Linn's blog on animal behaviour and training
I am enthusiastic in-my-spare-time positive reinforcement trainer (in my non-spare time I work with text, layout and illustration www.linnahlbom.com). I am also fascinated by animal behaviour in general and aim to collect some of my thoughts and findings here. The topics will range from wild animal behaviour to how to teach your dog things. Enjoy! Videos of my own training can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/wyvern10?gl=GB&hl=en-GB
torsdag 12 januari 2012
Semantics when it comes to teaching and training
Some great links about learning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_learning
http://www.thiagi.com/laws-of-learning.html
http://www.intropsych.com/ch08_animals/thorndikes_puzzle_box.html
onsdag 4 januari 2012
Proofing behaviour
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/2279
300 peck method
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1557
http://www.clickertraining.com/taxonomy/term/579/9
Why Placebos work:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128873886471982.html
One of the best sites about dominance I've seen
I appreciate how she commments on Ceasar Millan's TV Show clips alongside explaining alternative and better methods.
http://drsophiayin.com/philosophy/dominance/?%2Fdominance.php
Bonus:
Ian Dunbar on TED Talks!
"Ian Dunbar: Dog-friendly dog training"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GOW0IKO_zfM#!
Other fun stuff:
"David Sobel -- New England Aquarium Lecture Series"
Climate Change Meets Ecophobia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzQbuLID7Hw
söndag 30 oktober 2011
Interesting podcasts! Clarifying what clicker training is.
"Karen Reads from Reaching the Animal Mind"
with Karen Pryor.
Link to intro page:
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/2285
Link to actual podcast:
http://www.clickertraining.com/files/KPCT_PC_0908_communication.mp3
"Are You Clicker Training, or Training with a Clicker?"
with Kathy Sdao.
Link to intro page:
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1968
The actual podcast:
http://www.clickertraining.com/files/CT_or_TwC_0.mp3
lördag 15 oktober 2011
Lots of great stuff (counter conditioning and obsolete dominance training)
http://animal.discovery.com/videos/its-me-or-dog-top-tips/
Sophia Yin – excellnt explanation of how counter conditioning works! A concept that has taken me time to understand fully:
http://youtu.be/sI13v9JgJu0
lördag 17 september 2011
Lumpfish training
New Wngland Aquarium blogs:
http://www.neaq.org/education_and_activities/blogs_webcams_videos_and_more/index.php
lördag 3 september 2011
Book tip of the day - Barbera Handelman, Canine Behaviour
Barbera Handelman "Canine Behaviour - A Photo Illustrated Handbook"
http://www.dogwise.com/SearchResults.cfm?Search=Barbara%20Handelman&SubSearch=author
It is filled with great images that are a mix of photos of domesticated dogs interacting and wolfs interacting. Se this example below of "obnoxious submission" (read more about it on her blog):
Link to her blog:
http://woofandwordpress.com/blog/?page_id=2
söndag 12 juni 2011
Do I have bad leadership when training my dog?
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1104
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/324
Dog can decipher different recorded growls
http://www.livescience.com/6236-grrrr-means-dog-speak.html
Yet another article supporting the fact that dominance-based training can lead to aggression
http://www.livescience.com/3341-growling-dog-won-work.html
"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.""
lördag 11 juni 2011
Platform training for positions!
http://www.youtube.com/user/keikocdf#p/u/0/LNgFrQlKUxw
söndag 29 maj 2011
Shaping crows for the good of all mankind!
fredag 27 maj 2011
Varför skvallerträning funkar (why the "look at that" game really works)
Jag mÅSTE bara ha ekonomi att träna med en riktig klickerinstruktör snart!
Anti-vilt träning:
http://www.klickersmart.se/2011/04/19/inlarning-av-leken-ga-och-nosa-och-kom-tillbaka/
Kannonbra exempel av skvallerträning, hur det egentligen går till:
http://www.klickersmart.se/2011/04/25/titta-pa-grannen-inte-jaga/
Och här är en jättebra förklaring om känslor och varför skvallerträning funkar så bra!
http://fjodorochvixhen.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/forebygga-eller-atgarda/
Oerhört välskrivet:
"Ta exempel med hundar som är osäkra på andra hundar på promenaden och gör utfall. Utfall är beteendet som man vill få bort. Det första man gör då är att ändra hundens känsla för att se andra hundar genom klassisk betingning. Först när hunden har ändrat sin känsla går vi över på det operanta och vill ha ett beteende (fokus på föraren, sitt eller vad man vill) som vi kan förstärka. Men det går inge bra alls om vi hoppar över den klassiska betingningen och går för fort fram. Jag tror nog samma gäller med ljudande. Det gäller att i första hand ändra känslan hos hunden, sen arbeta med beteendet."
onsdag 25 maj 2011
Today I found these new great everyday-manners-exercises that I want to try
"Teaching You Puppy Impulse Control"
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/3263
"Dogs Like Kids They Feel Safe With"
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/3262
And then I also read:
"Tips for Preventing Dog Bites"
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/3261
... that had this incredibly important piece of advice:
"Train the dog — Take your dog to obedience classes where positive reinforcement is used. Never pin, shake, choke, hold the dog down, or roll the dog over to teach it a lesson. Dogs treated this way are likely to turn their aggression on weaker family members."
fredag 20 maj 2011
Dog claw/nail trim, good photos
They also show the grey oval that appears in a good cut in a black coloured nail (my dog unfortunately has black nails on all his paws).
http://www.pawsdogdaycare.com/dog_grooming/Clip-Dog-Nails.htm
How I cut my dog's nails using positive reinforcement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcx-HG7kaGU
söndag 21 november 2010
Saint Bernard story
A good laugh too(!)
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/2190
lördag 2 oktober 2010
Thinking about end results
http://www.birdtricks.com/blog/i-broke-my-own-rule/
fredag 17 september 2010
onsdag 7 juli 2010
Susan Garett -- tips for a great recall
I thought this was a great training tip!
It's about one of the first steps to getting your dog to recall even if it sees a squirrel.
One of the steps on the way is to recall even if running at top speed with other dogs. Clever thinking I thought!
måndag 14 juni 2010
Email I got about how to potty train your parrot by Chet Womach from birdtricks.com
How To Potty Train Your Parrot
Today I wanted to share with you a short and sweet lesson
sent in from one of my clients where she describes how she
potty trained your parrot to ONLY poop in designated
areas...
Kind of like a cat who only poops in it's litter box.
Here's her story...
Our parrot would poop on the floor when we have breakfast
with her in the morning. Yes, she sits at the table with us.
So we paper trained her.
We use a white paper towel. We realized she poops about 20
minutes into breakfast time so we put a white paper towel on
the floor where she tends to poop. If she wandered from that
site we would move it to where she was when she looks like
she is about to poop. She goes to the edge of the table. We
quickly moved it to be under her and success. After she was
successful…we would applaud her success. Within a few days
she would go to where we placed the paper on the floor and
aim for the paper. We still continue to applaud her success.
Be sure to pick something you can always use. Since she is a
little messy when she eats at the table we usually have a
blue towel under her plate.
Well, one day my husband wanted to use a paper towel so he
could throw it away. Well, you guessed it…she would not go
near her dish placed in the middle of the white paper towel.
I quickly realized what he had done and changed it to the
blue towel. She immediately went to her dish. So be sure you
use something that can always be used as her poop target.
Esta Kronberg
> My Comments: First off, let me just give a BIG thank you
to Esta for sending in this story and GOOD job on what
you've accomplished.
Secondly I just want to point out something...
Esta mentioned that her bird would NOT poop on the *NEW*
towel when it was changed.
I hear this a LOT from customers and have even heard how
some birds can be so well trained they will injure
themselves holding their poop in because they're trained to
only go in one spot so well they simply refuse to poop
elsewhere.
So keep that little safety tip in mind.
Hope this helps you keep a cleaner home and do less laundry
;-)
Chet
P.S. I currently am giving away a free eBook bonus, "How To
Potty Train Your Parrot" to anyone who orders a copy of my
Taming Training & Tricks course.
So if potty training is something you'd REALLY like to get a
handle on then you can learn more about that program here:
birdtricks.com
fredag 21 maj 2010
torsdag 20 maj 2010
Capuchin monkeys and tool usage
from:
BBC documentary "Capuchins: The Monkey Puzzle"
More information:
http://www.bucknell.edu/x30370.xml
lördag 15 maj 2010
söndag 21 februari 2010
Bonobo chimps will actively choose to share food
måndag 11 januari 2010
Article about the power of first experiences
Heartbreak and Home Runs: The Power of First Experiences
By caralynnCreated Dec 28 2009 - 12:35pmPatricia was a 15-year-old high school cheerleader in her 10th year of Catholic school.
Chuck was a basketball star, a senior from the rough side of town.
One night after a high school mixer where everyone danced to jukebox music, Chuck and a friend offered Patricia a ride home. Chuck held Patricia's hand in the back seat, and when they got to her house, he walked her to the door. "Then he put both arms around me and kissed me gently on the lips," recalls Patricia. "I thought for a fleeting moment that I was floating with angels in heaven."
The next instant, their bubble was burst when Patricia's father turned on the porch light.
"It was 49 years ago and I still remember nearly all the details," says Patricia. "I was suddenly desirable," she explains. "I was kissworthy—and oh my goodness, that was enough self-esteem to propel me into a lifetime of feeling good about myself."
Love & Sex
Beginning in our late teenage years and early 20s, we develop and internalize a broad, autobiographical narrative about our lives, spelling out who we were, are, and might be in the future, says Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern and author of The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By. The story is peppered with key scenes—high points, low points, and turning points—and a first experience can be any of these. "These experiences give us natural ways to divide up the stories of our lives—episodic markers that help us make sense of how our life has developed over time," McAdams explains.
Part of why firsts affect us so powerfully is that they're seared into our psyches with a vividness and clarity that doesn't fade as other memories do. You may not remember the 4th real kiss you ever had, or the 20th—but you almost certainly remember your first. This is known as the primacy effect.
When people are asked to recall memories from college, 25 percent of what they come up with draws from the first two or three months of their freshman year, says David Pillemer, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire. What people remember most vividly are events like saying goodbye to their parents, meeting their roommates for the first time, and their first college class. In fact, when psychologists ask older people to recall the events of their lives, the ones they most often name are those that occurred in their late teens and early 20s. We're also better at recalling the world events, music, books, and movies—as well as the cultural events such as the Academy Awards or the World Series—that happened during the early parts of our lives. This "early-life memory bump" occurs because that's when we have the most first experiences, explains Jefferson Singer, a psychologist at Connecticut College who studies autobiographical memory.
Consider a first kiss or sexual encounter. These can generate sensations so new and unfamiliar that the experience feels almost unreal. "Someone can be a primitive neophyte when it comes to writing, but when you get them to talk about their first kiss, you see eloquence, poetry, metaphor, synecdoche, and hyperbole," says John Bohannon III, a psychologist at Butler University who studies first kisses. That sensation of disembodiment—pleasurable during a kiss, aversive when you first suffer the death of a loved one—is common in first experiences, as are feelings of heightened reality or unreality.
Intense emotional sensations etch first experiences deeply into memory, creating what psychologists call "flashbulb memories." Memories like our first kiss or tryst, our first glimpse of the ocean, our first day of school, or the birth of a first child engage all our senses simultaneously.
Besides emotional engagement, these experiences also pack a heavy dose of novelty. "Novelty drives up dopamine and norepinephrine, brain systems associated with focus and paying attention and rewards," explains anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of Why Him? Why Her?
A first romantic relationship has one critical novel element: "It's the only time you're ever in love where you've never had your heart broken," says Laura Carpenter, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University and author of Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences. "You can have better relationships after that, but there's never again one where you've never been hurt ."
"Powerful first relationships can stamp a template in your mind that gets activated in later interactions,"says Susan Andersen, a psychologist at NYU who studies mental representations of significant others. If you meet someone who reminds you even a little of an ex—whether it's a physical resemblance or a similarity in attitudes, gestures, voice, word choice, or interests—it may engage the representation you have in your memory, says Andersen. The effect is called transference. And since your first love, by virtue of its novelty and emotional significance, is potentially your most salient, it may well be the representation that's summoned when you meet someone new, forging the lens through which you see new relationships.
It's not just a person's qualities that get transferred in your mind—your old feelings, motivations, and expectations are also reactivated. If someone new reminds you of an ex you still love, Andersen's studies show, you'll like that new person more, want to be close to them, and even start repeating the behaviors you engaged in with your ex. "The behaviors I'm engaging in will lead this new person, temporarily at least, to actually confirm my expectations," says Andersen. "By interacting in a particular way, I will draw out of this new person behaviors my ex used to engage in. That's expectation becoming reality."
Loss
In Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, the tormented antihero Humbert Humbert describes Annabel, a childhood neighbor who loves him passionately for one summer, then dies of typhus. "I leaf again and again through these miserable memories," writes Humbert, "and keep asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the rift in my life began?"
First loss differs qualitatively from later losses because it submerges us in the icy reality that we're in constant danger of losing the people we love most—a concept we grasp intellectually at a certain age, but which doesn't feel real until it actually happens to us.
"We're wired for attachment in a world of impermanence," says Robert Neimeyer, a psychologist at the University of Memphis who studies how people draw meaning from loss and grief. "How we negotiate that tension shapes who we become."
Early loss can poison your ability to trust or feel safe, or give yourself fully in subsequent relationships, explains Singer. There's a strong link between early loss and depression, and early loss is also associated with diminished ability to form later attachments.
But many people find that after surviving a painful loss, they emerge more resilient. Optimistic people take loss better than less optimistic people, as do people who grow up with strong, secure attachment to their caregivers.
But the biggest predictor of resilience in the face of loss is "sense-making," weaving the experience into a larger narrative about who we are and what our lives are about, says Mary-Frances O'Connor, a behavioral scientist at UCLA who studies grief. Robert Neimeyer's father committed suicide when Robert was a child, for instance, and he dedicated his life to studying how people draw meaning from grief.
People struck by loss or trauma at an early age—such as victims of crime or abuse—are at risk of drawing unwarranted conclusions about the world and their own place in it. Maybe your first boyfriend abused you. You may mistakenly infer that you're not careful enough—when the truth is that it could have happened to anybody.
That's the catch with first experiences. Because they're memorable, they come readily to mind and we overgeneralize when drawing conclusions about what kind of person we are. Positive first experiences can inspire us for a lifetime, but negative ones can be hard to get past.
So if you're overly focused on a negative event as a turning point in your life, ask yourself: Is what happened truly a reflection of who you are? Or would others have made the same choices given the same circumstances? "In repeated experiences, we understand the situational factors outside ourselves," says Singer. "But the first time, we don't have the context, so we're more likely to see it as a reflection on our own character."
Lies
Two women recounted the story of their first lie to Bella DePaulo, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara who studies deception. The first one told a story about how she wanted to go out one night as a child but was barred from doing so by her father. So she went anyway and lied to him about where she'd been. When he cluelessly swallowed the whole story, she realized she had a new talent. She lied freely from that moment on.
The other woman told a story about how, as a girl, she was very curious about her sister's boyfriend. One night she snuck into a room with a phone extension and listened in on their conversation. When her father walked in and caught her in flagrante delicto, she panicked, blurting, "I was just cleaning the phone!" Guilt-stricken over the lie, she immediately confessed and apologized, resolving never to lie again.
A first lie crosses a line. You recognize a capacity you didn't realize you had. For the extremely honest or the extremely dishonest, the lie may reveal character: a decision never to repeat the act, or the realization that this is a new way to behave. But for many people between these two poles, the consequences of a first lie depend on one's reaction to it, says DePaulo. If we do something we shouldn't—say, shoplifting—and get caught and punished, we're likely to internalize the lesson that stealing is wrong, incorporating it into our value system. But if no one finds out, we may decide it's no big deal.
"First experiences tell you something about yourself and what you're like in a new situation," explains DePaulo. "It's testing the social environment and seeing how other people react, but it's also testing who you are, how you think of yourself, and whether you want to be that person."
If you get a thrill out of lying, it's easier to cross that line the next time.
"It's called the abstinence violation effect," explains Singer. "If I'm willing to make that first slip, then what's the point in holding on? Now that I'm now no longer a dieter, I might as well have another cookie." The principle applies not only to straying from a diet but also to major transgressions. If you're a soldier, your first kill may force you to reflect on death and morality. But killing someone may not feel like such a big deal the second time around.
With transgressions, as with other first experiences, it's important to remember that one action doesn't define you. "When counselors treat addicts who have fallen off the wagon, they tell them, 'Look, you haven't relapsed, you've had a slip,'" explains Singer. "If you use the fallacy of saying, 'Oh, well, it's over now,' then you can easily rationalize taking the next drink and the next and the next and it will be a relapse. But a slip can be corrected."
Success
In 1982, before Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan, he was a student at the University of North Carolina. He played good basketball, but as a 19-year-old freshman, he was constantly overshadowed by upperclassmen. When North Carolina entered the NCAA championship game against Georgetown, though, something changed in Jordan's play. In the first three quarters of the game, he scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
It wasn't enough. Georgetown, led by freshman superstar and future NBA powerhouse Patrick Ewing, was winning 62 to 61, with only 17 seconds left in the game. Then, when it looked like the game was over, Jordan made one of the most famous shots in basketball history: a 16-foot jump shot that won the game and earned North Carolina the championship.
That first game-winning shot was a turning point, Jordan recalled in later years. It gave him the confidence that he could come through in a clutch. For the rest of his career, especially when he needed to muster the intense concentration and Zen calm necessary to shoot free throws, he would summon up that moment to bring him into a winning state of mind. "He used that shot, performing in that pressure situation, as the foundation for his confidence in taking other big shots," says Richard Ginsburg, an athletic coach and author of Whose Game Is It, Anyway? "He'd tell himself, 'I've done this before, I can do it again.'"
Game-winning shots and home runs—as well as the times you ace an exam, nail a job interview, or win a standing ovation—provide potent fodder for your sense of identity as a successful person. "You think, 'I succeeded in this clutch situation, now I know I'm a clutch player,'" explains Singer. "It's revealing something in your character that wasn't clear before, telling you, 'This is something I can do. This is who I am.'"
"I remember the time I first won a tennis match against my father," says Tim Gallwey, author of the classic book The Inner Game of Tennis. Gallwey's father had promised him a new racket if he won. Gallwey was 13 at the time, and had been playing in state tournaments. During the match, he was torn between wanting to win a new racket and not wanting to beat his father. When he won, he felt regret and compassion for his dad, who'd just been defeated by his own son, but was also elated by victory, glowing with a sense that his abilities had reached a new height. "That sense of self-worth is very precious," says Gallwey.
Of course, first failures can be as memorable as first successes. If you flunk a test or miss an easy pop fly, you may start to feel like a loser. And failure is always a possibility. But what separates world-class performers from the rest of us is the ability to put negative experiences behind them (see "Getting Past the Past" below).
"Once you can see yourself doing something—once you can experience it and feel what it's like—it changes you,"explains Ginsburg. "The best performers are good at forgiving themselves, dropping failure from their mental bandwidth quickly so that they can focus on the positive." If you can do that, you may strike out many times, but you'll always be the person who hit that grand slam—which in turn will breed further success.
First successes often take the form of "redemption sequences," wherein a bad event suddenly turns good, says McAdams—like when you defy the odds in a basketball game you're losing by sinking a winning buzzer-beater with seconds left on the clock. "The construction of redemption sequences in life is a very common narrative strategy," he adds, "and one that seems to bring with it a certain sense of resilience."
A single win may not be sufficient to boost your confidence permanently. True confidence comes from the gradual accumulation of self-efficacy over a long period of successes. But a dramatic first triumph can inspire and motivate you and transform your self-conception from "I'm a loser" to "I'm the kind of person who hits grand slams."
And a first success can also uncover abilities you didn't realize you had. Days before he died, I interviewed George Carlin. Toward the end of our conversation, I asked him about the first time he made his mother laugh.
"I noticed the moment something had happened," Carlin immediately recalled. "This was when Iwas very young. My mother laughed fairly frequently. But I knew the difference between her social laugh and her really spontaneous laugh when she was caught off guard and amused—I saw that in her and it registered with me. It meant Ihad said something witty. It was a little mark along the way, a little badge of honor." —Jay Dixit
Setup For a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Expectations about how an experience "should" feel can prime you for a lifetime of disappointment.
A negative first relationship can doom people to get trapped over and over again in self-destructive relationships. The reverse effect applies also. If your first relationship is healthy and positive, you may expect new people to be similarly friendly and safe—causing you to feel fondly, disclose your emotions, and build intimacy with that new person.
Losing one's virginity is an experience often subject to self-fulfilling expectations. People who consider their first sexual encounter to be a momentous turning point and find that it is indeed positive tend to wait for another loving relationship before they have sex again, says Laura Carpenter, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University and author of Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences. But if they're rejected by their partner, such people feel worthless—as if they've lost a special part of themselves. "A number of them felt they didn't have the right to say no to future sexual partners because they were already 'soiled' and 'ruined,'" says Carpenter. "They get involved in relationships they don't want and feel they have to have sex because they've already had sex. It's a spiral."
As with other first experiences, the loss of virginity can be a rite of passage—an irreversible transition from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge. "Like a teen-ager learning to drive or a surgeon mastering her craft, you're knifing off the old self and building this new self," says Carpenter. "Whether it's what sex is about, a body of knowledge about religious mysteries, or medical skills, you've gained this special knowledge and you can never go back."
Getting Past The Past
You can't change the past, but you can look at it differently. Here's how.
Make a choice. Decide to stop dwelling, suggests Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. List the pros and cons of dwelling—an exercise that will feel absurd, since cons will vastly exceed the pros. Say to yourself, "I know it's hard, but I choose to move forward."
Contain your rumination. Schedule limited blocks of time to wallow—say, 15 minutes twice a day. You're compartmentalizing your grief—and you'll soon get bored of it and move on.
Do a reality check. Maybe you find yourself thinking, "I'll never be happy again." Stop. True, nothing will ever be exactly the same. But there's no reason you can't find happiness in the present and future, with new people and new experiences.
Do not confuse the path with the destination. Maybe you lost a youthful love and can't let go. Maybe you got fired and you feel like a failure. Clarify your values—creativity? Love? Recognize that you don't need that particular job to do creative work. You don't need that particular partner to have a loving relationship. Continue on your path.
Get present. Join a gym, take up a hobby, find a cause, and schedule time with friends. "The best way to break free of living in the past is to get focused on the present and the future," says psychologist Jefferson Singer. "Take risks and do concrete things to create new experiences for yourself in the here and now."
Highlights:How early life experiences shape our character.
Author:Jay Dixit [1]From winning the science fair to losing a first boyfriend, certain youthful experiences cast a long shadow, revealing character and at times actually shaping it.
Copyright Year:2009Magazine Issue:January 2010 [2]Publication Date:January 1, 2010Editors Pick:0Editors PickExclude From Most Popular:Included in most popularSyndicate:Available for syndicationPrimary WebMD XPG:1687: erectile dysfunctionSecondary WebMD XPG:7007: grief
- Relationships
- angels in heaven
- autobiographical narrative
- back seat
- basketball star
- catholic school
- clarity
- first experience
- fleeting moment
- freshman year
- high school cheerleader
- mixer
- oh my goodness
- porch light
- primacy effect
- psyches
- psychologist
- rough side
- teenage years
- univer
- vividness
- Psychology Today Magazine
- Feature Article
Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/36390Links:
[1] http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/authors/jay-dixit
[2] http://www.psychologytoday.com/magazine/archive/2010/01
lördag 29 augusti 2009
Djuren som blir vår mat smartare än vad vi trott
FOTO: LARS PEHRSSON
Djuren som blir vår mat smartare än vad vi trott
Publicerad: 3 augusti 2009, 04.55. Senast ändrad: 3 augusti 2009, 07.22
Får som klarar labyrinter och minns ansikten i åratal, grisar som spelar TV-spel och kor som oroar sig för framtiden. De senaste årens forskning avslöjar att djuren vi äter upp är mycket smartare än vad vi förstått.
Kalle sveper rutinerat mellan slalomkäpparna, sedan lyfter han framklöven på kommando och viftar glatt på svansen när han får beröm.
– Han kan lära sig all dressyr precis lika bra som en hund. Han är jätteduktig, säger matte, Katarina Lingehag Ekholm och kliar det femåriga Gutefåret bakom örat vilket får kompisen Snäckan att bräka lite avundsjukt.
Sedan visar Kalle och Snäckan att de kan dansa runt och därefter lydigt stiga i och ur en krubba.
Katarina Lingehag Ekholm på Framnäs gård utanför Trelleborg var van vid att dressera hundar och en dag fick hon för sig att använda samma klicker-teknik på fåren. Framgångarna lät inte vänta på sig och mest lättlärd av alla var Kalle.
Hon berättar att Kalle kan göra pyramiden också, men att han nu blivit så tung att det inte är bra för ryggen för fåret som han kliver upp på.
– Jag tror att alla får kan lära sig detta. De är väldigt läraktiga om man ger dem tid och uppmärksamhet. Men det gör ju nästan ingen. Jag möter till och med uppfödare som säger att fåren är så dumma att de bara duger att slå ihjäl. Det gör mig vansinnig. Då har de ju inte alls förstått sig på de här djuren, säger hon.
Keith Kendrick är professor i neurobiologi vid universitetet i Cambridge och en av de forskare som mest bidragit till att omvärdera vår syn på husdjurens hjärnkapacitet.
Bland de överraskande fynden finns att grisar tycker om att spela TV-spel och att kor gillar att lösa intellektuella problem.
– Vill vi egentligen veta om grisar gillar att spela TV-spel? Nej, anledning till den här forskningen är att de här djurens hjärnor till stor del liknar våra. Genom att studera fårskallar förstår vi mycket bättre hur människans hjärna fungerar, förklarar Keith Kendrick.
TV-spelet var visserligen enkelt, och "rätt" val med joysticken belönades med godis, men grisarna fattade - och gillade - vad spelet gick ut på.
Hjärnor hos människor och djur är strukturerade på ett väldigt likartat sätt och därmed kan storleken på olika områden antyda styrkan hos olika förmågor. Människans förmåga att medvetet känna igen sin omgivning använder, enligt Kendrick, exakt samma system som finns i fårens hjärnor.
Han tycker att det är en poäng att man studerat fåret, som i alla tider ansetts vara ett av de dummaste djuren.
– Vi har visat att det rör sig om intelligenta och kännande varelser med ett rikt socialt liv. Om nu fåren är så här smarta, hur intelligenta är då de andra djuren?
Keith Kendrick svarar själv att det inte råder någon tvekan om att vi kraftigt underskattat den mentala förmågan hos de djur vi föder upp för att äta.
– Jag tvivlar på att folk i allmänhet har en aning om hur mentalt avancerade kor, får och grisar är.
Kendricks forskning visar att får har en enastående förmåga att minnas ansikten och att deras sätt att fånga upp olika typer av känslosignaler starkt påminner om vårt.
När fåren fick se bilder på andra okända får kunde de minnas mer än 50 ansikten efter så lång tid som två år.
Enligt Kendrick vet forskarna inte var fårens maxkapacitet finns. Det finns mängder med historier om hur får efter många år springer fram och hälsar på människor som de mött tidigare och tyckt om. De kan se skillnad på ansiktsuttryck och gillar glada människor men backar för dem som är sura. Fåren kan också knyta livslånga vänskapsband med andra individer i fårhjorden.
Kor, hästar och getter har troligen ungefär samma förmåga att minnas ansikten som fåren.
– Alla dessa arter är intelligenta och ganska lika oss. Det betyder inte att de är exakt lika oss. De kommer inte att sitta och spela schack eller uppfinna bilar. Men vi måste vänja oss vid tanken att de har ett medvetande och kan minnas enskilda individer långt tillbaka. Det är också fullt möjligt att de kan sakna någon eller känna medlidande.
Keith Kendrick vill ändå inte kategoriskt avråda människor från att äta kött.
– Alla måste göra sin egen bedömning. För mig är det viktigaste hur den här insikten om att djuren har ett komplext känsloliv påverkar hur vi behandlar dem. Om vi vet att de kan känna lidande, vilken betydelse får det för hur vi föder upp, transporterar och slaktar dem?
onsdag 29 juli 2009
onsdag 17 juni 2009
Two excellent articles about building play drive in dog training
by Fanny Gott on her blog on April 3.
http://www.fannygott.com/increasing-play-drive-in-your-dog#comment-3723
Thanks to the very reinforcing comment from Russia in the last blog post, I decided to translate my latest Swedish blog post into English for my foreign readers. It’s about developing your dog’s love of tugging:
As we are seeing a lot of new students right now, we talk a lot about developing rewards and mainly tugging. It’s very hard to train a dog without rewards and we feel that you need more than one good reward. With our own dogs, we focus a lot on developing both food and play as a reward. This is something that we also want to share with our students. Food is a really good reinforcer if you want to give many rewards in a short period of time, maybe without dog breaking it’s position at all. Food is also often calming and is appropriate when teaching precision. Play is a good reinforcer when you want speed and intensity, or if you want to throw the reward a long way. Play increases arousal in the dog and brings out new sides to the dog compared to food. It’s therefore a great advantage to be able to switch between food and play depending on where you want to go with your training.
We often prefer tugging to chasing a toy, but often use both in combination. If the dog likes to chase a toy, but won’t tug, we try to develop the dog’s love for tugging so that the dog wants to end the chasing by grabbing, pulling and winning. At many times, we want the dog to grab the toy immediatly when it’s presented (or when the dog is cued to ”get it”). It could be because we want the dog to drive straight to the handler after a turn on the agility course, or to get full speed and focus towards the handlers left side on a recall. Games of chasing, where a toy is dragged on the ground by a piece of rope, can be a really good reinforcer in other situations, mainly as a jackpot for focus and endurance. But even then, the intensity and joy will be better if the dog really wants to grab the toy.
Not all dogs do automatically like a game of tug. It’s a reward that needs to be developed in many dogs. Our opinion is that it always is worth to teach the dog to play if you want to get the most out of the dog you have. The dog might not have to enjoy tugging as much as food, but he should play with high intensity when we present a toy. For some dogs, tugging will be the ”motor” in training, the thing that makes training worth while for the dog. For other dogs, food will be the ”motor”, but they can still learn to really engage in tugging between food rewards, so that you’re able to gain from all the great things that come with tugging. And with time and good training, the dog’s priorities might change.
Shejpa was a dog that often would not tug. Not while food was around, not out doors, not if she wasn’t in the mood… I worked a lot with her tugging and it’s really good now. I can use 90 percent tugging in training (but she still needs that occational chicken neck to keep the engine running) and most of the time, you can’t tell that it’s a ”trained” tug. I’m convinced that she wouldn’t run half as fast if I didn’t use tugging in training. I can also see how tugging is getting more and more reinforcing for her, that she really does enjoy it more and more.
When developing our young dogs, we always have a goal in the back of our heads. We want the dog to grab the toy immediatly when it’s presented (or cued), tug intensly with weight shift and a straight top line (from head to tail). We want to be able to be passive (moving equipment around, talking to the instructor or student, filling up with more treats) and still have the dog tugging on the toy. If we tell the dog to ”out”, we want the dog to drop the toy. If we throw a toy or let the dog win while tugging, we want the dog to come right into us and deliver it to hand (we use a hand touch for this). At the same time, we want the dog to have fun and find tugging reinforcing.
This is a long term goal. It does not mean that all playing must look that way from the start. If the dog prefers to just chase a toy, that’s where we’ll begin. If we have to be very active to get the dog tugging, we will be. Our first priority is to get the dog to have fun with a toy. I think that good dog trainers have the ability to have a lot of fun with the dog, while reinforcing behaviors that will bring him closer to the long term goal. To reinforce behaviors while playing does not mean that you have to click and treat. It could be that you get more intense when the dog pulls harder, that you let the dog win when he weight shifts. You can find out what your dog really finds reinforcing when playing and use that to reinforce glimpses of what you’d like to see more of in the future. If you reinforce increased intensity in that way, your dog will be more intense and then also enjoying tugging more.
We feel that playing is addictive. You can starve a dog and get him to work better for treats, but it doesn’t work that way with playing. Play regularly with your dog to increase his love for playing. But don’t play for long. Always end the game when it’s at it’s best and make sure that you are ending the game, not the dog. You want the dog to be a bit disappointed when the game ends, dancing after you to get it to start again. That might mean that the first sessions are so short that the dog doesn’t even get to grab the toy, just chase it with high intensity, before it goes away.
Pick the right opportunity to start playing with your dog. You don’t want to present a toy and fail in getting the dog to play. It’s a common misstake to give up way to fast if the dog isn’t immediatly turned on to the game. Some dogs are slow starters in the beginning, but don’t give up. Don’t try to force the toy on the dog, rather act as if the toy is really valuable to you and you’re having a lot of fun with it. Experiment with different ways to get your dog started. Pick really fun toys and make sure that there is a piece of rope or a long handle on it, so that you can drag it along the ground and get it away from your body. Turn away from the dog and drag the toy away.
You can absolutely use food to reinforce tugging and transfer the value from one reward to another. It does require good dog training skills and it isn’t my first choice. It is really important that the criteria is raised fairly fast and that the dog is really engaging in the game before the food is presented. To use few, but really attractive food rewards is better than to use many pieces of low quality food. Timing is also really important; make sure that the dog is really into the game of tugging before the reward marker is used. If you use food to reinforce play, it’s still important for you to be active and have fun while playing. You want the dog to find out how fun playing can be even without food rewards.
This blog post could go on for ever. I’m making it shorter by ending with a few tips in a list. These points has helped me to increase tug drive in my own dogs:
* Start all your training sessions with a game of tug.
* Tug with your dogs for every 3-5 pieces of food you give him in training
* Put running around with the toy on cue and use it to reward good tugging
* Let the dog tug with you before he can have his food at every meal
* Play in many different settings
* Find really good toys (sheep skin, real fur, braided fleece etc.)
* Snatch the toy away from the dog if he looses the toy. Tease him with it for a while before he can have it again.
* Check out Susan Garretts ”How to create a motivational toy”.
* Put sticky food (raw tripe, minced meat, liver pâté or similar) into a wool stocking and let your dog chase it. As he grabs the toy he’ll get a taste sensation directly in his mouth. (NB! Make sure your dog doesn’t get hold of the toy at any time, as it can be dangerous if he tries to swallow it).
* Encourage interest in objects, grabbing, holding and weight shifting in your regular training sessions – train picking things up, retrieving, pulling on dead objects etc. and reward with food. But don’t forget the unrestrained, fun play. This is just a complement.
* Don’t ever give your dog a treat if he refuses to play (rather put the dog away if you decide to give up).
* Get your dog aroused before presenting the toy. Do restrained recalls, let the dog chase you or wrestle with your dog (if he likes to).
* Believe that it really is possible to get your dog to tug. It is!
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HOW TO CREATE A MOTIVATING TOY
Article by Susan Garett
From the site:
http://www.clickerdogs.com/createamotivatingtoy.htm
Many times in agility training the need will arise to use a toy to motivate your dog to move on without you (example: teaching a "get out" or doing weave poles or any sequence of obstacles for a gamble). People will ofren lament that their dog is not "into" toys. Some dogs will not innately want to play with toys but you can create the desire within them with a little work on your part. If your dog is really motivated by food and has never shown any interest in toys, an option available to you is to take the motivating toy you have chosen to work with and simmer it in a pot of liver, or chicken broth to make it more attractive to your finicky hound. BE LEERY--if you choose to go this route, be very careful your dog is never given an opportunity to be alone with this wonderful smelling toy or THEY MAY EAT IT. Surgery to remove this from their gut will be neither pleasant nor cheap. The key to training old Rover to play with you and your toy is that you are SINCERELY interested in playing with your dog. If you are truly not having fun, your dog will quickly realize this and will be even more reluctant to join in. So be sure that you are both enjoying yourselves. Now let's begin!
* Choose a throwable toy--i.e. one that you can toss, but won't roll too much, like a tug rope, or a ball in a sock or a stuffed animal.
* Attach this toy to a light line, string or lead that is about 3 meters long.
* Put the toy in a drawer in the midst of your living area--example, in the kitchen or somewhere else that is easily accessible at all times.
* Before each meal start to act a bit loony. While saying really fun things to your dog (like "oh no", "what is it", "do you want this", "where's your toy", etc.) walk, dance, skip...basically act goofy while you make your way over to the special drawer.
* S-l-o-w-l-y open up the drawer while continuing to say nutty things to your dog.
* Stop talking momentarily (a pause for effect) and then pull the toy out of the drawer, like you just unexpectedly came across a $50 bill and run with it into the next room.
* Swing the toy above the ground while acting nutty to show the dog what a great time you are having with this fun toy.
* Dance around for a few more seconds and then toss the toy out like a lure on the end of a fishing pole.
* Drag it around but BE SURE THE DOG DOES NOT GET HIS MOUTH ON IT.
* This whole process should only take 1-2 minutes the first time you do it.
* End your fun game, which didn't include your poor dog, by running ack to the drawer, yhour toy in tow snatching it up and quickly putting it back in the drawer with a phrase like "oh no, it's gone".
* You may then proceed about your regular routine as if nothing out of the ordinary just happened.
* Re-enact this bizarre performance 2-3 times a day. After the second day, allow the dog to get his mouth on the toy if he is really keen--but only for a few seconds. Pull on the line to try and steal it from him. Once you get it away (be sure you are taking it from him in a very informal, fun way), play with it a little more by yourself before quickly putting the toy away.
* Gradually progress, letting him play with you and the toy (tog of war style) a little more each time until you have a dog who loves to see the toy come out.
* Do not allow him to play with this toy at any other time except during this routine and, when he is ready, at agility class.
* Ideally, you should remove any other toys that are lying around the house during this time. Leave out only things your dog can lie down and chew on by himself, such as his chew bones.
* Be sure during this training/play session that you never give your dog any sort of verbal for anything he might do.
* Before you know it you will have a dog who is as nutty about this toy as you apparently have been!
* This method works particularly well on new puppies.
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måndag 15 juni 2009
Thoughts on training with food rewards
I understand this worry as it is one of the hardest things to grasp when one starts to clicker train. When I first started out trying to clicker train I treated too little and with too long intervals (a very common problem apparently). I also trained for too long periods of time. This resulted in slow learning and frustration and extinction of behaviour (extinction = when a behaviour stops entirely). I believe this reluctance to reward a lot is rooted in our way of perceiving learning and how to go about it (think: school).
The thing is we do is to fade out treats once the behaviour is learnt and only occasionally treat. We put the behaviour on an so called "intermittent schedual" (unpredictable and random) as it is called in more scientific terms. An intermittenet schedual is the best way to encourage a behaviour to be strong and long-lasting (think: casinos, they reinforce on an intermittant schedual).
Things (off the top of my head) that aren't regularly rewarded anymore: calm behaviour indoors, drying paws, putting on his lead (this has become self-rewarding), pooing outdoors, peeing outdoors, ignoring "normal" calm people walking by on our walks, following me after the command "come along now" (after he has been allowed to sniff an interesting patch of grass), sitting before allowed to play offlead (self-rewarding nowadays).
Back to the "won't he expect it all the time" part of treating often. I actually think this is an excellent and important part of clicker training. You are effectively shaping attention and becoming very exciting for your dog. You are pairing commands/praise from you with food. This eventually results in your dog excitedly waiting for opportunities to impress you so that you will praise-and-treat. Which is excellent! Why would I want things to be different? Every time I say "Yes!" or "good boy!" I am rewarded with a snap-turn of Noch's head as he focuses on me and the treat that is on its way.
This is excellent because:
a)I know he knows that he did something right
b) I can gauge how "difficult" and distracing he finds the environment. I do the "Noch" check. His normal behaviour when I call his name is to give eye contact and then come to me. So to do the little Noch "test" I call out his name and if he doesn't hear me, he is over-threshold, and I know then to avoid other triggers too and not to train anything at that point (he won't hear me anyway).
In the end your job is to find what motivates your dog. You find it, and you use it. Some people are lucky that their dogs will happily work for pats or toys. But for many dogs (the majority) pats and toys aren't really worth much, especially in the beginning when you are still building your relationship with your dog.
Play with toys sometimes has to be taught to be enjoyed (as is the case with my dog Noch). Noch and I have only recently come to the stage where I can reward ball fetching with a toss of a new ball. It used to be that this would result in the break down and finally the extinction of the fetching behaviour. For him, and many other canines, food is number one on the motivation scale.
There are of course some things that can top food: chasing cats, chasing squirrels etc. but these things are hard to systematically reward with. If I could, I would, for it is even better than food when it comes to motivation!
Another aspect of the food-worry is that the dog gets spoilt. Which is indeed a unnecessary worry as the food, even though given very frequently, is never given "for free". It is always given with the thought "reward good behaviour". (Anyway, define "spoilt" if you have a well behaved dog it surely isn't spoilt in a bad sense! Read Pat Miller's article that I posted just before this post, she does talk about how clicker dogs behave differently to coercion trained dogs and how this can be seen as misbehaviour to a coercion trainer).
In my case I wish I didn't have to use it as much as a lure. But in some cases here in the city I have to as it is the only thing that sometimes can break him out of his "trance". But even this is something that I do less and less as he gets better and better.
And that brings us to the last aspect of this. Which is that our dogs are the ones to decide when they are ready to be "weaned" off food rewards. Personally I prefer to always be challenging Noch mentally so I will always train using many treats or anything else he find motivating. The biggest difference is that I will be using less treats on our walks (happily, this is already happening). Also, as Leslie McDevitt points out in her book "Control Unleashed" there are plenty of life-rewards and other rewards that are not food that can be used once the behaviour is learnt.
'Why" Positive Training? - article by Pat Miller
Source:
http://ptfordogs.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-positive-training.html
'Why" Positive Training?
© 2007, Pat Miller/Peaceable Paws LLC
All Rights Reserved
WE’RE POSITIVE
How we know that training with lots of positive reinforcement – and without force or physical punishment – is best.
We’ve come so far since those dark days just over a decade ago when virtually all dog training was accomplished through the use of force and compulsion. I know those days well; I was quite skilled at giving collar corrections with choke chains and attained several high-scoring obedience titles with my dogs using those methods. And as a shelter worker responsible for the euthanasia of unwanted dogs for whom we couldn’t find homes, I was convinced that a little pain in the name of training was acceptable and necessary to create well-behaved dogs who would have lifelong loving homes.
In fact, when I enrolled my Australian Kelpie pup in the now-renowned Dr. Ian Dunbar’s first-ever puppy-training classes at our shelter in Marin County, California, I was so sure that using physical corrections in training was the only way to go, that I dropped out of the class after just two sessions; I was convinced he was ruining my dog with training treats!
It was several more years before I crossed over to the positive side of dog training, thanks in large part to my wonderful dog Josie, who gently showed me the error of my ways one day by hiding under the back deck when I brought out her training equipment. Her quiet eloquence made me realize, finally, the damage I was doing to our relationship with tools and techniques that relied on the application of pain and intimidation to force her to comply. I threw away the choke chains and began my journey toward a more positive perspective on training.
What’s the difference?
Today, in many areas of the country a dog is at least as likely to be enrolled in a class with a trainer who uses positive methods as one who still employs old-fashioned choke chain or prong-collar coercion. As more dog owners and dog trainers see the light, clickers, treat bags, and positive reinforcement replace metal collars, shocks, and dominance theory. Many trainers who still fall back on compulsion tools will at least start with dog-friendlier methods, resorting to force and intimidation only when positive training seems not to work for them. Dogs and humans alike are delighted to discover a kinder, gentler method that still gets results.
Trainers, behaviorists, and dog owners are realizing that this is more than just a philosophical difference, or a conflict between an ethic that says we should be nice to animals versus a more utilitarian approach to training. While both methods can produce well-trained dogs, the end result is also significantly different. With positive training, the goal is to develop a dog who thinks and works cooperatively with his human as part of a team, rather than a dog who simply obeys commands.
Positive trainers report that dogs trained effectively with coercion are almost universally reluctant to offer behaviors and are less good at problem-solving. Fearing the “corrections” that result when they make mistakes, they seem to learn that the safest course is to do nothing unless and until they’re told to do something.
In sharp contrast, dogs who have been effectively trained with positive methods tend to be masters at offering behaviors. Give them a new training challenge and they almost immediately set about trying to solve the puzzle. In fact, one of the criticisms often voiced by trainers who don’t understand – or accept – the positive training paradigm is that our dogs are too busy – always “throwing” behaviors instead of lying quietly at our feet like “good” dogs. This conflict in perspectives is illustrated graphically by a T-shirt belonging to one of my trainer friends, Katy Malcolm, CPDT, of Canine Character, LLC, in Arlington, Virginia.
“Behave!” proclaims the front of the shirt in bold letters. To the average disciplinarian, “Behave!” means “Sit still; don’t move!” But the back of Katy’s shirt says, “Do lots of stuff!” Positive trainers see the word “Behave!” as an action verb and encourage their dogs to offer lots of behaviors.
Another criticism of positive training is that the dogs are spoiled and out of control because, while the dogs are highly reinforced for doing good stuff, no one ever tells them what not to do. “Dogs,” the critics say, “must know there are consequences for inappropriate behaviors.”
We don’t disagree with this statement. Positive does not mean permissive. We just have different ideas about the necessary nature of the negative consequence. When one is needed, positive trainers are most likely to use “negative punishment” (taking away a good thing), rather than “positive punishment” (the application of a bad thing). As an adjunct to that, we counsel the generous use of management to prevent the dog from practicing (and getting rewarded for) undesirable behaviors.
The result? Since all living things repeat behaviors that are rewarding, and those behaviors that aren’t rewarded extinguish (go away), the combination of negative punishment and management creates a well-trained dog at least as easily as harsh or painful corrections – and without the very real potential for relationship damage that is created by the use of physical punishment.
One of the most significant reasons for not using physical punishment or force with dogs is the potential for eliciting or exacerbating aggressive behaviors from them.
This was illustrated by an English Bulldog in a recent episode of the National Geographic Channel’s show, “The Dog Whisperer.” Cesar Millan, the star of the show, spent several hours intimidating the Bulldog on a hot Texas day, in an effort to get the dog to “submit,” until the dog finally inflicted a significant bite to Millan’s hand in a futile attempt at self-defense. Millan brushed the incident aside as insignificant, apparently blissfully unaware that he had provided the dog with the opportunity to successfully practice the undesirable behavior (aggression).
Even if the dog’s reaction falls short of a flesh-shredding defense, the relationship between dog and owner can be significantly damaged as the dog learns to fear or resent the angry, unpredictable responses of his human, and the human comes to fear the beloved dog who now bites him. Given our odd primate body language and behaviors, we are undoubtedly confusing enough to our canine companions, without adding what to them must seem like completely unprovoked, incomprehensible explosions of violence.
Crossing over
Increasingly, trainers are entering the profession who learned their craft without an early foundation of coercion training. This is a good thing! However, there are enough old-fashioned trainers around that positive trainers still find themselves working with a fair number of “crossover dogs” – those who are convinced that they must not dare offer a behavior for fear of punishment.
It can be frustrating to owners and trainers alike to work through the dog’s conditioned shutdown response to the training environment. Shaping exercises, especially “free-shaping” that reinforces virtually any behavior to start with, are ideal for encouraging a crossover dog to think outside the box. This serves the same purpose for crossover owners and trainers as well!
It takes time to rebuild the trust of a dog who has learned to stay safe by waiting for explicit instructions before proceeding. It’s well worth the effort. The most rewarding and exciting part of training for me is watching the dawning awareness on a dog’s face that he controls the consequences of his behavior, and that he can elicit good stuff from his trainer by offering certain behaviors. We never, ever, experienced that in the “old days.” I used to take “sit” for granted, because if the dog didn’t sit when I asked, I made him do it.
Today, I never get over the thrill of that moment when the dog understands, for the first time, that he can make the clicker “Click!” (and receive a treat) simply by choosing to sit. It keeps training eternally fresh and exciting.
Not quite convinced?
So why, given all the available scientific and anecdotal evidence about the success of positive training, do some dog trainers and owners cling stubbornly to the old ways? Because it works for them much of the time? Resistance to change? Fear of the unknown?
It pains me that so many in the U.S. are still so far away from the positive end of the dog-training continuum. The celebrity status of Cesar Millan is evidence that dog owners and trainers are more than willing to buy into the coercion-and-intimidation approach to training, and that the use of force is an ingrained part of our culture.
Old-fashioned methods can work. Decades of well-behaved dogs and the owners who loved them can attest to that. So why should they bother to cross over to the positive side? The short answer is that positive training works, it’s fun, and it does not have the potential to cause stress and physical injury to our dogs through the application of force, pain, and intimidation. It takes the blame away from the dog and puts the responsibility for success where it belongs – on human shoulders.
In the old days, if a dog didn’t respond well to coercion we claimed there was something wrong with the dog, and continued to increase the level of force until he finally submitted. If he didn’t submit he was often labeled defective and discarded for a more compliant model. With the positive paradigm, it’s our role as the supposedly more intelligent species to understand our dogs and find a way that works for them rather than forcing them into a one-size-fits-all mold.
The longer answer is that it encourages an entire cultural mindset to move away from aggression and force as a way to achieve goals. The majority of dog owners and trainers who have fun (and success) using positive methods with their dogs come to realize that it works with all creatures, including the human species. They feel better about training and find themselves less likely to get angry with their dogs, understanding that behavior is simply behavior, not some maliciously deliberate attempt on the dog’s part to challenge their authority.
People who use positive methods to affect relationships get nicer. It feels nice to be nice. Children learn to respect and understand other living beings instead of learning to be violent with them.
When training programs founder, positive trainers are more apt to seek new solutions rather than falling back on force and pain, or worse, blaming – and possibly discarding – the dog for not adapting to our rigid concept of training. Indeed, in the last two decades, during which time positive training has gained a huge following, we’ve made even more advances in our training creativity and our understanding of behavior, canine and otherwise, and have even more positive options, tools, and techniques.
So, why positive? It’s simply the best way to train.