horse loading problems and solutions - an example of the issues talked about above
Lastly I want to finish of with an example that actually adresses the problems of dominance theory, reactiveness and clicker training versus bribery.
It was a situation that my friend and her horse were in -- a bit of a catch 22 in fact.
She wanted her horse to participate in the workshop. And it was a great learning experience for them both. But problems arose when trying to get the young stallion to load at the end of the workshop.
As far as he was concerned he had had a really long day and did not want to get into the scary trailer.
One lady was saying that it is normal for horses that have "lost a few points of the dominance scale" to try to act up and win back a couple of points. Although she is a brilliant and experienced horse person I am inclined to disagree here. I find that it is more of a case of learning-overload. I really don't think the young stallion was trying to "win points". It's more of a case that the stallion was reduced to a reactive state from the begining -- concentrating is actually very hard for animals and they can only do it for limited amounts of time.
He was responding well to the learnt tug-on-lead-rope means follow the pressure (i.e. we pull on lead rope and the horse follows). In an untrained state all animals (inclduing humans) will resist someone pulling on them -- this is called activating the "opposition reflex". This is also a "default" or "natural" behaviour i.e. a behaviour that the animal will go into when in a reactive state. Bolting is also a default behaviour that you don't need to train (as all horse owners know).
The problem we were facing was that his trained behaviour only held together as far as part of the way up the ramp. It fell apart when the proximity of the trailer scared him too much. Also a tug on his lead rope could trigger an opposition reflex and then a fight-or-flight reflex (also natural behaviour for a horse). The horse will of course choose to flee first being the prey animal that it is, and if this doesn't work it may choose to fight. The problem is when all these behaviours become the "norm" when loading -- you can actually unwittingly train your horse to present these behaviours.
On a better day and in a better place I believe training wise we should have called it a day. The problem was my poor friend had no choice -- she just HAD to get him home. And getting home meant getting him in the trailer.
We spent what was literally hours trying to get him to go in and by this time my friend and her horse were exhausted. Her horse was highly reactive and even though he occasionally had moments where he concentrated for long enough he had several occasions where he just "switched off" and bolted backwards.
In the end we did manage to bribe him with feed (only after having broken one halter) and that was only just. I was literally pushing food into his mouth whilest my friend closed the trailer behind him (most domesticated animals have learnt to associate food with calm and actually do calm down whilest they are eating). Eating almost seems to be a cue that "everything is ok". If a dog will take food or not is always a good measure as to how stressed they are in a stressful environment.
Thank goodness we got there in the end. Unfortunately this experience will not have taught the horse anything particularly good. By bribing him into coming into the trailer and standing still he never actually had time to think about his actions. The times he did think was just before he flung himself out backwards and into freedom, unfotunately not the best learning situation or result. I am not for bribing as it is very different to clicker training (some people confuse the two). You can use food as a "lure" in clicker training only if you fade out the lure quickly. But usually it is more effective to lure train using a target -- a non-food cue. (In target training you teach the animal to touch the presented object -- often the end of a stick -- this can then be used to show the animal where you want it to be heading).
What to do from here? Well preferably (since I am all for clicker training) I would choose to clicker train exercises that are useful in trailer loading. The nice thing is that you don't need a trailer for these (a problem for many that don't own trailers).
Now we need to state our problems and solutions:
So what is the problem?
- The horse does not like loading
(forget "he's trying to be dominant" -- just focus on the problem at hand)
What does a horse need to have learnt for it to load well?
(this is where we break down the complex behaviour of loading into small bits -- for that is exatly what loading is, a combination of several behaviours)
1) To walk forwards
2) To walk forwards up a leaning ramp (and not come in from the side)
3) To walk into a confined space and stand still
4) To stand still and be tied to a stationary object
5) To remained tied and still over a period of time despite a distracting/stressful environment (including closing the rear bar behind the horse and closing the door of the trailer)
6) To be untied and remain standing still (before backing out of the trailer so that the horse does not explode outwrads once it's learnt that it's "free")
7) To back up when asked
8) To back down slowly down a leaning ramp (and not step down sidewards)
9) To back up and stand still
With the nine points above in mind I hope you have now realised that loading is indeed a complex behaviour. With this in mind it is a wonder that some horses actually do learn to do all of the above without needing to be taught in small steps. But then again, this may be why trailer loading is such a common problem.
For the experienced horse trainer I am sure there are many many ways to teach each of these nice different things.
Teaching #1 is incredibly important. To move on to teaching #2 you could lay two poles on the ground and ask your horse to follow you inbetween them. You could start with the poles really far apart and then move them closee and closer together. If you have several poles you and your horse could practice moving thorough an "obstacle course". The nice thing is that this can then be expanded upon and you could lay these poles going up and down natural slopes in the terrain laying the foundation to going up and down ramps.
Another very clever way of teaching walking forwards in a controlled manner is teaching your horse to target. In this example the horse is taught to target cones on the ground -- the nice side effect of this is that the horse is taught to walk with his head lowered (a calm state). Touching cones or a target stick can be a fun "game" for your horse and also lets him concentrate on something familiar in an unfamiliar environment.
Before teaching a horse to enter into a trailer you have to remember to teach your horse to back up (#7 and #8) unless you have a trailer that is large enough to turn around in or you may spook your horse. Remember that the hard past about backing downwards is that the horse actually cannot see where he is placing his feet (try closing your eyes and backing down a slope -- scary huh?). A great way of teaching backing down is to use a natural downwards slope and some poles. First you ask your horse to back up inbetween two poles and then you ask him to back up inbetween two poles but down a slope . If you don't have a slope try to make a ramp.
Here's some great and hopefully inspring vidoes, good luck loading! (And if you have no idea what clicker training is I do hope you get to try this great way of teaching behaviour)
Source: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=C8CwMZukYsU
Source: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0i9OXec83GI
Firstly, I found it really interesting to listen and watch an experienced horse-person working with all kinds of horses. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and truly expanded my knowledge of animal training. It reinforced some ideas I have learnt through other avenues of animal training and learning.
Defining your goals and how you intend to get there
One of the first things that comes to mind it the fact that you want to have clear goals and only work in small steps so that you are set up to succeed. When training horses this means preparing a "tool box" of foundation behaviours that will be the groundwork for more complex behaviours later.
When it comes to horses, the goal of the training in the first stages is to (as in all training it may help to write it down and clarify it to yourself):
1) Trust human handling -- i.e. the handler must be able to touch the horse anywhere and have the horse stand still
2) As handlers we must be able to move our horses in any direction
3) As handlers we have to teach our horses to "think backwards" i.e. reverse -- this can be used to stop a forward moving horse too -- when a horse is moving forward we can ask it to start thinking about moving backwards, the horse then slows down and then stops, at this point we stop asking for backward-thinking and we have a horse that has stopped (I found this quite clever)
4) We must teach the horses to be attentive to us -- here it is up to the handler to keep their horse "on it's toes" -- this means vary the excercises you do with your horse(!) Nothing should be "just habit" because in this state of mind no learning takes place.
I found all of these things very interesting and saw parallels to other animal training, of course foundation behaviours are always slightly different depending on what animal you are working with and, perhaps most importantly what you goal with training that animal is. For example teaching a horse to be ridden is vastly different from teaching a tiger at a zoo to present it's tail for blood sampling. The concept of training behaviour-wise is the same (the animal will offer behaviours that are rewarding) and yet the goals and hence the path there are different.
Dominance-theory and animal training
This leads me to the whole dominance-issue.
It seems that the equine world is suffering from too much dominance theory too. Not that it does not exist. I did not say that. I do believe that horses (or dogs) have heirarchies. BUT I also believe that the whole dominance-issue is given too much weight. I don't really think that animals are so stupid to believe that we are a horse or dog on two legs. We are a different species and what we ask of our horses and dogs is VASTLY different from what the "alpha" individual would ask from it's herd or flock.
Dominance theory is fine, but when applied to learning it can go a little awry. I think that learning about horse behviour in the wild can only do you good -- it may help you to understand and predict certain reactions your horse has to it's environment. But learning to read your horse can only be achieved by mutual communication with your horse. The exercises used in Natural Horsemanship are a brilliant example of teaching a horse a way that you can communicate what you want to it. A nice side effect to this is that the horse will learn to trust and respect your decisions because you are giving it a fair chance to do the right thing i.e. "if you do this for me I will promise you a pleasant experience". The only problem I have with the actualy teaching of these things is that they are done with a light form of negative reinforecement, granted not a seriously bad form of negative reinforcement, but negative reinforcement all the same. One teaches each exercise with a combination of punishment/reward where the reward is a removal of the negative stimulus. It works and is hardly "mean" but I think I would prefer to teach the same exercises with a clicker. Mainly because you will reinforce what is right and there are lots of good side-effects to rewarding good behaviour as opposed to teaching and animal to escape negative stimulus. And a friendly pat is not as motivating as food in the end. (Just let a human choose between a friendly pat or $50 - I think I'd choose $50 hands down, I would also approach the next lesson with much more enthusiam). Here's a great article on the natural Horsemanship foundation "games" combined with clicker training:
http://www.naturalhorse.co.uk/training/7games.htm
But yeah, back to dominance.
Here's food for thought when it comes to using dominance-theory to your advantage and when to set it aside:
---
Here is a fascinating study that suggests that your interactions with other horses will effect interactions with a horse. The conclusion is to make training easier you should line up your horses in paddocks so they can watch you train. Then start your training day with the most dominant horse and work your way down the hierarchy!
DrO
Anim Cogn. 2008 Jan 9;
Horse sense: social status of horses (Equus caballus) affects their likelihood of copying other horses' behavior.
Krueger K, Heinze J.
University of Regensburg, Biologie I, Universitatsstrasse 31, 93053, Regensburg, Germany, Konstanze.Krueger@biologie.uni-regensburg.de.
Animals that live in stable social groups need to gather information on their own relative position in the group's social hierarchy, by either directly threatening or by challenging others, or indirectly and in a less perilous manner , by observing interactions among others. Indirect inference of dominance relationships has previously been reported from primates, rats, birds, and fish. Here, we show that domestic horses, Equus caballus, are similarly capable of social cognition. Taking advantage of a specific "following behavior" that horses show towards humans in a riding arena, we investigated whether bystander horses adjust their response to an experimenter according to the observed interaction and their own dominance relationship with the horse whose reaction to the experimenter they had observed before. Horses copied the "following behavior" towards an experimenter after watching a dominant horse following but did not follow after observing a subordinate horse or a horse from another social group doing so. The "following behavior," which horses show towards an experimenter, therefore appears to be affected by the demonstrator's behavior and social status relative to the observer.
...
I've been doing this for years. I let the young ones loose to watch everything before its their turn. Usually they have a "oh, me too, me too" attitude by the time its their turn. Other people said I was crazy thinking that it made a difference and said I was just lucky to have nice horses.
One filly was watching as I showered everyone else with the hose one day until she couldn't stand it and shoved in to be next in line. When her turn was done, she still hung around to be squirted.
They always get to watch the farrier do all their friends first. Makes for some very interesting looks as they twist their head around to see exactly what's going on. Then when its their turn, they've never been a problem (well, until it gets boring and they want to go back to play)
I also clicker train and always let the newbie loose to watch a session with a more experienced horse. With the exception of one horse, all have jumped right in to give it a try.
In my experience, the reverse of this is also true. If you let them watch an obstinante horse or a refusing horse, they will also try the same tricks or take the "not me either!" attitude.
---
Source: http://www.horseadvice.com/horse/messages/7/240095.html
---
In reading some of the posts regarding herd dynamics and others on Mark Rashid, I thought I'd tell you about a lecture I went to by Mark at Kah-Ne-Ta Indian Reservation in Oregon.
Mark spoke about how some people consider assuming the alpha role to be essential in training horses. In other words, become like the dominant horse. When an alpha says, "Move!" the others say, "How far?"
Mark said that he's spent plenty of time watching horses in the wild. He said that he learned many things, one of which was that horses can be pretty boring as they generally just eat, drink, poop and sleep.
When things did happen though, it was usually initiated by the alpha horse. When the alpha horse walked into a group, everyone scattered. They wanted to get as far away from the alpha as possible.
Sure, the alpha was the baddest horse around but nobody wanted to be near him or her.
Mark realized that this herd scenario was telling him that if none of these horses wanted to be close to the alpha, then why would he want to present himself as an alpha to his horses? It was the horses that were kind to each other that had the closest knit groups. Kindness proved to make his horses actually choose to be with him.
Studies have been done which prove that animals, as well as humans stop learning when placed under stress. In fact if the stress is great enough, they can actually forget some things that they've previously learned.
I guess what all this tells me is to teach and associate with horses with kindness-above all: kindness.
To me kindness brings with it a feeling of calm. When an animal is calm, he is in the best possible mode for learning.
The clicker is always kind. It doesn't lack for respect, but sets up rules in a way that horses can easily understand and follow. It helps the horse achieve and at the same time gives him credit for being an individual.
---
Source: http://www.angelfire.com/az/clickryder/different.html
I believe dominance theory is great tool to have in your animal behaviour box, but in your animal training box it's not very useful. It is more useful to see your self as a benevolent teacher with endless patience. A teacher to be respected because they are fair and don't wack you over the head with a ruler. A teacher that lets you make mistakes but who also, without fail, helps you to succeed. In this way your animals will come to respect you and yes, you will become "alpha" in the sense that you will be someone worthy to follow and listen to.
One of the reasons why I think dominance theory is not that great when we train is because the nature of what we want to train. Like Mark Rashid points out and the horse trainer this weekend himself pointed out, we are asking our horses to do very strange things -- things that no alpha horse would be asking the rest of the herd to do. No alpha horse pokes another horse in the side and asks him to move one step and then stand still, instead they usually say "scram, this is my pile of hay". No alpha horse puts a bridle on another horse and no alpha horse gets on top of another horse and asks him if they can for a ride! In the same way no alpha dog puts a leash on another dog and asks him to go for a walk. This are unnatural, human, ideas. And yes, in my belief training ANYTHING unnatural is essentially "trick-training". Training a bird to land on your finger, training a dog to stay on command, training a horse to move away from pressure -- these are all "tricks" we humans want to train our animals to do.
But before people who are allergic to the words "trick-training" get upset -- oh what great and practical tricks they are! They help our animals to coexist peacefully in a world that is adapted to humans. We are giving them tools to harmoniously coexist with us. What great joy it is to see a brilliant partnership and two-way communcation between a horse and rider or dog and handler.
When an animal is in a reactive state of mind this is not condusive to learning
Right the next thing I am thinking about is reactivity. All animals can be reduced to a reactive state of mind. A reactive state of mind is not condusive to learning. It was wonderful to see this in action this weekend. A horse was asked to trot around the handler on a lunge line -- being in a reactive state at that moment the horse reacted to the swishing of the rope and "fled" to the extent of the line and trotted around in an energetic trot. Here he was not thinking, just running. The guy who had the course pointed this out and said "right now he isn't learning to we want to try to ask him to slow down" with a flick of the lunge line (the horse had previously been trained to respond to this cue for "back up") the horse slowed down. Suddenly there was a change that I may have missed if he hadn't made us aware of it. The horse slowed to a trot that was very "thoughtful" each step he was taking was as if he was thinking about it and his ears were moving around as if in great thought and concentration. He seemed to focus his ears on the handler, then on hs steps, then on the surroundings, then on the handler again and really seemed to be thinking about things. Whereas earlier he seemed to only have one thought as it was "argh, scary rope, I had best run from swishy thing". I could really see how reactivity is not condusive to learning.
I see the same thing in training my dog and bird -- if a simulus is too strong they only have space in their minds to react to that particular stimulus. It doesn't matter if the stimulus is fear-induced of interest-induced -- if it is too strong it will block out other thoughts. Some trainers appropriately call this "becoming blocked". The key it seems to all animal training is to begin training in an evironment that is condusive to learning. This often means in an environment where the animal is calm and comfortable. For dogs it can mean at home in the living room. For birds (who are highly reactive) it can mean around the saftely of their cage. For horses it can mean a familiar paddock close to home. Only when the training progresses can you ask for the same behaviour but in a slighlty more challenging environment.
Also one thing to be prepared for it a break down in the "quality" of the behaviour as the animal slowly becomes used to performing this familiar behviour in an unfamiliar environment.
Horse loading problems and solutions - an example of the issues talked about above
Lastly I want to finish of with an example that actually adresses the problems of dominance theory, reactiveness and clicker training versus bribery.
It was a situation that my friend and her horse were in -- a bit of a catch 22 in fact.
She wanted her horse to participate in the workshop. And it was a great learning experience for them both. But problems arose when trying to get the young stallion to load at the end of the workshop.
As far as he was concerned he had had a really long day and did not want to get into the scary trailer.
One lady was saying that it is normal for horses that have "lost a few points of the dominance scale" to try to act up and win back a couple of points. Although she is a brilliant and experienced horse person I am inclined to disagree here. I find that it is more of a case of learning-overload. I really don't think the young stallion was trying to "win points". It's more of a case that the stallion was reduced to a reactive state from the begining -- concentrating is actually very hard for animals and they can only do it for limited amounts of time.
He was responding well to the learnt tug-on-lead-rope means follow the pressure (i.e. we pull on lead rope and the horse follows). In an untrained state all animals (inclduing humans) will resist someone pulling on them -- this is called activating the "opposition reflex". This is also a "default" or "natural" behaviour i.e. a behaviour that the animal will go into when in a reactive state. Bolting is also a default behaviour that you don't need to train (as all horse owners know).
The problem we were facing was that his trained behaviour only held together as far as part of the way up the ramp. It fell apart when the proximity of the trailer scared him too much. Also a tug on his lead rope could trigger an opposition reflex and then a fight-or-flight reflex (also natural behaviour for a horse). The horse will of course choose to flee first being the prey animal that it is, and if this doesn't work it may choose to fight. The problem is when all these behaviours become the "norm" when loading -- you can actually unwittingly train your horse to present these behaviours.
On a better day and in a better place I believe training wise we should have called it a day. The problem was my poor friend had no choice -- she just HAD to get him home. And getting home meant getting him in the trailer.
We spent what was literally hours trying to get him to go in and by this time my friend and her horse were exhausted. Her horse was highly reactive and even though he occasionally had moments where he concentrated for long enough he had several occasions where he just "switched off" and bolted backwards.
In the end we did manage to bribe him with feed (only after having broken one halter) and that was only just. I was literally pushing food into his mouth whilest my friend closed the trailer behind him (most domesticated animals have learnt to associate food with calm and actually do calm down whilest they are eating). Eating almost seems to be a cue that "everything is ok". If a dog will take food or not is always a good measure as to how stressed they are in a stressful environment.
Thank goodness we got there in the end. Unfortunately this experience will not have taught the horse anything particularly good. By bribing him into coming into the trailer and standing still he never actually had time to think about his actions. The times he did think was just before he flung himself out backwards and into freedom, unfotunately not the best learning situation or result. I am not for bribing as it is very different to clicker training (some people confuse the two). You can use food as a "lure" in clicker training only if you fade out the lure quickly. But usually it is more effective to lure train using a target -- a non-food cue. (In target training you teach the animal to touch the presented object -- often the end of a stick -- this can then be used to show the animal where you want it to be heading).
What to do from here? Well preferably (since I am all for clicker training) I would choose to clicker train exercises that are useful in trailer loading. The nice thing is that you don't need a trailer for these (a problem for many that don't own trailers).
Now we need to state our problems and solutions:
So what is the problem?
- The horse does not like loading
(forget "he's trying to be dominant" -- just focus on the problem at hand)
What does a horse need to have learnt for it to load well?
(this is where we break down the complex behaviour of loading into small bits -- for that is exatly what loading is, a combination of several behaviours)
1) To walk forwards
2) To walk forwards up a leaning ramp (and not come in from the side)
3) To walk into a confined space and stand still
4) To stand still and be tied to a stationary object
5) To remained tied and still over a period of time despite a distracting/stressful environment (including closing the rear bar behind the horse and closing the door of the trailer)
6) To be untied and remain standing still (before backing out of the trailer so that the horse does not explode outwrads once it's learnt that it's "free")
7) To back up when asked
8) To back down slowly down a leaning ramp (and not step down sidewards)
9) To back up and stand still
With the nine points above in mind I hope you have now realised that loading is indeed a complex behaviour. With this in mind it is a wonder that some horses actually do learn to do all of the above without needing to be taught in small steps. But then again, this may be why trailer loading is such a common problem.
For the experienced horse trainer I am sure there are many many ways to teach each of these nice different things.
Teaching #1 is incredibly important. To move on to teaching #2 you could lay two poles on the ground and ask your horse to follow you inbetween them. You could start with the poles really far apart and then move them closee and closer together. If you have several poles you and your horse could practice moving thorough an "obstacle course". The nice thing is that this can then be expanded upon and you could lay these poles going up and down natural slopes in the terrain laying the foundation to going up and down ramps.
Another very clever way of teaching walking forwards in a controlled manner is teaching your horse to target. In this example the horse is taught to target cones on the ground -- the nice side effect of this is that the horse is taught to walk with his head lowered (a calm state). Touching cones or a target stick can be a fun "game" for your horse and also lets him concentrate on something familiar in an unfamiliar environment.
Before teaching a horse to enter into a trailer you have to remember to teach your horse to back up (#7 and #8) unless you have a trailer that is large enough to turn around in or you may spook your horse. Remember that the hard past about backing downwards is that the horse actually cannot see where he is placing his feet (try closing your eyes and backing down a slope -- scary huh?). A great way of teaching backing down is to use a natural downwards slope and some poles. First you ask your horse to back up inbetween two poles and then you ask him to back up inbetween two poles but down a slope . If you don't have a slope try to make a ramp.
Here's some great and hopefully inspring vidoes, good luck loading! (And if you have no idea what clicker training is I do hope you get to try this great way of teaching behaviour)
Source: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=C8CwMZukYsU
Source: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0i9OXec83GI
onsdag 20 augusti 2008
torsdag 14 augusti 2008
Article on how different training is required for different dogs
Great article commenting on how no one way of training is "right" or "wrong".
I have highlighted interesting stuff in red, with the blue text supporting/explaining info.
http://k9deb.com/positive.htmPositive, Negative, Neutral
There's a lot of talk these days about training styles and methods. I suppose there has always been talk about such stuff among dog people. I don't subscribe to any particular method or style, but I do have something to say about such stuff. Oh, you knew that. :)
I believe that whatever methods you use should be fair, humane and effective. Those are, of course, super-charged words and everyone's going to have their own definition. If you're in doubt about whether your methods meet even your own definitions, ask around. There is no shortage of people willing to voice their opinions on the subject. Ask your vet, groomer, best friend, and your Uncle Charlie what they think of your training style. They'll tell you. In cyberspace you can visit newsgroups, and e-mail lists. You'll get good advice, bad advice and you've-got-to-be-kidding! advice. Take what works for you and throw out the rest, but only after careful consideration.
When I was first learning about canine behavior and training I was adamant about not using food treats. No dog of mine was going to be bribed into doing what I said! It took me a lot longer to really evaluate the use of food (reward) as a training tool because I wouldn't even listen to arguments in favor of the practice. Being stubborn won't help your training skills evolve, being open to other ideas will.
I use methods and tools that are comfortable for me and those that complement my individual style of training. I start all dogs on a flat leather or nylon collar. If we need to graduate to something that allows more control, I use a martingale type collar or a Gentle Leader halter. I never use metal slip, or "choke" collars because I think they carry a higher than average risk of causing tracheal damage, it's difficult to get Mr. and Ms. JQP to use them properly, and, most importantly, I'm not comfortable with using them. The reason I don't use training type collars, as a rule, is that the primary difference between them and a regular flat collar is that they are designed to be corrective. I don't even think about correcting until after I'm sure the dog has learned what I set out to teach him. When we get to the point that the dog knows exactly what "sit" means, and chooses not to, then I might use a collar correction, but I find a leash pop on a flat collar gets their attention just fine.
I once worked with a 9 month old, 100 lb. AmStaff mix that was the happiest dog I've ever seen. Geez, was he happy. He also had no manners at all. None. And, he had the attention span of a potato bug. He was a confident, exuberant and extroverted dog. When he was on a flat collar and I was on the other end of the leash there was no learning going on. There was, however, a good possibility that I was going to be dragged down the street on my butt. He was food motivated, but he'd never learned how to learn, so he thought the name of the game was "Knock Debbie over, grab the food, lick her face in thanks". As I said, no learning was going on. Well, not the kind I wanted. A martingale collar would not have prevented him from dragging me all around town and he would have likely broken his neck on a halter, so I decided to use a prong collar. The prong collar calmed him down enough for me to get his attention and to teach him how to learn something new. I'm aware that this worked because it made it uncomfortable (painful?) for him fly to the end of the leash every few seconds. It was, however, a humane, ethical and fair way to get this dog under control long enough to teach him proper leash etiquette and for him to get the hang of learning, in general. The prong collar was replaced with his flat collar after his first lesson. Once he learned how to learn he caught on to new things fast and with enthusiasm and ended up being a very well behaved dog.
If you adjust your attitude and stance to the dog, and keep your tool box of techniques full, you'll do fine.
I recently worked with an adolescent, male Rottie. When he was off leash he was very dog friendly. When he was on leash he was a bozo-head. He was not fearful of other dogs and he was not what I would call dog aggressive. For dogs that are fear aggressive or overtly aggressive towards other dogs I use positive reinforcement to create a conditioned response to seeing another dog. For this dog I didn't think that was necessary. I felt he was just being a bozo-head. A quick pop on the leash (flat collar) combined with a sharp "cut it out!" caused him to sit and look at me with that goofy expression teenaged dogs often have. The one that says "Geez, sorry, lost my head for a moment -- you over it now?"
I am a strong believer in teaching the proper behavior using positive methods rather than using force and compulsion to eliminate undesirable behavior, but I also believe in tailoring the training to the dog. This dog already knew that calm behavior when on leash and around other dogs was rewarding, but he still had moments when liked to puff up his chest. For this particular dog, in this particular circumstance, a combination of knowing what behavior predicted a reward was combined with learning what behavior predicted punishment. I could have used more or better rewards to get him to always offer the correct behavior, but I didn't see the necessity of that. It didn't take beating him with a 2x4, or jerking him around on a training collar to get the idea across that belligerence towards other dogs was not nice. The punishment he did receive (pop on a flat collar, verbal "cut that out") was sufficient to get the message across. Fair, humane, effective.
Not long after that I was working with a Lab mix that would have collapsed into a pile of trembling dog flesh if I had used even the softest of collar corrections. Withholding of reward was the only punishment I used with her and she came around very nicely. Even a stern "no" would have not been a fair or humane way to communicate with that dog at that time. She couldn't cope. She now copes with life, in general, much better than she did before, but it still takes little more than eye contact to correct her.
There might be "one true way" to spiritual enlightenment, but there is no such road that leads to one "right" way to train a dog.
©Deb McKean 2000
deb@k9deb.com
Tug-of-war as a reinforcer
Playing a game of tug as a reinforcer:
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/727
(also myths pertaining to tug-of-war-games dispelled)
Excerpt from the intro:
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/727
(also myths pertaining to tug-of-war-games dispelled)
Excerpt from the intro:
Many dogs just love playing tug-of-war games. Of those who don't, most can be taught to play and end up loving it. If a dog loves doing something, what should a clicker trainer do with it? That's right, use it as a powerful reinforcer for other behaviors!
There are plenty of myths and old wives' tales surrounding tug games with dogs. Some people maintain that tug games encourage aggression, biting, and "dominance." While it is true that playing uncontrolled tug games can lead to behavior problems, the opposite is likely when you play controlled tug games.
Apart from being a powerful reinforcer, controlled tug games also exercise your dog's body and mind, teach some important foundation behaviors (self-control, holding, and letting go of objects in the mouth), and provide a fantastic outlet for the innate drives within your dog. When you learn how to teach and play tug games, you learn how to combine aspects of canine ethology and behaviorism in a practical and fun way!
General links
---
"Clicker training" for humans: TAGteach
"TAG is an acronym for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance. The focused, positive nature of this method yields immediate and stunning results that are clearly evident to teachers, students and parents."
http://www.tagteach.com/
---
Good general articles from positive reinforcement trainers:
http://www.shirleychong.com/index.html
http://www.k9deb.com/
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/
---
"Clicker training" for humans: TAGteach
"TAG is an acronym for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance. The focused, positive nature of this method yields immediate and stunning results that are clearly evident to teachers, students and parents."
http://www.tagteach.com/
---
Good general articles from positive reinforcement trainers:
http://www.shirleychong.com/index.html
http://www.k9deb.com/
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/
---
Excerpt from article "Understanding Prey Drive"
Here is an interesting article on prey drive from:
http://flyballdogs.com/prey_drive.html
It is written geared towards those interested in training their dogs for flyball (for those of you who do not know what it is it is a kind of doggie relay race with dogs where they run to step on a platform which in turn releases a ball, which the dog is to catch and return with)
My personal interest in this article is the prey focus I have noticed in Noch and what I can do to controll and encourage it to go in the direction I want (fetch for example) as opposed to in direction I don't want (chasing hares, birds, kids etc.)
I have highlighted things I personally find interesting and that I might be able to use in my training. Red is extra interesting and blue is information backing/explaining the text in red.
-------------
Understanding Prey Drive
by Kathryn Hogg, kjh@flyballdogs.com
Discussions on dealing with aggressive dogs usually turns in the direction of how to deal with these situations when they occur but should be directed to prevention. People speak of correction and control in training when they should speak of refocusing and promoting correct behavior. As a long term Flyball team member, captain of a consistent top ten team, owner of several successful Flyball dogs, and mostly as a professional trainer who has a large amount of experience in solving aggression cases; I am going to put my two cents in.
First of all, let's clarify prey-drive versus chase drive. A prey driven dog will chase with a great deal of focus on the object it is pursuing and a definite goal of attaining access to its target. A chase driven dog will also chase but usually not with the same intensity or absolute drive to reach its target as the end goal. Many of you have done chase games with both types of dogs. The prey driven dog will drive as hard as it can until it reaches you and when it does you or your toy usually gets hit like a ton of bricks. The chase driven dog can be somewhat frustrating as it will chase you, but not with the drive or intense targeting behavior of the prey driven dog. This dog will often pursue the handler in chase games, but will run on by and not follow through to actually catch the handler. The chase driven dog usually does not exhibit the sudden increased burst of speed that a prey driven dog will when the handler increases their speed. Unfortunately, either tendency can lead to dog chasing and/or aggression (more so in the prey driven dog).
Secondly, let's apply this to Flyball training. All are born with different levels of pre-dispositions towards movement fixation. The funny thing here is that the dogs with strong prey-drive can potentially be some of the best Flyball dogs. Dogs very much learn what to fixate on. Unfortunately, many dogs learn to fixate on other dogs very early in their training. Practices such as letting the dog watch, or tying them to walls during practices, or running with a pack too much early in their career can be a major culprit. It is a known fact that a restrained dog watching movement go by will usually begin to fixate on the moving object. Everyone in Flyball knows this or why else would we build speed and drive through "restraint" recalls. Eventually through frustration, the restrained observing dog may become aggressive towards the moving dog. When a dog does not know the game and is watching, the most interesting thing is the dogs running by. So, those leaping, barking restrained dogs are not keen to play the game, but are keen to chase the dogs. Therefore, we must make these tendencies work for us and not against us. Do not let green dogs spend their time learning to develop a moving dog fixation; and certainly do not let already problematic dogs feed their fixation. In order to do this you may loose ten pounds, but the bottom line is the handler needs to get physical. My basic rule with a new dog or an already problematic dog is he is always playing chase games with me when he is around moving dogs. If a pre-existing severe focus problem exists then we begin around one non-moving dog and gradually build up. The idea is to develop a mind-set in the dog that the movement going on around him is insignificant and never involves him, and that you are the only interesting target . This takes a great deal of effort on the owners part as it is physical, and hard work to run around focusing your dog on your movement only(Tug games are excellent for this). It is certainly much easier to establish in a new puppy with no pre-conceived ideas. It can be a bigger project when you are trying to solve a pre-existing problem, but it is do-able. I am not saying that you would not use correction at all, but it is much more reliable to have a dog with this altered owner driven mind set than to rely on a negative consequence to make the dog restrain himself. I am also concerned over comments that the dog prey drives to get the ball and brings it due to the control you have on him. What all the top teams know is that the retrieve of the ball is only an activity en route to the drive to pursue and catch the handler. If the chase or prey drive is harnessed toward the handler; the other movement around is of little interest to the dog. One last note on this issue; I do not use the rest of my pack to exercise a new puppy. I go out one-on-one and play all those fun doggy games with him. He will be with the pack or other dogs enough to be properly socialized, but the majority of play time is with me. As I stated at the beginning, dogs learn what is fun to focus on; make sure that it is you. By, the way; for those of you worrying about having enough time to treat a new dog as an individual, I recently raised #12 of a pack of 12.
A final word: There are many roads to the same destination, I have just outlined one of them. These ideas are meant for a dog who has chase or prey driven problems; not for dogs with generalized offensive or defensive dog aggression problems which would also present other factors to be dealt with. I hope this helps some of you, or at least gives you some food for thought.
http://flyballdogs.com/prey_drive.html
It is written geared towards those interested in training their dogs for flyball (for those of you who do not know what it is it is a kind of doggie relay race with dogs where they run to step on a platform which in turn releases a ball, which the dog is to catch and return with)
My personal interest in this article is the prey focus I have noticed in Noch and what I can do to controll and encourage it to go in the direction I want (fetch for example) as opposed to in direction I don't want (chasing hares, birds, kids etc.)
I have highlighted things I personally find interesting and that I might be able to use in my training. Red is extra interesting and blue is information backing/explaining the text in red.
-------------
Understanding Prey Drive
by Kathryn Hogg, kjh@flyballdogs.com
Discussions on dealing with aggressive dogs usually turns in the direction of how to deal with these situations when they occur but should be directed to prevention. People speak of correction and control in training when they should speak of refocusing and promoting correct behavior. As a long term Flyball team member, captain of a consistent top ten team, owner of several successful Flyball dogs, and mostly as a professional trainer who has a large amount of experience in solving aggression cases; I am going to put my two cents in.
First of all, let's clarify prey-drive versus chase drive. A prey driven dog will chase with a great deal of focus on the object it is pursuing and a definite goal of attaining access to its target. A chase driven dog will also chase but usually not with the same intensity or absolute drive to reach its target as the end goal. Many of you have done chase games with both types of dogs. The prey driven dog will drive as hard as it can until it reaches you and when it does you or your toy usually gets hit like a ton of bricks. The chase driven dog can be somewhat frustrating as it will chase you, but not with the drive or intense targeting behavior of the prey driven dog. This dog will often pursue the handler in chase games, but will run on by and not follow through to actually catch the handler. The chase driven dog usually does not exhibit the sudden increased burst of speed that a prey driven dog will when the handler increases their speed. Unfortunately, either tendency can lead to dog chasing and/or aggression (more so in the prey driven dog).
Secondly, let's apply this to Flyball training. All are born with different levels of pre-dispositions towards movement fixation. The funny thing here is that the dogs with strong prey-drive can potentially be some of the best Flyball dogs. Dogs very much learn what to fixate on. Unfortunately, many dogs learn to fixate on other dogs very early in their training. Practices such as letting the dog watch, or tying them to walls during practices, or running with a pack too much early in their career can be a major culprit. It is a known fact that a restrained dog watching movement go by will usually begin to fixate on the moving object. Everyone in Flyball knows this or why else would we build speed and drive through "restraint" recalls. Eventually through frustration, the restrained observing dog may become aggressive towards the moving dog. When a dog does not know the game and is watching, the most interesting thing is the dogs running by. So, those leaping, barking restrained dogs are not keen to play the game, but are keen to chase the dogs. Therefore, we must make these tendencies work for us and not against us. Do not let green dogs spend their time learning to develop a moving dog fixation; and certainly do not let already problematic dogs feed their fixation. In order to do this you may loose ten pounds, but the bottom line is the handler needs to get physical. My basic rule with a new dog or an already problematic dog is he is always playing chase games with me when he is around moving dogs. If a pre-existing severe focus problem exists then we begin around one non-moving dog and gradually build up. The idea is to develop a mind-set in the dog that the movement going on around him is insignificant and never involves him, and that you are the only interesting target . This takes a great deal of effort on the owners part as it is physical, and hard work to run around focusing your dog on your movement only(Tug games are excellent for this). It is certainly much easier to establish in a new puppy with no pre-conceived ideas. It can be a bigger project when you are trying to solve a pre-existing problem, but it is do-able. I am not saying that you would not use correction at all, but it is much more reliable to have a dog with this altered owner driven mind set than to rely on a negative consequence to make the dog restrain himself. I am also concerned over comments that the dog prey drives to get the ball and brings it due to the control you have on him. What all the top teams know is that the retrieve of the ball is only an activity en route to the drive to pursue and catch the handler. If the chase or prey drive is harnessed toward the handler; the other movement around is of little interest to the dog. One last note on this issue; I do not use the rest of my pack to exercise a new puppy. I go out one-on-one and play all those fun doggy games with him. He will be with the pack or other dogs enough to be properly socialized, but the majority of play time is with me. As I stated at the beginning, dogs learn what is fun to focus on; make sure that it is you. By, the way; for those of you worrying about having enough time to treat a new dog as an individual, I recently raised #12 of a pack of 12.
A final word: There are many roads to the same destination, I have just outlined one of them. These ideas are meant for a dog who has chase or prey driven problems; not for dogs with generalized offensive or defensive dog aggression problems which would also present other factors to be dealt with. I hope this helps some of you, or at least gives you some food for thought.
tisdag 1 juli 2008
Why clicker train? (for the skeptics)
This is a great article by a brilliant clicker trainer called Melissa Alexander. It doesn't go through what clicker training is, but it may well wet your appetite for more if you're skeptical about clicker training.
Source:
Clicker Solutions Training Articles
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002/skeptics.htm
For the Skeptics
As far as I know -- I admit I don't know a lot -- the studies you want haven't been done. There have been studies comparing reinforcement, punishment, and a combination of the two, but the studies didn't break reinforcement and punishment into positive and negative. (No, I don't have cites for those.)
I think however, the question is flawed. The definitions of R+, R-, P+, and P- are based on results. They say behavior increased or decreased. They don't say "a little bit," "a lot," "permanently," or "until something better comes along." All five parts of OC (including extinction) *work* by definition. Within reinforcement and punishment, every application -- positive and negative -- falls on a continuum from mild to severe, depending on the situation. Neither positive nor negative is innately "stronger" than the other.
So what you're asking about is reliability. Reliability is a number, pure and simple. One type of punishment or one type of reinforcement is not, by definition, more reliable than another. Reliability comes from application, from repetition, from a good solid training plan, and from a dedicated trainer.
The Baileys did not publish, as far as I know. However, in the nearly 50 years (15,000+ animals in nearly 150 species) that Animal Behavior Enterprises operated, the Brelands (and later the Baileys), who were scientists first, kept exhaustive records on each animal.
Though they were leaders in the push for humane treatment of animals, they were not guided by moral choices. They chose these methods because they gave them the results they needed in a timely manner. They chose them because they worked.
Many of those animals were for those "automated" exhibits they used to have at fairs -- "play tic tac toe against the chicken," for example. They also trained some pretty elaborate all-animal stage shows. However, not all of their work was commercial. Much of it was for the government. Beginning with the "pigeon-bombing project" of WWII through most of the Cold War, they had lots of interesting training challenges.
* They trained pigeons to go out ahead of troops in the jungle to search for ambushes.
.
* They trained ravens to fly, guided by a laser, into enemy territory at night, and once at the correct building to take a picture using a tiny camera around their neck and then return.
.
* They trained wild-caught, adult dolphins to do open-water work. Some of the tasks required the animals to be out for eight or more hours at a time -- and realize, the boats weren't with them. The boats just waited for the dolpins to do their task and return. Interestingly, their dolphins had faster return times than swimming out times. (Reinforcement is a powerful thing!) They never lost a dolphin. Once a storm forced them to abandon their dolphins for 36 hours. When they returned, the dolphins were still there, doing the default behavior they reliability!
.
* They trained dogs to detect mines and trip-wires and, more importantly, to prevent soldiers from tripping them.
.
* They trained house cats to "spy" on the enemy. Imagine being able to pop up suddenly in front of a cat and shoot a shotgun -- or being able to have a snarling lunging dog jump right in the cat's face -- and having the cat remain still. Those were requirements of those cats' training.
Distance work was a given. Wild-caught birds free flew for hours in a hundred-square-miles. Wild-caught dolphins swam -- alone -- four hours away from the boat. The cats were guided from great distances by sound.
Whether the project was commercial or for the government, the Baileys required reliability. Not kind of reliable. Not even most-of-the-time reliable. Reliable. They weren't going for scores or a ribbon. There were, in many cases quite literally, human lives relying on the reliability of these animals' behavior.
And the method they used was the same one we're using here. They used positive reinforcement, extinction, and occasional negative punishment. They used positive punishment only about a dozen times in 50 years and 15000 animals -- and those times were at the request of the client.
They didn't choose this method because it felt good. They chose it because it gave them the results they needed in the fastest time. They experimented to find the best way. Trial and error. But most importantly, they kept DATA -- gobs and gobs of scientific data -- and based their programs off of that. What they "felt" like they knew simply had no bearing. Only the numbers, only the results.
The method -- the same method we're using here today -- is the method they found worked best. And it worked for every individual in every species they trained. That, more than anything else, convinces me to stick with this training method.
Honestly, the whole argument is utterly irrelevant. The Baileys have proven it can be done. Period. What remains is whether an individual trainer is capable of doing it. I've seen reliable traditionally-trained dogs and unreliable ones. Reliable positively-trained dogs and unreliable ones. Good traditional trainers and poor ones. Good positive trainers and poor ones.
If they're interested, they'll check it out. If not, their minds are closed, and they won't listen to anything you say. Don't waste your breath. Just train your dog to a level of reliability that satisfies you.
Melissa Alexander
mca @ clickersolutions.com
copyright 2001 Melissa C. Alexander
Source:
Clicker Solutions Training Articles
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002/skeptics.htm
For the Skeptics
As far as I know -- I admit I don't know a lot -- the studies you want haven't been done. There have been studies comparing reinforcement, punishment, and a combination of the two, but the studies didn't break reinforcement and punishment into positive and negative. (No, I don't have cites for those.)
I think however, the question is flawed. The definitions of R+, R-, P+, and P- are based on results. They say behavior increased or decreased. They don't say "a little bit," "a lot," "permanently," or "until something better comes along." All five parts of OC (including extinction) *work* by definition. Within reinforcement and punishment, every application -- positive and negative -- falls on a continuum from mild to severe, depending on the situation. Neither positive nor negative is innately "stronger" than the other.
So what you're asking about is reliability. Reliability is a number, pure and simple. One type of punishment or one type of reinforcement is not, by definition, more reliable than another. Reliability comes from application, from repetition, from a good solid training plan, and from a dedicated trainer.
The Baileys did not publish, as far as I know. However, in the nearly 50 years (15,000+ animals in nearly 150 species) that Animal Behavior Enterprises operated, the Brelands (and later the Baileys), who were scientists first, kept exhaustive records on each animal.
Though they were leaders in the push for humane treatment of animals, they were not guided by moral choices. They chose these methods because they gave them the results they needed in a timely manner. They chose them because they worked.
Many of those animals were for those "automated" exhibits they used to have at fairs -- "play tic tac toe against the chicken," for example. They also trained some pretty elaborate all-animal stage shows. However, not all of their work was commercial. Much of it was for the government. Beginning with the "pigeon-bombing project" of WWII through most of the Cold War, they had lots of interesting training challenges.
* They trained pigeons to go out ahead of troops in the jungle to search for ambushes.
.
* They trained ravens to fly, guided by a laser, into enemy territory at night, and once at the correct building to take a picture using a tiny camera around their neck and then return.
.
* They trained wild-caught, adult dolphins to do open-water work. Some of the tasks required the animals to be out for eight or more hours at a time -- and realize, the boats weren't with them. The boats just waited for the dolpins to do their task and return. Interestingly, their dolphins had faster return times than swimming out times. (Reinforcement is a powerful thing!) They never lost a dolphin. Once a storm forced them to abandon their dolphins for 36 hours. When they returned, the dolphins were still there, doing the default behavior they reliability!
.
* They trained dogs to detect mines and trip-wires and, more importantly, to prevent soldiers from tripping them.
.
* They trained house cats to "spy" on the enemy. Imagine being able to pop up suddenly in front of a cat and shoot a shotgun -- or being able to have a snarling lunging dog jump right in the cat's face -- and having the cat remain still. Those were requirements of those cats' training.
Distance work was a given. Wild-caught birds free flew for hours in a hundred-square-miles. Wild-caught dolphins swam -- alone -- four hours away from the boat. The cats were guided from great distances by sound.
Whether the project was commercial or for the government, the Baileys required reliability. Not kind of reliable. Not even most-of-the-time reliable. Reliable. They weren't going for scores or a ribbon. There were, in many cases quite literally, human lives relying on the reliability of these animals' behavior.
And the method they used was the same one we're using here. They used positive reinforcement, extinction, and occasional negative punishment. They used positive punishment only about a dozen times in 50 years and 15000 animals -- and those times were at the request of the client.
They didn't choose this method because it felt good. They chose it because it gave them the results they needed in the fastest time. They experimented to find the best way. Trial and error. But most importantly, they kept DATA -- gobs and gobs of scientific data -- and based their programs off of that. What they "felt" like they knew simply had no bearing. Only the numbers, only the results.
The method -- the same method we're using here today -- is the method they found worked best. And it worked for every individual in every species they trained. That, more than anything else, convinces me to stick with this training method.
Honestly, the whole argument is utterly irrelevant. The Baileys have proven it can be done. Period. What remains is whether an individual trainer is capable of doing it. I've seen reliable traditionally-trained dogs and unreliable ones. Reliable positively-trained dogs and unreliable ones. Good traditional trainers and poor ones. Good positive trainers and poor ones.
If they're interested, they'll check it out. If not, their minds are closed, and they won't listen to anything you say. Don't waste your breath. Just train your dog to a level of reliability that satisfies you.
Melissa Alexander
mca @ clickersolutions.com
copyright 2001 Melissa C. Alexander
Intro till klickerträning (in swedish)
(från Agria Djurförsäkrings hemsida: http://www.agria.se/agria/index.nsf/LinkFrameSet?ReadForm&url=http://www.agria.se/Agria/text.nsf/id/1594)
Klickern - vägen till roligare träning
Klickerträning är numera en välkänd metod som hjälper till att höja motivationen för träning hos de allra flesta hundar! Här kan du läsa om grunderna för träningsmetoden.
Sedan början av 90-talet har klickerträningen blivit allt mer populär. Kännedomen och intresset har ökat lavinartat kanske mest tack vare amerikanskan Karen Pryor som har skrivit många böcker om just denna metod som tidigare mest användes vid delfinträning. Klickerträningen kan alltså inte ses som någon ny uppfinning då detta inlärningssätt varit känt sedan 30-talet.
Förstärkning av rätt beteende
Det finns egentligen inga gränser för vad du kan lära din hund med hjälp av en klicker. Det första du måste göra är att lära hunden att ”klick” betyder att det kommer en belöning. Ett klick kommer för hunden sedan betyda att just i det ögonblicket som du klickar gör den rätt och belöningen är på väg. Det är inte alls lika effektivt att använda rösten då vi på rösten kan ha olika tonlägen medan ett klick alltid låter likadant.
Rätt timing A och O
Det hela handlar om timing och att med klicket förstärka precis rätt ögonblick. Om du blir en duktig tränare så kommer din hund tycka att träningen är rolig och resultaten kommer då väldigt fort. Klickerträningen går att använda lika bra för lydnadsmoment som för att få bort oönskade beteenden, det är din fantasi som sätter gränserna.
Träning enbart i positiv anda
Med klickerträning arbetar du enbart i positiv anda. Det handlar om att förstärka ett korrekt beteende, inte att korrigera ett felaktigt beteende. En hund som klickertränas arbetar för att få belöningen, en hund som tränas med traditionella metoder arbetar ofta för att undvika obehaget av en korrigering.
Hunden blir aktiv
En annan fördel med klickerträningen är att hunden själv tar en aktiv del i träningsprocessen. Istället för att leda, rycka eller trycka på hunden för att visa vad den ska göra så får hunden själv räkna ut vad den ska göra för att få klicket och belöningen! En hund som inte är van vid denna typ av träning kan det i början gå lite trögt för eftersom den är van att bli visad till exakt vad den ska göra, men det kommer. Snart har du en mycket arbetsvillig hund.
Stort område
Klickerträning är ett oerhört stort område och det finns mycket bra böcker i ämnet. Innan du provar klickern på hunden bör du veta hur du ska göra. Sök på Internet, läs böcker eller varför inte gå en kurs. Dina tankar om hundträning kommer för alltid att vara förändrade!
Text: Sofie Lönn
Klickern - vägen till roligare träning
Klickerträning är numera en välkänd metod som hjälper till att höja motivationen för träning hos de allra flesta hundar! Här kan du läsa om grunderna för träningsmetoden.
Sedan början av 90-talet har klickerträningen blivit allt mer populär. Kännedomen och intresset har ökat lavinartat kanske mest tack vare amerikanskan Karen Pryor som har skrivit många böcker om just denna metod som tidigare mest användes vid delfinträning. Klickerträningen kan alltså inte ses som någon ny uppfinning då detta inlärningssätt varit känt sedan 30-talet.
Förstärkning av rätt beteende
Det finns egentligen inga gränser för vad du kan lära din hund med hjälp av en klicker. Det första du måste göra är att lära hunden att ”klick” betyder att det kommer en belöning. Ett klick kommer för hunden sedan betyda att just i det ögonblicket som du klickar gör den rätt och belöningen är på väg. Det är inte alls lika effektivt att använda rösten då vi på rösten kan ha olika tonlägen medan ett klick alltid låter likadant.
Rätt timing A och O
Det hela handlar om timing och att med klicket förstärka precis rätt ögonblick. Om du blir en duktig tränare så kommer din hund tycka att träningen är rolig och resultaten kommer då väldigt fort. Klickerträningen går att använda lika bra för lydnadsmoment som för att få bort oönskade beteenden, det är din fantasi som sätter gränserna.
Träning enbart i positiv anda
Med klickerträning arbetar du enbart i positiv anda. Det handlar om att förstärka ett korrekt beteende, inte att korrigera ett felaktigt beteende. En hund som klickertränas arbetar för att få belöningen, en hund som tränas med traditionella metoder arbetar ofta för att undvika obehaget av en korrigering.
Hunden blir aktiv
En annan fördel med klickerträningen är att hunden själv tar en aktiv del i träningsprocessen. Istället för att leda, rycka eller trycka på hunden för att visa vad den ska göra så får hunden själv räkna ut vad den ska göra för att få klicket och belöningen! En hund som inte är van vid denna typ av träning kan det i början gå lite trögt för eftersom den är van att bli visad till exakt vad den ska göra, men det kommer. Snart har du en mycket arbetsvillig hund.
Stort område
Klickerträning är ett oerhört stort område och det finns mycket bra böcker i ämnet. Innan du provar klickern på hunden bör du veta hur du ska göra. Sök på Internet, läs böcker eller varför inte gå en kurs. Dina tankar om hundträning kommer för alltid att vara förändrade!
Text: Sofie Lönn
torsdag 29 maj 2008
Clicker Training basics using a hand-shy bird as an example
This is my favourite video to show people if they don't understand or are new to the concept of clicker training. In short, clicker training is the use of a conditioned reinforcer to shape desired behaviour. A "conditioned reinforcer" is something that the animals find motivating (such as a toy or food) paired (by association) with some sort of signal, in this case clicker trainers use a little tool that gives off a clear "click" sound when a button is pressed.
The learning principals can be applied to any animal (see the TAGteach video at the bottom - more about TAgteach: http://www.tagteach.com/).
Clicker training is a great way of training! Not convinced? Well then, tell me a better way to train a cat or even a chicken?! (That's how I got convinced):
Cats (also great intro-to-clicker-training video):
Chickens (great intro to the mechanics of clicker training):
Chicken agility:
The learning principals can be applied to any animal (see the TAGteach video at the bottom - more about TAgteach: http://www.tagteach.com/).
Clicker training is a great way of training! Not convinced? Well then, tell me a better way to train a cat or even a chicken?! (That's how I got convinced):
Cats (also great intro-to-clicker-training video):
Chickens (great intro to the mechanics of clicker training):
Chicken agility:
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