CPDT Study Session #6: Why Do Dogs Do That?

In her book Coaching People to Train Their Dogs, Terry Ryan identifies a number of reasons a dog might behave in a certain way. Let's look at those today.

Phylogenic behaviors are those that have developed over generations and therefore have evolutionary significance. These behaviors can be broken down into three main categories.

The first is food acquisition. This is a fixed series of behaviors that seems to be hard-wired in most dogs. The sequences goes like this: Search or find prey – stalk prey to get as close to it as possible – rush towards the prey – chase after the prey (because it likely took off when it saw the dog rushing) – bite/hold/shake/kill the prey – and dissect and eat the prey. This sequence can often be found in dog play, either with other dogs or with toys (which explains why so many dogs like to de-stuff their toys).

The second is hazard avoidance, in which the dog will avoid danger and/or seek safety and comfort, and the third is reproductive behaviors, for obvious reasons. Both of these will influence a dog's behavior quite a bit; testosterone often causes male dogs to mount, mate, and mark while estrogen and progesterone will cause a female dog to go into heat about twice a year for 20 days duration. During this time, the female's behavior towards a male will be quite... flirty.

Another reason dogs may do something is because it is an otogenic behavior. This is a fancy term for learned behaviors, although not necessarily trained behaviors. An otogenic behavior is one developed due to the influence of environmental factors. While a phylogenic behavior will be shared among all dogs, otogenic behaviors are specific to an individual.

Next, we have fixed action patterns (or instinctive motor patterns). These are patterns of behaviors that are triggered by something specific. The sequence needs to be completed before the dog will stop the pattern. The pattern is fixed, that is, it doesn't vary much (if at all) from time to time. That said, behavior modification can change a fixed action pattern. The food acquisition series I described above is a fixed action pattern.

A dog's temperament can also influence behavior. Temperament is a tricky thing, consisting of a mix of genes and environment, but a dog with a shy temperament will behave differently than one with a bold temperament.

Finally, we have instinctive drift, first discussed by the Brelands in their paper The Misbehavior of Organisms. Instinctive drift is what happens when an animal's innate behavior is so strong that overcomes a learned behavior, even when there is a reinforcer offered for the learned behavior.

Those are the reasons Terry Ryan identified as causes of behavior. Have you come across any others?

CPDT Study Session #5: How Did Dogs Become Dogs?

Answer: We don't really know. But we have lots of theories.

Let's start with what exactly domestication is. Wild animals can either be tamed or domesticated. A tame animal is an individual who has gotten used to humans. A domesticated animal is part of a species whose involvement with humans has resulted in extensive behavioral and biological changes.

We do know that dogs were once wolves, and we know that they are domesticated because of the many profound changes they've undergone. Physically, most dogs look quite dissimilar to wolves. Their ears can be floppy, their faces are shorter, their tails may be curled over their backs, their coats have far more color patterns. In short, they physically look more like wolf puppies than adult wolves.

This tendency towards puppy-ness is called paedomorphism, and it also describes wolf vs. dog behavior. Wolves are more physically active, mouthier, more destructive, have far more desire to roam, and are generally more wary of new experiences than are dogs.

As for when domestication happened, well, according to fossil evidence, domestication happened 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. According to DNA analysis, it happened around 80,000 to 130,000 years ago. So who knows!

There are three main hypotheses about how wolves became dogs:

The Village Dog Hypothesis suggests that wolves hung around human settlements, scrounging for food. The boldest, friendliest wolves were more likely to live (as the ones who threatened villagers were likely killed), and they slowly evolved into dogs.

In the Hunting Hypothesis, wolves and humans developed a symbiotic relationship. Either wolves began following the humans or the humans began following the wolves while hunting. They tolerated one another because each could offer the other an advantage in hunting. Again, the wolves that worked cooperatively with humans would have a better chance of breeding.

Finally, we have the Nurturing Hypothesis, in which wolf pups whose mothers were killed would be brought back to the village to be raised, likely by children or women. The more docile pups would live to adulthood to pass on their genes.

So there is your down-and-dirty overview on how dogs (maybe) became dogs.

Kathy Sdao Seminar: Letting Reactive Dogs Choose

The overall theme of this seminar was choices. Early on in this series, I talked about how our dogs need to have choices. I also alluded to the fact that this can be hard to do when you have a reactive dog who might make dangerous decisions. Thankfully, Kathy talked about this! Her acronym SMART (See Mark And Reward Training) actually includes a sneaky second S: Set up.

Setting up means that you control the environment and not the dog, and refers to both training sessions and life outside training. Kathy told us that so much good training can be undone if the dog practices bad behavior outside training sessions. She gave us the example of a dog who barks at windows when people pass the house. Even if you train for an hour every evening, the eight hours your dog spends barking out the window while you’re at work will have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on his behavior.

Good set ups mean that you limit the dog’s activities so that he can’t rehearse the very behavior you’re trying to change. It’s kind of like a bucket of water: if you don’t plug the holes, the water will leak out. No matter how much water you add, you simply won’t make progress.

Not drowning!

This is especially important with reactive dogs. We talk about keeping them “under threshold,” and again, this applies to both training and life. Kathy used a drowning analogy. If a child can’t swim and falls in the deep end of the pool, you not only want to pull him out of the pool but you also want to prevent him from going near the deep end again. This means that reactive dogs often need to be heavily managed or even confined early on during their training.

With a controlled environment, we can help our reactive dogs make good choices, making the neural pathways for the desirable behavior stronger. Then we can slowly add in distractions, which can become cues to perform the behavior we want. This allows us to “retire from the full-time job of cueing!”

Having lived with a reactive dog and as a result been very vigilant about possible problems, I love that phrase. In fact, this is why I eventually stopped taking Maisy to trials for awhile. As hard as it was, I couldn’t control the environment and was exhausted trying to constantly prevent her from going over threshold. Worse, I failed, meaning that the reactive neural pathway in her brain was constantly activated. Truly, going slow was actually much faster in the long run.

What have you done to set up your dog’s environment- and his life- so that he could be successful?  

Review: Orijen Tundra Freeze-Dried Dog Food (Courtesy of Chewy.com!)

Chewy.com sent us some Orijen Tundra Freeze-Dried Dog Food to review, and Maisy was super excited about it (which is like regular excited, but with a cape).

I love freeze-dried food for backpacking trips. A full day's worth of calories for the Maisy Dog only weighs 2 ounces! For those of you who have hiked for many miles with everything you need on your back, you'll know why this is so exciting.

I reconstituted the Orijen and another freeze-dried food using cool water. Even though the package recommends warm water, I used the cool water as it's just more true to what happens in the back country. Both foods needed to be broken into smaller pieces in order to dissolve.

Then I set the Orijen down next to the other freeze-dried food, and the Orijen was a CLEAR winner. Maisy chose it time and again, no matter how many times I shuffled the two bowls around.

So it's two thumbs and four paws (plus one ear) up for Orijen's freeze-dried food!

CPDT Study Session 4: Puppy Development

5 months old and venturing off on her own.

I'm currently starting the two weeks I've set aside to study ethology, and I decided to tackle the section that I felt weakest in: puppy development. I went through every book in my personal library that looked like it might have information on this topic and read through the relevant sections. As it turns out, this website was probably the most useful. (I also looked at Coaching People by Terry Ryan, Off-Leash Dog Play, by Bennett and Briggs, Dogs by the Coppingers, and Successful Dog Adoptions by Sue Sternberg.

In all this reading, I discovered a sneaky truth: there are no hard-and-fast timelines, nor even agreement on what each stage is called. The first part wasn't really a surprise, but I was a bit taken aback by the fact that there are so many ways to break down a puppy's development. I'm going to try to synthesize this material into something cohesive, but you should keep in mind that these periods can overlap, and that the breed of the dog will influence the timelines.

 Neonatal Period, birth to 14 days
The neonatal period is rather boring, truth be told. In this stage, a puppy's eyes are closed and he is functionally deaf. He is completely dependent on his mother, and researchers have found little to no classical conditioning happening at this stage (at least, not in a way they could use). The puppy's task at this time is to develop some basic mobility and sensory awareness.

Transitional Period, 14 to 21 days

The transitional period begins when the puppy's eyes open and ends when he startles at noises. This usually takes place between 2 and 3 weeks. The pup's eyes will be a hazy or cloudy blue color, and will remain that way until 6 to 8 weeks. The teeth begin to form this point, and the sensory capabilities continue to develop.

Socialization Period, 3 weeks to ?? weeks
During this period of time, which most sources agree starts around 3 weeks, the puppy's brain develops rapidly. Although a puppy is born with basically all the brain cells he will ever have, the brain volume increases greatly due to the synaptic connections that are being physically formed. The Coppingers did brain scans and found that when a puppy is born, his brain volume is 8 cubic centimeters. By 2 months, it's 50 cubic cm, 80 cubic cm by 4 months, and 100 cubic cm at 12 months, which tends to be its final amount.

The connections that are being formed are due to socialization. This is where the puppy basically learns safe vs. not safe. If he encounters novel people/dogs/animals/surfaces/objects/sounds/etc. and has a good experience, that thing becomes classified as safe. If he encounters something and has a bad experience, that thing becomes not safe. If he doesn't encounter a certain thing at all, it will default to the not safe category. This is where behavioral problems like fear or aggression can come from.

 The socialization window ends anywhere from 10 to 16 weeks. Dehasse says that studies have shown that between 3 to 5 weeks, a puppy will investigate just about anything without much hesitancy. At 7 to 9 weeks, the puppy needs more time to overcome his uncertainty (Dehasse uses the the word “fear”) and investigate a novel person. At 12 weeks, the puppy can overcome his fear, but only with “active manipulation” from the person. At 14 weeks, Dehasse says that socialization to people is nearly impossible if the dog hasn't already experienced them.

 The Coppingers assert that by 16 weeks, a dog's personality is set for life. If he's timid at 16 weeks, he'll be timid at 3 years. They acknowledge that training and behavior modification can change the dog's personality, but are quick to say that the dog will have a social “accent” for the rest of his life. I really, really like that phrase, because it's a great way of describing how a dog can change yet still have lingering effects from the past.

Other things that happen during this stage:
At 3 weeks of age, the puppies begin to play with one another. From now until 7 weeks, they are developing bite inhibition. This is why it is so important that puppies stay with their litter for at least this long.

 Mother dogs tend to initiate weaning at about 5 weeks. She does this by growling or snapping at her pups, especially when their sharp little puppy teeth hurt her teats. In response, the pups will roll over in deference. A puppy who is force weaned by being separated from his mom tends to show a reduction in appeasement behaviors; he has literally not learned how to do them. This can create issues in social hierarchies down the road.

 House training happens during this stage as well. In the neonatal period, Momma Dog stimulates elimination. Around 2 to 3 weeks, elimination becomes spontaneous on the part of the puppy, and very soon after, the puppy will leave the bedding area to eliminate. By 8 weeks, the puppy will have developed substrate preferences for elimination. This is why it is so hard to house train a mill or pet store puppy; he has literally learned to pee where ever he is at the moment.

Fear Periods Multiple, but first one 7 to 12 weeks
This is probably where the biggest variation between puppies occurs. Although puppies will go through several fear periods- defined as a time when the puppy is especially sensitive to bad experiences- they vary in timing and number. Dehasse argues that the first fear period begins when the socialization period ends; around 12 weeks. The Coppingers, on the other hand, suggest that the first fear period starts around 7 weeks.

 The owner's job during this time, whenever it happens, is to prevent or minimize bad experiences as much as possible. Bad experiences tend to be traumatic at this time and has a lifelong impact on behavior. There is at least one more fear period (and sometimes more than one) between 6 and 14 months, which roughly correlates with puberty.

Hierarchy and Status Development, 3 to 4 months
Bennett and Briggs were the only ones to label this as a separate developmental period, although Dehasse did allude to it. During this time, dogs start to figure out who they are in relation to other dogs. They also begin teething during this time as their incisors come in.

Flight Instinct or Exploration Period, 4 to 8 months
Puppy develops some independence during this period. He changes from the sweet shadow that follows you everywhere to no longer needing the immediate protection of his owner. This manifests itself as a desire to explore territory, and he will venture further and further away. This is the period where dogs begin to “blow off” their recall cues and find being chased a grand game!

Puberty, 6 to 12 months
During this time, pups begin to figure out all things sexual. An unspayed female will go into heat for the first time around now. Dogs will also begin to show wariness of the unknown. Dehasse says this isn't so much a behavioral fear as it is a cognitive process.

Social Maturity, 1 to 3 years
Social maturity very much depends on the breed, with smaller dogs tending to enter social maturity before bigger dogs. During this time, we see the effects of the earlier periods, and especially the results of our socialization efforts (or lack thereof) and experiences during the fear periods. This means it's when reactivity or aggression tends to rear its ugly head.

Kathy Sdao Seminar: 10 Ways to Get Behavior

As presented by Kathy Sdao.

Picture is unrelated. But beautiful!

1. Physical Pressure

Also known as “molding,” this method involves the trainer physically putting the dog into the position you want. To do this, the dog needs to yield to your action. Although this method can work (it’s how I taught Maisy to shake/give me her paw, and how many people teach sit), it does require a cooperative animal. Since the dog is passively allowing the behavior to happen, it can be tricky to get the dog to understand that he needs to offer the behavior.

2. Prompting

Similar to using physical pressure, in this method, the trainer elicits the response by doing something that prompts the dog to take action. For example, if you walk towards a dog that is facing you, he is likely to step backwards. This is a common way to teach the dog to back up. This tends to be used mostly with reflexive instincts.

3. Luring

Kathy actually listed this as 2b because it is a subset of prompting. In luring, we prompt the dog to do a behavior by using food to get the dog to do what we want. Although it is widely used among positive trainers, the dog is acting more passively than some people would want.

4. Targeting

This requires the animal to place a body part against an item. This does require some pre-teaching so that the dog understands what he’s supposed to do when the target item is presented, but once the dog has learned that, it can be used to elicit a variety of behaviors. It can be used in a similar way to luring, although it doesn’t have to be. It’s a great technique for people who want the dog to be an active participant because the dog has to think through the options and make choices.

5. Capturing

In capturing, the trainer can be quite lazy. Instead of figuring out how to elicit a behavior, the trainer simply watches for what she wants and then rewards it. This makes capturing great for behaviors that are already in the dog’s repertoire and that he’s likely to do (such as sitting or lying down). Capturing doesn’t work for behaviors the dog doesn’t innately do.

6. Shaping

This is what many people think of when they think of “clicker training.” In shaping, we allow the dog to offer behaviors and then click/reward small steps towards the goal behavior. It requires the dog to be an active participant in his training, and can often result in very creative behaviors.

7. Classical Conditioning

First discovered and studied by Pavlov, classical conditioning is a method of getting behavior that relies on creating associations between two things to create automatic responses. In Pavlov’s case, he could get the behavior of drooling by ringing a bell. Classical conditioning is used most often in behavior modification, but can also be used for developing strong recalls.

8. Removal of Inhibitors

If something is preventing a dog from performing a behavior, removing that thing will often allow you to get the behavior. Often, the thing that is inhibiting the behavior is something scary, so this is really about allowing the dog to feel safe enough to perform.

9. Modeling or Mimicry

This method of getting behavior involves demonstrating what you want, and then having the dog copy what you’re doing. Although it is possible for dogs to do this, they are not naturally good at it. It’s really more useful for primates.

10. Verbal Instructions

This one isn’t used for animals at all as it requires a shared understanding of verbal language. In other words, it’s only for humans, and only for those who speak and understand the same language! Still, it is a way to get behavior, so I’ve included it here!

CPDT Study Session #3: Important or Not?

Last weekend, I read Excelerated Learning by Pam Reid. As a side note, this was the first book I ever read on dog training, and it took me two months to get through it… and even then, I didn’t understand much of it. This time around, it took less than two days, and most of it was review.

But there was one section that I found very enlightening (and which I cross referenced against several other books): the processes of habituation, adaptation, and sensitization. Each of these is a way that a dog determines whether or not something is important or not, and how to respond.

Habituation happens when a dog “gets used to” something. Typically, the stimulus they get used to is something that initially causes either a startle or orienting response (“Woah, what’s that?”) but not outright fear. Through repeated exposure, the dog learns that the stimulus is not important and quits reacting to it.

The author gave the example of dropping your keys on the kitchen floor; the loud noise would likely cause your dog to jump or whip around to look at what just happened. If you were to drop your keys every thirty seconds, your dog might realize that nothing bad happens to him, and so the noise has no significance. This is habituation.

Habituation is prone to spontaneous recovery. That is, if your dog habituates to the sound of dropping keys on Monday, but then you don’t drop them again until Friday, chances are pretty good that he would startle or look for the source of the sound again.

Learned irrelevance is similar to habituation. When a dog has learned that something is irrelevant, he doesn’t react to it. However, unlike habituation, the stimulus originally caused little (if any) reaction. This means that stimuli that have been subjected to learned irrelevance are not susceptible to spontaneous recovery. The most common example of this is a dog learning that cue words have no consequence or meaning because they’ve been introduced so poorly or repeated so often.

Although adaptation is often used interchangeably with sensitization, they are not the same thing. I have a decent collection of books on dog training and ethology, and even so, only this book and Ken Ramirez’s book on animal training distinguished between the two.

Adaptation does not involve learning (as habituation does). Instead, it is a physical process in which the sensory neurons get overloaded. For example, people who smoke typically don’t notice the smell that clings to them while non-smokers notice it right away. This is because the smokers have adapted to the smell.

The opposite of habituation is sensitization. Instead of getting used to something, the dog’s reaction to the stimulus becomes stronger. Using the example of the keys, if a dog is becoming sensitized to them, each subsequent time you drop them, he will go startling to more intense reactions like barking or running away.

This is part of why expecting a dog to “just get over” something can backfire; instead of teaching them the stimulus is nothing to worry about, they get worse. Stimuli that elicit strong emotional responses tend to sensitize. The problem, of course, is that you don’t always know when something will do this. If your dog was a rescue, and if his previous owners threw keys at him to punish him, he might have a strong response to that and sensitize to it.

Of course, it may have nothing to do with a previous experience; anxious dogs are likely predisposed to sensitization instead of habituation. The author notes that sensitized dogs tend to over-react to many things, and often this is a very generalized response instead of stimulus-specific.

Finally, since we’re talking about the idea of “just get over it,” a discussion on flooding is worthwhile. Also known as response prevention, flooding is an extinction procedure in which the dog is forced to be around a stimulus the startles or scares it. Because the dog is prevented from escaping an uncomfortable stimulus, they often get worse; being trapped is scary.

This isn’t to say that flooding never works- it can- but the author states that it only works if the dog becomes exhausted and unable to respond. Personally, I am so not interested in doing that to my dog, but even if was willing to do it, the risk of learned helplessness is too great.

Learned helplessness happens when a dog is subjected to aversive stimuli that has nothing to do with his behavior, his behavior has no effect in preventing or stopping it, and he’s unable to escape. Dogs who develop learned helplessness become shut down and “just take it.”

And that’s your quick crash course on what happens when a dog decides if something is important (or not). Anyone else out there read Excelerated Learning? What was the biggest thing you took away from it?