Dog Community

Posted : 6/14/2007 5:20:37 PM

I am far from an expert but in my personal experience, making some kind of distracting noise (followed quickly by whatever command you have to settle, go to crates, etc...) can help diffuse a situation that's still at the posturing/warning growl stage. But once a full blown fight gets going, yelling just makes it worse, if it does anything at all (in the few serious fights my dogs have gotten in to, they have become completely oblivous to anything other than proving their points to one another).

ron2

Posted : 6/15/2007 5:59:21 AM

I've gotten the idea from other things I've read that yelling is the LAST thing you want to do, that it'll just escalate the problem, so I was quite surprised at his suggestion. What do you all think?

You returned to the topic of the thread. How dare you![

]

At least someone here has seen some of his videos. In spite of all this acrimony, I'm not trying to defend or answer for Dunbar. I noticed, with interest, that he feels most dog aggression is not really aggression to worry about. I suppose he's never met Lori's Willow.[

] Yet Dunbar doesn't have a problem muzzling, if necessary.

I don't necessarily yell but if Shadow is chasing Jade and I call "off," I may have to elevate the volume of my voice.

I wonder if it might be a matter of what you yell and when, and if you can use the vocal irritant (-R) early enough in development to have a desired effect.

chelsea_b

Posted : 6/15/2007 10:50:08 AM

See, I agree that before it escalates, do what you can to

revent it. And I do yell to Cherokee if she's chasing a cat. But in the video, these dogs were into lunging and snarling at each other, and he was screaming their names at the top of his lungs. It actually seemed to work for those two dogs, but it just seems to me that in the past when Cherokee's snarling and lunging, when I yell it just eggs her on, and things I've read have confirmed that thought for me, so I was surprised to hear Ian Dunbar suggesting it.

I guess you really just have to do what works, and maybe it's different for different dogs. But it's been hard for me to figure out what works and what doesn't without making things worse.

Ixas_girl

Posted : 6/15/2007 1:39:30 PM

Hi Chelsea,

Interesting question! The way I'm thinking about it is in terms of the relationship between dog and human, around different ideas of "training" and social relationships.

If Dunbar is cool and unemotional, his dogs could have learned that his commands are meant to correct their behavior, not be an indicator of his joining in the aroused excitement, and so the dogs will back down. With a less expereinced, or more emotional handler, the dogs might find the command to be more social, as if the human is excitedly joining in the aroused situation, which of course increases the frenzy.

In this way, we can imagine two different handlers getting two very different results from shouting a command at excited dogs.

Haven't seen the video, so this is just theoretical [

]

DPU

Posted : 6/15/2007 2:14:36 PM

ORIGINAL: Ixas_girl

If Dunbar is cool and unemotional, his dogs could have learned that his commands are meant to correct their behavior, not be an indicator of his joining in the aroused excitement, and so the dogs will back down. With a less expereinced, or more emotional handler, the dogs might find the command to be more social, as if the human is excitedly joining in the aroused situation, which of course increases the frenzy.

It all depends on if the dog understands the meaning behind the human cue/behavior. Ian Dunbar can be cool and unemotional but he can also be hot and distrubed and get the same results.

You can also look at this way. If there is no meaning to the cue given to the dog, then the dog is applying a training method on the owner by ignoring the owner's behavior to make it stop. What a pickle. I am not a fan of ignoring a behavior in order to make it stop.

spiritdogs

Posted : 1/10/2008 7:30:51 AM

I am not a fan of ignoring a behavior in order to make it stop.

Then, apparently you don't understand the principles of operant conditioning, one of which is "extinction". I agree that if there is no meaning to a cue, that in all probability the dog will not exhibit the desired behavior. That's what happens all the time when an owner that never taught Fido a recall stands there screaming "come" as the dog ignores it and sniffs a rose bush instead. And, clicker trainers understand that if you can get the dog to attempt to "train the trainer", you will have a really well trained dog! Sounds like it's butt backwards, but if my dog is trying to train me, it doesn't mean he's trying to boss me, just that he's trying to figure out what will make the human slot machine pay off. If all that makes me pay off is the behavior I want the dog to do, then who is really training whom?

Wink