Servicing Brisbane’s Eastern Suburbs, Queensland.

Is my vet right to tell me to hold my puppy's snout firmly & tell him “NO BITE”?

Suppressing a behaviour by force is probably quite painful and your puppy may have temporarily stopped biting to avoid being hurt by you in the future. He will have no idea why he is being treated so roughly and there is no guarantee that the biting won’t happen later in life if, for instance, somebody accidentally steps on his tail.

Simultaneously uttering a guttural command or threat (e.g.,"No biting" = If you bite again I'll hurt you again, and for longer ) in English assumes your puppy is a mind reader or can miraculously understand whichever particular human language you used.

Nipping ankles or biting hands are invitations to play and when littermates continuously do so they mouth and bite each other all the time. If one puppy bites another too hard the game ends as the bitten puppy yelps and moves away; so if the biter wants to play again he needs to solve the problem himself by modifying the force of the bite and not to do it so hard the next time. This is a continuous and VERY necessary learning process throughout puppyhood, adolescence and adulthood. 

Puppies that are taken away from their mother and littermates too early, e.g. at 5-6 weeks instead of 8-10 weeks, have inufficent time to learn how to play nicely and are therefore much more likely to nip and bite inappropriately. Single litter puppies are at an even greater disadvantage.

Puppy nipping 2

When a puppy leaves his mother and siblings he sees humans, especially small children, as his only playmates. We have sensitive skins and so need to teach our puppies that biting people is not acceptable. But for it to be a self-taught lesson, and therefore one remembered for the rest of life, this is best done if taught without force or fear. And it should taught from eight weeks of age - really good breeders do so even younger - in little steps while puppies still have sharp little teeth but weak jaws that can’t yet do serious damage.
 
So step one in teaching proper bite inhibition is that hard nips and bites end the game. Yelp indignantly, like another puppy would, and walk away to end the game without saying a word. The 'punishment' for the puppy is the removal of your attention and the game ending. Step two is that moderate bites end the game, step three is that light bites end the game and the final step is that touching human skin, even if accidentally as when puppies get overexcited, ends the game.
 
Puppy nipping1A shouted command ‘NO Biting’ might well startle a puppy so that he stops doing it but, no matter whether it is said in English or Swahili, it doesn't teach him what else to DO instead.
 
 
Any well intentioned person who advocates the use of force or shouting to prevent perfectly natural behaviours could get you and your dog into great trouble!
 
Your puppy, with his needle sharp teeth but weak jaws, will not be adequately educated in relation to having in-built good bite inhibition. He will soon become an adult dog with blunter teeth but much stronger jaws that are capable of inflicting serious damage.
 
If he bites it will be probably be a hard one hard because you followed incorrect advice and inadvertently prevented him from having the opportunity to learn to give an inhibited bite.
 
Puppies that have not learned bite inhibition may yet grow into much loved adult dogs and cause no harm for several years; however many of them quite unexpectedly do attack a child or adult, 'out of the blue', and end up on the evening TV news. Because they had poor or no bite inhibition the damage can be severe and so they are generally destroyed the next day.
DogbitesAug1

Should playing 'tug' with my puppy be avoided?

Contrary to the old fashioned school of thinking that a dog that wins at tug will somehow become aggressive or ‘dominant’, playing tug is a natural behaviour that dogs in the wild practice all the time in order to eat. Domestic puppies continuously practice hunting skills and shake and ‘kill’ their toy. Teaching ‘tug’ is an excellent motivator that can be used as a game to physically and mentally tire a dog out and, later in life, as a motivator for performing a behaviour or a sequence of behaviours such as in agility or fly ball.
 
However, tug (sometimes unfortunately called 'Tug of War') of war IS indeed a very bad game if played incorrectly by children or adults (dog wins, growls and runs off with the tug toy). But it is an excellent one if played correctly according to the owner’s rules of take (‘tug’) and release (‘let go’) when I say so.
  
Tug is a collaborative activity. You are not fighting for possession of the object, but together pulling it apart, like two animals pulling a large piece of prey open so they can eat the insides.  What happens when you let go and the animal gets the toy?  Ninety percent of the time they offer it back for more tugging!  Good tugging is a give and take affair. You pull the other party for a few seconds, then you move forward and let them pull you. There is no reason whatsoever not to let the dog take the toy some of the time, and teach it to release it to you if you ask.
 
A game of tug, like throwing a ball or a Frisbee, is often much more rewarding to some dogs than a piece of food. Tug taught early in life teaches patience and impulse control and often helps a timid dog gain confidence. It is actually quite a sensible idea to occasionally let a timid dog win. And, if a dog has been restricted to the back yard all day, expending energy by playing ‘tug’ for a few minutes before going for a walk automatically results in a much calmer dog and therefore a more pleasant walk for the owner and the dog.

Suppressing a behaviour by force - a good idea or not?

Suppressing a behaviour by force - such as when vets and vet nurses recommend holding a puppy's nose and telling him 'No bite' is likely quite painful.

Although a puppy may have temporarily stopped biting to avoid being hurt by his owner in the future, he will have no idea why he is being treated so roughly.

Simultaneously uttering a guttural command or threat (i.e."No biting" = If you bite again I'll hurt you again, and this time for longer ) in English - or Swahili - mistakenly assumes a puppy is a mind reader or can miraculously understand a particular human language.

There is no guarantee that the biting won’t happen later in life if, for instance, somebody accidentally steps on his tail.

What many people don't realise is that biting is an invitation to play and when littermates continuously do so they mouth and bite each other all the time. If one puppy bites another too hard the game ends as the bitten puppy yelps and moves away; so if the biter wants to play again he needs to solve the problem himself by modifying the force of the bite and not to do it so hard the next time. This is a continuous and VERY necessary learning process throughout puppyhood, adolescence and adulthood. 

When a puppy leaves his mother and siblings he sees humans as his only playmates. We have sensitive skins and so need to teach our puppies that biting people is not acceptable. But for it to be a self taught lesson, and therefore one remembered for the rest of life, this is best done if taught without force or fear. And it should taught from eight weeks of age - really good breeders do so even younger - in little steps while puppies still have sharp little teeth but weak jaws that can’t yet do serious damage.
 
So step one in teaching proper bite inhibition is that hard bights end the game. Owners who yelp indignantly, like another puppy would, and walk away without saying a single word simply end the fun. The 'punishment' for the puppy is the removal of any attention and the game ending. Step two is that moderate bites end the game, step three is that light bites end the game and the final step is that touching human skin, even if accidentally as when puppies get overexcited, ends the game.

A shouted command ‘NO Biting’ might well startle a puppy so that he stops doing it but, no matter whether it is said in English or any other language, it doesn't teach him what else to DO instead.
 
Any well intentioned person who advocates the use of force or shouting to prevent perfectly natural behaviours could get you and your dog into great trouble!
 
A puppy, with his needle sharp teeth but weak jaws, will not be adequately educated in relation to having in-built good bite inhibition. He will soon become an adult dog with blunter teeth but much stronger jaws that are capable of inflicting serious damage.
 
If he bites it will be probably be a hard one hard because his owner followed incorrect advice that inadvertently prevented him from having the opportunity to learn to give an inhibited bite. Puppies that have not learned bite inhibition often grow into adult dogs who one day, years away sometimes, attack somebody and end up on the evening TV news and are generally destroyed the next day.

 DogbitesAug1

What exactly is 'positive' reinforcement training?

The secret to all good animal training is to understand that behaviours that are rewarded are likely to happen again. The rewards develop and strengthen the behaviour - they 'reinforce' the behaviour.  Dolphins have been taught this way for years and modern trainers now realise that dogs trained the same way will give equally fantastic performances.

In the late 1930s Professor B. F. Skinner from Harvard discovered that rats and all animals can be taught to perform a series of complex operations voluntarily in order to obtain the benefit of obtaining an essential need such as a piece of food.

Skinner's views that there was no need for punishment in training any kind of animal were at first ridiculed and/or ignored. However, over the years, many people seeking to improve human and animal education have increasingly understood his ideas and adopted his methods.

Positive reinforcement for training dogs was first used in Australia in 1976 at the Kintala Dog club in Melbourne founded by the late David Weston.

In 1966 he had acquired a Miniature Schnauzer puppy that he took aged 6 months to a nearby dog obedience club. He says, "during the next few years I worked hard at learning and applying the knowledge which the club had to offer, and as a consequence I became a Kennel Control Council certified instructor, a full panel obedience judge and President of the Club. During this period 'Fred'  gained his Companion Dog (C.D.) and Companion Dog Excellent (C.D.X) titles.

However, I became increasingly disenchanted with the method of training used by dog clubs in general. Much of the knowledge that supported their method appeared to be based on archaic principles and involve a great deal of punishment and compulsion. Training essentially consisted of jerking the dog in the neck with a choker chain, physically pressuring it into position, and growling at the dog using commanding voice tones.

When the dog responded in a way that was favourable to the handler it was rewarded with a pat and verbal praise. Many of the responses generated were accompanied by a strong fear reaction in the dogs, as could be seen by the lowering of their ears and tails, and an unwillingness to return voluntarily to the handlers''.  ( 'Dog Training , the Gentle Modern Method '(1990) - page 9)

At Kintala Dog Club traditional training methods with check chains, physical force and manipulation were totally banned by David Weston.  More than 30 years later his gentle modern methods are still used there exclusively.

Nowadays many other dog clubs and organisations such as the RSPCA also prohibit the use of check chains. They only use positive reinforcement methods where:

* A new behaviour is broken down into several individual parts, each of which is learned before taking the next step.
* The dog is set up to succeed at every step.
* Any improvement is rewarded - at first usually with food. Food is essential to survival and therefore a much more powerful motivator than a non-essential such as a pat or praise.
* A poor behaviour is simply ignored. The punishment is "not rewarding" and the habit soon extinguishes - as with humans where a poor joke is not rewarded with laughter.
* Once a desired behaviour is learned, food is almost phased out and given on a random basis once in a while. It is replaced with other reinforcements such as praise, toys or life rewards doing whatever the dog most wants to do next.
* The dog realises that it has the ability to affect what happens to it. It will be paid, or reinforced, in return for working correctly.
* Training becomes a win/win situation with both sides co-operating with each other rather than it being an adversarial war of wills. 

Many dog trainers have seen the incredible results of positive reinforcement training with the family pet dog, as well as in dog sports and competitions. Reward based reinforcement training makes rapid progress and is fun for both teacher and student. These trainers have welcomed the accelerated learning curve, as well as the vitality and initiative to experiment, that comes when animals learn because they want to and not because they have to

How Compulsion Interferes with Dog Training

Harsh methods of animal training have been around for thousands of years. Many people today are finding that newer teaching techniques enable their students - dogs, dolphins, horses, pigs, parrots and people - to learn willingly in ten minutes what traditionally used to take ten days.

As a result an increasing number of ‘command based’ traditional dog trainers - some of whom have reached the highest standards in obedience competitions - have changed over to positive reinforcement training procedures. To their surprise they have discovered them to be equally if not more effective and certainly more time efficient.

Their enjoyment of the new training processes, their approach to learning and their philosophy and vocabulary have changed. 'Command' and 'obedience'  become 'cue' and 'good manners', while 'correct' and 'dominate' change to 'show' and 'motivate'.

Like many of the younger generation of modern trainers who have known no other training methods, these older trainers have reached new heights that they never previously dreamed possible. They have come to realise, often with initial reluctance, scepticism and surprise that:

  • Punishment, such as pulling on a check chain or giving an electric shock and the negative reinforcement - i.e. when the pressure is released or the current is turned off - teaches a dog how to learn by avoiding something mildly unpleasant or highly aversive.
  • It is basically unfair to teach a new behaviour by eliminating all unwanted behaviours through harsh words, reprimands, punishment and negative reinforcement. It is fairer, and far quicker, to eliminate guesswork by teaching the right behaviour in the first place.
  • Dogs that are compulsively trained often offer minimal compliance. Some dogs that appear to work brilliantly in reality just do enough to get by to avoid a correction. These same dogs, if trained differently and encouraged to use their initiative and make mistakes, would undoubtedly learn faster and perform even more brilliantly.
  • The correct use of a marker signal, such as a clicker, followed immediately by a food treat, pat or praise teaches a dog what is desirable behaviour (e.g. an eight week old puppy peeing in the right place). It considerably speeds up learning and reduces significantly the time taken to train a new behaviour.
  • "No", by definition, is negative.”No", or its equivalent word in any other human language, comes with a lot of emotional body language. Saying “No!” loudly or crossly might let a dog know his owner is angry and upset. Even if it temporarily interrupts the behaviour (and may therefore make the owner feel good about his or her dog training prowess) “No!” does not teach a dog what behaviour TO DO instead.
  • People often confuse lack of response with disobedience, rather than with lack of understanding. So in frustration they increase the frequency and intensity of the punishment by shouting louder, pulling harder - sometimes both - or turning up the voltage. A great deal of dog training has more to do with an owner's ego than with education of the dog and, in reality, much of it is abuse.
  • If dogs are punished for incorrect behaviour, they often become stressed. When pain or fear is introduced into training an animal starts to wonder what is going to happen to it next. Its mind is elsewhere and so it does not - and cannot - concentrate properly.
  • When they are frightened, unclear and confused as to what is required of them some dogs give up and shut down completely to avoid potentially unpleasant consequences. (Some popular TV trainers mistakenly believe this is being “calmly submissive” and that the dog's behavioural problems are cured.)

    Temporary supression

 

  • Dogs, like people, learn best when there is a relationship based on absolute trust between teacher and student. When there is a war of wills trust usually disappears.
  • Correction based training at group classes is often not much fun or motivating for either the owner or the dog. It can become a chore for the owner and dreaded by the dog. Consequently the dropout rate is high, all efforts at "training" cease and the unfortunate dog has no option but to self-train for the rest of his life. Often he or she ends up in all sorts of trouble.

When dogs learn because they HAVE TO, they learn unwillingly and often soon forget. With positive reinforcement training - especially when used in conjunction with a marker signal that pinpoints the precise required muscle movement before the delivery of the praise, pat or food treat - dogs look forward eagerly to training as one of the highlights of their day. They learn willingly, they remember what they have learned and their repertoires of reliably performed ‘on cue’ behaviours is large because they WANT TO learn.

© Oliver Beverly, C.L.E.A.R. Dog Training, Brisbane

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