Aversive Control: A biological and evolutionary perspective. Part 3

MousetrapNow that we’ve laid out the foundation for the topic it’s time to talk about specifics. First and foremost I have to clear up a widely held fantasy. Training is not the only situation where your dog might experience some fear inspiring or painful events. People who predict dire consequences from using aversive control in training seem ignorant of this fact. Scary and often painful events are part of life. Dogs are built to deal with it. Some of those events change a dog’s behavior and sometimes – like a vet performing a terrifying and/or painful procedure – they simply have to bite the bullet.
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Contrast: The Secret to Changing Behaviors Effectively – Pt. 1

At any given time in a dog’s life there exists a readiness to be influenced by the environment. The dog’s senses are designed to monitor every waking moment for changes or anomalies. This means more than you think. It is not simply novelty that triggers focus. It is more than that. Any deviation at all is noticed. Deviation itself creates novelty. That can include the absence of some normally occurring thing, an odd combination of objects or sequences that are individually long-standing associations.
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Rebound Aggression:

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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My Biggest Fear and Safety, Safety, Safety.

A few years after I got married, my mother showed my mother-in-law, Opal, my baby book. Soon, Opal came running up to me and asked, “I bet you don’t know what your biggest fear was when you were three?” I instantly replied, “dogs.” She stood shocked for a second. “You remember that?” she asked. I think my answer surprised her. “Do you think I’d be likely to forget it?”

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Gradual Desensitization and Counter Conditioning: Too little, too late

Author: Gary Wilkes
From a presentation at the Central Veterinary Conference, San Diego 2010

In the world of modern behavior therapy, there are two popular mainstays – gradual desensitization and counter conditioning. If a dog is terrified of thunderstorms, one plays back a sound recording of thunder at very low volume and “desensitizes” the dog to the thunder over a long period of time. Counter Conditioning refers to replacing a currently objectionable behavior with an acceptable behavior. Though widely used and recommended, these tools have very limited ability to control unacceptable companion animal behavior.

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