FourIsCompany
1. Does a dog feel betrayal? Does he feel it when his human forces him to undergo surgery, chemotherapy or other necessary procedures that result in him being fearful or in pain? Can a dog discriminate between "necessary" and "unnecessary" fears? How does he know when to feel betrayed? How could "flooding" to alleviate a fear be determined as an unnecessary fear (by the dog), while having his testicles removed and waking up in a strange cage in horrible pain be determined as a necessary fear (by the dog)?
I don't know if a dog feels betrayal or not, in the human sense of the word. The problem is that we humans can define this 'feeling' that we have of "being betrayed"? Dogs likely may not look at it as betrayal, and may not even understand it, but certainly I think dogs can have the same feeling of losing trust, certainly. I know of a dog personally that completely changed as a result of something that was out of everybody's control, and this dog lost trust in a lot of people and underwent a complete personality change because of it. I don't think a dog can discriminate between "necessary" and "unecessary", no. They don't have that level of complexity, and again they don't have language to be able to tell them what is necessary and unecessary. They just know what they feel, regardless of why they feel it. It's not so much "when" to feel betrayed, it's simply whether or not they do. To be honest, there are a lot of dogs who are permanently changed after simple operations such as spays/neuters. The surgery could have been traumatic, it could have gone awry and perhaps the dog suffered brain damage, the vet environment could have been stressful (another dog near them, a dog screaming, loud noises, scary people, etc), their person leaving them behind. Most dogs aren't affected negatively by this, but there are dogs that are.
I look at when in the past I used to spend my weekends at a friend's place and the dogs stayed at my family's house here at home (for work, not pleasure - I hated doing it). When I came home after three days of being away, Gaci would be ecstatic to see me at first, and do her "oh my god you left me forever" thing, and then once she realized I was back, she would basically ignore me the rest of the night, even sleeping away from me. She had this "look" in her eyes too, not something you can put a meaning to but something you can see and feel. I don't know what she was thinking per se, but she definitely was put off that I left her for so long, and one could even argue that the feeling was a form of betrayal and she was snubbing me for having left her. After all, she had no way of knowing I'd be coming back in three days, and I had no way to tell her. As it went on though, this reaction went away, as she began to understand that even when I left, I was always coming back. It became routine and after the first weekend or two she didn't react that way. Then, two years later, when I go on a three-day trip, and come back home she does the same thing. Because the pattern had been broken, my absense was unexpected.
As for flooding versus desensitization, the difference that we do have to keep in mind between animals and people is that people have the power of language as a backup - animals do not have that language. We cannot tell them in words that they'll be fine, and that nothing will hurt them. We can't express to an animal what we can to a dog, even through the best of our body language, energy, and teachng. So while certain forms of flooding may work better on people for certain forms of problems that doesn't mean it can be directly applied to dogs in that manner with the same expectation.
FourIsCompany
Let's take clicker training. How would you (or your child) feel if you were to withhold its meal and only fed it one small bite at a time, while it tried to figure out what exactly you wanted it to do? Would you be willing to train your child to get dressed or brush its teeth or clean its room by withholding food and having it try various behaviors until it hit upon the one you wanted?
FourIsCompany
How can you clicker train your dog? Would you clicker train your child? I'd really like to hear some thoughts on this apparent inconsistency. If I'm wrong, please tell me how.
I have never "withheld" food from my dogs while it tried to figure out exactly what I wanted. My dogs get their mornig and evening meals, regardless of how much teaching I do that day.
And to answer the question about children, clicker teaching is very much used with children, and adults! All the time! If you Google TagTeach, you'll find a start there to a whole world of operant contioning and clicker use in people. It is used extensively in sports and gymnastics, and it is used extensively in some types of special needs children. I know somebody who used clicker principles to potty train their child, and the child was potty trained within two days...honestly. And the child would go to the potty, and then RUN to their mother beaming with pride at having used the potty properly. So I don't see any inconsistency here,
I still think there is a misunderstanding about clicker teaching here. You aren't "withholding" anything from a dog, and there is no frustration involved in the earning of rewards. Think of clicker sessions like a classroom session. During that time, learning of a specific subject takes place - there is that understanding there, and learning is shaped through communication betwee human and dog, as it is between teacher and student. They are earning their rewards via contingencies. There's no "if you don't do this, you don't get this", and 99% of clicker teaching has nothing to do with a dog "trying to figure things out" in the sense that it is manically trying out different things. The majority of clicker teaching is quick, calm, quiet, and simple. Most times the dog doesn't appear to be guessing anything, as the process is so gradual, that it flows from one step to another, it is so smooth you wonder how you've moved so quickly, as it's simply down to timing and experience in breaking things into steps. You aren't withholding things if you don't see what you want, you are giving things when you DO see what you want. There is a difference there, even if it appears subtle.
So in the human sense, rewards can be in the form of stars, snacks, money, the ability to do something fun, or in gymnastics for example, simply knowing what movement was the right one to completely shape a pirouette. Because humans have this language thing and more complex brains, they have some different motivations (I love ballet, I want to please my parents, I want to be in front of a crowed, etc), so the marker itself can be the reinforcement for a behaviour (movement).
So I'm not sure why you think clicker training is cruel in regards to children, I don't see it that way at all. The way I teach my animals, I would have absolutely no problems teaching my children certain things. Because once again it has been shown to be extremely affective.
I think your idea of cruelty lies in this concept of "withholding" versus "earning". You don't teach with a clicker by with-holding, you teach by giving, and you set it up so that giving is very easy and that the animal/person is NOT left guessing. Children learn by reinforcement of correct choices whether or not you use a clicker, the concept of operant conditioning is the same with all species. And it has been shown that the clicker can be more effective than the traditional ways of teaching certain things, when minute details are important. Perhaps this isn't why you see it as cruel, so if it is not, why do you feel this way/
Children, music lessons, and the clicker: http://www.clickertraining.com/node/252
Tag Teach International: http://www.tagteach.com/
TagTeach Autism: http://www.tagteachautism.com/
Those are just a couple of sites portraying use of the clicker with people.