My philosophy is that squirting a dog is ok in certain situations. Things like barking should not be punishable by a squirt, as generally a squirt is supposed to spook/annoy a dog and barking is a natural response to stimuli. In that case a method like separating the dog from the stimulus is a better approach. To me a squirt should be used to deter a dog from a behavior that is dangerous or in a situation that needs to stop asap. If your dog is bullying another dog, getting into the garbage where you threw away a chocolate bar, etc, a squirt of water may be useful. Though, socializing and training your dog is a good way to avoid having to do that at all. But you can’t prevent everything so sometimes measures like that should be taken. Also note that squirts should be aimed at the shoulder and not at the face/eyes.
However I’m not a dog trainer or behaviorist so take what I say with a grain of salt and if you’re looking for a way to train your dog find someone qualified to help you. My current opinion may not be accurate.
From an ethical standpoint, you shouldn’t punish an animal for a behavior when you can a) set the situation up so it doesn’t occur or b) use positive techniques to train an alternate or incompatible behavior.
From a practical standpoint, things like a squirt of water are really ineffective punishers. For a punishing stimulus to work effectively (e.g. to actually achieve a change in behavior) the animal has to associate the punisher directly with the behavior that triggers it. When we talk about a punishing stimulus, that specifically means a stimulus that is added to a situation to discourage a behavior from reoccurring. If you get burned when you touch a hot burner the heat (a natural punishing stimulus in this case) will very effectively dissuade you from reaching out again. With a squirt bottle of any other common training punisher, because it’s something you add to the situation externally (instead of being something inherent, like with the stove example), animals generally associate you with the punisher instead of the behavior you want to stop. So you end up with them learning to avoid you when you’ve got the squirt bottle, but not associating getting squirted with what you’re trying to discourage.
In general, using squirt bottles or similar punishing stimulus is lazy training. It shouldn’t be a regular thing, ever – once you’ve realized what behavior your pet is doing that you want to prevent, it’s much more appropriate to put in the time and effort to fix it with positive methods. You can change your management protocols and teach your dog what you actually want them to do, rather than using a squirt bottle to only communicate what you don’t like.
(Punishing stimuli can be used to break up / disrupt very dire situations like dog fights, but that shouldn’t be occurring frequently).
Do you know how many dogs I’ve met that get scared or anxious around men because in their previous home men hit them? A lot, and they are very protective of the women who have adopted them now.
Men who are violent towards women are often violent towards animals as well. They think we’re all chattel. If a man wants you to choose between your dog or cat or him, dump the guy. Those animals will love you for the rest of your life, loyal and true.
Actually, I have something to add.
The other day I saw a story where a woman was asking why her dogs had suddenly started growling at her boyfriend whenever he was in the same room as her son.
And my immediate thought was ‘that boyfriend has hurt the kid somehow.’
Spoilers: that was exactly the case.
Trust ur dogs when they say something is off.
The first time my sister came to visit, via plane, after I got my dog, pupper growled at her and wouldn’t go near her for the first day. Next visit was by car (two day drive)and pupper LOVED my sister. They snuggled and played and none of us could figure out why the change. We thought maybe the scent of my sisters cat had lingered on her clothes, making that first visit a rough one. Whereas when she came by car, the scent had had time to wear off. Well that was partially true…
Fast forward about six months when I went north to visit my family. My sister walked into my parents’ house and pupper ran to greet my sister. Stopped dead in her tracks and started growling and barking. Hackles raised, full protection mode. My sisters husband had just walked in behind her.
My precious puppy wanted NOTHING to do with him. She barked, growled, ran away, and sat between him and my sister. Y’all my dog had spent maybe a weekend a half around my sister but protected her like this was her flesh and blood.
Eventually, my sister filed for divorce on grounds of “Extreme and repeated mental, emotional, and sexual abuse.” Divorce was final in less than a month because her claims were substantiated.
Trust the dog, honey. They KNOW.
I’ve never owned dogs, but I used to work with horses (which are a lot like big dogs).
There was this one horse I worked with named Tonto. He was a doll. He followed me like a puppy, snuck treats out of my pocket, he was the sweetest thing. We were practically inseparable.
A guy I was considering dating came to visit me one day, and Tonto wanted NOTHING to do with him. Normally well behaved, he shoved himself between us and would NOT let this guy near me. He was stomping, acting really aggressive, and tried to bite the guy. This horse was practically dragging me back toward the barn. At that moment, despite being like, 17, I knew something was up, and ultimately things didn’t pan out for guy and me.
A year later I found out he had lied about his age (he said he was 18 but he was actually 27) he was arrested for sexually assaulting an 11 year old girl.
TRUST THE ANIMALS.
On of our old dogs was a saint bernard black lab cross so he was a big boy and loved sleeping outside in his doghouse. People would walk by late at night all the time and he could care less he was a love ball but on 3 occasions he went absolutely ballistic on some people hanging around our back alley scaring them away so I believe completely that dogs can just know these things
This is generally true, but I do want to add some things. I do agree that dogs are just really good at reading people’s intentions somehow.
Sometimes certain types of people just set a dog on edge for other reasons. I use ‘types’ loosely; it can be based on appearance, such as race or even clothing (hats are a common one that can make dogs uncomfortable), and in those cases it may not be that someone with x feature harmed that dog but rather because the dog hasn’t seen someone who looks like that before. It could also be based on things like smell (I believe Patricia McConnell brought up such a case in one of her books? The dog would get aggressive toward the pizza man and they eventually realized it was the pizza smell that was the problem.).
Long story short, if it’s the first time meeting someone and your dog acts funny around them, absolutely take note of it. It doesn’t always mean there’s anything wrong with that person, but it could still tell you important things about your dog and possibly point out problems.
If, however, your dog suddenly changes its behavior toward someone they know, and have never had a problem with before, then you should definitely discuss that with said person, because even if there was some sort of accident or misunderstanding between them and the dog, it needs to be addressed so one of them doesn’t get hurt. And so if that person is abusive, you can get them the hell out of your house.
Humans may lie, but dogs can’t. They put everything on the table in plain view. We just have to know how to interpret it all.
All these things are signs of an untrained and insecure dog, which is a dangerous dog, regardless of size. Train your dogs, always.
“Oh this is a nice breed.” Is also no fucking excuse.
Train your dog.
THIS!
Some of the most aggressive and untrained dogs that I’ve met have been little dogs.
Without fail, the owners are completely unable to see how their dog is dangerous – when their dog tries to bite a person or a dog, they don’t see an animal that could cause a wound that could become infected and kill the person/dog, they don’t see that my dog could be put down if it’s not tolerant enough to put up with another creature sinking its teeth into it and bites back – they just see their little ball of fluff playing.
Your dog can be dangerous or intimidating, especially to other dogs, even if it’s small.
And for the love of god, when your dog jumps up me or tries to take my food, and I say “No. Lie down.” and then I turn away from it… don’t call it over and cuddle it and give it food and tell it how “mean and nasty” I am. I’m not being mean, I just know that it’s a dog not a teddy bear. You’re not supposed to start praising them 0.3 seconds after you’ve told them off, that just hypes them back up.
If you would call a Staffie or German Shepherd doing what your dog does “dangerous” or “unruly” or “intimidating”, then your dog shouldn’t be doing that either.
Usually adolescent, hyper, over-excitable and active dogs are the dogs that are exercised the most because they are the most difficult to live with. The common thought is that the dog is super active/hyper/energetic and needs more exercise to release this energy and help “calm them down”. When in fact what usually happens is huge dumps of adrenaline the more you exercise your dog which will in turn make your dog’s mental state more chaotic. Why? Because most dogs that behave in this manner in the first place are already mentally chaotic and need more relaxation and calming exercises not adrenaline-inducing ones.
[…]
Let me say again, I’m not advocating that you burn your leashes and stop your hiking trips on the weekends. However, I’m saying that you can relax, and should! If you don’t feel like walking the dog today, don’t. She’ll be ok. If you just don’t have the energy to get out and have your dog run back and forth and back and forth for the ball, then don’t.
Dogs get far too little training and far too few brain activities. Lack of exercise isn’t the problem I’m encountering with dogs that I work with. It hasn’t been the problem in 18 years of working with dogs. The problem is lack of proper balance between mental and physical stimulation.
[…]
Herein lies the problem. Overarousal. High energy and high drive dogs that are usually over-exercised physically or under stimulated mentally, or both, tend to be the hardest dogs to live with. Why? Because owners are doing what they thought they should—exercising the dog every day, sometimes for long periods. But what are they not doing? Owners are not teaching their dog to relax, chill and keep his arousal levels in check. They are also not providing some or all of the following: brain activities, training, rules, boundaries and/or consistency with most of or any of those things.
Dogs with high arousal levels will manifest their lack of ability to do nothing into behaviors that are usually very annoying to live with. This is often a dog that cannot relax or lie down peacefully for more than 10 minutes, or a dog that barks incessantly, or a dog that drops the ball at your feet every 5 minutes, or a dog that paces or whines for seemingly no reason, or a dog that is a very destructive chewer, or a dog that is reactive on-leash towards other dogs and/or people … there are many, many, many behaviors that manifest out of over arousal. These dogs’ arousal levels become so out-of-whack that they manifest into stress, the not-so-good kind, and you have a dog that is difficult to deal with in one way or another. Many times these are the dogs that fill the shelters.
Posting this for realsies now that I am no longer on mobile. I like the nuance with which this author approaches the subject of “SUPER INTENSE UNSTOPPABLE REQUIRES DAILY FIFTY MILE HIKES” dogs. As she says at a different point in this article, genetics are the key factor in what a dog’s natural arousal levels will be, but we as owners and trainers need to find the most effective and constructive channels in which to focus dogs’ energy. Those who brag about having dogs SO drivey that they just will not stop have either 1. have a poorly-bred dog or 2. created a monster, and those who are interested in drivey breeds will need to be aware of how easy it can be to create one of those monsters. Poor quality stimulation can be just as bad as too little stimulation when it comes to fostering undesired behaviors and an unhappy dog.
I actually really like this article, and feel it applies to many many MANY dogs. I think a lot of people create their own monsters.
An exception that does come to mind is sighthounds who have been bred for 5000+ years to hunt all day. You don’t see it in every litter or every puppy within a litter, but when you do see it… don’t ignore it. Don’t deny that dog the exercise they need. (Seren gets 10-15 miles a day. As long as she gets that, she actually chills out the rest of the day and is a perfect pet. She’s been that way since she was a wee baby puppy. The only creator of that is her ancestry.)
They’ve made a text version of that handy video with the cute graphics:
If In Doubt, Add Some Space
Your
puppy doesn’t have to be right in the middle of something to have a
positive socialisation experience. If you’re ever worried that a
situation may be too much for your puppy, move further away and give
them a chance to acclimatise.
A
good example of this is socialising puppies to traffic. For many dogs,
standing right next to a busy road with all the large, noisy cars can be
very frightening. Avoid busy roads at first, starting somewhere like a
park where you can walk along away from the road. As your puppy’s
confidence improves, you can try coming closer and closer
What Should I Socialise To?
There are six main categories of things that you should socialise your puppy to:
This looks like a really good intro, but it doesn’t touch on a couple of important things, so I’ll add them.
Small amounts of very positive socialization are much better for dogs than lots of marginal experiences. It’s tempting to try to expose your puppy to every possible thing as fast as you can, but that risks setting them up for unpleasant experiences, situations you can’t control, or just straight up overloading them. Pick a couple things and do them right. This is especially crucial for dog-dog socialization when you’ve got a breed that is genetically prone to reactivity or aggression because all of their experiences absolutely have to be positive ones. @molosseraptor has some great posts on picking the right dogs to socialize your pup with.
Fear periods change socialization rules. Dogs have two fear periods – one predictably at 8-10 weeks and one later in adolescence, somewhere after about six months of age. These periods are when dogs would be gaining independence and it becomes super important for survival to learn what is dangerous and what isn’t. During these periods dogs are prone to single-event learning, which means you have to be really careful not to set your dogs up for bad experiences because they might shape their behavior for the rest of their lives. Fear periods are a good time to back off on active socialization attempts and work on keeping your puppy happy and comfortably engaged with things it is already used to. (Here’s a link to a great article on fear periods).
Yup! I’ll generally offer the back of a hand a little bit away from my body, because animals are used to that as a solicitation but it’s not as pushy as reaching into their space or pointing a palm towards them (since that’s what they see when people try to pet them). It also helps give them a way to sniff you without having to get all the way close to your body.
This isn’t quite as sideways as I normally position myself, but this works too. Notice how the guy’s chest and lower body are angled obliquely away from the dog, rather than squared up with it – that’s what we’re focusing on. For really nervous dogs, I go a full 90 degree rotation away and look slightly over my shoulder to keep an eye on the dog. (Obviously, if the dog is showing any signs of aggression, don’t get down with it to try to make it more comfortable).
It’s also worth noting how the person’s weight is back, rather than leaning forward, indicate he’s letting the dog come into his space bubble rather than wanting to go into it’s own. When I’m greeting a nervous dog, I’ll crouch down and settle over an arm’s length away so the dog feels like it has space to move around me or away without being pressured.
The goal of socializing an under socialized and fearful dog should be to help them feel as comfortable as possible in their environment so they can live the most fulfilling life possible. First, use management to help your dog feel comfortable. This might include getting up extra early to go for walks when fewer people are around, or covering the windows so your dog can’t get spooked or aroused by people passing by outside.
Once you’ve used as much management as is practical, assess your dog’s life and your goals for them, and work slowly to reach those goals. Many people want to turn their fearful dogs into dog park dogs, social butterflies, but that’s really impractical for many dogs even if they’re well-socialized. Practical goals for most dogs are learning to walk past other dogs on the sidewalk without panicking, being calm around cars, and ignoring children running past on the street.
The best way to start is with a training class, especially one for reactive dogs. It will give you a controlled environment to work with your dog around the things they find scary. Feedback from an instructor can be invaluable early on in reactivity training and socialization, and it can help prevent you from making mistakes early on and setting your dog back farther. Remember that socialization is about allowing your dog to have good experiences, not necessarily having them interact directly with people and other dogs. Socialization isn’t necessarily “social”.
If you’re going to train solo for whatever reason, I recommend the exercises in Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. Her books can be difficult to understand, so I recommend picking up one of the DVDs based on her books. You can even go on youtube and look for demos of the exercises. The Look at That game (LAT) is especially useful for counter-conditioning. Most of the other exercises are used for management and minimizing risk in your daily life. They may not be absolutely necessary depending on your dog’s behaviour and your current management strategy. You can also look through my #LAT tag for examples and instructions on how I teach LAT.
Please let me know if you have any specific questions once you’ve looked through that. Good luck!
As a contrast to the previous gifset, I wanted to make one with the classic video by Dr. Sophia Yin showing counter conditioning in action. This is a dog that had been displaying aggression severely enough to be up for euthanasia. The stimulus prompting aggression in this video is having his face blown on. While we don’t hear anything about the dog’s history, it’s pretty easy to assume that this is fear-related, as shoving your face at a dog’s face is pretty aggressive body language, a lot of smaller dogs have fear-related aggression due to their boundaries being ignored, and I don’t see any resource-guarding behavior.
You can’t draw a complete parallel, but there are a lot of similarities between this video of an aggressive dog and the video of the aggressive horse. This dog seems to be making a big aggressive display and then retreating, instead of continuing the attack with the intent of causing serious injury. The horse had its movement restricted to the round pen, and this dog has its movement restricted by a leash. Both are unhappy and dangerous animals.
Dr. Yin resolves the aggression by pairing the provocative stimulus (blowing on the dog’s face) with food. After only a few brief sessions and a bit of time, the dog no longer exhibits aggression when prompted. He doesn’t enjoy the stimulus (he still moves his head back and away, and there’s a bit of lip licking) but having his face blown on no longer provokes aggression. Instead you can see eagerness for the treatment and what looks like enjoyment of the exercise (tail wagging, what looks almost like a play bow or an attempt to get a reward with a behavior he was taught, ears forward, open relaxed mouth, looking up at her face). His emotional reaction and outward behavioral response are dramatically different.
I don’t present this as an example of why counter conditioning with food is a preferential miracle cure (dogs are a lot more likely to exhibit aggressive body language, so the horse probably had way more of a backlog of fear, whereas this guy’s fear could be worked around relatively quickly. I also wouldn’t ever recommend anyone tackle aggressive body language straight up with a leash restraining the dog, and definitely not by blowing into the dog’s face, where it’s so easy to get bit) BUT this shows a similar scenario, similar aggression, and a different protocol for resolving the problem that doesn’t involve the use of an aversive stimulus to work around aggression.
I remember watching this video in around 2010 and being amazed that this “counter-conditioning” was such a powerful technique. It was one of the videos that made me up my training game big time, and learning about CC was a massive help in socialising and rehabilitating Breeze.
I did think she was totally mad and was about to lose her nose! Definitely not a dog or situation for novice trainers, but a really useful video about hugely helpful technique.
I’m definitely into this, but I do have a question- why does this work, as opposed to making him display his aggressive behavior more? It seems like this could also been seen as Dog displays aggression->give treat-> dog acts aggressive to receive treat. What would the difference be between this counter conditioning and training a dog to be more aggressive?
The difference there is the difference between operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is training as we usually think of, which is controlling conscious behavior. Classical conditioning addresses involuntary reactions, like Pavlov’s drooling dogs.
In this situation, Dr. Yin isn’t trying to change the dog’s behavior, she’s trying to change the dog’s emotions. Once the emotional state has changed, the behavior goes away by itself.
I also get that this works, but I don’t understand your explanation of why you don’t just accidentally capture the aggressive behaviour? The dog doesn’t know your counter conditioning not operant conditioning.
This is something I struggle with teaching mango not to bark at the window, I definitely taught her to bark once and look at the human when trying to counter condition. We are doing better now by treating pre-bark and giving an alternative behaviour if she’s already barking, but it would be interesting to know more if you have the time?
Maybe another way to put it:
“Dog displays aggression->give treat-> dog acts aggressive to receive treat.”
So why doesn’t this teach the dog to be aggressive?
Because the dog is not thinking operant-like about the aggressive behavior. He’s not thinking “oohh I behaved aggressively and I get a reward!!” He’s feeling scared of something, but that something is always followed by a reward, so he learns it’s not scary. The aggressive response associated with his fear goes away too.
It’s the same reason why you can give your dog a reward at every thunderclap, and it doesn’t teach them to be scared of thunder- the fear response wasn’t operant. You’re not rewarding their fear, you’re associating the stimulus, thunder, with good things.
Dogs don’t think “oh, I think I’ll experience some fear now” it’s not something they (or you for that matter) can /will/ themselves to feel.
Plus fear is so aversive you wouldn’t even if you could. Counter-conditioning does “risk” accidentally creating fake on-purpose behaviors. A la the story of the barking dog from Reaching the Animal Mind who was given treats for barking, but when he tried to bark on purpose, it was more of a uncertain high pitched yelp. That said, those are easy to stop because the behavior is no longer fueled by the underlying emotion.
We humans have a profession that’s all about rewarding people for pretending to have all kinds of emotions: actors. And they still need to practice at it for years. Think about that- you can have a fight with your mom or a heated thanksgiving dinner debate and it’s genuine emotion- but a team of actors staging the same thing have to really work at making it seem real. And someone who’s portraying a criminal doesn’t then become one after the director says “cut!”…. Fake on-purpose behaviors are just not the same, for the same reason- you can’t will yourself to feel emotions on cue. Maybe method actors would disagree lol but that’s the gist of it.
OK, that makes sense, trying to train a dog when they’re over threshold gets you nowhere, and that’s what you would be doing if you were trying to capture aggressive behaviour . And we got rid of ‘bark look at human’ behaviour but just ignoring it, which was a lot easier than getting rid of barking (still working on that, but we make progress).
Thanks
The above explanation works for the layperson, but it doesn’t have a lot of scientific basis. The reality is that we’re only just coming to understand reactions and ‘feelings’ in animals, particularly because of the efforts of some incredible trainers and dogs who are letting us get a glimpse into the conscious mind of a dog via MRI machines. It’s what we THINK might be happening, but realistically all we have to go on is hormone interactions and other foundations in behavioural science.
This is, of course, one of the main challenges of training dogs and interacting with dog trainers. Most people owning a dog do not have any sort of training in applied ethology. Most dog trainers have no idea what applied ethology is. But it’s important, and it helps us to understand consistencies as well as inconsistencies.
To make an explanation with a bit more evidence behind it, we’re performing a chemical override using differing hormones that are released as a response to eating, over the stress hormone cortisol that is heightened when experiencing ‘fear-inducing’ stimuli. There’s also usually a motivation present for the dog to eat, so the dog may have been deprived a meal in the morning (not unusual, many trainers withhold regular meals and choose instead to feed them as rewards, but by doing so you create a motivation in the animal to perform consummatory behaviours, like eating. It’s a perk that motivation increases for the reward.) and is driven to perform a consummatory behaviour to satisfy that motivation.
It has also been shown that if you create a motivation in an animal, and don’t allow them to perform consummatory behaviours to decrease their state of motivation, the existing high state of motivation can actually cause stress. Performing consummatory behaviours to decrease motivation lowers stress. So realistically, there are many small factors coming into play here, many of them related to hormones within the body, that are contributing to associating certain stimuli with good things.
This is a multifaceted issue, but from a physiological and behavioural standpoint, these are just some of the many factors contributing to altering an animal’s perception.
You can indeed capture the wrong behaviour (this is because there are multiple factors working in tandem, you can choose to appeal to classical or operant conditioning while training, but it doesn’t mean you will completely turn the other off, we’ve learned dogs are making inferences in ways many young children are, they are constantly absorbing information.) which is why narrowing the criteria is important. You cease to reward for just anything other than, for instance, biting your face off. You shape a new behaviour as an alternative. Many trainers will just reward ‘not barking’, but you’ll also notice that people will instead reward not barking to start and then will start to reward when the dog lays down, when the dog goes to their crate or lays in their bed. They shape ‘not barking’ into a new behaviour, increasing the criteria from ‘don’t bark’ to ‘don’t bark and turn away from the window’ to ‘don’t bark and turn away from the window then walk to your bed’ and finally ‘don’t bark and turn away from the window and lay down in your bed’, versus leaving the dog to their own devices where they might pick a new behaviour that isn’t ideal. Especially if we’re talking motivation that was previously satisfied by the undesired behaviour, and they are now having to perform displacement behaviours to try to satisfy the motivational state.
You’ll see the idea of teaching an alternative behaviour or task a lot, and you can probably think of a couple you’ve taught your own dog even accidentally. My dog had an issue jumping up, so I realized I was teaching him a replacement behaviour as I continuously asked him to get toys for the visitor instead, as when he retrieves a toy and comes to offer it he keeps all four feet on the ground. I often remind him, but without intensive training or focus on it, he has started to go looking for a toy after being told not to jump up. He is making the connection himself, even without training, that if he has all of this pent up excitement…to use it productively.
For laypeople who follow this blog – I highly do not suggest trying to recondition aggressive behavior by yourself. Yin was an amazing and skilled professional (rest in peace) and you’re way better off getting someone with training to help you than trying to work with aggression yourself. It’s not worth the risk.
like, this is probably a great example of someone (probably accidentally) training their pet to headbutt them/smack them in the face. this is a smart newfie, obviously, because he picks up on it right away, but you can see – the first time he bonks this girl in the head, his owners laugh, the woman cuddles him and baby-talks him, so he immediately does it again. because he got positive attention the first time.
(we’ve all done this, I think; but it’s worth it to point out that the next time this newfie performs this behavior at an inappropriate time and gets yelled at/negative attention, he’s gonna be confused.)
Yes! This is a beautiful example of someone accidentally reinforcing a behavior. That affectionate attention is a positive, so the dog is going to continue to perform the behavior that was the antecedent for it. You broke it down beautifully.
PiraticOctopus 