This post is a carryover from my Amazon blog, so if you’ve read it before, well, I’d apologize, but I’ve expanded on some previous thoughts, and pared down others. Besides, I thought this would be the perfect post to inaugurate my new home. Enjoy!
My Training Philosophy
As I see it, all canine behavior—whether learned or instinctive—comes as an attempt by the dog to reduce his own internal tension in some way. Here’s what I mean: as the dog interacts with the world around him he’s stimulated by things that on the most basic level (that of emotional energy) stir either feelings of fear or desire in him. Loud noises or tall, imposing people might create fearful feelings, seeing a pizza crust on the sidewalk or a squirrel in the park might stimulate desire. These two basic feelings always create some form of visceral, palpable tension, which you’ll be able to detect in his behavior. Tension can be a good thing too, as long as the dog knows what to do with it. If he doesn’t then the tension builds up, creating stress. Tension and stress will always need some kind of outlet, just as electrical energy does; it needs to “flow” in some direction. Clearly it’s best for the dog if his flow of energy doesn’t make him constantly run away from loud noises or try to kill every squirrel he sees. That’s why it’s our role to teach the dog how to reduce this inner tension in ways that don’t create problems for the dog or for us. (And let’s not forget that poor squirrel!) We also need to teach the dog that his excess energy should always flow into us, that we’re the place for that energy, those emotions to be safely grounded. When we become part of the dog’s flow, just as the pizza crust and the squirrel are, and he also sees us as the place where his energy can safely and easily go to ground, everything is resolved and the dog will gladly do anything we ask of him, and will in fact want us to give him instructions on what to do with his energy.
Over time behaviors which are successful at reducing tension without disturbing the social dynamic between the dog and owner are preferred by the dog and become learned. If you want to apply the behaviorist paradigm to this it means that learning happens only through what’s called negative reinforcement, which is the reduction or removal of an unpleasant stimulus (in this case, internal tension). If you want to apply the dominance paradigm, you could say that when a dog knows who’s alpha and who’s not (which is a fantasy, but many people firmly believe in it) he’s much less likely to have any internal tension—that’s all taken care of by accepting and submitting to his position within the social order. This is actually true on a certain level, just as the behaviorist paradigm is. Two other things to remember are that the behaviorist paradigm works best when the reinforcers used are relevant to the source of the dog’s internal tension, and the dominance paradigm works best when the trainer’s fantasies of being alpha are mostly kept to himself and don’t manifest in punishing or scaring the dog into obedience.
There’s no question that both training methods create well-trained dogs a certain percentage of the time. After all, if trainers in both camps weren’t getting some positive results, they’d surely start looking for a new way of doing things. (I think the other part of the equation is that, generally speaking, most dog training is 85% due to the dog, and only 15% due to the trainer or her methodology.) However, it’s been my experience (and I’ve used both dominance and behaviorist techniques) that it’s only through understanding where and how a dog’s internal tension comes from, and how best to use it, activate it, and help the dog reduce it, that you get results that work much closer 100% of the time with all the dogs you train. So to me it’s better to understand how a dog really operates rather than to stick to these old paradigms and methodologies.
There’s another piece to the puzzle here as well, in that dogs who are trained either by conditioning-based techniques or through dominance aren’t necessarily taught how to be emotionally open and flexible. That generally only comes through understanding the underlying flow of energy in the dog’s instinctive and emotional systems.
I see each dog as a discrete energy-exchange system, composed of progressively smaller energy-exchange systems—like organs, cells, genes, etc.—inside its body. Dogs are also part of a larger energy-exchange system of network consciousness, which for lack of a better word we might call “the environment.” Dogs receive energy from their internal systems in the form of heat, instinctive drives, etc., and from the environment in the forms of food, water, oxygen, sensory input (light, sound, and smells each carry forms of energy), and from the network through energy exchanges with other dogs, people, etc. They enjoy their interactions with the larger energy-exchange system most when the kinds of inputs and outputs they engage in are successful at either reducing their internal tension, or successful at building up that tension in a way that when it is released (through behavior) there’s a more pleasurable reduction of that tension as an end result. (This explains some of the really strange behavioral problems we see in dogs who seem to be almost masochistic in the ways that they keep doing harmful things to themselves—like the old punchline goes, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”) Another thing to remember is that the dog is happiest when he feels aligned with the members of his social group, so many times he’ll choose behaviors that don’t seem to be beneficial to him individually but are beneficial to his group dynamic. (This is where the old canard “dogs want to please their owners” comes from.)
Tension and release are programmed into all of nature. Even Aristotle understood this dynamic when articulating the ways that drama, poetry and music use (or imitate) this natural flow of energy. One of the reasons that tension-and-release is so important in dog training is that dogs and wolves are basically two manifestations of the same species, one wild, one domesticated. And, to a certain degree, they share the same predatory instincts, though dogs don’t have the “complete predatory package” wolves do. That’s because humans have bred dogs to use certain aspects of their prey drive, that is certain specific predatory motor patterns like the search, the eye-stalk, the chase, the grab bite, and the kill bite, for specific purposes: bloodhounds are all search, border collies are mostly eye-stalk with a little chase thrown in, retrievers shouldn’t have a strong kill bite, etc. So some of these motor patterns inherited from the wolf have been amplified in some breeds, some have been diminished.
Pet dogs don’t really need to use these instincts to “make a living”—they get their food in a bowl—yet that instinctive, predatory energy is still active, creating behavioral problems if it’s not given a satisfying outlet, usually through playing games or doing some sort of work (which to most dogs is very much like play). The prey drive is the raison d’etre for the pack instinct, so dogs get most of their natural sociability from their genetic history as social predators. However, their social history with humans has given them a remarkable ability to read our conscious and unconscious signaling, giving many dog owners the impression that, “My dog seems to know what I’m thinking.” And to a certain extent that’s true, though I’d phrase it this way: “your dog knows what you’re feeling.”
In wolves, one of the ways the predatory instincts function is through a natural mechanism of increasing internal tension when the pack hasn’t hunted for a while. This seems to be a necessary motivator, an incentive to get the wolves to leave the safety of their den (or home turf), and go out to hunt and kill animals that could very easily kill or severely injure them individually. In other words, there seems to be a kind of balance scale between the “survival” instincts of the individual pack members on the one hand, and the needs of the predatory instincts of the pack as a whole on the other. As this internal tension between fear and desire builds they seek a release for that tension and find it in the form of hunting.
Captive wolves and village dogs don’t have this release mechanism available to them, so they express their internal tension through what are commonly misconstrued as dominant and submissive, or hierarchical behaviors. In other words, their natural aggressive energy, which is designed to be directed only toward prey animals and toward other wolf packs who might invade their turf, becomes directed to members of their own social group instead. (I say “social group” because without the need or opportunity to hunt large prey captive wolves and village dogs don’t form real packs.)
This same build up of tension (or unused predatory energy) happens in pet dogs unless they get a chance to use it in some way that’s acceptable to the social dynamic they’re a part of. (If they choose unacceptable behaviors and are punished for them, the internal tension worsens, creating even more “behavioral problems” or withdrawal from all household comity). Most behavioral problems are caused by this increase in the dog’s underlying nervous or emotional tension; the dog simply doesn’t know what else to do with his energy, how to use it safely. That’s why techniques like desensitization, which are actually designed to reduce the dog’s energetic output, don’t work very often to solve behavioral issues, and why things like playing tug, and giving the dog release of tension through play, almost always work (unless there’s an underlying physiological condition, and play therapy sometimes works even then).
All dogs are different so the release of tension doesn’t always have to come through play. For some dogs it can come from doing a lot of sniffing on their walks (the search), killing toys (the kill bite), or, since many obedience behaviors are analogues to the predatory motor patterns found in wild wolves, dogs can reduce their internal tension simply through obeying their owner’s commands, as long as the commands are taught without creating more tension.
As you can probably tell, in my view, most behaviors are best learned through teaching the dog that obedience successfully reduces his internal tension. One of the most direct and satisfying way to do this is through biting games. Dogs who’ve had their oral impulses punished as puppies, or pups who’ve had their natural inquisitive nature quashed by well-meaning positive trainers who believe “almost everything needs to be taught right away,” will either display too much energy—in the forms of destructive chewing, excessive jumping up, barking, digging, aggression, etc.—or will display too little energy because they’ve shut themselves off from their instinctive release systems in the interest of feeling safe within their social system. This is why a good hard game of tug can be such a “cure-all,” especially when played outside because for the first class of dogs—those with too much energy—it’s a satisfying outlet, for the others, it’s a safe way to bring their natural, normal energy back up to the surface and finally find a way to release it.
I’m actually not against using treats, or prescribing desensitization (on the off-chance that it might work, since it does about 15% of the time). I am against punishing and scolding a dog for anything, but I see nothing wrong with letting a dog know when he’s out of bounds. (A simple, “Hey, that’s my toe!” followed by “Good doggie!” seems to work just fine.) I’ve also learned that what would normally be perceived as punishment by the dog, as long as it’s done as part of a high-energy game, and the dog is given an immediate release for the shock of energy the stimulus has caused, just makes him that much more invested in the game, makes him more willing to work with and for his trainer, and doesn’t cause anything close to the kind of negative side-effects inherent in dominance training. In fact, if anything, it does the exact opposite: it invigorates and enlivens the dog.
Also, when you use the prey drive in training, and make the exercises more and more difficult for the dog (things like the “down while running” and the “stay with a ball throw right past the dog’s nose”) you’re strengthening his emotional flexibility and adaptability, which come directly from the prey drive. That’s because when wolves are hunting large prey they have an incredible capacity to be aware of everything going on around them, to stop on a dime emotionally when needed, to instantly pump up their emotions to the max when needed, to cooperate and be in harmony with one another to an almost telepathic degree (it may even be telepathic), and to manage and use their own levels of internal tension in ways that are simply incredible. To give your dog even a tiny taste of that does wonders for his morale, not to mention his ability to adapt to almost anything that life throws at him.
So that’s basically it. The only thing to add is that this really isn’t my philosophy as much as it’s my take on the Kevin Behan philosophy. Either way, I hope it’s helpful!
Over time behaviors which are successful at reducing tension without disturbing the social dynamic between the dog and owner are preferred by the dog and become learned. If you want to apply the behaviorist paradigm to this it means that learning happens only through what’s called negative reinforcement, which is the reduction or removal of an unpleasant stimulus (in this case, internal tension). If you want to apply the dominance paradigm, you could say that when a dog knows who’s alpha and who’s not (which is a fantasy, but many people firmly believe in it) he’s much less likely to have any internal tension—that’s all taken care of by accepting and submitting to his position within the social order. This is actually true on a certain level, just as the behaviorist paradigm is. Two other things to remember are that the behaviorist paradigm works best when the reinforcers used are relevant to the source of the dog’s internal tension, and the dominance paradigm works best when the trainer’s fantasies of being alpha are mostly kept to himself and don’t manifest in punishing or scaring the dog into obedience.
There’s no question that both training methods create well-trained dogs a certain percentage of the time. After all, if trainers in both camps weren’t getting some positive results, they’d surely start looking for a new way of doing things. (I think the other part of the equation is that, generally speaking, most dog training is 85% due to the dog, and only 15% due to the trainer or her methodology.) However, it’s been my experience (and I’ve used both dominance and behaviorist techniques) that it’s only through understanding where and how a dog’s internal tension comes from, and how best to use it, activate it, and help the dog reduce it, that you get results that work much closer 100% of the time with all the dogs you train. So to me it’s better to understand how a dog really operates rather than to stick to these old paradigms and methodologies.
There’s another piece to the puzzle here as well, in that dogs who are trained either by conditioning-based techniques or through dominance aren’t necessarily taught how to be emotionally open and flexible. That generally only comes through understanding the underlying flow of energy in the dog’s instinctive and emotional systems.
I see each dog as a discrete energy-exchange system, composed of progressively smaller energy-exchange systems—like organs, cells, genes, etc.—inside its body. Dogs are also part of a larger energy-exchange system of network consciousness, which for lack of a better word we might call “the environment.” Dogs receive energy from their internal systems in the form of heat, instinctive drives, etc., and from the environment in the forms of food, water, oxygen, sensory input (light, sound, and smells each carry forms of energy), and from the network through energy exchanges with other dogs, people, etc. They enjoy their interactions with the larger energy-exchange system most when the kinds of inputs and outputs they engage in are successful at either reducing their internal tension, or successful at building up that tension in a way that when it is released (through behavior) there’s a more pleasurable reduction of that tension as an end result. (This explains some of the really strange behavioral problems we see in dogs who seem to be almost masochistic in the ways that they keep doing harmful things to themselves—like the old punchline goes, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”) Another thing to remember is that the dog is happiest when he feels aligned with the members of his social group, so many times he’ll choose behaviors that don’t seem to be beneficial to him individually but are beneficial to his group dynamic. (This is where the old canard “dogs want to please their owners” comes from.)
Tension and release are programmed into all of nature. Even Aristotle understood this dynamic when articulating the ways that drama, poetry and music use (or imitate) this natural flow of energy. One of the reasons that tension-and-release is so important in dog training is that dogs and wolves are basically two manifestations of the same species, one wild, one domesticated. And, to a certain degree, they share the same predatory instincts, though dogs don’t have the “complete predatory package” wolves do. That’s because humans have bred dogs to use certain aspects of their prey drive, that is certain specific predatory motor patterns like the search, the eye-stalk, the chase, the grab bite, and the kill bite, for specific purposes: bloodhounds are all search, border collies are mostly eye-stalk with a little chase thrown in, retrievers shouldn’t have a strong kill bite, etc. So some of these motor patterns inherited from the wolf have been amplified in some breeds, some have been diminished.
Pet dogs don’t really need to use these instincts to “make a living”—they get their food in a bowl—yet that instinctive, predatory energy is still active, creating behavioral problems if it’s not given a satisfying outlet, usually through playing games or doing some sort of work (which to most dogs is very much like play). The prey drive is the raison d’etre for the pack instinct, so dogs get most of their natural sociability from their genetic history as social predators. However, their social history with humans has given them a remarkable ability to read our conscious and unconscious signaling, giving many dog owners the impression that, “My dog seems to know what I’m thinking.” And to a certain extent that’s true, though I’d phrase it this way: “your dog knows what you’re feeling.”
In wolves, one of the ways the predatory instincts function is through a natural mechanism of increasing internal tension when the pack hasn’t hunted for a while. This seems to be a necessary motivator, an incentive to get the wolves to leave the safety of their den (or home turf), and go out to hunt and kill animals that could very easily kill or severely injure them individually. In other words, there seems to be a kind of balance scale between the “survival” instincts of the individual pack members on the one hand, and the needs of the predatory instincts of the pack as a whole on the other. As this internal tension between fear and desire builds they seek a release for that tension and find it in the form of hunting.
Captive wolves and village dogs don’t have this release mechanism available to them, so they express their internal tension through what are commonly misconstrued as dominant and submissive, or hierarchical behaviors. In other words, their natural aggressive energy, which is designed to be directed only toward prey animals and toward other wolf packs who might invade their turf, becomes directed to members of their own social group instead. (I say “social group” because without the need or opportunity to hunt large prey captive wolves and village dogs don’t form real packs.)
This same build up of tension (or unused predatory energy) happens in pet dogs unless they get a chance to use it in some way that’s acceptable to the social dynamic they’re a part of. (If they choose unacceptable behaviors and are punished for them, the internal tension worsens, creating even more “behavioral problems” or withdrawal from all household comity). Most behavioral problems are caused by this increase in the dog’s underlying nervous or emotional tension; the dog simply doesn’t know what else to do with his energy, how to use it safely. That’s why techniques like desensitization, which are actually designed to reduce the dog’s energetic output, don’t work very often to solve behavioral issues, and why things like playing tug, and giving the dog release of tension through play, almost always work (unless there’s an underlying physiological condition, and play therapy sometimes works even then).
All dogs are different so the release of tension doesn’t always have to come through play. For some dogs it can come from doing a lot of sniffing on their walks (the search), killing toys (the kill bite), or, since many obedience behaviors are analogues to the predatory motor patterns found in wild wolves, dogs can reduce their internal tension simply through obeying their owner’s commands, as long as the commands are taught without creating more tension.
As you can probably tell, in my view, most behaviors are best learned through teaching the dog that obedience successfully reduces his internal tension. One of the most direct and satisfying way to do this is through biting games. Dogs who’ve had their oral impulses punished as puppies, or pups who’ve had their natural inquisitive nature quashed by well-meaning positive trainers who believe “almost everything needs to be taught right away,” will either display too much energy—in the forms of destructive chewing, excessive jumping up, barking, digging, aggression, etc.—or will display too little energy because they’ve shut themselves off from their instinctive release systems in the interest of feeling safe within their social system. This is why a good hard game of tug can be such a “cure-all,” especially when played outside because for the first class of dogs—those with too much energy—it’s a satisfying outlet, for the others, it’s a safe way to bring their natural, normal energy back up to the surface and finally find a way to release it.
I’m actually not against using treats, or prescribing desensitization (on the off-chance that it might work, since it does about 15% of the time). I am against punishing and scolding a dog for anything, but I see nothing wrong with letting a dog know when he’s out of bounds. (A simple, “Hey, that’s my toe!” followed by “Good doggie!” seems to work just fine.) I’ve also learned that what would normally be perceived as punishment by the dog, as long as it’s done as part of a high-energy game, and the dog is given an immediate release for the shock of energy the stimulus has caused, just makes him that much more invested in the game, makes him more willing to work with and for his trainer, and doesn’t cause anything close to the kind of negative side-effects inherent in dominance training. In fact, if anything, it does the exact opposite: it invigorates and enlivens the dog.
Also, when you use the prey drive in training, and make the exercises more and more difficult for the dog (things like the “down while running” and the “stay with a ball throw right past the dog’s nose”) you’re strengthening his emotional flexibility and adaptability, which come directly from the prey drive. That’s because when wolves are hunting large prey they have an incredible capacity to be aware of everything going on around them, to stop on a dime emotionally when needed, to instantly pump up their emotions to the max when needed, to cooperate and be in harmony with one another to an almost telepathic degree (it may even be telepathic), and to manage and use their own levels of internal tension in ways that are simply incredible. To give your dog even a tiny taste of that does wonders for his morale, not to mention his ability to adapt to almost anything that life throws at him.
So that’s basically it. The only thing to add is that this really isn’t my philosophy as much as it’s my take on the Kevin Behan philosophy. Either way, I hope it’s helpful!
Lee Charles Kelley (2007)
2 comments:
Summer's Mommy wrote:
Call it kismet, Lee!!! I just directed a friend to your blog because she asked with interest about training through prey drive, and I was struggling to give her my take on it correctly!! I love your post!!! I hope she reads it and gains good info from it, because to me, it is golden!
I'm currently teaching Summer to jump over a four foot hurdle. She's a real pro now! And as I teach her more new things, and proof the stuff she already knows, she's really gaining in confidence. I can safely say I can get her in a strict Sit/Stay or Down/Stay WHILE there are a ton of dogs milling around her, walk 100 yards away, and get her to recall like her patootie is on fire. She'll do a sharp front/sit, then the Heel and side sit finish. Working on Down while walking with her on leash. Oh, and she generalized the Jump command on her own - I was walking her to prospect park, and there was a rope cordon where I wanted to take a short cut, so I said Jump, and she cleared the barrier with two feet to spare! She COULD have just stepped over it, but I wanted to test her. And many times, I can actually get her to recall to me IN midplay with her favorite pups. You'd be proud of her! She's coming a long way! Also going to start working on her learning how to jump over her leash if I hold it in a U-shape (without her being attached, of course...) and eventually, want her to learn how to jump through a hoop made with my arms. :D
I hope you're doing well.
That's great stuff, SM! It's amazing how dogs can "generalize" stuff so quickly when you make it part of a high energy game.
LCK
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