Jean Donaldson article - Dogs in Canada - Jan. 2008

[juliepoudrier]

Mary,

I like your thinking.

 

J.

[Kate@JIm]

Gee...you guys sure do analyze a lot

 

My border collies have a very strong desire to please,

I don't need it defined...they just do....

No, I don't have a Ph.D.. to tell me that...

It's right there in black and white!

 

Kate & Jim

[Pippin's person]

When we say "desire to please," what we are really saying is that the dog seeks to create feelings of pleasure or happiness in us and that this is the dog's reward. By saying this, we are also saying that dogs have theory of mind...This is something we can't assume that dogs have; the best evidence so far suggests that only other hominoids do have it.

 

Melaine, haven't some of the folks working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) done some pretty interesting work with canines' ability to respond to humans pointing to the place where a bit of bait has been hidden? Canines (if I'm remembering correctly) far outperform both wolves and chimps on this task and approach the success rate of human toddlers. This is a reasonable first step toward showing that canines have some rudimentary theory of mind (or that's how the researchers have analyzed it). I'm not sure what it says about wolves or chimps, though, since they also seem to exhibit rudimentary theories of minds when interacting with their own species. it's hard to know how to push theories of mind in non-humans experimentally, of course, since humans tend to give evidence conveniently via language, something not available to non-humans.

 

Marc Hauser has done some cool work comparing non-human and human cognition and demonstrates that one of the things that humans seem to "get" from the design of our particular minds is moral reasoning, which is something more difficult to demonstrate in other species--and that's, to me, one of the places where we often misread dogs--many assume that dogs are doing things with an understanding of "right" and "wrong", but that really does seem a peculiarly human orientation (at least from my limited reading of the literature), and I think that taps into the idea of having (ETA: or not having) an "innate desire to please"--which honestly, seems to me like a non-starter as the basis for a theory for training and living together that involves communication between humans and dogs.

 

At some level, it doesn't matter whether they have an innate desire to please or not. Given how little we actually know about cognition (ours or theirs), the best we can do now, it seems to me, is base our assessments of what's going on when we interact with them on whether or not we achieve whatever our training/living goal is and if we do, great and if we don't, we try something else (I know it's not really that simple...but I'm late for Sat. morning walkies...and who's trying to please whom there... )

[mbc1963]

Given how little we actually know about cognition (ours or theirs), the best we can do now, it seems to me, is base our assessments of what's going on when we interact with them on whether or not we achieve whatever our training/living goal is and if we do, great and if we don't, we try something else...

 

I agree absolutely - especially with how little we actually know about cognition! I teach middle school, and frequently come across "cutting edge" brain research. But we're actually at only the most rudimentary level of understanding our own brains. Much less the brains of species we can't communicate with. I wonder if dophins, say, upon seeing humans, have some dolphin theory of mind discussions about what the heck we're doing up here!

 

(Side note: Anyone see "The Lobotomist" on PBS this week!? Scary... but no less so than putting 2-year-olds with developing brains on heavy courses of psychotropic drugs, which is the current "hot thing" in psychology! What we try on ourselves never ceases to astound me!)

 

Mary

[sandra s.]

If we want to get down to raw science, we could see humans a being solely motivated by our needs: food, shelter, sex, protection of young. An alien species, studying us, could write volumes about how every little thing we do is motivated by our genetic, hard-wired need for these things. From the original need for food, our overwired brains have created gourmet cooking; the need for shelter has given us modern architecture; the need for sex has led to "Hustler" magazine; the need to protect the young has led to exclusive preschools and peewee hockey. I often sit back and think how everything my dog does is reflected in some weirdly, overly complicated system in the human world.

 

Agree 100%! A lot of times you read things like "dogs do not feel human jealousy" (for example), but what is so special about human jealousy? Isn't it driven by the same fears? I think there's a difference between a fear of losing someone's attention and genuine jealousy over a sexual mate, but I don't think either of them differs much between one social species and another. The same goes for many other emotions that one can't name without being accused of "antropomorphising" the animal. I do NOT think all animals are humans (otherwise there wouldn't be any point in having pets, at least not for me), but I certainly think humans are animals.

[Eileen Stein]

many assume that dogs are doing things with an understanding of "right" and "wrong", but that really does seem a peculiarly human orientation (at least from my limited reading of the literature), and I think that taps into the idea of having (ETA: or not having) an "innate desire to please"--which honestly, seems to me like a non-starter as the basis for a theory for training and living together that involves communication between humans and dogs.

 

Could you explain why you think "an understanding of 'right' and 'wrong'" is related to "an innate desire to please"? I don't see any connection between the two, really. I see little, if any, innate understanding of "right" and "wrong" in a moral sense in dogs. The only reason I qualify that (i.e., say "little, if any" rather than "no") is that (1) dogs seem to take prohibitions involving food and excretion more seriously than those in other categories, which suggests the possibility that dogs might have an instinctive -- not reasoned -- sense that "right" and "wrong" are implicated in these areas, and (2) some dogs definitely enforce human rules on other dogs in the household, and one (but not the only) reason why this might be so is that they have internalized the idea that those things are "wrong" not just for them but in general. I guess I should emphasize that in neither case do I consider these characteristics to arise from moral reasoning or intellectualized understanding of right and wrong. I think dogs can understand "right" and "wrong" in terms of "that which is forbidden or permitted," but not in terms of "that which is inherently, intrinsically 'right' and 'wrong.'"

 

But an "innate desire to please" deals with desires and feelings, not morality. Seems to me there's no logical conflict or inconsistency in dogs having an innate desire to please but no understanding of right and wrong.

 

Re: "Lemon Brain:" If I recall correctly, Jean D. uses this analogy in her books to compare the size of a dog's brain to something we all recognize. I don't think she's singling out border collies, but just making a biological comparison.

 

You're right, both that she's talking about dogs in general (not border collies in particular), and that it's based on the physical characteristics of the brain (size, relative lack of convolutions). But from that she goes on to argue that dogs are simpleminded and can only learn through conditioning, and basically only through the giving and withholding of treats and play. That's what I take issue with. (Her comments that if you don't train with treats and play you are inevitably training with fear and pain -- which is simply not true -- are not in the book, as I recall, but are in her "10 Myths" article linked earlier in this thread. Her comments that all stockdog trainers train with harsh aversives -- which is also simply not true -- were reported to have been made at seminars/clinics.)

 

Hmm, do you think the dogs have an innate desire to do good work? Separate from any feedback they get from their human?

 

Yes, I do -- separate and in addition to. Just as I think they have an innate desire to exercise their physical abilities to the fullest -- run fast, jump high, etc. I think there's a German word for that, which I can't remember, but which roughly means exulting in your powers, exulting in what you are able to do.

 

Gee...you guys sure do analyze a lot

 

Yup!

[Pippin's person]

Could you explain why you think "an understanding of 'right' and 'wrong'" is related to "an innate desire to please"? I don't see any connection between the two, really. I see little, if any, innate understanding of "right" and "wrong" in a moral sense in dogs....

 

But an "innate desire to please" deals with desires and feelings, not morality. Seems to me there's no logical conflict or inconsistency in dogs having an innate desire to please but no understanding of right and wrong.

 

Interesting question. I guess I consider concern with other beings' desires and feelings to be motivated by a capacity for moral reasoning but that's really just a gut response and so could well be wrong. I don't think I can quite wrap my head around what the evidence one way or the other would actually be, now that I think about it.

[mudthirsty]

7. Punish dogs for growling or else they'll become aggressive.

 

Just out of curiousity.. how do you punish your dog? Or what is the correct way to punish your dog. I know alot of people here dont agree with smacking your dog, and I agree. So that is why I am asking

 

Thanks,

 

Shane

[Dixie_Girl]

I am trying desparately to understand the jist of this discusion. I guess I have always had a dislike for "pigeon hole" catorizing of anything. Example, you have a dog, you correct when it gets in the garbage. I have a dog, I correct when it gets in the garbage. Your dog waits till you are gone, and gets in the garbage, yet stays out of it when you are home. You say, he just gets mad when I leave him, so he is punishing me. Or, he just got bored. Mine, never gets in the garbage, when I'm home or gone. I say, see, look how well I trained him. Maybe your dog just figures, hey, she's gone, I can get in the garbage, yay! My therory is, that dog, lives literally for the moment. Yes, he may be punished when you get home, but that is "too far in the future" to consider. Mine, OTOH, says, hmmm, I am not suppose to get in the garbage. That is the end of it for him. It doesn't matter whether I am home or not. He has accepted the concept, stay out of the garbage. I think animals have way to much range for us to ever "pigeon hole" their thinking or actions. I had a horse that was a total butt head. When I would go out to the pasture to catch him up, if I took grain out, he would let the other horses crowd me, and he hung back, he knew what I wanted. If I went out with no grain, he would keep another horse between us and nip at it! When I played his little game a while I would turn and walk away, the whole time telling him how worthless he was. By the time I got to the gate he was right behind me and very willing for the lead to be snapped on. I never heard, nor did anyone else, of a horse doing that. Look at dogs like Skidboot. The BC in Germany that knows a gazillion names of toys, and can figure out which toy is wanted by deduction when he has never heard the name before. Then there was the black lab pup I had that never realized he grew and continually bonked his head when he tried to walk under the coffee table. I've had dogs that would do anything I asked (that they could understand) and dogs that gave me a doggie flip off. Skip IS jealous. No doubt about it. Jackson is not. Both have a desire to please me. Cheyenne could care less if I am happy, as long as SHE is happy.

 

Am I way out in left field with this? Is this not at all what y'all are saying? I don't know, I think I'll just read some more................

[mbc1963]

The same goes for many other emotions that one can't name without being accused of "antropomorphising" the animal. I do NOT think all animals are humans (otherwise there wouldn't be any point in having pets, at least not for me), but I certainly think humans are animals.

 

Yes, that's it exactly. I don't think we anthrophomorphize our dogs any more than we anthropomorphize ourselves. Somewhere in our past history, we decided that there was a big dividing line between US and THEM... but I think it's all self-flattery.

 

Mary

[haleigh]

Ok, here's my slightly late 2 cents, being one who greatly admires Jean donaldson:

 

1. Dogs are naturally pack animals with a clear social order.

 

Modern research (I'm sorry, I don't have any 'hard' evidence or research or anything...quotin what I've heard) is sarting to suggest that dogs do NOT live in packs. The alphas are the mom and the dad, the subordinates are cubs, who have yet to be released from the 'pack'. When hunting, many wolf families hunt together to bring down larger prey, then whoever claims it first has to hoard and eat as much as possible. To me, that is purely survival of the fittest, and not pack behavior. The subordinate dogs start posturing, mainly not to get killed. again, survival of the fittest. NOT appeasement.

 

2. If you let dogs exit doorways ahead of you, you're letting them be dominant.

 

Joy is NOT allowed before me in doorways, unless I tell her to. Reason being, she's a runner, and tries dashing out the door whenever possible. Since dogs really suck at generalizing, I make this true in all doorways, not just the door. At my moms house, we have a chihuahua X who goes before us in all door ways, and you would certainly not take one look at him and say "Oh wow! look at the dominant little dog! isn't it fascinating how he rolls on his back and 'submits' when you scold him, but he's really dominant?"

 

3. In multi-dog households, "support the hierarchy" by giving presumend dominant animals patting, treats, etc. first, before giving the same attention to presumed subordinate animals.

 

I have no comment on this, because I've always thought it was kind of silly

 

4. Dogs have an innate desire to please.

 

Dogs have no desire to do anything that benefits anyone but them. They only listen to us because of their drive...pack driven dogs work extra hard to be 'good' for praise, hugs and pets. Prey (or play) driven dogs work extra hard for a ball or a game of tug. No where is their a 'please drive', where they think "maybe if I sit extra long, and twist extra fast, mom will approve of me!"

 

5. Rewards are bribes and thus compromise relationships

 

How can saying "good job on the dog walk Joy!" the same as "Joy, if you nail the running contact, you can have this milk bone" similar? I don't understand that.

 

6. If you pat your dog when he's afraid, you're rewarding the fear.

 

I actaully agree this.

 

7. Punish dogs for growling or else they'll become aggressive.

 

Punishing (saying NO!, scruff shakes, kicking, hitting w/ a newspaper, stringinng up, leash corrections, citronella, etc.) DOES NOT SOLVE AGGRESSION! Punishing for growling inhibits unprovoked (as thought by the humans) attacks, because the dog has learned not to growl, or else they get in trouble. So what do they do, since they can't growl and warn you? bite, of couse!

 

8. Playing tug makes dogs aggressive.

 

Take a look at my horribly aggressive border collie, chihuahua mix, bichon frise, and belgian malinois and tell me this.

 

9 If you give dogs chew toys, they'll learn to chew everything.

 

Chew toys have saved my house from BC puppydom

 

10. You can't modify "genetic" behaviour.

 

Oh, yes you can! Joy comes from a long line of car chasers, escaped from the house to chase cars, almost got hit, and through careful training she offers me immediate eye contact instead of looking at the cars, and trying to chase them.

[chowteam]

Theory of miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Beautifully explained by Melanie. Perfection.

 

A favorite topic of mine. I must chime in. One of my academic advisors did some post-doc with Pinker (the Pinker) and Gary Marcus and is an encyclopedia of theory of mind. I've also had the great privilege of recent correspondance with David Premack, who actually coined the term! And I read on it until my eyes fall out.

 

Dogs do not have theory of mind. They do, however, have one proto-theory of mind module, as brilliantly described by Bekoff in a crafty piece of research where dogs were seen to selectively deliver play meta-signals more often when other dogs were attending, thus suggesting awareness of another's attention. (Brian Hare's human gesture reading research gets at a different module: making use of human body language, perhaps more vividly brought home in the research on detour-taking specific imitative ability. This isn't theory of mind. Kennel-reared puppies actually perform this gesture-reading task better than do adult, hand-reared wolves, prompting Bekoff's famous quote: "Dogs are not dumbed down wolves," a canon popular so long among the captive wolf crowd and parroted by us dog people.)

 

For the best discussion of morality and evolution, see Robert Wright, "The Moral Animal," or Matt Ridley "The Origins of Virtue." If you want to get into proto-morality (i.e. kin selection theory and reciprocal altruism), see Dawkins or if you want the heavy math on this subject, W.D. Hamilton.

 

PS I am so dreadfully sorry about the horrible "ban herding dogs" remark. A little context might help understanding (though never be an excuse). It was a pet dog training conference so I played to the crowd. A running theme over the years among those of us who counsel pet owners is the tendency of many herding breeds to be spooky with strangers and, in the case of some breeds, snippy with dogs, among other typical presenting problems, depending on breed. The spooky with strangers thing (manifesting as fear or agg) is often difficult to modify and in too many cases seems to be only partly mitigated by heroic socialization. Thus we have started throwing the ball to dog breeders, at least those who would sell their puppies to pet homes without clear package warnings. I was voicing frustration of a particular group who feel they have been stuck mopping up the mess of others for too long. Perhaps worse are flock guarding breeds as pets, particularly Kuvasz. Let's ban these instead. Oh dear, I did it again. Naughty.

 

Jean

[Sue R]

Thus we have started throwing the ball to dog breeders, at least those who would sell their puppies to pet homes without clear package warnings. I was voicing frustration of a particular group who feel they have been stuck mopping up the mess of others for too long. Perhaps worse are flock guarding breeds as pets, particularly Kuvasz. Let's ban these instead.

 

I don't think I am wrong to say that I expect most people on this board would agree with you here. Irresponsible breeding along with irresponsible selling of dogs of any breed or type are both abhorrent practices that are rampant and result in a great deal of misery.

[bcnewe2]

PS I am so dreadfully sorry about the horrible "ban herding dogs" remark. A little context might help understanding (though never be an excuse). It was a pet dog training conference so I played to the crowd. A running theme over the years among those of us who counsel pet owners is the tendency of many herding breeds to be spooky with strangers and, in the case of some breeds, snippy with dogs, among other typical presenting problems, depending on breed. The spooky with strangers thing (manifesting as fear or agg) is often difficult to modify and in too many cases seems to be only partly mitigated by heroic socialization. Thus we have started throwing the ball to dog breeders, at least those who would sell their puppies to pet homes without clear package warnings. I was voicing frustration of a particular group who feel they have been stuck mopping up the mess of others for too long. Perhaps worse are flock guarding breeds as pets, particularly Kuvasz. Let's ban these instead. Oh dear, I did it again. Naughty.

 

Thanks. I for one feel better about that statement. And would be in agreement with most of it!

 

I think "naughty" is good for conservational debate. You don't have to point it out. Just be ready to defend, hence the good topic.

 

Thanks for your partisipation.

Kristen

[SoloRiver]

An "innate desire to please" doesn't necessarily presuppose that the dog is guessing what's in your mind, and that you are giving no outward indication of what's in your mind.

 

Actually, it does. That's what it's literally saying. I like for language to be precise (I'm a scientist -- I'm guessing you're the same way, being a lawyer) so I think it helps if we say exactly what we mean.

 

There's a BIG big difference between "he's doing it just to make me happy" (which presupposes theory of mind) and "he's doing it because he finds my behavior [when I am pleased] to be rewarding."

 

I do think that many dogs find social interaction to be rewarding in and of itself (that's why they're dogs; that's how they ended up becoming dogs in the first place) and that this tendency varies by individual and by breed. Dogs like Border Collies, that have been strongly selected for biddability, most likely find social interaction more rewarding than do dogs of some other breeds that are selected to be able to work independently of human handling altogether. (I tend to think that dogs that are selected for nothing in particular, like primarily pet breeds, tend to be inadvertently selected to find human interaction rewarding because if they didn't, they wouldn't be very good pets or companions).

 

What I'm not sure is that what's happening [in the middle] is as relevant to the dog. I could be acting in a rewarding manner because I feel warm and fuzzy inside, or because I feel guilty for being gone at work all day, or because I feel gassy, or whatever, who knows. I DO think that to a large extent you can't lie to a dog; that if you're faking it, your behavior really isn't the same and therefore not as rewarding to the dog. But I don't think the dog is dissecting your behavior down to the level of what's actually going on in your head.

 

There are an awful lot of dogs out there -- Border Collies included, much to their usually-unprepared owners' chagrin -- who find any kind of social interaction rewarding regardless of the motivation of the owner, especially if they are bored. I mean, it's a classic newbie mistake to come and chastise your dog for barking in his crate, right? And then he keeps barking because it worked and hey, you came back, right? Regardless of whether or not you were happy with him, and praised him, or angry at him, and yelled at him.

 

I just don't think "innate desire to please" is a very useful paradigm. It's mushy, and taken to its logical extreme leads to dogs being blamed for all sorts of wrongs they are actually incapable of committing.

[Pippin's person]

Brian Hare's human gesture reading research gets at a different module: making use of human body language, perhaps more vividly brought home in the research on detour-taking specific imitative ability. This isn't theory of mind. Kennel-reared puppies actually perform this gesture-reading task better than do adult, hand-reared wolves, prompting Bekoff's famous quote: "Dogs are not dumbed down wolves," a canon popular so long among the captive wolf crowd and parroted by us dog people.

 

 

Jean

 

But, in Hare's work with Mike Tomasello (2002, 2005 and discussed in Hare 2007), he (they) makes an explicit link between canine social cognition; human social cognition and the development of the elaborated theory of mind found in humans--their argument is that it is the social dimension of communication and cognitive representation that gives evolutionary rise to theories of mind (and ultimately to characteristics like human language as well) and that's one of the reasons the pointing studies are interesting--because they show evidence of similar cognitive processing across the two species. And also because they question the modularity hypothesis--but that's a different issue

 

Thanks for pointing out the Premack reference--I thought "theory of mind" came from Chomsky given how tightly it's associated with his research agenda. Cool to find out that it came from the animal researchers....

[Root Beer]

I just don't think "innate desire to please" is a very useful paradigm. It's mushy, and taken to its logical extreme leads to dogs being blamed for all sorts of wrongs they are actually incapable of committing.

 

Well said!

[Tranquilis]

As far as "eagerness to please," I'd have to go with the people who say dogs probably have it just as much as humans do. Given that both species are social mammals, it makes sense to me that both species have some inherent wiring that makes them WANT to be successfully around others in their "pack." Usually, that would mean dogs with dogs and humans with humans, but we've broadened our boundaries, haven't we?

Well, I wasn't going to comment on the 'eagerness to please' item, but I spent a morning working down on the Farm today, and yanno, I have to say that at least some dogs ABSOLUTELY possess an eagerness to please. Several of the Rescuees there will do anything you ask them, that they can figure out, simply for the asking - no bribes, no training per se, just a bit of working back and forth to understand each other and voila! Repeatable behaviors simply for the asking. Fact is, we have a perfectly healthy, normal, athletic girl down there right now as an owner turn-in. She's scared of big hairy men, like me. Or she *was* scared of me. Frankly, I was ignoring her, as she'd taken an agressive run at me before, and I wasn't planning on working with her today - Leave that to the ladies, whom she doesn't try to bite. But you know, after watching me work with a couple other dogs, she was right there all of a sudden, tail wagging, pressing her nose through the kennel fence for attention. Now... What would induce a fearful dog to do a 180-turn like that? I wasn't bribing her, I wasn't calling her, and I wasn't paying attention to her. But as soon as I turned to her, she was responding to me like she and I were friends, doing everything I asked of her. I certainly didn't offer anything, except my attention, and she was so pleased to have it that she ditched her previous attitude, unasked. Nor, I must note, is she starved for human contact - she gets as much of that as any of the dogs, and more than most, albeit only from the female volunteers, up to now. Now, I only worked with her through the fence, as I already had another dog to deal with, and was running out of time, but next time I'm down there, I'm betting she'll be entirely pleased to see me - Not because I'm her trainer - I'm not - Nor because I bribed her - I didn't.

[Eileen Stein]

"An 'innate desire to please' doesn't necessarily presuppose that the dog is guessing what's in your mind, and that you are giving no outward indication of what's in your mind."

 

Actually, it does. That's what it's literally saying. I like for language to be precise (I'm a scientist -- I'm guessing you're the same way, being a lawyer) so I think it helps if we say exactly what we mean.

 

Sorry, I don't agree that's what it's literally saying, as I tried very hard to explain in my earlier response. You are trying to shape it into a theory of mind issue by going beyond "desire to please" to WHY the dog has that desire, and imposing a definition of WHY which you say is the only one that would qualify. I am not going into WHY the dog has the desire to please (except to say it doesn't count as a desire to please if it's to get some extrinsic reward like a toy or treat). If the dog has the desire to please simply because he experiences an enjoyable feeling of harmony in being in the company of, and interacting with, a pleased person (which is entirely possible), that is still a desire to please.

 

There's a BIG big difference between "he's doing it just to make me happy" (which presupposes theory of mind) and "he's doing it because he finds my behavior [when I am pleased] to be rewarding."

 

There's a difference, but both would be accurately termed a desire to please (again assuming that the behavior on your part that you refer to isn't the dispensation of goodies to him). And I wouldn't even rule out the former motivation. Dogs are good at sensing the feelings of those around them. (I ask you again, would you claim that your dog doesn't know when you're happy? Would you rule out "theory of heart" as well as theory of mind?) Dogs exist in feeling. And I don't see any reason to conclude that dogs don't feel a sense of harmony and well-being when the most important being in their life is happy and they are on terms of accord with that being. I think the world feels right to them then, and that they are generally motivated to produce that state of affairs. Natural and (especially) artificial selection would tend to favor such behavior.

 

I do think that many dogs find social interaction to be rewarding in and of itself . . . .

 

Especially so with a person whom they have pleased. I don't think they find social interaction with an angry person whom they have displeased very rewarding. They have been known, in such situations, to slink away. They have even been known to slink away when the person was angry at someone else.

 

Dogs like Border Collies, that have been strongly selected for biddability, most likely find social interaction more rewarding than do dogs of some other breeds that are selected to be able to work independently of human handling altogether.

 

No doubt. In fact, I pretty much agree with the person who said that we often call that innate desire to please "biddability."

 

I mean, it's a classic newbie mistake to come and chastise your dog for barking in his crate, right? And then he keeps barking because it worked and hey, you came back, right? Regardless of whether or not you were happy with him, and praised him, or angry at him, and yelled at him.

 

I hear about that, especially from behaviorists, but I rarely if ever see it. When I come and chastise my dog for barking in his crate, he stops. And "because it worked" is your interpretation -- maybe he's just barking again for the same reason he barked the first time, which had nothing to do with wanting attention.

 

I just don't think "innate desire to please" is a very useful paradigm. It's mushy, and taken to its logical extreme leads to dogs being blamed for all sorts of wrongs they are actually incapable of committing.

 

Well, perhaps that's because you seem to lump it in with other stuff you consider mushy, like believing that dogs are human and think like humans, believing that they are never motivated by base instincts, believing that their purpose in life is to make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, and believing that they misbehave to get back at us. Of course, THOSE beliefs are mushy. But I don't think "desire to please" is part and parcel with that array at all. IMO those beliefs are observably false, whereas our dogs' desire to please is often observably true.

 

I personally think "innate desire to please" is a useful vernacular expression of a useful phenomenon, but not a phenomenon that behaviorists find congenial, because it could give rise to the idea that dogs can be humanely trained in a way other than by the giving or withholding of treats and toys.

[Dalesred]

Sheesh. My head is spinning!

 

We all love our BCs for their intelligence, amongst many other traits. Perhaps they bond with us for the same reason!

[Shetlander]

I hear about that, especially from behaviorists, but I rarely if ever see it. When I come and chastise my dog for barking in his crate, he stops. And "because it worked" is your interpretation -- maybe he's just barking again for the same reason he barked the first time, which had nothing to do with wanting attention.

 

That is a really good point. I think dogs (or kids for that matter) who keep misbehaving despite repeatedly being corrected often are doing so because they're not getting something they need. It could be the dog needs more or better training before jumping in to corrections. It could be the dog isn't getting enough exercise or interaction and so isn't capable of responding normally to a correction. It could be the dog has some sort of serious health issue or simple physical need (really gotta go out!) that the human is unaware of. Or it could be the behavior is more self-reinforcing than your correction as is often the case with barking. It could even be that the dog hears something very wrong, like a racoon chewing a hole in your roof that you on the first floor are completely oblivious to.

 

Any of those explanations is at least as likely as saying the dog on some level liked being yelled at and/or having someone slam their hand on the top of his crate.

[Root Beer]

That is a really good point. I think dogs (or kids for that matter) who keep misbehaving despite repeatedly being corrected often are doing so because they're not getting something they need. It could be the dog needs more or better training before jumping in to corrections. It could be the dog isn't getting enough exercise or interaction and so isn't capable of responding normally to a correction. It could be the dog has some sort of serious health issue or simple physical need (really gotta go out!) that the human is unaware of. Or it could be the behavior is more self-reinforcing than your correction as is often the case with barking. It could even be that the dog hears something very wrong, like a racoon chewing a hole in your roof that you on the first floor are completely oblivious to.

 

Any of those explanations is at least as likely as saying the dog on some level liked being yelled at and/or having someone slam their hand on the top of his crate.

 

Very true!

[chowteam]

Remember how, for so long (and still a bit), the doorway rushing thing was seen as an attempt at dominance over the owner? The alternative hypothesis that most dogs ambulate faster than most humans and are usually excited to go out didn't even get into the mix. It was almost as though it was a more bearable proposition for people to imagine the dog trying to exert dominance over them, because at least in that case the dog's behavior was in relation **to them**. In other words, it was unbearable for people to consider that they might be bumped down in importance or (gasp) temporarily irrelevant to an untrained dog (or a solid object to which leashes were attached) when a door to the great outdoors was opened. I often think the implications of "no desire to please" are even worse in terms of bruising our narcissism. Does anybody else wonder about this?

 

Getting back to theory of mind, someone just reminded me of a neat experiment, wherein subjects were given recursive logic problems using symbols (A, B, C etc.) and were for the most part stumped. Once the A's and B's were given names (Ann, Brian etc.) and the very same problems reframed using social cognition language implying emotions/motivations, virtually all subjects could do them. It made me think of another one, only slightly related, where subjects viewed randomly moving dots on a screen and not only saw patterns but agency ("that dot is blocking that dot from this other one"). I don't remember whether they also projected theory of mind ("that dot is probably jealous"). Even when experimenters told them there were not patterns, people insisted they saw them. Daniel Dennett refers to humans having "hyperctive agency detection." I wonder if we might also have "hyperactive theory of mind projection."

[Root Beer]

Remember how, for so long (and still a bit), the doorway rushing thing was seen as an attempt at dominance over the owner? The alternative hypothesis that most dogs ambulate faster than most humans and are usually excited to go out didn't even get into the mix. It was almost as though it was a more bearable proposition for people to imagine the dog trying to exert dominance over them, because at least in that case the dog's behavior was in relation **to them**.

 

I've experienced the same sort of thing - the idea that a dog's "behavior problem" might not be directly related to the dog owner/handler can be a challenging one.

 

I tried an experiment once when I was discussing how to use the clicker to modify unwanted behavior to students in a clicker class. I said to the class, "let's brainstorm some reasons why a dog would run to the end of the leash and bark when he sees another dog". Almost the only answer I got was "the dog wants to be dominant". When I pressed for other possibilities, someone said, "the dog might be guarding his person".

 

The idea that there might be a whole slew of different reasons - many of which have nothing directly to do with the dog owner/handler - was brand new. When I explained that the dog might be frightened, excited, that he might just be acting on impulse, that it might feel enjoyable to the dog, the dog might not like the other dog, etc. these were very clearly new ideas to most of them.

[painted_ponies]

This stuff is from a women who . . . prefers Chows.

 

Whassamatter with chows? A nearly perfect breed IMO. If it weren't for the double coat and, well, that inconvenient murderous streak, I'd still have a pack of 'em.