Can Dogs Have Learning Disabilities?

[SkySoaringMagpie]

Or in the case of my dog, the instructor takes my dog for a demo and can't get him to do a damn thing Then the instructor says "oh, well... keep working at it..." :D

I have one of those too, the redoubtable Lucy, whose cartoon portrait is in my avatar.

Enough to break the will of most instructors. She does the famous "tune out" PF mentions, will roll on her back when she has had enough and wave her paws in the air. It is certainly not because she can't learn.

[wuffles]

Or in the case of my dog, the instructor takes my dog for a demo and can't get him to do a damn thing Then the instructor says "oh, well... keep working at it..." :D

I have one of those too, the redoubtable Lucy, whose cartoon portrait is in my avatar.

Enough to break the will of most instructors. She does the famous "tune out" PF mentions, will roll on her back when she has had enough and wave her paws in the air. It is certainly not because she can't learn.

At least she does something cute. Mine is more likely to lie down and lick his privates in the middle of a heeling exercise

[corvus]

Is the boxer the only short nosed breed? What is the equipment like? It might not be super comfortable for her to touch the object.

The only really short-nosed breed. We have another Boxer to start, but haven't got her going yet. The staffies don't have any trouble. They technically don't have to touch anything to trigger the reward as the trigger is crossing a photointerruptor, so invisible line about 5cm in front of the target. I guess it's possible she doesn't like her jowls brushing against the small shelf in front of the target, but she doesn't show any inhibition. Well, none that I have noticed.

It would be interesting to know if she's slow learning other things. I've always thought it doesn't get much easier than touch, but maybe it does for her. I expect she at least knows sit on cue.

I guess my thought is that if she liked the reward the touches would increase. A lack of interest in the reward would be shown by her disengaging with the apparatus, which she doesn't really do. But she isn't touching more. So somewhere in the Antecedent-Behaviour-Consequence sequence there is a breakdown. My guess is antecedent, but I don't know how to make a better antecedent to prompt the behaviour than a piece of food right in front of the target.

My hare is nowhere near as smart as a dog in operant conditioning, but even he picks up associations in 2 or 3 reps. My rabbit is not as bright as the hare and she will pick up an association in about 5 reps. Kivi has his head in the clouds and generally takes a long time to teach, but he learnt touch in a few reps. We have a couple of gorgeous dogs that have picked up this association in 1 or 2, and some easily distracted dogs that picked it up in about 5. 20 and still going is a bit of an outlier! Either she's got a short-circuit or something in the training sequence is not working for her, I think.

[poodlefan]

Is the boxer the only short nosed breed? What is the equipment like? It might not be super comfortable for her to touch the object.

It would be interesting to know if she's slow learning other things. I've always thought it doesn't get much easier than touch, but maybe it does for her. I expect she at least knows sit on cue.

How has she been trained in the past? If she's been trained by "guide and place" methods or trained NOT to do things without a handler cue, the idea of offering behaviour for reward might be totally alien to her.

Are their consequences for this dog if she does the 'wrong' thing. I've seen dogs trained aversively that would rather offer nothing before getting it wrong.

Have you had the target touching the dog's nose and then rewarding her.. sometimes its technique??? Maybe the target needs to start millimetres off her muzzle?? Has the dog been placed in a sit or formally placed at the beginning of the exercise.. is she holding a position??

Edited January 13, 2011 by poodlefan

[whiskedaway]

Or in the case of my dog, the instructor takes my dog for a demo and can't get him to do a damn thing Then the instructor says "oh, well... keep working at it..."

I have one of those too, the redoubtable Lucy, whose cartoon portrait is in my avatar.

Enough to break the will of most instructors. She does the famous "tune out" PF mentions, will roll on her back when she has had enough and wave her paws in the air. It is certainly not because she can't learn.

My dog's the same. Instructor goes "You're not being tough enough on her!" so takes her from me to show how tough I should be, and guess what, Akira refuses to do it for her as well. Instructor hands her back. "You haven't trained her well enough, she only sits because you've stopped. Go back to the beginning and make sure she sits when you say sit." Isn't the point of obedience training to get an automatic sit when you stop and give the dog no other commands? And I'm pretty sure she sits when I say sit when she's not bored. The length of a lesson is far too long for Akira, she tunes out after the first 15-20 minutes on a good day, and the first 5 on a bad day. :D

[corvus]

Incidentally, there are some things that I have given up teaching Kivi as well. He is not very body aware. I can click all I like for something, but if he's not aware of what I'm clicking he tends to throw himself on the ground and whine in short order. He's not very patient when it comes to training. He likes to know how to win the game practically instantly, as opposed to Erik who just seems to love figuring out how to win the game. I always insist he is not stupid. He just doesn't notice much. It's what makes him such an easy dog to live with at other times. He doesn't often get scared or upset by changes, he doesn't make associations about things that lead up to good or bad stuff happening, and he doesn't get easily distracted. He gives amazing focus and he is very reliable when he knows a behaviour. Things like stand are kinda hard for dogs like Kivi, because it's hard for him to tell exactly what he did to get the mark. For him, he was doing nothing. It's better if I can mark a change in behaviour towards what I want rather than exactly what I want.

[poodlefan]

Incidentally, there are some things that I have given up teaching Kivi as well. He is not very body aware. I can click all I like for something, but if he's not aware of what I'm clicking he tends to throw himself on the ground and whine in short order. He's not very patient when it comes to training. He likes to know how to win the game practically instantly, as opposed to Erik who just seems to love figuring out how to win the game. I always insist he is not stupid. He just doesn't notice much. It's what makes him such an easy dog to live with at other times. He doesn't often get scared or upset by changes, he doesn't make associations about things that lead up to good or bad stuff happening, and he doesn't get easily distracted. He gives amazing focus and he is very reliable when he knows a behaviour. Things like stand are kinda hard for dogs like Kivi, because it's hard for him to tell exactly what he did to get the mark. For him, he was doing nothing. It's better if I can mark a change in behaviour towards what I want rather than exactly what I want.

I honestly believe that some dogs (and probably more handlers) are not well suited to free shaping. It's too stressful for them.

For some dogs showing them what you want gets better results.

I find dogs frantically offering behaviours or tuning out can be consequences of free shaping gone wrong. I figure they're not dangerous animals where free shaping is the only option and most of us don't have endless time to wait for behaviours. Show the dog what you want and reward it - works for most handlers and its certainly how I teach.

A stand can be taught very quickly with luring and a hand on the stifle if necessary to prevent a sit. Horses for courses... a good handler will try a range of methods to get a result. A good instructor can teach a range of potential paths to the end result.

[corvus]

How has she been trained in the past?

No idea, as she's a shelter dog. "Not at all" comes to mind.

If she's been trained by "guide and place" methods or trained NOT to do things without a handler cue, the idea of offering behaviour for reward might be totally alien to her.

I may be misinterpreting. We have dogs that don't know how to offer behaviours, and it looks different to me. They don't show any interest in the apparatus until you build up a decent reward history with it. This dog is interested, but you're right, she doesn't try much. She licks the tray. That's about it. She licks it a lot. But the reward doesn't come out when she's doing that. I wonder if the reward isn't close enough to the target for her. She has to turn her head aside from it slightly to get to the reward tray. Maybe she's making associations with the reward tray because that's what she interacts with when she's consuming the reward. Yet, all the same, it's unusual for a dog to not pick up what it did to make the reward come out.

Are their consequences for this dog if she does the 'wrong' thing. I've seen dogs trained aversively that would rather offer nothing before getting it wrong.

I don't think so. Not at the shelter, anyway. They are pretty dog friendly trainers.

Have you had the target touching the dog's nose and then rewarding her.. sometimes its technique??? Maybe the target needs to start millimetres off her muzzle??

We've had her take treats from directly in front of the target so that she's touching it to get the treat. For a moment yesterday she got a few touches in a short period by trying to get a treat in front of the target and triggering the marker. She'd leave the treat to go to the reward tray then come back for the treat and trigger it again. But then she stopped again.

Has the dog been placed in a sit or formally placed at the beginning of the exercise.. is she holding a position??

Nope. She stands there wagging her tail, but she moves around a bit. She's a darling, but I dunno what we do with her! This is the easiest part of the training. She still has to learn to only touch on cue and then to discriminate between two signals. If it's taken this long on the easiest bit and she's still not getting it I think we'll have to drop her from the study. Hopefully whoever adopts her just wants a goofy love muffin, 'cause she's good at that.

[poodlefan]

We've had her take treats from directly in front of the target so that she's touching it to get the treat. For a moment yesterday she got a few touches in a short period by trying to get a treat in front of the target and triggering the marker. She'd leave the treat to go to the reward tray then come back for the treat and trigger it again. But then she stopped again.

My initial reaction is to remove the reward tray and only offer a reward when she touches the target. No visible reward/tray might be less distracting. Sounds to me like she's confoozled.

I don't have visible rewards when I target train. I don't even like bum bags where the dog can see where the rewards come from.

Get her to touch the target, click and reward.. even if you have to make the target touch her nose. My guess is there's a lightbulb moment waiting to happen in there somewhere. If she's getting the treat when she's touching the target, she won't associate the touch with a subsequent reward.

Try this.. touch the target to her nose. Click and reward. Do that about 10 times and then stick the target millimetres in front of her nose. No visible rewards and no reward tray. Reward by hand.

Jackpot like hell for the first unsolicited nose touch. Some dogs need baby steps and have to be helped to make the connection.

Edited January 13, 2011 by poodlefan

[Jaxx'sBuddy]

Incidentally, there are some things that I have given up teaching Kivi as well. He is not very body aware. I can click all I like for something, but if he's not aware of what I'm clicking he tends to throw himself on the ground and whine in short order. He's not very patient when it comes to training. He likes to know how to win the game practically instantly, as opposed to Erik who just seems to love figuring out how to win the game. I always insist he is not stupid. He just doesn't notice much. It's what makes him such an easy dog to live with at other times. He doesn't often get scared or upset by changes, he doesn't make associations about things that lead up to good or bad stuff happening, and he doesn't get easily distracted. He gives amazing focus and he is very reliable when he knows a behaviour. Things like stand are kinda hard for dogs like Kivi, because it's hard for him to tell exactly what he did to get the mark. For him, he was doing nothing. It's better if I can mark a change in behaviour towards what I want rather than exactly what I want.

I honestly believe that some dogs (and probably more handlers) are not well suited to free shaping. It's too stressful for them.

For some dogs showing them what you want gets better results.

I find dogs frantically offering behaviours or tuning out can be consequences of free shaping gone wrong. I figure they're not dangerous animals where free shaping is the only option and most of us don't have endless time to wait for behaviours. Show the dog what you want and reward it - works for most handlers and its certainly how I teach.

A stand can be taught very quickly with luring and a hand on the stifle if necessary to prevent a sit. Horses for courses... a good handler will try a range of methods to get a result. A good instructor can teach a range of potential paths to the end result.

totally agree PF. free shaping stresses my dog and always has even as a puppy. she is very well behaved but i have to show her what i want then she happily does it.

she reads me well and anticipates what is going to happen but free shaping can stress her unbelievably....so i stopped using this as a training tool

[corvus]

Unfortunately we can't change the method for one dog seeing as it's a scientific study.

[poodlefan]

Unfortunately we can't change the method for one dog seeing as it's a scientific study.

Fair enough but you'd have to watch your conclusions.. Most trainers would probably say the training methodology is flawed before concluding that there's something wrong with the dog. "one size fits all" style trainers don't tend to be very effective.

Haven't you already tinkered with the methodology by rewarding in front of the target?

[JulesP]

If you are using dogs from the pound I kind of think the whole thing is a bit flawed. Little Boxer might have been beaten for putting her nose on things for instance. You just don't know what nurturing has gone on.

[Aidan3]

There are neurological conditions which impair simple learning. Damage to certain parts of the brain will also impair learning. Rare, but not impossible.

I have a friend in the US who has trained Labs in hunt tests for 40 years. She uses "purely positive" methods and has done for a long time. She had two littermates, essentially rescues, who were born and raised in a wardrobe by a clueless backyard breeder. You can imagine the sensory deprivation and lack of environmental stimulation.

One of the dogs was a very slow learner, but she could work with him. The other she tried and tried, and this dog never cottoned on that the click meant a treat was coming no matter what she tried. She sent him away to someone she trusted who used an e-collar and he was able to teach the dog a few things, come when called and that sort of thing.

[Aidan3]

I know a little about Corvus' experiment and prior learning shouldn't matter as it is a within subjects design using concurrent schedules, so comparing one schedule against another for a single dog (but repeated with lots of dogs). If some dogs wash-out there just won't be anything to compare.

[Erny]

We've had her take treats from directly in front of the target so that she's touching it to get the treat. For a moment yesterday she got a few touches in a short period by trying to get a treat in front of the target and triggering the marker. She'd leave the treat to go to the reward tray then come back for the treat and trigger it again. But then she stopped again.

IME that technique can make it harder for a dog to learn what it is that s/he did that triggered the treat. For all the dog knows and is thinking s/he simply ate the treat rather than being aware of contact with the target being a major component of the exercise.

I agree with starting with the target so close to the dog's nose. Even to the point of you touching the dog's nose with the target. I prefer not to do this if I can help it but it can start off the association and get the dog thinking on it a little sooner, if it is having trouble with the concept. The other thing is to rub the food on the target so that you are leaving behind a delicious fresh scent (wet meat; cooked chicken; something like that). Often dogs will initially touch because they are smelling the scent. Then of course, you reward (very high value food reward to begin with).

I still don't think "dumb". I think technique.

Oh - and are you being very very specific about touching with "nose"? There was a period there for a while where I saw some Boxers with nosers getting shorter and shorter to the point that the nose was set quite back by comparison to the front of the dog's muzzle. I presume you would be satisfied if this dog even just touched with its muzzle?

[Chezy]

my dog has a learning disability----ME

[corvus]

Unfortunately we can't change the method for one dog seeing as it's a scientific study.

Fair enough but you'd have to watch your conclusions.. Most trainers would probably say the training methodology is flawed before concluding that there's something wrong with the dog. "one size fits all" style trainers don't tend to be very effective.

Forgive me if I sound irritated. Designing this study has pretty much consumed my life for the past few months and I have looked at it from so many angles and taken in so many possibilities, but in the end the best I can do is try to guess what is most likely, design it for that scenario, and then just try it and see what happens. That's what I'm doing.

Most trainers have to understand that scientific studies have to have a standardised method. That's why we exclude dogs. Because it's unreasonable to expect that all dogs will make it through a standard training program, but we can't go around changing it for each dog so that it does get through or we won't be able to compare the results. The training methodology will, in that case, always be flawed. But there's nothing you can do about it. Even if you categorised dogs prior to training as needing one thing or another different, and did that for all those dogs in that category, you still wouldn't be able to compare dogs in different categories. I was having this discussion with OH yesterday, who feels that excluding dogs from the study diminishes its use quite considerably because ultimately what we are doing doesn't work on all dogs. Yes, that is true, what we are doing won't work on all dogs. But the very nature of behaviour is that it is extremely varied. We can only ever try to capture a majority. If I get 80% of the dogs I see through the training, I will be very chuffed with my methodology indeed.

As for using shelter dogs, is it really so different to using any random population of pet dogs? It is very difficult to know what their history is and what they have learnt in the past. For the pilot study, it doesn't really matter what their history was. They pass criteria or they don't, regardless of what they have experienced in the past. We can't draw any conclusions about their past because we don't know anything about it, so all we can do is ignore it.

Once I've finished the pilot study and made any changes to the methodology, I'm moving on to starting with puppies and following them through for a couple of years. We are hoping this might help us figure out to what extent it is affected by history, but it still won't answer that question. Just offer possible insights is all.

Haven't you already tinkered with the methodology by rewarding in front of the target?

Yes, and we did that after we'd decided we should exclude her. I was still kinda wondering if we could use her if she was getting there with treats seeing as painting the target with Bonox to encourage self-shaping is part of the protocol, but we have decided it is too much tinkering.

[JulesP]

No a random selection of pets wouldn't have been any better. A selection of dogs from the same kennel might have been a better group. However Aidan thinks it isn't a problem anyhow.

Can a dog have a learning disability? Maybe. You would need to do a bit of research on this dog to work that out. Maybe a behaviorist would be able to look at this particular dog, try a couple of different methods, couple of different exercises and give you an answer.

[corvus]

We've had her take treats from directly in front of the target so that she's touching it to get the treat. For a moment yesterday she got a few touches in a short period by trying to get a treat in front of the target and triggering the marker. She'd leave the treat to go to the reward tray then come back for the treat and trigger it again. But then she stopped again.

IME that technique can make it harder for a dog to learn what it is that s/he did that triggered the treat. For all the dog knows and is thinking s/he simply ate the treat rather than being aware of contact with the target being a major component of the exercise.

We did that after trying to let her auto shape it like all the other dogs. That wasn't working, so we tried treats just to see if there was some way we could get her to do it so if there's a way to tweak the study design later on to exclude fewer dogs I would know how.

I still don't think "dumb". I think technique.

I'd love to video this. It's freaking fascinating. Never seen a dog look so much like they are getting it without actually getting it. The light is certainly on, but I don't think there's anyone at home. I imagine she would get there in the end, but I'm amazed and fascinated that she is so slow in comparison to the other dogs. Generally, they either pick it up in the first couple of sessions, or they don't interact with it at all.

Oh - and are you being very very specific about touching with "nose"?

Nope. All the dog has to do is break a beam of infrared light. There are any number of ways they can do that. The target is just a visual stimulus to help them make the association.