Category Archives: Science, Behavior and Training

These articles lean toward explaining the proper place of science in training. You will note that I hold a factual and historical bias – dog training is 15,000 years old. Dog trainers are the most knowledgeable, experienced and effective behavior specialists in the history of mankind. By contrast, behavior analysis is less than 100 years old and only works well on heavily confined, browsing, grazing animals. I don’t happen to train animals in lock-down – not many people do. i.e. Shamu has nothing on a Seeing Eye Dog of one of George Hickox’s English Pointers.

Rebound Aggression:

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61Iw-+dSv5L._SL500_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_One of the big bugaboos of the modern, ‘positive’ training ideology is the generally promoted concept that if you punish aggression you will trigger “rebound aggression.” Most of the people who say this pretend to be “scientific” in their perspective and claim scientific validation of their opinion. Bunk. Their fascination with rebound aggression simply displays their ignorance of a full reading of the literature and their unwillingness to look at the world around them. For starters, here’s a quote from The Effects of Punishment on Human Behavior by Axelrod and Apsche. They are referring to a foundational study that is never cited by ‘positive’ ideologues. In the study, monkeys were shocked into attacking other monkeys. (Ulrich, Wolfe & Dulaney, JEAB, 1969, Punishment of Shock Induced Aggression) This was called ‘elicited attacks.’ They caused the monkey to attack with electric shock – and then stopped that aggression with electric shock. They used electric shock because of the ability to tightly control the conditions of the experiment.
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Commands and Signals Revisited:

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Ivan Pavlov, the great Russian physiologist, said that in order to survive, animals must have a way to identify beneficial and harmful events before they actually occur. More simply, he said that if a dog had to wait for the claws of a bear to sink into his flesh before he reacted to the threat, there would be no dogs. Likewise, if animals could not learn that thunder in the distance preceded a flash flood or that the snap of a twig preceded a succulent deer, they would be unable to avoid harmful events or take advantage of available entrees. If these examples sound far to simplistic for great science, think again. Sometimes the very best scientific information helps us build secure foundations for more complex knowledge. In the case of Ivan Pavlov, the diligence of his work pays off big-time for anyone interested in the most fundamental of dog training skills.

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Operant Modalities: Alternatives to Psychotropic drugs – Presentation for CVC, Washington DC By Gary Wilkes

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One aspect of veterinary behavioral therapy is the use of psychotropic drugs to control behavior. To set the context for my comments, I am not a veterinarian. I do not claim any direct working knowledge of these drugs – but I routinely work with animals that do. Note: This presentation is not about abandoning or curtailing the use of chemical therapy for treating behavior problems. Diagnosis and treatment with psychotropic drugs is often a needed component for a dog’s sustained mental health. The goal of this presentation is to offer a different perspective and potential solutions that dovetail standard medical diagnosis and treatment.

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Secondary Reinforcers: Primary Blather

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In the language of modern dog training a clicker is a “secondary reinforcer.” Sorry, but the term “secondary reinforcer” is simply eight syllables of blather. Why? Because reinforcers must, by definition, strengthen a behavior connected to them. That isn’t what happens when you click a clicker (or say the word, “NO”) and then not provide the tangible event that is supposed to follow. I can prove it. No, I have proven it – at MIT no less. You can prove it too, in the privacy of your own home. No lab coats, no rat or pigeon cages needed. Just you, a clicker and a hungry dog.

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Left or Right: You make the call.

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The chart above signifies something. First, you have to know that this is a standard celeration chart. The horizontal lines increase logarithmically. Meaning from the baseline to the first line is 10. From the first line to the second line is 100. Next is 1,000 and the final one is 10,000. The individual human in this study is doing an undesired behavior, such as self-injury, up to 100 times a day. More than 5 per hour. The left side of the chart shows the use of positive methods to control the behavior. (That is the meaning of “positive programming” in this example.) The chart below shows the full cumulative record after a change in treatment. It shows a dramatic drop in the behavior. What was the change? The introduction of contingent punishment in the form of skin-shock. Meaning if you do X (pound your eyes) you will be shocked. If you do not do X you will not be shocked. Continue reading →