Article:Sometimes We Just Need A Quick Fix...

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Sometimes we just need a quick fix…
Posted on December 27, 2010 by pawsitivedawgs| Leave a comment

Original posting July 21, 2010

Quick fixes are thought of as the domain of so-called ‘traditional trainers’ and TV gurus and often rightly considered successful only in the short term. As a result ‘quick-fix’ dog training solutions have become a bit of a no-no in positive dog training circles.

Quick fixes are most likely to come into play when trying to stop unwanted behaviour. Pretty much most other training philosophies concentrate on stopping unwanted behaviour and although I am still firmly in the positive camp, positive training looks at teaching alternative, acceptable behaviour. Don’t get me wrong, this is the way to go but pet owners need tools to stop behaviour because sometimes life happens!

Its easy for me, the professional pet dog trainer, to leave pet owners with the instruction: “teach the dog what to do rather than what not to do”. But what are they to do to stop the behaviour if & when life happens?
The often touted advice ‘reward the good, ignore the bad’ is not always good enough.

Quick fixes are not always about good teaching – if you are hoping for long term benefits, quick fixes are not always about that.

Quick fixes are not always the bad guy even when talking about pawsitive training. As positive trainers we need to devise tools that will stop behaviour and not do long term damage so that pet owners are not forced to reach for potentially damaging aversives.
Stopping Unwanted Behaviour

The methods most commonly employed to stop behaviour are for the most part aversive, as by definition aversives are things animals will work to avoid.

Aversives include any and all unpleasant things that life (and some dog training methods) throws at us including things that are not contingent on behaviour - unpleasant things sometimes just happen!

Stopping behaviour has inspired the development of some of the most strongly aversive, damaging training equipment and methods but it doesn’t have to be that way…

First, let’s get technical:

Punishers, in learning speak, reduce the frequency of a behaviour. All punishers are aversive, but not all aversives are punishers.

To determine if something is a punisher, you must look back to see if the behaviour became less likely to be repeated.

All sorts of nasty things can act as punishers such as slaps, kicks, pokes, yells, leash jerks and even relatively benign time-outs but only if the tricky rules of using punishers are followed. Otherwise these are just aversive and might not help learning in the intended way.

This is because aversives including punishers are associated with fallout. Fall out is the side effect to using aversives. Because punishers are exceptionally difficult to use damaging side effects are likely to be seen. These may include associating the aversive with some other occurrence (other than the unwanted behaviour) such as the trainer, the scenario, other people or dogs present. For more on the fallout associated with aversives see this from the Welfare in Dog Training campaign.

Interrupters should stop the dog in his tracks, have him re-orient to you and await instruction. They are attention getters so as to stop the dog immediately.

For the most part the interrupters that people use are far too aversive and cause ALL behaviour to stop. Animals when faced with something scary or intimidating often stop offering behaviour altogether as it’s not safe. This response is rewarding to the interrupting person as it seems that the strategy has been successful i.e. the behaviour has stopped.

Many people use verbal or sound interrupters such as a loud or sudden ‘ah-ah’, ‘Oi!’ or ‘tssssht’; they may clap their hands or use a shaker (such as a bottle containing pebbles) or even a water sprayer. The problem here is that these are often sufficiently aversive to suppress behaviour rather than to contribute to learning; and for the most part certainly sufficiently aversive to cause fall out.
This is easy to see when you consider how often this ‘interupter’ is used – if it ain’t working, try something else.

The problem with using punishers and interrupters is that they stop behaviour in the moment (as the dog doesn’t offer behaviour when aversives are about) and we are left with a behaviour vacuum – this is just suppression. A more acceptable behaviour has to be put in place otherwise the animal will come up with one (that might not be acceptable!).
Stopping behaviour doesn’t have to be nasty…

When it comes to stopping behaviour be very clear of your goals – what are you trying to achieve?

Are you looking to stop the behaviour for now or are you looking for something more permanent? Are you looking to ’stop’ or teach?

I guess the answer to that depends on the behaviour being stopped…

If a child is reaching to stick something in an electrical socket or about to run out onto the road we might grab them and yank them back. Although this sort of intervention is necessary it’s not good teaching. This will stop an accident from happening this time but will probably not greatly influence future behaviour.

We don’t even trust this sort of ‘correction’ to stop the child from making this mistake again – we step up measures to prevent this from happening again by covering the socket and by securely tieing the gate. This is management, more on that later…

We might come in one afternoon to find our dog rummaging through the rubbish bins or up on the table eating leftovers. This calls for quickly stopping the behaviour first: we might yell (in shock!), take dog by collar and lead him outside. If left in the same situation the next day, the dog will probably repeat his scavenging.
Instead its a better idea to prevent this from happening again by putting leftovers away, by limiting the dog’s access to the rubbish bin and so on.

As the child gets older and more mature we can explain to them the dangers involved in sticking things into sockets or running out into traffic – we teach them a more acceptable behaviour.

Unfortunately our dogs are never able to understand human etiquette regarding dogs eating from the table but they are certainly accomplished when it comes to learning new behaviour.
The Quickest Fix: Management

Management is the key to successfully living with dogs.

If done properly, management will prevent dogs from carrying out undesirable behaviour and may even contribute to stopping that behaviour altogether. When we manage correctly we prevent the dog getting rewarded for carrying out certain behaviours; no more reward, no more behaviour. This, in learning speak, is known as extinction.

Dogs come with a lot of behaviours that are not acceptable when living with humans. By managing our dog’s life we can prevent these natural dog behaviours from becoming a problem.

We have blogged about management and stopping undesirable doggie behaviours here: Prepare for the worst…

Management is tough though as it requires us to take full responsibility for our dog’s behaviour. When management fails, or in some cases is not even attempted, humans are often too quick to reach for aversives rather than admitting that the situation is one that you cannot expect your dog to cope with.
Life happens…

Sometimes life happens and management fails. When this happens we have to decide whether to stop or to teach.

Where possible get outta there – if you are carefully managing a situation with your dog it’s obviously one that is too much for your pet. Turning tail is often the easiest and most successful strategy. For more on teaching a ‘Get Outta Dodge’ cue see here.
Withdrawals and Time-outs

Sometimes behaviour is just plain unacceptable so in order to stop the behaviour and contribute to teaching we can use withdrawal of rewards. This, in learning speak, is known as negative punishment (P-) and works by taking away something the dog wants.

Withdrawals are simple to put in place once we have worked out what it is the dog wants. If he wants to greet you but jumps to do so we might turn away momentarily; if he wants to sniff the tree but pulls on leash to get there we might take him back a couple of steps.

Withdrawals are quick and easy to use – no need for yelling, hitting, leash jerks or other nasty things – in fact you don’t even need to speak. Just let the dog know that you control his access to things he wants and that you require good behaviour before granting access.

Patience and perseverance are an important part of making withdrawals work because they are quick fixes, learning alternative acceptable behaviour may not be possible yet. We will wait for the jumper to have four-on-the-floor before greeting as he hasn’t learnt to sit for greetings yet. We will wait for the puller to slacken the leash as he hasn’t learnt to walk on a loose leash yet.

While we manage to prevent our dogs making a mistake, we also remove access to rewards for undesirable behaviour while working on teaching a more acceptable behaviour.

Time-outs are slightly longer withdrawals and are more useful in situations where the dog is a little too wound up. Time outs are short so that the dog understands context and should be no more than about 20 seconds. If the dog is still not calm, further calming work will be needed rather than just continuing the time-out.

When the dog carries out a time-outable offence let him know exactly which behaviour is unacceptable by using a marker such as “uh-oh” or “too bad”. Then immediately remove the dog for his time-out. Again no need for nasty things just a calm warning and time to relax.
A word of warning…

Even though commonly used in ‘positive’ training both withdrawals and time-outs are aversive and just like more strongly aversive ‘corrections’ can be associated with fallout.

Before employing any aversive in any situation be sure to analyse how much responsibility you need to take; ask of your dog and the situation: was he over aroused? did I put him into a situation that was too much for him? do I need to go back to the drawing board training that behaviour? what did I do that caused him to mess up? do I need to proof that exercise a little better?

Yep, the buck stops with the two-legger on the other end of the leash!

Using aversives, even as benign as a brief withdrawal, requires care so make sure that for every time out or withdrawal given that you have rewarded the dog 10 times for more acceptable behaviour.
Positive Interrupters & Instructive Reprimands

We can put behaviour stoppers in place that require a little bit of background work but are on the whole much more effective as they contribute to long term learning.

Positive Interrupters can be put in place by using a word or sound to attract your dog’s attention to you, even if engaged in an attractive, forbidden behaviour.

Here is a fabulous video showing the training and use of positive interrupters: How to stop unwanted behaviour

As you can tell the sound doesn’t need to be loud, sudden or startling. Soon your dog will learn to look to you for his reward in specific situations so in effect you are teaching an alternative, acceptable behaviour too – win-win!

Instructive Reprimands are used by teaching the dog a behaviour that pretty much stops them in their tracks. You can’t teach for the absence of behaviour so we can’t teach a dog to not-do-something. So, instead we can teach one stop-all behaviour that we can then reward the dog for.

Probably the most useful instructive reprimand is the sit cue. There are so many things that your dog can’t do if sitting!

Here is more on teaching an Ultra Super Sit.
There is no quicker fix for teaching new behaviour: positive reinforcement

Unacceptable behaviour must be replaced with something, hopefully a more acceptable behaviour.

Using positive reinforcement to teach your dog what to do is a quick fix!

Ask:

What would you prefer the dog to do?
What does the dog want?
What will you teach him to do to earn access to the things he wants?
Remember…

* Quick fixes don’t have to be nasty
* Management is the quickest fix – prevent undesirable behaviour
* Get your dog out of situations that are too much for him
* Use brief withdrawals to let your dog know that good behaviour gets him what he wants
* Use time-outs to have your dog calm down before interacting again
* Work on a positive interrupter and instructive reprimand
* Ask: what do you want the dog to do? rather than trying to stop all the possible undesirable behaviours he could carry out