Natural Dog Training

[christinepi]

Same here. He's my first dog, so I've got nothing to compare him to other than what I've seen with other breeds and read. It really does take time, I've had him for 2 years, and the bond is still developing, I feel. I'm perfectly fine with a dog who has his own opinions, because I know he's overall totally mellow and pleasant, and he just needs his little freedoms sometimes. He never abuses these freedoms. Overall he seems to be more and more tuned in to me, which feels wonderful (I guess vice versa as well). I've never raised my voice to him or been angry with him.

 

When "pushed", he would probably just fall asleep...

[Guest Greyt_dog_lover]

What I find challenging and rewarding is developing my relationship with my grey. I always had some sort of Lab, Collie or Shepherd mix. They are incredibly easy to train and they almost naturally look to you for structure. My grey is almost 5 years old and he has never had any of that and never developed the human-dog socialization to want to. Nevertheless, with some time, patients and love-- I have been slowly learning his cues. I don’t necessarily train a dog but instead we work out our relationship with each other. I know what he wants and what he is thinking (mostly) and we come to an understanding. As our relationship grows, so will his training.

 

But my theory is/and always has been/ that proper behavior of a dog comes from spending time with the dog as a patient and loving owner. The more you invest-- the faster and better returns you get.

 

So I have NEVER needed the C Milan side kick, or deficit training. It is taking longer with my grey than my previous dogs, but it all works out in the end.

 

 

What I believe you are finding is what greyhounds are - independent hunters. They have been bred for thousands of years to be just that, a free thinking, hunting creature. They have not been bred as typical "human surrogate" dogs. They do have a very strong human-dog socialization as you would understand when visiting any greyhound farm or race track, hence the reason they are typically very accommodating to human touch (such as lifting the tail, inspecting the teeth, etc.). If they didn't have that socialization, they would not allow any of the inspections that happen at the race track to happen.

This is one point that I bring up at nearly every adoption, forget what you "know" about dogs, greyhounds are not like any "dog" you have ever dealt with. Greyhounds have not been bred to please humans on an instinctual level, therefore you have to earn their trust. Without earning their trust, you will not have a relationship with them. Once you earn their trust, they can be trained to do anything any regular dog can do (with the exception of herding, it goes against their sight hound traits). That is the difference between dogs and greyhounds, dogs have to please humans, greyhounds choose to please humans.

 

Chad

Edited March 2, 2012 by Greyt_dog_lover

[Fruitycake]

Dogs are happiest within a frame work and when they know what the rules are and what's expected of them.

 

 

Just an aside here, but isn't the above statement true of everyone? Getting punished for something you don't understand is wrong, or being expected to just know what people want you to do and do it without any indication that it is expected is part of the problem we (in general) have with our dogs. And other people. We probably all know someone who has held a grudge because they had expected something of us at one time and we unfortunately didn't realize it was expected and failed to deliver it. And how does that make us feel, much less a member of another species that doesn't even have a common language?

 

I just wish more humans would realize this in dealing with everyone, human and animal alike.

[NeylasMom]

Dogs are happiest within a frame work and when they know what the rules are and what's expected of them.

 

 

Just an aside here, but isn't the above statement true of everyone? Getting punished for something you don't understand is wrong, or being expected to just know what people want you to do and do it without any indication that it is expected is part of the problem we (in general) have with our dogs. And other people. We probably all know someone who has held a grudge because they had expected something of us at one time and we unfortunately didn't realize it was expected and failed to deliver it. And how does that make us feel, much less a member of another species that doesn't even have a common language?

 

I just wish more humans would realize this in dealing with everyone, human and animal alike.

Very well said. Not to mention that our expectations of our pets are that they do things that are completely unnatural to them and often require them suppressing their natural instincts on a constant basis.

[JJNg]

Again, I'm open to this approach in theory because who knows exactly what's going on in dog's brains and emotions at all times. Sometimes it is just mysterious.

I agree that there are many things in life, especially when it comes to our relationship with other species, that we just don't understand. However, for the most part, when it comes to dog behavior and learning theory, I feel that we actually do have a fairly good understanding. Dogs are one of the species with which humans have shared our lives and history for the longest time. Observation of dog body language and interactions, extrapolation from our own, very similar emotional responses, along with a bit of common sense, usually allow us to get a pretty good picture of our dog's behavior. I also believe that animal communication can sometimes reduce more of the mysterious side, although I know many don't believe in it.

 

I'm very aversive to CM's methods and the whole alpha thing etc etc, no need to start a whole other discussion, but one thing that does amaze me at times is how his presence alone, when he and dog first meet, can really make a dog stop and think. Not saying he's really helping the dog, but rather that there is something there that's being picked up on by the dog that's subtle but strong.

The issue of 'energy' was brought up earlier, and there are many definitions and applications of the term. I dislike most of CM's methods, but one thing I do admire about him is his consistently calm and confident presence, which I believe does affect how dogs respond to him. I don't think there's any doubt that dogs are very sensitive to our moods, and will often feed off of our emotions and energy. Unlike CM, most people approaching a dog acting aggressively, or a dog fight, will be anxious, scared, angry, agitated, etc themselves, and this can actually worsen the situation.

 

Ultimately, I'm just saying who knows what works sometimes and why. But that doesn't mean it might be worth a try. From the looks of it, nobody's tried this on this forum, so maybe I'll just try this myself.

As long as you know your dog, there's no harm in trying. I do believe that methods like this could potentially increase stress and anxiety for some dogs, especially if you do not already have a strong bond and the dog is confused by what you want.

 

Let a dog loose and it will establish a pack and do as it likes (within reason of the pack).

Actually, I'm not sure this is true. Much depends on environment and resources. Dogs do not necessarily has as much natural instinct to form a pack as once thought. Observations of feral populations of dogs around the world often show them as mostly independent scavengers that occasionally form loosely structured, transient packs.

 

The Alpha concept is pretty common in the wild and fairly well established as behavior in our four-legged family's untamed cousins.

Again, while this was once a popular concept, I'm not sure this is necessarily true given more recent information. Increasingly, it seems that the ideas of alpha and dominance are human concepts that people have applied to their (often biased) observations of animal interactions. Here's a good article about this idea as relative to dogs and wolves.

 

Based on what you've written, I do believe that from a practical standpoint, we're on the same page regarding training and our relationship with our hounds. I just choose to not use the concepts of alpha and dominance because there is so much baggage attached to them, and I don't think they are accurate the way most people interpret those terms. For those who believe in building a bond of trust using positive reinforcement, there is no need for those concepts. I believe the role of a parent or mentor is more consistent with what we really mean, and what we should strive to be for our dogs.

 

I'm perfectly fine with a dog who has his own opinions, because I know he's overall totally mellow and pleasant, and he just needs his little freedoms sometimes. He never abuses these freedoms.

I agree, as I believe that dogs have a right to have and express their needs and desires. And when provided with appropriate guidance, allowing a dog to have his own opinions doesn't mean he will misbehave or take advantage of that privilege. This is something that many who get caught up in dominance theory seem to lose sight of - they seem to think that dogs need to be under our complete control, and if we give them any freedom to express themselves, they will try to 'take over'. IMO, this takes away the fun and mutual enrichment that we can acheive by living more naturally with our dogs and listening to and respecting what they have to say.

[christinepi]

Again, I'm open to this approach in theory because who knows exactly what's going on in dog's brains and emotions at all times. Sometimes it is just mysterious.

I agree that there are many things in life, especially when it comes to our relationship with other species, that we just don't understand. However, for the most part, when it comes to dog behavior and learning theory, I feel that we actually do have a fairly good understanding. Dogs are one of the species with which humans have shared our lives and history for the longest time. Observation of dog body language and interactions, extrapolation from our own, very similar emotional responses, along with a bit of common sense, usually allow us to get a pretty good picture of our dog's behavior. I also believe that animal communication can sometimes reduce more of the mysterious side, although I know many don't believe in it.

 

I'm very aversive to CM's methods and the whole alpha thing etc etc, no need to start a whole other discussion, but one thing that does amaze me at times is how his presence alone, when he and dog first meet, can really make a dog stop and think. Not saying he's really helping the dog, but rather that there is something there that's being picked up on by the dog that's subtle but strong.

The issue of 'energy' was brought up earlier, and there are many definitions and applications of the term. I dislike most of CM's methods, but one thing I do admire about him is his consistently calm and confident presence, which I believe does affect how dogs respond to him. I don't think there's any doubt that dogs are very sensitive to our moods, and will often feed off of our emotions and energy. Unlike CM, most people approaching a dog acting aggressively, or a dog fight, will be anxious, scared, angry, agitated, etc themselves, and this can actually worsen the situation.

 

Ultimately, I'm just saying who knows what works sometimes and why. But that doesn't mean it might be worth a try. From the looks of it, nobody's tried this on this forum, so maybe I'll just try this myself.

As long as you know your dog, there's no harm in trying. I do believe that methods like this could potentially increase stress and anxiety for some dogs, especially if you do not already have a strong bond and the dog is confused by what you want.

 

Let a dog loose and it will establish a pack and do as it likes (within reason of the pack).

Actually, I'm not sure this is true. Much depends on environment and resources. Dogs do not necessarily has as much natural instinct to form a pack as once thought. Observations of feral populations of dogs around the world often show them as mostly independent scavengers that occasionally form loosely structured, transient packs.

 

The Alpha concept is pretty common in the wild and fairly well established as behavior in our four-legged family's untamed cousins.

Again, while this was once a popular concept, I'm not sure this is necessarily true given more recent information. Increasingly, it seems that the ideas of alpha and dominance are human concepts that people have applied to their (often biased) observations of animal interactions. Here's a good article about this idea as relative to dogs and wolves.

 

Based on what you've written, I do believe that from a practical standpoint, we're on the same page regarding training and our relationship with our hounds. I just choose to not use the concepts of alpha and dominance because there is so much baggage attached to them, and I don't think they are accurate the way most people interpret those terms. For those who believe in building a bond of trust using positive reinforcement, there is no need for those concepts. I believe the role of a parent or mentor is more consistent with what we really mean, and what we should strive to be for our dogs.

 

I'm perfectly fine with a dog who has his own opinions, because I know he's overall totally mellow and pleasant, and he just needs his little freedoms sometimes. He never abuses these freedoms.

I agree, as I believe that dogs have a right to have and express their needs and desires. And when provided with appropriate guidance, allowing a dog to have his own opinions doesn't mean he will misbehave or take advantage of that privilege. This is something that many who get caught up in dominance theory seem to lose sight of - they seem to think that dogs need to be under our complete control, and if we give them any freedom to express themselves, they will try to 'take over'. IMO, this takes away the fun and mutual enrichment that we can acheive by living more naturally with our dogs and listening to and respecting what they have to say.

 

Well said, all of it!

 

This might be of interest to you, if you haven't come across this one yet, since you seem to be tired of the "dominance" myth, too:

"What is Jewish dog?"--http://www.societyandanimalsforum.org/sa/sa5.1/sax.html

[Guest kevin]

I appreciate your forum taking the time to discuss Natural Dog Training so I am going to take the liberty of explaining the pushing technique a little further for those who may be interested. When I used to train protection and police dogs, I eventually came to the conclusion that the most telling indicator of how reliable a dog’s training would prove to be in a crisis, as well as how emotionally stable a dog would be in a social context, was directly linked to how much resistance generated by the “helper” the dog could overcome in its bite work. It was like a master threshold that was the primary filter of all perception, no matter the stimulus. So if I upped that capacity, then performance under duress and social predictability was increased as a direct result. I began to teach working dogs to crave physical contact, actually pushing against the helper as hard as possible before we even began the bite work. They became less dog aggressive, could perform a hold-at-bay after high speed chase with shots being fired, spit the bad guy out when commanded after a street arrest, and could even discriminate between harmless drunk driver versus serious felon. School demos became a breeze. Eventually I applied the “overcoming of resistance” to family dog obedience training, and then to problem dog solving. It wasn’t that the dog was experiencing something positive, it was that by overcoming resistance, what was once perceived as a negative, was transformed into a positive. The resistance factor determines what a dog is attracted to, not the association per se. This can be likened to how children gain confidence not by avoiding unpleasant things and pursuing pleasurable things, but rather by mastering challenges. So in my view, when a reactive dog sees another dog that triggers him, it’s because the resistance he perceives in the intensity of the dog’s form, manner and body movements, not to mention the novelty of the situation and the surprise factor, exceed its capacity to deal with that degree of resistance/intensity. Therefore, the pushing exercise allows the handler to change this master resistance setting so that the dog feels good when it sees a new dog in a provocative context, rather than feeling tense. It comes to associate that dog with feeling good rather than feeling tense. Through learning to push through resistance offered by its handler, it is simultaneously learning how to overcome tension when dealing with a historical trigger. The strange dog is transformed into a positive because the resistance factor is no longer perceived as overwhelming. There’s more to it than this but this might be the simplest way to explain it in a nutshell. I should also add that it works independent of whether or not a dog is so-called "food motivated." Once the dog associates overcoming resistance with food, he will take food no matter what. Thanks for your consideration.

[NeylasMom]

I appreciate your forum taking the time to discuss Natural Dog Training so I am going to take the liberty of explaining the pushing technique a little further for those who may be interested. When I used to train protection and police dogs, I eventually came to the conclusion that the most telling indicator of how reliable a dog’s training would prove to be in a crisis, as well as how emotionally stable a dog would be in a social context, was directly linked to how much resistance generated by the “helper” the dog could overcome in its bite work. It was like a master threshold that was the primary filter of all perception, no matter the stimulus. So if I upped that capacity, then performance under duress and social predictability was increased as a direct result. I began to teach working dogs to crave physical contact, actually pushing against the helper as hard as possible before we even began the bite work. They became less dog aggressive, could perform a hold-at-bay after high speed chase with shots being fired, spit the bad guy out when commanded after a street arrest, and could even discriminate between harmless drunk driver versus serious felon. School demos became a breeze. Eventually I applied the “overcoming of resistance” to family dog obedience training, and then to problem dog solving. It wasn’t that the dog was experiencing something positive, it was that by overcoming resistance, what was once perceived as a negative, was transformed into a positive. The resistance factor determines what a dog is attracted to, not the association per se. This can be likened to how children gain confidence not by avoiding unpleasant things and pursuing pleasurable things, but rather by mastering challenges. So in my view, when a reactive dog sees another dog that triggers him, it’s because the resistance he perceives in the intensity of the dog’s form, manner and body movements, not to mention the novelty of the situation and the surprise factor, exceed its capacity to deal with that degree of resistance/intensity. Therefore, the pushing exercise allows the handler to change this master resistance setting so that the dog feels good when it sees a new dog in a provocative context, rather than feeling tense. It comes to associate that dog with feeling good rather than feeling tense. Through learning to push through resistance offered by its handler, it is simultaneously learning how to overcome tension when dealing with a historical trigger. The strange dog is transformed into a positive because the resistance factor is no longer perceived as overwhelming. There’s more to it than this but this might be the simplest way to explain it in a nutshell. I should also add that it works independent of whether or not a dog is so-called "food motivated." Once the dog associates overcoming resistance with food, he will take food no matter what. Thanks for your consideration.

I really appreciate that you took the time to post this here. It's interesting to have the context of how the idea developed. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share more details about how the bite work training is done (ie. how the resistance is applied) where you first made this observation. Right now, the translation from overcoming physical resistance to overcoming emotional resistance seems like a stretch to me, but I have virtually no understanding of how police dog training is done and therefore can't completely understand the context. I am intrigued by the idea as at least another tool that could be added to one's toolbox and would love to learn more. Thank you again for posting.

Edited March 4, 2012 by NeylasMom

[Guest kevin]

I appreciate your forum taking the time to discuss Natural Dog Training so I am going to take the liberty of explaining the pushing technique a little further for those who may be interested. When I used to train protection and police dogs, I eventually came to the conclusion that the most telling indicator of how reliable a dog’s training would prove to be in a crisis, as well as how emotionally stable a dog would be in a social context, was directly linked to how much resistance generated by the “helper” the dog could overcome in its bite work. It was like a master threshold that was the primary filter of all perception, no matter the stimulus. So if I upped that capacity, then performance under duress and social predictability was increased as a direct result. I began to teach working dogs to crave physical contact, actually pushing against the helper as hard as possible before we even began the bite work. They became less dog aggressive, could perform a hold-at-bay after high speed chase with shots being fired, spit the bad guy out when commanded after a street arrest, and could even discriminate between harmless drunk driver versus serious felon. School demos became a breeze. Eventually I applied the “overcoming of resistance” to family dog obedience training, and then to problem dog solving. It wasn’t that the dog was experiencing something positive, it was that by overcoming resistance, what was once perceived as a negative, was transformed into a positive. The resistance factor determines what a dog is attracted to, not the association per se. This can be likened to how children gain confidence not by avoiding unpleasant things and pursuing pleasurable things, but rather by mastering challenges. So in my view, when a reactive dog sees another dog that triggers him, it’s because the resistance he perceives in the intensity of the dog’s form, manner and body movements, not to mention the novelty of the situation and the surprise factor, exceed its capacity to deal with that degree of resistance/intensity. Therefore, the pushing exercise allows the handler to change this master resistance setting so that the dog feels good when it sees a new dog in a provocative context, rather than feeling tense. It comes to associate that dog with feeling good rather than feeling tense. Through learning to push through resistance offered by its handler, it is simultaneously learning how to overcome tension when dealing with a historical trigger. The strange dog is transformed into a positive because the resistance factor is no longer perceived as overwhelming. There’s more to it than this but this might be the simplest way to explain it in a nutshell. I should also add that it works independent of whether or not a dog is so-called "food motivated." Once the dog associates overcoming resistance with food, he will take food no matter what. Thanks for your consideration.

I really appreciate that you took the time to post this here. It's interesting to have the context of how the idea developed. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share more details about how the bite work training is done (ie. how the resistance is applied) where you first made this observation. Right now, the translation from overcoming physical resistance to overcoming emotional resistance seems like a stretch to me, but I have virtually no understanding of how police dog training is done and therefore can't completely understand the context. I am intrigued by the idea as at least another tool that could be added to one's toolbox and would love to learn more. Thank you again for posting.

 

I’m glad you’re interested. Generally, the first thing one does in the bite work is excite the young dog’s prey instinct with lots of motion and a swishy, fluffy bite object. Basically motion without resistance. But then as his desire grows, sometimes with frustration, which is a minor form of resistance, the helper begins to play tug and makes it more difficult for the dog to win. Thus the dog gains in confidence. And so one continues to increase the level of resistance, especially in the helper’s body language which goes from soft and fluid to rigid and intense and confrontational. So what I did was realize that for a lot of dogs, they hadn’t really solved the drive-to-make-contact with the helper problem, they were just getting so hyper stimulated in their prey instinct that they were biting and not being particularly aware of what was going on. The problem began to show up when we got into the more complex exercises such as hold-at-bay and the Out exercise, directed searching or if things happened out of the norm. If the dog was hyper stimulated in prey, then he tended to overload when he was in close to the helper and even the handler. So before I got into the bite work training, I started encouraging the dog to jump up on the helper, and the helper would begin to push him away, just below the level that would get the dog agitated. Then to increase the dog’s threshold, I would post the dog up and have the dog jump up on the helper who would push him away more and more vigorously, but now additionally use food so that the dog didn’t collapse into an aggressive impulse. We would push right up to the line, and then little by little increase it. You could literally shoot a blank 12 gage shotgun in his space and he still wanted to push for food. Eventually the dog came to love the contacting in its own right so that when it reached a high level of intensity, the bite sleeve was then brought into play so that the dog was associating biting the sleeve with making full, physical contact with the helper. This made all the control exercises infinitely easier since the dog always felt like pressing in on the handler and was easy to learn self-restraint since his drive to make contact was fully engaged. He wasn’t in any conflict between holding by barking rather than biting because they were on the same continuum of driving to make contact. My main aim was theoretical, I was just trying to improve the dog’s performance in police service, I didn’t expect the ancillary benefits in its social deportment. So I was working protection dogs like this in the eighties, but I didn’t make the leap to the obedience/family dog training until the nineties. Since I was working on building up aggression, it took me a while to grasp that I was manipulating a master threshold setting that could be used to defuse aggression in other contexts. Hope this clarifies.