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Dog trainers'' behavior is reinforced by the dog's behavior

N.H. Sunday News - Dog Tracks Column - 2/7/10
By: Gail T. Fisher

A reader writes: “I'm looking forward to another web article to follow the comment Caesar Milan 'appears to' have success with his methods used on dogs. I find his show creatively misleading. Also, have you ever seen any articles related to the mental satisfaction people might receive from using these techniques in regard to 'empowering' dog owners, and re-establishing interpreting their pet's behavior as 'dominant'? I'm just a normal dog owner who enjoys researching this stuff. Thanks.”

This is a great question, and is a topic I write about in my book THE THINKING DOG. A basic concept in dog training is “Thorndike’s Law of Effect”—the foundation operant conditioning—established by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1911. Thorndike’s demonstrated that the consequences of behavior—that is, the good or bad results that we associate with a behavior—affect the likelihood of that behavior being repeated. Simply put, when a behavior results in a good consequence (reinforcement), it strengthens that behavior, making it more likely to repeated. On the flip side, an undesirable consequence weakens behavior, making it less likely to recur. All learning (including dogs and people) is affected by the consequences of our actions—by what we experience as a result of our behavior.

In training dogs, the trainer reinforces the behaviors he or she wants the dog to learn to perform, and provides an undesirable consequence for behaviors the trainer wants to discourage. The discouraging consequence doesn’t have to be painful: Withholding a reward is an “undesirable consequence,” and can be a powerful discouragement. Dog training is often as simple as rewarding the desired behavior and ignoring the undesired.

That’s how Thorndike’s Law affects the dog’s learning, but the reader wonders about the other end of the leash: whether or not a dog’s behavior reinforces the person’s actions that brought about that behavior. Consider if you call your dog in a pleasant tone, and your dog doesn’t come. You call again this time sounding really stern, and this time he responds. Perhaps the first time you called he was busily sniffing an interesting odor, and when you called the second time he was done investigating. But the reason doesn’t matter; the fact that your dog came to your stern-sounding recall reinforces it, making it more likely that you’ll call sternly in the future.

Domineering techniques, as well, can be highly reinforcing for a person because intimidation suppresses behavior. Such lack of behavior gives the impression that the dog has been trained—that is, that the dog has learned the desired behavior. In reality, the dog has learned to do nothing i.e., to not act, rather than to behave correctly. Methods of training that employ physical domination can result in complete subjugation and suppression of behavior, even catatonia—a complete shut-down. This is what I’ve observed on TV with some of the dogs trained with these techniques. Sadly, such shut-down provides the appearance of compliance—reinforcing the trainer’s belief that intimidation and domination creates “good behavior.”

Consider a human analogy: a domineering spouse. The subjugated spouse’s behavior is as compliant as possible to avoid the consequence of the dominant partner’s behavior. Such “good” behavior reinforces the dominant partner’s intimidation.

This dominant-subordinate relationship isn’t what most of us want—in our personal lives or with our dogs. More importantly, it’s not nice. There are far better, kinder ways to train “good behavior!” Consider how much farther kindness, smiles, “thank you’s,” and an occasional spontaneous surprise (like flowers) to acknowledge, recognize and reward good human behavior works. And in dog training, dog-friendly methods achieve good behavior without intimidation and domination through reinforcing the desired behavior and by not-reinforcing undesirable behavior. In this way the dog learns that he has choices. Choose the good behavior, and you’ll be rewarded. Choose the bad behavior, and you get nothing. And the resulting good behavior reinforces the trainer, too!