Neutralisation Vs Socialisation

[Steve K9Pro]

Q: Besides I don't think we are talking about strict value of 0 here.

K9: Yes this is 100% true. I have a scale which I have added here so one can see the variables we allow, hope this helps.

Any values under positive or negative 3 are acceptable as the dog isnt operating in the high end of its emotions or drives, this not interfering with training progress.

Edited January 7, 2009 by K9 Force

[Steve K9Pro]

J: Well my form of "lovable" to strangers, would be the dog not being annoying to that person and behaving apropriatly "sitting and waiting and being calm about it". My pup doesnt get pats from any old strangers and I try and make all pats a "calm" thing, that she does get not "oh hello! bla bla". In a sense wouldnt that be "neutralising"?

K9: sure, consider that Neutralising is a term I use to make sure people know my form of socialising is different to the generic form.

Neutralising is not allowing your dog to over value anything other than you, your family, your training motivators.

J: I was still trying to say that it is still "teaching" the dog. So even if you neutralise from day 1 or later on your still "teaching" the dog from that point on. Its still conditioning the dog and in a sense still training.

K9: I view it as eliminating your dog from things, which I call elimination not teaching, but either way as long as the message gets across.

J: You seem to be a little defensive about all this K9, but all I'm doing is trying to relate, as I've just used my commonsense in what I want with my dog to achieve things and not thought of the "technical" words. In a sense I seem to be doing the same thing, but not on such "strict" terms, but I'm also trying to get the whole picture.

K9: No defence here, I just want to ensure that people know a few things about my socialisation program.

1. You don't have to do it.

2. It wont cause problems.

3. It is easy.

4. It does work & very well.

Thats why I started the thread on it ages ago.

Yep you probably are doing something similar?

J: I wasnt saying that it doesnt work or anything. As for "trying it" like I've said I havent heard it used in this context. My dog generally doesn't recieve pats from strangers and other people etc, but I will still allow it on occasion on my terms when both people/dog are calm and not all "squeeky and excitable" etc.

K9: then basically its the same, just as a behaviourist, I need to explain it in detail to clients so they don't go off in the wrong direction if I can help it.

We as trainers/behaviourists also need to be cautious of what we write, I would not be half surprised to hear in 12 months that after reading the following, someone would say that I suggest breaking a dogs leg as part of socialisation, some people take the written word very literally.

I think I remember the lady bred this dog, but it was a while ago (& many thousands of dogs & owners ago too)

Later when we talked about Neutralisation, she piped up & told the story of this dog she had with her at the workshop. That it was the best one she had bred, but what happened to this dog when it was a pup was that, it had suffered a broken leg & was kept indoors & missed the socialisation process.

I remember the lady thinking this pup would turn out terrible without socialisation but in fact it was the best one she had.

It was the most bonded, focussed & obedient dog that she had (bred) from what I remember her telling me.

She inadvertently neutralised this dog, used her previous training experience & was herself impressed on just how good this dog come out.

[corvus]

K9: & its your call if that's why you have a dog. I don't have dogs to please others, to give other big warm fuzzy cuddles & I dont choose a breed of dog based on what other people think or like.

I don't either, but it's nice all the same! It's certainly nothing to complain about.

C: Is there a particular reason why a handler needs to be the bestest thing in the world to a dog?

K9: Yeah I think some people call them Alphas. The one that beholds all rewards & information will attract the most respect in a dogs eyes.

Well, I was thinking more about to the exclusion of all else. It doesn't take much for most dogs to think you're the bees knees if you feed them and give them treats, let alone if you are nice to them, offer direction when they are looking for it, and give them tools to actually communicate with you and ask for things. The power of bridging the species gap in communication is quite something.

C: Looking at my Lapphund who is a natural snugglebum and is in his element when being a social butterfly,

K9: These are human traits your describing & I dont feel Anthropomorphism is an accurate way of deciding why a dog does what it does.

My feeling would be that your dog knows what works, squirm around the feet of a person, lick them perhaps & I get good things.

Mmm I described it in human terms, but liking snuggles and interactions with others is not exclusively the domain of humans. I'm sure you know about the Arctic Fox study where they were trying to simulate the domestication of dogs and selected just the cuddly fox cubs to breed from. There is more to cuddles and pats than just "getting good things". It releases chemicals in the body and even affects physiology, as shown by the little fox cubs that came out with blue eyes or looking like Border Collies. So yes, my Lapphund is a natural snugglebum. Otherwise he wouldn't be thinking snuggles were a good thing in the first place. He's not a squirmer or a licker, as it happens. He just leans, circles and whines, but that's beside the point. What decides what a dog does is what they find inherently rewarding/aversive. Food, toys, play, pats.... whatever it is, whether you take control of it or not it's still natural to the animal and not anthropomorphic.

but will still stick with his people and can be easily won over from a tempting scenario with a treat... well, I don't really see any benefits and I see a few possible downsides. And that's ignoring my weird preference for a dog that blows me off on a regular basis.

K9: I wonder if a human companion was the same would we think it so attractive? As long as you have the right bribe, you will have their attention...

This provides quite a good argument for neutralisation in my opinion.

If your dog wasnt food driven the I guess you wouldnt be able to win him over & he would just walk off with whomever was providing the highest reward at the time.

Well would you find a human you had conditioned to adore you above all things particularly attractive? There's a name for people like that. It's not very flattering. Yes, he would walk off with whomever was providing the highest reward at the time, but on the other hand, it's not like he isn't bonded to us at all. If someone beside us is handing out steak, you can bet they find they have an extra dog sitting politely at their feet and that's because he tried that once when he was a pup and discovered it worked with other people as well combined with the value of the treat on offing. But if we walked away it's not like we've lost our dog to the person with the steak. He would come after us because we are his people, we give him his meals, his water, take him for walks and play with him. If our dog wasn't food driven we wouldn't be wasting our time trying to win him over with food. We'd be focusing on whatever did take his fancy, like most people do. The only difference between this method and your method is that you decide what your dog is going to value and I let my dog tell me what he values. Where's the benefit in one way over another with that argument? One is the preference of a control freak and the other is the ramblings of a liberatarian.

To me, it sounds like as usual, picking a line straight down the middle is probably the most sensible.

[Sardog]

Yeh I can see where you are coming from, I guess it turns a little technical with what kind of words you use.

Technicly in a sense all dogs that have had the work put in them would be then neutralised in something, as in "dog not chasing cars" or anything else.

I was just trying to get around it cause I could see people hearing a term like this and thinking that the dog doesn't get to do anything or get out etc maybe taking it too literaly, and I guess there would be degree's of neutralising?.

But from what it seems is that as long as you stop the dog from thinking about being excitable/agressive(extremes on either end of the scale) that it is in itself still a form of "nuetralising".

I dont claim to be a behaviourist/trainer etc (and my recent dog ive only had for a couple of weeks) but I share a high interest in it (id like to re-educate/train horses more down the track)., also having 3 horses that I like to put alot of work in and one of my pet hates is 'untrained' dogs (eg dogs out of control etc) and think that all dogs should atleast have some basics in behaving the "respectable" way (its not rocket science is it?) lol.

Like in my view the dog should be pretty well "calm/relaxed" in just about any situation apart from say when the excitement of play but should then still be easily able to "calm" back down.

But yeh I can agree that the dog should still in the end think that the handler will give the most reward (technicly the leaders praise should mean the world) in theory, because the handler should be the most "respected". If this doesnt happen the handler probably needs to change there ways to make them the most rewarding thing (even corrections can make you be more "respected" even in the horse world).

So yeh I definitly wasnt putting down "neutralisation" cause in some way in certain situations it would seem to benifit alot of dogs instead of just general "socialisation" say with other people/dogs, and just seems that any properly trained dog would have some "neutralisation".

Very interesting and probably contraversial topic, but I think the people that would be saying things against it would be the ones who don't fuly understand it. As you said as long as the dog doesnt overvalue(but then wouldnt want them to be -10 as in agressive either) then it would be "neutralisation" to some degree, but I could see alot thinking more that it has to be a 0 which it doesnt?.

But yeh to me "elimination" would still be a form of learning for the dog, therefore still teaching.

Hope that made sense, and you can see where I'm trying to come from.

I totally agree with K9 here. Having trained dogs over the past 30 years for disciplines including Obedience, Tracking, HRD and now Search & Rescue, I have found that the last 4 dogs who have been neutralised the same as K9 has demonstrated in his posts, have been 100% better working dogs than the previous dogs that I have owned and trained.

Hindsight is such a powerful figure, if I had have neutralised my previous dogs and not socialised them, I often wondered how much better would they have been?

I have a 4 and a half month old Golden Retriever puppy who has never had any interaction with any other dogs except the pack he lives with (3 other Labs) and he is extremely focused on what he is being taught within the sar criteria and its elements. I don't want my dogs having any higher value to anything else but "me". He is certainly not missing out on any social skills.

Julie

[corvus]

Okay, I'm not picking a fight or trying to rip this apart; I just want to understand it and so I ask questions.

How can your dog not be missing out on social skills if he doesn't interact with any other dog but your dogs? Don't they need to experience the various styles of other dogs in order to learn how best to handle each unique situation? What do they do if you take them somewhere fun like the beach and another dog approaches them?

I am beginning to wonder if this is actually more or less the same as my idea of socialisation anyway? When I socialise, I don't sit there feeding the dog whenever anything new comes along and he doesn't freak out. I don't use treats at all. My aim in socialisation is just exposure. We sit, we look, and if something good happens, then I'm okay with that, but I don't encourage it particularly.

[Steve K9Pro]

J: Technicly in a sense all dogs that have had the work put in them would be then neutralised in something, as in "dog not chasing cars" or anything else.

K9: As long as your aware that, allowing a dog to gain a value for say chasing cars then training the dog not to chase cars isn't neutralisation as far as my program goes, its probably just called obedience training.

Neutralisation is not letting them develop that value in the first place.

J: But from what it seems is that as long as you stop the dog from thinking about being excitable/agressive(extremes on either end of the scale) that it is in itself still a form of "nuetralising".

and

J: Like in my view the dog should be pretty well "calm/relaxed" in just about any situation apart from say when the excitement of play but should then still be easily able to "calm" back down.

K9: as I mentioned earlier, this can get complicated & lengthy to explain but for example in your above statement, its not desirable in many cases to teach the dog to be calm in all cir cumstances, for example t get the most out of a dog you wil want to inspire drive & utilise drive to complete the work your looking for. Teaching a dog to be calm will compromise that. I have a thread on it thats a good read.

Prey Drive Control & Focus Thread

Also the original Socialisation Thread is here too

Socialisation & Neutralisation

[Steve K9Pro]

C: I don't either, but it's nice all the same! It's certainly nothing to complain about.

K9: Unless it is killing the reliability of your dogs obedience which is most common.

C: Well, I was thinking more about to the exclusion of all else. It doesn't take much for most dogs to think you're the bees knees if you feed them and give them treats, let alone if you are nice to them, offer direction when they are looking for it, and give them tools to actually communicate with you and ask for things. The power of bridging the species gap in communication is quite something.

K9: Well the exclusion of all else strongly displays the contrast between the Alpha & all else.

The way of thinking that if you feed a dog & give it treats it will think your the bee's knee's is pretty outdated though, I don't know a dog owner who doesn't feed their dogs & give them treats but many are far from seen as the Bee's Knee's...

C: Mmm I described it in human terms, but liking snuggles and interactions with others is not exclusively the domain of humans. I'm sure you know about the Arctic Fox study where they were trying to simulate the domestication of dogs and selected just the cuddly fox cubs to breed from. There is more to cuddles and pats than just "getting good things". It releases chemicals in the body and even affects physiology, as shown by the little fox cubs that came out with blue eyes or looking like Border Collies. So yes, my Lapphund is a natural snugglebum. Otherwise he wouldn't be thinking snuggles were a good thing in the first place.

K9: The rewarding aspect of "cuddles" or any reward bfor that matter will always trigger chemical flows, but it is the reward that is sought, that is what generates the behaviour in the first place.

I really dont think that your dog is a "natural" snugglebum, natural meaning its a gentic feature of Lahounds or your dogs lineage, I would suggest its a learned experience.

And no, not familiar with the Fox study.

C: He's not a squirmer or a licker, as it happens. He just leans, circles and whines, but that's beside the point.

K9: lol, many would just call it (dominant) demanding behaviours created to gain rewards, chemical or otherwise. It is only a slightly different action than the dog running up to people jumping, yours has just learned that leaning, circling & whinning works.

C: What decides what a dog does is what they find inherently rewarding/aversive. Food, toys, play, pats.... whatever it is, whether you take control of it or not it's still natural to the animal and not anthropomorphic.

K9: Snuggles are the human trait that I was speaking of, you domnt see a dog snuggling another unless its is seeking warmth.

C: Well would you find a human you had conditioned to adore you above all things particularly attractive? There's a name for people like that. It's not very flattering.

K9: when you try & mix dog temperaments & human personalities you will often find yourself confused as they vary greatly. I am simply answering a question or two & as for what is desirable differs for everyone.

C: Yes, he would walk off with whomever was providing the highest reward at the time, but on the other hand, it's not like he isn't bonded to us at all.

K9: I am not suggesting he isn't bonded to you, just more bonded to the rewards & if you owned those rewards, he wouldn't be walking off.

C: If someone beside us is handing out steak, you can bet they find they have an extra dog sitting politely at their feet and that's because he tried that once when he was a pup and discovered it worked with other people as well combined with the value of the treat on offing.

K9: which means this is a learned behaviour, not natural & that could have been avoided.

C: But if we walked away it's not like we've lost our dog to the person with the steak. He would come after us because we are his people, we give him his meals, his water, take him for walks and play with him.

K9: have you tried it? Someone has a big juicy steak & giving him pieces, you simply walk off & you think he will follow leaving the steak? I am not saying he wont, I am just asking if you have tried it.

C: To me, it sounds like as usual, picking a line straight down the middle is probably the most sensible.

K9: Thats true, if you have fairly easy goals to achieve with your dog & the dog isnt high drive, that will work just fine.

[Steve K9Pro]

SD: I totally agree with K9 here. Having trained dogs over the past 30 years for disciplines including Obedience, Tracking, HRD and now Search & Rescue, I have found that the last 4 dogs who have been neutralised the same as K9 has demonstrated in his posts, have been 100% better working dogs than the previous dogs that I have owned and trained.

Hindsight is such a powerful figure, if I had have neutralised my previous dogs and not socialised them, I often wondered how much better would they have been?

I have a 4 and a half month old Golden Retriever puppy who has never had any interaction with any other dogs except the pack he lives with (3 other Labs) and he is extremely focused on what he is being taught within the sar criteria and its elements. I don't want my dogs having any higher value to anything else but "me". He is certainly not missing out on any social skills.

K9: An example I would like to give at this point is one worth thinking about for a while. I was watching SARDOGS labs on a search through a vacant paddock, in mid search off leash in full prey drive, this dog was surprised by a rabbit that was sitting in the grass. The rabbit jumped out & ran straight across the path of the driven dog.

The dog stopped looked at the rabbit & with little more than a muttered "come on" from Andrew, Gus was back on track, basically un triggered at all by the rabbit.

This scenario would see many prey driven dogs (especially those with as much drive as Gus has) be off after the rabbit & the person being saught would be taking a back seat as far as the dog is concerned.

Sure corrective measures could be employed to stop dogs chasing rabbitts, but corrections by design reduce drive so one has to play the balance game very carefully in these situations.

I watched the same thing occur at another event when the same dog located some people who immediately offered a hand to pat that Lab, he moved straight past them once it was indicated by Andrew that they werent the people lost. That indication was a head tilt from the handler.

There was no yelling, correcting or most importantly no stress, just wasnt a distraction. This is from nuetralisation & of course a lot of training.

[Steve K9Pro]

Neutralisation in itself would still be training.

K9: lol ok...

[Di*]

C: If someone beside us is handing out steak, you can bet they find they have an extra dog sitting politely at their feet and that's because he tried that once when he was a pup and discovered it worked with other people as well combined with the value of the treat on offing.

K9: which means this is a learned behaviour, not natural & that could have been avoided.

Surely, more accurately a combination of natural (biological) and learned (environmental) i.e. desire for food and scavenging behaviour--natural, sitting and recognising humans as a source of food--learned.

Di

[Steve K9Pro]

C: If someone beside us is handing out steak, you can bet they find they have an extra dog sitting politely at their feet and that's because he tried that once when he was a pup and discovered it worked with other people as well combined with the value of the treat on offing.

K9: which means this is a learned behaviour, not natural & that could have been avoided.

Surely, more accurately a combination of natural (biological) and learned (environmental) i.e. desire for food and scavenging behaviour--natural, sitting and recognising humans as a source of food--learned.

Di

K9: Not sure that domestic dogs that are regularly fed have a high rate of food scavenging though...

[corvus]

The way of thinking that if you feed a dog & give it treats it will think your the bee's knee's is pretty outdated though, I don't know a dog owner who doesn't feed their dogs & give them treats but many are far from seen as the Bee's Knee's...

Outdated? I don't think so. It's just operant conditioning, after all. Are these dogs that receive food and treats and don't see their owners as the bee's knees just lacking respect or outright aggressive? I suspect a lot of dogs that lack respect for their owners still think they are pretty sweet. After all, they get everything they want. That little dog I mentioned in an earlier post who went pretty bad under usual socialisation still thought my mother was the bee's knees even though she couldn't convince him that he didn't need to be aggressive to be safe. What could her hold over him be other than providing All Good Things? That's a genuine question, not one trying to catch you out or something. He was pretty good with me, too, and I didn't feed him or do anything like that, but then I'm a zoologist, which means domestic animals adore me and wild animals hate me.

I really dont think that your dog is a "natural" snugglebum, natural meaning its a gentic feature of Lahounds or your dogs lineage, I would suggest its a learned experience.

And no, not familiar with the Fox study.[/b]

Well, perhaps you have never met a Lapphund? How can you say that if a dog is allowed to discover for themselves what they find rewarding that the things they come back for more than anything else is not at least somewhere a result of genetics? I'm talking about why dogs gravitate towards the rewards they gravitate towards. You're talking about why they keep doing it. Obviously dogs go back for what they have found rewarding in the past, but what dictates why they found it rewarding in the first place? If you apply a reward, such as getting a stranger to feed your dog, then yeah, it's a learned thing, but then, what about the food? The food is a reward all by itself, like playing, chasing, tugging or affection to use other examples. Dogs are born liking food. Perhaps what you're trying to say is that my dog finds the attention he receives from seeking cuddles rewarding, not so much the cuddles themselves? That's what I would say if I hadn't seen him trying to get someone to put their arm around his shoulders. For this dog, though, the cuddles themselves go hand in hand with affection. For my other dog, cuddles are not a display of affection and she'd rather you didn't do it to her.

Definitely check out the fox study. It's pretty interesting. I thought it was Arctic Foxes but apparently it's Silver Foxes. It's an ongoing Russian experiment. Here's an excerpt from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts which talks about the experiment.

"To ensure that their tameness results from genetic selection, we do not train the foxes. Most of them spend their lives in cages and are allowed only brief "time dosed" contacts with human beings...

At seven or eight months, when the foxes reach sexual maturity, they are scored for tameness and assigned to one of three classes. The least domesticated foxes, those that flee from experimenters or bite when stroked or handled, are assigned to Class III. (Even Class III foxes are tamer than the calmest farm-bred foxes. Among other things, they allow themselves to be hand fed.) Foxes in Class II let themselves be petted and handled but show no emotionally friendly response to experimenters. Foxes in Class I are friendly toward experimenters, wagging their tails and whining. In the sixth generation bred for tameness we had to add an even higher-scoring category. Members of Class IE, the "domesticated elite," are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs. They start displaying this kind of behavior before they are one month old. By the tenth generation, 18 percent of fox pups were elite; by the 20th, the figure had reached 35 percent. Today elite foxes make up 70 to 80 percent of our experimentally selected population."

There's a video on the internet somewhere showing one of those IE foxes turning itself inside out when a human comes to visit. It's quite fascinating, but supports the point I'm trying to make, which is that some animals are born wanting more affection than others and this is what makes cuddles a good thing for Lapphunds but not small corgis.

K9: lol, many would just call it (dominant) demanding behaviours created to gain rewards, chemical or otherwise. It is only a slightly different action than the dog running up to people jumping, yours has just learned that leaning, circling & whinning works.

Oh, I agree! Except for the dominant bit. No one who had seen this behaviour would call it dominant. In our house, practically any attempt to get attention works. He only leans, circles and whines if he wants affection, though. Like I said, his methods are beside the point.

K9: Snuggles are the human trait that I was speaking of, you domnt see a dog snuggling another unless its is seeking warmth.

Well, maybe you haven't, but I have. I even have a photo somewhere of my old girl curled up in a bed with my mother's boy. Penny's not a snuggler as a rule, but nor does she get cold. Kivi is very touchy-feely with other dogs. He's often trying to walk with them touching flanks, licking and nuzzling their face and so on, but he's still a pup. You should look at this thread: http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=131029 if you've never seen dogs snuggling just because.

K9: when you try & mix dog temperaments & human personalities you will often find yourself confused as they vary greatly. I am simply answering a question or two & as for what is desirable differs for everyone.

You were the one that brought human personalities into this discussion, not me!

C: If someone beside us is handing out steak, you can bet they find they have an extra dog sitting politely at their feet and that's because he tried that once when he was a pup and discovered it worked with other people as well combined with the value of the treat on offing.

K9: which means this is a learned behaviour, not natural & that could have been avoided.

Agreed, but that's not the point. The point is that he's a dog that likes food. As in, naturally likes food. I know why he keeps doing it and it is as you say, learnt. When we hand out treats at the dog park we often find we have a few extra dogs as well. It's a common problem with dogs that have been trained with food. It always occurs to Kivi much faster than it occurs to Penny despite the fact that Penny is far more into food than Kivi because Penny wasn't trained much with treats. Most of us don't think it is a problem, but that's our call.

C: But if we walked away it's not like we've lost our dog to the person with the steak. He would come after us because we are his people, we give him his meals, his water, take him for walks and play with him.

K9: have you tried it? Someone has a big juicy steak & giving him pieces, you simply walk off & you think he will follow leaving the steak? I am not saying he wont, I am just asking if you have tried it.

Yes, but not really since he was a puppy and it was pretty hard back then. We were struggling to win him over until the person with the steak stopped feeding him the steak. Penny would be a better example because she likes food even more than Kivi does and is an adult. I know for a fact she will stop and scoff the food, but she will leave it if I start getting too far ahead. Kivi probably wouldn't without a bit of encouragement because he's slightly less nervous of being left on his own. I would rather not try it while he's still an obnoxious teenager who thinks he knows everything. A few months ago before his emergency recall suffered a serious setback I believe he would have come if we used it, but it's hard to say at the moment when it's still a bit fragile. I have successfully shooed him away from someone else feeding him treats. He just needs a prod to get him going. He doesn't need steak to get him going. He doesn't even need a food reward. If he's not really that hungry and the food is still a possible rather than a certain, he doesn't need a prod at all. That's because he's not driven by food to the exclusion of all else. Neither is my food loving corgi.

Ultimately, a high prey drive dog that doesn't want to eat my rabbits is what I want. If such a dog found the very smell of a rabbit exciting, then can you break this cycle just with loads of neutral exposure early on? Is it possible that just the smell of the rabbit is creating a positive value even as you think you are attaching no value to the rabbits with all this exposure and not adding any rewards?

Edited January 8, 2009 by corvus

[Just Midol]

I wonder if in countries such as France, where dogs are allowed to go out with their owners almost everywhere whether they practice neutralisation as a matter of course.

I'd say probably.

[Di*]

haha, dont tell my pup that will you :p, my pup gets 2 meals a day (not including reward treats) and still scouts around the floor for scraps that have been droped, learnt maybe because there has been scraps on the floor, but now she comes inside every time and "checks" haha, same as when she gets her rewards shes gotta make sure theres no more left behind, maybe the works of a sniffer dog in a young pup :p.

To me even natural behaviours are still "learnt" the mother of the pup teaches them such things, yes the dog has a natural response to situations but it is still all learnt as these responses could be changed.

Jesskah

FYI There are a number of behaviours that aren't "learnt" in any of ways we generally understand the term--such as suckling in new born pups.

Di

[Steve K9Pro]

C: Outdated? I don't think so. It's just operant conditioning, after all. Are these dogs that receive food and treats and don't see their owners as the bee's knees just lacking respect or outright aggressive?

K9: Can be either or both... Simply feeding your dog & giving it treats will not empower everyone as the Alpha with every dog.

C: I suspect a lot of dogs that lack respect for their owners still think they are pretty sweet. After all, they get everything they want.

K9: when your given everything for nothing suddenly everything is worth nothing.

C: That little dog I mentioned in an earlier post who went pretty bad under usual socialisation still thought my mother was the bee's knees even though she couldn't convince him that he didn't need to be aggressive to be safe.

K9: So I guess when you use the term Bee's Knee's you mean good outlet for free rewards... I would have thought Bee's Knee's would be the bee all & end all.

C: What could her hold over him be other than providing All Good Things? That's a genuine question, not one trying to catch you out or something.

K9: Companionship, basic pack member...? Not sure haven't seen the dog. There is a behavioural change amongst many mammals, us included that occurs just by association.

Many prisoners of war in fact relate positively to their captors, I think this has been said to come about due to the prisoners have no normal point of reference & gravitate to the nearest "pack" member, even if it is a cruel hearted undesirable person.

Dogs can be just the same.

[Steve K9Pro]

C: Well, perhaps you have never met a Lapphund?

K9: & perhaps I have, been doing this for quite a while...

C: How can you say that if a dog is allowed to discover for themselves what they find rewarding that the things they come back for more than anything else is not at least somewhere a result of genetics?

K9: Because take the dogs out of the same environment & they behave completely different. I have had a few people bring me dogs that they have raised from a day old (various reasons). These are very different animals that often dont respond to the same things other dogs do.

C: Obviously dogs go back for what they have found rewarding in the past, but what dictates why they found it rewarding in the first place?

K9: In many cases it is where their thresholds to certain drives lay. A dog that has a low threshold to prey drive will find chasing things more rewarding than a dog that doesn't. These thresholds are quite adjustable in most dogs.

C: Dogs are born liking food.

K9: No actually they are not. They are not fed before birth, they learn they need to be fed to relinquish the hunger they suffer, later the food becomes a reward for some dogs. So it is trained through the experience, they eat to remove & or avoid hunger.

C: Perhaps what you're trying to say is that my dog finds the attention he receives from seeking cuddles rewarding, not so much the cuddles themselves?

K9: Your dog just might find cuddles rewarding, but it isnt genetic, its been perceived as a reward & this is what drives the desire for it.

[Steve K9Pro]

C: "To ensure that their tameness results from genetic selection, we do not train the foxes. Most of them spend their lives in cages and are allowed only brief "time dosed" contacts with human beings...

K9: goes back to the prisoner theory though doesnt it...

C: It's quite fascinating, but supports the point I'm trying to make, which is that some animals are born wanting more affection than others and this is what makes cuddles a good thing for Lapphunds but not small corgis.

K9: or some could be born with greater pack drive & some with less, which will give you the same results.

C: Oh, I agree! Except for the dominant bit. No one who had seen this behaviour would call it dominant.

K9: Isnt that a bit of a "predication"? I might.. I havent seen your dog.. How do you feel that your dog would go in a wild pack, running ip t the Alpha & bahaving this way?

C: He only leans, circles and whines if he wants affection, though.

K9: & I only yell & bang on the bar when I want a drink... lol wouldnt be acceptable under any terms would it... lol.. The "he wants" section is where the dominance lays.

C: Well, maybe you haven't, but I have. I even have a photo somewhere of my old girl curled up in a bed with my mother's boy. Penny's not a snuggler as a rule, but nor does she get cold. Kivi is very touchy-feely with other dogs. He's often trying to walk with them touching flanks, licking and nuzzling their face and so on, but he's still a pup. You should look at this thread: http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=131029 if you've never seen dogs snuggling just because.

K9: Maybe we use the term snuggling differently, but there isnt any pic in that thread that I cant give you a realistic reason for the occurance.

C: Agreed, but that's not the point. The point is that he's a dog that likes food. As in, naturally likes food. I know why he keeps doing it and it is as you say, learnt. When we hand out treats at the dog park we often find we have a few extra dogs as well. It's a common problem with dogs that have been trained with food.

K9: It is the point of the thread though, neutralisation, I have dogs with very high prey drive, they wont chase what I dont say is prey.

My son can hold my prey toys in front of them & they dont see it as prey. If he gives me the same item the same dogs light up.

It is a common problem but one that is easily over come with neutralisation.

C: Most of us don't think it is a problem, but that's our call.

K9: Most dont recognise that it is a problem.

C: We were struggling to win him over until the person with the steak stopped feeding him the steak. Penny would be a better example because she likes food even more than Kivi does and is an adult. I know for a fact she will stop and scoff the food, but she will leave it if I start getting too far ahead.

K9: So these dogs will really go where its best for them, I just cant call that ok in my book.

[Steve K9Pro]

C: Ultimately, a high prey drive dog that doesn't want to eat my rabbits is what I want. If such a dog found the very smell of a rabbit exciting, then can you break this cycle just with loads of neutral exposure early on?

K9: Absolutely, the example I gave of SARDOGS lab is a perfect example, I can give you many of my own dogs, but for some reason as they are mine people expect that so I really like giving examples of other peoples dogs, to show it can be done, by other than me.

C: Is it possible that just the smell of the rabbit is creating a positive value even as you think you are attaching no value to the rabbits with all this exposure and not adding any rewards?

K9: It is my belief that the movement of a rabbit will trigger the dogs raw prey drive, the dog will give chase & when it does or doesn't catch the rabbit, it will absorb the scent. The scent will transfer into a trigger for the dog in later times.

With high prey drive dogs, people make the mistake of doing nothing with the raw drive, then the dogs natural desire to achieve drive satisfaction kicks in, the dog finds a way to satisfy the drive, perhaps chasing rabbits, then it will take a corrective measures to try & regain some obedience...

If your anywhere near one of my Training in Drive workshops, you should come along, its explained pretty well there.

[corvus]

C: Ultimately, a high prey drive dog that doesn't want to eat my rabbits is what I want. If such a dog found the very smell of a rabbit exciting, then can you break this cycle just with loads of neutral exposure early on?

K9: Absolutely, the example I gave of SARDOGS lab is a perfect example, I can give you many of my own dogs, but for some reason as they are mine people expect that so I really like giving examples of other peoples dogs, to show it can be done, by other than me.

So then, is it as simple as neutral exposure and offering an acceptable way to achieve drive satisfaction that comes from you (such as tug for example)?

C: Is it possible that just the smell of the rabbit is creating a positive value even as you think you are attaching no value to the rabbits with all this exposure and not adding any rewards?

K9: It is my belief that the movement of a rabbit will trigger the dogs raw prey drive, the dog will give chase & when it does or doesn't catch the rabbit, it will absorb the scent. The scent will transfer into a trigger for the dog in later times.

With high prey drive dogs, people make the mistake of doing nothing with the raw drive, then the dogs natural desire to achieve drive satisfaction kicks in, the dog finds a way to satisfy the drive, perhaps chasing rabbits, then it will take a corrective measures to try & regain some obedience...

Okay, so in my case the whole property smells like rabbit all the time, so my guess is the smell is unlikely to become a trigger, but the sight may continue to be a trigger. If you are in the process of exposing your dog to rabbits with the aim of neutralising them, when would you do something with the raw drive? My vague plan was to do some training in the hare's enclosure. If I trained with drive satisfaction as a reward in the presence of the hare, would I be heading the way of happy positive socialisation instead of neutralisation?

If your anywhere near one of my Training in Drive workshops, you should come along, its explained pretty well there.

Haha, only if you come watch my hare and discuss the origins of behaviour with me. The internet is frustrating when it comes to detailed discussion. I will agree to disagree on the basis that we see things differently on most accounts, except on the possibility of foxes being born with more pack drive seeing as a) foxes are essentially solitary in the first place and b) pack drive and liking affection is such a similar thing in my books that I'm not yet willing to separate them.

My hare is meant to be solitary as well, but he still likes company. He would prefer it to be in less threatening form than a human, though. In the video online, you can see their setup and the foxes are in cages side by side, row upon row, so they can see each other and talk to each other. Apparently they assess them at a month old as well.

And I think you probably would agree that my dog with his circling and leaning and whining is not dominant if you saw him. This is because he is a spineless wuss. He approaches every dog and person pretty much the same way, only with more whining and circling if he knows them. How he would be treated by an alpha wolf (i.e. his parent if he were a wolf, seeing as wolf packs are really just a family unit) when he approached that way would depend on how that wolf was feeling at that moment, wouldn't it? If all he was doing was circling and whining, I would be surprised if he copped it. Not even Penny gives it to him if he does it to her, and she's a cranky, old, arthritic lady. On the other hand, some dogs don't like being leaned on and licked and tell him to get lost. Because they think he's being dominant? I doubt it, considering it's all appeasement gestures. More likely because they don't want a big puppy in their face when they are trying to do something. Ask me again when he's grown up. Incidentally, he's a good deal less forthright than Ahsoka.

[corvus]

I have another question.

What happens to a dog that is neutralised to everything and focused on one handler if the dog has to do something without the handler? Like a vet visit for example. Would the dog find such a situation very stressful? What about if the handler goes on holidays and has to leave the dog in someone else's care? What would happen to the dog if the handler died or had to rehome the dog for some unforseen reason? Could neutralisation create a dependence on one handler?