How can "leadership" resolve normal, self-rewarding behaviors?

spiritdogs

I think that characterizing me as unfriendly is a personal attack, rather than a rebuttal of any opinion I have offered here, so I will excuse myself from this thread.  No point taking the bait, now is there?

I should have, perhaps added the fact your approach towards me or others with different opinions, other than yours, has been not so friendly.....that is where my train of thought was going.......is that an accurate observation?

Would not want to steer things down a wrong path.......

Shouldn't you kids be in bed?  Have a cookie, brush your teeth and go beddy bye now. 

spiritdogs

 I think that characterizing me as unfriendly is a personal attack, rather than a rebuttal of any opinion I have offered here, so I will excuse myself from this thread.  No point taking the bait, now is there?

spiritdogs....I must say, this is a new form of rebuttal........lol....as soon as you posted this, you edited your previous post....how slick......I thought you were done here....

Clapping hands for a good attempt.......

silverserpher

Shouldn't you kids be in bed?  Have a cookie, brush your teeth and go beddy bye now. 

Thank you, how sweet....what are you doing up so late?

snownose

silverserpher

Shouldn't you kids be in bed?  Have a cookie, brush your teeth and go beddy bye now. 

 

 

 

Thank you, how sweet....what are you doing up so late?

Just soaking up the sad irony of grown adults behaving like children while they discuss the issue of leadership........ 

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Ixas_girl

Reminder of House Rules:

To foster the best possible experience for all, the Dog.com community respectfully requests that its visitors and contributors honor the following code of conduct:

Play nicely with others

• Respect your peers - Treat others and their contributions with respect and foster considerate dialogue. 
• Do not use offensive language - Inappropriate, crude, or abusive language is not only unacceptable, it’s a lousy way to convince anyone of your point.
• Remember, there are no stupid questions - Everyone’s input is welcomed and honored.
• Report inappropriate behavior - Remove and/or report disrespectful or provocative content, but refrain from seeking vigilante justice.

Act in good faith

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Promote the community spirit

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Yes, thank you for reminding us......hard to believe I am still up..........lol......but, I do realize the things that need to be taken into consideration.

Just wanted to add, I have filed a report to change the "Edit option with time tag", and tonight it was never more important to get the feature back.......

Ixas_girl

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To foster the best possible experience for all...

Take in a dog from your local shelter.  Rehab the dog medically and observe the dog's behavior.  Train the dog and then place into a permanent home.  Best experience for you and the foster dog.

 Guys, this discussion would be so much more fulfilling if we left words like "dominance", "pushover", "strong-willed" and "punishment" right out of it. This topic, IMHO, is NOT about methods! It doesn't matter what your approach is, because in the end it turns out you're all doing the same thing. Want to know what it is? Establishing habits. Even if there was someone on this board that slapped their dog every time they went to chew the wrong thing, they would still end up with a dog that didn't chew the wrong thing because that dog will have learnt that it gets left to chew when it focuses on the right thing and pretty soon it habitually goes to the right thing every time because it's more rewarding. Want another example? Say you teach your dog what to leave alone by chasing it away from anything you don't want it to touch. Guarding, if you will. Again, dog learns, like my hare, that it doesn't get left in peace to enjoy those objects, so it begins to go automatically to the objects set aside for it. In any of these cases, pretty soon the dog forgets about your objects and how fun they can be and just automatically goes to its own objects because they have been more rewarding in the past.

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but I'm afraid leadership has squat to do with it. Because, as others have pointed out, how can you even lead when you're not there? Like I've pointed out, even my non-social animals that do not acknowledge a social hierarchy respond to this conditioning in the exact same way with the same result of establishing habits. If someone can present a sound argument to explain why my hare responds the same way to my dog, then I'll reconsider the role of leadership in dog behaviour when leaders are absent.

Mudpuppy, spiritdogs, I agree with you almost 100%. I'd just like to add that it's not ALL operant conditioning. Classical conditioning definitely plays a part as well. I've found that I can establish good habits in my animals purely by managing the environment, no rewards or punishment needed.

 

corvus

Mudpuppy, spiritdogs, I agree with you almost 100%. I'd just like to add that it's not ALL operant conditioning. Classical conditioning definitely plays a part as well. I've found that I can establish good habits in my animals purely by managing the environment, no rewards or punishment needed. 

Hmmmm...an emotionless dog....a dog lacking emotions...Nope, I don't think I have one of those. 

 Did I say emotionless? This would work on adult humans as much as a dog or a non-social animal. Let me offer an example, only reversed.

As a kid, my friend and I took a marginally different route to my house that took us up a small street we didn't normally go up. We found money on that street and bought ourselves some lollies. From then on, we went up that street every single time on the offchance we would find more money. Even when we hadn't found money in months and weren't really looking anymore, we still often walked up that street.

As an adult, I have caught myself both avoiding things or places I associate with an unpleasant experience, and revisting places I associate with a reward. I stayed away from this forum for a few months due to some unpleasant experiences. Do you call that emotionless? It's the exact same mechanism and all animals, including humans, have it. It's very useful in learning and surviving. The interesting thing is that some animals overcome these lessons and are rewarded as a result. Thus, it should never really be wholly relied upon.

DPU, conditioning does not equal mechanical or emotionless. One of my great joys in life is finding similar patterns in the way animals and humans behave and working out just what the evolutionary advantage is, seeing as it must be a great one to still be around in humans, and where it's present in many types of animals, you can be assured that it's evolved a number of times. Did you know parthenogenesis has evolved countless times? That's because sex brings so many troubles with it that parthenogenesis is free of. And yet, parthenogenesis is rare and sex is everywhere. That's because for all its problems, sex has one huge advantage that outweighs all the troubles it brings. That to me is truly amazing. The way that animals and people learn is another of those things that blows my mind and makes me feel very content with the world. It's simple and has stood the tests of time. Why should it be diminished because of its widespread success? What I'm trying to say is, just because it's simple doesn't mean it can't be right, or that it diminishes the beauty and magic of complex life. In science, we are taught to assume the simplest answer is the right answer because it usually is. The answer is no less beautiful for its simplicity, and the result no less complex just because it has simple beginnings. That would be like saying a knitted sweater is no longer beautiful once you know how simple one stitch is.

It is sadly a very popular myth that conditioning (classical and operant) implies a cold lack of emotion. The fact is that neither would work on a creature who did not have likes and dislikes and preferences, and the task gets easier for animals that have well-defined emotions. Conditioning relies on making associations between something the animal (humans included) already feels positively (or negatively) about and new learned behaviors and environments.  There's a tremendous amount of operant and classical conditioning at work in human child-rearing and education. Because we have more complex brains we are also capable of learning in other ways (making associations, being literate, etc...), but there's a lot of classical and operant conditioning at work as well. Really successful teachers use rewards-based classical and operant conditioning in their classroom management all the time.

corvus

 Did I say emotionless? This would work on adult humans as much as a dog or a non-social animal. Let me offer an example, only reversed.

As a kid, my friend and I took a marginally different route to my house that took us up a small street we didn't normally go up. We found money on that street and bought ourselves some lollies. From then on, we went up that street every single time on the offchance we would find more money. Even when we hadn't found money in months and weren't really looking anymore, we still often walked up that street.

DPU, conditioning does not equal mechanical or emotionless.

In your trek up the small street that was not part of your normal routine, I would expect if you were by yourself, that reroute would not have occurred.  Classical conditioning or OC at its best.  Since you were actually part of the social group, you and your friend, "we", there was co-leadership at play here because you mutually agreed to deviate from the safe and known routine.  Habit, repeitition, consistency, etc...are hallmarks of....  I would also expect that either of you could have influenced the other or guide the other down a different path...and that is leadership at work because of "friend", comraderie, trust, loyalty, etc.

houndlove

It is sadly a very popular myth that conditioning (classical and operant) implies a cold lack of emotion. The fact is that neither would work on a creature who did not have likes and dislikes and preferences, and the task gets easier for animals that have well-defined emotions.

Which of the 5 senses that determine likes, dislikes, and preferences does emotions fall under?

It has been said that dogs are at a level of a two year old child, if OC is the magical way then parents shouldn't have a problem potty training a two year old child, heck, everything should be a lot easier.

IMO, instinct comes into play with a dog, for example, the fact that dogs don't like to urinate in their den, so we show them and make it possible to follow that instinct by giving them a way to urinate outside.......too much science gets tossed into this pot........