Poisoned Cues, Fallout and Shutting Down

Or, Why Stephani Really Really Dislikes Aversives!

When a trainer combines positive punishment (P+) or negative reinforcement (R-) with Positive Reinforcement (R+, mostly food), it can really screw up a dog. Not just the dog, but the relationship between the dog, its owner and the environment around it.

Terms like: poisoned cue, fallout, and shutting down all refer to cases where both food and punishment have been used.

For the sake of this post, I am going to use "food" for positive reinforcement and "punishment" for positive punishment. Please note that there are other instances that also cause fallout.

So, a typical scenario in positive reinforcement based training might be: dog sits, gets a click and then a cookie. Happiness all around! If the dog does not sit, then we wait a few seconds and do something else (like a down or loose leash walk) and then re-cue. If the dog sits, click then treat. If the dog doesn’t sit, then no cookie. As easy as that.

In a scenario that combines food with punishment it looks like this: owner cues the sit, dog sits, gets clicked and treated. Owner walks a few steps and asks for a sit. Dog doesn’t sit, so owner leash pops the dog (or smacks the dog’s butt or pushes the dog into a sit), the dog sits and then is clicked and treated. The cue no longer means something good. It becomes poisoned. The dog has no way of knowing if the cue will mean something good or something bad, so it avoids the bad and sits.

You can poison a cue quite easily with a soft (sensitive) dog if you are training while frustrated. You can also poison a cue by introducing a shock collar into the mix and shocking the dog.

Retraining a dog that was trained with punishment or a combination of punishment and food is a long, long road to recovery.

If a trainer tells you that the only way to “proof” your dog for certain behaviors is to start using punishment, then I say bullshit (proofing is another traditional trainer term, but I use it in class and mean the same thing, but without punishment). Proofing means testing the dog in a number of scenarios to see if they really understand the cue. You don’t need to correct (punish) the dog if they screw up - you need to back up your expectations and train more. In other words, you have not trained enough!

 
Note: Part of this post was originally written in another forum. 

Body Handling Issues - Nail Trimming

With many behavioral issues, we go back to the basic desensitization and counter conditioning "rules."  The "rules" can be found at the link below.

http://ellaherdingcats.blogspot.com/2011/11/fear-based-behaviors-overview.html

When working with a dog that dislikes having his nails trimmed, we start very slowly and use a very high value treat. Some dogs have learned to snap when a hand comes close to their feet, so we start at a safer spot, such as the shoulder area. If your dog has back-end handling issues, you can do the same steps as below, but start at the shoulder area and work very slowly to the hip area and then down the back leg. If, at any time, you feel unsafe, consult with a professional dog trainer!

Make your dog and yourself comfortable for this, since this should be enjoyable for both of you. A grooming table can be very useful or have the dog lie quietly on the couch while you sit beside him. If you already use a clicker or a marker word, it can be used during desensitization and counter conditioning. Or, you can just give the treat. Each session should be about 5 minutes long and you can do multiple sessions per day, but do not take the next step until the dog is completely comfortable during the current step.

Some dogs have become afraid of the clippers, so having them where the dog can see them can be helpful, but we will not pick them up at first.

Assuming the dog does not mind being touched at the shoulder, start by gently touching and patting the shoulder area. At the same time, click, if using the clicker, then give a treat. Repeat this: touch the shoulder area, click, and then give a treat.

When the dog is happily anticipating your touch at the shoulder area, move your hand to the elbow area. Touch, click and treat.

Here are the next areas: upper leg, ankle, foot. Remember to practice at each area until the dog becomes completely comfortable.

Signs that the dog is not comfortable: panting, lip flicking, tucked tail, shaking, looking away, snapping, or growling. Some other signs include pulling the paw away or running away during the training session. If any of these happen, then you need to back up at least one, if not two steps.

Signs that your dog is comfortable: tail wagging, looking for the treat, offering the paw, begging.

Once your hand is on or near the dog’s foot, try holding the foot gently in your hand for the count of one. Remember that we are still clicking and treating! Slowly build up duration (time) that the dog’s foot is in your hand by working on one second hold, then two second hold, then one second hold, then three second hold and so on.

We are not quite to the clipping stage yet! We still need to part the toes, touch the foot with the clipper, clip the clipper, and then clip the nails. For the first two steps, still click and treat as you do them.

The “clip the clipper” step is an important one. During this step, we will use an old set of clippers and some toothpicks. Every time you clip a toothpick, your dog will get a treat. Do this over and over until he becomes comfortable with the noise. Once comfortable with the noise, clip the toothpick while holding or touching the dog’s foot with your hand (this takes a little practice).

Once the dog is comfortable with the noise, it is time to pair the holding of the paw with the clipping of the clipper. If your dog is easygoing, you could try to clip one nail at this point. When first starting to clip, I give a treat before and after the clip. Two treats for each nail. Once the dog is completely comfortable with being clipped, then I phase out the beginning treats and give one after each nail.

To review the steps: shoulder, elbow, upper leg, ankle, foot, holding foot, parting toes, touch the foot with the clipper, clip the clipper, clip the nails.

To review the rules: do not proceed to the next step until your dog is completely comfortable with the step that you are working on. Some dogs can fly through all of the steps in one session, but this in the exception. Taking a week or more per step is not uncommon.

Body Handling Issues - An Overview

Socialization during puppyhood includes introduction and desensitization to a lot of new things. Most people think of socialization as meeting new people and dogs. It does mean this, but socialization also needs to include getting used to being gently handled (grooming, petting, etc), experiencing many different types of flooring, riding in cars, seeing other animals, and a whole host of other experiences that can help make a puppy confident in his or her environment.

Body handling issues happen when a dog has not been handled enough as a puppy, dislikes being handled in certain areas or has had a bad experience that causes fear of being handled. It can be interesting to speculate why a dog might not like being handled in certain ways, but no matter what the reason, we can help them become more comfortable with being handled.

This series of articles about Body Handling issues will alternate with the Fear Based Behaviors articles during 2012.

Fear Based Behaviors - Part 1

Flower – the giant dog afraid of tile floors
Slippery floors are often a cause for fear based behaviors, especially in large breed dogs. It is important that puppies experience many different flooring types during their socialization period, so that they can learn how to walk on and adapt to new surfaces.

But, some puppies and adult dogs have a hard time with slippery floors. Some adult dogs have slipped and been injured and this leads to avoidance of the slippery floors. Some dogs will barely walk/crawl across slippery floors and others will make a mad dash across them.

Dogs that have lost a leg need to relearn how to walk on slippery floors. Extremely overweight dogs can have a fear of slippery floors because their legs are not strong enough to hold them up on the floor (in this case, the dog needs to lose weight while working on the floor issues).

It is important to manage this problem while desensitizing the dog to the floor. Management would include placing carpet strips (with non-slip backings) on the floor for the dog to walk on. Management might also include keeping the dog out of the room with the slippery floors during the behavior modification period. There are also products on the market, such as Paw Pads (http://www.puppylovepawpads.com), which are applied directly to the dog’s feet to give traction. This product is very useful for dogs that have lost limbs and are adapting to the new way they need to walk.

Flower’s owners tried the flooding technique in order to force Flower to get used to their kitchen floor. They dragged Flower to the middle of the floor and left her there. Flower just stood there and trembled until her owners dragged her back to the carpeted area. After that, every time they tried to get Flower onto the kitchen floor, she would fight against the leash. Her owners were afraid that she would hurt herself.

Flower needed to gain confidence on the floor. Since her experience with the flooring was very aversive, even using food to try to lure her onto the floor did not work. Neither did placing carpet samples and luring her onto those. She would not go into the kitchen at all.

After thinking about this issue, we decided to desensitize Flower to linoleum in the living room. This meant getting a piece of linoleum and placing it on the carpet and working with Flower there. We put the linoleum away while not working with Flower.

Thankfully, Flower was not afraid of the piece of linoleum, so we were able to start out by using desensitization and counterconditioning (DSCC) across the room from the linoleum. At all times, Flower was given treats for being in the same room as that linoleum. In one session, we were able to bring Flower right up to the linoleum.

The next session, we worked with carpet samples and the linoleum samples, still in the living room. In this session, our goal was to get Flower to step on each sample (our criteria was one foot). We used food to get Flower close to each sample. The carpet sample was easy. The linoleum one was a bit harder and we used a lot of food. At first we just tossed food around the sample. Then we tossed food onto the sample so that she was touching it with her nose. Then we lured her over and onto the sample with food. We did not force her to step on the sample. She was off leash at all times and could move away from the sample when she needed to (increase of distance to reduce stress).

After the first session, Flower’s owners were instructed to practice with her each day. Their goal was to have Flower be confident about walking over the linoleum sample while it was on the living room carpet.

After they were successful with this, it was time to start working in the kitchen. At first, we did not really work in the kitchen, but in the doorway to the kitchen. When Flower was comfortable in the doorway (again, using DSCC), we placed a carpet sample on the kitchen floor. We used food to get her to step on the carpet sample. By placing one sample next to each other and always allowing Flower to retreat to the living room when she needed to, we were able to bring her a few feet into the kitchen on the carpet samples.
The next step for the owners was to continue doing this with Flower until she was comfortable walking through the kitchen on the carpet samples.

Once that happened, we went back to the living room doorway. We placed Paw Pads on Flower’s feet (and used food to get her used to them). Then, we placed a carpet sample a short distance into the kitchen. Flower would need to take a step onto the real kitchen floor in order to step onto her safe carpet sample. Allowing her to back up into the safety of the living room when needed, we used food to have her place on foot on the floor. We repeated this until she was comfortable walking 1 step to the carpet sample, then 2 steps, then 3 steps.

Flower's owners continued with this process until Flower was successfully walking around a kitchen peppered with carpet samples. Then, they slowly began removing one carpet sample at a time until she was walking in the kitchen comfortably. At that point, they removed the Paw Pads and worked with Flower in the kitchen.

While Flower is still careful about moving around the kitchen, she will willingly walk through the kitchen to get to the back door. She will also come into the kitchen to greet her owners and to get treats. As time progresses, I expect that she will become more and more confident about the flooring.

And, Flower’s owners are now able to take her to places with slippery floors and have her feel confident about them.

Note: This same technique is used to help dogs learn stairs. We start with one stair, then two stairs and increase the number of stairs until the dog is able to go up and down easily.

Fear Based Behaviors - An Overview

What are fear based behaviors?
The easy answer is that it is a behavior caused by fear. Fear is a stressor and the dog will
often try to reduce the stress in a way that works for it. These fears can manifest in many
ways, but tend to fall into a couple of categories: aggressive type behaviors and
avoidance type behaviors (please note that I am generalizing here for the sake of brevity).

What are aggressive type behaviors?
These behaviors include, but are not limited to, barking, growling, lunging, and
nipping/biting.

What are avoidance type behaviors?
These behaviors include, but are not limited to, hiding, running away, and avoiding the
object causing the fear.

Can a dog display both categories?
Yes. Many dogs will show a combination of both.

How do we treat fear based behaviors?
We use a technique called desensitization and counterconditioning. Basically, we pair the frightening object with food. The important things to remember when working with a fearful dog is that the food should be high value (no kibble) and that the distance between the dog and the frightening object is very important.

To recap: food and distance! Food and distance!

The Basics of Desensitization and Counterconditioning (reprinted from a previous
article)

• This is not luring or bribing.
• Food does not make aggression worse.
• The dog does not need to do anything but take the treat (no sits, downs or stays)
• If the dog takes the treat and spits it out, some benefit will still be seen.
• Distance between the scary object and the dog is critical. Start with more distance
• at first and slowly work up to being close to the object.
• Do not force the dog to be close to the object.
• Food fundamentally changes the emotional response that the dog has to the scary
• object. Praise and petting does not do this. Punishment will make the fear worse.
• Remember this equation
• Object = scary
• Object = food
• Food = good
• Object = good

When to use desensitization and counterconditioning:
When the dog is extremely shy or fearful.
When the dog is afraid of objects or things that are unclickable (like wind and rain noises).
When the dog is afraid of the clicker
Anytime!

Flooding
Flooding is a technique that forces the dog to be next to the object it fears until it stops fearing the object. Food is not involved with this process. Many people see the dog shut down and think that the dog is over its fear. In reality, the dog has given up. Flooding is considered to be aversive by many positive reinforcement trainers. It has been shown to backfire in many instances, since the dog does not overcome its fear, but,
instead, either shuts down completely (given up) or becomes even more fearful.

Some examples of flooding:

• Hunting dog is afraid of gunshots, so owner forces dog to be in a kennel next to the firing range.
• Herding dog is afraid of sheep. Owner forces dog to stay in the pasture with the sheep.
• Dog is afraid of strangers. Owner forces the dog to allow pats by strangers.
• Dog is afraid of being outside. Owner forces the dog to be outside.

In each of these instances, it is a rare dog that overcomes its fear and gets used to the objects. Instead, we tend to see more behavioral issues: inappropriate urination/defecation, avoidance of the object to the point where the dog will hurt itself or the owner in order to get away, aggression towards the objects it fears.