When should you lie to your Border Collie?

[Sue R]

I don't send Celt out when I *know* there are no animals for him to gather but I do sometimes have a need to send him out to sweep a field where there *may* be animals that I can't see, either due to terrain, vegetation, lack of light, or a combination of circumstances.

 

When I don't know if there are stock for sure, I use the word "find". When I do, he will normally go straight out from me, not on an outrun, and move forward looking for stock. If he sees them, he usually either lies down to await my command or sometimes stops and looks over his shoulder at me (but he usually lies down). He seems to understand that "find" means just that, to look for stock and then wait for further instruction.

 

When we have weanlings in the fall and they are on pre-conditioning ration and need to be brought in morning and evening, it is usually not an issue unless the lie of the land or darkness prevent me from seeing them. If it's light when we do morning chores, I can usually at least see some, enough to know roughly where they all are, and send him on a gather. He's good at watching for his stock and kicking out if he sees he needs to do so, and he's pretty wide-running so he usually sweeps our fairly limited fields completely. He's got a good "look back" if I can see from my perspective that he can't see some and will miss them.

 

When it's dark before we leave for work, that's another story. I can usually guess which field they are in but not always just where in the field, and then I send him "away" or "come bye" and expect him to sweep around the perimeter of the field until he finds his stock, come to balance wherever that may be, and bring them. Sometimes he is wrong and misses them if they are lying down and very still in a far corner or along the far fenceline in thicker vegetation. I'll have to walk back out in the field with him because I won't send him a second time if there might not be stock there. With the flashlight, if I can see eyes in the dark and know they will be beginning to stir, I'll send him then and he will find them.

 

If there are no calves at all in that field, he'll come back to me with a "What now, Mom?" look on his face. I don't think he feels lied to but rather that he realizes that they are normally there and don't seem to be today, so what's next? What's next is that we both walk and check the other places they might be, and the flashlight helps me spot them in the dark.

 

So, do dogs differentiate, at least in some situations, between a person being mistaken and a person "lying"? I don't "lie" to my dog but I do make mistakes. I don't think my dog lies to me but he does make mistakes. I think it all boils down to whether or not we trust each other, and that's based on past experience and our partnership, I think.

 

Interesting topic.

[Pam Wolf]

Is it telling a 'lie' to your dog or a training exercise to teach the dog sometimes stock is not where "I" (the handler) thinks it is? As sue said, sometimes you may think the stock is there- and sometimes the stock found the hole in the fence and aren't where you sent the dog. The later often happens when you work goats

 

I believe the concept of telling a lie to your dog is simply anthropomorphizing the dog.

 

And yelping when a pup bites too hard is NOT a lie, it hurts, let the dog know

[GentleLake]

And yelping when a pup bites too hard is NOT a lie, it hurts, let the dog know

 

My feelings exactly!

[Root Beer]

I hear that phrase "you're lying to your dog" in Agility instruction and I always took it as a means to help the handler better understand that the body language in a particular maneuver and what is actually desired don't match up and so the dog won't be able to read the handling correctly. I never took it to mean that the handler is deliberately seeking to deceive the dog in some way.

 

As for yelping, I've done it a few times over the last couple of months. I can honestly say it was 100% genuine and no deception. Puppy teeth are sharp!!

[sandysfarm]

as you say, interesting. I think I agree with you and your mentor's thinking though.

It's beginning to hurt my head, .....but I can't resist:

Maybe the first scenario is unintended random reinforcement.

If we do this:

Dog sent out - the reward: stock to work, consistently.

Dog responds to single cue for 'bark' - reward: tidbit, always....

Until the trainer decides to tighten up the behaviour, .in which case, he:

sends the dog for non-existant sheep, or

thanks the dog for a single bark response but doesn't feed.

And then makes sure next time the dog for sure finds sheep,

and next time the dog has a tidbit for the bark response.

It works behaviourally for general training although it demands a staggered, now/not now/now/now/now/not now...unpredictability. The premise being that dogs are gamblers by nature; random reinforcement strongly appeals to that ...I'm just wondering aloud.

[Tea]

Hum

I have seen my Taw raise pups. She never lies to them. If they are rough she says, 'knock it off' with her body language and she starts with little pups gently, and with older pups with more force. She loves her pups and plays with them. I left her pups on her for a long while. She is still with three daughters whom she works with every day. However I did get a pup from a friend who pulled him at 6 or 7 weeks. He does not have the manners my own litters have. ( Other people have commented how good my pups are.

 

As far as sending for stock. I often send dogs in deep unfenced forest in the direction I think stock is. My dogs especially Sweep and Taw learned if I was wrong to come right back to my feet and look at me. I learned to trust their wisdom in this and look elsewhere......soon I learned to simply let the dogs by scent or whatever tell me where they thought stock might be. I learned by listening to them that they were usually correct. This has been my humble experience.

[geonni banner]

OK, so if puppies do a drama-queen scream when they get bitten by other puppies, are they lying? Do they scream for bites of widely varying force?

 

There are those who say dogs are incapable of lying. (I'm not so sure about that.)

 

But if the puppy isn't lying when it yelps loudly, why is the human? Isn't it more true that both are saying, "You're getting into potentially dangerous behavior - behavior that is outside my comfort zone - so please don't do that."

 

I used the yelp-upon-tooth-contact-of-any-kind method to teach my dog not to bite when playing. I don't think it was a lie.

 

I try to never lie to my dog. Sometimes when we are playing Frisbee, I will fake a toss to get the dog to run out. If she's too close she will not reach the Frisbee before it hits the ground. But I always respond to her moving out by actually throwing the Frisbee. Am I lying to her? I suppose you could see it that way. But I rather think of it as teaching her that she will be more likely to get the reward of an "air-catch" if she moves out when I mime a throw.

 

I know that my dog is more satisfied and happy when she catches the Frisbee in the air than she is when she "catches it" after it hits the ground. If she doesn't manage to get an air-catch, she will "punish" the Frisbee by pouncing on it, biting it several times and giving it a few hard shakes before bringing it back. She never does this after an air-catch.

 

When she catches the Frisbee in the air she returns immediately to me, tail wagging, head high and showing every evidence of being quite pleased with herself. So I try to maximize her chances of an air-catch by faking a throw to get her to move out.

[sandysfarm]

wait! Have to say, this is such a civilized set of forums; the sophistication of the op's comment/question and the conversation following is equalled where, I wonder...(taking me out of the picture, I mean)

 

let's go...

[GentleLake]

I lied to my border collie once. It was an unabashedly baldfaced lie.

 

My old dog had died and I just had the one dog left at the time. I was in graduate school and it wasn't a good time time to get another dog, so when a colleague told me he had some kittens I thought it might be an acceptable alternative as a companion for him.

 

I told Chance he could come along and choose a kitten from one of the 2 left. One of the kittens spat and hissed at him the entire time were were there while the other one curled up in my lap and purred every time the dog paid any attention to her. Chance was totally enamored of the hissing, spitting ball of fur perched on my shoulder digging it's claws into my skin, virtually ignoring the other kitten.

 

I flat out told him, "Sorry, Bud, but I lied. We're taking the nice kitty."

 

We did, and she loved him instantly. He wasn't too sure about her at first and I have a picture of him showing mad teeth as she was cuddling up to him. She persisted and he finally relented. They became the very best friends, wrestling and sleeping together. Whenever Chance and I returned from wherever it was we'd gone, she always greeted him first.

 

So, yes. I lied to my border collie. But it was for his own good, and it was definitely the right thing to do. Sometimes mom knows best.

[sandysfarm]

"mad teeth"! that's so hilarious and sweet

[B Point]

B Point, you just compared yourself to a world cup soccer player... does this mean we need to work on YOUR bite inhibition, too???

Haha.... Sometimes one just gets lost in the heat of the moment....

 

Na...I was thinking I was more like the whiny Italian player that got bit.....over the top acting after a little harmless nip.

[ThunderHill]

A lie creates a reality gap. In the original example, I scream that I'm hurt, when in fact I'm not hurt. The consequence of a lie is the corruption of trust. What you have told me was fact, is false. A lie causes damage. When the mutual reliance of trust is lost, so is the basis of positive relationship.

 

But there are lies and there are *lies.* There's storytelling, polite conventions, fables; there's gossip, advertising; there's propaganda, fraud. Not every gap between the tale and the empirical is pathologic. All fictions can be construed as lies if you choose to play cat's cradle with rhetoric; all the same, some can be educational and entertaining.

 

I'm not convinced that acting emo when your dog's teeth make inappropriate contact falls into the category of the black lie. I see the reality gap, but not the damage.

 

If it's a lie (a willful distortion of reality) at all; you may not be hurt in the immediate literal sense, but there is hurt in potentia for sure if the biting doesn't get modified.

[Maralynn]

Dogs understand consistency. They have no concept that you're "lying" with a yip when the teeth meet the skin if you react the same way every time. So as long as your yelping is consistent then they get the same consistent message - that hurts and I don't like it. And it's not going to erode trust. Changing the rules back and forth, inconsistency, unfair corrections, poorly timed rewards (or rewarding for behavior you don't want) is what erodes trust and damages the relationship you have with your dog.

[simba]

I don't have a problem with yelping to show the dog it's not allowed do that- I think they understand that it correlates to 'how annoyed you are' rather than 'how much it hurt'. I mean, if I trip flat over my dog that will hurt quite a lot more than when another dog wilfully crashes into her, and she just breezes through the former despite the fact that it hurts more. They seem to have some minimal notions of 'intention', I dunno whether they can extrapolate that to us but it seems likely considering how they act.

 

The one form of 'lying' that irritates me is when someone fakes out throwing a ball for a dog who isn't used to that. It's not a big deal, but it's unnecessary. The funny bit is you're smarter than a dog- who isn't?

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

Thanks to those who've contributed. You've helped me think about matters I find difficult.

 

My Border Collies live in the house, travel extensively and frequently work and trial sheep. In my experience at least two "anthropomorphic" ethical concerns apply: lying and fairness. In brief, fairness means not asking the dog what it cannot possibly do and - as possible - equal treatment for each member of the pack. Like lying, fairness is a complex issue but I am certain that when I offer one of my dogs a lick of my plate, I should offer each dog a lick. Because fairness matters to me and them.

 

My concerns are pragmatic: I suspect that I would loose pack bonds without fairness as, if I lied, I would lose my dogs' ability to react sensibly to novel experiences (some will recall that when I suddenly collapsed in the Dublin airport, Fly simply lay down by my side - a pretty good solution to a unique experience).

 

Several have asked why I think offering a treat is a lie.

 

Let me compare from the dog-in-training's POV.

 

Come = treat.

Sit = treat

 

Of course treats are substitutions for our goal: "Come = dog comes because we (I and he) want it", and treats lead more-or-less, to that goal but since that goal can be achieved by simply asking the dog to come without using treats, treats become a lie (fib?). In this same sense money would be a lie if people would be willing to work at McDonalds without it.

 

I welcome your disagreements.

 

Donald McCaig

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

A ps on fairness.

 

Roxie and Sadie are our middleaged sheep guarding dogs and I fed them away from the house before training the Border Collie(s). Usually Sadie meets meat the door, follows me over and has her choice of the two dog bowls while Roxie saunters over later. When they arrive together, Roxie decides which bowl she wants and Sadie takes the lesser.

 

This morning, as Roxie was selecting her bowl, the Border Collie's ran through, bumping Roxie who decided innocent Sadie had dissed her and drove Sadie away.

 

After training Jake, we returned to the house where Sadie was sitting on the stoop asking me to intervene. Clear as a bell Sadie said, "It's just not fair!"

 

Donald

[Maralynn]

My pup was started with "sit" before I brought him home. The breeder rewarded calm sitting with treats. I have a pup that offers calm sitting in a variety of situation. Not because I always give him a treat, but because he's learned that sitting is a very goood thing. I demonstrate my pleasure at his behavior - sometimes with a treat, but just as often with my pleasure. In either case the message is clear - I like it when you sit, good things happen when you sit and are attentive to me.

[Sue R]

I don't understand where a treat is a "lie" (or "fib") for a dog doing something (like recalling or sitting) that the dog could be trained to do and can do without the use of treats. I think it's just another tool in the training toolbox but I don't view anything as dishonest about it.

 

The other thing about treats, as Mara pointed out, is that a treat is not an every time thing. When starting a pup or dog for certain behaviors, consistent treats are helpful but eventually the treats are weaned to only being occasional if that. Studies show (and I can't quote anything) that the possibility of a reward like a treat can be more potent in getting response than treating every time.

 

DD and I had a long discussion about this and how it relates to dog training, to human relationships and interactions, etc. While I don't remember the details, she has read about it quite a lot and research seems to show that the "possibility" of a certain outcome is a very powerful motivation. I read that once a reward becomes an expectation, it no longer has the same effect.

 

So is it that not treating *every single time forever* is lying because the dog thinks that he/she might be getting a treat *this time* and might not get one at all this time? Or maybe I'm missing a point?

[mum24dog]

I believe the concept of telling a lie to your dog is simply anthropomorphizing the dog.

 

 

This.

 

The older I get the less I'm inclined to overanalyse.

 

All that is needed is to be fair to your dog and that includes not expecting what it doesn't know and not punishing for what it doesn't understand. If you aren't fair your dog will not be as eager to do as you want; lying doesn't come into it.

[Root Beer]

Several have asked why I think offering a treat is a lie.

 

Let me compare from the dog-in-training's POV.

 

Come = treat.

Sit = treat

 

Of course treats are substitutions for our goal: "Come = dog comes because we (I and he) want it", and treats lead more-or-less, to that goal but since that goal can be achieved by simply asking the dog to come without using treats, treats become a lie (fib?). In this same sense money would be a lie if people would be willing to work at McDonalds without it.

 

I welcome your disagreements.

 

Donald McCaig

 

If what the treat communicates to the dog is "that's right" or "that's what I wanted" in a way that the handler intends and the dog comprehends, there is no deliberate deception. Hence, no lie.

 

And if the treat is not offered every time once the behavior is known, and the dog understands what is intended and the handler intends what he or she asks, there is no deliberate deception. Hence, no lie.

 

Saying that the treat is a lie would be rather like saying that I am lying to my human students if I put a big purple "C" on their papers if all questions are answered correctly because sometimes I don't use the big "C" and all they get is a tiny checkmark on top. In either case, the student knows all answers are correct. In the case of a dog trained with treats, once learning has occurred, the dog knows he or she is correct even when a treat is not present or presented.

 

Not to say treats couldn't be used deceptively, but no +R trainer who actually knows what he or she is doing is going to do that. That would undermine the dog's trust and, possibly, the training process.

[Pam Wolf]

UI suggest Mr. McCaig study some learning theory to understand how a treat is NOT a lie, but rather a reward in a training situation and the proper use of reward and punishment in dog training

[Blackdawgs]

Let me compare from the dog-in-training's POV.

 

Come = treat.

Sit = treat

 

Of course treats are substitutions for our goal: "Come = dog comes because we (I and he) want it", and treats lead more-or-less, to that goal but since that goal can be achieved by simply asking the dog to come without using treats, treats become a lie (fib?). In this same sense money would be a lie if people would be willing to work at McDonalds without it.

 

I welcome your disagreements.

 

Donald McCaig

When training the come, the treat is used as reinforcement for coming and, yes, as payment, because let's face it, the environment may be more reinforcing to the dog than the act of coming. The treats are not used, always and forever (or should not be). The treats are eventually almost completely phased out. In the end, the dog may only get paid 10% of the time or not at all..

 

The ultimate goal of reinforcement based training (to borrow a phrase from Susan Garrett) is to make "you the cookie". We want dogs to come to us because they WANT to, not becuse they are afraid of the consequences if they don't. .

[sandysfarm]

I don't understand where a treat is a "lie" (or "fib") for a dog doing something (like recalling or sitting) that the dog could be trained to do and can do without the use of treats. I think it's just another tool in the training toolbox but I don't view anything as dishonest about it.

 

The other thing about treats, as Mara pointed out, is that a treat is not an every time thing. When starting a pup or dog for certain behaviors, consistent treats are helpful but eventually the treats are weaned to only being occasional if that. Studies show (and I can't quote anything) that the possibility of a reward like a treat can be more potent in getting response than treating every time.

 

DD and I had a long discussion about this and how it relates to dog training, to human relationships and interactions, etc. While I don't remember the details, she has read about it quite a lot and research seems to show that the "possibility" of a certain outcome is a very powerful motivation. I read that once a reward becomes an expectation, it no longer has the same effect.

 

So is it that not treating *every single time forever* is lying because the dog thinks that he/she might be getting a treat *this time* and might not get one at all this time? Or maybe I'm missing a point?

 

 

you're not missing the point. Working for the possibility of a treat, i e gambling that he's going to get one, is called random reinforcement. If's the same principle that a one-armed bandit works on at the casino to "addict" people to the game - maybe now! no? maybe now! no? now!!

if you stagger the payout, (randomize it), you're killing the predictability and appealing to your dog's natural inclination to gamble on finding sustenance. (Buried in here also is the presumption that your animal is reward motivated). It's right on the cusp of operant behaviour, in which the dog (is coerced into) decides for himself how to proceed

[mum24dog]

On the matter of sending out a dog to look for non existent sheep, I went to a talk and demo by our local mountain rescue search dog team last night and one of the questions raised was how was the dog rewarded if it had searched an area and found nothing. The answer was that the handler wherever possible would set up a set up "find" for the dog using another member of the team so he could reinforce success. Just an example of always ending on a high note.

 

Lying in the sense that it wasn't a genuine find? Does the dog care? Does the handler even care? The dog does as the handler asks and gets what it wants, a game with its toy. Seems like an excellent example of honesty to me.

 

On the subject of search dog training here, whatever some may tell us shock collars (or ecollars for those who don't want to face up to what they do) are not used, even though the dogs are working amongst stock all the time and 80% of the dogs are BCs from working lines.

 

Dogs are not thrown into situations before they are able to cope with ignoring distractions and then punished for failure. If a dog is showing interest in stock it is generally the fault of the handler's lack of trust in the dog, which responds to the handler's unease. Many a time the handler is told to walk straight ahead confidently looking neither right nor left and the dog will do the same in the majority of cases.

 

We are not talking about untrained dogs here; they have been trained to focus on the search first but some need a bit of help in dealing with their working environment.

[Maja]

I don't use treats in training. I give treats for free, for no reason whatever.

However, for reasons stated in my previous post, I try very hard to have the same foundation off-sheep as I do on-sheep. If I don't expect a puppy to come to me without a treat, I can't expect an older dog to listen when we are on sheep - the super treat is right there in front of it. I think that training without treats is good because it shows fully and at all times where the dog is with training. It also inadvertently teaches to value the treat more than the praise (if you think the dog is more likely to respond to treat than the praise, the message is very clear, in my opinion).

I remember when I was showing recall with distractions videos with Bonnie at 6 months, people who had many years of experience in (non-livestock-type) training were appalled and completely incredulous about Bonnie's recall being perfect and having been achieved without treats. Their final (self-comforting) conclusion was that she would get over this puppy foolishness of always coming when called. She didn't.

I am not against using treats, and I don't think it is lying, but I think it is a pity when people teach the dog to value a treat more than the praise from the hander. Particularly for border collies who were bred to value the handler above all. What is boils down to is that the pup is more likely to come when the reward is the treat than when the reward is the praise of the handler.

The other aspect of treats is the asymmetry in training. What do you do when the dog does something wrong? Correct is verbally (even by simply saying, no). Something right? Give her a treat. If you don’t give treats the behaviour is modified verbally and reinforced verbally, the direct communication with the handler is symmetrical and reinforced.

For me personally, if we are to use these terms for ethics, training without treats is more honest towards myself. Darinka is not an easy dog, and I did find myself tempted to go back to treats, only to be forced face the fact that it is not the matter of the training method – I simply didn’t have the right handle on this dog as I would like to. And when I faced it, things got better. Without the treats.

I think that other breeds may have to be trained with treats but it is crucial, for me to remember, that border collies were bred to value the human praise more than everything else. It is not an accident that what is called obedience elsewhere is called biddability in sheep dogs – it is because the source of it is not quite the same.