Leadership

Great post, Ron!

This is true. At the park where I work, there are a couple of guys who come everyday with their dogs and do the whole yelly "I'm the Alpha!" kind of training sessions. One dog good-naturedly tolerates it but totally doesn't listen, one dog totally shuts down and goes dumb.

They both are so wrapped up in looking like good leaders that they wind up getting really frustrated.

One of the best gen. con. superintendents I have worked with never raised his voice to anyone. Leading is not about hollering or trying to make every scene look like an argument from "American Choppers."
 
 

Ron2, you may be the perfect person to comment since you already had an established relation with Shadow and moved to an alternative training method that has enriched your dog relationship further.  Do you agree that with your new interest in the clicker, you are spending more quality time with Shadow and therefore your attitude or “energy” is a huge part of the change in Shadow.  Did Shadow or you change more?
 
I do clicker training with Marvin the hound and our biggest success is getting him to stay calm when I arrive home and I approach the kennel to let him out.  Going through entry ways was also a success.  He also got the basics down.  Marvin spoils the training for me because he has a short attention span.  Once he gets his treat he is off and running to find something more interesting.  Once I get his attention he snaps to, bongs, and presents those hound#%92s eyes on me.  My instructor says the dog is going to try and figure out how to get me to give him that treat.  Marvin is smart and he is good at manipulating me.  He offers a behavior, doesn#%92t get a treat and then presents frustrated look (wrinkled forehead) and those hound eyes.  He has got me thinking that this in between stuff is mental anguish, deprivation.  Smart dog to get the treat without doing anything.  I google deprivation and part of learning theory says deprivation increases learning and satiation decreasing learning.  This doesn#%92t seem to fit Marvin.
 
Essie came to me in survival mode and the only thing on her mind was to fulfill the most basic need of sustenance, food and water.  She would do anything to fulfill that need including aggression towards the other dogs.  I started clicker training with her but I felt bad by thinking I was taking advantage of her emaciation condition.  Plus I felt I was encouraging and increasing her need to fulfill this basic sustenance need.  I want to achieve neutralizing the need and make the dog know the difference between foods and treat.  To do this I can not use food and she has to move on to satisfying higher needs such as socializing and structure. 
 
You and Shadow had a framework from which you improved.  I would love that clicker training works for me as you describe in the threads, Trust, Confidence, and Leadership.  I find I have to customize my training methods to achieve what you and Shadow have.  I am not arguing or knocking Clicker training, but my observations tell me I should do something different.

I'm no clicker expert by any means, DPU, but there are few things about clicker training that you must believe before you can fully engage. I say this because I know you struggle back and forth between "traditional" and operant-conditioning training; I've read your posts.
 
I admire what you do with your fosters and that can't be easy work and yes, a trained foster is more easily adopted and adoptable than a non-trained one, so you do have your work cut out for you. And you have more than one dog, too. You have more than 2 (like I have). And, like you, I purposely picked out a shelter dog that nobody wanted. He has health issues and some behavior ones, too. I knew he'd be a challenge when I brought him home.
 
I did do traditional with him and to some extent, I suppose, it helped. Yes, he learned to Sit and sort of learned to Stay and things like that (like to not bolt out the door), but he also learned that I can be unpredictable. He was nervous around me and nervous in general.
 
When I switched to the clicker, and I did a full and complete switch (which was not easy for me), things changed immediately. What Ron is saying is what I experienced, and at first I felt rather silly about it all. But I've since so enjoyed my relationship with my dog and his knowing--and I mean knowing--that he can trust me to not hurt him, to not yell, to not put him in a weird spot . . . well, anyway, I can't go back.
 
So, while I understand the foundation you bring up, I think what Ron points to is the way the clicker means "YES!" to the dog, letting the dog know, in no uncertain terms, that he/she did the right thing.
 
As for Essie? If food, sex, air, etc is a survival must for a dog, then it should be used. While she's busy figuring out how to click and treat for you, she'll also teaching herself lots of adoptable dog skills--how to wait, sit, stay, remain calm, be petted, etc.
 
I don't mean to sound choppy--just typing fast. I think the main idea here is one that can be used on Essie for sure--she gets what she must have and she learns new habits while she's at it. My behaviorist reminded me that learning new habits is not that different from when we replace bad habits with better ones--chewing gum instead of smoking, walking through the front door instead of the kitchen to avoid overeating, etc. And that's all this is about. Just replacing habit with habit.
 
And now? My dog waits, by himself (nothing from me) for me to go through doors first, walk down the hall first, get on the couch first, etc. He waits to be invited up and he waits for me to give him the OK for many other things. I think my own "leadership" status has skyrocketed without my having to gather up some "energy" for it.
 
Just a decent side effect of clicker training, if you ask me.
 
Ron--great job, great observations, and even though I've been silent lately (busy at work), reading your words continues to make me smile AND think.
 
Here's to you, man . . . !

Nfowler, I don#%92t believe I use the “Traditional Training Method” unless saying “no” is included.  As a matter of fact I talk in sentences to my dogs and they seem to understand.  Marvin can you sit for me.  Essie go down the stairs.  I believe I use associative learning and operant conditioning.  I suppose you can say I used the Traditional with a deaf dog because I used touch (not force) to get the desired behavior.  Maybe I don't know what Traditional Training is.  What has worked for me prior to clicker training was reward based and the reward is affection.  I guess the key point to my post and key to clicker training is the dog knowing the difference between food and treats…and their ranking against their needs.  I don#%92t believe Marvin and especially Essie knows this.  Maybe I am overthinking this but I do trust my observations with the dogs that I know.

Or, maybe the key is the dog knowing the difference between affection (for doing the right thing) and food (a must for living). Food is a major motivator (over affection). Combine food and the clicker and there is no other way for a dog to interpret what it is he/she did right.
 
I call traditional training a method for training--affection for the right thing and a correctlon for the wrong thing.
 
BTW, I love that you use sentences. They must be very happy to live with you--even if they're temporary dogs! 

ORIGINAL: nfowler

Or, maybe the key is the dog knowing the difference between affection (for doing the right thing) and food (a must for living). Food is a major motivator (over affection). Combine food and the clicker and there is no other way for a dog to interpret what it is he/she did right.

 
Yes, good comment.  Agree and its a given that food is a major motivator but connected to which of the dog's needs.  Hunger or Joy as in a pleasant taste.  Essie existed at the instinctual level of getting sustinance.  Hunger is painful.  Food eliminates that pain.  Essie would do any behavior to get food and on top of that would binge and hoard.  When Essie gets a treat for a good behavior, isn't she connecting it with hunger and not with a higher need.  Don't I have to have some assemblence of balance in the dog, that is higher needs (such as Leadership) are somewhat met before I can do Clicker Training with treats?

Food is basic to all life, whether it is the basic meal or a treat. And there's nothing wrong with taking a foster who was starving and using treats in clicker training. You have then shown them that survival by means food is easily obtained through obedience. The way is crystal clear to them. The misgivings over using treats and the clicker are yours entirely, not the dog's. She will do whatever it takes to survive because that's what a dog does. For some dogs, being dog aggressive was the only way they could survive, at the time.
 
And I do have respect for the rescue work that you do and some of the special problems and circumstances you have presented.
 
As for the other question, Shadow is better behaved but is he really a different dog? Isn't it I who has changed? Learning a better way to train him that allows him to be the dog he can be? The system operates on the principle that creatures do what works for them.

Yes, good comment.  Agree and its a given that food is a major motivator but connected to which of the dog's needs.  Hunger or Joy as in a pleasant taste.

 
You're truly the Foster Parent! You're a better person than I am for thinking through the details of this. I haven't worried too much about the details. I admit--when I got all these papers and recommended books I did--what else are you supposed to do but wonder about the "whys" behind it all.
 
Once I got going--and I mean it, I had to let go of my CM class and of my wanting to "help" the dog learn, which, as Ron said, means that I changed (and oh boy but it has been HARD for me to do sometimes, especially with my female)--then things got easier. I just saw--hurray--that he WAS learning, that it was sticking, and that our relationship was changing and I forgot all the whys behind it.
 
I know I shouldn't say that aloud, but sometimes I just need to be shallow . . .

I was talking to my sister on the phone, yes, while I typed up some of this (sorry everyone--that's why I was so short in my words) and she was talking about her new Sunday School class (10 kids, all age 6) and how chaotic it's been for her.
 
I have been supportive for her first few weeks, but only supportive, and last night I didn't hold back. I taught Sunday School classes (back when I went to church so it's been awhile) and I've taught preschoolers and kindergarten years ago and how weird that I did "clicker training" with them but didn't do it with my dogs! (I also worked for a bit with, for lack of a better term, juvenile delinquents at a last-chance ranch.)
 
She was amazed at how different she and I interpreted "treats" for kids--be it stickers, sit-by-teacher time, be the teacher's helper, food, etc. She kept calling them bribes which I kept giggling about until I realized that bribes was how she saw it and and she was, in fact, bribing them. At age six, they were too savvy for that. They saw right through it all. They were playing her for all they could and she was upset that they didn't respect her. This, clearly, has NOT been working for her.
 
Boy, I finally told her all that I would be doing with those rewards. We went over all the scenarios--what she does and what I would do (used to do). I didn't hold back--I was very explicit and clear in my examples of turning each one of her situations into a way to have some control while being positive--a way to push the challenges right back on those lovely little kids. It's always been so amazing for me to watch a class of chaos turn right around once they grasp that I am in control of the rewards and that I expect A, B, and C before I dole them out. They love attention, they love praise, they love to learn, and they love rewards (so do I).
 
She seemed pretty excited and I noticed, by the end of our conversation, that she was no longer saying bribe. I hope she can do it. (She also told me she wishes that I had stuck with teaching little kids since I'm good at it, which was, of course, my click for the conversation.) I told her I'd even go help, but man--she was giving them treats for no reason and letting them choose who sits next to her and giving the booby little boy all the attention for being naughty.
 
I only wish I had figured out a more effective way to train my dogs when I was teaching. Would have saved my arm a lot of pain! (ha)
 
PS--for DPU--I had a Walker hound for years and years. What a pistol she was. You know what I mean . . .

nfowler, nice analogy about the difference between doing a method correctly and not.  Why is it so hard for people to "get" that difference?  []
I hope that your sis will be able to turn things around, and that you will share the stories if you can.  If it works on the kids, maybe one more human can be convinced that it can work on the dogs, and that "animals" of any species are not so different in the way that learning takes place. []

Don't I have to have some assemblence of balance in the dog, that is higher needs (such as Leadership) are somewhat met before I can do Clicker Training with treats?

 
No. Complete strangers can clicker-train dogs. You don't need to have any relationship with the dog anymore than you need to have a relationship with a vending machine to enjoy the food it dispenses.
 

ORIGINAL: mudpuppy

Don't I have to have some assemblence of balance in the dog, that is higher needs (such as Leadership) are somewhat met before I can do Clicker Training with treats?

No. Complete strangers can clicker-train dogs. You don't need to have any relationship with the dog anymore than you need to have a relationship with a vending machine to enjoy the food it dispenses.

mudpuppy is quite right.  And, if you don't have a relationship with the dog yet, clicker training provides a way to get one faster.  The dog that might be fearful of you touching or reaching near him, but he doesn't need to experience that - you an click and toss the treat, and he learns to trust first at a distance.  Hands off dog training.

Great thread. []

ORIGINAL: mudpuppy

Don't I have to have some assemblence of balance in the dog, that is higher needs (such as Leadership)

No. Complete strangers can clicker-train dogs. You don't need to have any relationship with the dog anymore than you need to have a relationship with a vending machine to enjoy the food it dispenses.

Bingo!

Operant conditioning is primarily mathematical and based on within the lab sudies and experiments conducted by B. F. Skinner. This is where the +R, -R, +P, -P, positive and negative "techno-talk" comes from. But living beings throw too many variables into the mix, IMO

There is a passage of knowledge which helps the individual succeed and pass on it's genes...this is the primary reward and goal of an organism.

Social learning goes beyond the lonely, steril box. There was never any social learning element within the box, and both social learning and all of it's many variables have yet to be mapped.

Even Einstein died without completeing his great theory of everything...

...Oh my, I seemed to have wandered into operant conditioning land. []