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

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 Norbert Experiment, part 12: from cat watching right to kibble scatters

Ready to go from cat watching right to kibble scatters?

Video 1

First session – and Game is being a superstar! Go Game!!!

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door closed.
  • Let’s repeat this with the door open!

Video 2 – door open

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door open
  • I LOVE that Game looked at the cat and then at me (that’s what I mark)! There is a moment of looking back catwards before the last treat though. We’re going to repeat this again; I want to see her succeed without looking back at the cat before the treat magnet or last scatter treat.

Video 3:

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door open!
  • Game status: SUCCESS! Wheee! Go Game!

The Norbert Experiment, part 11: from cat watching right to a high value scatter

The hope is that at this point, the cat’s arousal level is only moderately high – ready to be met with a high value scatter!

Video 1

This was hard! Game had to go back to watching (at 00:05) and couldn’t finish the first scatter right away, even though she responded to the treats cue at baseline speed. She went back to eating quickly – but I want that first scatter to be eaten without interruptions before I proceed to kibble scatters. So we got some excellent new information here, and I conclude: we’ll stay at this level until I get a no-latency response, and Game finishes the entire scatter without interruptions before following my treat magnet to the bedroom.

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door and screen door open.
  • Two scatters because Game didn’t finish the first one without interruption (at 00:05 in this video, she briefly looks at the cat).

Video 2

Several sessions down the line, Game is rocking it!

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door closed
  • I want to repeat this with the door open and see the same response before moving on – but in any case, REALLY happy with this one! I could have marked looking at me at 00:01/02 right away rather than waiting for Game to look at the cat again, since looking at me was cued by seeing the cat.

Video 3: high value scatter, door open, Game rocks it!

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door open
  • Upwards and onwards – we’ll try kibble scatters next!

The Norbert Experiment, part 10: from cat watching right to kibble from hand

Same stair case – but kibble rather than high value treats!

In the video below, Game and I are having a long conversation about the cat (it’s the red cat and it starts out on the chair to the left of the umbrella). I aim for 5 treats from hand in a row before going to the kibble scatter, and have to start counting over again multiple times because Game needs to collect more information about the cat and its whereabouts before being able to give me 5 reps of eye contact in a row. That’s totally fine: she can earn the same treat in two ways: by looking at the cat, or by looking at me.

Notes:

  • Door status: glass door closed
  • I will stay at this step for a few more cats until it is easier for Game to offer 5 reps of eye contact sooner. I will also want to see this on an open-glass-door occasion before removing the kibble-from-hand step from my staircase.


Also, here you go, another (and I promise this will be the last) round of – wheee! – self-promoting, which I dislike – feel free to stop reading here!

Registration is still open for the December term at FDSA, and I’m teaching Finding Five.

It’s a class about …

  • finding five minutes to train your animal (of any species) every day – you are welcome to continue with a previous training project we started together in a different class, or try something new. This class has been taken by dogs, cats, birds, and a Bactrian camel. This time, we’ll be having … wait for it … a horse at Gold for the first time!
  • Time management and self care.
  • Improving your relationship with your animal.
  • Playing ridiculous games (because life does not have to be serious all the time).
  • Retreating to a virtual island in case you need a break from this holiday-infested month or the looming new year. What gets shared on the island stays on the island.

I’m also trying a different kind of “just in case you’re in the mood for it” background fun every time I run this class. This term, we’ll be having a book club.

Come, join! (Finances and time allowing, that is – if they do not, no worries whatsoever. The class will come around again, and you’ll be just as welcome in the future as you’d be today. No need for FOMO. Please put yourself first!)

The Norbert Experiment, part 8: From cat watching right to kibble tosses!

Here’s our updated staircase! Still 5 steps – but kibble instead of high-value treats:

Today, I am going for 5 subsequent reps of eye contact (rather than cat looks) before doing the scatter. Yesterday, I only did three – from now on, it’ll be five! I have to start over a few times. However, note that looking at the cat is being just as click-and-reinforceable as looking at me. I just don’t want to do a scatter when Game needs to go back and forth between the two (since for Game and I, scatters are ideally eaten without needing to look up).

Sorry to be out of the camera for most of the eye contact reps. The video is cut short, but the last two seconds of relaxation are right after getting to the bedroom and closing the door.

Notes about this video:

  • Door status: glass and screen door open.
  • Number of eye contacts pre scatter-for-eye-contact: 5

The Norbert Experiment, part 6: more adjustments to the plan

I’ve decided to make a couple more adjustments:

  • I will keep going down the staircase once and then giving Game a break. She is doing really well with this.
  • I will measure progress by looking what she can do with a cat at average distance – the distance the cat was at baseline, which is where most cats show up. I will not count closer cats (like the one in part 5) or cats that are further away (like the one under the white table in part 2). Baseline distance is here is anywhere in the area I circled, and includes cats sitting on one of these two chairs:

Steps of progress from baseline with a single cat at baseline distance

  1. Skip tugging, and go from cat watching directly to tosses high value treats.
  2. Skip tugging, and go from cat watching directly tosses with kibble.
  3. Go from cat watching right to food from hand high value treats.
  4. Go from cat watching right to food from hand with kibble.
  5. Go from cat watching right to a high-value treat scatter.
  6. Go from cat watching right to a kibble scatter.

In addition, I may add some Give Me A Break CU game sprinkles anytime I toss treats, and it seems like a good idea. Will explain why it felt like I good idea in the commentary going along with my video.

It would be neat to start with a closed glass door, go to a closed screen door and then to the door open – but this may not be possible because the door is already going to be in a certain position (which will be different throughout the day) when uncontrollable cats are being spotted by Game, so I’ll make my life easier and not going to factor this in.

I may not be able to get all of the above on video – note to self: prioritize training – but I’ll video what I can and share. I suspect that by the time I get to #7, I’ll be moving out of this AirBnB – so that’s where we’ll stop. It seems a realistic goal for the time I’ll be here. Whether I get there, don’t get there, or get further than that – we’ll be having fun, and there are going to be treats. “The sun is chirping, the birds are shining, the water’s wet. Life is good, sweetheart. Life is good.” (Bonus points if you randomly happen to know where this quote is from without googling. It just popped into my head – and life is good.)

No video today – but here’s a pic of one of the cats (who would be further than baseline distance):


PS: Note that there are cats several times a day. I just don’t record most of them – my external harddrive is dying (sniff), editing takes too long, and I want to keep this fun for myself.

The Norbert experiment, part 5: a session with the new adjustments goes well … even though this cat is being difficult!

This cat is closer than the baseline cat. It’s not always visible, but Game knows it is nearby, and is tempted to go back and figure out exactly where it is. I think today’s video is fairly self-explanatory since I’m chatting about what’s going on throughout. If it isn’t – ask away in the comments.

I’m keeping this video short – cut out a long part of our tug play and the end, but: I could easily guide Game into the bedroom (which is a small dark room, and that’s the reason we don’t usually hang out there), close the door, and relax with her on the bed for a bit, heading back out into the other room when the cat was gone.

In part 6, I’m going to share how I will try and keep something resembling data on these sessions. Not as clear cut as I’d like, but it’ll have to do, and I think it will work for our purposes. Stay tuned!

The Norbert Experiment, part 4: adjustments

So much to learn from yesterday’s session!

The reason I ran out of both high-value treats AND kibble is that I did not expect to go more than 2 or, at the most, 3 sessions. But such is life! I learned:

  1. As long as the toy is out, Game will keep going.
  2. Game is indeed able to choose the toy over the cat after running down the staircase several times (her motivational state is likely different at that point due to being hot and tired because neither of us is used to this climate).
  3. Game can take kibble within this staircase marker game – at least starting at the 4th round.
  4. Once in the bedroom after the 7th scatter (no sight contact to cats or toys), Game is able to relax right away.

Based on this, I will adjust in the following way:

  • Remove the toy during the scatter (leaving it on the floor until then will give Game the option to grab it if she needs to earlier on).
  • Only go down the staircase once.
  • Move swiftly to the bedroom after the scatter and take a break – no matter whether there are cats or not.

Making it measurable

I’m going to do a session like this, and then decide how to best measure our progress. I also realize this is not necessarily going to be easy to measure because there are different cats, and the distance at which they appear often differs, too. Sometimes they move, and sometimes they are stationary. Sometimes there is only one at a time – and sometimes there is more than one. Sometimes, they stare at us (we are in a display window at this AirBnB – for people and cats). This means the sessions are not directly comparable, which is a shame. We don’t live in a lab!

If anyone readong along wants to throw their suggestions of how they’d measure this at me, go right ahead! I’m writing this up more slowly than I’m training, so by the time I read our suggestion, I will likely already have implemented whatever I came up with myself. But if you want to think along and decide what you would do in my situation – go right ahead and have fun with this in the comments, and I’ll be sure to get back to you there!

Since I have no video for you today – take one of the cats instead:

The Norbert Experiment, part 3: a long session filled with information!

I’ve dug the harness out of my luggage – still looking for the longer line (when you live a mostly off-leash life, you tend to lose track of your lines). We’ve been on a long walk, it’s hot (significantly warmer than at the previous place we were), and Game and I are both tired. Lazy play is just right for both of us today!

Here’s Game’s marker/arousal staircase image, with time stamps for each of the steps below.

Video A

Round I

Step 1: Consider the lobster cat

00:00-00:10 Considering the cat (longer than ideal but I wanted to show you all the cat)

Step 2: Tug

00:10 Tug marker. Game responds well!

00:30 I realize I had closed the glass door and can unclip Game from the tether.

01:05 A quick look at the cat, and then Game disengages and keeps playing! Yay!

Step 3: Chase high value food

01:37 My first tossed treat cue. Game is slow to let go of the toy here! These are the things I pay attention to: does she respond to marker cues at baseline speed or below? This response is below. I may have caused it by my teasing tiny tugs on her toy right before the marker though. It is not clear whether the latency is cat related.

01:45 I remember I was going to leave the toy out, and see whether Game will gravitate towards it if she needs to sink her teeth into something after the first run down the staircase.

01:50 I was not planning on tossing the treat at an angle that would let Game see the cat easily right after eating – she does really well though, and does not get stuck.

02:13 Team work!

Step 4: Eat high value food from hand

02:16 First click for eye contact!

02:25 That look may have been at the cat (who is still under the white table) or the person walking past. I can’t tell.

02:29 This look is clearly at the cat – the person has passed already. This is okay: looking at things in the environment/pointing them out by looking is just as clickable as looking at me. This is a both/and, not an either/or paradigm.

02:34/35 Another one for looking at the cat! You just look where you need to look, Game.

02:37 I shift a little to make the different directions of looking more salient. Now, looking at me is clearly looking away from the cat, and looking at the cat is clearly looking away from me.

Step 5: Scatter

02:46/47 First scatter cue, marking eye contact.

Round II

Another round! Game is looking at the cat again. Calmly so – but she’s looking. For now, I will take this as a cue to restart the staircase.

Step 2

03:32 Tug cue. Game is looking at me (she knows what’s coming), and I can mark that. If she were to continue looking at the cat, that’s what I’d mark with “Tug!”

04:27 By moving away and allowing Game to bring the tug toy back to me, I’m giving her the opportunity to restart the game. This is how I keep things cooperative.

Step 3

04:40/41 That response to my “Get it” marker was perfect: that’s Game’s baseline speed, and what I want to see! As soon as I said, “Get it,” she let go of the toy.

04:45 Again, tossing into the cat corner is not what I had in mind when coming up with my training plan.

04:47 … but Game handles it well! So well, in fact, that I might want to add a sprinkle of the Give Me A Break CU game to our cat sessions!


Sidenote: this is what Give me a break looks like: the treat can eventually be put down close to a stimulus, and the dog will dismiss, like Game dismisses the police person in the video below:


Step 4

04:56 Click for eye contact.

04:58 I’m moving to give Game more of a choice in terms of whether she wants to look at the cat or at me – now we are obviously in different directions.

Step 5

05:11 Scatter cue for eye contact.

Round III

05:37 The cat is still there, and Game is watching again. She is not in predator mode (which may be because of the scatter … or because she isn’t used to the heat. Being hot (or cold) influences motivational states.

We start over with step 2 after video A ends.


Video B

Round IV

Step 2

00:00 The last part of toy play. Game went back to cat-watching after the previous scatter, and I started over at step 5.

00:08/09 You can see she’s tired. She isn’t super fast and intense, and holding the toy gently rather than hard. But keep going she wants, and I want to keep experimenting – so we keep going.

Step 3

00:26/27 Realized the treats from my pocket were gone; had to get them from the counter. At this point, we are using kibble – I have gone through all the high-value treats I cut up already.

00:37 Game doesn’t mind chasing kibble – this is good!

Step 4

00:58 Waiting for Game to offer eye contact …

Step 5

01:11 Scatter cue for eye contact. Kibble again. Game doesn’t mind.

Step 6?

01:39 She starts circling here – she considers laying down for the first time!

Round V

Step 2

01:43 Then she circles past the tug toy. This is a training toy, not a toy I usually leave out for her to disembowel. She can’t resist it, and asks for another round.

This is good information for me: she did not look at the cat, and then choose the toy. She was going to do step 6, then saw the toy and changed her mind. I’m going to need to adapt this approach (leaving the toy out) since this is not what I’m aiming for.

01:50 I mean it’s a good decision to bring me the toy rather than get sucked into cat watching. But watching this video back, I can see that the decision she made was not “do I stare at the cat or get the toy,” but “do I lie down or get the toy.”

We continue down the marker cue staircase again after video B ends.


In round 6, Game looked at the cat, and then channeled her cat thoughts into the toy unprompted – that is awesome and exactly what I was going for! Good girl! I’m not showing you video of this because by that time, the camera had fallen over.

There is a 7th round. Rounds 4, 5, 6 and 7 were all played with kibble rather than high-value treats. By round 7, I run out of kibble as well (I only got her portion for the day from the car, and have no refill at hand). So after the round 7 scatter, I encourage Game to follow me into the bedroom and close the door (no sightline to the cats). She is able to relax right away.

Lots to learn from this long session! Tomorrow, I’ll share the adjustments I’ll make based on what I’ve seen in this session. There is lots of room for our cat experiment to grow!

The Norbert Experiment, Part 2: cats happen faster than expected

This is a short one, just showing you how messy real life is! I filmed the baseline pretty much right after getting to this AirBnB and seeing the cats. Then I tethered Game to the couch and opened the glass door so there was only the screen door because it was HOT inside! I was still getting set up here myself, but managed to prepare some of what I would need for cat sightings (chop up high value treats) by the time this cat – the next one after the baseline – walked past. Both the longer leash I’d rather use for Game’s tether and the harness I’d prefer to tether her on (as opposed to a collar) are still doG knows where in my luggage or in the car. They’d have been up on top had I known how cat-y this AirBnB was going to be.

So life happens, and we make the best of it!

Below, as I was still digging through my luggage, a cat walks past. I record the cat (rather than attending to Game right away), and then I quickly run down the marker cue staircase.

The good news: it works well and Game is able to respond to the tug cue right away.

The not so great news: by the time I took this video, I had not had time to think through the details. For example the tug play you see in this clip is not what I later decided I wanted, and then described in part 1 (cooperative tug): here, I am reaching for the toy way more often then I’d like. The leash is too short to play on well, and I end up tossing a treat towards (rather than parallel to) where the cat used to be – outside of Game’s leash radius. And for most of this, Game’s not even in the frame of the camera. Oh well!

But after that scatter, the cat was gone, and Game was indeed ready to move on with her life. So while by no means perfect, the basic structure is working – and we’ll be better prepared next time! (With the camera set up in a good spot and ready to record, high value treats and toy ready to go, a longer leash and a harness!)

In the video below, I pick up the toy when moving to “Get it” treats. I might experiment leaving it on the ground next time so Game herself can restart the game if she needs to channel some more cat feelings into it.