Aidan

I don't agree that that's a given. I lived in a bad area and we had several different types of incidents on more than a few occasions and it had nothing to do with taking risks or relying on dogs. We will have to agree to disagree on that one. If your life relies on your dog shutting up I'm sure you could give the command. At the risk of sounding condescending (which is not my intention), this does rather show the holes in your experience. Just because you can issue a command does not mean your dog will follow it, even if you have trained specifically for it (which you are suggesting isn't always necessary, and I agree). Operant behaviour is dependent upon antecedents and consequences, that is all the things that come before it, and the history of what has come after it. If the antecedents change, and there is no reinforcement history, what is the probability of the cued response? Furthermore, if a dog has to make his own decisions when 'stepping up', why would you expect him to do something which his survival instinct is telling him to ignore? If you've ever worked with very fearful dogs you might have some idea of what state the back of the brain goes into when a completely normal, stable dog is presented with a serious threat. A dog doesn't have to recognise the immediate danger for this to happen, they just have to recognise that their handler has recognised the immediate danger. I'm not being condescending. I am deliberately being very measured and dry, and I feel that I have the right to ask for a standard of reply from you if I am to continue this discussion. No-one is forcing you or I to have this discussion. Perhaps it might best be summed up as - work with the probabilities.

One suggestion would be to make a list of the things you need to work on: 1. recall 2. leash manners around other dogs 3. polite greeting of visitors 4. polite greeting of other dogs Then break each of these things down into achievable pieces. Fortunately, others have already paved the way by breaking some of these things down, some sites I know of: http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/%20Dog1/levels.html http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/Lesson6.html

If you have a LGD with a nice temperament who is socialised and trained, then you are not taking a liability out into the public, are you? Isn't that assumed? Perhaps I should have said "an unsocialised, working Anatolian" when I made my original remark, but I really didn't think it was necessary.

Are you one of those people who caution, "look out there's a Karabash coming"? Haha, you must be constantly looking over your shoulder then! No, you own these breeds and you know exactly what I am talking about. Your last post sums it up VERY well. You're winding me up, right? You summed up everything I was trying to say about the difference between trained personal protection dogs and LGDs in your last post.

Yes, fair enough too! Perhaps my "it simply isn't true" was a bit misleading, too, I should have made more of an effort to clarify. This is an extract from http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/basic/res...tus_english.pdf : "As for high-ranking animals asserting any practical control over subordinates, the nature of the interaction is highly conditional. For example, with large prey such as adult moose (Alces alces), pack members of all ranks (ages) gather around a carcass and feed simultaneously, with no rank privilege apparent (Mech 1966; Haber 1977); however, if the prey is smaller, like a musk ox calf, dominant animals (breeders) may feed first and control when subordinates feed (Mech 1988; National Geographic 1988). Similarly, pups are subordinate to both parents and to older siblings, yet they are fed preferentially by the parents, and even by their older (dominant) siblings (Mech et al. 1999). On the other hand, parents both dominate older offspring and restrict their food intake when food is scarce, feeding pups instead. Thus, the most practical effect of social dominance is to allow the dominant individual the choice of to whom to allot food." Sure, I respect that. We tend to repeat that which works for us.

I didn't see the bit where she said she was going to be taking unnecessary risks. Maybe you can point that out. She may not realise it, but she is already taking those risks. She has had three of these incidences. My original post was suggesting that people would be better served learning how to identify and manage these risks appropriately. I'm not saying there are no guns, I'm saying there's a decreased likelihood of this being the weapon of choice in Australia. A guy pointing an object at you isn't really as threatening as physical contact, if your dog is obedience trained correctly it should respond. So you would remain completely calm if someone was pointing a gun at you? If "ring nerves" are still a performance problem in the UD ring (arguably "correctly trained obedience dogs"), then I would suspect there is a reasonable probability that a dog, particularly one with a naturally protective instinct, might falter in this particular scenario if it had not been proofed. Are you suggesting any breed bred for guarding or having a natural protective instinct (there are a ton of these breeds) is a liability if not protection trained? No. I'm suggesting that a dog from working lines specifically has a high probability of being a liability (whether the owner recognises it or not) if not trained specifically for either protection, or specifically trained not to "protect". I have never said "no dog will protect when you want it to". I would like you to be more accurate when you reply to me. Not only is it unfair to me, it reflects poorly on you and I wouldn't be having this discussion with you if I didn't think you were capable of fairness and accuracy. Because a show quality Neo would never protect. Get out of your little Schutzhund world. There are more breeds out there than Dobes, Mals, GSD's and Rotties. I don't compete or train in Schutzhund. I'm not sure what argument you think I am trying to make, but I think my original post expresses it clearly enough. You seem to think that because I disagree with you on point X, I must also disagree with you on points A, B and C also. For your benefit: "I think people need to spend less time speculating about their dog's willingness or ability to protect them and more time learning how to manage risk (for which a dog and training may or may not play some part)." -- I don't think a dog is a good personal protection strategy ON IT'S OWN, and most of what a dog may or may not contribute is speculation anyway. "I know my dogs would make a lot of noise and I know that one of them has no qualms about fronting up, but I'm not sure what would happen if someone was swinging a cricket bat at me." -- my dogs might protect me in one situation, but maybe not another, I don't train for it so I don't know what the probabilities are. I am not willing to risk my life to find out so I can either train for it, or take other measures to avoid a situation where I might have to find out. For the record, I do own a working line GSD who is trained to be sociable. I also own a Golden Retriever who legitimately helped me avoid a home invasion when he was a puppy, he is the most gentlemanly dog you could imagine. I also perform "rare feats of strength" in front of referrees and avoid city parks at night.

Well, my Anatolian is a nice boy and is perfectly civil in public. I don't doubt that at all :D You can imagine an Anatolian, who wasn't civil and who was maybe working as a LGD, taken out into public and allowed to make his own decisions about what is a threat or what is not? That might be quite a liability!

Oh right. Because I'm sure that's exactly what the OP was going to do. It's already been established that she won't be 'RELYING' on the dog. Go back and read the thread. She has had three (now) "very bad incidences". I think the evidence speaks for itself. We don't have any idea of an individual dog's untested potential, but we do have a reasonable idea of the probability across a population of dogs. Police handlers, for e.g, choose dogs from certain lines of tested breeding pairs then train them for many very good reasons. You've obviously never heard of the 'quiet' command. Regardless, unlikely scenario in a country not exactly brimming with guns. I'm not sure which part of that is the most naive, but I'll go with the remark about the "quiet" command. How many pet owners teaching "quiet" proof their dog with people attacking or threatening them with weapons? I have some experience with dogs who are bred for this line of work. They need training, lots of it. All of them need to be trained to be completely sociable and civil (if that is possible), and then to either never bite (proofed) or to bite when cued (also proofed). Anything less is a liability. It would be a terrible mistake to purchase a dog from working lines then just hope that one day it will do it's job, for it probably will - whether you want it to or not. If we are talking about dogs not from working lines, then I'm wasting my time. The probabilities are reduced further, as the OP has already found out the hard way.

Hi Rhapsodical, unfortunately my post must have been very poorly written because you have managed to miss or twist every point that I tried to make. I don't cinsider my dog to be a risk. I was referring to risk management as in personal safety, like "don't walk through city parks alone at night". Nice analogy, but it works both ways. It reminds me of people who actually lift, who then look at the rest of the world's population of muscled men and claim none of them could ever lift. Not only undoubtedly inaccurate but pretty arrogant, too. The point I was trying to make was that the kid who quarter-squats 180kg would not pass in competition (not that people who don't compete can't be strong, that would not be a logical conclusion to make even for an arrogant person). The dog who gets agitated and growls when you are approached by suspicious looking strangers may not be able to confront someone with a cricket bat, you won't know if it hasn't been tested properly but plenty of people seem to want to make that claim regardless. You're making the assumption that no potentially protective dog is obedience trained. No I'm definitely not making that assumption. You're making the assumption that an obedience trained dog won't bark if threatened by someone with a gun. You can choose a breed for whatever reason you like. If you don't prioritise protection and are not interested in protection training, but want a dog with potential, then you're probably going to have a better chance with a Rottweiler than you are with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. People choose dogs for all sorts of reasons. The OP asked a specific question which I was addressing. But tell me, a "better chance" at what specifically? This is garbage. I know of at least three cases (seems a small number until you consider the rarity of this breed in Australia) where people take their CAO/Kangal dogs out and about with no problems. You just have to know your dog. I'm sure there are very well trained Anatolians and even Anatolians with very civil temperaments out there and those are obviously not the ones I am talking about. Consider that you are only seeing the ones that suit life in Australia, and for that matter, the ones that people are willing to take out into public. In any case, my point was not run down a breed as being a liability in public, but that certain breeds do well in protection work for many good reasons. That in itself is a generalisation that does not take into account lines or individual temperaments, but statistically speaking it is a fact.

I think people need to spend less time speculating about their dog's willingness or ability to protect them and more time learning how to manage risk (for which a dog and training may or may not play some part). This thread reminds me of discussions on strength forums where the poster claims certain numbers for a lift, but has never competed. It's just hollow talk, usually stemming from some ignorant perception of what an actual lift under rules of competition looks like. I know my dogs would make a lot of noise and I know that one of them has no qualms about fronting up, but I'm not sure what would happen if someone was swinging a cricket bat at me. If that person had a gun my dog becomes a massive liability, less chance of talking my way out of the situation with my dog going nuts. I try to avoid that sort of situation wherever possible The original question is a moot point. You can't choose a breed because it is more likely to protect you, you can only choose a breed that will excel in the training required to protect you. That is why GSDs, Rotts, Malinois etc are used over, say, a LGD breed. Taking an Anatolian Shepherd out in public is more of a liability than an asset.

Something worked for you, but I doubt this was it. It simply isn't true. You know what else? Beta wolves are allowed to growl at alpha wolves if they approach their food, too.

What is the difference between 'training' and 'walking' do you think? Stop walking then cue "sit" immediately. Your stopping will begin to predict "sit" eventually and your dog will start to anticipate it. The first time he correctly anticipates it, don't cue "sit", but click and treat straight away.

How is her recall compliance when she knows you don't have a ball on offer?

Some people love that sort of drive, if you can figure out how to use it to your advantage it is very powerful. Of course! All dog training is a transaction, you just make sure you get what you want out of it too. This sounds like the sort of dog who could excel in just about any endeavour.

Another ball, of course!

You answered your own question - you took it away contingent upon a response, and that response was suppressed. In hindsight I may have been wrong about your crate example from earlier, provided that approaching the crate was a conditioned reinforcer (which seems reasonable now that I have thought about it some more).

Your dog might be a candidate for the "Calming Yo Yo" exercise found in this article: http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1556

Extinction certainly is a learning process and some academics are suggesting that it should be called the "5th quadrant" - which apart from being an oxymoron, I feel is erroneous. Why? Operant Extinction is not a consequence, it is when the environment fails to add or withdraw something from the environment where previously it had through either positive or negative reinforcement. Does that make sense? As I will detail later, also an operant extinction procedure does not have to produce a change in behaviour. Both have very clear definitions, this article is worth a read: http://www.animalbehavioranswers.com/id117.html If the two are confused (and they are similar and hence, frequently confused), then I can see how it appears to be a debatable point, but in fact there are clear differences between the two. In fact, if you were inside the dog's head I think it would be a lot harder to tell the difference! They don't care for the names we have given these natural processes of learning Punishment is not immune to recovery, especially in the absence of the punisher or conditioned punisher. Differential Reinforcement procedures (which rely on operant extinction) are very effective at suppressing behaviours in the long term without using punishment. In this example withholding the treat is not -P. Nothing was taken away, the dog didn't have the treat. You might take away a conditioned reinforcer, which may be a punishing consequence, but that was not described in this example. Not all extinction procedures involve extinctions bursts, spontaneous recovery, or for that matter even a reduction in the behaviour! It is an extinction procedure for the simple fact that a response which has previously resulted in a reinforcer is no longer producing that reinforcer. (This is another reason why extinction does not belong in the quadrants, in my opinion). However, we can't say that a response has been "extinguished" until it disappears. THAT we could debate until the cows come home! No, there is no value judgement to be made. A point that I had made two threads back had been misinterpreted because the difference between extinction and -P was not understood. It was suggested that I start a new thread to discuss this as it was off-topic elsewhere. I am merely seeking to point out that there is a difference between operant extinction and -P. For most dog owners and even dog trainers this difference is not particularly important, but for those of us who utilise functional analysis, Differential Reinforcement procedures, and particularly for those of us who want to change behaviours which have been maintained with negative reinforcement (anyone who works with reactive dogs) it can be very important. Possibly! We always seek to improve, sometimes the areas we can gain benefit from are unknown until we need to call upon that information. A good suggestion! Yes, I only caught up with it after you included this ETA. Thanks for your comments and questions

I think in this sort of example there isn't much harm and it is a common mistake. It is more of a problem when you are using a Differential Reinforcement procedure, or using functional analysis to get to the root of a problem.

Yes, but Erny makes some good points. If you start off with some functional analysis you can figure out whether it is a safe strategy to use or not. Keep in mind that problem behaviours are being reinforced on some sort of schedule, often continuous, sometimes variable. If they are already on a continuous schedule and you have the opportunity to use an extinction procedure then you don't need to do anything else. If they are on a variable schedule you can make an attempt to make this a continuous schedule so that the dog is fully expecting reinforcement every single time before abruptly using an extinction procedure. Something else to be careful not to do if you do have the opportunity to attempt this strategy - do not introduce a different reinforcer! E.g dog jumps on person for attention, which is given intermittently. Trainer instructs person to toss a ball every single time for 1 week every time dog jumps up, before abruptly ceasing ball toss the following week. OK, this was a strange example, but you can probably guess what would happen - the dog would simply resume jumping up for attention.

You need to be very clear on what your criterion are. In my classes we start off with pattern learning so that we can control all the variables and just build something to put a name on later. So by the time the behaviour is on cue we have already sorted out most of the speed, distance and even some distractions. When we put it on cue we work on latency (time taken to respond, which ideally is as close to zero as practical), improve or maintain speed, distance, and more distractions. For speed I like to use set distances, e.g have the dog run between two people at either end of a tracking leash on a tether (about 20m in total between each person). Let's say we have a slow dog, he takes at least 6 seconds to make the journey 70% of the time (we will assume latency is not a problem, if it were we would need to reduce that first). We test this by performing 10 trials (all reinforced) and timing each one. From this we establish a time that we know the dog can beat about 70% of the time. This becomes our criteria, in this case, 6 seconds. So we work with this time, and any trial that takes longer than 6 seconds is not reinforced. Then we test it, we perform another 10 trials, if 8 of them are within 6 seconds we can reduce the time to say, 5 seconds for our next round of trials. (For the record, 4 seconds is acceptable, 3 seconds is better). (NB those skilled in drive training can incorporate their methods to improve these times very quickly, keeping in mind that this must be maintained when those antecedents are not present; e.g when you haven't been swinging a ball on a rope around) This is obviously in a class setting, not in the real world. I think the idea of having a "casual recall" and an "emergency recall" is sound, so long as they have different cues. The ER is the one you use in class and you don't stuff up by using it inappropriately or casually. Later your ER becomes very strong and most of your criteria are sorted out, you're just working on distractions, at which point you should use it as often as possible in the real world.

That's not quite correct. Variable Schedules of Reinforcement build behaviours that are more resistant to extinction. I use (and teach, although compliance is low) Continuous Reinforcement [Differential]. Responses at the required criteria are reinforced on a continuous schedule. Any sub-par performances are not reinforced. If you reinforce sub-par responses you get more... sub-par responses!

Not that I can see. If we can make the assumption that scratching at the crate door was being maintained by the approach of the person or the food then I would say that was an extinction procedure.

In this example at a practical level, probably not, but the definition of an extinction procedure does require you to remove the reinforcer that is maintaining the targeted behaviour (otherwise it would be -P). It becomes more important when you are doing functional analysis, or attempting a Differential Reinforcement procedure.

Yes. I started writing out a very similar example and then realised that I didn't really know where I was going with it. So, say you are preparing a meal for your dog and they jump up and down on the spot. You ignore it and the food stays on the counter until there is a lull in the jumping. Over time the jumping fades away. Now say you ignore it, but when you go to give your dog the food they start really jumping, so you pull the food away from them and only put it down when they have stopped jumping and over time the jumping stops. Would it be correct to say that in the first scenario it's extinction but in the second scenario it's P-? Or is that a false distinction? We can probably assume that the jumping was reinforced by food at some point, so in the first example we have qualified that it is an extinction procedure. The second example doesn't appear to be any different, because at no point did the dog have the food. He is still jumping in expectation of a reinforcer, and that reinforcer is not forthcoming.