dog-human relationship

Communication Goes Two Ways

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , , , , , ,

An entire industry, dog training, is dedicated to teaching dogs to understand what we want. Even dog owners who don’t go to training classes or hire private trainers spend a lot of time trying to communicate to their dogs (and often being frustrated at their apparent failures). Literally hundreds of books offer tips for teaching dogs to understand what we tell them.
What about helping us understand what our dogs are saying?
Our dogs are excellent communicators. Even the ones who don’t seem all that smart because they never do what their moms and dads ask probably are reading Mom, Dad, and all other humans better than any human ever could. Those dogs are also, most likely, using their whole bodies, putting heart and soul into trying to tell those very humans what they need, want, and feel.
We’re just very poor listeners.
Dogs use their tails, their ears, their hackles, their voices to communicate. A slight lift of a lip tells a story, as do exposed teeth, a lowered head, a low, slow tail wag. Each bark, yip, and growl has a different meaning. All dog owners should strive for a general understanding of what dogs in general say with their bodies.
The most important place to start, I think, is recognizing when a dog is uncomfortable, stressed, or afraid. Since some of the body language can look similar to friendly or happy dog body language, many people miss important signs.
For example, that wagging tail. It means a happy dog, right? Not always. Dogs’ tail wags are very nuanced. A tail held high and wagged fast generally means an excited or happy dog, but a lower, slower wag can be a sign of apprehension or discomfort. If the tail is stiff, or the tail is moving slowly and the rest of the dog’s body is stiff, you are not looking at a happy dog.

Cali relaxed

“Smiling dogs” are another area of confusion. If the dog’s lips are pulled back in what looks like a smile, and her eyes are soft and her tail is wagging loosely, she’s happy. But if the eyes are hard or are darting between you and someone or something else or the hackles are up, you are more likely looking at a stress smile. That dog is scared or stressed.
Take a look at these photos of Cali (when she was a much younger puppy). The right-hand photo shows her with soft eyes, and her mouth is relaxed. She looks soft. Happy. But the photo on the left (below) shows stress. Her eyes are hard and scared. Her mouth is more rigid.

Cali stress

Other signs of stress? Sweaty paws, furrowed brow, ears plastered back against the head, repeated lip licking or yawning, tail low or tucked, stiff posture, and panting. Many dogs will refuse treats in a stressful situation. Watch for avoidance behaviors: Some will sniff the ground when faced with a strange dog or even try to walk away.
A general understanding of what dogs’ body language means is important for anyone who spends time around dogs. But it’s even more valuable to invest some effort in learning your own dog’s body language and vocal vocabulary. What are her stress signs? How does she show you affection, share joy, express empathy? Learning her cues will strengthen your relationship.
Then, you can take the next step and start giving your dog ways to ask for what she needs!

Hide and (Don’t) Seek

Pam Hogle Stories, The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , , , ,
Albee sleeps_small
Alberta sleeps — or pretends to?

My last post, Hide and Seek, talked about how Cali hides when she is avoiding something, such as having her teeth brushed. This week, I encountered an example of hiding that has a different purpose — and shows some high-level, and rather devious, thinking.
We were visiting at a home where there is a resident cat. Early one morning, the cat’s mom got up, gave the cat his breakfast in a plastic bowl, placed on the floor. Cat and mom then wandered away. Alberta, who had been sleeping on blankets next to the bed, noticed the cat and mom as they passed by into another room and closed the door. Very quietly, which took some effort, as she had several jangly tags on her collar, Alberta slipped out of the bedroom. Minutes later, without waking Deni, she slipped back in and either went back to sleep or did a stellar job of faking it. None of the three people in the house had any idea that she had slipped out of the bedroom or back in.
Later that morning, cat-mom asked us whether we’d seen the cat’s food bowl, which she had last seen at 5:30 a.m., still filled with kibble. Nope. We looked high and low. We looked in closets, cupboards, even the refrigerator, the bathrooms, and the garage. Nope, nope, and nope. Cat-mom wondered whether she really had fed the cat. Was she losing her marbles? Regardless, the bowl itself had disappeared.
Several hours later, walking through the bedroom, I noticed the edge of a plastic bowl under the bed, right near Alberta’s dog bed. Hmmm. Bending over, I reached waaayyy under the bed … and pulled out the cat’s (now empty) bowl.
Our best guess is that Alberta snuck out to eat the cat’s food and then, as is her habit, picked up the bowl and headed toward Deni to hand it over for an after-meal treat. Somewhere along the way, she must have remembered that she wasn’t supposed to let anyone know that she’d stolen the cat’s breakfast. Was she deliberately hiding the bowl? Had that been her plan all along? Or did she only think of it once she got back and saw Deni sleeping? At what point did she realize her error?
Her extreme stealth tells us that she knew she was doing something wrong; the distance the bowl was shoved under the bed indicates the same. If Alberta needs to go outside or decides that breakfast is long overdue before Deni wakes up, she noses Deni and whines until Deni responds. When Alberta picks up her bowl after a legitimate meal, she usually dances around, makes noise, doing whatever it takes to get Deni’s attention — because she is eager to collect her dessert (a cookie for returning the bowl). That she did not do this, and did not leave the bowl where anyone could see it, indicates deliberate hiding.
There’s a whole lot of higher-level thinking going on in her mind — all put to work for devious purposes. Alberta is showing multilayered understanding of a situation: knowledge that she can work a situation to her advantage (steal the food while cat and humans are sleeping or otherwise occupied) and hide the evidence where humans can’t see it.
Despite her impeccable breeding and fancy education, and regardless of her usual angelic behavior, what we learn here is that Alberta is also still a true Labrador — primarily a food-seeking missile. We also see that, whatever we teach our dogs and however we nurture their intelligence and try to shape it in ways that we want, each dog is still an individual who can put that intelligence to work in the ways that best serve her own interests.

Hide and Seek

Pam Hogle Stories, The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , ,

hiding

Every evening, as we get ready for bed, I call the dogs to brush their teeth. Jana runs right over, ever the good dog (and ever the dog who can sense a cookie opportunity). Cali used to run over. In fact, as a small puppy, she would often ask to have her teeth brushed, going over to the shelf where the dog toothbrush was kept and nosing it, touching my hand and then walking back over to it.
Those days are gone.
Now, her ritual is to hide. First, she heads into the bedroom. When I finish Jana’s teeth and call Cali, she walks toward me, but then she hides behind the bathroom door. She’s less than a foot away from me, and when I call her again, she comes over. But she always goes through this hiding routine. She does it when I need to clean her ears or trim her nails, too.
She could really hide. She could squeeze under the bed or hide in the closet. She doesn’t. She knows (I think) that I can see her. She’s not trying very hard to avoid the inevitable. She’s not refusing to cooperate. She’s simply registering her discontent. I don’t want to do this, she’s telling me, but I will, if I have to. And I will eagerly accept a cookie afterward.
What does all of this mean? I think it shows a pretty high level of communication. Cali is sure of what she wants, and does not want, to do. She knows, too, that we follow a routine and that she has to undergo some grooming, like it or not. She has figured out that hiding lets me know how she feels.
But it also shows her cognitive development in another way. Hiding, and understanding that she and I both know to look for something hidden (rather than assume it is gone forever) is part of understanding object permanence. It’s part of developing consciousness of the world around you and your place in it and in relation to others.
I have seen very young puppies show a grasp of object permanence: I once watched 8-week-old puppies playing with an agility tunnel. One ran in, and another ran to the other end of the tunnel to wait for her sister. That showed that the puppy knew that the “missing” puppy was simply temporarily out of sight and would reappear. She even knew where the puppy would reappear.
By the way, babies begin to grasp this concept at about 8 months, and, at about a year, can retrieve an item if they see it being hidden. Those 8-week-old puppies are leap years ahead of the typical baby.
So it’s no surprise that Cali understands object permanence. What I find fascinating, though, is how she uses it to communicate with me.

I Mean It!

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , ,
Cali looking2_side
Are you talking to me?

In my last blog post, Are You Talking to Me?, I said that dogs can tell when we are talking to them and when we really expect their response. They can tell when they can safely ignore us, even when they know that we are talking to them. They read our tone of voice, body language, and many other cues, most of which we are oblivious to.
So, how can we get those smart, calculating dogs to listen?
First, practice an “I mean it” tone. This can be a stern tone practiced in training class or at home; it can simply be a way of addressing your dog where you make it clear that you are completely focused on him — facing him, looking straight at him.
Fortunately, it can also be that note of fear or panic that creeps into your voice when your dog wanders too close to the street or shows too much curiosity about the ray hovering in the water just beyond her nose. In these instances, thankfully, even dogs with relatively poor recall skills will usually respond, coming to you and away from the danger.
Then, add an “emergency cue.” Practicing an “emergency recall” cue, as explained by a very dog-savvy friend, is a great way to build and maintain good listening skills in your dog: Choose a phrase, such as “right now,” and practice it with your recall cue (usually “come” or “come here”) and really, really excellent treats. Remember — your dog gets to decide what counts as a truly excellent treat.
Practice often. Use different tones of voice when you call. Surprise the dog, calling her when you are in some remote corner of the house or yard.
Soon, whenever your dog hears that cue — “Come here right now!” — regardless of tone of voice, she will know that top-quality treats are being dispensed, but only to the quickly responding dog! If you choose the right reward, you’ll see a blur of racing fur when you issue the cue. To get an even faster response, reward only the dog who arrives first, or, if you have only one dog, count to three (or five, or ten, if you have an old or slow dog), and only reward arrivals that beat the countdown clock.
I admit that I have been lazy about practicing this cue lately. Even so, when I add “right now” to a cue, any cue, I get a much-improved response. The association between “right now” and good treats is indelibly inked on Jana’s and Cali’s minds.
That’s partly due to lots of practice when Cali was little. It’s partly due to the fact that I have some really good treats hidden away. But it’s also due to the strength of our relationship — I spend a lot of time with Cali and Jana, and they can read me really well. They definitely know when they have to listen — and when they can push the boundaries a bit.

Are You Talking to Me?

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , ,
Mom's not paying attention!
Mom’s not paying attention!

How does your dog know that you are talking to him rather than about him? At a friend’s recent presentation on service dogs, she was asked a great question by a member of the audience: How does your dog know when you are talking to him instead of using “command words” in a different context? For example, as both the speaker and I learned service dog training at the same University, our cue for urging a dog to toilet is “better hurry.” But this phrase, along with sit, stand, look, get it, and myriad others, are used while chatting with our friends, as well as being directives for our dogs.
My friend’s response is that not only do dogs know when we are talking directly to them. They also know when we really mean what we say. Several research teams have studied dogs’ ability to know when we are paying attention to them and whether they recognize when verbal communication is intended for them. Other studies have tested dogs’ ability to recognize non-verbal communication, such as pointing to something, or simply looking at something, that is intended for them. The results of many studies show that dogs do, indeed, know when we are talking to them.
None of this is news to a dog owner who has experienced the instant transformation of a peacefully napping dog into the canine equivalent of a hyperactive toddler who has consumed too much sugar — the instant that the owner picks up the phone.
How do our dogs know that we are talking to them rather than about them? Dogs pay attention to everything we do (I suspect that they pay attention even when we are sound asleep). They read our body language, watch our eyes, and recognize the difference between our use of “sit” as an instruction and our use of “sit” in conversation. They train every sense in our direction to see if we are seeking connection. They read our moods, anticipate our actions, and, yes, know whether we are paying attention to them or are distracted.
What does this mean for your relationship with your thinking dog? Well, think about a conversation you’ve had with someone about your latest personal crisis or sought a trusted friend’s advice, only to have her answer her cell phone while you are mid-sentence. Or you’re on the phone with your friend and you keep overhearing her conversation with someone else (or her dogs). You probably feel ignored or frustrated.
Our dogs, too, want connection. They deserve our attention and focus sometimes: Truly look at your dog, watch his body language. Try to understand what he is telling you. Our dogs spend much of their time giving us that kind of attention; they deserve a chunk of our time in return.
How? Make their walks or playtime all about them. No phones. No turning them loose at the dog park and turning your back to chat with another owner. Figure out how your dog likes to be petted, and give him the kind of attention he wants, not distracted stroking while you are focused on a book you are reading or a TV show.

Is Your Dog Smarter Than A …

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , , , , ,

Is your dog as smart as a human 2-year-old? A 5-year-old? A (gasp) teenager? Does it depend on what breed your dog is?
We can’t help it, we humans. We want to put everything into neat little human-constructed boxes. That is, I think, what is going on when people try to define dogs’ (or other non-humans’) intelligence in human terms. That and the common, if arrogant, human assumption that we are the smartest creatures, so everyone else — dolphins, dogs, starfish — can and should be evaluated, based in how they compare with us in human-like ways.
But really, how many human 2-year-olds would you trust to guide you across a busy street? Or turn loose in the wreckage of a natural disaster or terror site, with the expectation that the little tyke would let you know where the survivors are trapped? We use dogs to find lost 2-year-olds, don’t we? And protect them (and other humans) from diabetic coma or severe peanut allergies, warn of their impending seizures, coax those who have autism or have suffered trauma to connect — and so, so much more.
The basis for comparison is obviously flawed. Dogs are much like human toddlers in many ways, it’s true — their unbounded love of play; their sweet willingness to befriend just about anyone. Yet they are so much better at some things than any child could ever be — better at some things, such as anything based on scent, than any human of any age could ever be.
So, how should we measure, evaluate, understand canine intelligence?
We can start by acknowledging that intelligence is a complicated concept — there are many types of intelligence. Among people for example, there is social intelligence or emotional intelligence, there is numerical or problem-solving or analytical intelligence. Business acumen, logic, performing well under extreme stress — all of these might be considered different skill areas or types of intelligence. Intelligence is what helps you (or your dog) navigate life, with all the challenges and detours it throws in your path. We are all stronger in some areas, weak or ridiculously incompetent in others. The same is true of dogs.
We can also think about the skills that dogs have that have no parallel in human ability or intelligence — and the myriad ways we can help dogs develop and use those skills in partnerships that make life better for humans and dogs.
Some dogs excel at reading people’s body language. According to several prominent dog cognition researchers, among them superstars Brian Hare and Adam Miklosi, dogs — even very young puppies — excel at reading humans’ pointing gestures and where their humans gaze. This is a type of social intelligence. I am sure that many, many dogs excel at this. However, not all dogs do. I know. I live with one who fails miserably at reading gestures.
Other dogs (including the one who cannot follow a pointing finger to save her life), can intuit a person’s mood and provide exactly what is needed: comfort, humor, affection, appeasement, a favorite toy.
Still other dogs are great problem-solvers. They analyze each new situation and map out a solution.
Some dogs are born to … fill in the blank: Provide mobility assistance, search out bombs or drugs, find lost or hurt people, detect tumors, comfort lonely elderly people, make children laugh.
I don’t think it matters whether your dog is smarter than a toddler. I don’t think it is a fair or relevant comparison. What does matter is assessing each dog’s strengths and weaknesses, his or her specific areas of intelligence. Then, we can figure out how to stimulate and challenge each dog in the ways that will allow him or her to succeed, thrive, and enjoy life to the fullest.

Alberta’s Marshmallow Test

Pam Hogle Stories, The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , , , , , , ,

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In the 1970s, a psychologist tested the self-restraint of preschool children. Each child was offered a marshmallow. The children were told that they would get two marshmallows if they could delay eating the treat, and then left alone in a room for fifteen minutes. The researcher recorded what happened. The efforts of some children to stare down the treat or to distract themselves from it are both comical and painful to watch. Of course, some children inhaled the treat as soon as the researcher left the room. A recent book (The Marshmallow Test) describes this experiment and the follow-up studies of those children. The marshmallow test and other research on the ability to delay gratification shows that those who can exercise self-control in the face of temptation have better “life outcomes,” as measured by a variety of criteria, including SAT scores, social and cognitive functioning, long-term health, and retirement planning.

What does all of this have to do with thinking dogs?
Alberta experienced her own version of the marshmallow test recently. To say that Alberta loves treats is a bit like saying that I love chocolate. Alberta not only loves treats, she is not terribly fussy about which treats she gets. For sure, there are better treats, for example this bison and beef jerky concoction that I get at Costco and that, for some reason, Jana, Cali, and Alberta will do anything for. But ordinary, boring biscuits are fine too, and they are happily accepted as rewards for a job well done.

In her guide dog work, Alberta comes across many items that fit this dog’s definition of “treat,” and she works very hard to resist bits of food that just happen to be lying on the floor.
Alberta is justifiably proud of her hard-earned restraint, but more importantly, she wants Deni to know. So, in the course of a day’s work, if Alberta sees food on the floor and gives it a wide berth, she also nudges Deni to make sure that Deni knows just how good she is being. She pushes Deni hard with her nose, hoping that Deni will notice the ignored object. She often nudges Deni right near the pocket where Deni keeps the dog treats, just in case Deni might want to reward this extraordinary show of restraint. A girl can hope, can’t she?

Alberta knows the rule that she can’t grab food off the ground when she’s working. She wants to believe that that rule does not apply when she’s off-duty (her harness is off). She also knows that, even while working, she’s allowed to take treats that Deni hands her for particularly notable service. But she recently encountered a situation that blurred these lines a bit, a marshmallow test for dogs. Her reaction was remarkable.
Guiding Deni down a street in Saugatuck, Michigan, Alberta (along with her entourage of two other human family members) passed by a store that not only had a full doggy water bowl sitting by the sidewalk, but also a full bowl of doggy cookies. Just sitting there for the taking. An open invitation. Irresistible.
Or not.
Alberta headed for the water, took a drink, noticed the cookie bowl and … stopped dead. Confused. She looked at the biscuits. Looked at Deni. Furrowed her brow. Looked longingly at the treats. But she did not touch the treats.
We’d all stopped to watch the unfolding marshmallow-like drama. Alberta really wanted to gobble up as many of those dog cookies as she could. But she did not take one. She did, however, look at every one of us to make sure that we all knew how good she was being. Deni rewarded her by picking up a few biscuits from the bowl and handing them to Alberta.
Watching the interaction, I got to thinking. Most dogs who walk by this shop are not trained service dogs. Though many, like Jana and Cali, have had some training and certainly know that they are not supposed to just devour everything in sight, they don’t always have the restraint to follow through. Having more than once found myself alone with a new box of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups, I can relate.
I wondered how often a doggy passerby just digs in and eats all the cookies in the bowl. How many battles between hungry hounds and their hapless handlers has the shop owner witnessed? Does the handler ever win? And really, what was that shop owner thinking?

But back to Alberta. In need of photos for this blog post, I asked Deni to re-create Alberta’s marshmallow test. The photo gallery (presented in order) at the top of this blog post shows that, like the successful children in the original marshmallow test, Alberta devised a series of ways to distract herself. Some of the children looked away, as Alberta did. Some sang songs or recited the alphabet. Alberta did neither of these. Some children closed their eyes. Upon realizing that, even after she had turned away, the bowl of biscuits was still there, Alberta closed her eyes.

Alberta has not only learned to resist random bits of food on cafeteria floors, sidewalks, and the like, but there she was, on that Michigan sidewalk and again in Deni’s office, passing up food that was obviously meant for dogs, placed there for her enjoyment. This shows us that dogs are able to do some high-level thinking and processing.

If Alberta were purely instinct-driven, that bowl would have been emptied in seconds flat. If she were operating only out of fear of punishment or hope of reward, she might have surreptitiously sneaked a mouthful of biscuits before Deni noticed, just to see if she could get away with it — and been rewarded by the treat, even if she got scolded after. But she went beyond a gut-instinct response and even beyond the basic (low) level of moral development that governs much of human and animal behavior. She paused, checked in with Deni, and did the right thing — even though she really wanted those cookies. We’re eagerly looking forward to seeing Alberta’s SAT scores and are consulting her for retirement advice. But in my next post, I will describe more practical ways we can apply the doggy marshmallow test to our relationships with our dogs.

Ready to Rally?

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , , ,
Alberta accepts her ribbons after earning her Rally Excellent title
Alberta accepts her ribbons after earning her Rally Excellent title. Deni and Alberta are the first guide dog team to earn an Excellent title. They have already two of ten needed “legs” toward their Rally Advanced Excellent title. 

I’ve watched both formal Obedience competitions and Rally-O (or Rally Obedience) competitions, and the difference is as stark as the difference between traditional training and cognitive education.
Both have the same goal: demonstrating a dog’s ability and willingness to follow specific commands when cued by the handler. They use similar sets of commands. Competitors are scored based on the preciseness of the dog’s response, the accuracy in completing the set of commands presented, and the time it takes to accomplish each task. Above the novice level, dogs compete off-lead. Dog-and-handler teams can earn titles in both kinds of competition.
That’s about where the similarity ends.
Rally is variable. The course is different in every round. The judge sets up the course within an hour of the competition; which exercises are included and in what order is a surprise for handlers and dogs. Formal obedience competitions, on the other hand, follow a set pattern of exercises at every level of competition. Experienced dogs and handlers could run the pattern in their sleep.
While competing, Rally handlers talk to, praise, and encourage their dogs. In the lower levels, the handler can use targeting and clapping or even touch the dog! Formal Obedience handlers cannot interact with their dogs other than to issue each cue, verbally or through hand signal, once.
To my (very biased) way of thinking, Obedience competition is all about showing the dog who’s boss (hint: it’s not the dog). Rally is about relationship and having fun. I strongly favor anything that builds relationship between dogs and their humans. Rally acknowledges the uniqueness of how each handler and dog interact as a team. Rally allows each team to excel in its own way.
The differences between Rally and Obedience underscore the differences in traditional vs. cognitive approaches to teaching dogs. If all you care about is getting an instant, precise response to a command, traditional obedience will do it for you. But that approach limits what you can accomplish with your dog and defines your relationship inside very narrow parameters.
Expecting precise, predetermined, responses to every cue essentially forbids your dog from thinking. There is a single correct response to each cue. Any other response results in punishment or lack of reward. The dog is not allowed to think about how to respond. Nor can the dog think of a better way to respond. When a dog schooled in this way confronts a situation that is slightly different from the training scenario, that dog will not know what to do. If the precise, rehearsed response is not possible or ineffective, the dog faces certain failure.
On the other hand, a dog who is taught with a cognitive approach will be able to figure out how to apply his or her learning in a variety of situations.
Here’s an example. Let’s say there are two dogs who have been taught to retrieve as part of their education. The obedience trainer, focused on the next competition, polishes his dog’s retrieve. The dog can flawlessly follow instructions to watch where the dumbbell was thrown over a jump, go out over the jump (even if a bad throw makes this the least efficient way of reaching the dumbbell), and bring it back, jumping over an obstacle on the way back. Perfect every time.
The cognitive trainer also teaches retrieve, but in a more jumbled way. Sometimes the dog retrieves a dumbbell. Sometimes it is the newspaper on the front porch. As training progresses, a set of keys, a cellphone, a pair of glasses, a spoon, a pen, a bottle of water are added. Sometimes the dog can see the item; sometimes the dog must search for it. Sometimes, it is an item that the handler has dropped. Sometimes it is the pair of slippers in the other room. The dog trained cognitively to retrieve has learned to follow her handler’s point, gaze or verbal cue for the item that needs to be retrieved.
Which of these dogs is more likely to fetch your keys if you drop them and they bounce, landing under your car? Which will find your cellphone when you fall and need help?
The dog who is trained only to produce a rote response will freeze when the dumbbell is not where he expects it to be or the judge produces a leather dumbbell when he has only practiced with a wooden one. This dog knows the retrieve as a patterned set of responses: sit, stay, go out, come back, sit in front holding the dumbbell, release, finish to a heel position.
This is different from understanding the reason behind a retrieve.
The dog who is trained to think about the retrieve as a practical skill, figure out the goal, and find a solution — the cognitive dog — will size up the situation and, chances are, do what needs to be done, even when it is not expected. I know more than one dog who has taught himself an “automatic retrieve,” picking up anything the handler drops, as a result of this style of retrieve training. Dogs who are allowed to freelance by adding variations to the task based on understanding the goal, will do so. This can come in handy when the handler unknowingly drops important material — like money.
Cognitive education enhances communication between dog and humans.

You Need a Large Toolbox

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , , ,

I met a wonderful family recently. They are puppy raisers for a guide dog school in the Northeast (one of the best assistance dog organizations that I am familiar with, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, in Yorktown Heights, NY). They told me a story that perfectly illustrates the importance of knowing and treating each dog as an individual.
The ability to lie still and just hang out is a crucial skill for service and guide dogs in particular, but, really, all dogs need to learn to do this. After all, we humans can rarely provide 24/7 entertainment and fun. Even if we could, this would be over-stimulating for the dog. Dogs need to learn how to calm themselves and just chill out.
These puppy raisers said that the way they had originally learned to teach dogs the importance of just being still (often using a cue like “settle”) was to give the dog food treats as rewards for lying quietly near them. For many dogs, this works well — the dog can initially be rewarded simply for lying down (when working on a strong “down”), and, very gradually, the rewards can be delayed until the dog has remained quiet for a few seconds, then 10 seconds, 15, etc. When the dog is able to relax in place for longer times, intermittent treats, with the interval getting longer, can reinforce this behavior and convince the dog that just lying there really isn’t so bad.
What was wrong with this approach? For many dogs, nothing. Then there were those extremely food-focused dogs. Funny how many of those are Labs and goldens — the very dogs that service and guide organizations use the most. Some of these dogs, it seems, would take to asking for food. The more independent ones would cut out the middleman entirely and start looking for dropped crumbs on the ground. These behaviors are annoying in any dog, but particularly unacceptable in a dog who works in public. These dogs need to learn to ignore tempting morsels in restaurants, supermarkets, and other places where there could be food on the floor.
So, the trainers came up with a solution: Reward the dog for lying quietly with a very gentle stroke along the dog’s back. Not active petting or interaction; simply a single, gentle, calming stroke. Again, for many dogs, this is indeed a desirable reward and something that will even deepen the calm, relaxed state the dog is in.
Then there are all of those other dogs. The ones that get wildly excited at the slightest stimulation. Even reaching toward these pups to stroke them is likely to be read as an invitation — and is more likely to elicit a play bow than a calm, relaxed dog. Or the dogs who regard touch as an invitation to cuddle or the ones who roll on their backs to solicit a belly-rub at the slightest hint that a hand is near. And don’t forget our analytical canines — the ones for whom touch is not rewarding, those whose social styles tend more toward more reserved contemplation of humans than actual up-close-and-physical contact.
You get the picture. This method of rewarding lying still is not going to work for all dogs — any more than food rewards would work for all dogs. That is exactly the point of using a cognitive approach to teaching dogs: Treat each dog as an individual. Starting with that essential principle, we can figure out which dogs to reward with food, which to reward with stroking — and which need something else entirely.
There is no one correct way to teach or reward any particular behavior, as my new friends learned. And individual dogs may respond to different rewards at different times. Applying this knowledge has made them better puppy raisers — and, I am sure, better people.
The methods and rewards are as varied as the dogs (and trainers) are. Be on the lookout for new ideas and ways of teaching or rewarding a dog. Every trainer needs a constantly expanding toolbox of techniques.

Rethinking Obedience

Pam Hogle The Thinking Dog Blog , , , , , ,

IMG_1725“The walls and grids that restrain your animals restrain also your own knowledge.”
— Vicki Hearne
What I call “old-school” dog trainers — those who operate from the assumption that the human has “to be the alpha” in his or her relationship with a dog — don’t, in my opinion, credit dogs with much in the way of cognitive ability.
Some, like the 1920-era European trainer Konrad Most, bluntly state an approach to education that many of us would recoil from today: “In the absence of compulsion, neither human education nor canine training is possible.” Others, like William Koehler (circa 1960s), give rational-sounding advice: “Lay down a set of rules, and see that your dog lives by them.” But the means used to accomplish that goal are harsh and authoritarian.
What these trainers share is an emphasis on punishment over motivation or reward and an expectation that a dog should offer instant, precise obedience to any command given by a human. The expected response is almost robotic in its uniformity and immediacy.
Trainers with these expectations do not believe that dogs can — or should — think or be part of a decision-making process. No, the dog should know who’s boss and, according to Most, “do what we find convenient or useful and refrain from doing what is inconvenient or harmful to us.”
While both Most and Koehler were both enormously influential in the development of dog training, much about their approach is antithetical to the goal of raising a thinking dog.
Demanding instant, precise obedience to all commands in all situations does not allow for the dog to think or process the command in any way. When you expect instant, unquestioning obedience from your dog, you are essentially prohibiting him from thinking. In human relationships, we talk about such expectations this way: “When I say jump; you may ask only, ‘how high?’ ”
To raise a thinking dog, that is, to use a cognitive approach to your dog’s education, you must have expectations that not only allow for but encourage the dog to think and solve problems. The cognitive dog needs to learn, understand, and, ultimately, buy into a shared goal. Expecting unquestioning obedience at every request, mapping out not only the end result but every step the dog must perform to get there does not — cannot — allow dogs to think conceptually about what you are trying to accomplish, learn to solve problems, or offer a different (maybe better!) solution.
Granted, there are situations where an instant response is necessary — if your dog is unthinkingly following a bouncing tennis ball into a street, for example. But developing your dog’s cognitive abilities does not prevent you from also teaching your dog a strong recall and an “emergency recall” cue that, when taught and practiced with the highest-value treats possible, will ensure an automatic response in a true emergency.
There are many ways to lead or manage (or parent). Those of us who want to share our lives with thinking dogs should be wary of dog professionals who talk a lot about alpha roles and hierarchical relationships. Instead, we should look for ways to develop our dogs’ considerable cognitive abilities. Start by figuring out what motivates your dog. Read future blogs for tips on how to do that and more.