Clicker Training and Permissiveness

I think permissiveness is a personality trait more than anything.  I am anything but permissive,,, not even really patient, but persistent.
 
The other thing that happens with positive training methods that I think gets mixed up is the need for CONSIDERABLE management of behavior during training.  The management is needed to prevent the practice of undesirable behavior when other behaviors are being learned.
 
This is more about selective attention (positive training) than anything else.  Design an environment in which your dog can be right and attend to that.

Well, I can see where the permissiveness thing comes from. I have "Clicking with Your Dog" by Peggy Tillman. Great book - but the solution for most problems is to ask for an incompatible behavior. Works great BUT either I'm doing something wrong or my dog has an above-average ability to link behaviors.

To get her to stop harassing the cat (who, by the way, usually deserved it) I'd call her to me and ask for a down or roll-over or spin and click/treat her. I tried to do it randomly through the day, but it didn't take her long to figure out that EVERY TIME she harassed Cletus, she'd get a click/treat. Consequently, Cletus the Brat Cat got harassed even more than he deserved (which I didn't think was possible!) and Lucy would run to me and start offering behaviors then run back to bug Cletus. So I started using body blocking to stop the kitty-cornering and THEN asking for another behavior to reward. This is in addition to random training sessions throughout the day. That reduced the cat harassment immensely. Distraction stopped the kitty wars while they were happening, but she never learned not to start a skirmish until I blocked her from the cat.

I had the same problem with distractions from barking when we were camping. If she saw another dog she'd go nuts - and noisy dogs are frowned upon at most campgrounds. So I started calling her to me and asking for a down the click/treat. Pretty soon, she would run to the end of her tether - bark at the other dog - then run right back to me for her click/treat! I started making her wait longer for the treat and asking for more behaviors between treats but we didn't have it all worked out before camping season ended.

The only thing that's a "fact" is that any person, regardless of training opinion, who equates clicker training with permissiveness does not at all understand clicker training. That's the only fact in this discussion.
 
It never ceases to amaze me where force-based training equates to leadership. There are HUNDREDS of clicker trainers who enforce NILIF as much as the next person! Just because some people choose not to use P+ in their training programs doesn't mean they have untrained dogs. In fact, there are clicker trained dogs that are have as much self-control, are as respectful, and as obedient as any force-trained dog out there.
 
It's silly to think that a training method indicates ANY level of leadership. It's even sillier to think that FORCING your dog to do what you want is any sort of leadership either. Respect for being a leader is earned. Not forced. We don't need to play Hitler over our dogs to gain their respect and get them to do as we ask. You can force your dog to do whatever you please, it still doesn't make you a good leader.
 
I wrote this on another forum, but I'll post it here as it's really quite fitting:

Leadership or "Parent" Role

All scientists agree that we humans do have an important role to play the leader, or the parent, for our dogs. It's our responsibility to do so in order to maintain proper behaviours, manners, and generally communicable relations. Dogs do not "aim" for the leadership role in families, it is lack of leadership from the humans that puts dogs there involuntarily.

So, how DO you become a good parent?

• Not by force
  
• Not by intimidation
  
  

Being a good leader is how you act. You act confident in your abilities to set guidelines for your dog. It is about controlling the resources that are important to the dog. And it is about teaching your dog proper "manners" (aka training) and how to associate in an appropriate manners with the human species. Just as it's your role to teach children how to become an individual, but at the same time a member of society, we humans have an even larger job to teach dogs the way of human life, and to help them fit in to our society in acceptable ways.

It's not about going through doors first, or eating first, or stepping over dogs. In fact, it's the very opposite. It's having control over those resources in the first place that lead to effective leadership. It's about trust, and patience, and respect. You have to have a dog's trust in order to be a good leader or parent to your dog.

1. Controlling food items and other resources that are important to the dog. You determine when the dog eats and when it does not. You determine WHAT the dog eats and when it does not. Dogs rely on your for their food, it is one of the easiest ways to display positive leadership to your dog, by controlling how much it eats, what it eats, and when it eats. You control where the dog sleeps, if it is allowed in your room or if it sleeps in a kennel. You control the dog's access to outdoors, walks, meetings with other dogs, etc. Having these controls, and implementing them in a positive manner, automatically puts you in a position of being the leader.

2. This is paired with training, where you teach the dog what is and is not acceptable behaviour to live in a human society. You teach the dog to sit. Great! Then you use that in everyday. You want to go for a walk? Sit first! You want to eat supper? Sit first! Want to go meet that mailman? Sit first!

3. Reward proper (deferential) behaviour. If the dog pulls, you don't go anywhere. All dogs must be sitting to go on a walk, or to be fed. Dogs must wait to be invited up on the bed. Dogs that bark don't get to go on drives. Quiet dogs do. If you reward appropriate behaviour, you'll get appropriate behaviour. If you reward pushy behaviour, you'll get pushy behaviour. It's really that simple.

4. Being proactive, and having the ability to intervene when needed. As a leader it is your job to protect and keep your dog safe from harm or fearful situations. It's your job to know your dog's fears and anxieties and do your best to either avoid them (if that's possible), or if that's not possible, to work through them, and to manage situations so that your dog is not put in a state of anxiety or fear. If your dog is phobic of other dogs, for example, do not try to "make" your dog go meet the other dog, no matter how friendly it may be. The only thing you accomplish by doing this is to prove to your dog that you are again, not in any place to be benevolent leader, as you are not reading the dog's signals and body language and responding accordingly. You wouldn't throw your 3 year old child into the arms of a clown if she was terrified of clowns would you? You have to BE there for your dog, pay attention to it, read its signals and act accordingly.

The following is a great list of resources, about Leadership information that is recommended as an aid to this post (as some of it goes farther than I can in just one post):[linkhttp://www.flyingdogpress.com/leadership.html]http://www.flyingdogpress.com/leadership.html[/link]
[linkhttp://www.4pawsu.com/leaderadv.htm]http://www.4pawsu.com/leaderadv.htm[/link]
[linkhttp://www.4pawsu.com/leader.htm]http://www.4pawsu.com/leader.htm[/link]
[linkhttp://www.mmilani.com/leadership-vs-dominance.html]http://www.mmilani.com/leadership-vs-dominance.html[/link] 
[linkhttp://www.k9deb.com/nilif.htm]http://www.k9deb.com/nilif.htm[/link]

 
That's a rather basic version of my writing, but basically, the leadership role has nothing to do directly with your training methods, although I do personally feel that some training methods lead to better leadership than others, because of the respect/trust involved in them.
 
It is how your live with your dog on a day-to-day basis, and how you regulate the activities of your dogs that dictates what type of leader you are.
 
 
Kim MacMillan
- and Gaci, who sleeps on the bed or wherever she pleases, goes through doors first, goes down stairs first, eats first, leaves the house first, and sleeps in doorways at times, but who still happily responds to anything her DogParent asks of her.
 

To get her to stop harassing the cat (who, by the way, usually deserved it) I'd call her to me and ask for a down or roll-over or spin and click/treat her. I tried to do it randomly through the day, but it didn't take her long to figure out that EVERY TIME she harassed Cletus, she'd get a click/treat. Consequently, Cletus the Brat Cat got harassed even more than he deserved (which I didn't think was possible!) and Lucy would run to me and start offering behaviors then run back to bug Cletus. So I started using body blocking to stop the kitty-cornering and THEN asking for another behavior to reward. This is in addition to random training sessions throughout the day. That reduced the cat harassment immensely. Distraction stopped the kitty wars while they were happening, but she never learned not to start a skirmish until I blocked her from the cat.

I had the same problem with distractions from barking when we were camping. If she saw another dog she'd go nuts - and noisy dogs are frowned upon at most campgrounds. So I started calling her to me and asking for a down the click/treat. Pretty soon, she would run to the end of her tether - bark at the other dog - then run right back to me for her click/treat! I started making her wait longer for the treat and asking for more behaviors between treats but we didn't have it all worked out before camping season ended.

 
But you weren't truly teaching and incompatible behaviour. What you created was a behaviour chain. Two different things. [] A true DRI (Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible behaviour) does work!
 
Kim MacMillan

An incompatible behavior is a good strategy for a dog who's doing something unacceptable to get a reward you have control over, so "sit" instead of jumping up, or going to their spot instead of begging at the table. Attention is withdrawn for the unacceptable behavior but applied for the acceptable one. This is a clear win-lose structure for the dog. Jumping up loses, but sitting wins.

But for a dog who's engaging in a self-rewarding activity like chasing the cat or nosing around the garbage, or barking, it's totally win-win for the dog to do an incompatible behavior that's rewarded. Harassing the cat was always a big winner. But now not only is harassing great because it was always fun, now it has this extra added new dimension. Any dog in their right mind is going to cash in on that ticket any chance they get.

I use a no reward marker, which is really just a fancy term for some kind of signal that the dog is doing something that will not be rewarded in any way (I use "ah-ah" but "no" if used properly is a no reward marker, or "oops" or "banana" or whatever you want). Not self-rewarded and not rewarded by you. So this is where the body-blocking you're doing comes in. You are keeping it from being self-rewarding. Harassing the cat has to become something that loses its reward structure in order for it to extinguish.

I think it is possible to do an incompatible behavior for a self-rewarding activity but your timing has to be impeccable and you have to watch like a hawk. The incompatible behavior has to be asked for the nanosecond you see the dog about to engage in the other behavior. Then you'll get a dog who every time they're thinking about harassing the cat comes to you for an incompatible behavior and a reward instead. But calling over once they've started it will do just what you noticed was happening. When I was training Marlowe to not lunge after prey, I had to ask for a sit the instant he raised his ears and made visual contact with they prey, not in mid-lunge. When you've got a dog on a 1 foot leash right next to you, that's easy. Not so easy inside a house.

I think this another sort of misunderstanding/terminology issue with "clicker training." Clicker training is really a whole matrix of training and behavior management/modification strategies, some of which involve a clicker, some of which do not. On the Clicker Solutions yahoo group, NILIF is always recomended. It doesn't involve or require a clicker to do NILIF, but the philosophy fits so well with clicker training. Someone on another forum suggested the acronym LIMA: "Least Invasive, Minimally Aversive" to fill in for "clicker training" or "positive training" or "+R training" or whathaveyou. I like it. I think it's a way better description.

I don't use NRM's myself, but there was a fabulous discussion on ClickerSolutions group a week or so ago regarding how many dogs perceive NRM's, and how they truly act as a Positive Punisher rather than simply non-reward. It's a very interesting discussion so if you're a member there you should check it out.
 
If you really consider it, you are applying a cue/signal, and in return the dog is lessening the behaviour of whatever it was doing. Total non-reward involves the dog not being rewarded for doing it itself, AND not being rewarded OR punished by you. That's where the term extinction often comes into play.
 
But it comes down to the NRM isn't just a non-reward, because it's being applied. In the terminology context, it serves as a punisher for behaviour when it's really laid out in ABC's (Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence).
 
Kim MacMillan

Great response, Jenhuedepohl.

I have worked my way into similar corners as a trainer (don't ask about my first stab at countersurfing...) and in the moment I definitely felt like a big, permissive fool.

The change in thinking that has helped me with this issue is to think more in terms of -P (controling my dog's access to what he wants) and less in terms of "click and treat." If I can answer whatever behavior my dog throws out with the question:

"What does he want right now?"

Then I can leverage that desire into wanted behaviors. But I started out by asking myself,

"Where can I get a treat in?"

And that didn't work at all. I didn't get it.

ORIGINAL: jenhuedepohl

Well, I can see where the permissiveness thing comes from. I have "Clicking with Your Dog" by Peggy Tillman. Great book - but the solution for most problems is to ask for an incompatible behavior. Works great BUT either I'm doing something wrong or my dog has an above-average ability to link behaviors.

To get her to stop harassing the cat (who, by the way, usually deserved it) I'd call her to me and ask for a down or roll-over or spin and click/treat her. I tried to do it randomly through the day, but it didn't take her long to figure out that EVERY TIME she harassed Cletus, she'd get a click/treat. Consequently, Cletus the Brat Cat got harassed even more than he deserved (which I didn't think was possible!) and Lucy would run to me and start offering behaviors then run back to bug Cletus. So I started using body blocking to stop the kitty-cornering and THEN asking for another behavior to reward. This is in addition to random training sessions throughout the day. That reduced the cat harassment immensely. Distraction stopped the kitty wars while they were happening, but she never learned not to start a skirmish until I blocked her from the cat.

I had the same problem with distractions from barking when we were camping. If she saw another dog she'd go nuts - and noisy dogs are frowned upon at most campgrounds. So I started calling her to me and asking for a down the click/treat. Pretty soon, she would run to the end of her tether - bark at the other dog - then run right back to me for her click/treat! I started making her wait longer for the treat and asking for more behaviors between treats but we didn't have it all worked out before camping season ended.

 
My answer to this scenario would be more management of the dog's environment and close supervision when the cat is around.... Pre-empt any cat chasing behaviour and ask for a incompatible behaviour rather than rather than interrupt it, otherwise the dog just gets rewarded twice. 
 
For a dog to learn a "chain" like this is really really common and I think this is a perfect example of why R+ and permissiveness really don't go hand in hand.  Quite the opposite.  The more R+ you want to be, the less permissive you can be and the more vigilance, patience and superb timing is called for.  R+ is tough!  It places all the onus on you to get it right.  Perhaps that's why force-type trainers don't like it.... either because it puts too much demand on the handler (which perhaps they or their clients can't cope with) or perhaps because they think it makes it too "easy" on the dog?  Perhaps thats whats meant by "permissive"?
 
If you were to take a "Positive only" approach (or as positive only as it is possible to get) you'd have to double or treble your efforts not to let the dog chase the cat in the first place and therefore "practise" an unwanted behaviour.  That doesn't allow any room for permissiveness in my view.

I know there's some debate about whether a NRM is positive punishment or not. To me I see it as a marker of impending negative punishment just as the clicker as a marker of impending positive reinforcement. By itself it's nothing. It's just a noise. Using it in a training context just helps the dog get out of some behavior he may be stuck on so he can move on and offer something else. Hearing the NRM means "whatever I want, I'm not going to get it doing what I'm doing" just like the click means "whatever I want, I'm about to get it doing what I'm doing".

I think one of the reasons people get testy over NRMs, aside from the OC technical terminology issue (which is also where the monicker "positive reinforcement training" breaks down yet again), is the "NO!" issue. And that's a very valid point. Give people an excuse to yell "NO!" at their dog and it becomes a monster. But if you understand that the NRM is just a marker and not the consequence itself, you use the NRM, and implement a negative punishment (taking away something the dog wants) and it opens up another line of communication with the dog. But just yelling "NO NO NO NO!" is definately ineffective, stressful for the dog, and completely confusing for the dog and I'd consider it most certainly an aversive.

Clicker training is simply a training technique and is only one tool in the tool box.

It does not create "permissiveness".

The permissiveness problems occur when a "Positive Only" extremist type trainer (or owner) who uses clicker training as part of their toolbox, either uses little else in addition to the click-and-treat philosophy regardless of the specific situation with a particular dog, refuses to set boundaries because they are viewed as a "negative", or uses clicker training where a more "social" and/or "behavioral" approach would be more appropriate.

Clicker training works very well when used appropriately to train, and is not the cause of permissiveness. 

I read once where the legendary animal trainer Bob Bailey addressed some extremist views on one board where he said that although he uses clicker training, he does not refer to himself as a "clicker trainer".

Unfortunately, some proponents of this tool have given it a bad name because it has been closely tied to many "Positive Only" extremist trainers.

To get her to stop harassing the cat (who, by the way, usually deserved it) I'd call her to me and ask for a down or roll-over or spin and click/treat her. I tried to do it randomly through the day, but it didn't take her long to figure out that EVERY TIME she harassed Cletus, she'd get a click/treat. Consequently, Cletus the Brat Cat got harassed even more than he deserved (which I didn't think was possible!) and Lucy would run to me and start offering behaviors then run back to bug Cletus. 

 
smart puppy! she put your click/treat on cue!
But this is caused by user error, not a problem with the technique itself.  If you want a well-behaved dog you don't wait until the dog does something bad and then react to it;  you have to be proactive and prevent the dog from doing bad behavior in the first place. You could sit in the room, and have the cat in a carrier or behind a gate, and click and treat the dog for looking at you instead of the cat. Keep working on this, and eventually the cat's presence becomes a cue to the dog to run to you and sit at your feet and look at you. Can't harass a cat if you're doing that.

ORIGINAL: Angelique

Clicker training is simply a training technique and is only one tool in the tool box.

It does not create "permissiveness".

The permissiveness problems occur when a "Positive Only" extremist type trainer (or owner) who uses clicker training as part of their toolbox, either uses little else in addition to the click-and-treat philosophy regardless of the specific situation with a particular dog, refuses to set boundaries because they are viewed as a "negative", or uses clicker training where a more "social" and/or "behavioral" approach would be more appropriate.

Clicker training works very well when used appropriately to train, and is not the cause of permissiveness. 

I read once where the legendary animal trainer Bob Bailey addressed some extremist views on one board where he said that although he uses clicker training, he does not refer to himself as a "clicker trainer".

Unfortunately, some proponents of this tool have given it a bad name because it has been closely tied to many "Positive Only" extremist trainers.

 
I disagree with these sentiments.... as I said before, the more R+ you are (frankly its impossible to be purely Positive Only, but there are some "extremists" who strive towards this as their goal) the less permissive you can be.  If you are one of those extremist types, you don't have any room for permissiveness, see my above post. 
 
I have a lot of respect for anyone who manages to be "positive only" (or as near as dammit), because of the reasons stated above.  But at the same time I'm not saying it's the best way to train.  The very fact that it is hard to apply in everyday situations goes against it and some would say calls for a more balanced approach, but that's a different topic entirely - Positive Only vs P+.

Using clicker training does not make you a "Positive Only" extremist trainer. 
 
However, every single "Positive Only" extremist trainer I've ever run across, was a clicker trainer.

I think it is possible to do an incompatible behavior for a self-rewarding activity but your timing has to be impeccable and you have to watch like a hawk. The incompatible behavior has to be asked for the nanosecond you see the dog about to engage in the other behavior.

My answer to this scenario would be more management of the dog's environment and close supervision when the cat is around.... Pre-empt any cat chasing behaviour and ask for a incompatible behaviour rather than rather than interrupt it, otherwise the dog just gets rewarded twice.
The more R+ you want to be, the less permissive you can be and the more vigilance, patience and superb timing is called for.  R+ is tough!  

So with total R+, you have to have complete control over yourself, your dog and your environment. Ay-yi-yi! While I'm sure it is possible in some cases, it would take a near-miracle to pull off at my house and in the homes of many of the people I know. I work 3/4 time, have two kids, two dogs, two cats and a DH who works out-of-town. And then, I'm still can't see that pre-empting the behavior would eventually stop it. It's just so totally self-rewarding and that darn cat is literally inviting chases most days! Actually, on days that Lucy has been in her kennel, she is MORE inclined to bug Cletus than when she's around him all day, so keeping them apart would probably make it worse. If I wanted to train Lucy not to bark while camping without using an aversive like a body block or NRM I'd have to quit going camping or leave her at a kennel. To me the aversive is far less stressful than a weekend at the kennel or taking away family fun time so we can avoid using an aversive.

I do use aversives but keep them limited to "Uh-uh!" and body blocking. I personally have no objection to the use of mild aversives. I have no objections to people who prefer no aversives what-so-ever. I'm just trying to make sure my dog is as happy and well-behaved as possible with the time and resources available to me. And that's all I'd expect from anyone else.

I guess the reason people equate clicker with permissiveness is the emphasis on avoiding any type of aversive. You do truly have to have an outstanding amount of controls in place for it to work.