The Training/Behavior "Chatter" Thread

FourIsCompany

I understand that people do this. I'm curious, though... what's wrong with a dog failing? Don't they learn from failure? What kind of reality is constant success? It seems so unlike real life to me.

What does a dog learn from failing to pee outside?  Well, that indoors is also a viable place to go.  Set him up to succeed bu taking him out often, especially at times he is likely to need to go.  But do I STILL take your dogs out every 15-30 minutes like I did the first few days??  Of course not.  I no longer need to.  I find that in most cases, failure on its own teaches very little.  As humans, we often have to remind ourselves to learn from failure and not to become discouraged by it.  How do we remind dogs of that??? 

glenmar

I also set my children up to suceed. 

Oh, I agree. It's important to have success but it was the  "... I am able to constantly treat because there is no way to fail" part that seems unnatural and counterproductive to the learning process (to me). I make it possible for my dogs to succeed, too, and reward them when they do, but I am also willing to let them fail. Naturally, carnivores fail more than they succeed, when hunting. It doesn't shut them down or break their spirit...

Chuffy

I like your wording.  It brings to mind a seesaw, with your rewarding on one side (positive reinforcement; R+) and your withholding on the other side (negative punishment; P-). 

If operant conditioning terms are being used, aren't there actually 4 sides to this "seesaw"? I call myself a balanced trainer, too, but it's because I use all four quadrants. Kind of like this thing: 

I must confess that if I can successfully train a new and useful behavior in a way that was fun and interesting for both me and the dog, I don't really care if the dog thought it was his idea all along. That's actually a huge benefit for me given the breeds I'm working with.  A hound always thinks that his idea is the best idea and it makes for a much stronger behavior in the end if he's under the impression that he just trained me to give him a reward for laying down quietly on a mat for 10 minutes.

Setting the dog up to succeed is the same as scaffolding in education of children and it's a common and accepted practice. You build a scaffold for the child to experience success and then slowly remove the pieces of the scaffold as the child progresses in the task. The task should remain challenging enough to spark some interest, but not so difficult that the child gives it up as hopeless. With kids, as with dogs, you have to know the individual student to know what the appropriate level of scaffolding is. Some kids really thrive on a high level of challenge. Some kids shut down with that same level. The school population I spend most of my time with in my work requires a lot of scaffolding because there is a high degree of learned helplessness that I find, and they shut down. I have to break the task in to teeny tiny baby steps and let them experience the success of completing each step correctly. Each of my dogs has a different degree of needing scaffolding when training. Marlowe's a much bolder more determined dog and he's also more clicker-savvy, so I can present him with a much greater challenge than I can with Conrad. Conrad needs a lot of scaffolding and I make his tasks very easy for him and I use more luring. The reason Conrad is more timid with it is probably for one just because he's a more timid, anxious dog in general but I'm sure there's an element in there of the fact that he used to be compulsion trained New Skete style and while he's become a pretty good clicker dog, there's always a little kernal in there of that original training.

Chuffy

What does a dog learn from failing to pee outside?  Well, that indoors is also a viable place to go. 

This doesn't make sense to me. From failing to pee outside (and instead, peeing inside) he learns from me that peeing inside is the wrong thing to do, because I LET HIM KNOW. I say "No", pick him up immediately and take him outside to the proper place to pee. I don't sit there and watch him pee on the rug and ignore it and wait for him to pee outside so I can reward him. I work it from both angles.

I know with crate training and slowly increasing his "den" size, potty training can be accomplished without ANY punishment. But that's by working with his instinct, not by simply allowing him to succeed 100% of the time and ignoring any failure.

FourIsCompany

If operant conditioning terms are being used, aren't there actually 4 sides to this "seesaw"? I call myself a balanced trainer, too, but it's because I use all four quadrants. Kind of like this thing: 

That just looks like four bouncy seats.  A kid bouncing on one end won't affect the kid sitting opposite.  Or at least, that's what it looks like.  Also, there is no way of moving the centre so that it remains balanced depending on the dog and the level of training.  Gah.  I was so pleased with the imagery and now I find it flawed.  Oh well!

the last two puppies I housetrained had ZERO accidents inside, and they housetrained much, much faster than other puppies that I had allowed, due to my own negligence, to potty inside. You don't need to tell dogs what is wrong- all you need to do is tell them what is right. You potty HERE excludes all parts of the house as "potty areas"; if you really needed to tell them what is wrong, you'd have to catch them in the act of pottying in every location in your house and tell them NO. Which is ridiculous, and obviously not necessary, since no one does that.

I don't believe it is possible to be a "balanced" trainer. You are either willing to use +P or you aren't. Most people who use +P also use a lot of the other three quadrants, true; but those who use +P are shooting themselves in the foot as far as developing a truly "operant" dog who can be taught anything, incredibly complex behaviors, in a matter of minutes. A dog who is not afraid to try, try again until he gets it right.

How do you +R teach a dog NOT TO lunge at a cat?

edited: never mind.

But I would like to know in much more detail, how do you all train? There are pages of rewards-based people explaining in excruciating detail how they train to defend ourselves from being called cruel or starving our dogs  or making our dogs into emotional wrecks. So what about you guys? How do you train? What do you do? Pick a behavior, and say how you trained it.

 when you are a non-+P trainer you don't think about teaching dogs to NOT_DO things. You think about what you want the dog to do in a particular situation and train the dog to DO THAT.  So think about what you want your dog to do when he sees a cat and train THAT behavior. Or, even more useful, think about how you want your dog to behave at all times on leash, regardless of what is going on, and train THAT behavior- slack leash at all times, perhaps.

I am able to constantly treat because there is no way to fail" part that seems unnatural and counterproductive to the learning process (to me).

this is isn't quite true- there is a chance of failure, you just try to keep it very low at first, so low it never actually happens. Say you're training your dog to find your car cars that you dropped. If at first there was a 50% chance of failing to find the keys within one minute of searching, the dog would learn very slowly and probably get very discouraged; however, after some weeks of training, first at a 99% chance of success within one minute, then at a gradually increasing level of difficulty you end up with dog willing to search for over half an hour before getting discouraged.

But also note the dog learns nothing from failure- his successes are what he learns from. I believe professional searching dogs are always allowed to find something- if they don't find anything real, the handler "plants" something for the dog to find.

houndlove

I must confess that if I can successfully train a new and useful behavior in a way that was fun and interesting for both me and the dog, I don't really care if the dog thought it was his idea all along. That's actually a huge benefit for me given the breeds I'm working with.  A hound always thinks that his idea is the best idea and it makes for a much stronger behavior in the end if he's under the impression that he just trained me to give him a reward for laying down quietly on a mat for 10 minutes.

I totally agree. If my goal is to train my dogs to lay quietly on a mat until released, I couldn't care less if they are doing it because I'm the boss and I told them to, or because they've learned that complying with my requests is ultimately in their best interest. The "reward" in this case may be nothing more than warm praise and petting, but because they value my attention and affection, that's enough for them once a behavior is established.

mudpuppy

I am able to constantly treat because there is no way to fail" part that seems unnatural and counterproductive to the learning process (to me).

this is isn't quite true- there is a chance of failure, you just try to keep it very low at first, so low it never actually happens. Say you're training your dog to find your car keys that you dropped. If at first there was a 50% chance of failing to find the keys within one minute of searching, the dog would learn very slowly and probably get very discouraged; however, after some weeks of training, first at a 99% chance of success within one minute, then at a gradually increasing level of difficulty you end up with dog willing to search for over half an hour before getting discouraged.

But also note the dog learns nothing from failure- his successes are what he learns from. I believe professional searching dogs are always allowed to find something- if they don't find anything real, the handler "plants" something for the dog to find.

Exactly. By making it easy for the dog to succeed in the beginning and keeping the rate of reinforcement high, you reduce the possibility of frustration due to failure, and having a dog that gives up easily. Instead you have:

mudpuppy

A dog who is not afraid to try, try again until he gets it right.

Occasional failure is inevitable, but too much failure will breed frustration and learned helplessness.

houndlove

But I would like to know in much more detail, how do you all train? There are pages of rewards-based people explaining in excruciating detail how they train to defend ourselves from being called cruel or starving our dogs  or making our dogs into emotional wrecks. So what about you guys? How do you train? What do you do? Pick a behavior, and say how you trained it.

Yeah, we want our chance to pick apart YOUR training methods!

Kidding!

Well, you know talk about only being punished for being wrong and never shown what the right thing even is! We get pages of "you're wrong because..." "you're wrong because...." "you're wrong because...." "you're wrong because..." but somehow never "and here is the right way:"

With so much emphasis on what is wrong about what I'm doing and so little explanation of what the right alternative would be, after a while it just sounds like people arguing just to argue, not to actually illuminate anything. And I'm not down with that at all. If I'm going to have a discussion or argument with someone, it had better have as it's point an opportunity to learn something new. That's why I write such freakin' long posts! Because if I'm going to explain why I think I'm right and someone else is wrong, it needs to contain enough detail and information for the other person to really evaluate the reality of what I'm actually doing and consider the other side. I want to know, if I'm doing it all wrong and harming my dogs, please, tell me guys, what should I be doing instead? Concretely. 

mudpuppy

You don't need to tell dogs what is wrong- all you need to do is tell them what is right.

You are either willing to use +P or you aren't. Most people who use +P also use a lot of the other three quadrants, true; but those who use +P are shooting themselves in the foot as far as developing a truly "operant" dog who can be taught anything, incredibly complex behaviors, in a matter of minutes. A dog who is not afraid to try, try again until he gets it right.

There it is again, goes hand in hand with C/T denying the use of other quadrants.  I see no pure +R here.  Go potty here to the exclusion of all other places.  Whether you ignore or are silence when the exclusion occurs the message is still DO NOT go there.  Now if I was your dog and I got a treat for pottying in the right place, I would put on my thinking cap and say there has to be another place where I can get two treats.

My fosters are all drawn naturally to go in the same area of the backyard.  No need to tell them where to go or where not to go.  They figure it out on their own.