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Dog-training methods have been gradually changing among relatively small percentages of dog-trainers in the last dozen years or so.

Clicker-training is becoming increasingly popular, and I think that is probably good for dogs and for their humans. When used as The Baileys taught and teach, the trainer makes a precisely-timed click-sound, using a little box that holds a metal tongue - a clicker.

Immediately following the click-sound, the trainer delivers some kind of reward, or reinforcer, to the trainee-animal.

The effect on the animal is that it's more likely to repeat a rewarded behavior another time, in a simllar environment

Clicker-training is gaining in popularity. Training an animal using rewards instead of uncomfortable or frightening corrections, such as jerking on leashes, or speaking harshly to the animal, tends to elicit willing responses in the animal.

A neuropsychologist who first told me about clicker-training remarked that she wasn't afraid to use food in training, because she appeals to the animal's survival instinct that way.

There are still many, many dog-trainers who are so enveloped in the long-standing beliefs that dogs try to dominate each other, or to dominate humans, that the very idea of teaching a dog to demand food from humans for doing tricks, or obeying commands, therefore, the whole idea of clicker-training, is simply too frightening for them to consider undertaking.

However, trainers and human keepers of companion-dogs who dare to make the investment to learn how to train efficiently and effectively with a clicker discover that their dogs, after all, become quite well-behaved, and far more reliable responding to human cues for precisely desired behaviors than they had been before.

I went through this terrifying experience myself, and described it in a post to the ClickerSolutions Yahoo Group.

Here is the unexpurgated post in which I describe certain terrors I felt when I took up clicker-training.

From Dominance to Pragmatism: behavior and environment

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:13:17 -0800

All behavior occurs in and is affected by environment. So, when you observe behavior, you need also to note what is in the environment where that behavior occurs. Keep notes; you need them; as Bob Bailey says, our memories are unreliable.

CUTTING OUT HUGE AMOUNTS OF TEXT FROM SOURCE (listposts.htm).

Trainers of thirty years ago, even twenty, weren't commonly educated in these signals; some might have learned from wolf-ethologists that wolves use signals to cut off aggression already in progress, but Turid Rugaas and her colleagues discovered dogs use multitudes of signals, maybe not as strong as wolf-signals, but more of them, and more constantly, perhaps, not only to cut off aggression already in progress, but also, to prevent any from starting up. So the veterinarians weren't, and many probably still (including most of my own) still aren't - informed on the signals and their usefulness. I am, though; after all, I have put Turid's work through extensive testing on my own, and the results are as Turid says they are; in short, her work is replicable, empirically.

And what do the Coppingers contribute? Well, in their book Dogs, they point out how genetics and early-learning are related and often indistiguishable (very important information for breeders and for trainers), and also, they remind us that probably the Border Collie "doesn't know the sheep belong in the pen." This last, if we can just remember it, helps us achieve distance in our own observations. We do undoubtedly have to work on ourselves to achieve that distance, and I am no exception to that.

Stories to follow eventually, to illustrate life without dominance as a model, and how other factors can replace the dominance model. I'll just say this for now: we don't have to ask any dog to defer to us, provided we meet the dog's real needs, in timely ways. And I'll add that it's perfectly safe to listen to our dogs, and even take cues from them.

If you are afraid your dog is "aggressive," I suggest, look first to see what in the environment is threatening the dog. Maybe it's you, too! Even if that's not your intent. But you could ask yourself.

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:12:10

    --Carol

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