Topic For Discussion - Keep It Nice, Folks ;)

[The Spotted Devil]

And I'll add that in some situations I NEVER cue a sit - dogs want to come in, go out, get out of the car, want a leash on, go for a walk, want dinner, want to go play, run and swim, want to run agility, want to do retrieving - offer me a sit and I'll give you what you want!

Edited January 1, 2016 by The Spotted Devil

[Two Best Dogs!]

Karen, I'm assuming you are asking about in the case of the shelter dog training? It's because they don't know the cues yet. They haven't learnt than when I say "sit" I mean "put your bum on the ground and stay there". Saying it would just be noise to them. But without any prior training they can quickly understand that "when my bum is on the ground I get something yummy". You add the cue in afterwards, once they have the behaviour.

We also want the desirable behaviour to be the default, without them having to be given the cue - as in, if you aren't told to do anything else, please put your bum on thr ground and stay there, if we are walking and you haven't been told something specific please keep the lead loose, etc

Incidentally we taught exactly the same techniques in puppy classes, with the aim of avoiding the problem behaviours ever starting but with the same idea that an 8 week old puppy has no idea what human words mean yet but can understand "when I do this I get something good".

Is this operant conditioning maybe?

I always get the terms mixed up and the square things confuses me :/, but something like what SG describes was the foundation for a lot of our beginnings with the intention the behaviours are defaults and not so much a command?

I think one of the links in the thread described how I use a verbal correction, as kind of a "hot or cold". Although in my head I think of it as the "nope not that action, try again!" when it comes to shaping or guiding something. It won't stop her from ever doing that action again but for the purpose of the current training session she knows that's not what we're puzzling out. She'd work it out eventually, but just a matter of speeding things along to help her work it out that bit faster.

But then, I do it cause it works for us and kind of cobble things together from different training sources. I do think if I am saying no a lot, I am doing something wrong. A couple of no's a day tops, maybe. But more than 5 and time to step back and look at what's going on.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Thistle the dog

[Simply Grand]

Yep, it is operant conditioning thistle :) The whole of the squares thing is operant conditioning, and the terms don't matter so much if you understand the concepts, they just make it easier to explain (or maybe not :laugh: )

The shelter dog or brand new puppy scenario is quite clean cut for that type of training because it's starting right at the basics. As we build relationships and training histories with our dogs it tends to get much more blurry (for lack of a better word) and we can away with a lot more without it damaging our training too much.

I say no or nup without really thinking about it if my own dogs offer me a different trick-type behaviour that what I'm asking for, and I've been known to say in the deep scary voice "don't even think about it" when Quinn is about to steal something off the bench. I tell them stop it, don't do that please etc in a conversational tone, and say can you come over here please, can I have that please, thank you etc all the time in everyday life because the dogs and I have enough history now that they understand what I want without the needing the whole training protocol.

But if I am teaching something new, or if I manage to get my butt back in gear for sports, then I am much more careful about being clear with my cues, timing, consistency, rewards etc.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Simply Grand

[Two Best Dogs!]

Yep, it is operant conditioning thistle :) The whole of the squares thing is operant conditioning, and the terms don't matter so much if you understand the concepts, they just make it easier to explain (or maybe not :laugh: )

The terms get all mixed up in my head! I am much better at just remembering the gist and the why XD Like standing at the door and not going anywhere until pup sits or drops calmly then reward by allowing out but no commands makes for a life habit XD

When the square happens I get confused...then people bring in the acronyms and I go sit in my corner and puzzle the gist out ;) but maybe once I finish building up my base habits like the dogs I can start bringing in the words and queues for me! :D

Building up that relationship so the dog knows you're just chatting is nice...but to be more careful in actual training.

Back to my corner, just wanted to see if I was recognising the methods right ;)

[The Spotted Devil]

Yep, it is operant conditioning thistle :) The whole of the squares thing is operant conditioning, and the terms don't matter so much if you understand the concepts, they just make it easier to explain (or maybe not :laugh: )

The terms get all mixed up in my head! I am much better at just remembering the gist and the why XD Like standing at the door and not going anywhere until pup sits or drops calmly then reward by allowing out but no commands makes for a life habit XD

When the square happens I get confused...then people bring in the acronyms and I go sit in my corner and puzzle the gist out ;) but maybe once I finish building up my base habits like the dogs I can start bringing in the words and queues for me! :D

Building up that relationship so the dog knows you're just chatting is nice...but to be more careful in actual training.

Back to my corner, just wanted to see if I was recognising the methods right ;)

But you're exactly spot on! Once you get the whole building relationship and rewarding responses you don't need to argue about quadrants! I don't even touch on it for 99% of clients as they don't need it.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

HD

Dogs correct each other. Certainly most of the respected trainers I know will tell you a dog learns faster when it knows what and what is not desired behaviour. When you are training an animal that can chose to blow you off at any time then you'd better be rewarding. However some of us don't have hours and hours to shape behaviour and we don't have dogs that will keep offering behaviour. We need to achieve results more quickly - for both the sake of the dog and the owner.

Personally I don't like the way dogs left to their own devices behave. Mine would eat all the food in the house at once if she had the opportunity. As for dogs correcting each other - they frequently have trouble with this. Mine "corrected" a poodle cross but it took a lot of painful corrections to get that dog to back off and leave her alone and then she generalised that to all poodle crosses whether they gave her a hard time or not - she'd get in first.

Bad. I should have protected her from poodle cross and not left her to sort it out because "dogs correct each other" can lead to undesirable behaviours. And some dogs don't learn from "corrections". Another example - mine still tries to bite bees despite being stung more than once.

As for the shaping - it can be done much faster if you control the environment through the initial learning steps. Keep the dog on lead so it can't nick off and you're not tempted to scold it for nicking off (how not train a recall). And a dog can be trained to keep offering behaviours. You just reward every different behaviour. And if you're training for more than five minutes a session with a "balance break" of play between and only two sessions max - you're training too long.

I got much faster and durable results with shaping, and setting the dog up for success, getting the behaviour and then testing it... than I've seen with old school trainers. Eg heelwork - much faster to train an RZ (reward zone or reinforcement zone) and then keep rewarding that than it is with yank and crank. For my dog - 12 months of yank and crank did pretty much nothing. RZ as taught by Susan Garrett - she got that inside a week and now I can do stuff that the old school trainers dream about. Like backing up in heel position, reverse spins, and sideways - both directions - really good for rally. And nice heel on either side. Or sometimes - between my knees... funny dog.

Susan Garrett says "positive is not permissive" but even she doesn't mean positive only in the same sense as the four squares of operant conditioning. Neither does Victoria Stillwell.

If my dog is jumping on stuff she shouldn't, I collar grab her (after training the collar grab and keeping up that training), and move her away until she calms down, put her on lead (at the beach), and then let her go to see what her choice is. If she's back to jumping, we move away again. I would probably get better results if I never let anyone at the beach give her a treat (when she's jumping on them), but that does suck the joy out for all of us. I do control access to the treats tho. She has to keep her feet on the ground.

I've got video but it takes about three weeks to upload anything with this connection...

Edited January 1, 2016 by Mrs Rusty Bucket

[Simply Grand]

If you want the behaviour to completely extinguish you do need to remove the reward the dog gets from it. Jumping up is rewarding in itself, and also getting a food reward sometimes from someone the dog has jumped on will make it very difficult to stop the behaviour. Training an incompatible behaviour (mine for Quinn is "stay down" which means feet on the ground when you greet that person) and removing the opportunity for any reward for jumping has meant that Quinn's default greeting for people, even little kids (which she loves!!!) is now feet on the ground. I still give her regular cues and rewards but I am confident now that she can greet people without jumping on them in her previous boof head manner.

ETA I just re-read that you only let her have treats if her feet on the ground, do you mean only if she hasn't jumped at all, or after she has jumped she goes back to feet on the floor THEN gets the treat? If it's the latter I'd say she hasn't realised that the jumping up is undesirable because she gets the self-reward of jumping for that then another reward for feet on the floor.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Simply Grand

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Oh and this came via Steve White's FB page...

language warning tho. I don't know what this person says when they hit their thumb with a hammer...

http://dogwontsit.com/wordpress/why-competition-obedience-sucks/

[Willem]

http://denisefenzi.com/2015/12/28/have-to-vs-want-to/

Podengo - really good article - that says what Huski said pretty much - it's more about how good your training is.

From the article

If youre looking for a guarantee, it should be obvious that neither corrections (have to!) vs. cookies (want to!) is going to get you there.

The solution is excellent training. The best trained dogs have the highest pass rates. Not the ones who got the most cookies or the hardest corrections the ones that are well trained, regardless of the handlers choice of method.

Willem - I think you're still a bit confused about the what the quadrants mean - it's easy to do which is why I avoid using the the terminology.

The people who claim to be "positive only" are also confused. Hitting a dog - is the adding (+) of an aversive (something the dog doesn't like) in the hope of reducing/stopping an undesirable behaviour.

Apply this to a human example - pinched from Susan Garrett...

You're driving to dog training class... you might have been speeding. The police officer pulls you over and instead of giving you a fine - the police officer shoots your dog.

Do you think you'd risk driving again? With your new dog? What about a child or friend? Is the behaviour the police officer was trying to reduce or stop - what you change? Shooting your dog is only +P if it successfully changes your behaviour. Actually shooting the dog might be -P - taking something away to reduce a behaviour or it could be +P - adding a bullet or an aversive - dead dog. I do really hate the jargon.

Now imagine the police officer who hands out rewards big enough that you're happy to be stopped - maybe $10,000 cash? if he catches you driving nicely in way that helps the traffic flow? This is +R - if you drive nicely more often. R stands for "re-inforcement". Would you be happy to see the next police car or would you still have a little startle in your seat?

So Re-inforcement is about anything that encourages more of a (desirable) behaviour. Eg pulling on lead and the dog getting closer to where it wants to go (reward) - results in more pulling on lead - self re-inforcing. Hence people with a pulling dog - really need to stop the reward of the dog getting to go where it wants when it's pulling. Three pops on the chain but the dog is still getting where it wants to go when pulling - isn't going to work.

I agree with Simply Grand? who said that Cesar has been changing his methods. And with TSD about the body language of dogs in photos with Cesar. I watched one early episode where he "trained" a boxer to be "calm submissive" loose lead walking and the dog at the end looked frightened and stressed. Not relaxed and comfortable. I haven't seen many of the more recent episodes. I hope he's been keeping up with the newer techniques. Tho they are not all that new.

The scariest thing about reward based training is it can be a form of "brain washing". The advertising industry use the techniques a lot and successfully. They're all about changing human behaviour and rewarding their product purchases with "feel good". Never mind if the purchases are at all beneficial to the buyer in the long term.

The techniques work quite well on humans but does require a lot of creativity. Like how do you get an old school trainer to try something new? To even want to try something new. Some of them don't even want to own a computer or a smart phone. Telling them they're doing it all wrong and this way is better - doesn't work. I learn that the hard way.

At the moment at our clubs - a lot of the top competitors who are regularly winning (at agility and obedience) are using the reward based training (reward / no reward and prevent/stop undesirable behaviour), but they're not instructing. The old school instructors won't let them.

At the beach this morning - I saw a lot of dogs pulling on lead. My dog did too occasionally - when we were too close to someone handing out treats for nothing - ok treats for barking and jumping. But most of the time she was good loose lead walking. Sometimes the pulling dog people ask how I got that. Most of them think it's something to do with my dog, not training and that their dog will "grow out of it" even if it's 6 yo already or then it's a breed thing. I've even heard labs are impossible to train. WTF?

And others just pull on by as if it is hopeless. But I can't tell them different unless they want to hear it. How do you get someone to open their mind to something different?

thanks for the head-ups :D ...$10,000 for good driving behaviour would be nice... :laugh:

wrt 'brain washing': I think the 'reward' used for training is only a real reward at the start of the training and we use it (take the following with a pinch of salt...) to get some leverage for a sneaky punishment by refusing the reward if the behaviour is not in our favour. E.g. the clicker training: once the synapsis for the dog's response are developed in the dog's brain he has to shift the focus to the originator of the sound...it becomes a reflex. It's not that the dog wants to look at you...it becomes a programmed response. Once the dog is 'addicted' to the whole rewarding game, and the pattern of 'right choice = reward' is established as a reflex the reward is - IMO - not a real reward anymore, but refusing the reward becomes a - IMO - positive punishment. A little bit like someone getting addicted to alcohol (or other drugs): first he / she enjoyed it...then it becomes an addiction and not having the drug is torture. If you would change your trainings approach by refusing any reward (no patting, no treats etc.) I bet the dog would still do the tasks as he is programmed to do so, but after a while he would start to behave like a junkie on coldturkey.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Willem

[Kavik]

wrt 'brain washing': I think the 'reward' used for training is only a real reward at the start of the training and we use it (take the following with a pinch of salt...) to get some leverage for a sneaky punishment by refusing the reward if the behaviour is not in our favour. E.g. the clicker training: once the synapsis for the dog's response are developed in the dog's brain he has to shift the focus to the originator of the sound...it becomes a reflex. It's not that the dog wants to look at you...it becomes a programmed response. Once the dog is 'addicted' to the whole rewarding game, and the pattern of 'right choice = reward' is established as a reflex the reward is - IMO - not a real reward anymore, but refusing the reward becomes a - IMO - positive punishment. A little bit like someone getting addicted to alcohol (or other drugs): first he / she enjoyed it...then it becomes an addiction and not having the drug is torture. If you would change your trainings approach by refusing any reward (no patting, no treats etc.) I bet the dog would still do the tasks as he is programmed to do so, but after a while he would start to behave like a junkie on coldturkey.

Um . . . . that is certainly NOT how I view it! That seems a very warped and pessimistic view of using rewards in training

[Steph M]

wrt 'brain washing': I think the 'reward' used for training is only a real reward at the start of the training and we use it (take the following with a pinch of salt...) to get some leverage for a sneaky punishment by refusing the reward if the behaviour is not in our favour. E.g. the clicker training: once the synapsis for the dog's response are developed in the dog's brain he has to shift the focus to the originator of the sound...it becomes a reflex. It's not that the dog wants to look at you...it becomes a programmed response. Once the dog is 'addicted' to the whole rewarding game, and the pattern of 'right choice = reward' is established as a reflex the reward is - IMO - not a real reward anymore, but refusing the reward becomes a - IMO - positive punishment. A little bit like someone getting addicted to alcohol (or other drugs): first he / she enjoyed it...then it becomes an addiction and not having the drug is torture. If you would change your trainings approach by refusing any reward (no patting, no treats etc.) I bet the dog would still do the tasks as he is programmed to do so, but after a while he would start to behave like a junkie on coldturkey.

Um . . . . that is certainly NOT how I view it! That seems a very warped and pessimistic view of using rewards in training

Agree. And it shows very little knowledge of dog behaviour and psychology. Wtf.

[Willem]

wrt 'brain washing': I think the 'reward' used for training is only a real reward at the start of the training and we use it (take the following with a pinch of salt...) to get some leverage for a sneaky punishment by refusing the reward if the behaviour is not in our favour. E.g. the clicker training: once the synapsis for the dog's response are developed in the dog's brain he has to shift the focus to the originator of the sound...it becomes a reflex. It's not that the dog wants to look at you...it becomes a programmed response. Once the dog is 'addicted' to the whole rewarding game, and the pattern of 'right choice = reward' is established as a reflex the reward is - IMO - not a real reward anymore, but refusing the reward becomes a - IMO - positive punishment. A little bit like someone getting addicted to alcohol (or other drugs): first he / she enjoyed it...then it becomes an addiction and not having the drug is torture. If you would change your trainings approach by refusing any reward (no patting, no treats etc.) I bet the dog would still do the tasks as he is programmed to do so, but after a while he would start to behave like a junkie on coldturkey.

Um . . . . that is certainly NOT how I view it! That seems a very warped and pessimistic view of using rewards in training

Agree. And it shows very little knowledge of dog behaviour and psychology. Wtf.

ha, ha, ...doesn't sound so romantic, doesn't it?...I have more bad new for you: this conditioning works for us humans too, and the advertising industry is happily spending big $$$ manipulating us so we hunting for their treats and showing the 'right behaviour' by buying all the stuff we don't need.

wrt dog training: why it is a pessimistic view?...I like this form of training because I can see that it works and that there is no need to go aggro when training the dog so I think I'm pretty optimistic actually :D ....and it is even fun...

Edited January 1, 2016 by Willem

[The Spotted Devil]

http://denisefenzi.com/2015/12/28/have-to-vs-want-to/

Podengo - really good article - that says what Huski said pretty much - it's more about how good your training is.

From the article

If you’re looking for a guarantee, it should be obvious that neither corrections (have to!) vs. cookies (want to!) is going to get you there.

The solution is excellent training. The best trained dogs have the highest pass rates. Not the ones who got the most cookies or the hardest corrections – the ones that are well trained, regardless of the handler’s choice of method.

Willem - I think you're still a bit confused about the what the quadrants mean - it's easy to do which is why I avoid using the the terminology.

The people who claim to be "positive only" are also confused. Hitting a dog - is the adding (+) of an aversive (something the dog doesn't like) in the hope of reducing/stopping an undesirable behaviour.

Apply this to a human example - pinched from Susan Garrett...

You're driving to dog training class... you might have been speeding. The police officer pulls you over and instead of giving you a fine - the police officer shoots your dog.

Do you think you'd risk driving again? With your new dog? What about a child or friend? Is the behaviour the police officer was trying to reduce or stop - what you change? Shooting your dog is only +P if it successfully changes your behaviour. Actually shooting the dog might be -P - taking something away to reduce a behaviour or it could be +P - adding a bullet or an aversive - dead dog. I do really hate the jargon.

Now imagine the police officer who hands out rewards big enough that you're happy to be stopped - maybe $10,000 cash? if he catches you driving nicely in way that helps the traffic flow? This is +R - if you drive nicely more often. R stands for "re-inforcement". Would you be happy to see the next police car or would you still have a little startle in your seat?

So Re-inforcement is about anything that encourages more of a (desirable) behaviour. Eg pulling on lead and the dog getting closer to where it wants to go (reward) - results in more pulling on lead - self re-inforcing. Hence people with a pulling dog - really need to stop the reward of the dog getting to go where it wants when it's pulling. Three pops on the chain but the dog is still getting where it wants to go when pulling - isn't going to work.

I agree with Simply Grand? who said that Cesar has been changing his methods. And with TSD about the body language of dogs in photos with Cesar. I watched one early episode where he "trained" a boxer to be "calm submissive" loose lead walking and the dog at the end looked frightened and stressed. Not relaxed and comfortable. I haven't seen many of the more recent episodes. I hope he's been keeping up with the newer techniques. Tho they are not all that new.

The scariest thing about reward based training is it can be a form of "brain washing". The advertising industry use the techniques a lot and successfully. They're all about changing human behaviour and rewarding their product purchases with "feel good". Never mind if the purchases are at all beneficial to the buyer in the long term.

The techniques work quite well on humans but does require a lot of creativity. Like how do you get an old school trainer to try something new? To even want to try something new. Some of them don't even want to own a computer or a smart phone. Telling them they're doing it all wrong and this way is better - doesn't work. I learn that the hard way.

At the moment at our clubs - a lot of the top competitors who are regularly winning (at agility and obedience) are using the reward based training (reward / no reward and prevent/stop undesirable behaviour), but they're not instructing. The old school instructors won't let them.

At the beach this morning - I saw a lot of dogs pulling on lead. My dog did too occasionally - when we were too close to someone handing out treats for nothing - ok treats for barking and jumping. But most of the time she was good loose lead walking. Sometimes the pulling dog people ask how I got that. Most of them think it's something to do with my dog, not training and that their dog will "grow out of it" even if it's 6 yo already or then it's a breed thing. I've even heard labs are impossible to train. WTF?

And others just pull on by as if it is hopeless. But I can't tell them different unless they want to hear it. How do you get someone to open their mind to something different?

thanks for the head-ups :D ...$10,000 for good driving behaviour would be nice... :laugh:

wrt 'brain washing': I think the 'reward' used for training is only a real reward at the start of the training and we use it (take the following with a pinch of salt...) to get some leverage for a sneaky punishment by refusing the reward if the behaviour is not in our favour. E.g. the clicker training: once the synapsis for the dog's response are developed in the dog's brain he has to shift the focus to the originator of the sound...it becomes a reflex. It's not that the dog wants to look at you...it becomes a programmed response. Once the dog is 'addicted' to the whole rewarding game, and the pattern of 'right choice = reward' is established as a reflex the reward is - IMO - not a real reward anymore, but refusing the reward becomes a - IMO - positive punishment. A little bit like someone getting addicted to alcohol (or other drugs): first he / she enjoyed it...then it becomes an addiction and not having the drug is torture. If you would change your trainings approach by refusing any reward (no patting, no treats etc.) I bet the dog would still do the tasks as he is programmed to do so, but after a while he would start to behave like a junkie on coldturkey.

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

Edited January 1, 2016 by The Spotted Devil

[Willem]

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

...that's why it is called 'opinion'...and everyone is entitled to his/her own :)

[The Spotted Devil]

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

...that's why it is called 'opinion'...and everyone is entitled to his/her own :)

You are indeed. Those who understand the science have taken considerable time and effort trying to explain learning theory. My opinion is that you are not interested in gaining any further knowledge - look up confirmation bias in Wiki.

[aussielover]

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

...that's why it is called 'opinion'...and everyone is entitled to his/her own :)

An opinion can be wrong. Of course, you're still entitled to believe the wrong thing if you choose.

Others in this thread have quite clearly explained how withholding or refusing to give a treat is NOT a form of positive punishment.

[Willem]

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

...that's why it is called 'opinion'...and everyone is entitled to his/her own :)

You are indeed. Those who understand the science have taken considerable time and effort trying to explain learning theory. My opinion is that you are not interested in gaining any further knowledge - look up confirmation bias in Wiki.

...I admit, I don't understand the fuss about classical vs. operant conditioning as, yes IMO, in practical (dog) training it is a mix of both anyway. If a behaviour becomes an unwanted behaviour, yes, then it might be required to analyse the problem deeper to make sure that they don't work against each other as this is often the cause for the unwanted behaviour.

[Willem]

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

...that's why it is called 'opinion'...and everyone is entitled to his/her own :)

An opinion can be wrong. Of course, you're still entitled to believe the wrong thing if you choose.

Others in this thread have quite clearly explained how withholding or refusing to give a treat is NOT a form of positive punishment.

whatever you want to call it: it is the consequence resulting from the dogs choice and as it is not the consequence the dog prefers I call it punishment...you can debate whether it is positive or negative, due to the 'brain wash' effect (addiction) that develops in the dog's brain after a while I would call it a positive punishment (yes, the 'noxious' stimuli is added by the dog's brain and not by me, but I trigger it by refusing the treat).

Edited January 2, 2016 by Willem

[Kavik]

Quite simply, it is NOT positive punishment.

http://www.dog-training-excellence.com/images/operant-quadrants.png

[kayla1]

Actually you're just confusing classical conditioning with operant conditioning. Pavlov is always on your shoulder.

By the way, clarifying your statements with "IMO" does not make you right.

...that's why it is called 'opinion'...and everyone is entitled to his/her own :)

You are indeed. Those who understand the science have taken considerable time and effort trying to explain learning theory. My opinion is that you are not interested in gaining any further knowledge - look up confirmation bias in Wiki.

...and belief perseverance.