For Spiritdogs- a late night thought

DPU

It is so evident in the dog you describe.

I think I asked some pretty legit questions considering the above comment. 

Oh my goodness. I pop in for one split second and see the same old thing, around and around it goes.

Hum drum . . .

What I don't understand is how you keep vaguely referring to meeting dogs needs, for instance talking to the work Lori's done with Willow or Ron's done with Shadow (wow, have they both ever gone the extra mile with their dogs!).  You seem to imply they are neglecting their dogs somehow.  Dog has behavior problems; therefore, we assume the dog is. . . neglected? 

What need does a dog have when he refuses to listen to a recall and prefers to swim after geese until he's so tired he would sink if I didn't physically go get him long before that happens?  Did I not pet him enough?  Did he not play with the other dogs enough?

"Rescue trash heap" does not refer to dogs being trash.  It refers to the hell that rescue dogs enter when they fall through the cracks of the system and no one knows what to do with them.  Most of what I do is working to avoid that.

I can totally understand that you are figuring out a new method and a way to express it, and are very excited about that.  But seriously, what is your gripe with the world at large? 

brookcove

You seem to imply they are neglecting their dogs somehow.  Dog has behavior problems; therefore, we assume the dog is. . . neglected? 

She was neglected but it wasn't by me, it was by her first "owner" and she came to us with these behavior issues.

Again, I wonder why my questions cannot be answered.  I have no problem with being told something or accused but back up what you say. My questions were very specific and I was very careful to word them in a non personal way.

brookcove

You seem to imply they are neglecting their dogs somehow.  Dog has behavior problems; therefore, we assume the dog is. . . neglected?

I imply no such thing and really do wonder about the motivation to make such a leap and make such an accusation.  I merely say from my experience I tend to look beyond the exhibited behavior and try to determine the real cause which may be unsatified need.  An unsatisfied need doesn't have to mean intentional neglect or abuse by the owner.   It is understanding the need that the dog wants and is exhibited by the behavior.  I firmly believe that the very first stage in initiating a change in behavior in a dog is get the basic needs in order and correctly defined by the dog.  Food is meant to satisify hunger and give pleasure via the taste buds.  To use food as motivation before the dog gets a handle on that need has caused all sorts of behavior problems associated with food, ie counter surfing, nipping at human hands, garbage raiding, etc.  If a dog growls at me, and many fosters have done that, I am not going to confront the behavior within a conflict situation.  I am going to avoid being and putting the dog in that situation and work on relationship building and trust.  And when the attachment is strong, the likelyhood of the behavior occuring in that situation is gone or diminished.

What need does a dog have when he refuses to listen to a recall and prefers to swim after geese until he's so tired he would sink if I didn't physically go get him long before that happens?  Did I not pet him enough?  Did he not play with the other dogs enough?

Ah, you are looking for mechanical, robotic type answer.  I pet the dog x number of time therefore the bond's strength x degrees.  OK, this is the vague part because relationship/trust is an abstract and hard to measure.  For sure within me, I know I can increase the bond so that a recall over environmental distraction will win almost most of the time.

"Rescue trash heap" does not refer to dogs being trash.  It refers to the hell that rescue dogs enter when they fall through the cracks of the system and no one knows what to do with them.  Most of what I do is working to avoid that.

For me it was still disreprectful to dog.

I can totally understand that you are figuring out a new method and a way to express it, and are very excited about that.  But seriously, what is your gripe with the world at large? 

Again an unfounded accusation to put me in the negative and someone else in the positive.  I am trying to help the dog and help the dog as fast as I can using the most direct approach.  My observations are not made up and believe me when someone makes a recommendation I try it.  Way back when I was very excited about Clicker Training, read up on it, took classes, demo'ed at foster dog showing.  But when I saw other problem arising and analyzle "what has changed", a close look at actually what is happening in reward traiining makes me question what others are saying and search for alternatives way. 

Frankly, I don't see how dog training can improve when trainers keep precious their old way of thinking and not be open to a new angle, a thought, or approach.  It is said that Traditional methods give fast results and I see the Positive way is just for show making the trainer look better .  Dangle a piece of food in front of a hungry dog and it makes a good show.  We need to move beyond that.

willowchow

Again, I wonder why my questions cannot be answered.  I have no problem with being told something or accused but back up what you say. My questions were very specific and I was very careful to word them in a non personal way.

Hi Willowchow,

You have the habit a writing very nasty posts and then editing those post because later on you felt your writing was inappropiate.  I see what you write and if you believe what you first write, there is no poiint to a conversation with you.

I have no answer for you because I don't know what you have done and I don't know your dog.  I do know that if Willowchow was here, she would have no history and I am sure she would respond the same as others dog that have lived here.  If she has issues, that would be my focus and I would do it in a very controlled environment and then gradually increase the exposure to environmental situation. The results may not be any different from you but for sure, Willowchow would teach me and that would benefit other dogs.

 Stop snarking at each other and get back to topic.  Period.  If you need a reminder of what the topic is, here you go:

I think I realized what you were saying in that other thread.  Not to punish the expired equine (ha, "punish," get it?) - but I was writing a response in the "wars" thread and thought this:  that positive punishment is always a response to a failure - either to manage, to communicate properly, or a breakdown in the learning process.

I appreciate that this is a repugnant thought for you because you've made a professional and philosophical choice to draw the line at positive punishment.  I didn't connect the dots directly from your post, because for me positive punishment (in a technical sense) is a fact of working with livestock and wildlife. 

However, another thing that got this train of thought going was a discussion I had with my herding trainer this weekend, essentially saying the same thing.  When we are forced to step in with a stimulus to extinguish behavior, our response should immediately be, how can we change this so that we don't have to repeat that?

Up to now I've let small corrections slip by without thought, but it makes me realize now, that every positive punishment should be a message to me that I've got to back up, evaluate, listen to the dog, and plan a new strategy.  Like where I was scolding Ted for bringing the sheep too fast, over and over, versus showing him by backchaining what his job was.

Thanks for sharing even if I am kinda slow!  I'll be seeing my trainer tomorrow at a trial and I'm going to draw this picture for her - she's a concrete thinker like me and I think she'll agree.

 Sorry, a bit late for this one, but I just wanted to express my budding realisation that sometimes animals do things to you that you REALLY don't like, and I think there's an argument for using +P in those cases. I have my breaking point like everyone else. Back when Kivi Tarro was 9 weeks old or so and just establishing that his new family is excellent, he goes through a crazy puppy moment or two when he's just so over-excited he's jumping all over me and biting too hard. The first few yelps on my part didn't penetrate and nor did attempting to distract him with something else. I reached my breaking point and rounded on him and shoved him off me and shouted. Didn't make me feel great, but hey, I'm an emotional being and there are times when I'm not completely benign. That is an important lesson for a newcomer to the house if we're all going to get along. Anyway, KT quieted instantly and gave me a frightened, chastised look and I gave him an apologetic cuddle and he settled down and took more notice of my tone and body language after that.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we are all individuals and we all have our good moments and our bad. I can not change that in myself. But I can allow my animals to learn the signs that I'm in a bad mood and what they're doing is making me angry. They tell me when they are in a bad mood and when what I'm doing is making them angry. I respect that. They respect that in each other, so why shouldn't they learn to respect it in me? At least I don't bite them like Penny does!

I have no doubt that allowing my animals to learn that sometimes I'm scary and unpredicatble is in some way diminishing their trust in me. But my philosophy is, it's better to be myself and give them very clear signals when I'm feeling cranky and irritated than to try to hide it, which I will fail at because they are much better at reading signals than I am at regulating them, and then find myself exploding out of proportion when I hit my breaking point. I'm generally a slow person to anger, and my dogs are generally the kind of dogs that have learnt what makes me happy and do that over what makes me angry. I'm pretty comfortable with that use of punishment. I know what I'm like. If I don't express myself I explode. So I don't think I fail when I express my intense dislike of something one of my animals is doing. I'm just telling them how it is. They can choose to push me and see how forgiving I'm feeling today or they can choose to heed me. The worst that's going to happen is I'll shout at them and maybe give them a shove. Not all my animals heed me. Bonnie responds to my anger with more anger of her own. Me and Bonnie either avoid each other when we're cross or we push each other too far. I'm usually cool-headed enough to know I'd better avoid Bonnie rather than clash with her. We don't love each other any less for this. We're just two critters trying to get along. It's something I think all social animals understand. Sometimes folks have bad days, and I think my dogs are totally accepting of this. The rabbit's another matter. She doesn't think slaves have a right to bad days. Or more to the point, I think there are too many things we do to her that she doesn't like and we ignore her. She hates being picked up, but she loves being out of the cage. She hasn't yet figured out that she has to be picked up to get out of the cage. I've been toying with the idea of training her to jump in a basket for transport, but I suspect she is too timid/angry/unathletic to ever be comfortable with being moved to the point where she'd do it voluntarily. But maybe we'll see.

Sorry, just some thoughts.