Sit, Stay and Play » Pets

Obedience Doesn’t Fix Behavior Issues

Jules Nye — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:25:48 +0000

For some reason, people think obedience is a cure all for any dog behavior. Like teaching him to sit will make him not lunge at the neighborhood children anymore. I’m not sure where this came from or how it happened, but I hear it all the time. And it’s important to know, that taking a reactive dog into a class setting can be counter productive. Let’s just say there’s a dog named Boo. And Boo doesn’t like people. So what sense does it make to throw Boo into a confined space surrounded by people? That’s like saying if you are scared of bugs, you should go book yourself a nice get away at a remote forest in a tent, but learn how to stand on your head. Would you really even be concentrating on learning on how to stand on your head? Not really. And this is the same for putting a dog into a situation he is uncomfortable with and wondering why teaching him to down didn’t work to fix the aggression problems.

Now, I need to clarify that I am a big fan of teaching a dog obedience cues (as well as manners, and life behaviors too). However, there is a right way to use obedience cues in a training plan. What I see is a lot of people think obedience training fixes aggression problems. (UGH!!!) And usually what happens is they start to kill obedience cues by pairing them with the situation that triggers reactivity. So, the dog generalizes that “sit” means the adverse stimulus (aka: the “icky thing”) is approaching, and in turn, kills the cue “sit” by changing the emotional response by classical conditioning. AKA: “sit” = icky thing. There is a HUGE difference between using sit (or whatever obedience cue you want) to bridge the gap and encourage some sort of interaction with the trigger, and accidentally poisoning the sit cue. A lot of times I’ll use “target” to get an animal to interact with the environment. (Target is: touch a body part, usually the animal’s nose or paw, and physically contact an object like your hand or a target stick). So, if the dog Boo knows target, I could get Boo to target something like a pot holder, under threshold, as he’s approaching a person. Knowing that target always offers a reinforcement (which could be a treat, or walking away from the person you’re actually trying to approach), connects the icky thing – the person, with the good thing – doing a target. And thus you can counter condition using a known cue (in this example, “target”). You could do this same thing with sit.

The two main problems I see are being over threshold and poor timing. When an animal is over threshold, it doesn’t matter what you have to offer him, it’s just too much to ask for. Sorry. That’s just how things work. And people are no different with their behavior either. If you are scared of spiders, and I whip out a tarantula, and walk right over to you, I will get to a point where I am just too close for comfort. I could offer you the moon on a silver platter with a two week cruise with Mr. Right to Perfectville and it still wouldn’t be enough. Now let’s add on other thresholds like how many spiders, how fast am I approaching you, at what direction(s), for how long, etc. There are always multiple thresholds in every situation. And putting a dog who doesn’t care for people in a class setting, with numerous people, for an hour, who are working close to him just isn’t fair, or frankly very logical, and extremely over threshold.

Poor timing is the other major oops I see a lot. Whenever you’re trying to change something, you want to focus on the consequence of the behavior. So it’s “icky thing” = sit. NOT sit = “icky thing.” And having bad timing can create this very quickly. Even using the cue “sit” with poor timing can poison it. Besides that, you want to make sure that sit means something. Sit has to bring on a desired reinforcement to have any effect. So, you need to be aware on how to use reinforcers as well. AKA: sometimes food isn’t always the best thing to use.

To oversimplify this, obedience is a good thing, and you can use cues from obedience in a training plan. However, teaching obedience doesn’t modify behavior. And in order to modify behavior you need to understand several things such as timing, reinforcers, and thresholds – plus when and how to apply each of them. It is a very real possibility to change something you didn’t like before into something you do like now, and vice versa. Using the science of learning and the art of training can get you there.

Socialization Scavenger Hunt

Jules Nye — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:00:22 +0000

Socialization Scavenger Hunt

Here is a list of things to socialize your puppy around. Remember, socialization is exposure with pleasant consequences to teach acceptance of new experiences. Common sense goes a long way when socializing a puppy. If your puppy seems hesitant, go slower, let the puppy approach the person (not vice-versa), use rewards like food, praise and petting when the puppy does investigate something he was unsure of, and never force a puppy (this only creates fear issues later).

Ten different healthy, happy small dogs
Ten different healthy, happy big dogs
Ten different calm, well behaved, gentle children
Ten different calm, well behaved, gentle teenagers
Thirty different calm, well behaved, gentle adults
Ten tall people
Ten average height people
Ten short people
Ten people wearing glasses
Ten people wearing hats or hoods
Fifty different sounds
Five things red
Five things blue
Five things orange
Five things green
Five things purple
Five things yellow
One body of water, river, stream, or pool
Ten different vehicles
Ten things that are not in your house
Fifteen things you can only find outside
Twenty different ring tones
Five different surfaces (sand, grass, concrete, etc)
Five shiny things
Twenty different dog toys
One fence
Five street signs
One crate or dog bed
Touch each paw twice a day for one week
Twenty other people to touch or pet the puppy
Twenty other people to give the puppy a treat
See, be near, or interact with supervision, three other animals (cat, horse, etc)
Sniff on a walk at least five times, for at least ten walks
Respond to at least one easy cue (sit, target, paw, etc) in ten different situations (you’re sitting, standing, laying in bed, mowing the grass, carrying in the groceries, etc), in at least three different environments (outside, at your friend’s house, etc)
Eat a treat in twenty different environments (your house, outside, the vet’s, a friend’s house, on a walk, in the car, etc)

http://www.petexpertise.com/puppy-socialization-by-jules-nye.html?utm_source=streamsend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=6704741&utm_campaign=Stop%20Door%20Barking%2C%20Help%20a%20Dog%20Recover%2C%20Contest%20%26%20More%20-%20Pet%20Expertise%20October%20Article%20Newsletter

Stupid Dog Don’ts That People Do

Jules Nye — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:29:01 +0000

This post is intended to be read by people with a sense of humor, because it points out and pokes fun at how we “more intelligent higher species” can be so dumb.

I think I have seen and heard my, your, and your brother’s fair share of stupid dog don’ts that people do. Even to this day there are still times I shake my head and think, “What?!?!!?” Here are my favorite top five:

1. Bite your dog on the ear. - This has got to be my absolute favorite. Why in heaven’s sake would you deliberately put your face near the pointy end of a reactive dog? Even better, who actually thinks they are fast enough to not get bit? Why would causing pain be a good idea in the first place and what is it supposed to teach?

2. Reach your hand out to strange dogs so they can sniff you. – This one is good for a chuckle. Like the dog can’t smell you unless you reach out your hand. Like we live in an invisible force-field immune to a dog’s sniffer. Besides that “duh” factor, how smart is it to reach right for the face of a strange dog? Believe it or not, that’s quite rude to do to a dog.

3. Train my dog not to bite my kid even while he’s: pulling his tail, smooshing his face, hugging him, using him to learn how to stand and grabbing onto his fur with a vice grip, smacking him, pulling his whiskers, yelling in his ear, etc, etc, etc. No, sorry I can’t. Because every living creature has their breaking point and constantly pushing your dog past his by bad parenting and lack of supervision can’t be fixed without realizing your kid can’t treat the dog like crap. Sorry. Get a stuffed animal for your kid to play with. I always want to drop the professional politically correct nature of myself and ask people, “Can I poke your eye, yell into your ear, steal your lunch right out of your hand, grab your husband’s ass, and anything else I can think of that is just completely crossing every boundary of respect and personal space and see how you like me?”

4. That dog must be friendly because his tail is wagging. – Yet another popular thought many people believe (and usually followed by stupid human faux pas #2.) Understanding basic canine body language is not too difficult and the big fat rule numero uno is look at the whole dog! Even if you don’t take into consideration the environment or any triggers, and zone into just the tail there are an array of tail movements and carriages. Is it low, high, stiff, only wagging at the top, fast, slow, hair standing up on it, methodically back and forth….

5. Saying a cue over and over until physically making the dog do it. – An example of this would be, “Sit. Sit. Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit.Sit. Sit! SIT!” and then just pushing the dog’s bum. I never got that. Why waste your breath? Clearly the dog doesn’t understand “sit” in the environment he’s in or there is zero motivation to do so. Either way, it’s silly to nag your dog. Next time, just bring a block of cheese with you or train for generalization around distractions if you expect results. Just because a dog can sit in the kitchen doesn’t mean he will at the vet’s. That’s the same as assuming a new driver can drive on the interstate just because they drove around the block a few times. Sorry, you can’t have my car keys.