So! I'm seeing training questions from time to time here. As such, I feel I would like to lend a hand in learning about how to train dogs.
For many people, it seems like such a complex thing. It's not!
In this thread, I will start posting videos of my training with Priscilla over time. What I am going to do is explain by showing you how it works.
Over my time here, many people have remarked how controlled my dogs are. If you remember, I usually just laugh and say it's a magic trick, a little illusion going on. While it is probably true from the outside looking in, it's not really true.
The strength of my training revolves around two things. First, The Learning Theory. Second, a little box that when you press it, it makes a click sound. The Learning Theory is my magic wand, and the clicker is the hat I pull things out of.
Am I being cryptic enough? Bear with me. I'll have you hurting your brain soon!
In the Learning Theory, and when applied to dogs, we are mostly going to use Operant conditioning and Classical Conditioning. Now, Learning Theory is something people go to college to study, as it is a explaination of the behavior of all living things. But we need not make things so complicated.
Why use the Learning Theory, not the Dominance Theory? It's simple. The Dominance Theory is actually not a Theory, but rather, a Hypothesis. It must undergo many successful and repeatable tests in order to become a hypothesis.
If you are a Cesar Milan fan, and I know you may be getting tired of me using him as an example, but nevertheless he is a popular figure and subject to criticism. Recall all of his shows. He explains that a dog is dominant agressive, calm submissive, and so on. What he is doing is using the Dominance Theory to read the dog's mind- something impossible. But let's just ignore that for now. Say the dog is dominant aggressive, and is acting leash reactive and pulling on the leash.
His explaination of the behavior would be that the handler is not being a pack leader, and the dog is leading by being the pack leader. But again, this is assuming that's what the dog is thinking. That is a logical leap and a fallacy. Yet, that still is meaningless. What is important, and what I want you to see, is his method of correcting the issue.
How does he correct a dog that is pulling on the leash? What he does is put a choke collar on the dog, and give what behaviorists call a negative punishment for it. So regardless of all his talk about how a dog is thinking, the method he uses to fix the issue is based on the Learning Theory even though that is not what his intention is.
So take away all of Cesar Milan's talk and explainations. EVERYTHING he does to correct the problem is based on the Learning Theory. So yes, there is a science behind what he does. The Dominance Hypothesis is meaningless as a result. You cannot prove the Dominance Hypothesis unless you can make the dog speak and explain to you in english what he was thinking at the time. Until then, all we have to go on is observable behaviors, and that's the Learning Theory.
What is my point about all this? Right now, not much other than to explain that the Learning Theory applies to all animals, including ourselves.
Next, let's redefine some terms. You have four of the following:
Positive Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement
Positive Punishment
Negative Punishment
Now a lot of people use these incorrectly. So allow me to define them:
Positive Reinforcement: A dog's behavior makes something desirable happen. As a result, the frequency of the behavior increases.
Negative Reinforcement: A dog's behavior makes something undesirable go away. As a result, the frequency of the behavior decreases.
Positive Punishment: A dog's behavior makes something undesirable happen. As a result, the frequency of the behavior decreases.
Negative Punishment: A dog's behavior makes something desirable go away. As a result, the frequency of the behavior decreases.
The reason I am defining all these terms is because if I say something like Positive Punishment, people look at me funny and wonder what a positive punishment is. I say Negative Punishment, people assume it's beating the dog. But in these terms, for instance, if a puppy nips me in the hand, and bites too hard, and I'm trying to teach bite inhibition, one method would be to get up, and leave the room. This is a Negative Punishment. Not so terrible, is it?
A Positive Punishment, would be for instance, the puppy has been chewing on my desk. As a deterrent, I spray bitter apple on the desk. The puppy bites down on it, and gets a nasty taste on it's mouth. Viola, Positive Punishment!
Now let's add another twist, just for the sake of making things even more confusing!
Positive Reinforcement: I am beating the crap out of my dog, and my dog shuts down, rolls on her back, exposes her belly. As a result, I leave.
Cripes, not so positive is it?! The point of this is to explain that the images you conjure at these definitions can be easily misleading. Fundamentally, none of these are bad, because all of these are required for us to learn, and for our dogs to learn.
So where am I going with this? Nowhere, fast.
The current method for dog-training, revolutionarized by Doctor Ian Dunbar, to whom the Positive Training era is wholly credited, is what modern trainers believe to be the correct way to train a dog.
The premise? So simple. Set the dog up to succeed! That's about it!
One thing many people dislike about Positive Training is the emphasis on treats. They feel the dog will be entirely focused on the treat. My answer to that is, what is wrong with that?! Your dog is working for you! Reward him!
Alas, that's the simple answer. There are varying levels of motivators. Priscilla, for example, is naturally inclined to want to please me. As such, is highly motivated by praise, second only to Natural Balance treats. My Huskies, on the other hand, are naturally motivated by food.
Many dogs, like Jack Russel Terriers, are far more motivated by toys than food. Point is, if the dog is not doing the desired behavior, one of two things are happening. There is a external or internal force preventing her from doing so (i.e. pain, a big distraction, etc). If that is not the case, then the motivator is not strong enough. Remember, set her up to succeed!
Dogs generalize very poorly. Just because he knows sit in the house, doesn't mean he knows sit anywhere else. As such, they need to be trained everywhere! On the street, at home, in the backyard, at the dog park, at Petco, everywhere!
Back to positive training. The Holy Grail of dog training is to change the behavior to one that is more desirable, naturally. So for instance, chewing on kongs would be a self-reinforcing behavior, sitting for you would be self-reinforcing, the dog doesn't leave your side because it's self-reinforcing. Basically, you change the very nature of the dog.
Slightly off topic, Jean Donaldson has a Chow Chow that loved humping her leg. As such, Jean put it on cue, and the Chow loved it so much that it was the ultimate reward for her. She would do anything to hump her leg, so Jean used it to train her in everything from sit, to recall, to High Level Obedience. Creepy, I know, but point stands: If Humping is a Dominance trait, why is it able to be put on cue? When the dog humps on cue, is it dominance? This is where the Dominance Hypothesis falls apart.
Again, back to Positive Training. The concept is simple: let's say you have an undesirable behavior. For instance, your dog is pulling on the leash. Now let's ask ourselves: Why is the dog pulling on the leash? Because the destination of which she wants to reach is far more motivating than the pain she feels pulling on the leash. So what do we do? We change that to make it so that being by your side is more rewarding than going where she wants to go.
Let's look at common mistake #1: I put the leash on, and when we got outside, she was pulling and pulling and would not take the treat!
The problem is simple. She doesn't know what you want her to do! Start in the house, a familiar area. Practice walking in heel. Use luring, every time she gets it right, give her a treat. Put it on cue, in this case, heel. Slowly move more and more towards the door, if she remains calm, then leave the door.
She may pull, if so, take a few steps back. Try to walk her with the door open from a distance. You are trying to show her what is expected of her. You slowly work your way outside until she is heeling all the way. Simple! This way, the rewards was always more appealing than the desire to pull.
I'm not trying to teach you how to train your dog with this post, but to show you how it works. And it does! Honest! To learn MUCH more, and to understand much much more, you will need to read the books I am going to give you later.
So let's get to the last part of what I want to discuss. Clicker Training. The basis of clicker training is Positive Reinforcement. Clicker Training is used to train everything, from Dolphins to Orcas to Elephants to Lions to Wolves. If they are capable of training all these large, thousand pound plus animals that have fangs, sharp teeth, claws, or just are massive with it, why not dogs?!
Clicker Training is so very simple. Clicker training is the basis of all my training. It's not a miracle fix-all, but it's enough to leave all but the most knowledgable trainers humbled.
Did you know, that Priscilla at 11 weeks old, currently knows the following commands:
Sit, Down, Stand, Roll Over, Settle (go to her bed), Stay, Come, Shake, High Five, Double High Five, Dance, Crawl, Walk Backwards, and Heel?
Now before you are impressed. Did you know, I trained her to do all of that without even touching her once? Without even luring her with a treat? Without speaking ONE word? I never set a hand on her, I never showed her what to do, she learned all of these on her own!
You think I'm kidding? Think again!
So how did I do this? First, you need to understand one thing. Dogs live in the moment. Like RIGHT in the moment, down to the very action they are doing in that millisecond. Let's put this into practice:
You lure a dog into a sit, she sits down. You say sit, and then give her the treat. Now, does your dog think that she was given a treat for already being in a sitting position, or for moving into a sitting position? By the time you get your hand to their mouth and they receive the reward, it's too late.
This is where Classicial Conditioning comes in. You all remember pavlov's dog, right? Same concept. You use a clicker, which can be found at any pet store. First, you charge the clicker. To charge the clicker, it's simple. Click treat, click, treat, click, treat, click, treat. Do this for 20 seconds. Stop. Wait 10 muntes, repeat.
Repeat as often as neccessary so it's COMPLETELY ingrained into their mind that click=reward.
And NEVER click without giving a reward. That reduces the power of the clicker.
Just like Pavlov's dog!
Now, whenever you see the dog sit, click and treat. In this case, throw the treat off to the side. You want to teach your dog to think for himself! Most dogs seem like unthinking obots because the trainer shows the dog what to do, lures the dog to do what is desired, and so on. That's not what we want! You want your dog to think for itself!
So you throw it off to the side. Wait. Wait. This may take seconds, minutes, 10 minutes. Just wait until she sits down again. As soon as butt hits the floor, click and treat. Again, throw it off to the side. The reason you are throwing it to the side is to reset the exercise (in this case, get the dog to stand up again, so she can sit again.)
After a while, the dog will start to figure it out. The frequency of sitting will increase. ALl this time, you've never said the cue. Next thing you know, the dog is constantly sitting for you! When this happens, you start adding the cue. so 1) butt hits ground 2) click 3) sit! 4) reward.
After a while, she will start to learn it. Clicker Trianing is not fast in the beginning, because it takes a while for the dog to understand the "game". But once she does, boy, oh boy, you had better watch that timing! Once, my friend clicked a down right as the dog licked her paw (while laying down). Afterwards, the dog was ABSOLUTELY convinced licking her paw was the correct thing. She had to change cues from down to lay!
For settle, place a mat on the ground, or a dog bed, whatever. This one is more involved. As the dog approaches the bed, click and treat (for this exercise, everything is thrown to the side.) The dog will begin to approach the bed regularly. Maybe she stops in front of it. When that happens, wait. wait. wait. She will look at you like "Hey! I did this and you didn't click! Hurry!" But no, wait. wait.
She will try something new. Maybe she will put one paw in the bed. click and treat. Once she gets one paw in regularly, wait. Eventually two paws go in. Then Three. Then Four. then wait until she sits on the bed. Click click click every step of the way. Eventually she lays down. then make her lay down for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 3 seconds, 7 seconds, 16 seconds. Keep it random so she never knows how long to stay. THEN start adding the cue, "settle". After a while, she will take "settle" to mean to go to her bed and lay down. You never touched her! She taught herself how to do it!
That's not to say there is no use for luring. Luring is faster in many cases, but luring doesn't allow the dog to think. I want my dogs to think. I will use luring for some complex tasks, but most of the time I will be capturing or shaping their behavior using a clicker.
And that's how I teach all of my dogs everything. I've given you the basic concept for you to build upon, so now allow me to give you some of the many sources to learn from:
The first few books are recommended in order, the rest can be read on your whim. I think this first list is ESSENTIAL.
#1 Patricia McConnell's "The Other End of the Leash"
This book teaches you, basically, that you are the problem, not the dog. I know, it sounds like being condesending, but rest assured, it is not. Patricia is very nice, charming, and loving person. She writes with such wit and is very lovely with her little stories. You will not be able to put this book down, and you will learn a lot. This is more than I can say for some books I'm going to have to recommend to you, so read this!
#2 "Before and After You Get Your Puppy" Dr. Ian Dunbar
This book is ESSENTIAL to ANY dog owner. It sounds like it's for puppy owners, but rest ASSURED, ALL dog owners would benefit from this.
#3 "On Talking Terms With Dogs" Turid Rugaas
How to read and understand what your dog is trying to tell you.
#4 "The Power of Positive Training" Pat Miller
Lays the groundwork for the Learning Theory and Positive Training
#5 "Click for Joy!" Melissa Alexander
Clicker training
#6 "How Dogs Think" by Stanley Coren
Ok, last AND the least. You will learn a LOT from this book. WELL WORTH the read. But it will BORE YOU TO DEATH. I read this book alternating with "A Game of Thrones" so that I can keep interest. There are interesting moments, but it's BORING.
After this, my recommendations are as follows:
"Excel-erated Learning" Pamela J. Reid
"For the Love of a Dog" Patricia McConnell
"Clicking with your Dog" Peggy Tillmann
"Lads Before The Wind" Karen Pryor (not a dog book, but related to clicker training and how it works for dolphins)
"How To Teach A New Dog Old Tricks" Dr. Ian Dunbar
"Don't Shoot The Dog" Karen Pryor
"Culture Clash" Jean Donaldson
"How Dogs Learn" Mary Burch
And many many more.
I hope this post helped someone out there.
