Before You Get Your Puppy

[ShoresDog]

Just a quick, irrelevant question: Would most operant conditioning trainers agree that this is an example of -P ?

Honestly, I don't think it is. I think a better example might be this -- suppose you wanted your dog to stop jumping up on you to get your attention. If the behavior occurred -- if your dog jumped up on you -- you would remove your attention (the thing your dog desires) by turning your back on the dog. (ETA -- this does work)

 

The counter surfing example seems to me to be an example of the dog training the human!

[Guest echoica]

Honestly, I don't think it is. I think a better example might be this -- suppose you wanted your dog to stop jumping up on you to get your attention. If the behavior occurred -- if your dog jumped up on you -- you would remove your attention (the thing your dog desires) by turning your back on the dog.

 

The counter surfing example seems to me to be an example of the dog training the human!

 

Yes, but the question is not whether it is the 'better example' but if it IS an example. If not, which one is it and why?

[Eileen Stein]

I will post this on another board for you...there are some really good trainers familiar with the principles of behaviourism there even though it is a small board. And I'll link back when I get some responses. I will not load the question either to make it more scientific lol

 

I totally trust you, but probably some of the other behavioral-theory trainers here could answer as well.

[Root Beer]

Could I possibly hear from a different operant conditioning trainer?

 

Was there food before that was removed when the dog jumped up on the counter?

 

If so, yes, it is negative punishment.

 

If not . . . well . . . ??? I'm on the fence. I can see that in some sense it is, but then in another sense it's not.

 

If the dog really stops jumping up on the counters because there is never food there, the undesirable behavior has been decreased by the removal of something. In this case, something that was there at some point. That would technically qualify.

 

Buuut . . . if there's just never food on the counter . . . I really do see it as management. And good household cleanliness and common sense.

[ShoresDog]

Yes, but the question is not whether it is the 'better example' but if it IS an example. If not, which one is it and why?

Huhh??

 

NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT: Removing stimuli to decrease behaviour. (no food on counter to stop counter surfing)

 

The counter surfing is not an example because you are not doing it in response to an action by the dog, you've just let the dog trained you to not use your counter as a place to leave food.

 

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT: Removing stimuli to increase behaviour. (i'll think of an example of this later tongue.gif as this is the least common)

 

An example of negative reinforcement might be this -- you are on the beach playing with your dogs. You desire that they come to you and lie down at your feet when they retrieve a ball or frisbee, as a condition of the game continuing. You withhold the reward (the frisbee toss) when they are NOT giving you the behavior you want. They quickly learn to lie down at your feet with enthusiasm, because their experiments show them that this is the behavior that makes the good thing come back.

 

In the context of stockwork, they don't get the sheep until they give the behavior that's needed -- be it the correct flank, a calm walk-up, or whatever is correct in context.

[Guest echoica]

Was there food before that was removed when the dog jumped up on the counter?

 

If so, yes, it is negative punishment.

 

If not . . . well . . . ??? I'm on the fence. I can see that in some sense it is, but then in another sense it's not.

 

If the dog really stops jumping up on the counters because there is never food there, the undesirable behavior has been decreased by the removal of something. In this case, something that was there at some point. That would technically qualify.

 

Buuut . . . if there's just never food on the counter . . . I really do see it as management. And good household cleanliness and common sense.

 

 

Well depending on the exact scenario it could also be called 'extinction' of the behaviour...but then I would have had to been way more detailed in my example than what I was...

 

Negative punishment (also called "Punishment by contingent withdrawal") occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by the removal of a favorable stimulus, such as taking away a child's toy following an undesired behavior, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.

 

Extinction occurs when a behavior (response) that had previously been reinforced is no longer effective. In the Skinner box experiment, this is the rat pushing the lever and being rewarded with a food pellet several times, and then pushing the lever again and never receiving a food pellet again. Eventually the rat would cease pushing the lever.

[Sue R]

Um, sure. If you want to think I train with corrections, I guess I can't stop you from thinking that.

 

Let's say I'm leaving for training class, and one of my dogs comes running up, making eyes, hoping to go. I say, "No. It's not your night". And the dog goes off to lay on the sofa.

 

You really consider that a "correction"? Really? I consider it information.

 

And what, exactly, am I training the dog to do? Not to go with me when it's not his or her turn? That's kind of out of the dog's control, if you think about it.

 

I am actually not telling the dog that he's wrong (what is "wrong" with him checking to see if he gets to go?), he'd better stop what he's doing and try something else (he can keep making eyes at me if he wants to). I am simply saying, "You're not going". He understands.

 

Semantics. I guess if you think of that as a correction, you do. But I disagree. "No", etc. are rarely about the dog being "wrong". It is simply a way to communicate that something is not going to happen, something is not available to the dog, etc. Very occasionally - in matters where injury or harm are at stake - there might be an element of "wrong" involved, but I find that's extremely rare.

A correction does not have to be (and usually isn't) a punishment - a correction is information, just as your example indicated. The information that the correction conveys (in stockdog training) is that what the dog is doing or about to do is "wrong" and it needs to think and offer another action.

 

Can a correction escalate into a punishment? It may well do so when use of voice and pressure (body position and movement) does not achieve the desired result - like when my Dan kept trying to outmaneuver KK in the round pen to fly by and take a snap at a sheep - not a fearful grip but an "I can do this to you" sort of bully-boy maneuver.

 

Maybe I can't equal all the semantics going on but I think we are largely charging around a tree, chasing our own tail. There is more than one way to train - whether it's stockdog work (there are variations on a basic approach), pet, or performance. As long as the method is clear to the dog and humane, and accomplishes the training goals, who cares what you call it and just what it is? I think that is what Donald has been trying to say, along with all the others who train dogs on livestock.

 

Each person, each dog, each discipline, and many situations call for tweaking of whatever method you choose - clarity in training, good timing, and a humane approach should be central to all reasonable methods. A method is reasonable if it accomplishes worthwhile goals in training in a humane fashion - and corrections are not inhumane, unfair, or unkind. Brutality, contradictions in training, and counterproductive methods are.

 

Back to my rabbit hole...

[Eileen Stein]

Since echoica just mentioned counter-surfing, let me use that as a very simple-minded example of training with a correction. I have dogs that I raise from puppies, and dogs that I get in as adults who have often never lived in a house before. I am alert for the first time they try to countersurf. The instant their front begins to rise toward the counter, I say a sharp "Ahhp." This gets their attention, and they drop their front paws back to the floor and look at me. I say in a serious tone, "No, don't do that." That's all there is to it. I may have been lucky -- and they ARE border collies -- but that one correction has nearly always solved the counter-surfing problem forever, and no dog has counter-surfed after the second correction of that kind. (I have actually had more than one dog look at me for a moment after I say "No, don't do that," and then move to raise their front end again, watching me all the while as if to say, "Do you mean this?" I repeat the "No" and they don't do it anymore.) I would call this a correction. I assume behavioral theory would call it positive punishment, since it's a stimulus which decreases the behavior.

 

Now, I suppose there's a way to train dogs not to counter-surf by positive reinforcement, but I can't imagine it is as simple and quick as my correction, and I just don't see the point of spending more time on it. I had a simple message to convey, and I conveyed it, and now the dog knows it.

[Guest echoica]

The counter surfing is not an example because you are not doing it in response to an action by the dog, you've just let the dog trained you to not use your counter as a place to leave food.

 

It depends. Because if you show the dog the removal of food it is negative punishment...but what you are describing is a slightly different scenario which is extinction (never leaving food on the counter again and probably the most effective way to deal with counter-surfing in the long run)...not negative reinforcement (which would be increasing the behaviour of jumping up on the counter). But my example was not that specific for that

[Eileen Stein]

Buuut . . . if there's just never food on the counter . . . I really do see it as management. And good household cleanliness and common sense.

 

Well, I find it convenient to have food on the counter when I'm preparing and serving a meal, but maybe that's just me. And it's nice to be able to go to the pantry or the freezer, or leave food out while we're eating in case people want seconds, and not worry about the food I left on the counter.

 

I agree that removing the food is management, not training. Otherwise you could say that by removing anything that evokes bad behavior in your dog you have trained him not to perform the bad behavior through Negative Punishment.

 

And I guess your dog's behavior of attacking other dogs can be "extinguished" by just never letting him see another dog?

[Ooky]

Yes, but the question is not whether it is the 'better example' but if it IS an example. If not, which one is it and why?

 

It doesn't have to be ANY of them - it IS an outdated way of thinking that all training or teaching must fall somewhere within those categories, as DMcC pointed out. Some actions undertaken in training, especially complex training may be simultaneously more than one "box", some may be very difficult to place in ANY box and to do so is to make the reality fit the theory, not the other way around (i.e., BAD science - lol).

 

If it helps you, I also studied this in college courses, both in psycology and in animal behavior. The +/- reward punishment box is a modernist theory, and there have been many post-modern theories and syntheses of theories since then. They still tech this theory, as many things can be described this way. But I agree with Eileen - at a certain point, how useful is it to even describe stuff that fits well with this terminology? For me, not very. For career animal behaviorists I am friends with, not very!

 

I agree wholeheartedly with Jan than not leaving food on the counter is not really an example of YOU training your dog at all. You are avoiding the whole situation in that example, not training - if the dog recieved no other training, after 6 months of leaving no food out likely the same thing would happen the first day you did. No real behavior modification, see? As Jan pointed out, the dog has trained YOU that if you perform an action (leaving the food) you will recieve negative consequences (positive punishment) in the form of not getting to eat your own dinner! However, even this doesn't fit the square very well because the dog's ultimate goal is not likely to make you stop leaving the food - HE probably wishes you would leave more up there, and more often! Do you see how this does not fit well into one, clean, box?

[Guest echoica]

Since echoica just mentioned counter-surfing, let me use that as a very simple-minded example of training with a correction. I have dogs that I raise from puppies, and dogs that I get in as adults who have often never lived in a house before. I am alert for the first time they try to countersurf. The instant their front begins to rise toward the counter, I say a sharp "Ahhp." This gets their attention, and they drop their front paws back to the floor and look at me. I say in a serious tone, "No, don't do that." That's all there is to it. I may have been lucky -- and they ARE border collies -- but that one correction has nearly always solved the counter-surfing problem forever, and no dog has counter-surfed after the second correction of that kind. (I have actually had more than one dog look at me for a moment after I say "No, don't do that," and then move to raise their front end again, watching me all the while as if to say, "Do you mean this?" I repeat the "No" and they don't do it anymore.) I would call this a correction. I assume behavioral theory would call it positive punishment, since it's a stimulus which decreases the behavior.

 

Now, I suppose there's a way to train dogs not to counter-surf by positive reinforcement, but I can't imagine it is as simple and quick as my correction, and I just don't see the point of spending more time on it. I had a simple message to convey, and I conveyed it, and now the dog knows it.

 

Definitely positive punishment. And I would agree much more effective for a dog just starting the behaviour.

 

Although counter-conditioning -- which could easily be confused for positive reinforcement in this example -- would be redirecting an incompatible behaviour (say lying down) with a treat prior to the behaviour of jumping on the counter (which would require purposeful practice in the kitchen) -- I would argue it would be more effective to counter condition with a particularly problematic dog that has been doing it a long time (not a counter-surfing newbie if you will lol). Usually positive punishment in these circumstances has to be way harsher to get the point across and repeated often...where several sessions of counter-conditioning can alleviate the problem permanently without punitive methods. If you get what I mean...

 

But it always depends on the individual situation and the individual dog. From day one I personally used verbal correction for counter-surfing attempts and that is quite effective in halting it before it gets worse. But a lot of people don'y start out that way unfortunately.

 

Here is the other thread I posted...

 

http://www.discussdogs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5812

[Guest echoica]

It doesn't have to be ANY of them - it IS an outdated way of thinking that all training or teaching must fall somewhere within those categories, as DMcC pointed out. Some actions undertaken in training, especially complex training may be simultaneously more than one "box", some may be very difficult to place in ANY box and to do so is to make the reality fit the theory, not the other way around (i.e., BAD science - lol).

 

Behaviourism is no where near out-dated at all. It's modern day application - putting aside dog training - is huge!! The most important example being cognitive-behavioural therapy for one!...which is the STANDARD for treating things like addiction, eating disorders etc. As so far as dog training goes...it is the basis for the majority of it...whether implied or not or even understood...you ARE using these principles to work your dog. To say it is not complex is also an error!...it is much bigger than just this 'quadrant' that is being touched upon here!

 

FYI - I am a Skinner lover...I admit it Hold your judgments please!

[Root Beer]

Now, I suppose there's a way to train dogs not to counter-surf by positive reinforcement, but I can't imagine it is as simple and quick as my correction, and I just don't see the point of spending more time on it. I had a simple message to convey, and I conveyed it, and now the dog knows it.

 

There are ways. This is something that I chose to do. It was simple and it was fast enough for me. I saw a very important point to it. I had a very good reason to avoid a correction as I taught this, so it was more than preference. I need my dog to be willing to put paws up on things. It would cause me a great deal more inconvenience to have a dog who considered it "wrong" to do so than it caused taking a few days to train through reinforcement.

 

That approach is not going to sut everyone, but for those who prefer to do it that way, it is possible and effective. And I really didn't find it the least burdensome.

 

So, a lot of it depends on the owner/trainer/handler. For those who prefer a reinforcement based approach, there are definitely effective optoins for counter surfing. Lest anyone think I'm saying that nothing else "can work", I'm not. I am simply saying that these options exist for those that prefer them.

 

Edited: to fix type-o's.

[Root Beer]

Well, I find it convenient to have food on the counter when I'm preparing and serving a meal, but maybe that's just me. And it's nice to be able to go to the pantry or the freezer, or leave food out while we're eating in case people want seconds, and not worry about the food I left on the counter.

 

I didn't say that never ever having food on the counter was practical or preferred.

 

While I did keep things put away while my dog was getting the hang of the whole counter thing, of course we cooked and used the counters normally. That is excellent time to train kitchen manners and I took full advantage of it.

[Guest echoica]

*oh sigh* Skinner has sexy glasses

[Sue R]

Different approach to training, different feelings about what constitutes "sexy glasses".

[Mariji]

I agree wholeheartedly with Jan than not leaving food on the counter is not really an example of YOU training your dog at all. You are avoiding the whole situation in that example, not training - if the dog recieved no other training, after 6 months of leaving no food out likely the same thing would happen the first day you did. No real behavior modification, see? As Jan pointed out, the dog has trained YOU that if you perform an action (leaving the food) you will recieve negative consequences (positive punishment) in the form of not getting to eat your own dinner! However, even this doesn't fit the square very well because the dog's ultimate goal is not likely to make you stop leaving the food - HE probably wishes you would leave more up there, and more often! Do you see how this does not fit well into one, clean, box?

 

My dogs do not counter surf because as puppies food was never left on the bench so there was no reason for them to jump up. They know they are not allowed to touch our food which was learnt from not being allowed to sit anywhere near us when we eat. They have never counter surfed nor really had the opportunity too as I have manipulated the environment to do so.

 

I agree it is not really training but my dogs just don't counter surf because there is not reason for them to. They have never rehearsed jumping up on the bench so the behaviour to them is just not in their "vocabulary" per say. I suppose teaching them not to touch our food elsewhere has transferred to the bench as well, dogs are clever creatures. They are not allowed in the kitchen anymore anyway which was a recent development, so I wasn't tripping over a hairy dog that was trying her best to be inconspicuous so when food is left out now though I know my dogs won't touch it they aren't allowed in the kitchen anyway.

[Guest echoica]

Different approach to training, different feelings about what constitutes "sexy glasses".

 

[Eileen Stein]

There are ways. This is something that I chose to do. It was simple and it was fast enough for me. I saw a very important point to it. I had a very good reason to avoid a correction as I taught this, so it was more than preference. I need my dog to be willing to put paws up on things. It would cause me a great deal more inconvenience to have a dog who considered it "wrong" to do so than it caused taking a few days to train through reinforcement.

 

Good heavens, my dogs don't think it's wrong to put their paws up on things, including me. Give them a little credit! Not one of them has ever drawn the conclusion that putting paws up is wrong from my counter-surfing correction. Believe me, the food was in the forefront of their minds when they were thinking about counter-surfing, and not a factor when thinking about putting their paws up elsewhere.

 

I didn't say that never ever having food on the counter was practical or preferred. laugh.gif laugh.gif laugh.gif

 

No, just that never having food on the counter is "good household cleanliness and common sense."

[Ooky]

Behaviourism is no where near out-dated at all. It's modern day application - putting aside dog training - is huge!! The most important example being cognitive-behavioural therapy for one!...which is the STANDARD for treating things like addiction, eating disorders etc. As so far as dog training goes...it is the basis for the majority of it...whether implied or not or even understood...you ARE using these principles to work your dog. To say it is not complex is also an error!...it is much bigger than just this 'quadrant' that is being touched upon here!

 

FYI - I am a Skinner lover...I admit it Hold your judgments please!

 

Just because it is still used in some applications, does not mean all areas of reality conform to the theory, nor does it mean that is is useful or even applicable in all situations. Also, it was my impression that a 12-step program was the standard for treating addiction issues - you could try to explain to me how EVERYTHING that happens ion the course of a successful, lifetime-long 12 step program is either positive punishment, or negative reinforcement, etc., etc., and I would just say to you, WHY? You are forcing something very complex to fit in a very simple framework. Newer treatments for addiction are looking into drug therapies that actually turn off the addiction center in the brain - I can't think of the name if it but there is a benzodiazapene that apears to be very good at shutting down an addict's urge to take cocaine. Does this have something to do with behaviorism? I guess - it is short circuiting the conditioning that has occurred when the addict sees cocaine being used or thinks about it. But is that the only theory it involves? (or even the main one?) No.

 

Skinner's theory is often simplistic, because that was one of his main ideas - that animals can be broken down into very simple rules of stimulus-reaction, conditioning, and counter conditioning. Robotic, almost. Even his explanations for things like superstitious behavior are very simplistic. He did figure out a lot of important stuff, like rate of response as dependant variable. But subsequent studies tend to like to use this plus many other dependant variables. Additionally, his theory is very determinist in nature - it assumes everything you do is a discrete response to a lifetime of discrete stimuli interacting with genetics - in other words, simplistic, and essentially ultimately predictable and predetermined, when we know complex behavior is often neither. The whole is more than just the sum of the parts, you know? He did a great job describing and looking at some parts of animal behavior, and even simple sums, is the way I see it.

 

Since I now can't get it out of my head, I also refer to DMcC's "wire monkey" example - *shudder*. Only the cloth monkey for my puppiez and my new baby.

[Root Beer]

No, just that never having food on the counter was "good household cleanliness and common sense."

 

I see. I didn't say it, but I did mean when the counters are not in use.

 

Even now that I don't have a counter surfer, I love having clean counters when I'm not actually preparing food. My bad for not being clear.

 

Good heavens, my dogs don't think it's wrong to put their paws up on things, including me. Give them a little credit!

 

Problem is, I've come across some dogs who actaully won't jump up, or put their paws on anyone or anything because they were punished for it.

 

That doesn't mean that every single dog who is punished, or corrected, for putting paws up (on a counter, on the person, etc.) will end up like this. But I know it can happen and it's not a risk I'm willing to take.

[Mariji]

I see. I didn't say it, but I did mean when the counters are not in use.

 

Even now that I don't have a counter surfer, I love having clean counters when I'm not actually preparing food. My bad for not being clear.

Problem is, I've come across some dogs who actaully won't jump up, or put their paws on anyone or anything because they were punished for it.

 

That doesn't mean that every single dog who is punished, or corrected, for putting paws up (on a counter, on the person, etc.) will end up like this. But I know it can happen and it's not a risk I'm willing to take.

 

It happened to me with training my first dog early on. While it is not the same (counter surfing) she was told off for doing something and from there on was wary if I asked her to do similar. So it does happen and I can see where you coming from, not all dogs are that soft but there are many that are so it was a valid statement.

[stockdogranch]

I would argue it would be more effective to counter condition with a particularly problematic dog that has been doing it a long time (not a counter-surfing newbie if you will lol).

OK, so you've got a dog who jumps up on people all the time. The dog does it once to me, I let it know that I don't like that behavior (an "acchht!!"), and the dog puts all four on the ground. The dog may still jump up on other people, but as it approaches me, you can tell it's thinking about jumping up, and decides not to. So, I did not have to direct the dog to do something else (counter-conditioning), I just extinguished a behavior I don't like. Now, will the dog continue to jump up on other people? Probably, because they allow it. I don't think you give dogs enough credit (I think Eileen was just saying this as I was beginning to post). Like Eileen, I have brought adult dogs into my house who have never been indoors before, and have taught them in one easy step that that behavior is not allowed; I also took in a dog who *did* have a habit of counter-surfing in her own home, and, again, one easy lesson--poof! No more counter-surfing... to never leave anything on your counter seems mere avoidance to me, and if the dog has a proclivity to counter-surf, you never address the problem at all, but merely avoid it. I see this in all types of behavior--the owner just avoids the problematic behavior, rather than addressing it, fixing the problem, and moving on,

A

[Guest echoica]

OK, so you've got a dog who jumps up on people all the time. The dog does it once to me, I let it know that I don't like that behavior (an "acchht!!"), and the dog puts all four on the ground. The dog may still jump up on other people, but as it approaches me, you can tell it's thinking about jumping up, and decides not to. So, I did not have to direct the dog to do something else (counter-conditioning), I just extinguished a behavior I don't like. Now, will the dog continue to jump up on other people? Probably, because they allow it. I don't think you give dogs enough credit (I think Eileen was just saying this as I was beginning to post). Like Eileen, I have brought adult dogs into my house who have never been indoors before, and have taught them in one easy step that that behavior is not allowed; I also took in a dog who *did* have a habit of counter-surfing in her own home, and, again, one easy lesson--poof! No more counter-surfing... to never leave anything on your counter seems mere avoidance to me, and if the dog has a proclivity to counter-surf, you never address the problem at all, but merely avoid it. I see this in all types of behavior--the owner just avoids the problematic behavior, rather than addressing it, fixing the problem, and moving on,

A

 

Again, it really depends on the dog and the situation. That is why any properly qualified trainer will prefer to actually see the behaviour in action to better understand the most appropriate course of action. It can be as simple as a verbal correction or it can be as complex as counter-conditioning.

 

For example with this one dog in particular, I used verbal corrections for counter-surfing...the cesar pssst you could call it -- please don't send me to gas chamber lol -- only really needed to do it maybe 3 times so it was indeed quite effective for this particular purpose and it hasn't happened again in months (food on counter still) and in no way harmed the dog...but with this same dog, counter-conditioning has been much more effective for reactivity. Positive punishment (the method previously employed to deal with it) was actually making it a gazillion times worse (it didn't take long to figure that out) because the dog needed to learn a different way to deal with seeing other dogs...that did not include all the adrenaline and excitement. And counter-conditioning not just affects the behaviour but it can affect the biology of the dog as well...offering a calming and a different way to process those moments in the brain.

 

The point is...and what seems to be missing in a lot of these discussions...is finding the middle ground...what WORKS for the dog. A lot of people are too busy bent defending one end of the continuum when they could be learning something that could be most helpful to add in their arsenal of training. And that goes for both 'sides'.

 

And I am not posting anymore until my internet stops being a slow jerk tonight!!