Dog Behavior Blog

Creative Reinforcements

 

A few years ago, I was walking my dog Bugsy off leash on our farm in Black Earth, Wisconsin. One of my major training goals after moving to the country was to be able to call him off a deer—the astrophysics of dog training. As such, I was doing a lot of recalls from major distractions such as other dogs, exciting scents he was interested in tracking, and calling him back when he first spotted a deer but before he began to bolt. I was doing this recall work with a variety of reinforcements—treats, toys, chew toys, chase games.

 

On this particular morning, I had gone out to walk Bugsy with a pocket full of treats and chew toys with the plan of practicing some recalls, as I had already seen that there were signs of deer having recently been in the fields. Just after getting outside, I realized that it was colder than I thought, so I switched to a heavier jacket, tossing my original coat of choice—AND the load of reinforcements in the pocket—back into the house. So, off I go, ready to train my dog, but without all the goods needed to best accomplish my goals. (See, it even happens to professional trainers!)

 

Tramping through the snow, I was on the lookout for deer, and as we approached the edge of the woods, Bugsy and I spotted the herd. He hesitated before giving chase, which I suspect was a result of the fact that he was used to me calling him back before he had the opportunity to give chase. I had been doing that because it is much easier to call dogs back before they are actually going after an animal at full speed. Since I did not call him, he ceased hesitating, and ran at them. A second later, I reached into my pocket ready to pull out a jackpot of a reinforcement to give to him when he responded by coming to me, and found nothing but two tissues.

 

Usually running and letting him chase me would be one of the best possible reinforcements. However, chasing me as I waded slowly through the deep snow would not be nearly as fun as chasing those deer, and I didn’t want him to regret his choice of giving up that chase. Thinking faster than I usually do on a cold morning, I called out in a loud, cheerful voice, “Bugsy, come!” As Bugsy turned away from the deer (slowly, but he did it!)), and began to run towards me, I praised him like crazy. My next move was to take advantage of the cold weather, and blow my nose into first one of the tissues, and then the other. When he got to me, I handed him the tissues, which he gleefully took from me and began to sniff and lick. What a treat! I can just imagine him thinking, “Wow! She never lets me have these at home. Now, these are worth coming away from deer for!”

 

I am no way advocating using discarded tissues as a standard reinforcement. Even as I write about this incident, it grosses me out, and I was the one who did it! Still, the fact remains that the unexpected reinforcement can be a powerful training tool. Being creative in our reinforcements, whether it’s out of necessity or not, can result in more effective training of our dogs. Like many dogs, Bugsy adored tissues, especially if someone had already used them, but, like many owners, I always prevented him from getting them. Letting him have something that he was not usually allowed access to made that reinforcement extra special and very powerful. In Bugsy’s case, I found his recall from deer improved after that one incident, although I never reinforced him with used tissues again.

 

When I got to work that morning, I shared my accidental reinforcement story with the people at work. While the rest of the staff predictably wrinkled their noses at what I had done, well known trainer and behaviorist Patricia McConnell, with whom I was interning at the time, was smiling as she clapped her hands together delightedly, and exclaimed, “You are truly a dog trainer now!”

 

--Karen B. London

Are Dog Bites A Problem?

Being bitten by a dog can certainly be a problem for the people involved, but how common a problem is it? An article published in late 2008 in the journal Injury Prevention addresses this question (Gilchrist, J., J.J. Sacks, D. White, and M-J Kresnow, 2008, Dog Bites: Still A Problem? Injury Prevention 14: 296-301).

The authors of the study analyzed data from a telephone survey conducted in 2001-2003 from 9684 households, and compared the results with those from a similar survey conducted in 1994.

The 1994 study estimated that 4.7 million Americans were bitten by dogs, and 800,000 people had to seek medical treatment for the dog bites. The 2001-2003 survey yielded an estimate of 4,521,300 people bitten per year, or 15.8 people bitten per 1000 people, with an estimate of 885,000 people (or 3.1 per 1000 people) needing medical attention.

These results show that the overall incidence of dog bites did not change in the 10-year period. However, there were some significant changes.

The good news is that children are being bitten less by dogs than before.

In 1994, the overall incidence of dog bites in children was 24.5 bites per 1000 children, or 29.2 per 1000 for boys and 20.0 per 1000 for girls. This number decreased in 2001-2003 by 47 percent to an overall rate of 13.1 per 1000, and for boys it was 12.7 per 1000, while for girls it was 13.1 per 1000.

The bad news is that more older adults are being bitten.

There was a 43 percent increase in the incidence of dog bites among adults older than 45. In 1994, the incidence of dogs bites in that age group was 7.9 per 1000, and in 2001-2003 the incidence went up to 13.8 per 1000.

Surprisingly enough, the chance of people getting bitten went up depending on how many dogs were in their household. People who had no dogs had a bite incidence of 7.2 per 1000, while people with one dog had a bite incidence of 29.7 per 1000 and people with two or more dogs had a bite incidence of 34.3 per 1000. Although people often think that dogs only bite strangers, the numbers show that dogs most often bite people within the dogs’ households.

Unfortunately, the study did not address the breeds of dogs that are most typically responsible for the dog bites.

However, a Canadian study published in 2001 gives us some insight into the risk of being bitten (Guy, N. C. et al. 2001. Risk factors for dog bites to owners in a general veterinary caseload. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 74: 29-42).  The authors interviewed 515 dog owners in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, assessing the age, weight, and living conditions of 227 biting dogs and 126 non-biting dogs.

 

A major finding of that study was that small dogs (less than 44 pounds or 20 kg) were more likely to bite than larger dogs (greater than 44 pounds or 20 kg). The authors speculated that this might be due, in part, to the dogs’ owners being more tolerant of  aggression if the dogs were smaller.

 

So if adults who are older than 45 tend to have smaller dogs now than they did 10 or 15 years ago, this might explain the increased incidence of dog bites among that age group.

 

And the answer to the initial question, are dog bites a problem, appears to be “yes.”

 

--Con Slobodchikoff

 

Dog Behavioral Health Through The Shelter Process

Note from Con Slobodchikoff: This is a post from guest author Nancy Frensley, CAP 2, CPDT, who is Manager of Behavior and Training at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society in Berkeley, California. She will write periodic posts about the behavioral challenges and joys of shelter dogs.

More dogs are abandoned and surrendered to shelters for behavioral problems than for any other reason. Statistics support it and as the Manager of Behavior and Training at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society in Berkeley, California, I see it first hand.

I’m a certified Pet Dog Trainer and hold a CAP 2 designation in clicker training. My work includes supporting the public with training classes and counseling for behavioral problems and working with adopters, shelter staff and volunteers on understanding shelter dog behavior.

Dogs are amazing creatures. They are always learning, seeking and forever trying to figure us out. In the 20 years of working within shelters, I have found that if we provide staff, volunteers and adopters with the right tools – dogs not only grow but thrive during their shelter stay and in their new homes.

A significant part of our shelter’s mission is to take animals from the municipal shelters in our surrounding community. We seek out animals that are healthy, treatable and able to be rehabilitated (both medically and behaviorally). Our work begins with the selection process.

During regular visits to local facilities, we look at how the dogs present themselves to a stranger passing by the kennel, their reactions to when we hold out our hand or when we make eye contact. Behaviorally, we lean more toward dogs that exhibit a relaxed body and who greet us warmly. From these initial contacts, we then select dogs for further temperament testing. Our choices are influenced by a number of factors including the current population in our shelter.

After the dogs have passed, we then do a standard temperament test which places emphasis on the following: a dog’s tolerance for being handled, the ability to make a connection with one or more people and for possessive behavior over food and valuable objects. Once the group is selected and transported to our shelter… the real work begins!

Upon arrival, dogs are given a thorough medical exam by the Shelter Medical Director. Most of the dogs need some level of medical treatment and are all quarantined for a minimum of five days prior to spay/neuter surgery. One thing we have learned about behavior in shelter dogs is that we must begin the process of maintaining behavioral soundness from day one.

To accomplish this, we use a trio of activities that a shelter dog experiences at least once a day. Each dog gets a minimum of three enrichment activities, such as: training time during a walk, free exercise (either off leash or playing with other dogs) and a “down-time” activity. Since we are limited to where we can take the dogs during the quarantine period, we double up on down time, handling activities and quiet work inside the kennel. These activities serve to maintain normal behavior and allow the shelter dog to relate well to people and become well-mannered individuals before they are adopted. Interactions with the dogs are always structured, goal oriented and consistent.

There are always a few dogs who will challenge the staff with behaviors that were not apparent during the initial testing phase or that developed during their shelter stay. These behaviors include: unruly, mouthy, rambunctious tendencies and the other extreme – shyness and withdrawal. And, we are challenged to keep all the dogs as veterinary-friendly as possible since they need to receive preventative care. For those, we write special behavior plans, complete with charts for tracking behavior sessions. We have been successful in changing behavior with these plans, which usually involve some form of counter-conditioning, desensitization and differential reinforcement of an alternative behavior. All of our behavior work includes generous amounts of plain old Pavlovian conditioning.

The final pieces that complete the process with each dog are adoption counseling and post adoption work. Our adoption counselors provide standard information on how to successfully start a dog in a home and discuss each dog’s individual profile. Profiles might include any special training routines or behavior changing protocols assigned to that particular dog. The canine staff and I gladly provide private training sessions to support adopters, especially for those dogs who need a little extra work to help fit into a home environment.

Of all the components that go into making a successful adoption happen, it’s best when an adopter truly is in love with the shelter dog and is committed to making it work.

Alternative Ways To Train Dogs

In my dog training classes, I use a combination of operant conditioning and Pavlovian conditioning to train the participants. Operant conditioning involves reinforcement for a correct behavior or response, and Pavlovian conditioning involves pairing two stimuli together so that the dog learns to link the two in her mind. For example, when I say “Sit” and the dog sits, she gets a reward, either as a food treat or as praise. The sitting part and the reward are operant conditioning. And when I pair the word “Sit” with a hand signal for “Sit,” that is Pavlovian conditioning. This has been a tried and true method for training dogs.

However, there might be other ways of training dogs. In an article published in 2003, S. McKinley and R. J. Young tried training dogs with the model-rival method (McKinley, S. and R. J. Young. 2003. The efficacy of the model-rival method when compared with operant conditioning for training domestic dogs to perform a retrieval-selection task. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 81: 357-365). The model-rival method has been used extensively by Irene Pepperberg in training her African Grey Parrot Alex to learn to recognize different shapes and different colors, and to say the names of those shapes and colors when he was asked about them.

The basic method of the model-rival technique involves two people talking about an object in the presence of the animal. One person asks the other some question about the object, and the other person answers and is given the object if the answer is correct. Meanwhile, the animal observes the interaction. Then the animal is asked to join in by providing the correct answer.

In the case of dogs, the two experimenters compared the results of using operant conditioning and using the model-rival technique in training 6 male and 3 female dogs to retrieve an object that had a distinct name. In the model-rival part of the experiment, rubber toys that had a similar appearance were used. There were three red rubber toys (a boot, a fire extinguisher, and a strawberry) and three yellow rubber toys (a saxophone, a toothbrush, and a hammer). The experimenters chose a toy at random, and if it was a red one, they called it “Socks,” and if it was a yellow one, they called it “Cross.” Then, while a dog was tethered on a leash 0.5 meters (1.5 feet) away from them, the two experimenters had a conversation along these lines: “Can you see the Socks?” (handing the toy to the other person). “Yes, these are great Socks,” (handing the toy back), and so forth for 2 minutes. Then the dog was told, “Go get the Socks,” and the dog had to go and retrieve the object that the experimenters had called Socks, from among the other two similar toys that did not have any labels.

In the operant conditioning part of the experiment, the dogs were trained to retrieve a single toy whose name was given, when no other toys were available. Here the experimenters used the standard tool of shaping, or rewarding the dog at first if she came close to the object, and then later rewarding the dog for touching the object, and eventually only rewarding the dog for retrieving the object.

The experimenters found that the dogs on average learned to bring back the correct toy in the model-rival method as quickly as they learned to retrieve the toy with the operant conditioning method.

Another article published in 2008 repeated these studies, and extended them somewhat (Cracknell, N. R., D. S. Mills, and P. Kaulfuss. 2008. Can stimulus enhancement explain the apparent success of the model-rival technique in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 114: 461-472). In addition to using the model-rival technique, these experimenters used a technique called direct enhancement, in which one person held the correct object in her hands and kept looking at it, while the other person spent the whole time looking at the dog. This study confirmed that the model-rival method worked well in training dogs to retrieve objects, but also found that the direct enhancement method, where the experimenter spent the time looking at the object, worked as well as the model-rival technique.

What these results show is that there may be other ways to train dogs. Some of these ways might be better than what we are using today. In the model-rival method, the dogs actually learned the labels that were given to the objects that they were expected to retrieve. With operant conditioning, it is not clear that they learned the labels for the objects, or simply learned that a particular word (e.g., Socks) stood for a food reward that they were given at the conclusion of their task.

These kinds of experiments suggest that dogs might be learning much more from us than we have given them credit for. Our theories about animal learning mostly come from laboratory rats that live their entire lives in cages. But our dogs are social, interacting creatures living in a rich world of experience, and it may well be that we have just begun to scratch the surface of their abilities to learn from us.

--Con Slobodchikoff