Category: reinforcement

Chai week 1: training

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I wrote this post on Chai’s third day with me – April 9, 2023. I will keep updating it as I go. It is currently day 20 (April 26)and a lot has changed already! However, I’m publishing this post now because I only just got around to cleaning it up. More to come soon!

My approach to training with food with a dog who likes to eat

I try to train the puppy in front of me. That means I’ve done things a bit differently for every puppy I’ve raised for myself or for someone else. In Chai’s case, most food is for training (because training is fun and I want videos) or big scatters (the ritual I use to end sessions). Chai doesn’t get food outside unless necessary because I want her to really engage with the world and not be distracted from it.

I will use most food for training. Except from her single outing every day – usually the same park because we can walk there – we stay at our AirBnB. I’ve so far trained up all of her daily rations in marker cue discrimination and shaping stuff. She devours kibble, so that’s all she has seen so far in terms of treats (except for the hot dog I used to get her to eat her Bravecto).

Two food training projects for the puppy in front of me: Chai

For Chai, there are currently food training projects (there will be more as we get to know each other better and shift to different behaviors):

+ Stuff I want for my marker cue (and other skills) game that I’m planning to turn into some sort of class or workshop.

+ Shaping because I love teaching puppies about shaping and could do it all day long.

So far, I’ve used up all her food in that way every day. And here’s food for thought: in my experience, just not going above kibble value (if the puppy takes kibble to begin with) has a high chance of maintaining kibble as a treat the dog will take everywhere (that is everywhere they are able to eat – it’s an excellent gauge). In my case, this means … not exactly a closed economy (plenty in life is free), but it means everything is kibble, and everything is at least marker-cued. There are no table scraps, for example (they would make an open economy and devalue the kibble I want to use for training).

I will take a different approach with puppies who flat out refuse kibble. But Chai does not, so this is the route we are going.

My approach to making Chai permanent-home-able

All in all, these are the training projects I am focusing on to make Chai a dog who will be pleasant to live with for her future folks:

+ Being comfortable out and about in Mexico City.

+ Being comfortable with people coming into her space and visiting people in new spaces – I’m aiming for at least 2 visits a week (as soon as I test negative for Covid again) and at least one good out-and-about interaction a day on non-visit days. I’ll get strangers to play for the out and about interactions. Visits will be friends and strangers who follow my instructions about letting Chai take the lead and take the first step rather than reaching for her.

+ Maintaining her ability to stay home alone without whining (she stays home alone at least twice every day when I head out with Game. If I have a puppy, whenever possible, the puppy will get a separate walk. An exception would be if the puppy was extremely shy and needed an emotional support dog – this is not the case for Chai. Game gets her own walks too because she deserves them. I don’t want Chai to become dependent on Game – neither for staying home nor for going out.)

+ Maintaining her crate skills (the crate is in the car right now; I’ll be popping her in there for a bit every day.)

+ Car sickness: we’ll strart driving super short distances on an empty stomach and gradually extend the length of the drive, aiming for once a day.

Behaviors I am likely to get “for free” with this particular dog along the way

Things that will just happen along the way will be recall, leash walking and grooming. She’s not body sensitive, so I’ll likely get brushing and clipping toe nails for free by “just doing them.” Same with her harness/collar: put it on; no problem for her and no need for a slow introduction. While slow introductions and cooperative care are always worthwhile, I want to focus on other stuff with Chai and will safe her daily calories for these other training projects. Harness, leash, brush and toe nails will be announced rather than shaped. For example before I put on her harness, I will let her know what is about to happen by saying, “Harness!” Puppies pick up on this fast, which gives me an excellent way of gauging if she stays comfortable: if I say, “Harness” and she moves away, I know she’s having feelings. So far, this has not happened.

Outside of what I outlined above, we will just chill at home (if I can help it – training is fun!) I don’t want to turn her into an athlete (if someone wants to in the future, that option will always exist – she’s a Border Collie). I want to help her become a dog who is able to live in Mexico City, and with an “average” active family. This includes staying home alone and being ignored when I work or write rather than constant attention. A very easy solution to keep her from trying to get on the table is to reach for her head anytime she does: like most dogs, she finds this aversive. It’s what I consider a benign aversive. For example if I’m eating and she does this, I reach for her head about three times and she’ll lie down at my feet and stop trying to get food from the table, and it’s only day 3 as I’m writing this. She gets praise for this, but no food. Rather than consciously building a desired behavior here, I am making the undesired behavior disappear (yes, this is a euphemism for: I am punishing it with the consequence of reaching for her head and preventing intermittent reinforcement i.e. counter surfing). Intermittent reinforcement is relatively easy for me to avoid in this case because the kitchen in this AirBnB is a separate room and I shut the door when I go there, and I am the only person living here – so I control all the food on counters or tables and don’t leave it out. This is much, much harder to do if you have an open floor plan, cook more than I do or live with other people. But in Chai’s case, it should work out well. After two months of zero success at getting at food, she’ll be set off on the right trajectory and whoever adopts her can keep this approach or teach her a desired alternative behavior like hanging out on her bed when people eat.

That’s it for today! You”ll soon get real video and photo updates of what has happened between days 4 and 20 with Chai – I just have to find time to video edit. “Just.” I know, I know!

Extinction, adult/puppy interaction, and the transition from community puppy to owned free-roamer

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This is the full description to go with this week’s free-ranging dog video! If you’ve already read the first part on my Youtube video description, continue reading at the heading “Barkiness, extinction and correction.”

If you are only just starting to read here, start from the beginning, below the video!

Lots and lots of things to observe in this week’s video!

A little escape artist

In the beginning of the clip, right before I started filming, the white puppy squeezed through the iron rods of the fence/gate I’m pointing out at 00:22. It’s a little hard to see, but the square openings between the iron rods of this gate are JUST big enough for this puppy to squeeze out with a bit of effort. They won’t be able to keep doing this for long – soon, their head and shoulders will be too big to fit through, and they’ll stay confined unless the gate is open.

I know this puppy because I used to see them in the center of town, and they used to participate in Veronica’s community dog feedings. (See https://youtu.be/WNF5DDNnkBE ). I’ve seen this puppy in the center less lately, and I’ve never seen them behind the gate on the outskirts that they just came out of. This leads me to suspect that the community puppy has become an owned village dog – the people who live behind that gate likely took this puppy out of the community dog population. However, since the puppy is familiar with the center, they are escaping when something tempting happens outside the fence – such as Game and I walking past!

The escaping will likely stop as soon as the puppy doesn’t fit through the gate anymore (unless this house tends to have its gate open; if so, the puppy may be roaming the center even though they get fed at their new home – or they may not, depending on how big of a homerange they end up choosing. They will get fed at home, so home range size will not be determined by food availability, but by their genetic propensity to roam). Some owned dogs are not confined by fences and won’t even leave their patio – they just don’t have the need for a larger home range. Others will wander quite far … just because they can, and they like to.

Behavioral changes likely caused by becoming an owned dog

The white puppy here is already displaying behaviors they didn’t use to display: they are being quite brave and behaving like a homed puppy: barking at Game (who they have met and ignored in the past), trying play-biting at me (for example at 03:11/12, when they grab a belt that’s dangling down from my treat bag). This puppy is behaving like a confident and playful Western household puppy when they meet a new person, not like a community puppy. Community puppies know to stay in their lane. Western household puppies know they can get away with a lot more towards the people in their lives! This puppy has (I suspect) been homed for a week or so, and had lots of interactions with people – interactions like the one they are trying on me right now. In the time they were still a community dog, they wouldn’t have had these interactions with people and therefore not displayed the behavior of jumping and grabbing at human clothes because these behaviors would have been punished. In a homed puppy, they are often reinforced: there may be toy play, or at the very least laughter and attention when the puppy tries something like this. Both of these are reinforcing.

Barkiness, extinction and correction

The barkiness is also new. The puppy barks to get Game’s attention – they want to play and interact. Game is not in the mood, and she is handling this really well: she basically pretends the puppy doesn’t exist. She doesn’t correct the puppy (she would correct an adult dog much sooner for barking her ear off).

There are two potential consequences:

  1. If barking is a learned attention-getting behavior for this puppy (it may be; I’ve never seen this puppy bark when they were still a community dog), the absence of reinforcement (attention by Game) will lead to extinction: the barking at Game will disappear, either in the course of the current interaction, or in the course of the next one. It is entirely possible that the puppy has learned that barking gets attention from other dogs and/or humans in the week that they have been homed, simply by their barking being followed by attention.
  2. If barking is intrinsically reinforcing to this puppy (that is to say barking itself releases feel-good hormones or neurotransmitters in the puppy’s brain, independent of external consequences), ignoring the barking will not make the barking go away because the barking is not maintained by external attention, but by internal states of feeling positive emotions. Shelties tend to be in this categorie: they’ll often LOVE to bark, and you can ignore them all you want – this is not going to change anything!

Only at the very end of the clip, at 10:22, does Game correct the puppy for barking at her. She’s patient with puppies, but her patience has limits. This is a very appropriate and soft correction – just right for this puppy who immediately understands her and backs off. Dogs who spent their sensitive socialization period as community dogs or owned free-roaming puppies tend to have excellent dog/dog social skills, and this is exactly what you see here: the puppy reads Game well. No need to escalate the reprimand.

Barrier frustration and the fascinating fence effect

Two interesting things happen (or, rather, one interesting thing happens, and another one interestingly doesn’t happen) earlier in the video. Between about 02:00 and 00:05:50, we are walking through a corridor of confined dogs: first two Mals, two Boxers and two Great Danes (only one of them seems to be outside today) on the left and a German Shepherd on the right, and then a small barky dog behind the hedge fence on the left.

All these dogs are barking and fence-running, but neither Game nor the puppy are giving them attention. Game doesn’t because I’ve taught her not to. The puppy doesn’t because they’ve grown up being a community dog, and community dogs generally learn fast to ignore the dogs who are yelling at them from behind fences: they learn that actual interaction is impossible, and they do not share the frustration of the respective dog behind the fence because they are free to do what they want.

The dogs behind the fences are not free to interact or do what they want. Fences (leashes can also have this effect) have a high potential of causing barrier frustration because they make it impossible for the dogs to interact like dogs normally would. Fence barking usually goes out of hand quickly because the dogs behind the fences are being reinforced for barking.

This is negative reinforcement: the dogs (or people) walking past outside the fence will eventually go away. The superstition a chronic fence-barker is likely to develop is that it is their barking that made them go away. If the initial barking was frustration-driven, the disappearance of the frustrating stimulus on the outside of the fence will be experienced as a relief. So they will continue barking. Even if the initial barking was attention seeking, attention seeking is highly likely to turn into frustration because they can’t go up to the other dog. If the initial barking is fear-driven (it is not in any of the dogs in the video), it will also be reinforced by having the fear-inducing stimulus on the outside of the fence eventually go away (simply because the stimulus outside the fence will move on with their life, and keep walking).

The puppy already knows that no real interaction is possible with fence barkers. So they don’t respond to the barky dogs, but keep pestering Game instead. Game is outside the fence. Interaction with Game is possible! Smart puppy!

Pet dogs (I am using “pet dog” to refer to a dog who is not free, and who is likely to be walked on leash) do not usually know this, and would join the fence-barking/fence-running if given an opportunity.

Game has learned that fence barkers are a cue for her to pay attention to me, because I will often pay for attention in these circumstances. You’ll hear me praise her (when I speak German, this is always praise for Game), and you’ll see me give her a treat at one point (02:49). Game also knows the meaning of fences. If a dog is yelling at her from behind a fence, she will ignore them. If these adult dogs were barking and coming at her without there being a fence, she would not ignore them. I’ve built this behavior by both preventing her from fence running with other dogs, being barked at from behind a fence being followed up with treat scatters, and marking and reinforcing attention when in the proximity of a fence barker/fence runner. At this point, Game would be able to walk past these dogs in a relaxed fashion even if I didn’t reinforce her. I still do though when I have treats on me (i.e. intermittently). Her off-leash relaxation in the face of fence-runners/barkers is important to me.

The adult black dog

At 08:46, an adult black dog comes into view on the little wall to the left of the sidewalk. You’ll see that this dog’s body is stiff – for example when you pause the video at 09:34. This dog and Game have run into each other several times, and the black one is always stiff. This wall is within the black dog’s home range and within Game’s core area. Game doesn’t care about the black dog, and the black dog … well, the black dog never really seems to trust or approve of Game. Maybe this will change if we stay for a few more months, or maybe the black one will always disapprove of Game. Some personalities simply don’t match, just like with people. As long as no one escalates a personality mismatch, there’s no issue: live and let live.

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The 3 Ts of working with marker cues

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There are three things we’ve seen FDSA students struggle with over and over again – even advanced students and excellent trainers! We’ll call them the 3 Ts: Timing, Tautology, and Treat Placement. This post gives you an overview. If you’re going to delve further into marker training for precision behaviors, the 3 Ts are something you want to print out and tape to your fridge!

Timing

The marker cue needs to happen before you deliver the primary reinforcer.

Example: click – pause for a split second – treat.

Tautology

You want a single marker cue before the primary reinforcer.

Example: “Get it” is my marker cue for tossing a treat for the dog to chase.

“Get it!” – pause for a split second – toss treat.

Do not add a click before or after your verbal marker! “Get it” itself is your marker – and it’s the only one you need.

Treat (or toy etc) placement

This is a subcategory of timing related to location specific marker cues (LSMs). If you use location specific marker cues (i.e. you want a different marker cues to indicate different modes of treat or toy delivery), you MUST say your marker cue before reaching into your treat pouch or moving your toy. “Otherwise,” to quote Shade Whitesel, who says it better than I ever could, “you are just teaching the dog that 5 different marker cues all mean the same thing: look at the hand to see where and what you will get.”

Whether the 3 Ts are obvious or not in any exercise or class you are working on; whether they are being addressed directly or lingering in the background: they will always be by your side. Keeping an eye on them will make you a better trainer, and take your dog’s understanding of what you are trying to teach them to the next level!



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Registration for the June term at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy opens on May 22! Check out our schedule to pick your class!

The Puzzle Week, Part 26: Resource Guarding

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I generally have a few toys out – if I haven’t, Game will turn my shoes into toys.

Resource guarding incident #1: toys


On day #1 or #2 of the Puzzle week, I observed a resource guarding moment in Puzzle: she was guarding a toy from Game. In such a young puppy (supposedly 8 weeks; maybe a little bit younger), this is a red flag behavior for me. I happened to catch it on video. Let’s look:

… and analyze! Btw, I’m pretty sure what’s running in the background is a recording of Jennifer Summerfield‘s excellent webinar on behavioral medication for dogs.

01:02 Puzzle, who hasn’t played with toys before, shows interest in the Hucker as soon as Game leaves it alone to go for the red ball on a rope. Okay – nothing wrong with this. (Stimulus enhancement causes her interest.)

01:17 Now Puzzle has the Hucker, but Game and I are interacting with the other toy, which makes that one more enticing.

01:37 Game has dropped the ball, and Puzzle comes over to take a closer look at it. (Stimulus enhancement!)

01:44 “Okay,” says Game, “Let’s see what you’re up to, little puppy!”

01:48 Game likes tugging with other dogs, so when Puzzle takes the rope, she picks up the ball …

01:49/50 It’s not entirely clear what is happening from this angle. Puzzle certainly stiffens and stares at Game, and Game lets go of the ball. (Is it because of Puzzle’s stiffening/stare, or was she going to do it anyways? We can’t know for sure.)

01:51 Game decides to get the Hucker instead – it’s currently not being used by Puzzle, so why not pick it up (and maybe bring it over to me)?

01:51/52 The moment Puzzle realizes Game is going for the Hucker, she lunges at her.

01:55/56 Game is unsure of how to handle the situation – she’s a puppy, after all. In her world, puppies have more leeway than adult dogs. You can see her do a lip lick (my interpretation: dilemma/self-consciousness/self-soothing).

02:01 Game stays calm and relaxed and gives Puzzle time to calm down as well.

02:03/04 Another lip lick. Puzzle is still feeling a bit guardy.

02:20 Game yawns … she’s not entirely sure how to handle the situation. Yawns can be like looking at your cellphone in order to let someone else in an elevator know that you’re neither creepy nor particularly interested in standing close to them.

Game is not afraid of Puzzle. If Puzzle were an adult, she would not put up with resource guarding – but she’s a puppy, and in Game’s world, that is different.

Because I know Game and can read her well, I keep filming rather than intervening. I knew nothing bad would happen despite their size difference. (This post is NOT a recommendation of how to handle resource guarding among the dogs in your own household!)

02:24 Enough time has passed, and Puzzle is now on the other side of the crate door. Game picks up the Hucker again to go about her day. (Good girl, Game! You’re awesome.)

Let’s pull out one detail I find particularly interesting in this video: Puzzle’s mixed feelings about the situation she’s getting herself into. Puzzle is experimenting with the resource guarding behavior rather than doing it out of habit. Let’s watch a stretch in slow motion:

Watch the slow-motion video a second time, and then go back to the first (real time) video. Can you make out all the body language details from the slow-mo video in real time?

How do behaviors like resource guarding develop?

We know that most behaviors have heritable components – heritability being the differences of a trait within the individuals of a population that depends on genetics. So we have both a genetic component and an environmental component that will determine the final behavioral phenotype (the individual’s observable behavior).

Let’s assume (for argument’s sake, not because this is necessarily the case) that Puzzle has never tried resource guarding before. But she’s got a combination of genes that inspire her to give it a try – even though she doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing. There’s an environmental trigger (Game wanting the Hucker Puzzle had before) that pushes Puzzle into the behavior.

Several things can happen at this point, depending on the other dog’s reaction:

  • If the other dog gives up the toy, the guarding behavior will be reinforced (that’s the operant, environmental part of the equation: behaviors that are being reinforced will happen more frequently in the future).
  • If the behavior doesn’t work (it has no meaningful consequences), it may be tried again in the future – maybe slightly differently, maybe in somewhat different circumstances.
  • Or it may not be tried again in the future; maybe it was just a haphazard one-time attempt: the behavior extinguishes.
  • If the behavior is punished by the other dog (if Game reprimanded Puzzle), it should decrease or disappear in the future.

Puzzle is very young, so at the point that I took this video, I’d have predicted that she’d need several extinction or punishment experiences before the synapses necessary to keep the behavior in her repertoire would be pruned.

Fast learning

You can see how fast learning happens in real time in this very video: the first hard stare Puzzle gives Game at 01:49 (first, original speed video)/00:09 (second, slow-motion video) works: Puzzle’s hard stare is being negatively reinforced by means of Game moving away. Puzzle quickly tries the hard stare again at 01:59 (first video at original speed)/03:02 (second, slow-motion video)! When it doesn’t work, she escalates to snapping. (If this had been reinforced more than just once before before, we’d call it an extinction burst.)

Resource guarding incident #2: Chrissi

Apart from this moment with the toy, there was only one other resource guarding incident Puzzle displayed (which surprised me; after this one reaction, I expected her to be quite guardy in general). The second incident happened also on the first or second day Puzzle stayed with us. She was curled up on my lap while I was working on my laptop. Game came over to see what was up, and Puzzle snapped at her. Again, Game stayed perfectly calm. (“Eyeroll. Puppies.” Also, Game rocks!)

For me as a dog trainer who has seen owners struggle with resource guarding, both these behaviors are red flags when they show up in young puppies. I thought to myself, “Good thing I’m not going to keep Puzzle.” But – and here’s the really interesting thing! – after these two incidents, NO more resource guarding happened the entire time Puzzle stayed with us, or afterwards, when I had returned her to her family, but picked her up to let her spend a few hours at my place several times a week. I conclude that my initial assessment (resource guarding in young puppies is usually a bad sign for multi-dog households) was not the case for Puzzle.

If I were to anthropomorphize (okay, let’s stop kidding ourselves; this is me full-on anthropomorphizing): as soon as Puzzle learned that she could trust Game, she had no reason to guard resources from her – neither me nor toys nor food.

Trust

What a can of worms! How can we even operationalize “trust”?

Let’s start by operationalizing a behavior that is not trust-based (because that’s easier to define): Resource guarding is a behavior resulting from the belief that if you share something, you will lose something. (In the case of dogs, the thing they are unwilling to share is the same things they are expecting to lose. In humans, the thing they are unwilling to share could be a secret, and the thing they are afraid of losing could be a connection (a friendship, a marriage, a fight).

Trust, then, is the belief that sharing something will not result in its loss. Trusting behavior results from the belief that sharing something (a toy, food, a secret) will not result in a loss (of toys, food, or connections).

A dog who lets no one near their food is resource guarding. So is the human who leaves out the fact that they have kids or are divorced on their Tinder profile. Only once trust has been built (either systematically or organically) can the food or facts be shared.

To work or not to work on resource guarding

If I had planned to keep Puzzle, I would have prioritized resource guarding and systematically worked on it. Since I was not going to keep her, I didn’t worry about it, and worked on other behaviors I wanted to video instead. The fascinating thing: the resource guarding completely disappeared all by itself. Except for the two instances on days #1 or #2, there was no more guarding – ever. Puzzle’s confidence around and trust in Game grew (anthropomorphizing again, I know). In the video below – which is from the last full day she stayed with us – Game steals her tennis ball, and it’s all good anyways. (I’m not saying you shouldn’t work on resource guarding with your own puppy. You absolutely should! I’m just sharing the Puzzle Week story.) After a week with Game and I, Puzzle had become a relaxed house dog who was able to roll around the floor, mostly peed outside, slept through the night, and shared toys with Game.

Resource guarding in free-roaming dogs

Maybe a slight tendency to guard is a selective advantage for free-roaming dogs such as Puzzle and her parents. I’m saying this because I’ve seen it in several free-roamers-turned-pets-as-adults I’ve worked with as a trainer in Guatemala, and because I’ve seen it in free-roamers I’ve observed in the streets. Not in all of them – but definitely in a larger percentage than I’d expect to see in the pet dog population.

Here’s an example of an adolescent Husky mix displaying resource guarding behavior over food:


Wheee, that was a novel! Two more Puzzle posts to come (unless I think of more). Until then: happy training, y’all!

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For more dog training tips and videos, join Chrissi’s April class at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy: Out and About. Registration is open now, and class starts on April 1st. We’re sold out at the Gold level, but there are still Silver and Bronze spots available! Come join us – it’s going to be fun!

The Chicken Experiment

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San Marcos La Laguna is teeming with free-roaming chickens. They are in the streets, they are in the yards, they are behind fences and outside of fences. Roosters cockadoodledoo all night, and chickens, big and small, enjoy their life (until they don’t).

Where we used to live for the past 2.5 years, there was one trail that led past chickens and turkeys. My dogs initially craved a bite or two, but soon learned to walk past without giving it much thought. They accepted that killing chickens just wasn’t in the cards for them. 

When we got to San Marcos la Laguna – the first stop of our slow travel road trip – Game showed me she had generalized her walking-past-chickens skills. I walked her off leash, and she was great at strolling past chickens without paying attention to them. Until The Day That Changed Everything.

The Day That Changed Everything

Our morning walk to the lake led us past a metal gate with a gap below, just tall enough for a chicklet to squeeze out into the street. One morning, we were walking past the gate as usual, minding our own business, when a little chicklet ducked under the gate, and tried to cross the f*ing road. By the time I noticed the wee bird, it had strolled right under Game’s muzzle. “What’s that?” Smack! Game lowered her Baskerville-muzzled nose, and that chicklet’s road-crossing intentions were cut short. Game was delighted! Who knew that smashing down your muzzle makes the little feather toys stop moving! So much power! So much fun!

(I found the owner, apologized, and paid the equivalent of US$15 dollars for the chicklet. Yes, that’s certainly the price of a whole flock of grown chickens, but I’d have paid twice as much, too. It was my fault; I certainly deserved the financial punishment.)

Game is a smart dog capable of single-event learning. Going forwards, she didn’t look at chickens like she used to (the way she looks at furniture: boring; whatever). She now looked at chickens – big and small, black and white and brown and red and stripey, egg-laying or cockadoodledoing – like this:

A recall challenge

I wanted to continue having Game off leash in this town of free-roaming fowl. I was only going to stay for a few weeks, but I have never met a recall challenge I didn’t like. I could, of course, also have made this a “leave it” challenge – most trainers probably would; “leave it” seems more intuitive in this context. But recalls are my thing, so that’s what I went with.

I remembered an interesting episode from The Canine Paradigm: Episode 22 – Greyhound Versus Cat. In this episode, Pat modifies the prey drive of his sister’s newly adopted Greyhound to keep him from eliminating the family cat. Pat doesn’t approach this as a recall issue – but his training intrigued me, and I decided to use my chicken challenge to try something similar.

If you haven’t listened to the Greyhound Versus Cat episode on the Canine Paradigm – do so before reading on! Pat’s story will help you understand what I am doing in the videos below. It’s also a great podcast episode. I wouldn’t do it justice by trying to summarize it – just check it out yourself. And in the unlikely case that you haven’t heard of The Canine Paradigm before, get ready to add a new podcast to your personal favorites!

So many new things to try!

I had never used existential food to convince a dog not to chase a prey animal. While I train with kibble a lot in everyday life, I’d generally use higher value reinforcers for something as difficult as a recall away from a chicken. I have also never fed an entire meal after a single click.

Would a large amount of food make up for its lower value (kibble is low value, but an entire meal is a big reward)? Would Game be able to eat an entire meal without lifting her head, and thinking chicken thoughts, right away? Or would it take a while for her to learn that interrupting the behavior of eating caused the restaurant to close? I couldn’t wait to find out.

The Game plan, part 1

I came up with the following rules:

  1. Game was going to earn both her daily meals – breakfast and dinner – for chicken recalls.
  2. For a single chicken recall, she would receive an entire meal.
  3. If she stopped eating (i.e. lifted her head), I’d take away the food.
  4. The next opportunity to eat would only come around at the following mealtime, which, again, would happen in a chicken context.

Session #1

Criteria: No recall cue. I’ll click for her choice to reorient to me after figuring out she can’t get to the chicken.

Session #3 or #4:


Criteria: I’m adding a recall cue, but will reward her even if the leash tightens before she comes back. (I will require the leash to stay loose a few sessions further down the line.)

An unexpected injury

While we were training our way through the chicken challenge, Game hurt herself (she’s a head-through-the-wall kind of dog – it happens surprisingly often). I put her on limited activity for a week. No running, no playing, no training – except for her two daily short leash walks culminating in a chicken recall at meal time.

Session #5ish

Criteria: same criteria as the previous session.

You can see greater intensity and arousal in the video below: if Game’s exercise needs aren’t being met, she turns into a little maniac. She REALLY wants to go for that rooster, and she can’t finish her meal (I learn that if she’s on limited activity, this protocol is setting her up to fail):

My stubbornness pays off!

I stuck with the protocol though, and got to a place where the line would stay loose between the recall and Game returning to me for an uninterrupted meal. (There’s some sessions that I didn’t record.)

Upping the ante: off leash; chickens kept safe behind a fence

Once Game could reliably recall away from chickens without tightening a leash or long line, I found a place she could be off leash, with the chickens safe on the other side of a fence.

Session 10ish:

The rep below is not perfect – you can see Game hesitate before responding; then she realizes there’s no way to get across the fence and comes back. If there had been no fence, the session below would have resulted in a fatality.

Session 11ish:

This one is better: there is the tiniest hesitation (I know what her whiplash turn-on-a-dime-s look like, and this isn’t quite it – but she’s almost got it):

… and we did it: by the subsequent session, I got that perfect turn on a dime with the chickens behind a fence!

The Game plan, part 2: off leash Game with unprotected chickens!

It was time to get some chickens of my own, and up the ante: I wanted to try this off leash and without a fence, and I wasn’t going to subject someone else’s chickens to this experiment.

I LOVE environmental rewards, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to integrate them into the second part of my training plan (here’s where my plan wildly diverges from what Pat Stuart did with his sister’s Greyhound: no cats were going to be harmed in Pat’s training! The questionable ethics you are about to read about are entirely my own.)

The morality of it all

I have no qualms about eating meat, or feeding my dogs meat, and I also have no issues with (quickly) killing an animal in order to eat it. (I do have issues with livestock or wildlife being killed for reasons other than eating.)

I planned on getting two chickens (that way, I’d be able to have at least two reps, even if the first one didn’t go as planned). I’d use the chickens in my training, and then we would eat them. First, I would recall Game away from a chicken in a crate, and reinforce with her usual meal. Then, I’d recall her away from the same chicken outside of the crate, and reinforce with a release to run back and kill the chicken. (I decided that being quickly killed by a dog is no more inhumane than being killed by me, the human. The chicken was going to die and be eaten either way, so using it as a reinforcer seemed morally acceptable to my pragmatic self.)

I was particularly curious about how this experience would translate to the chickens we met in the street: would Game be more likely to engage with me in order to earn that once-in-a-million jackpot of killing (my theory was that she would), or would she become more likely to try and kill on her own time (my theory was that she wouldn’t)? I was determined to find out!

Time to purchase some chickens

I had to run an errand in Antigua, a city some 150km from San Marcos. It was the perfect place to buy chickens from someone I would never see again. I went to a farming supply store that sells chickens, and doesn’t ask questions. And there they were: a big wire cage with lots of poultry crammed in, clucking and sticking their heads out. They were black-and-white barred chickens. My favorite kind, because from a distance, they look like a mad novelist scribbled all over white birds in black ink. They are pretty. I’m sure they are also tasty – if not to humans, then certainly in a raw meal for my dogs. 

I stood there watching the chickens in the cage, and then, just like that, I didn’t want to buy them anymore. It would be lying if I said I couldn’t buy them anymore – it wasn’t that. I’m not particularly sentimental about death; neither my own nor that of another animal. They were going to die sooner or later, and their current life wasn’t exactly amazing. But I looked at their less than ideal existence, crammed into that cage. I imagined their several hours long, less-than-ideal journey back to San Marcos, in a cardboard box, in my hot car. All just to be killed once we got there. It seemed quite pointless, especially since Game and I were going to leave the town of free-roaming poultry soon anyways.

I told myself to remain standing there for another minute, and remind myself of the facts: this was my one chance of buying two chickens far from the scene of the murder I was plotting, and following through on my training plan.

A minute or two later, I still didn’t want to do it. And so I didn’t, because at some point in the last decade, I’ve learned that it is perfectly okay to walk away from a perfectly good plan.

The anticlimactic ending

Game spent the remaining week and a half in San Marcos on a leash around the chickens roaming the streets. And then, we left for Huehuetenango, a city that doesn’t have free roaming chickens – or at the very least, we didn’t meet a single one. I’d like to say that the chicken store chickens lived happily ever after – but that’s pretty unlikely, so I’ll need to end this story on a different note: the feeling I remember. As I walked away from the chicken store, I felt a moment of humaneness. The kind that makes your heart jump. I thought to myself: “I’m humane sometimes. Sometimes, I am kind.” And for a moment, that thought (however misguided it may seem) made me smile. 

Resources mentioned in this post:

Pat Stuart & Glenn Cooke, The Canine Paradigm: Episode 22 – Greyhound Versus Cat (podcast)

The Cheesecake Challenge, or an Experiment in Resisting Negative Reinforcement

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One thing that training dogs has taught me is to better understand certain behavioral patterns in myself. Here’s an example.

I dislike unsolicited advice. I try to refrain from giving it to others, and it annoys me when it is bestowed on me by friends who (I feel) should know better.

And yet, a lot of the time, my response to unsolicited advice is to reinforce the unsolicited advisor by thanking them for their help. As a result, the friend is likely to give me more unsolicited advice in the future. The spiral of miscommunication continues.

Why on earth would I thank them for something I didn’t want? I recognized what I was doing, and I was puzzled by it – until I observed a completely unrelated behavioral pattern in dogs.

Learning to tug

Some dogs show little natural interest in playing with a tug toy. A common method of teaching them to tug is to excitedly tease and slap them with the toy and push the toy into the dog. Lots of dogs learn to tug this way.

Throughout the training process, a handler who uses this method is getting positively reinforced for teasing and slapping the dog with the toy: the dog grabbing and pulling on the toy is equivalent to me saying thank you to an unsolicited advisor. It’s a powerful positive reinforcer for the handler or the unwelcome advisor, respectively.

But what is happening from the perspective of the dog? Pause for a second before you continue reading past this paragraph. Is the dog’s tugging behavior strengthened and maintained by …

(A) positive reinforcement,
(B) positive punishment,
(C) negative reinforcement,
or (D) negative punishment?

Scroll down to see if you were right!

tugging, dog training, dog trainer, play

The answer is (C): negative reinforcement. The dog in our example doesn’t naturally care about tug toys. The trainer slapping and teasing him with the toy, trying to put it in his mouth, slapping some more while talking excitedly is irritating, confusing, intimidating or annoying to the dog. In an effort to escape the trainer’s behavior, he will sooner or later try grabbing the toy.

That very instant, the slapping, teasing and pushing stops. Wow! A moment of relief! The dog just learned that he can stop his owner’s craziness by grabbing and holding on to the toy. The better he understands his ability to influence the handler’s behavior, the sooner will he grab the toy. Eventually, he’ll start tugging as soon as the toy is presented. Voilà – the dog has learned to tug via a negative reinforcement procedure.

I assume many dogs eventually start to enjoy tugging as such, even if they initially learned by means of negative reinforcement. Some dogs, however, may never truly enjoy to play tug, and keep doing it mostly in order to not get slapped and teased with the toy.

Me? I’m like the latter kind of dog when it comes to thanking people for their unsolicited advice. I keep doing it to escape the pressure of being expected to respond.

Unsolicited advice

Being showered with unsolicited advice from friends – whether it is dog training advice, dating advice, or life advice – feels like being slapped with a tug toy. It’s irritating. It makes me feel yucky and disrespected. If that were the only force at play here, I’d probably actively reject the advice (applying positive punishment), or ignore it (applying extinction).

The pressure to respond and the crux of kindness

However, two other strong forces come into play as well:

  • My need to respond to my friends’ messages (the equivalent of “will to please” in a dog),
  • and the belief that kindness is more important than honesty, i.e. we should not do things that may hurt our friends’ feelings (the equivalent to living by a certain rule structure we sometimes observe in herding breeds).

When a friend writes me a message, the ball is in my court, and I feel like I NEED to give the ball back to them. As long as the ball is in my court, it’s as if the slapping and teasing with the tug toy continued. Having a friend’s ball in my court is pressure – that’s why I’m having a really hard time just ignoring unsolicited advice.

So I will eventually respond – and I’ll be nice about it. I feel like I need to respond to my friend’s good intentions rather than to the effect their unsolicited advice-giving behavior has on me.

I’ll probably at least say “Thank you” or a send a smiley face or a thumbs up emoticon. While this is the weakest reinforcer available to me, it is still strong enough to maintain my friends’ unsolicited advice-giving.

The Challenge

Now that I’m aware of what has been maintaining my grateful responses to unsolicited advice, I’m going to conduct an experiment: I’ll try to change my own reaction, and find out if I can reduce unsolicited advice giving that way. At the very least, I expect to feel better when learning to respond in a way that is in line with my feelings about unsolicited advice. (The training parallel here would be giving the dog a way to opt out of playing tug.)

I’m going to start with focusing on advice given in written form, online. My alternative response to unsolicited advice will be to close the chat window instead of replying. I’m going to use a food reward for myself: I will treat myself to the world’s best cheesecake, which is sold at a local café, contingent on closing the chat window. I’ve only had this cheesecake twice because it’s fancy and expensive cheesecake, but I think about it every time I walk past the café. Starting today, for the next four weeks, I’ll have cheese cake every time I close a chat window on an unsolicited advisor. I’ll see how it goes!

How about you? Has dog training changed your understanding of your own behavioral patterns or the behavioral patterns of the humans around you? Would you like to design your own version of the cheesecake challenge? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Chrissi travels internationally learning about dogs, and makes money to support her roaming by teaching online at FDSA, in person in Guatemala, and seminars around the world. Contact Chrissi for more information.

Finding 5(0) with Kathy

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I recently finished the German translation of Kathy Sdao’s book Plenty In Life is Free. It’s a great little book that makes a strong case for treating animals with kindness. One of my favorite parts is Kathy’s SMART x 50 protocol, which is presented as an alternative to NILIF (training based on the assumption that Nothing In Life Is Free for dogs). SMART stands for “See, mark and reward training.” Kathy advises her clients to count out 50 treats every morning, and use them to see, mark, and reward desired behavior throughout the day. The goal? Having an empty treat bowl in the end of the day. 50 sounds like a lot, but once you get in the habit of catching your dog being good, your treats will go like hotcakes.

I recommended that protocol to a number of clients when I first read Kathy’s book, but then somehow forgot about it. Now that I was translating Plenty in Life is Free, I decided to implement SMART for the next week with my own dogs, particularly Game – an adolescent whose house manners were a bit all over the place! For 7 days, I’d take one cup of kibble out of her daily food portion and put it on the kitchen counter every morning. Throughout the day, I fed Game any time I caught her being good, and if anything was left at night, she got it with her dinner.

Within a week of paying attention to catching Game being good, I had her mat manners back: anytime she chose to hang out on her mat and I happened to see it, a treat would materialize between her front paws. Anytime she stayed in the yard without immediately scratching the door when I went inside – a new habit she had developed recently – I’d treat her. She didn’t need to do anything specific – any behavior other than scratching the door or whining got reinforced. The first two days, I mostly fed her standing in front of the door expectantly. On day 3, she chose to lie down, and that’s what I could capture. My criterion was simple and ensured I had countless opportunities to reinforce Game: if I don’t dislike it, I’ll treat it!

In only one week, I had Game’s good house manners back. The best part: I didn’t lose any time working on these things – the training just happened while I was going about my day. All I had to do was remember to prepare a cup of kibble in the morning, and get into the habit of seeing, marking, and rewarding behaviors I liked.

I challenge you to give Kathy’s SMART x 50 protocol a try yourself! Start today, and stick to it for a week. It’s ideal for behaviors you are too lazy to work on in designated training sessions – things that seem boring rather than fun to you as a trainer. Leave me a comment to let me know how it’s going, and what you choose to reward!

PS: I’m getting ready to teach one of my favorite classes at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Finding Five – Training for a Busy World is starting on December 1st. It is an entire class about fitting a little bit of training time into a busy schedule, making use of games similar to Kathy’s SMART x 50. It’s also a class about reviving your relationship with your dog: if the reason you haven’t been training or spending time with her is not a lack of time, but a lack of motivation, you’ve come to the right place as well. Registration is open, and I’d love to see you in class!

Case Study: Toni learns to relax around visitors

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Meet the dog

Toni is a very big, black-and-tan, floppy-eared, 3ish years old male mixed breed who was adopted by Sabrina when he was about 5 months old. With the exceptions of the two issues described below, Toni is a laid-back and mostly low energy dog.

Sabrina has four housemates, and they all have active social lives – a lot of the time, there isn’t just five people at their house, but rather ten. It’s never boring, and it’s never quiet. Toni does well in this environment – he’s a good fit for a social owner. Soon after Sabine got him, he started greeting each and every one of their visitors like old friends, even when they were new ones.

The behaviors we wanted to change

1) Toni used to get very excited when Sabrina had visitors, would try and jump on their lap as they sat on the couch, solicit attention, scratch their legs, and whine. It wasn’t easy to have a conversation with Toni in the room. Sabrina wanted to change his behavior around visitors. Taking him places wasn’t easy, either, because he insisted on being the center of attention when Sabrina was out with friends.

2) Out in the street, Toni would bark and lunge at other dogs. Sabrina wanted him to learn to pass them calmly.

Training steps: Learning to relax around human friends

Toni’s life included a lot of different people coming and going. He had the right kind of personality for it – he liked people. However, he liked them so much that he wanted to interact with them, and he had learned that the best way to do so was to pester them until they gave him attention! Sabrina had a lot of dog-loving friends, so this had been working well for him.

We decided to teach Toni to station on a blanket. This particular blanket would only come out when Sabrina wanted him to stay on it, and the blanket itself would become the cue to lie down.

Our first challenge was that Toni wasn’t interested in food rewards. He was free fed. Sabrina had a 15-kilo bag of high-value kibble in a corner of her bedroom. The bag was always open, and Toni just walked over and ate when he was hungry. He had been free fed ever since Sabrina got him. He was a little chubby, but he didn’t over-eat. He was very relaxed around food in general. Food wasn’t a limited resource. This was convenient in everyday life, but presented a training challenge!

In order to increase Toni’s interest in earning his food, Sabrina stopped free-feeding him. The first thing Toni needed to learn was that food could be the consequence of something he did – a concept he wasn’t familiar with. However, he knew how to sit. This was our starting point. Sabrina asked him to sit, clicked, and fed a cookie. She threw the next cookie to make him get up again, asked for another sit, clicked, and threw a cookie. After looking slightly perplexed in the first few sessions, Toni decided that this strange new game was fun. Now that food wasn’t available for free anymore, Toni’s interest in it had increased considerably. He liked interacting with people anyways, and these cookies weren’t all that bad, either! You could see him perk up as he realized that he had the power to make clicks happen and food appear.

With the help of a cookie pressed against Sabrina’s hand with her thumb, he soon learned to do a hand-touch as well, which earned him a click and released the cookie. Sabrina could fade the lure within a few reps. Toni learned to figure out how to get his cookie: sitting, hand touches, or “shake”: he needed to paw at a closed fist in order to get his treat!

Next, I showed Sabrina how to add an element of shaping to her training sessions. Toni was going to learn to go to the blanket we were later going to use to change his behavior around visitors. I asked Sabrina to get a new blanket Toni had never seen before. She made a big fuss about it, then put it on the floor. Toni came over to investigate – click! Sabrina threw the cookie away from the blanket. Toni chased down his treat, and since he hadn’t been done investigating the blanket just yet, he returned to give it another sniff – click! In the course of several short sessions, Toni learned to step on the blanket with all four paws. Now, Sabrina clicked him for standing on the blanket, and then lured him into a down with the reward cookie. She waited a second or two, clicked again, and threw a cookie off the blanket. After a few reps, Toni offered his first voluntary down on the blanket and got a jackpot. After every brief session, Sabrina removed the blanket. It was only out when she was working with it.

Once Toni had learned to lie down on the blanket as soon as it was presented, we put the blanket where Sabrina eventually wanted it to be when she had visitors: in one of the corners of her big couch. It was important to her that Toni could be a part of her social life. She didn’t want him to have to wait in a different room, in a crate, or in a corner. During training sessions on the couch, she could sit next to him, feed him cookies and read or work on her laptop at the same time. She could also scratch his ears while he relaxed next to her, which he loved.

Once Toni recognized the appearance of the blanket on the couch as his cue to lie down, we started adding duration. From this point onwards, we made sure that Toni wouldn’t have Sabrina’s undivided attention. She’d read a sentence – feed a cookie. Read two sentences – feed a cookie. Read three sentences – feed a cookie, and so on. As long as he continued hanging out on his blanket next to her, cookies would materialize. At the same time, we made sure her full attention and eye contact weren’t part of the picture we were creating. After all, we wanted Toni to eventually relax rather than “work,” and Sabrina wanted to be able to focus on her visitors, and not just on her dog.

Toni was good about relaxing for the occasional cookie, and daily sessions got Sabrina to a point where she could soon read several pages of a book between the individual cookies, and occasionally replace a cookie with ear scratches. We systematically introduced Sabrina getting up, walking around the room, and sitting down again while Toni remained in his spot. He also learned to stay when Sabrina got up, left her room, and then came right back in. We practiced this until Sabrina could get up, go to the kitchen, get a glass of water, and return without Toni getting up or getting fidgety.

The next step was practicing with various visitors. The first one was me: Toni learned that the blanket game could still be played when someone else was in the room. We first increased the rate of reinforcement again, and since Toni’s desire in this situation was to interact with the visitor, we decided that I – the visitor – would give him the occasional cookie and attention when he was on the mat. My attention made the reward even more reinforcing.

It turned out that Toni was actually able to be quite patient and well mannered now that he knew hanging out on his blanket would get him cookies and attention. His excitement hadn’t been due to high arousal and overflowing energy – he had simply learned that he had to pester people in order to get attention. Once provided with an alternative behavior, he turned out to be an easygoing big boy.

After some experimenting, we decided that the mat would come out right before a visitor came into Sabrina’s room. If he stayed on his mat, the visitor would come over and great him with a cookie right away. If he got up, the visitor would turn around and close the door behind them. Sabrina would pick up the blanket, wait a second, and then put it down again. This usually reminded Toni to lie down. Now the visitor could come in and approach again.

Sabrina then began to ask other helpers to visit her in order to train her dog. First, we worked with two of her dog-savvy housemates. Then, she would ask friends to help her. If Tony stayed on his blanket, Sabrina would instruct her friends to deliver a cookie to him and calmly talk to him.

While building this new behavior, Sabrina had people over specifically for this exercise, not in order to socialize or talk about other things. She was consistent in her training, and it showed in Toni’s progress. He learned to stay on his mat while visitors came in the room, and his overall level of excitement around human friends decreased.

Sabrina then switched from cookies to long-lasting chews and stuffed Kongs that Toni could use to entertain himself on the blanket when she had people over. At that point, she was able to actually focus on her visitors, too, and not just on training Toni. By the time Toni had gotten used to eating part of his dinner from a Kong when Sabrina had people over, she was able to start giving him more freedom again. At first, she had made sure people would leave before Toni finished his Kong. Then we tested what would happen if Toni got to finish his Kong before the visitor left: it turned out he soon dozed off while Sabirna and me were still sitting together. We then tried what would happen if Sabrina released Toni and took away the blanket after he had finished his Kong – and he would just trot over to his bed and continue dozing off there. The Kong seemed to have a calming effect, and Toni’s need to be the center of attention had disappeared now that his relaxation on the blanket got reinforced on a regular basis. As Sabrina gradually increased his post-chew freedom, he would sometimes go right to his bed, and other times, he’d jump off the couch, wag and wait for ear scratches from Sabrina or the visitor before heading over to his bed. The attention-seeking behavior and vocalization had disappeared completely.

Training steps: Learning to relax in public

Sabrina wanted to be able to take Toni more places. In order for him to relax around friends away from home, Toni needed to generalize his blanket skills. Most cafés and restaurants in Austria allow dogs, and it is pretty normal that people bring their dogs when they go out for lunch or dinner. In order to practice for this, Sabrina and I went to McDonalds. Fast food restaurants are perfect for this: you can just get up and leave anytime, and it’s perfectly fine to only spend a few minutes inside. We picked a table in a quiet corner. Sabrina would head over to the table, put down the mat, and calmly reinforce Toni for lying down on it, and for staying down. I would get our drinks from the counter and join them. Once Toni had settled, he got a frozen Kong or long-lasting chew. We would finish our drinks, keep an eye on Toni, and discuss the next training steps. Then, Sabrina would trade the Kong or the remains of the chew for a cookie, release Toni, pick up the blanket, and we would leave.

After going through these steps together, Sabrina was ready to practice at places like McDonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks on her own, or in the company of dog savvy friends. If she went on her own, she made sure to set him up for success by having him wait in the car while she ordered her coke or coffee and put it on the table, and set up the blanket. Then, she got Toni from the car, lead him directly to her table, and rewarded him for recognizing his blanket and lying down on it.

Gradually, Sabrina increased the time Toni could spend at a fast food restaurant, and decreased the attention he got from her until she was able to take him to other restaurants as well and actually have conversations with her friends while he relaxed on his blanket under the table.

Why we chose this training approach

Toni wasn’t a high energy dog to begin with. That made the blanket a good choice. He wasn’t torn between finding an outlet for his energy, and staying on the mat. He just needed an acceptable way to solicit attention when people were around. Hanging out on a blanket was congruent with his base personality: a big, friendly, laid-back dog.

Toni’s excitement around people wasn’t based on anxiety or insecurity. He genuinely liked people, and wanted to meet them. Not knowing how to get their attention was frustrating to him. Interacting with them was reinforcing, not stressful. This made it possible to integrate visitors into his reinforcement protocol.

It was important to Sabrina that our training plan would allow Toni to keep being part of her social life. She wanted her friends to be his friends, too. Using a blanket on the couch achieved just that.

Check back next week for how we worked on Toni’s second issue: barking and lunging at strange dogs in the street.

Satiation vs. Deprivation: Ethics and Smart Training Choices

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If you are like me, you probably love chocolate. If you wanted to teach me something using a high-value food reinforcer, chocolate would be the way to go. However, there are times when chocolate loses some of its reinforcing power: right after a big lunch, I’ll be full and not particularly interested in chocolate. And if I’ve already had a sundae that day, I’d rather work for something savory – maybe riffle chips (the red pepper flavored kind). In order to be an effective trainer of Chrissi, you should know these things about me.

And there is more: if you deny me access to chocolate for several days or even weeks, chocolate will be much more attractive – it’ll feel special and gain even more reinforcing power. You could also get a particularly high value kind of chocolate (Swiss chocolate truffles, for example) that I don’t have access to on a daily basis and achieve a similar reward-boosting effect.

A third way to strengthen the power of chocolate as a reinforcer is to not feed me all day, and then ask me to work for chocolate. I’ll be hungry, and when I’m hungry, I’ll crave that chocolate bar even more. (Note that if I haven’t eaten in a very long time and my blood sugar is low, my performance will suffer – no matter how much I want the chocolate, I won’t be able to concentrate well.)

Let’s say you don’t want to work with chocolate. You’d rather use a healthier reinforcer. How about seafood? It’s supposed to be good to have some on a regular basis! Well – I don’t like seafood. I’m not going to work for your seafood. Unless, that is, I’m SO hungry that I don’t care what I get as long as it’s edible. Starve me for a day, and I’ll be more willing to perform for a shrimp.

The variables you’ve manipulated in these examples are satiation and deprivation. I’m not the only one who is affected by them: the same goes for our dogs. (Note that these diagrams are in no way scientifically accurate – they are just meant to illustrate a point.)

Satiation Diagram A

Diagram A: The relationship between satiation and reward value

In Diagram A, the X axis depicts Satiation. The further to the right, the more satiated the dog. On the far right, the dog has eaten a bit too much, and now his tummy aches a bit. On the very left, the dog is starving and desperate for something – anything – to eat.

Let’s assume you’re working with a medium to low value reward. Your dog will always take it, unless he is feeling sick or has eaten way too much to care. The blue dots show that the more deprived your dog, the higher the value of the same reward. It’s a linear development.

Satiation Diagram B

Diagram B: The relationship between satiation and performance

Diagram B shows the relationship between your dog’s level of satiation and her training performance. As in the previous graph, we have satiation on the X axis.

The Y axis depicts your dog’s performance. The red dots show the relationship between the two. Unlike in the previous graph, the development of the performance is not linear. Up until a certain point, the dog’s performance increases with deprivation. However, at a certain point, it starts to decrease again. In the example of reinforcing Chrissi with chocolate, the peak of the graph would be my best performance. It would likely occur after starving me for a few hours, but not an entire day. If you starve me for too long, my blood sugar will drop too far. I won’t be able to concentrate on the task you ask of me, or perform a well-known behavior at top speed.

The Ethics of Working with Deprivation

Satiation Diagram C

Diagram C: Where do you draw the line?

Diagram C has a dotted grey line parallel to the Y axis. This line is defined by your ethics, and it’ll look a little different for every trainer, and for every reinforcer that trainer uses in her training: you’re okay working to the right of the dotted grey line – on the green line parallel to the X axis that defines the satiation level. You aren’t okay working to the left of the dotted grey line: you feel like it’s not fair to deprive your dog to this level for no other reason than to strengthen the reward value to the point of top performance.

Where do you draw the line?

Think about where YOU draw your line. What satiation level is both in line with your ethics, and gives you the highest reinforcement value (the double-headed green arrow on the X axis)? That’s your ideal training space.

Primary Reinforcers: Food and Water

When it comes to food, my line of ethics doesn’t go all the way to top performance/high satiation. I won’t deprive my dogs of their daily food in order to increase the value of their reinforcers. However, I am perfectly fine using their regular meals for training, or training right before or during their dinner or breakfast time. Naturally, they’ll be more hungry at this point than after a meal. My ideal satiation level is right before and during regular meal times. When I want to make my food reinforcers extra valuable, that’s when I’ll train.

If you train for quite a while, you may see your dog’s interest in his treats decrease as the session goes on: the fuller he is, the lower their value gets. While some dogs never lose interest in treats, others show this effect consistently. If that’s the case with your dog, make sure to keep your food training sessions short, or use high value treats!

Water is something my dogs always have access to when we’re at home. I won’t ever deprive them of it. Therefore, water isn’t a reinforcer I can use in my training – it’s a primary reinforcer (all animals need to drink), but its value tends to be low because it’s freely available. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t use it as a reinforcer when the opportunity just happens to present itself! On hot days, I’ll bring water for myself and the dogs on a hike, to the beach, or to the training field. After lots of running around or a high energy training or play session, my dogs will be thirsty, and I’ll offer them water. They are going to get the water anyways, but why not throw in a quick recall or ask them to walk up to the water bowl on a loose leash? You could also practice impulse control by asking them to hold their position while you put the bowl on the ground, and then release them to it. If my dog just happens to be thirsty, it’ll be heavily reinforcing. If he doesn’t comply for whatever reason, he’ll get his water anyways, of course. Using things your dog has free or regular access to in moments when they just happen to be stronger reinforcers than usual isn’t the same as depriving your dog of his meal or his water – it’s making a smart training choice.

Game’s recall is being reinforced by an opportunity to drink some fresh water (I don’t use a marker cue for this):

https://youtu.be/1KKKbGpLzyo

Secondary Reinforcers: Toys, and the Opportunity to Train

When it comes to toys, dogs tend to be highly motivated at the beginning of a session. However, the more often they have already chased the ball or tugged their toy, the less interesting the toy gets: your dog – unless he is a ball junkie – is becoming satiated by the play.

If you have a dog who doesn’t like to play for hours on end, the smart training choice is to keep your training sessions short and end them before the dog is satiated by your toy reinforcer. That way, you’re always training with a strong reinforcer.

Another secondary reinforcer is a more specific kind of attention: training time! While some dogs are training junkies and never get tired of working for their human (Phoebe would fall into this category), others are more easily satiated by training. It’s not that they don’t like spending time with you – it’s just that training is fun for them, but so are lots of other things like taking a walk, relaxing on the couch, playing with your other dog, or watching squirrels through the kitchen window. Their training drive is satiated easily, and then they are ready to move on to a different activity. If you have a dog like this, less can be more: rather than training 3 sessions a day, train only 1 or 2! And instead of training 7 days a week, take the weekends off! Reducing training time and keeping sessions extra short can boost the motivation of a lower-drive dog. Of course, reducing training time doesn’t mean that you can’t spend as much time with your dog as you want – it just means that instead of spending every free minute training, you’ll have a cuddle session on the couch or a nice walk instead.

What are the primary and secondary reinforcers in your dog’s life? How could you manipulate them in terms of satiation/deprivation? And where is that sweet spot of strongest possible reinforcer, best performance, and an ethical training session?

These are just some of the questions we’ll be looking at in my upcoming FDSA class, May the reinforce be with you! We’ll also talk about marker words and reward placement, how to select reinforcers based on the emotional state you are looking for, and how sometimes, small changes to your reinforcement protocol can have a big impact on your dog’s precision and enthusiasm. Join me in class if that’s your kind of geeky!