Questions on Ian Dunbar's book

Patricia McConnell has some good books.  Jean Donaldson, too.  Her book Culture Clash is one of my favorites.  Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor is an oldie but a goodie.  They are all good reads in addition to having lots of good information. 

As far as socialization is concerned, I don't think it's possible to oversocialize a puppy or dog. :)   I don't know why Kota changed but whatever the reason, proper socialization can often prevent some of these type problems.  Not saying that is what happened with Kota, I have no idea why she changed but it's never the wrong thing to do, if you know what I mean.

Ian Dunbar is the man. For one thing, he stresses more than anything, starting training in puppyhood. So many problems can be avoided if you set up rules and tools in the very beginning. He has used positive techniques to treat aggressive dogs, as well. A few times, he has been criticized because he doesn't deal with "red zone" dogs. Oh, yes, he does. It just doesn't make for dramatic, ratings-driven tv.

 Anyway, teaching bite inhibition is muy importante, especially when they are young. If all they have ever known is that biting is not accepted or preferred, it gets easier with time. Shadow has natural bite inhibition. He would rather alert and bark than bite. Which is not to say that he can't bite, it's just not his first inclination. I'm lucky that way. But any dog can bite if pushed far enough. So, along with controlling the bite, such as with a trained "off" or redirection is to realize that situations could and should be controlled. If someone is around that makes a dog want to bite, then that person shouldn't be around very long. And no, I'm not placing dogs above humans. There are some bad humans that should stay away. I need a sign like Ozzy Osbourne has. "Don't worry about the dog, beware of owner."

I am just getting to the part on bite inhibition,but I know from looking throught the book ,that the goal is to teach the dog to not bite and inflict real harm if the dog ever does bite for  whatever reason. He says the worst kind of dog is the one who you think is friendly, but will do you real harm if it bites. I am learning so much. It is so interesting i am spending every evening reading it. I want to read it more than once before I actually get a puppy.

I have a list of recommended reading and the other books you mentioned are on that list.

  I just started here after his name was mentioned to me once, ron, and I am just fascinated with the logic. Oh how I wish I had read a book like this when Kota was a puppy, and how her life and the dogs who we live with now would have been different.

spiritsmom

I am just getting to the part on bite inhibition,but I know from looking throught the book ,that the goal is to teach the dog to not bite and inflict real harm if the dog ever does bite for  whatever reason. He says the worst kind of dog is the one who you think is friendly, but will do you real harm if it bites. I am learning so much. It is so interesting i am spending every evening reading it. I want to read it more than once before I actually get a puppy.

I have a list of recommended reading and the other books you mentioned are on that list.

  I just started here after his name was mentioned to me once, ron, and I am just fascinated with the logic. Oh how I wish I had read a book like this when Kota was a puppy, and how her life and the dogs who we live with now would have been different.

If you hadn't raised that one dog the way you did, you would not fully appreciate the wisdom you are now reading:-)) 

spiritdogs

If you hadn't raised that one dog the way you did, you would not fully appreciate the wisdom you are now reading

Another excellent point, as usual.

spiritdogs

If you hadn't raised that one dog the way you did, you would not fully appreciate the wisdom you are now reading:-)) 

So true. Luke is in a puppy class that's Dunbar style (if you can find one, sign up right away) Max's puppy class at the same place wasn't done the same way. She made the change recently. This is actually his second puppy class. It's the way it should be, teach for generalization right from the start, instead of teaching, then generalizing.

I like the attention to generalization, even if it requires attention in each circumstance. That is, never allow what you don't want, ever. That's a general enough rule that you apply each time. Like I was saying, if all the dog has ever known since puppyhood is that biting or jumping is not allowed in any circumstance, it becomes generalized. I think that requires more work on the part of the human. The human must resolve to never alow something, ever. Period, paragraph, new book. Forever, amen. Not one slip up or allowance. Dogs benefit from consistency in training.

I've found that no matter where you start with a youngster, it will be the social behavior the dog displays after reaching maturity (at around two years of age) which proves any method, philosophy, or owner interpretation/application of that method..

Ian has some great tidbits for folks raising a puppy, which I use. I don't see his involvement in offering concrete advice for those who follow his philosophies and end up with messed-up (reactive) adult dogs.

I'd caution you against blindly following any one school of thought, all of the time, with every dog.

So, learn as you go and be willing to incorporate other ideas if you want a balanced, stable, happy dog who is a safe member of society and welcomed anywhere vs an antisocial, reactive dog who lives in an endless world of management and avoidance. 

Yeah, but I'm going to ask you to prove it. Do you know of any dogs that were raised the Dunbar way and became problems later on? And was it ruled that the error was on the part of the human, rather than the training system? I'm not blindly supporting Dunbar and I definitely made monster mistakes early on. I'm just wondering how you knew of some dogs that had problems later on as a result of Dunbar-style puppy training. Or was that a straw boss to diminish our respect for Dunbar's methods and success? By the way, Dunbar has also worked with aggressive adult dogs. He just doesn't make it his whole career. His point is that if you start training early enough, you can avoid "red zone" problems later on.

I thought I would let it to someone with more experience to reply to that. J

I think that Dunbar's book is amazing for the general public.

My only qualm with the book is that I do think there is such a thing as oversocialization. Not so much oversocialization, but in the fact that some people will take his words to mean that the dog should have exposure to all these things in general, without the view of how the dog actually reacts to the exposure.

For me, and pups I've raised, it's the quality of the exposure that matters, as opposed to the quantity. If the majority of the dog`s exposures are ones in which a positive impression is left, it will lead to a better outcome than a dog who has had a lot of exposure but not much in the way of positive exposures. In other words, a puppy that meets 50 people with all happy encounters often has better social skills than a puppy that meets 500 people with some fearful exposures, some negative reactions, and lack of attention from the dog parent. I've seen my fair share of young pups who have actually become sensitized to the environment in the name of "socializing" where the owner simply ignored that the puppy was clearly uncomfortable and didn't notice that the only memory the pup was developing was a negative one.

The other thing is that I do feel that every dog has a ceiling, or a limit, if you will, as to how "social" it can become. I mean that in the most broad sense, of being comfortable in the environment. When I work with a pup, I work with every pup one-on-one to fulfill it's particular socialization needs, I do not feel all socialization is the same, nor do I feel that all pup's needs are the same when it comes to socialization. Some breeds need much more than others, and some breeds, even with amazing socialization sometimes grow up with issues or grow up to be non-social breeds. I think there is as much a genetic component to socialization and the effects of it as there is for any other behaviour trait. And it's not just personal opinion, there is much literature that backs it up.

Unfortunately, I think a few folks in time have been let down and think of themselves of failures because their dog turned out a certain way despite being well-socialized, when in fact they did the best they could with what they had.

I have utmost respect for Dr. Dunbar, and I do recommend his book a lot, I do love it, but again I do think it's a bit simplistic and tries to put all dogs in one category a little too much.

I agree with you, Kim, but I wonder if it makes any difference to the average person - the kind of person the book is aimed at. It has become apparent to me lately that even dog fanatics can be abysmal at reading dogs in general and just do silly things. How many people on the local forum I am part of that have taken their pups to a busy dog park, dumped it in the midst of it all and then blamed dog parks on why their dog is now dog aggressive? Well, I don't know because I get so tired of hearing "Dog parks aren't a good place for puppies". They are a fine place for puppies provided you have found a good park and have the right kind of puppy and barely let them out of your hands until they are nice and confident about these other dogs. But I reckon 90% of dog owners wouldn't know if they had found a good park, if they had a puppy that was a good candidate for dog parks, or if their pup was getting uncomfortable even if they had a checklist right in front of them. It astonishes me how many people don't see what is quite clear even after you tell them exactly what they should be looking for. And it's not their fault. They are just being normal people and don't see the level of detail they really need to be able to see. On top of that, they get fed other golden rules like "never comfort a frightened dog" and so even if they do happen to be one of the few people that know a dog getting nervous when they see one, they do nothing because that's what they've been taught.

So having seen a puppy that was ruined by too much socialisation purely because no one knew what to do with a pup that freaked out the moment he walked into puppy preschool and just got progressively worse from there on in, I agree. But this is just it. No one knew how to help this little guy. Many didn't even realise he had a problem. They just figured more socialisation. I don't think that would change if books mentioned the odd puppy like that. He's the only one I've ever seen and he was a pretty extreme case. I've talked it over with my Mum so many times and we still don't entirely know what we should have done for him.

In the end I wonder if dogs like him are sadly destined to be lost unless they happen to find themselves in a particularly understanding or tolerant home. I think there are plenty of dog people that can't read dogs that well, so the extra info about quality of socialisation may just be lost on them or confuse them.  

I haven't read a whole lot of training books yet, nor have I finished Dunbar's book completely. But he does actually address quite clearly WHAT the socialization should be like, and what to do if the people are not doing exactly what you want them to do in relation to the puppy. Quite simply, exit the people if they won't do exactly what you ask them to do.

I think you need to have more than one trick in your bag too when it comes to puppies, but so far I am wondering how the "lay person" could mess this up if they actually followed the advice. I kind of got the impression too f rmt he posts, and maybe erroneosly, that this isn't a book for the experienced, but for someone who doesn't know much. J

Good points Kim.

The problem I've seen with oversocialization, is it often ends up in boundary frustration because the dogs were conditioned to meet-and-greet too much, and rarely (if ever) taught to ignore, accept boundaries, or even get told "no" in the presense of other dogs. 

Standard Classical Conditioning gone wrong, and then often misdiagnosed as "reactivity".

The worse cases are dogs who were "socialized" by going to the dog park when they were young. The end result by the time the dog turns two, is the dog has been conditioned to become excited and expect interaction every time it sees another dog. By two years of age, they are asserting themselves as adults and things have become more serious.

Then the owners wonder why their dog who was "socialized like crazy", has all of a sudden become aggressive when faced with the boundary of the leash.