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

It has been said that dogs are at a level of a two year old child,

I've heard that too but it's sort of a grossly oversimplified meme. Human brains, no matter how young or old, have a different brain structure than dogs.

houndlove

It is sadly a very popular myth that conditioning (classical and operant) implies a cold lack of emotion.

I agree. None of us are lab addicts in white coats with clipboards strapped to our wrists. Well, except maybe for mudpuppy. Haahaa! Just kidding!

We all bring attitude and values to bear .. aka leadership (perhaps "Operating System Overview" works better?).   Generally, my management style requires me to be consistent. But sometimes my leadership style will inspire me to break certain patterns to increase pressure on my dog and take her to the next level of responsibility and relationship. We are complex beings, and the overlays and purposes of our actions are deep and rich. Yay!

My guava tree is fruiting, the fruit are ripening and falling from the tree. Ixa watched me picking them up the other day, came to sniff and took one gently in her mouth. I asked her for it, and she gave it to me, I said "thanks". (Mind, I have never taught fetch, she just sort of does it.) Last night I was sitting in the living room, and Ixa brought in a guava and placed it at me feet. I never taught her to do this. There's no "conditioning" at work. So, why would she do that?

I don't think of my dog as being in learning mode 24/7. Usually she is in sensing mode, often in waiting mode, drive mode, play mode, and lovey mode. When I want to teach my dog things, I draw heavily from conditioning protocols. Otherwise, I really enjoy just living with her, which draws heavily from relationship protocols (friendship, companionship, leadership, ya know).

I don't know about others, but to me the true testament, is knowing when to lead, and when to follow. Because to me that is the TRUE bearing on the strength of a relationship. There is no "I lead, you follow" menatality for me. And there never will be. Personally I think it's a very wrong attitude to take on life (and to be honest, it's not how it works with dogs and wolves either!)

 I worked as a Student Program Coordinator for two years. This means that I was responsible for lots of event planning, advertising, hosting site tours, for a tourist destination. I worked under a "boss", if you will, who ultimately made the final decision as to what I did or didn't do. So while there were times when the boss would lead me in certain ways, in other ways more often than not I would lead the way. If I presented something he didn't see before, or wasn't sure how it would go, he would let me take the lead, and work WITH me, and we would see how the outcome arrived. The job would have been a lot less successful if I just followed what "the boss said" all the time.

 With my dogs, it's all relative. There is no formal pattern whatsoever. There is no "leader/follower status". Somedays I decide where we walk, some days I go where they go. Sometimes I ask my dog not to bark. Next time, II'll let him bark to drive away the bratty kids that are snooping in my yard. Sometimes I want my dog to walk close to me through a crowded area such as a dog show. The next afternoon I want that dog to be meters ahead of me on that tracking line, and having the confidence to know that I will follow his lead whereever we shall go and listen to him. Everything is (or I think should be) about communication. Communication consists of constant feedback, back and forth between communicators. It's about compramise, not "winning" all of the time. Yes, there are limits within the home. I will decide whether or not to prevent something from happening (management, which to me is just as equal as any "leadership" people could provide, depending on the circumstance). But I think letting the dog take control, with human as follower, in certain situations improves the relationship a millionfold over forcing the dog to be a follower all of the time. And I use this as the basis of working with my dogs. Yes, the dogs need to learn some self control, and they need to learn to comply with certain "demands" from us humans to live a normal life in society, but I recognize that the dogs have equal needs and desires too, and I do my very best to accomodate them however I can. Yes, the dog needs to walk with me on a leash in public. But the benefits of doing that are being able to be with me, being able to be in public, going on walkies, meeting dogs and people, and having a social life. So the dog wins out just as much as I do. It's a compramise.

 I think that's why I love clicker work so much. The dog has almost complete control over its own fortune in terms of learning, and in the meantime learns that I as their partner will always do my best to respond in kind.

 Thank you houndlove, for being a lot more articulate than I was last night when I was trying to explain why conditioning is not the same as mechanical.

DPU, I seem to remember in the case of the small street that once money was found there, I always went that way, even when I wasn't with my friend. I don't deny that other things are involved, but conditioning is a very powerful thing. A lot of decisions come down to conditioning. That's because in an unpredictable world, any animal will tend to repeat something that worked rather than pick something at random. I've seen animals seemingly pick something at random, and it's usually when the last decision didn't work so well. If they have a history with something, their decision is always influenced by that history. Always. That's conditioning.

To get on topic a bit more, whatever your methods of influencing the behaviour of your dog, if you get the same response more than a couple of times, then conditioning is happening. I don't see a way you can rely on your animal to behave in a particular way when you're not around unless you've conditioned to the point where you have established a habit.
  

corvus

To get on topic a bit more, whatever your methods of influencing the behaviour of your dog, if you get the same response more than a couple of times, then conditioning is happening. I don't see a way you can rely on your animal to behave in a particular way when you're not around unless you've conditioned to the point where you have established a habit.

I agree with that part......as it fits my way of showing a dog what is allowed and what isn't........for me methods such as noise aversion, body blocking, and redirecting works remarkably fast....once, the dog has had the experience with this type of training the dog then picks up super fast when other situations arise.