Dog training
Dog training is a type of animal training, the application of behavior analysis which uses the environmental events of antecedents and consequences to modify the dog behavior, either for it to assist in specific activities or undertake particular tasks, or for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life. While training dogs for specific roles dates back to Roman times at least, the training of dogs to be compatible household pets developed with suburbanization in the 1950s.
A dog learns from interactions it has with its environment. This can be through classical conditioning, where it forms an association between two stimuli; non-associative learning, where its behavior is modified through habituation or sensitisation; and operant conditioning, where it forms an association between an antecedent and its consequence.
Most working dogs are now trained using reward-based methods, sometimes referred to as positive reinforcement training. Other reward-based training methods include clicker training, model-rival training, and relationship-based training.
Training methods that emphasize punishment include the Koehler method, electronic training, dominance-based training, and balanced training. The use of punishment is controversial with both the humaneness and effectiveness questioned by many behaviorists. Furthermore, numerous scientific studies have found that reward-based training is more effective and less harmful to the dog-owner relationship than punishment-based methods.
Definition
Dog training is the act of teaching a dog particular skills or behaviors. Dog training includes teaching a dog to react to particular commands and cues as well as to act independently by deliberately changing their natural behavior.Dogs have been trained to perform a large number of practical functions including search and rescue, herding livestock, guarding, explosive or drug detection, and disability assistance. Dogs have also been trained to perform recreational functions, including companionship and shooting assistance.
Dog training usually involves the basic obedience training to establish control over the animal and can then progress to more advanced specialist training. Basic obedience training includes teaching a dog:
- Recall – teaching the dog to come on command
- Sit – teaching the dog to sit on command
- Heeling – teaching the dog to walk on or off lead with the handler
- Stay – teaching the dog not to stray on command
- Socialising – neutrality or excitement when appropriate during a reaction with the outside world
History
Before 1900
In around 127-116 B.C., a Roman farmer, Marcus Varro, recorded advice on raising and training puppies for herding livestock. His writings indicate that not only was dog training for specific tasks well established, but that the value of early training was recognized.In 1848, W. N. Hutchinson published his book Dog Breaking: The Most Expeditious, Certain and Easy Method, Whether Great Excellence or Only Mediocrity Be Required, With Odds and Ends for Those Who Love the Dog and the Gun. Primarily concerned with training hunting dogs such as pointers and setters, the book advocates a form of reward-based training, commenting on men who have "a strong arm and a hard heart to punish, but no temper and no head to instruct" and suggesting "Be to his virtues ever kind. Be to his faults a little blind." Stephen Hammond, a writer for Forest and Stream magazine, advocated in his 1882 book Practical Training that hunting dogs be praised and rewarded with meat for doing the correct behavior. One of the earliest training manuals for training dogs was published in 1910.
War years
began training dogs for police work in Germany, and was appointed principal of the State Breeding and Training Establishment for police dogs in Berlin, where he carried out original research into training dogs for a broad range of service tasks. At the outbreak of war in 1914 he was charged with organising and directing the use of dogs to further the war effort. He headed the Experimental Institute for Armed Forces' Dogs during the Second World War, and afterwards ran the German Dog Farm, a centre for the training of working dogs, including assistance dogs for the blind. He played a leading role in the formation of the German Canine Research Society and Society for Animal Psychology. His 1910 publication, Training Dogs: A Manual, emphasized using instinctive behavior such as the prey drive to train desired behaviors, advocated the use of compulsion and inducements, differentiated between primary and secondary reinforcers, and described shaping behaviors, chaining components of an activity, and the importance of timing rewards and punishments. The book demonstrated an understanding of the principles of operant conditioning almost thirty years before they were formally outlined by B.F. Skinner in The Behavior of Organisms. While publishers of the 2001 reprint warn that some of the "compulsive inducements" such as the switch, the spiked collar and the forced compliance are unnecessarily harsh for today's pet dogs, the basic principles of Most's methods are still used in police and military settings.Marian Breland Bailey played a major role in developing empirically validated and humane animal training methods and in promoting their widespread implementation. Marian was a graduate student under B.F. Skinner. Her first husband Keller Breland also came to study with Skinner and they collaborated with him, training pigeons to guide bombs. The Brelands saw the commercial possibilities of operant training, founding Animal Behavior Enterprises. In 1955, they opened the "I.Q. Zoo" as both a training facility and a showcase of trained animals. They were among the first to use trained animals in television commercials, and the first to train dolphins and whales as entertainment, as well as for the navy. Keller died in 1965, and in 1976 Marian married Bob Bailey, who had been director of marine mammal training for the navy. They pioneered the use of the clicker as a conditioned reinforcer for training animals at a distance. ABE went on to train thousands of animals of more than 140 species. Their work had significant public exposure through press coverage of ABE-trained animals, bringing the principles of behavior analysis and operant conditioning to a wide audience.
Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian scientist who is regarded as developing the foundations of ethological research, further popularized animal behaviorism with his books, Man Meets Dog and King Solomon's Ring. Lorenz stated that there were three essential commands to teach a dog: "lie down", "basket" and "heel".
In 1935, the American Kennel Club began obedience trials, and in the following years popular magazines raised public awareness of the benefits of having a trained pet dog, and of the recreational possibilities of dog training as a hobby. After WWII, the increasing complexities of suburban living demanded that for a pet dog's own protection and its owner's convenience, the dog should be obedient. William Koehler had served as principal trainer at the War Dog Training Center, in California, and after the war became chief trainer for the Orange Empire Dog Club—at the time, the largest dog club in the United States—instructor for a number of breed clubs, and a dog trainer for the Walt Disney Studios.
In 1962, Koehler published The Koehler Method of Dog Training, in which he is highly critical of what he calls "tid-bit training techniques" based in "the prattle of 'dog psychologists'". Amongst the training innovations attributed to Koehler is the use of a long line in conjunction with a complete absence of oral communication as a way of instilling attentiveness prior to any leash training. Koehler insisted that participants in his training classes used "emphatic corrections", including leash jerks and throw chains, explaining that tentative, nagging corrections were cruel in that they caused emotional disturbance to the dog. Vicki Hearne, a disciple of Koehler's, commented on the widespread criticism of his corrections, with the explanation that it was the emotionally loaded language used in the book that led to a number of court cases, and to the book being banned in Arizona for a time. Despite the controversy, his basic method forms the core of many contemporary training systems.
Post WWII
In the 1950s, Blanche Saunders was a staunch advocate of pet-dog training, travelling throughout the U.S. to promote obedience classes. In The Complete Book of Dog Obedience, she said, "Dogs learn by associating their act with a pleasing or displeasing result. They must be disciplined when they do wrong, but they must also be rewarded when they do right." Negative reinforcement procedures played a key part in Saunders' method, primarily the jerking of the choke chain. The mantra taught to students was "Command! Jerk! Praise!" She felt that food should not be an ongoing reward, but that it was acceptable to use "a tidbit now and then to overcome a problem". Saunders perhaps began the shift away from military and police training methods, stressing repeatedly the importance of reinforcement for good behavior in training—a move toward the positive training methods used today.In 1965, John Paul Scott and John Fuller identified the critical periods for learning and social development in puppies, and published Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, a landmark study of dog behavior.
The 1980 television series Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way made Barbara Woodhouse a household name in the UK, and the first international celebrity dog trainer. Known for her "no bad dogs" philosophy, Woodhouse was highly critical of "bad owners", particularly those she saw as "overly sentimental". She described the "psychoanalyzing of dogs" as "a lot of rubbish". Her no-nonsense style made her a pop-culture icon, with her emphatic "sit" and catch cry of "walkies" becoming part of the popular vernacular.
The monks of New Skete, who were breeders and trainers of German Shepherds in Cambridge, New York, published How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend: A Training Manual for Dog Owners in 1978 and it became an immediate best seller. Despite advocating a philosophy that "understanding is the key to communication and compassion with your dog", they endorsed confrontational punishments which were later shown to elicit dangerously aggressive responses in many dogs.
In the 1980s, veterinarian and animal behaviorist Ian Dunbar discovered that despite evidence on the peak learning periods in animals, few dog trainers worked with puppies before they were six months old. Dunbar founded Sirius Dog Training, the first off-leash training program specifically for puppies, which emphasizes the importance of teaching bite inhibition, sociality, and other basic household manners, to dogs under six months of age. Dunbar has written numerous books, and is known for his international seminar presentations and award-winning videos on puppy and dog behavior and training.
Prior to the 1980s, Karen Pryor was a marine-mammal trainer who used Skinner's operant principles to teach dolphins and develop marine-mammal shows. In 1984, she published her book, Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training, an explanation of operant-conditioning procedures written for the general public. In the book, Pryor explains why punishment as a way to get people to change often fails, and describes specific positive methods for changing the behavior of husbands, children and pets. Pryor's dog training materials and seminars showed how operant procedures can be used to provide training based on positive reinforcement of good behavior. Pryor and Gary Wilkes introduced clicker training to dog trainers with a series of seminars in 1992 and 1993. Wilkes used aversives as well as rewards, and the philosophical differences soon ended the partnership.