where did positive training come from? · 2014-04-17 · chapter1 where did positive training come...

1Chapter

Where Did PositiveTraining Come From?

In This Chapter≠ Positive pioneers: Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner

≠ You can’t escape the laws of learning

≠ How positive methods came out of the lab and into your living room

≠ The clicker as a positive dog-training technique

Positive training is precise manipulation of favorable conse-quences (good stuff, like food and toys) in order to get your dog toperform the behaviors you want. The really cool thing is, data fromthe science of behavioral psychology proves that positive training issuccessful under the most rigorous conditions, so the methodologyin this book is not “just one person’s opinion.”

“Positive” doesn’t equal “permissive.” My dogs are subject to strictrules and regulations regarding their behavior around the house andproper manners when we’re away from home. I never use physical

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Part 1: Positively Amazing: What Is Positive Training and Why Should I Use It?

or verbal punishment on my dogs. I don’t rule by force and my dogsdon’t rule the roost. I do, however, have some of the best-trained dogsaround and have earned multiple obedience titles. My dogs are apleasure to live with—are yours?

In the Beginning and Beyond: The Originsof Positive TrainingWe owe Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, Robert Bailey, Marian Breland-Bailey, Keller Breland, and a host of others a round of applause.Without them, we still wouldn’t understand a whole lot about behav-ior. To fully grasp and embrace positive training, it helps to learn thescience behind the methods because without understanding, you andyour dog will be two ships passing in the night—something that’snot helpful when training your dog.

In the beginning, you might think that theory and history areunimportant (I just want my dog to …); however, the effectiveness

of your training will improve if youunderstand why positive trainingworks.

So let’s begin by taking a lookat the men and women who werethe forerunners of today’s positivetrainers.

Drooling to Learn: Ivan PavlovIvan Pavlov (1849–1936) is the man who gave us Pavlovian condi-tioning, also called associative learning and classical conditioning.(Wouldn’t it be just too exciting to have a theory named after you?)You remember Pavlov with the dog, the bell, and the drool? Do youremember anything else? Probably not—I know I didn’t until Istarted to train using positive methods.

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Did you know thatPavlov, a physiologist,

was originally studying diges-tion in dogs but ended upbecoming more interested inlearning about their behavior?

Doggie Data

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Chapter 1: Where Did Positive Training Come From? 5

Pavlov learned through his research that dogs salivated whenmeat powder was placed in their mouths. He then added a neutralstimulus (a metronome) just before he placed the meat powder in thedog’s mouth. Once Pavlov had paired the sound of the metronomewith the meat powder several times, he turned the metronome onwithout giving the dog the meat powder, and guess what? The dogbegan drooling because he knewthe metronome meant “food iscoming.”

So why is this important?Associations are the first steps tolearning anything. To bring thiscloser to home, let’s say that youuse the word “outside” wheneveryour dog goes through the door.After a few pairings of the wordand the behavior (of going outside),when you say the word “outside,”the dog will go to the door.

I discuss more about associativelearning in Chapter 5 and showyou the extreme significance thishas on how dogs learn and howyou can use it in training.

Who Let the Cat Out of the Box: Skinner and BaileyB.F. Skinner (1904–1990) was a forerunner in the study of operantconditioning, secondary reinforcers, and ratios of reinforcement. Formore information, see Chapters 5 and 9. He discovered that changesin behavior are a result of the individual’s response (observable be-havior) to the events happening in the environment. Learning is theoutcome of change in observable behaviors.

Neutral stimulus refersto something that has no mean-ing until it is paired with some-thing else either positive ornegative.

Muttley Meanings

Those of you with elec-tric can openers may

have had the experience ofevery pet in the house flyinginto the kitchen at the sound ofthe can opener. Wouldn’t it benice if you could get that sameenthusiastic reaction, just bycalling your dog’s name? Well,you can. Read on.

Pooch Pointers

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And this is critical because? “Observable behavior” is key herebecause if you can’t observe a change in behavior (for better orworse), then you can’t know or assume that learning has occurred.We can’t read our dog’s mind, but we can observe behavior.

Operant conditioning, which is covered in more depth inChapter 5, is broken down into three sections:

≠ Antecedent (or cue)

≠ Behavior

≠ Consequence

The Laws of LearningLike gravity, the laws of learning are always in effect. No matterwhich method you use, be it positive reinforcement or punishment-based methods, the laws of learning remain the same. You can run,but you can’t hide! The three basic laws are the following:

≠ Rewarded behavior gets repeated.

≠ Ignored behavior stops.

≠ Once a behavior is in place, variable rewards will strengthenthe behavior.

The First Law of LearningBehavior that is rewarded is most likely to be repeated:

Your dog mauls you when you come home wearing a clean suit,you pay attention to him (either positively or negatively), andhe will continue to maul you whenever you come home.

You might wonder how negative attention (yelling or hitting)could be rewarding for the dog. If the only time you interact with

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your dog is to tell him what he did wrong, then he’ll continue to dothose very behaviors. Sounds pretty darned stupid doesn’t it? Beingyelled at is preferable to being ignored. It isn’t as though I don’tpunish my dogs, but the punishment consists of ignoring them.Because my attention is so positively reinforcing for my dogs, beingignored sends a very strong message that “Mom isn’t happy.”

The Second Law of LearningBehavior that is not reinforced will mostly likely stop (extinguish):

You come home, your dog starts to maul you, and you nowignore the dog for about 10 minutes until he relaxes, and thenyou pay attention to him.

Now when you come home, he will lie down and relax until youcome over to greet him.

The Third Law of LearningOnce a behavior is established, a variable schedule of reinforcementwill make the behavior stronger:

You come home and are now wearing old clothes so you allowthe dog to jump on you, but you ignore the dog when you’rewearing a suit.

Guess what? Your dog isn’t a fashion critic and will continue tomaul you when you come home, because you are variably (sometimesyes and sometimes no) reinforcing the jumping.

Unlike associative learning, where a natural behavior (like sali-vating for food) is now associated with a new stimulus (the metro-nome), operant conditioning is the rewarding of a partial behavioror a random act that resembles the desired end behavior.

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Eureka! Variable ReinforcementIn the days before prepackaged rat food, Skinner noticed that hewould run low in the middle of an experiment. Because he had tomake his own food, he decided that he would reduce the number ofreinforcements given for a particular behavior. Skinner discoveredthat the rats continued to perform their behaviors at a consistentrate. Behold the discovery of schedules of reinforcement!

Using and understanding variable reinforcement schedules are vitalin teaching longer and stronger behavior patterns. Gambling casinosknow this, which is why they make so much money on slot machines.Think they just made up the idea of slot machines? Think again!They have scientifically determined the optimum reward schedule—they let you win just enough to keep you hooked! Brilliant!

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The most notable role models for positive methods are the train-ers at SeaWorld parks. They train a killer whale to stay still fordental work without novocaine, to urinate on command into a

paper cup, to allow blood to be drawn, and many other behav-iors needed for animal husbandry. Use punishment on these ani-mals and you’ll see the need for new trainers increase becauseall of the old trainers will be dead. So they use positive trainingby necessity.It takes only nine months to train a new whale, including namerecognition, come, allowing touching, and daily animal husbandry(how many of your dogs don’t allow grooming?), eye contact,not eating the trainer or other animals—even prey—plus all of thebehaviors needed for the show.

Doggie Data

Rin Tin Tin to the Rescue: Dog Trainers andPositive TrainingThere are many reasons why people with dogs come to positivetraining. Some had bad experiences using punishment; some are justcurious; and some dogs have behavioral problems that have only

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escalated as the owner used more and more force and so-called “dis-cipline,” leaving the owner nowhere else to turn.

Some people say “I don’t train my kids using punishment, whyshould I train my dog that way?” Why some people seem to thinkthat a 25-pound Sheltie needs more punishment than an 8,000-poundkiller whale at SeaWorld is beyond me.

All of the animals used for commercials, TV shows, and moviesare trained using positive methods. Do they sometimes makemistakes? Sure they do, but how many “bloopers” shows are

based on the animals? None that I’ve ever seen, but there aretons based on the mistakes that we humans make. (Althoughthere was one funny take with the dog from Frasier where thehumans kept making mistakes and the dog finally gave up andstarted licking his private areas.)The trainers of these animals just wouldn’t get the precise behav-iors needed during grueling schedules if they used punishment.Camera and production crews don’t want to hear that the dog isholding up production.

Doggie Data

What Is This Clicker Training Thing?Clicker training is one facet of positive training that uses a signal totell the dog that he did something right. A clicker is simply a markersignal—a specific sound thatmarks the correct behavior theinstant the dog performs it. Wemake the sound of the click valu-able by borrowing Pavlov’s metro-nome idea—by association.

The clicker itself is a smallplastic box with a metal tonguethat when pressed creates a “click”sound. They can be found in mostlarger pet and dog-equipmentstores.

To “prime” the clicker,you can click it and

then, within one-half second,feed the dog a treat. Repeat fora solid two minutes—click/treat, click/treat, and so on.Usually within that time, the dogunderstands that click meansfood is coming.

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Step-by-step instructions for using a clicker for teaching specificbehaviors are addressed in Chapters 10, 11, and 12.

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Training using a secondary reinforcer such as a clicker wasinvented more than 70 years ago by B.F. Skinner. KellerBreland and Marian Breland-Bailey (a student of Skinner’s) first

coined the phrase “bridging stimulus,” which later changed tojust “bridge.” I find it’s easier to use the word “marker.” Use ofsecondary reinforcers first became widespread in marine mam-mal training.

Doggie Data

Since I mention a secondary reinforcer, you might wonder whatthe first reinforcer is. Primary reinforcers are things that the animaldoesn’t have to learn to like—the animal naturally likes them. Animalsbehave in certain ways for three basic reasons: to find food, to findwater, and to get access to sex. We can tap into these basic needs tomake our marker signal (and our relationship) more valuable.

Bridges have been used with marine mammals since the 1950s.Although marine mammal trainers use a whistle instead of a clickerto mark the correct behavior, the principle is the same. Click whatyou like, reward it, and ignore what you don’t want. The clickerimparts valuable, precise information from you to the dog, some-thing that is lacking in traditional types of training.

Clicker training (positive training and clicker training are usedinterchangeably in this book) teaches dogs to think and to use thewonderful, creative brains that they have. It also teaches them thatthey do have some control. (By “control,” I don’t mean in a domi-nating, pushy way, but in a way that brings their own propensitiesinto the training process.) Once you start training using the clicker,you’ll see that your dog isn’t working for the food—he’s working toget you to click.

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A Bull Terrier retrieving a dumbbell.

To illustrate, Laura was teaching her dog, Mollie, to retrieve adumbbell. Mollie was touching the dumbbell with her nose, I wasclicking, and Laura was treating. After a few repetitions, I wanted toraise the criteria and have Mollie start to open her mouth for thedumbbell. She touched it with her nose. I didn’t click. She touchedit again with her nose and deliberately looked at me with this lookthat only a dog can have, as if tosay “Are you going to click ornot?!” I did not. She looked atme, looked at Laura, and thenwent to the dumbbell and openedher mouth a tiny bit. I clicked,and Laura treated.

It’s Not the Dog, SillyThe clicker also imparts valuable information to the trainer. Whenwe try to mark the behavior with words, such as the ever-popular

Criteria are the behav-iors you will accept from yourdog during a particular trainingsession.

Muttley Meanings

(Photo by P. Dennison)

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“good dog,” it’s hard to tell whether or not we’re late in marking thebehavior.

With the clicker, we can easily tell when we’re late, which willhelp us to then fix our timing. If we have been continuously latewith our verbal “good dog,” then we can pretty much assume thatour dogs are confused and probably not “getting it.” Then wewrongly think that our dogs are stupid, when in fact, we were theones that weren’t clear.

Positive training takes the onus off of the dog and puts itsquarely where it belongs—on us. The dog is never wrong. Really.We’re the teachers. We’re the ones in the driver’s seat. When wemake a wrong turn and get lost, we can’t blame the person next tous because we were the ones holding the wheel. (Unless, of course,it was your spouse telling you to make the wrong turn.)

A few correct repetitions does not a learned behavior make. Andif the dog does a wrong behavior, so what? We all make mistakes or

do stupid things—even when weknow better. I’m allergic to certainfoods, but I eat them anyway. AndI sometimes say stupid things(insert foot in mouth).

Clicker training is all about achange of mental attitude. Clickertrainers have learned to use theirbrains to train specific behaviors,rather than use pain to elicit thosesame behaviors. The result?Happier dogs, happier trainers,better relationships, and fewerbehavioral problems.

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Don’t assume your dogis stupid. Your dog is

probably confused by themixed signals you’re giving him.

Canine Caveats

Positive training givesus freedom—no more

punishment, no more drilling, nomore blaming the dog for notdoing something that we didn’ttake the time to truly teach.

Pooch Pointers

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The Least You Need to Know≠ Positive training is not mindless permissiveness.

≠ There are two facets to learning—operant conditioning andassociative learning.

≠ The laws of learning, like gravity, are always in effect.

≠ Turn your dog into a gambling fool—and a well-behaveddog—using variable reinforcements.

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where did positive training come from? · 2014-04-17 · chapter1 where did positive training come...

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