Once a dog learns...

The issue is not about treats,,, it is about providing the reinforcer that increases the probability the behavior will occur again in similiar circumstances.  In reality, my post is in close agreement with your quote, I live with herding dogs.  My Dess will turn off standing flagging bitch to work sheep.  He will work through thunderstorms despite his sound sensitivity.  No argument there.

I am not arguing about treats vs. no treats, but this is a good example of once a dog learns a set of commands with treats or a tug, or other reward, fun is what maintains the behavior... []

Houndlove made a great post once, describing how her dog was, I think, splashed by a car driving through a puddle. She commented that it was a unique and unscripted proof for her dog why waiting at the curb was a good idea. I think she was making a case for her dog trusting her decision making in the normal absence of proofs, that the dog had some motivation to follow her choices for it's own well being.

Rather than being an issue of behavior > reinforcer, it was a nod to a relationship set akin to "Their routine for us getting ready to leave the house is also complete habit with very little formal training involved. They just know."

Also thinking about what it is that "the dog learns".

We tend to use lures/rewards when training behaviors that are not natural to the dog: tricks like shake, high five, sit pretty, weave, etc. But when we "teach" behaviors that are more compatible with instinct and drive, getting to fulfill the instinct/drive is the reward: herding, tracking, retreiving, etc.

So, will the motivations for a dog to give you a "wave" at grandma's without treats differ from a dog who drives the sheep?

The most successful working dogs, and therefore the ones most likely to be bred, were those who enjoyed working the most. Consequently, they come hard-wired with a desire to work because it's fun, not because they get some external reward for doing so.

--tinak
 
Were missing the other form of learning here. You are always talking about the operant, rewards. But I think what she is calling "fun". dog trainers call "classical conditioning."  I take my dogs on grass when they are young to play, I use the same collars, leashes. I have the same rituals for preparing the play. Later in life, no matter how much I ask of them, they cannot help but feel those same feelings they felt as a baby. like when I a dog sees it's leash. walks are rewarding. So the dog associates the leash to fun. But I grab the leash, and am going to take the dog to the vet to get shots. The dog will still be happy to see it's leash next time. But you cannot teach a new behavior by showing the dog the leash. What's rewarding the dog is the chemicals squirting the brain. The dog has intense emotions connected to the behavior. The best working dogs are not the dogs having the most fun, I know plenty of protection dogs who are not out thier having a good time, and are extremely successful. The best dogs, are the ones who are the easiest to elicit these emotions. they have the most joy as a baby maybe, but paired with something, that something will elicit those same emotions. And thier is no reason, that sit being rewarded a thousand times with raw liver will not be a pleasurable experience to the dog.
 
Or thier is the likelyhood....someone did a great job keeping the dog guessing when your going to pay out. And I guarntee...if you do not reward a behavior later. it will eventually go extinct.

but paired with something, that something will elicit those same emotions.

 
yup. No need to bring silly concepts like "to please the master" and "to be part of the pack" into it.  It's all complicated chains of reinforced behaviors and the building of secondary reinforcers.

ORIGINAL: Ixas_girl
If I angrily shoved a treat in my dog's face every time she respnded to "sit", she'd respond more strongly to the negative energy than to the food reward, and I'd have a really unreliable cue there.

I noticed you were never brave enough to take on *this* silly proposal.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ixas_girl
If I angrily shoved a treat in my dog's face every time she respnded to "sit", she'd respond more strongly to the negative energy than to the food reward, and I'd have a really unreliable cue there.


I noticed you were never brave enough to take on *this* silly proposal.

?

ORIGINAL: fisher6000
?

That was me taking some bait and spitting it back out. [X(] I'm human, too. []

I don't think MP was baiting you or anyone else as much as (s)he was stating an opinion about concepts like "to please the master..." which you have to admit are pretty anthropocentric.

Similarly I am not baiting you, I am offering my own opinion. I think that it's entirely possible to see that of course a dog has a rich emotional life, and *at the same time* understand that a dog's emotional life is probably not well-described using my own emotional life as a model.

I think about my dog's obedience in what you would probably consider clinical or sterile terms not because I am a cold heartless woman, but actually out of respect for my dog's emotional life. I can't say for certain what the inner life of my dog is, and he can't explain it to me. So instead of projecting my desires (like "pleasing master") about that internal life onto him, I prefer to stick to what I can prove, what I can demonstrate.

Working with my dog in terms of the demonstrable fact that he *always* seems to want something is useful and gets us somewhere and keeps my own fantasies in check. It's less about negating his emotional life and more about allowing his emotional life to be truly his and not mine.

No need to bring silly concepts like "to please the master" and "to be part of the pack" into it. It's all complicated chains of reinforced behaviors and the building of secondary reinforcers.

What does a 'pack drive' got to do with dogs... at all?

EDITED: Should have asked, what does a "pack drive" has to do with training... How, when it is applicable, to what degree?

I actually didn't see any baiting either.  If there was, lets not do it again, ok?

ORIGINAL: fisher6000
concepts like "to please the master..." which you have to admit are pretty anthropocentric.

All concepts humans produce are anthropocentric, but that doesn't make them all silly.

ORIGINAL: fisher6000
I think about my dog's obedience in what you would probably consider clinical or sterile terms not because I am a cold heartless woman, but actually out of respect for my dog's emotional life.

Regardless of the tone of the discussion, I don't, for one moment, believe that anyone championing variable reinforcement schedules lacks emotional connection with their dogs. I don't believe heartless human vending machines exist, not here on idog or elsewhere. I agree that considering operational methods and subjectivities are not mutually exclusive. I don't doubt that each of you knows what I mean when I describe:

"My dog adores me. Her liquid gaze melts into me when I beam and smile with her, and her alone. She would move mountains for me, as would I for her."

What's at stake in my crude statement that my dog has a desire to "please her master," is a world of responsibilites that I have to the whole being of a dependent creature. The way that relationship plays out in my house is entirely different than how it would play out in Siegfried and Roy's house.

I appreciate how difficult it is to articulate the subjective aspects of our relationships; heck, not only with dogs but with other humans, too. Digging into what's behind statements like "it just works" is a valid project that draws a lot of ridicule. What a shame! Buryng the subjective arena gives it no light for examination. We all enjoy the benefits of what feels like unconditional love from our dogs. It is part of what motivates us in how we behave with them. What does the other side of the coin look like?

This discussion is occuring in the "Dog Psychology and Behavior" section. Had it been posted in the training section, I would have considered the original question in a different light. Regardless, Tina, this is your thread, I'd be happy to comply with your wishes.

In the meantime, if we seek to modify ourselves and our dogs to make a good "fit," with each other, why not make space to consider all areas of inquiry? When looking at what motivates dogs, why not look beyond the operations of pleasure seeking/pain avoidance? Why not consider that a "dog has a rich emotional life" and speculate on the nature of it, or at least refrain from expressing disdain for others who do? What's at stake? Aren't discussion forums intended to be arenas of specualtive discourse? If not, wouldn't we all be lined up at the offices of people with credentials so we could simply buy the answers?

Thought experiment:

quote:
If I angrily shoved a treat in my dog's face every time she respnded to "sit", she'd respond more strongly to the negative energy than to the food reward, and I'd have a really unreliable cue there.

If this premise is correct, then something stimulates the dog more than the treat. What is it? What does that tell us?
If this premise is incorrect, then the stimulus is the sole motivator. What does that tell us regarding our demeanor with dogs?

If I angrily shoved a treat in my dog's face every time she respnded to "sit", she'd respond more strongly to the negative energy than to the food reward, and I'd have a really unreliable cue there.

So you are basically offering your dog two kinds of reinforcements simultaneously: +R and -R... One is a yummy treat, another one is this verbal disapproval (which dogs understand being pack/social animals). Yes, it's interesting, what wouold take precedence? Your negative energy, or your positive attitude for that matter, will only be reinforcing if there is a drive, a desire to be a part of a pack - a pack drive. I don't mean there is this Love with capital L, but there is some emotional connection, some dependence... If you don't have that bond with your dog, or if your dog's pack drive is low (maybe due to personality, breed, etc.) then reinforcements such as corrections, praise, interaction, games are not effective as motivators (because both default back on relationship/company/pack mentality).

Basically some of us feel that there is that emotional bond, and that *we* as members of this pack, big or small, drive this social reinforcement. Others feel that we have nothing to do with it... it's a habit, variable reinforcement schedule, etc. Is that right?

And then here is my big question I asked above: Do you feel that pack drive has anything to do with training? If so when and to what degree. Because if you think it has nothing to do with training, then of course there is no possibility that that could be a motivator in the first place in any shape of form.

This discussion is occurring in the "Dog Psychology and Behavior" section. Had it been posted in the training section, I would have considered the original question in a different light. Regardless, Tina, this is your thread, I'd be happy to comply with your wishes.

To be honest, I have no idea where to post questions - under 'Training' or under 'Dog Psychology'. 'Dog psychology' section *to me* has a broader spectrum - the dogs mind and training, so I tend to post most of my stuff here; if I had a question about a specific technique, I'd post it under Training. But really, our answers would be filtered by the title of the section the thread is in... In other words, don't let *that* guide your answers - this stuff it's arbitrary anyway. []

Digging into what's behind statements like "it just works" is a valid project that draws a lot of ridicule. What a shame!

See, here's the meat of this for me. I disagree with you on this point. I actually think that digging into what's behind statements like "it just works" is not as valid as other kinds of intellectual questioning. And I don't just think that about dogs. I think that about every other intellectual persuit as well.

I don't know how to discuss this in a format that is appropriate to a dog forum, and I don't want to hijack someone else's thread to discuss the nature of reality. Suffice to say that I think that people engaged in Western culture right now are trying to know more than what is.

And I think, paradoxically, that you can know much more by clinging to the fact that you can only know what is. And that anything else you think you are figuring out that is past what is is not knowledge. It's made up. It's angels on the heads of pins.

Why not consider that a "dog has a rich emotional life" and speculate on the nature of it, or at least refrain from expressing disdain for others who do? What's at stake? Aren't discussion forums intended to be arenas of specualtive discourse? If not, wouldn't we all be lined up at the offices of people with credentials so we could simply buy the answers?

So to answer your questions, I think that speculating on the nature of my dog's interior life is a fine creative persuit. It makes fun dogster talk or perhaps a childrens novel or a Shouts and Murmurs piece in the New Yorker. But it's not reality--it's a story that I am making up and it must be so because I do not have any emperical evidence backing up my story.

To lighten this up a little bit and provide an example:

My dog has this very funny "guilty" look. And I put it on cue, and the cue is "Phew! Who farted!?" and me waving my hand in front of my nose. It's a hysterical routine--trust me. He's a funny dog...

...but you'll agree with me that he has a totally different experience of that joke than I do, right? And that while it is apparent that my dog enjoys people laughing at him and is quite a ham, that he does not truly get it, right?

And that it would be quite silly indeed to infer from watching this that my dog understands that flatulence is funny... right????

Dogs do a lot of things that humans can describe in their terms, using their ideas of what constitutes dog psychology or dog behavior. And much of this is, necessarily, fabricated. It must be, because we do not have any English-speaking Dog Delegates.

I don't think that anyone here is expressing disdain as much as exasperation, because the nature of what is real or what is knowable, or what is emperically demonstrable as fact feels so concrete, and because empirical evidence receives the same shoddy treatment that you perceive on this forum regularly.

In fact, one of the reasons I continue to post on this forum is because I find the slipperiness of reality and the way empirical evidence is so mistrusted by some forum contributors, and the way that which is knowable is so often dismissed when compared with that which is only imaginable... I find these aspects of this forum so completely fascinating.

I think that the ultimate mistrust of the idea that we can actually know some things and use them (that there is such a thing as a useful truth) is beautifully embodied in this line here:

Aren't discussion forums intended to be arenas of specualtive discourse? If not, wouldn't we all be lined up at the offices of people with credentials so we could simply buy the answers?

Respectfully, this is a false choice! There are other things to do with discourse that involve actually building concepts using that which is known and knowable because it is observed, and not relying on that which we imagine! And it is so sad (and so arrogant!) to imagine a world in which we already know everything and just go buy answers at the answer store.

To put this in a more dog-centric way...

I get so much good, real, factual information about what my dog is like from observing him and using those observations to make our relationship better and easier and richer that I cannot see the value in making up ideas that come from my own head and applying them to this relationship. I find that when I have done that in the past, it has clouded and not enhanced my relationship with my dog.

I find that the more time I spend looking and using what I have seen, and the less time I spend making up concepts, the better I understand my dog. And I know this because it is emperically evident and demonstrably true. His behavior is better. I feel happier and experience less strife. I anticipate more and punish less. I am happier, my dog is more obedient. The proof is right there in the pudding.

So because you keep bringing it up, it makes no sense to do your experiment as a thought experiment because there is no one clear outcome that is logically true! We don't and cannot know whether any or all dogs would care about tone of voice in our minds. I know a lot of dogs--some are so food-motivated that they would not care what your tone of voice is. Others are sensitive enough to get turned off. It gets so murky... what's the point? What does it demonstrate?