Gundogs/training In Drive

[Wobbly]

Hmmmm....based on his writings of "The Retrieve" I'm not wholly impressed. Not that I practice forced retrieves but, when it is used in gundogs, it is generally for dogs with stinking high prey drive in the first place. In most cases it's nothing to do with making a dog retrieve that doesn't want to.

The whole point of a gundog is that it doesn't want to rip and shred what it catches....that's a good thing right? I know my Springer gets a huge amount of satisfaction from simply hunting and quartering and using her nose and they are certainly used for that purpose in scent detection. And to retrieve game is just MAGIC for her! Just to carry it for a while is a huge reward. She actually doesn't enjoy tugging that much to be honest although it's something I do work on just for the hell of it.

Ahh I have a hardcore ripper and a shredder here. Definitely Yarnell's articles aren't scientific, he is applying years and years of on the ground experience, I found for myself I got a lot out of reading it, especially in respect to the question of shaping instinct vs pattern training. I appreciate the heads up, I can find it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff, especially where explanations are experience based rather than based on repeatable empirical evidence. There is a lot value in exploring both avenues I feel, but the experience based writings are unfortunately not peer reviewed so it's more difficult to establish how authoritative a source is. There's a few things there that I don't agree with - silence during tug, and the food sharing particularly.

[huski]

So often I feel like a privileged observer when Em's on fire in the field. So much she has learnt without me teaching her. A completely different sensation to running agility or doing anything else.

This is how I feel when we are doing protection work, I think you see the dogs real genetic capabilities come out when they are given the opportunity to do something they are designed to do and have such strong instincts for. I am always in awe of what my dog can just 'do' due to genetic memory.

[corvus]

I struggle to describe what I see with gundogs sometimes....the complexity of the behaviour is way beyond any simple term like "drive".

It seems like a lot of motor sequences are highly... I would say genetic except I just picture a certain associate supervisor twitching every time I think like that. ;) Conserved? Herding is like that as well. Erik does this thing where if we lose Kivi in the bush I say "Erik, where's Kivi?" and E looks around, listens, lopes back to the last place he saw him and dives into the bush and casts around until he locates him, then he drives him back to us from behind. If Kivi doesn't go fast enough Erik bites him on the hocks. The only thing I taught him was "Where's...." means "find". The rest was pure instinct, I assume, and he's not even a 'mainstream' herding breed. It's reasonably complex for something he never needed to learn. But it reminds me of bees and other social insects, that have some very complex behaviours that completely hard-wired, to the point where they don't do it if they don't have the right gene. Very cool.

One time my WL Mal friend spontaneously started this hold and bark with me. It was fascinating. I watched all the pieces fall into place and bingo, there it was. To be honest, sometimes this kind of thing is beautiful and sometimes it's kind of disturbing when you look at what led to the behaviour. Makes me question a lot of things we do.

[Weasels]

It's rarely spoken about in the herding world, either, AFAIK. Often I think "training in drive" refers more to arousal than anything else. There's a lot of talk about chemical rewards and whatnot, but all rewards are chemical at the heart of it. Arousal is intrinsically entwined with focus and performance. In security and shutzhund where you hear most about training in drive, the behaviours being trained are quite different to herding and retrieving. It's fast and punchy and intense and doesn't really require much cognitive processing on the dog's part. Totally different arousal requirements for good performance than in something more prolonged and needing more cognitive processing.

My understanding of 'tranining in drive' is it generally applies to adding drive satisfaction to an otherwise neutral behaviour. In herding, as I imagine with retrieving, the drive is a given since very very few people persist with a dog who has zero drive and instinct for the job - especially when ones that do are so common.

So when I e.g. train prancy heels with toys, then getting them into that 'drivey' brain space is useful to motivate a performance in a functionally useless behaviour. But, in my observation at least, untrained drive is dumb. It needs to be balanced with the ability to think and listen. Put a kelpie pup on stock for the first time and many will herd just fine, but that is in no way the end of the sport. As my brilliant herding trainer says: in most sports you are building up a behaviour from nothing, but in herding you are starting with a complete set of behaviours and moulding it to be what you want.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is in 'instictive' disciplines, the drive isn't the part you are training. It is something you are managing while you train the dog to think, listen and be precise. Which is probably why people don't talk about TID in these types of sports & activities.

Edited June 27, 2013 by TheLBD

[huski]

sometimes it's kind of disturbing when you look at what led to the behaviour.

What do you mean, Corvus?

[BlackJaq]

So often I feel like a privileged observer when Em's on fire in the field. So much she has learnt without me teaching her. A completely different sensation to running agility or doing anything else.

This is how I feel when we are doing protection work, I think you see the dogs real genetic capabilities come out when they are given the opportunity to do something they are designed to do and have such strong instincts for. I am always in awe of what my dog can just 'do' due to genetic memory.

Agree, if it is a good dog (for the purpose) then it already knows what to do, you just bring out the behaviour and reward it. It then becomes self-rewarding.

I think the reason gun dogs don't train "in drive" is that the job (the waiting, the nose work, the self control needed to not run in in anticipation when the gun is fired etc) requires so much concentration and control. Your dog cannot be thoughtlessly acting on instinct alone, it needs to temper it's actions with patience and focus. I hope that sort of makes sense.

[huski]

Your dog cannot be thoughtlessly acting on instinct alone, it needs to temper it's actions with patience and focus. I hope that sort of makes sense.

I think this is true of every thing we train though. Heelwork has been used as an example here a lot as a time where we would TID, however heelwork requires a lot of attention, focus and precision and the dog needs to be able to think through arousal and compress its drive to a point where it can achieve the right balance between drive and precision. There's a big difference between suppressing and compressing drive.

As for the science talk, whilst it is fascinating it seems to often confuse people trying to learn how to train their own dog. We have to use terms and ways of thinking that the average person can relate to and understand so they can achieve results with their dog.

[Weasels]

Your dog cannot be thoughtlessly acting on instinct alone, it needs to temper it's actions with patience and focus. I hope that sort of makes sense.

I think this is true of every thing we train though. Heelwork has been used as an example here a lot as a time where we would TID, however heelwork requires a lot of attention, focus and precision and the dog needs to be able to think through arousal and compress its drive to a point where it can achieve the right balance between drive and precision. There's a big difference between suppressing and compressing drive.

But with heelwork, you are starting with neither understanding nor drive and generally building them in alternating parts, maintaining balance. With work they are bred for, you start with a lot of imprecise drive and some understanding, and need to work back to redress the balance rather than maintain it. So from that perspective I can see where BlackJaq is coming from.

[corvus]

Science talk is only confusing if the person explaining it isn't very good at it. ;) I always have more success in person. Or on the phone, even. There are no cues on the internet to tell you when you're losing them.

[huski]

I think this is true of every thing we train though. Heelwork has been used as an example here a lot as a time where we would TID, however heelwork requires a lot of attention,

But with heelwork, you are starting with neither understanding nor drive and generally building them in alternating parts, maintaining balance. With work they are bred for, you start with a lot of imprecise drive and some understanding, and need to work back to redress the balance rather than maintain it. So from that perspective I can see where BlackJaq is coming from.

I think it can also depend on how you approach the exercise. In both cases you can have dogs that are highly aroused and driven needing to learn how to compress the drive and instinct to achieve a common goal (assuming you are both working to the same goal).

In everything we train including and especially bite work the dog needs to maintain focus and be able to think through arousal while balancing that with its natural instinct. That IMO is what training in drive is all about.

[corvus]

What's wrong with the Yerkes-Dodson law? It explains all this stuff through the concept of arousal, and it's backed up with data. In the scheme of things, heel work requires very little cognitive processing. Attention and focus are basically the same thing and are not very hard if the dog is moderately motivated. Precision is easy if the arousal level is right. You only make it hard when you ramp up their arousal to get flashy heels and then have to balance them against their natural urge to forge out of position seeing as they now have too much activated energy to find the precision side of things so easy. You're managing conflict you have deliberately introduced. Not saying it ain't fun or rewarding or clever, but it's not compressing some abstract concept of a dog's instinctive behaviours or something. It's just arousal.

In contrast, herding requires the dog to be quite flexible. Herding in the heading version, that is. They have to constantly respond to small and unpredictable changes in the flock or herd and adjust their behaviour accordingly, and they also have to be attending to a handler at the same time. If they are as ramped up as a dog doing a nice, stylised heel, they are going to sacrifice some of their ability to change and adapt to the dynamic environment they are working in. They will have trouble problem solving, and attending to as many stimuli as they can when they are less aroused. I'm not plucking this out of thin air. There is science behind it.

[huski]

What's wrong with the Yerkes-Dodson law? It explains all this stuff through the concept of arousal, and it's backed up with data. In the scheme of things, heel work requires very little cognitive processing. Attention and focus are basically the same thing and are not very hard if the dog is moderately motivated. Precision is easy if the arousal level is right. You only make it hard when you ramp up their arousal to get flashy heels and then have to balance them against their natural urge to forge out of position seeing as they now have too much activated energy to find the precision side of things so easy. You're managing conflict you have deliberately introduced. Not saying it ain't fun or rewarding or clever, but it's not compressing some abstract concept of a dog's instinctive behaviours or something. It's just arousal.

In contrast, herding requires the dog to be quite flexible. Herding in the heading version, that is. They have to constantly respond to small and unpredictable changes in the flock or herd and adjust their behaviour accordingly, and they also have to be attending to a handler at the same time. If they are as ramped up as a dog doing a nice, stylised heel, they are going to sacrifice some of their ability to change and adapt to the dynamic environment they are working in. They will have trouble problem solving, and attending to as many stimuli as they can when they are less aroused. I'm not plucking this out of thin air. There is science behind it.

I am not saying that heelwork is the same as herding, I am saying that the dog still needs to be able to think through its arousal and focus while maintaining a high level of precision. You are asking the dog to work in drive at a high level of arousal, but it needs to compress its drive enough that it can still control itself and maintain precision. There is no conflict there if you don't create it and you understand how to work with a dog in drive.

Another example would be training protection work, this is an instance where you are working with the dogs natural instinct and genetic memory, their level of arousal is still very high but the dog has to be able to respond to small and unpredictable changes in the environment and adapt accordingly, have the ability to make decisions but also follow instruction from the handler, and think through arousal clearly enough to make the right decisions etc.

When we look at how training in drive works, even when you are teaching something as 'boring' (and not a natural/instinctive behaviour) as heelwork, you are always still working within the dogs genetic capabilities and instinct.

[corvus]

I'm not really sure what the argument is, exactly. Maybe it would help if Steve came along and explained this drive compression concept. Do you mean self-control at high arousal? You say that you're asking the dog to work at high arousal, but this is difficult for it, right? Because it still needs precision? I'm saying it's difficult BECAUSE you're asking the dog to work at high arousal. And that's where the conflict is. The dog's arousal is suitable for running about gaily, but you're asking them to walk in a super-controlled fashion. Essentially you're asking them to do a moderate arousal behaviour at high arousal. It's like when you were a kid and your mum kept yelling at you to stop running in the house (probably because she knew everyone was too excitable and any moment someone would get hurt). It was really hard! That's why it's hard for them. If you asked them to work at moderate arousal it would be much easier for them, but you wouldn't get the nice, flashy heeling. Unless you trained it in operantly. My point was that they don't need to learn to think through arousal in order to heel. They only need to learn to think through arousal if you want them to heel at very high arousal. I'm not sure how drive comes into this. Are you referring to how high their arousal peaks? Or how aroused they can get before they lose it? Or their impulsivity?

I can't comment on protection work, only the relationship between arousal and performance. There are two possibilities: they need to be less aroused than their most aroused, or it's not as hard as you say it is.

[BlackJaq]

I think I was referring to what Corvus explained, it is easier to work a gundog precisely when you try to lower arousal, since the dog starts off with a high level of arousal once it realizes that it will be retrieving shot game. I feel that there is no place for heightening the dog's arousal on purpose in this work, but rather I work to reduce and control the dog's natural drive. When they are puppies, some work to increase drive, especially for blood tracking and to make the dummy attractive seems appropriate (I am only talking HPR breeds here, like Weimaraners, GSP, Vizsla etc). A lot of European trainers like to use a flirt pole for this (I did, too)

I don't do protection work so I don't know the ins and outs as well... Maybe somebody could explain what they do (arousal-wise) compared to what I do with my gun dog? I am pretty interested since many Weims in Germany who are used for hunting also do their Schutzhund titles (man sharpness actually used to be written in their standard before BSL and Dangerous Dog laws came along, it was then scratched for fear that the Weimaraner might draw attention due to this but many Weims that end up as pet only for one reason or another seem to still struggle with this escalating, mainly with badly prepared or unknowledgable owners)

Speaking to German Wei owners I feel that a lot of our dogs here are being bred "soft" to make them suitable as pets, which is a bummer if you want to work them lol

[The Spotted Devil]

My personal experience with retrieving, at least, is that I want Em walking from the car or the hide to the starting pegs as relaxed as possible - I might even do a few hand touches and spins to relax and focus her but she's happy to wait quietly or sniff around like crazy if she finds some rabbit scent. She is a "switch on-switch off" type of dog so the minute her leash comes off and I take the gun, she just goes into "the zone" - takes no notice of anything or anyone else - it's just me, her and a couple of retrieves.

[BlackJaq]

Yes, I also want my dog to be calm and relaxed, especially between shots. You do not want a dog to start yipping in anticipation between shots lol

I also dont want to have to physically restrain my dog between shots so she needs to be controlled enough to sit/drop and stay, no matter what once given that command, despite shot being fired, rabbits bolting past and animals being wounded and possibly vocalizing. Yes, it is important to catch a wounded animal ASAP but not important enough to accidentally get the dog shot if it runs in

[The Spotted Devil]

Not to mention that a relaxed dog is much less likely to chomp.....even dogs that have "soft" mouths will chomp if under too much pressure.

[corvus]

the minute her leash comes off and I take the gun, she just goes into "the zone" - takes no notice of anything or anyone else - it's just me, her and a couple of retrieves.

Is that a bit of a gundog thing? Most gundogs I've met seem to be capable of phenomenal focus.

[BlackJaq]

the minute her leash comes off and I take the gun, she just goes into "the zone" - takes no notice of anything or anyone else - it's just me, her and a couple of retrieves.

Is that a bit of a gundog thing? Most gundogs I've met seem to be capable of phenomenal focus.

Possibly? My dog is the same during work, even boring stuff, as long as the reward is worth it. Training/work is perfectly possible in very distracting circumstances with my dog as long as I concentrate. If my concentration goes.. Well.. That is not the dog's fault lol

[huski]

I'm not really sure what the argument is, exactly. Maybe it would help if Steve came along and explained this drive compression concept.

He spends a lot of time teaching this to clients all day every day so I am not sure he will be able to indulge you :laugh:

Do you mean self-control at high arousal?

No, I mean control of arousal by the dog in order to get drive satisfaction.

You say that you're asking the dog to work at high arousal, but this is difficult for it, right?

No, it is difficult for a dog that does not know how to control (compress and release its drive). If a dog doesn't know that then often the handler will "suppress" the dogs drive through pressure.

Because it still needs precision? I'm saying it's difficult BECAUSE you're asking the dog to work at high arousal. And that's where the conflict is.

Conflict occurs when the dog believes your trying to withhold the reward from it or your competing with the dog for the reward.

The dog's arousal is suitable for running about gaily, but you're asking them to walk in a super-controlled fashion. Essentially you're asking them to do a moderate arousal behaviour at high arousal. It's like when you were a kid and your mum kept yelling at you to stop running in the house (probably because she knew everyone was too excitable and any moment someone would get hurt). It was really hard! That's why it's hard for them.

Do you still run through the house Corvus? or did you learn self control. When you crept through the house after mum yelled at you, this was suppression, because you didn't feel the walking slow was the best behaviour to display in this level of arousal. Absent your mum, you will still run... Sort of like reverse luring :laugh:

If you asked them to work at moderate arousal it would be much easier for them, but you wouldn't get the nice, flashy heeling. Unless you trained it in operantly.

Are you speaking from experience here Corvus? Or is this "in theory"? Something I learned from Steve when teaching performance heelwork is that he doesn't teach the dog to be animated, it is a by product or advantage of the arousal (drive).

My point was that they don't need to learn to think through arousal in order to heel.

I think it depends on what level of heelwork you are talking and what dog you are talking about training heelwork with. If you relegate everything back to your two dogs then of course that is what you will see, but watching training happening here at K9 Pro daily, there are many considerations to make other than just avoiding letting them get aroused.

I do see your point though, if I couldn't handle the drive of a dog then I guess I might avoid it too.

They only need to learn to think through arousal if you want them to heel at very high arousal. I'm not sure how drive comes into this. Are you referring to how high their arousal peaks? Or how aroused they can get before they lose it? Or their impulsivity?

How they learn to control and release their drive in various situations. Drive comes into it so that you can maintain animation over a longer duration and through higher distraction.

I think until you actually get a true high drive dog to work with you rather than for you it is hard to comprehend.

I can't comment on protection work, only the relationship between arousal and performance.

You bought up an example of a dog doing a bark and hold before, not sure if you saw my reply asking what your comment meant?

Edited June 28, 2013 by huski