Patricia McConnell Seminar: Communication

 
It's another quiet night at home. I am curled up on the couch, absorbed in a book, when Maisy walks over to me and gazes intently at me. I'm not sure how something as silent as a stare can be so piercing, but it sure does wonders to get my attention. I smile and ask, “What do you need, pumpkin?”

She dashes away into the other room, then comes back to the doorway and stares at me again. She wants something, I can tell, so I set my book day and say, “Show me!” She leads me to the den, where she nudges at her Kong, then looks at me pointedly.

And people say dogs can't communicate.

Patricia took some time at the seminar to dispel this myth. Of course we attendees know that dogs communicate, and I'm sure we all have stories like the one above. But it's still nice to see science delving into the topic, so today I'm going to share just a few of the recent studies on canine communication.

What's all that noise?
Whether they're feeling threatened, protecting some food, or just having fun, dogs can make a lot of noise. Experienced dog owners know that a growl can mean many different things, but are they merely depending on context? Scientists set out to find out, and recorded dogs growling in each of those three contexts and then analyzed the sounds acoustically. They found that play growls are shorter and higher pitched, but that there is little difference between a growl directed at a threatening stranger or while resource guarding.

Despite this, the dogs could still tell the difference. The researchers placed a dog alone in a room with a tempting bone, and when the dog approached, would play a recording of the different growl types. Unsurprisingly, the resource guarding growl was more effective at stopping the dog than the other growls.

Other studies have found that dogs can tell the size of a dog by its growl. Using recorded growls and images projected on a screen, the scientists tracked where the dogs looked. The vast majority of dogs would look at the correct sized image.

Wag the Dog
We all know that a dog's tail can wag for a wide variety of reasons. Patricia likened it to a human smile- it's usually a happy thing, but sometimes it's forced or faked. Scientists wanted to learn more about tail wagging, so they created a special box with a camera mount, placed the dog inside, and then presented him with several different stimuli type to see what his tail did.

When the dogs saw their owners, their tails were more likely to wag further to the right. They also wagged to the right when the saw unfamiliar people, but there was less amplitude. When the dog saw another dog who was unfamiliar to him, the tail tended to wag to the left. The same was true when the dog wagged while alone. The most interesting response to me was the dog's wag when he saw a cat: most dogs would wag to the right (the same as for people), but with the least amount of amplitude of any wag.

Patricia shared that the conclusion is that the right-sided wag probably indicates that the dog is interested in approaching and investigating, while the left-sided wag probably indicates the dog's desire to withdraw or avoid the situation. It makes me wonder how a fearful or reactive dog's tail might wag when faced with unfamiliar people.

And your point is?
One of the very interesting things about dogs is that they seem to intuitively understand pointing gestures by humans. Research for years has been mixed on whether or not dogs understand pointing better than other animals, such as their canine cousin, the wolf.

Monique Udell has done some pretty interesting research on this. She found that wolves can following pointing gestures, and in fact, that they do just as well as dogs... if the conditions are right. Wolves can do it if the experiment is done outside. Pet dogs do best if they're tested inside. Interestingly, shelter dogs tend to fail miserably when the experiment is conducted indoors, scoring worse than even the wolves. Patricia believes this is because of stress, both in general and that of the testing environment.

Udell also studied a variety of point types. Directly touching something- and maintaining that position- was the easiest gesture for dogs to understand. They also did well with a sustained point. While they could understand other types of points, including momentary taps and points, as well as those held both to the side and when across the midline, they didn't do as well with those gestures. Keep that in mind next time you're trying to show your dog something.

The Dog Watchers
This last study was the most interesting to me. Researcher Michelle Wan collected 30 videos of dogs and had them rated and categorized by eight experts. She then played them for over 2100 participants. These people ranged from those who had never owned a dog to professionals who'd worked with dogs for more than ten years. Each participant was asked to categorize if the dog was feeling happy, sad, fearful, angry, or neutral, and then to rate the level of safety, boldness, fearfulness, stress, etc.

The results showed that people with more dog experience were more likely to label dogs as “aroused” in some way. They were also more likely to observe “negative” emotions like fear, sadness, or stress. This rings true to me. The more I learn, the more I see miserable dogs. Once you learn that a yawn can mean more than tiredness and that a lip lick is more likely to be about stress than hunger... well, it's hard to ignore those signs.


Anyway, that's just a small sampling of what science knows about dog communication. I'd love to hear your stories about how your dog “talks” to you. Does he growl? Point? Understand your gestures? Share in the comments!

If You Want to Know More
A Dog's Growl Announces Its Size
‘The bone is mine’: affective and referential aspects of dog growls, by Farago, et al
Asymmetric tail-wagging responses by dogs to different emotive stimuli, by Quaranta et al
Study on Human Perception of Emotions in Dogs, by Michelle Wan
Patricia's blog post on Monique Udell's Pointing Research

On Growling

Maisy barks and growls at the river.

I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding the first time Maisy growled at another dog, but I know I was surprised. Maisy was social and eager to interact with her fellow puppy-class attendees, so the growling seemed out of character. Likewise, I can’t remember the circumstances surrounding the first time she growled at a person, but I definitely remember how horrified I felt. My sweet, outgoing, friendly puppy loved people, she didn’t hate them! Why would she be growling? How do I stop it? And what should I do now??

Why do dogs growl?
I think the answer that growling is a form of communication is fairly obvious. The real question is: What is my dog trying to communicate? Scientists have wondered this, too, and in the past year, there have been at least two studies published discussing just that. The researchers found that a dog can derive specific information from another dog’s growls, which leads to the assumption that dogs growl to communicate that information.

In the first study, electronic sound analysis found that there are two distinct types of growling: that done in play and that done as a warning. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most dog owners. However, what I found notable about this research is that even though electronic analysis couldn’t distinguish between different types of warning growls, the dogs in the study could. Upon hearing a recorded growl, dogs could determine if it was a resource-guarding growl or a stranger-associated growl. Building on that, the researchers later discovered that dogs can tell the size of a dog simply by listening to its growl.

I’m not overly concerned about play growling; most people can tell the difference and seem to understand that it is no cause for concern. No, it’s the warning growls that worry people. Which leads us to the next question...

How do I stop my dog from growling?
I’m going to answer this question with another question: Why would you want to?

It’s true that growling makes us humans uncomfortable. People often perceive growling as a sign of dominance or aggression, which are characteristics that have a negative association. Leaving aside the issue of dominance, which would be a whole post in itself, the concern about aggression, or more specifically, about getting bitten (and I do think that biting does not necessarily mean a dog is aggressive), is fair.

But that’s exactly why I like it when my dog growls. It’s a warning sign that my dog is feeling uncomfortable enough to consider biting. It’s a warning that says, “I don’t really want to bite you, but I will if I need to.” It’s a warning that gives me a chance to protect myself, others, and Maisy herself.

If you teach your dog that you don’t want him to growl, ever, you’ve effectively taken away that warning sign. What you’ll be left with is a dog who goes from mildly uncomfortable (and while you might be able to recognize those signals, I guarantee that your two-year-old nephew can’t) to biting “without warning.” Well, of course he did. You told him not to give warnings!

But if we want our dogs to growl, the next logical question becomes...

What should I do when my dog growls?
Imagine what you would do if a stranger walked up to you on the street, waved a gun in your direction, and said, “This is my side of the street. Cross to the other side or I’ll shoot you.” You probably wouldn’t take the chance that the person was joking, right? It doesn’t matter if the gun-wielder is being unreasonable or not- you’d probably move away pretty darn quickly. So then why are we unwilling to heed our dogs' warnings?

Reasonable or not, growling is the canine equivalent of "back off or I'll shoot." If your dog is willing to tell you that he’s uncomfortable, listen to him. If the growl is directed at you, stop what you’re doing. If the growl is directed at another person or dog, create some distance. Don’t worry about whether or not that’s letting him get away with a bad behavior- right now, it doesn’t matter because that bad behavior is about to become much worse. Instead, you need to worry about damage control; cut your losses and keep everyone safe.

If his growls are isolated, don’t worry about it too much. Honor his communication and move on. However, if a pattern appears- if he always growls at children or when he’s eating- it’s time to take action. The action will depend on the situation, of course, but for the majority of dog owners, it’s probably time to enlist an experienced trainer to help figure out what the action plan will be.


This information isn't new- there is a lot of information on the internet on dogs growling. Some of it's good and some... not so much. If you're interested in reading more about growling, I'd recommend starting with these:
The Gift of Growl, by Pat Miller
Jolanta Benal’s Quick and Dirty Tips
Smart Dog University’s PDF on Growling
Whole Dog Journal’s Five Things to Do When Your Dog Growls at You

Why I Love My Clicker

Crappy picture is crappy. But I didn't want to spend more
than five minutes shaping this behavior, so this is as good as it gets.

I’ve been thinking a lot about feedback this week. I’ve been thinking about Ian Dunbar’s approach to giving feedback. I’ve been thinking about the way I give feedback, and especially my own shortcomings in my rate of reinforcement. I’ve been thinking about how I react to criticism, and how my dog reacts to being told she’s wrong, too. And after thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that I love my clicker.

Well, I already knew that. Most positive-reinforcement trainers use one. Even trainers who use collar corrections add in clicker work from time to time. It’s a great tool, which is why I was surprised that Ian seemed kind of anti-clicker during the seminar. It seemed to be about more than just the fact that he’s a pet dog person; his criticism of the clicker wasn’t about new students having difficulty with timing or misunderstanding the concept. Instead, he seemed to take issue with the feedback the clicker itself gives: impersonal, sterile, and devoid of emotion and instruction. But in a lot of ways, that’s exactly why I love it!

Is that weird? Maybe. After all, I do understand Ian’s point. All the clicker can do is say yes, you did that correctly. That’s it. It has one setting, one level, one message: yes. It can’t judge quality. It can’t say hey, that was even better than last time. Which is why I supplement the clicker with my voice sometimes, like I did in the chicken video. And if I’m going to do that, why should I bother using the clicker at all?

Because it’s different. Here’s the deal: our dogs hear our voices a lot. I talk to my husband, I talk on the phone, I talk to the cats, heck, I talk to myself. There are even toys that let us talk to our dogs when we’re gone! Of all the times that Maisy hears my voice, how often is it directed towards her? And even then, what percentage of that is meaningful communication versus me just chattering away at her because I love her? The vast majority of the time, my voice is simply background noise with little relevance to her life.

The clicker, on the other hand, is distinct. It’s easy to pick out of the sounds of day to day life because there isn’t anything else in the environment like it. More than that, though, it’s reliable and predictable. That sound always means something good is coming. It may only deliver one message, but that message is unambiguous, easy to understand, and worth paying attention to.

As a result, the clicker is able to get through to my dog much easier than my voice can. When Maisy is distracted or excited, she tends to tune me out. I can almost hear her sometimes: yeah, yeah, I know you’re talking, mom, but right now I’m concentrating so much on those chickens that I can’t be bothered to figure out if your words are for me or not. The beauty of the clicker is that she doesn’t need to think about it at all. She just knows that it’s for her.

Granted, this response happens because the clicker is a conditioned stimulus, not because it’s magic. Any sound can be conditioned the same way, including our voices. In fact, most clicker trainers have a verbal marker that they use, too. However, Lindsay Wood’s thesis found that it takes longer to train a behavior with a verbal marker than with a clicker.

In short, I’ve found that the clicker just relays the message better than my voice does. Of course, that’s still just one message. No matter how good it is at it, it can still only say one thing. I know that Ian really likes to say both yes and no, but honestly? I don’t. It’s not that I necessarily object to saying no- I understand that you need to inhibit behavior sometimes- but I prefer to focus on what’s going well.

I’m a sensitive person. As much as I learn from criticism, as much as I need it and want it, my ego is fragile. I do much better when I’m given positive feedback most of the time. The trainer that Maisy and I work with now is excellent at this, and when I fail, the positive feedback she’s given me previously is able to offset the current negative feedback. It helps me from taking it too personally, and the end result is that I feel generally confident in my abilities and I’m more willing to take risks, even if they might end in an error.

Maisy’s very sensitive, too, so I think she might feel the same way about negative feedback. But even if she doesn’t, and even if my next dog isn’t as soft as her, I know that I’m just not good at giving negative feedback. When I experimented with no reward markers earlier this year, I learned that when I have permission to say no, I quit saying yes. I become frustrated with my dog and with myself. Obviously, this does not help our training.

True, the clicker is just a tool, and like any tool, it has both good points and bad points. But for me, the clicker forces me to focus on the positive. It keeps me on track. It makes me look for success instead of dwell on failure. And most importantly, it builds up my confidence, Maisy’s confidence, and our confidence in one another.

And that’s why I love my clicker.

CU Seminar: Final Thoughts

Mostly relaxed in her crate at the seminar.
Photo by Robin Tinay Sallie.

I really enjoyed going to the Control Unleashed seminar. Seeing the demos in person and getting feedback on my handling skills was amazing, but perhaps the most profound lesson came in two short, simple statements. The first is simply a reminder:

Practice doesn’t make perfect… it makes permanent.
Every time a dog (human, whatever) does or encounters something new, that novel experience creates new pathways in the brain. (I’ve heard this referred to as “dendritic branching,” though I'm probably grossly simplifying the concept.) Initially, that pathway is faint, like a deer track in the woods, but each time that the dog does that behavior, the pathway gets stronger.

I think of the well-practiced behavior as an interstate: easy to get on, fast to get you where you’re going, but difficult to turn around if you discover you’re going the wrong way. And just like the roads the ancient Romans built thousands of years ago, these behaviors can become permanent. While that may be desirable for some behaviors, it is less than ideal when it comes to reactive ones.

The take-away message is obvious: Don’t let your dog practice behaviors you don’t like. Find ways to manage the situation, manipulate the environment, or distract your dog so that you avoid reactive outbursts. I really believe this is part of the problem I’m experiencing with Maisy: she’s just practiced lunging at other dogs so much that it’s the most obvious path for her to take when she’s feeling uncertain. I just hope that action isn’t yet permanently part of her world.

Of course, it isn’t always easy to prevent behaviors you don’t like, which brings us to the second thing:

Don’t be afraid of a high rate of reinforcement.
This advice was actually kind of ironic. Not a week before, I’d been complaining about how hard I have to work to prevent Maisy from reacting. As long as I kept my attention on her, and kept feeding her treats, I told my trainer, she’s fine. But that’s exhausting, and inevitably, I need to shift my attention elsewhere, so my efforts fail. I said that I wanted to be able to use fewer treats.

After the seminar, though, I don’t think that should be my goal. After all, a high rate of reinforcement can prevent a reaction. A high rate of reinforcement gives the dog something to do, and it gives them something to focus on. It keeps them on a path you like, and off the troublesome ones- not to mention the fact that it can prevent those pesky brain interstates.

Instead, the goal should be twofold. First, I need to get better at reading Maisy’s body language, and shifting my expectations based on what I see because there are legitimately times where Maisy can make good decisions. She can think through a situation and choose to do something I like, and I have no problem reinforcing those moments. But at other times, she’s too stressed to think, let alone make a good choice. Even if I think she should be able to handle it, I need to honor what she’s actually telling me. I shouldn’t delay a treat that could prevent a reaction just because I think she should be able to handle the situation.

I also need to help her build new roads. I’ve begun doing this in two ways. I’m helping her learn to relax through the relaxation protocol, and I’m helping her learn new communication strategies through the either-brilliant-or-idiotic “poke” cue. Both of these things will hopefully build new paths that are easily accessible, and maybe someday even more accessible than the current ones.


It’s funny how hearing the same old thing in new words can make all the difference. Neither of these ideas are ground-shakingly new- I’ve heard them both before- but the way Alexa phrased them really helped me understand them better. Or maybe I was just ready to hear them now. Either way, I have to believe that in the end, we’ll be a better team as a result of our time with Alexa.