Quadrants schmadrants

Ah, the quadrants. The source of many, if not the majority of trainer wars on social media. Several months ago, I nearly caused a riot on my Facebook page with these six simple words

“The quadrants are not a thing”.

I had people unfriending me, calling me names (both in front of me and behind my back, adults, grown men and women), threatening to cancel coming to a couple of presentations I was doing the next month. It all got a bit out of hand. The point of the post was yes, to be inflammatory, but not just for the sake of being so. It was to provoke discussion. My position; overuse and over reliance on the term “quadrants” is limiting and fails our dogs.

Let me go back a stage. The following photographs are from a couple of books by two of the best minds in behaviour, Paul Chance and Susan Schneider. I have read both books, refer to them often and continue to digest them. Paul Chance’s book is a behaviour textbook, referred to in Universities (that’s the places where we teach accountants, engineers, doctors etc). Dr Susan Schneider’s book, although not a textbook, was over ten years in the making and has hundreds of citations. These are people we should be learning from.

I have had the pleasure and honour to have learned from Dr Susan G. Friedman on numerous occasions. Another brilliant mind in the field of learning, Dr Friedman’s advice is to learn behaviour from textbooks and then learn how to apply it from skilled technicians. She further advises not to do the bulk of our learning from opinion pieces (like this one, yes, I know). In doing so, we will excel. Dr Friedman has spent over 20 years working with the best animal trainers in the world and applying ABA to hundreds of species of animals.

So, back to the quadrants. The two authors mentioned, these photos are from their books

and

Look carefully. No mention of the term “quadrants”. Now, yes, Chance refers to positive and negative punishment in this index. No, still no mention of quadrants. From the photos, look at the other terms. How often do you ever hear anyone but the most advanced trainers, or trainers learning from them (like me) refer to these other terms? My bet is rarely, if ever. When we limit ourselves to discussion the “quadrants” and that alone, we ignore the whole breadth and depth and richness of behaviour analysis as a field of study and our dogs (and us) suffer for it as a result.

The next time you get involved in one of these car crash discussions on social media, ask if your opposite number knows what the matching law is. Or a discriminative stimulus. And ask if they further know how to apply it. And if you are reading this and don’t know, then I urge you to find out. If we are going in from the cold, are we seeking warmth or to escape the cold or both? If so, the negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement are at play at the same time. Do you know the difference? Is it always both or sometimes can it only be one? Find out, examine it, study it, think about it and discuss it with people who know more than you do.

Concentrating only on 4 possible outcomes of behaviour (while ignoring extinction) and failing to take into consideration antecedents (distant, intermediate and proximal) and the effects of classical conditioning makes us look foolish. We cannot pick and choose the science we like. Yes, aversive training methods like prong collars and shock collars work, that’s why they are used and continue to be used. But they come at a cost and nearly 100 years of research tells us so. If you revel in the use of all 4 quadrants, read a book on the effects of punishment on the individual. B.F. Skinner wrote all this stuff down.  He was also a man who, having researched this stuff, interacted and taught using positive reinforcement as the driving force. How do I know this? Because I have heard it from his daughter, Dr Julie Vargas, who spoke at the WOOF Training and Behaviour Conference this year.

Stop limiting yourself to discussion of graphic which was used to simplify the glorious study of behaviour as a starting point. Do you still want to be at that starting point a year, 2, 5 or 10 years after you started? I know I don’t and I know I’m not.

Love and peace and good training and learning.

Hannah Branigan in Glasgow

The Awesome Hannah Branigan will be in Scotland for the first time (first time in the UK as well) on the 3rd and 4th Aug. There are a few auditor/observer spots left so please don’t leave it until the last minute if you are thinking of booking as I’d hate for you to miss out.

Hannah is the host of the fabulous Drinking From The Toilet Podcast and author of Awesome Obedience

 

This will be an amazing weekend of dog training with a brilliant and entertaining speaker.

https://youtu.be/H5bAny-q9fM

Humility, progress and provocation

DEEP THOUGHTS (not really)

 

As a dog training community, whether online or in person, we have a number of objectives and interests. We have to educate the public and our clients as best we can and provide them with information which they can actually use. There is most likely a way to stay away from scientific jargon without dumbing down the process of training and why we train without corrections.

 

Then we have discussions to make us better ourselves. By having a better understanding of the science of dog training, keeping up to date with new research which comes out, examining whether things we did 5, 10 or 15 years ago are still valid, needs updating or needs thrown in the bin and to build a tribe of like minded individuals who can we can have these discussions with. This is a big ask and each of us are better at some elements than others but other than a few truly unique individuals (Dr Susan Friedman), none of us are better that all of them than everyone else.

 

Sometimes the two objectives above are at odds with each other, and that’s ok, we can continue to improve until they are not.

 

I would much rather spend the time I have available online discussion how to get better at positive, effective, ethical training with my peers, so I can provide better content and better training than to debate whether we should still be using aversive training methods with others. There are other people out there who are more willing and better able to do that than me.

 

Terms and themes which I think need discussing

 

– the need for our dogs to sit for everything

– the need for our dogs to walk on the left hand side

– the use of the terms quadrants, impulse control, arousal, drive and a few others.

 

My journey with the spectacular dog in the photo has made me consider loads of stuff which I thought was gospel. This can only be a good thing. The need for discussion of the list above has been inspired by Logan and many other great human teachers who I have been honoured to have learned and continue to learn from. The list is only my opinion, it is no less or no more valid than anyone else’s.

 

I hope the picture of his nibs made you smile.

 

Peace and love.

Logan – part 32 – May 16th 2019

Interested in Learning Dog Training with me?

 

I am inviting applications to mentor with me starting in 2019.

Email me – info@glasgowdogtrainer.co.uk

I will be covering all aspects of learning, training, dog behaviour and running a successful dog training business.

Open to all levels of experience and to anywhere in the world.

Logan – Part 31 – a curious incident with a welly in the daytime.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about the lad and we have made a lot of headway in the last few months. I’ll do my best to  write about what we’ve been doing when I can.

Last week I was out for a walk with him in the field at the edge of town where I take him for his run. There are very rarely dogs or people around so it gives us a chance to be outside in the fresh air with relatively little stress. As I’ve written previously, the barking was a problem for the first year when we were in open spaces and we occasionally get resurgence of it but those incidences are becoming rarer and rarer.

We had been out for about 30 minutes or so and were heading back to the car when he found an old welly (rubber) boot which someone had discarded. Rubber toys are his addiction and he finds them very difficult to give up and this was no exception. I let him have it for a few minutes and then he started to tear the leg part of the boot from the foot part which took him about 30 seconds. Once he had two pieces, I was able to pick up one of them and then ask him to drop the other one in exchange for the one I had, play a short game of tug with it and them let him have it. I then picked up the “shoe” of the boot and threw it for him after he dropped the piece he had. We continued this for several rounds and then I took him by the harness (he is on a long line), threw the other part away and asked him to come with me. Which he did, after only a few seconds of thought. So, no pulling towards the two pieces of boot, no barking and he was able to come with me. I gave him a few treats, again this is progress as historically when he got into that state he wouldn’t be able to eat, and walked him back to the car.

When we got back to the car, he happily jumped in, a couple more treats and then we went home. The behaviour at the back of the car was interesting as this would have been considerably different in the past, with him barking and refusing to get in the car (at best).

It is easy to lose perspective on his behaviour, which is one of the reasons I write this blog; it’s some kind of record of where we have been. Seeing him change from the stress bucket he was a couple of years ago, into showing more and more “normal” dog behaviours is kind of like watching your kids grow, very often we don’t see the changes as they are incremental, constant and over time.

The exchange game we played that day was as a result of all the play I do with him on a weekly basis, taking turns, moderating arousal (both of us!) learning cues, being generous with reinforcement. We are training behaviours all the time, I choose to train those ones which are both fun from him to do and necessary for times when we need it, like when we find wellies in the field.

Logan – Part 30 – much progress

It’s been a while since I’ve published an update on the boy’s progress. We have been working hard over the last few months and I’ve also done load of CPD which has been very helpful. We attended practical workshops with Kamal Fernandez and Kay Laurence over the last few weeks, and I hosted Sarah Owings from California a couple of weeks ago and we talked at length about how to progress his training. Sarah has been through a very similar process with her dog, Tucker over the last few years.

I’ll write more about the detail of what we have been doing when I have more time. I’m also presenting at the IMDT Conference on Logan as a case study next weekend so I don’t want to give away too many spoilers!

Bullet points I have been helped identifying over the last few months

• he needs a constructive outlet for his energies (I was doing this to a certain degree but focused what I was doing)
• different toys for different games; Kongs seem to be too arousing for him if he is chasing them but ok of he is searching for them, soft toys are good for chase and games where I play a bigger role
• play more co-operative games with him
• teaching him release cues to fluency so he knows exactly what is expected of him
• he is not the same dog as he was this time last year, so the reasons for doing stuff or not doing stuff may (and very often are) either not there at all or very different.

Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks, I have plenty of video and thoughts to share.

Thanks for reading.

Teaching in second language

https://youtu.be/HlPoPbu_lu8

Your dog needs to learn a second language the same as we do

Pretty challenging session with this dog, not due to what we were teaching but as to how we were teaching it.

 

Consider the following – Katy doesn’t understand what I was asking her to do at the start nor how to do it as we were teaching her these skills. Moose the dog didn’t know what we were asking her to do, she just knows what she is being reinforced for. I have to break it down into bite sized chunks so Heather can translate while we are doing it as Katy speaks limited English and I speak almost no Spanish. Heather was also translating for the benefot of the people watching the demo.

 

We have to make sure Moose isn’t left hanging, not knowing what to do in the session, thus potentially getting frustrated, so I had to keep the session moving along.This is why clear communication is important with your dog.

 

Katy and Moose already had built a foundation of skills working together so it went very smoothly.

 

The session lasted about 5 minutes, with this being the last 3 minutes. In the first 2 minutes, we had reinforced Moose for being on the platform (click and treat). We then added the new cue “apples” so that Moose went to the plaform when cued. This was reinforced a few times. Then, when she went to the platform, Katy asked her to lie down (a previously taught behaviour). This was repeated a few times until Moose understood that “apples” means go to the platform and lie down.

 

This whole process took less time than it takes to boil a kettle and make a cup of team. Done in a second language through a translator.

 

Lovely work from Katy and Moose.

Replacing a problem behaviour

Stella is a young Staffordshire Bull Terrier who comes to work with her human. When Mandy is working, Stella looks for attention by barking and jumping up. When that attention is given in order to settle her, her jumping and barking is inadvertently reinforced, perpetuating the cycle.

https://youtu.be/JCOFE09OqdY

There are a number of ways to train this behaviour but we have chosen to train the building blocks individually and then put them together. There are a number of things to consider

-amount of time on her bed

-how far away her person is

-what her person is doing

-what else is going on in the room

-being able to understand the cues she is given

All of these are elements which make this exercise more or less difficult depending on how they are combined. By understanding these elements, and adjusting them accordingly, we can make good progress towards the desired outcome of Stella being settled in her bed while Mandy works.

Once this is achieved, we can use other reinforcers such as petting, smiles, kind words and opportunity to play or go oustide and move away from food.

Also note that we can train this behaviour extremely easily off lead. There is no need to have Stellan on the lead and physically move her in order to achieve this. The above steps were trained in the space of 30 minutes. If Stella doesn’t achieve what we want and gets up, we only need to go back a few steps and build it up again, no need for verbal corrections, no reward markers (ahah or oopsie!) and no need for physical corrections.

Positive reinforcement training in action.

Logan – part 29 – welcome home.

I was away for most of the month of March. I had the good fortune of being asked to present at the first Animal Training Symposium in Perth, Western Australia. Steve Mann of the IMDT, Sam Turner who is a canine proprioception legend (author of 4 excellent books on the subject) and I presented on a variety of dog training topics over the 16 days. It was a massive success and the attendees were raving about the information they received.

Logan was boarded while I was away and we collected him and Watson on Monday afternoon as soon as we returned. After a fairly relaxing week of training (we pottered away at some stuff, more on that later), I took him to the park this afternoon for his fist session around dogs since we got home.

The park wasy busy (a warm and bright day), loads of dogs and people around. Despite this being the first we’ve been properly around dogs in 5 weeks, we did get a few firsts. No barking on entering the park, as he usually gets excited. We had to move directly into the centre of the park as there was a guy practicing his golf pitching in the area we usually go to. This meant we were a little closer to the path and other dog walkers than usual. We were straight into it, as there was a couple walking three off lead dogs down the path, one of which was a big American Bulldog boy. Logan and him had a few seconds of measuring each other and then they both dissengaged. We then ambled through the open space of the park, looking at other dogs, many of which were running and chasing balls, he did really well. The best moment, and another first, we were 20m away from 6 off lead dogs, he looked at them, sniffed the gound, search for some food which I put down and then moved off when I asked him to. I’m delighted.

One of the behaviours he has done historically when he is stressed is to seek out fallen pieces of wood and chew them. This wouldn’t be an issue in and of itself but he then becomes fixated on them and won’t let them go. Today, he found a stick, picked it up and carried it and when we stopped, lay down to chew it. I marked and reinforced every time he let it go (again, more on this later as it’s something else we’ve been working on). When he was chewing it, it wasn’t done with the same frantic energy which I have previously observed. When the time came, he was able to leave the stick, there wasn’t much left though, and come back to the car with me.

All in all a great session. One period of a few barks, loads of much lower intensity behaviour around dogs then before, more col body language and loads of interaction with me.

Great stuff. The journey continues.