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Post by loverocksalot on Jan 9, 2012 7:43:45 GMT -5
And in some cases Im not sure if it is just aggression but more frustration. Like at one time could go to my dads agility events with Rocky. Then suddenly he became frustrated to watch the other dogs run around while he is on leash. Same thing happened at a disc dog demo. Sometimes I think he is pissed that he cant run with them. Like he is telling them hey not fair. Im not allowed to play when the leash is on. He did this in a seminar type class where the other dogs were mostly agility dogs they got to be rough indoors and play silly. It to a class to teach focus. Rocky kept yelling at the other dogs for their naughty indoor behavior especially if their leashes were dropped which I rarely did drop his leash because of the way he was acting.
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Post by johnr on Jan 9, 2012 9:18:43 GMT -5
And in some cases Im not sure if it is just aggression but more frustration. I think you're right. |
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Post by adoptapitbull on Jan 9, 2012 9:24:35 GMT -5
And in some cases Im not sure if it is just aggression but more frustration. Like at one time could go to my dads agility events with Rocky. Then suddenly he became frustrated to watch the other dogs run around while he is on leash. Same thing happened at a disc dog demo. Sometimes I think he is pissed that he cant run with them. Like he is telling them hey not fair. Im not allowed to play when the leash is on. He did this in a seminar type class where the other dogs were mostly agility dogs they got to be rough indoors and play silly. It to a class to teach focus. Rocky kept yelling at the other dogs for their naughty indoor behavior especially if their leashes were dropped which I rarely did drop his leash because of the way he was acting. This is Cappy through and through. He will scream his lungs out at the vet when he sees another dog. If the owner isn't afraid and brings the dog over, it's all happy wiggles and playtime. But a lot of people think he wants to eat their dog. I try to walk away and distance myself for everyone's sake. |
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Post by fureverywhere on Jan 10, 2012 10:23:58 GMT -5
[/quote]
This is Cappy through and through. He will scream his lungs out at the vet when he sees another dog. If the owner isn't afraid and brings the dog over, it's all happy wiggles and playtime. But a lot of people think he wants to eat their dog.
I try to walk away and distance myself for everyone's sake.[/quote]
Yeah, Ophie's not like that, at the vet or pet stores she plows ahead like she's going to rip the dogs throat out and it gets wilder if we get closer. But if I turn a corner and the other dog is out of sight she's instantly calm.
It also depends what kind of dog, a puppy or quiet teeny dog and she might not even look. The people next door had a Maltese loose in their driveway one day and I was leading Ophie in on her leash-held my breath-and she just glanced over like " How's it goin'?" and walked in the house without a word
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 10, 2012 11:09:29 GMT -5
I didn't read this whole thread, but this is pretty typical behavior. I think you've mentioned in general that Ophie isn't good with other dogs, right, and always freaks at the sight of them? FYI: ***Unless you're dealing with predation, aggression is fear/defense-based. *** In other words, the dog wants the other dog AWAY because it's scary/a thread/dangerous/etc. I always assume fear-based unless I start playing around with distance/approaches as reinforcers and find out otherwise. My dog Luca is severely dog aggressive. He'd see a dog a mile away and want to make a beeline to kill. I worked with him using distance as a reinforcer for good behavior - his aggression was ABSOLUTELY fear-based: he wanted that dog away because he was FREAKED OUT. (See: CAT and BAT.) A backup is always a great idea when you are dealing with a big dog with other-dog issues. Even one leash attached to a collar, and another leash attached to the harness. Also, do NOT use a back-connect harness. There is a reason huskies wear harnesses that are back-connect  Better leverage and easy to pull away and embarrass mom. Use a Sensation with the leash clipped to both a snug buckle or martingale collar and the front of the harness. Also use a leash with a bullsnap. Sorry this happened to you. *hugs* |
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 10, 2012 11:13:35 GMT -5
Oh, this could very well be leash-aggression. I'm gonna refer you to Our Pack's site, with some info on Dog Aggression vs Leash Reactivity: ourpack.org/aggressreactivity.html |
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Post by johnr on Jan 10, 2012 11:20:21 GMT -5
Once again, we are going to lose important distinctions if we overgeneralize what fear aggression means. Yes, in SOME sense an, eg, territorial dog sees an encroaching animal (dog, human, whatever) as a THREAT, but it is absurd to suggest that a dog that tears @$$ across a field to confront an entire pack of wolves is "basically the same" as a dog that squeezes into any nook or cranny available and whimpers pitifully and only finally snaps at the encroaching Chihuahua when there is no further escape available.
(The English language is really stupid in how many different things we colloquially call fear. Bosses even say things like "I'm afraid I'll have to let you go". Translate that literally into ANY other language and it's total quatsch. We reference fear to be be polite and soften the statement. I've wondered how much the overuse of 'fear' in canine pop psychology goes back to English colloquialisms.)
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Post by johnr on Jan 10, 2012 11:28:45 GMT -5
For that matter, why not call pure predation fear based? After all, predator is "afraid" that it'll go hungry if it doesn't make the kill.
ALL behavior is basically about getting something or getting rid of something. You can always add that the organism is "afraid" of not getting what they want or ridding themselves of what they loathe, but again, that makes sense only because the word 'afraid' has come to mean so little in common usage. We use the word often when there is absolutely no dense of actual fear present. Colloquial language can work that way. It seems weird to new learners, but that's okay. TECHNICAL terms are developed precisely to AVOID ambiguity, vagueness and vacuity, not revel in them.
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 10, 2012 11:32:05 GMT -5
The simpler you keep things, the easier it is to fix a problem. All I want to know is:
Does the dog want DISTANCE or does the dog want to APPROACH?
Don't be fooled by dogs that will spot another dog and immediately head straight for them in a "I'm totally gonna murderize you" fashion. Fear doesn't always manifest itself in an obvious way (i.e. dog runs away unless absolutely cornerned).
Aggression means the dog wants distance. If the dog doesn't want distance, we're dealing with predation and/or something that only looks like aggression but is frustration-based for instance, like leash- or barrier-aggression. I treat aggression in the same way I treat fear (without aggression).
Trying to figure out exactly what is going on in the dog's head (i.e. what the real intent and purpose of the behavior is) sometimes can work against you. People always want to label aggression: defense, territorial, dominance, fear, etc etc. I don't really care about any of that. I don't want to pretend I know exactly what the dog's thought process is. All I want to know is what do I need to do to fix this behavior. 99 times out of 100 in my personal experience, the dog is freaked out and wants the other dog AWAY. Ok, now I know what I need to do to help this dog out.
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 10, 2012 11:38:23 GMT -5
John, re: predation vs aggression.....
Let's take a dog that is highly prey-driven and wants to eat squirrels so freaks out at their site and goes absolutely mad trying to get at that squirrel. What I'm going to do to teach this dog to chill out around squirrels is reward calm, appropriate behavior.
In a highly prey-driven dog, the best reward is the chance to approach that prey object. Luca as an example again, was NUTS around squirrels. In fact, he acted towards squirrels almost the same way he acted at the sight of another dog. (This is what fooled me for a while into thinking Luca was predatory towards other dogs).
It took me NO time at all once I started working with environmental reinforcers to get Luca to essentially COMPLETELY stop freaking out when he saw squirrels. All I did was reward appropriate behavior (incrementally) by allowing him to go to a tree after a squirrel. He WANTED to approach the squirrel and close distance, so he got to do that but ONLY when he acted appropriately. I use this technique all the time, and it works awesome.
Now, for Luca's dog-aggression issues: I flipped it around and used DISTANCE as a reward. When he behaved appropriately, he got rewarded by moving the other dog farther away from him. Works like magic, I'm tellin' ya.
(Disclaimer, this work has GOT to be done with the dog kept under threshold and working in very tiny behavioral increments. I'm writing a very shorthand version of this 'environmental rewards' method.)
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Post by loverocksalot on Jan 10, 2012 12:00:46 GMT -5
Is that environmental rewards method in Control unleashed, Just borrowed it from my dad. I have so many books here now I dont know what to do. But I might want to just skip right to that section.
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 10, 2012 12:05:56 GMT -5
I'm talking about CAT and BAT. Control Unleashed is great, too, for working with reactive dogs. Lots of good little tips and tricks in that book. It is mostly geared for dogs who aren't necessarily aggressive, just have bad impulse control. The Look At That game works amazingly well for aggressive/reactive dogs, though.
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Post by johnr on Jan 10, 2012 15:30:02 GMT -5
John, re: predation vs aggression..... Let's take a dog that is highly prey-driven and wants to eat squirrels so freaks out at their site and goes absolutely mad trying to get at that squirrel. What I'm going to do to teach this dog to chill out around squirrels is reward calm, appropriate behavior. In a highly prey-driven dog, the best reward is the chance to approach that prey object. Luca as an example again, was NUTS around squirrels. In fact, he acted towards squirrels almost the same way he acted at the sight of another dog. (This is what fooled me for a while into thinking Luca was predatory towards other dogs). It took me NO time at all once I started working with environmental reinforcers to get Luca to essentially COMPLETELY stop freaking out when he saw squirrels. All I did was reward appropriate behavior (incrementally) by allowing him to go to a tree after a squirrel. He WANTED to approach the squirrel and close distance, so he got to do that but ONLY when he acted appropriately. I use this technique all the time, and it works awesome. Now, for Luca's dog-aggression issues: I flipped it around and used DISTANCE as a reward. When he behaved appropriately, he got rewarded by moving the other dog farther away from him. Works like magic, I'm tellin' ya. (Disclaimer, this work has GOT to be done with the dog kept under threshold and working in very tiny behavioral increments. I'm writing a very shorthand version of this 'environmental rewards' method.) Fine, Mary. But lots of old time hunters "break" game off of "trash" prey, ie cooners break coon hounds off squirrels, with harsh aversive techniques, and that works, too. So what does it all mean? It means rewards, punishments, distractions and simply removing the stimulus all have effects, just as behaviorists showed that they did since BEFORE the day of BF Skinner. I always teach shelter handlers to turn the dog away from the stimulus its obsessing on and 99% of the time it is out of sight, out of mind. If you work steadily enough with a dog, it'll start turning itself around. And I never, ever offer more than a verbal reward. I'm not saying that my way is the one true path. I'm saying there IS no one true path. Point remains: calling all aggression other than predation fear based is taking us straight down the same sort of Humpty Dumpty semantic highway as saying that all misbehavior is dominance based. When I teach people how to read and approach a truly fear aggressive dog, I want them to know that I'm talking about cowering dogs who lash out as a last gasp of defense against a (mis)perceived threat. How does it help anything but the furtherance of the latest greatest in the never ending parade of ideological fads to say that the corner cowering Yorkipoo and the leash lunging Pit Mix who has already run down and injured several dogs are "basically the same"? |
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Post by johnr on Jan 10, 2012 15:39:02 GMT -5
Re dominance semantics. Dogs are supposed to submit. That means submit to my will. So if they aren't doing what I want, they are not submitting. The opposite of submission is dominance. They are challenging my dominance and displaying their own. See? It almost makes sense in a vacuum. But fill in the void and find out that all we are talking about is a dog that trotted happily into a room before I told it to, then you can see how all these incremental stretchings of meaning eventually lead to perverse claims. But dominance people were neither the first nor last to fall into this trap. Monomania is a recurrent problem in even serious science and is all the rage in pop theories.
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 10, 2012 15:47:03 GMT -5
John, with your hunter analogy, the hunter is using positive punishment to supress the behavior (the dog is working to avoid pain). In my examples, I am using positive reinforcement (giving the dog something he wants -distance or approach, depending on what the problem is).
Sure physical punishment works. So does R+ when used properly. I don't use P+ because I don't have to. R+ works for me.
If the dog wants distance i.e. to drive something away, for sake of keeping things simple, I'm saying that behavior is fear/defense based and has nothing to do with wanting to engage. The dog is only engaging because he thinks it's the only option.
Learning how to take an operant approach to treating aggression (as opposed to a classical conditioning approach) was a huge eye-opener for me, and I started looking at behavior in a whole new light. Pretty cool stuff.
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Post by johnr on Jan 10, 2012 17:12:45 GMT -5
Mary, my point was that you can only read so much into the fact that some technique worked. Yes, the hunters tend to use positive punishment. One can decry that on ethical grounds, but one can't say it doesn't work. But the fact that it DOES work also doesn't help you determine the details of why the dog wanted to do something in the first place. Aversives make you want to stop doing something regardless of why you originally ever wanted to. But the same is true for other techniques. If you use positive reinforcement effectively enough to "win the auction" for the behavior you want versus the behavior the dog was other wise prone to exhibiting, that doesn't per se say anything about WHY the dog was prone to do that other thing. In my experience, which tends to be a lot less deep than yours is re how far I take any one dog, but which is also vastly wide with respect to how many dogs, including oodles of problem dogs, I have worked with, simply turning the dog away from the stimulus s/he is obsessing on, regardless of WHY s/he is obsessing on it, has a remarkably profound "out of sight, out of mind" effect and IF you work consistently with a dog, s/he will start to anticipate the turn around, be easier to turn and will eventually turn on his/her own. And this can be done w/o treats and with pretty sparing praise. Indeed, I suspect you don't need any praise.
I do agree that there is a difference in desire to engage between the predation situation vs the sort of flock guardian behavior I alluded to. But I still object to the use of the term 'fear' to describe what is in fact the perfect prototype of COURAGEOUS behavior. I would hope I don't have to explain why. A desire to drive off is different from a desire to catch, for sure. But it's also VERY different from a thwarted desire to elude and escape. Let's not lose that by plastering the term 'fear' over all sorts of partly similar, but partly very different canine behaviors.
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Post by RealPitBull on Jan 11, 2012 8:26:36 GMT -5
^ John, I'm not really sure what else to say. We can view the same situation in different ways, that's a-ok with me.  All I can say is, I spent years and years mulling over, learning, studying, taking courses and seminars, talking to other trainers and behaviorists, in order to wrap my head around aggression. Specifically aggression in the APBT. I do believe fear is the underlying cause of MOST aggression. It is a pretty amazing thing to see a dog so driven to insanity by the sight of another dog, completely change his behavior in a matter of an hour or two, rewarded ONLY by increasing distance. I will also tell you, that during the process you will see a DRAMATIC change in body language. From that typical Pit Bull-ish seemingly-fearless "I want to engage because I love fighting!" look, to what turns into OBVIOUS signs of fear, to finally a relaxed dog who has figure out "OMG! I don't have to freak out to get the other dog away, I can just turn my head or sniff the ground. HOLY SH*T!!!!!" |
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Post by loverocksalot on Jan 11, 2012 8:50:56 GMT -5
What does CAT stand for? I know BAT is Behavior Adjustment Training.
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Post by loverocksalot on Jan 11, 2012 8:56:48 GMT -5
Check out this Cartoon. I love it. I think it could be something I could use to quickly explain alternate training then doing what people see on Cesars show. My mom needs this. Her dog is getting more and more reactive to dogs, bikes etc. She walks her every day. Can not afford training classes. Do you think her reading Control unleashed can help her or is it too advanced.
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Post by loverocksalot on Jan 11, 2012 8:59:09 GMT -5
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Better leverage and easy to pull away and embarrass mom. Use a Sensation with the leash clipped to both a snug buckle or martingale collar and the front of the harness. Also use a leash with a bullsnap.
I look forward to learning much here