I have to say I love my dog to bits, as well as my cat, and I do humanise them a little I suppose, but only because I am here with them on my own most of the time, so I don't have anyone else to talk to, it doesn't seem to bother them much really, to be honest I don't think he really cares if I refer to him as "mummy's little boy" or "oi you!" as long as he gets his dinner, a long walk and bit of a run around with his doggy mates ..he knows he is a dog, and I have different "firm voice" for commands , so he knows the difference
I would never put clothes on my dog, or carry him around in a handbag,or put bows in his hair..I think dogs should look like dogs, and be able to walk as much as possible
He sleeps in my bed, and on the downstairs sofa, as that suits us, but we have other rules he has to stick to.
I think it is ok to humanise your pet to a certain extent, as long as it doesn't affect them, or impede on their happiness and enjoyment of being a dog and they understand that you are the one in charge..I think in most cases, they don't really care as long as they know their boundaries and are still able to do their doggy stuff...
Thats exactly how I am with my dog. He gets his long walks and play time in the park so he is happy if not a bit pampered. I would never in a million years take him to a hotel or a bar!!! poor little thing!
If it works for you and it's not excessive, I applaud you
And I would appauld you for the consideration and balance of your posts, and the realisation that different people interpret or apply the same phases in very different manners and to mean very different things.
I think it's not just what each person considers to be excessive or cruel in general terms but it is also about the personality and stage of training of the dog in question.
For example to a soft compliant dog a raised voise could be excessive and cruel but to a determined, hard-headed over confident youngster who is still in the process of training it may require a certain degree of volume and assertion in the voice to get its attention, depending what other distractions are on offer at the same time.
As ever what is appropriate should be assessed based on all the considerations of each individual's circumstances (dog and human) at that time, and these constantly changing variables are what keeps dog training interesting and challenging :D
My points were not intended to be directed at you personally but are a response directed at an oft-quoted philosophy, that you just happened to cite, that I believe to be vastly over-simplified and so inaccurate and only a part of the story.
But my main aim is to deter people from following Millan's techniques & seeing him as some sort of canine communication genius.
I agree that timing is critical for training, whether using positive/negative reinforcement or positive/negative punishment. Personally I would rather go with positive reinforcement where possible, whether this is teaching children, dogs or colleagues at work. I find it difficult to envisage deliberately using punishment, except maybe in an emergency, in any situation. However it is far too easy for people's own emotions (frustration, anger, tiredness etc) to get in the way when training a dog & give a quick jerk on the lead, or snap at the dog.
At least when training using positive reinforcement, owners will most likely be in the right frame of mind to reward, rather than punish, as most people don't even envisage starting a training session unless they are feeling calm, relaxed & enthusiastic about it.
But “punishment” also includes negative punishment such as withholding a treat or attention including eye contact if the dog doesn’t e.g "Sit" when asked. Many people will deliberately and calmly use this negative punishment without it being in any way due to their frustration, anger or tiredness. Are you saying you would never utilise ANY negative consequence, to a dog’s behaviour including withholding of praise? Surely exclusively errorless learning can only be employed within circumstances that are sufficiently controlled that no other outcome can be offered by the dog, without any coercion by the trainer?
Something that made a huge impression on me when I was learning clicker training techniques & the emotional reaction to positive reinforcement & punishment was to be paired up with another person, one of whom was blindfolded. The blindfolded person had to be steered around an obstacle course by their partner. First time, we were given verbal praise & encouragement by our partner everytime we made a step in the right direction (no praise if going wrong). Second time we were given verbal abuse if we were going wrong & silence if we were going in the right direction.
There was a huge emotional difference between these techniques. In the first scenario i felt encouraged to keep trying, felt happy when I was praised, completely trusted my partner & thoroughly enjoyed the experience. In the second scenario, I felt nervous, anxious, felt like giving up & sitting down & lost all trust in my partner ~ it was not a nice experience at all.
This was a salutary lesson to all of us in the class & maybe gave us just an inkling of how dogs feel when subjected to punishment or negative reinforcement.
IMO any unavoidable negative consequence should ALWAYS be paired with positive consequences for desirable responses, these ar eteh two sides of the coin. However “yes” and “no” (or some equivalent register of required or unrequired actions/responses) are both important communication tools and can communicate more when used together with appropriate intonation and good timing than either might do in isolation. The intonation would make yes a warm approving tone and tone a more neutral tone so there is mild reward and withholding of reward/mild negative punishment. Yes I would very deliberately use this type of punishment in training but I would “yes” much more than I would “no”
I much prefer the term correction to punishment because this conveys what you are aiming to achieve so “no” can be used as a correction in terms of enhanced communication rather than a punishment, and reward and punishment do not have to be used in an either/or basis.
For example in your game in my world there would have been encouragement for moving the correct way and awareness of having moved in the incorrect way by a mild verbal ”no”, i.e. negative punishment of withholding of enthusiastic praise, certainly not “verbal abuse”!!
Your negative experience of the training game would be going back to the abusive world of Conrad Most’s methods where the “reward” is merely the ceasation of punishment!! I would hope no one would treat a dog, or anyone, that way these days!!
Dogs that are taught using positive reinforcement come to enjoy training sessions, they learn that they can be successful & will keep trying various behaviours to earn a reward. They have some control over the consequences of their behaviour & the emotional reaction to the appearance of the clicker is one of the expectation of "joy".
I appreciate that some people like their dogs to be instantly obedient & constantly aware of their owner's commands. Personally I like my dogs to have a bit of independent thought, to try solving puzzles on their own ~ because they know they can!! I've seen plenty of people in the park marching their dogs up & down, changing direction, ensuring the dog is glued to their heel the whole time (& sometimes even using ~ or misusing ~ a clicker to try to achieve this). I want my dogs to enjoy life, to have fun on their walks, to want to be with me & most importantly, to be dogs, (with the proviso that they do not cause any problems to any other person, dogs or livestock). Of course a good recall is vital but a good recall is far more likely if the dog wants to come back to you rather than because it is too scared to leave your side or too frightened of what will happen to it when it is eventually caught.
As you say there are times when for safety and legal responsibilites responses have to be reliable. Good recall because the dog want to be with you is ideal. However some dogs are always going to consider chasing something to be more fun that being with you, especially if they are confident they can always rejoin you after the chase. Not all dogs are like this but if what the dog is doing is + 10 in value and what you are offering is +4 that dog isn’t going to give up what it is doing to come for what you are offering unless it understands that life cannot always be about making your own choice at to whether to comply or to continue with a self reward. This is where with some dogs negative consequences of some degree play a part in their training. If the object of the chase is a flying bird, a butterfly or a shadow it would be impossible, all of which I have seen, it would be impossible to predict when these may occur and have the dog on the lead before. By using mild reprimand and anticipation with reward for compliance it can however be entirely possible to give the dog free exercise while preventing a chase into a possible area of danger form occurring. In these circumstances the dog can also be allowed a harmless chase when safe for it to do so.
I appreciate that there is a lot more to learning theory than just positive/negative reinforcement & punishment. Similarly there is a world of difference between teaching a young pup to sit or lie down & trying to change a fear aggressive dog into a calm, relaxed & confident dog. Ratios & schedules of reinforcement play a huge part in training & behavioural work as well. But also of crucial importance is to recognise the dog's reaction to a reinforcer or a punisher. As you say, if the reward is too salient the dog could get over-excited, or be ineffective if too weak. But these problems are easily resolved ~ change the reward!
Yes I agree that things can go wrong using positive reinforcement incorrectly for the reasons you've said, but the use of punishment can cause much more severe long term problems both behavioural & emotional & it can end up destroying the trust & relationship between the dog & owner.
Believe it or not I have also known people’s relationships with their dogs destroyed and the dog given up due to lack of any negative consequences and so no discipline. As Davonator says, moderation is usually the best route.
I've found with my dog that negative consequences are effective if rarely used. For instance if the dog is about to do something dangerous, a sharp NO! in an abrupt tone of voice will work because it's the only time I use that tone to the dog. Then the dog is praised when she comes back to me.
In response I would like to say that my original post was that "by using positive reinforcement instead, there's very little that can cause negative emotions in a dog". At no time did I say "reward does no harm" which was put in quotes by Tass as though I had said it. And if a "reward" is causing an increase in behaviours that you don't want then clearly the reward is being used wrongly because you would be reinforcing the unwanted behaviour. To go back to the basic rules of operant conditioning, a positive reinforcer causes a behaviour to increase, whether this is a desired behaviour or an unwanted behaviour. If the behaviour does not incease then whatever was used was not a positive reinforcer to that subject. Giving attention of any kind to an attention seeking animal or person is positively reinforcing that behaviour if that behaviour increases..
The other method of increasing a behaviour is by negative reinforcement, i.e. the removal of something that the subject doesn't like, such as releasing the choke chain or stopping nagging. The dog may stop pulling on the lead or the child may remember to make its bed, so the desired results are obtained. This is positively reinforcing to the person holding the end of the choke chain or doing the nagging, i.e. they get want they want because the behaviour of the subject alters. In these circumstances the positively reinforced person's behaviour is likely to increase so they will continue yanking at the lead or nagging their child.
BUT what about the feelings of the subject when they are negatively reinforced? If the dog is pulling on the lead because of it's excitement at going to the park, or the child has to stop to make its bed before doing something more desirable but then has to stop & suppress its desires, then this is can lead to negative emotions towards the person who has effectively controlled the subject's natural desires, i.e feelings of resentment, anger, frustration etc.
There are other ways of altering behaviours & getting desired behaviours without having to resort to punishment or negative reinforcement. For instance train an inconpatible behaviour, or put the unwanted behaviour on cue so that it only occurs on cue & not at other times, or shape the absence of the behaviour or change the motivation for the behaviour. All of these methods can be accomplished using positive reinforcement.
I am not naive enough to think that we can all go through life without ever experiencing punishment or negative reinforcement. It occurs naturally & the lessons learned can be very powerful, e.g. eating food past it's sell-by date will make you very sick, touching an electric fence will give you a shock. The other side of the coin is, of course, negative reinforcement, because the behaviour of not touching the electric fence or eating mouldy food will increase. But there will be a decrease in the original behaviour because of the punishment, leading to fear/anxiety/resentment or other negative emotions.
In the context of dog training, there is no reason why positive reinforcement cannot be used in preference to negative reinforcement or punishment. Yes it may take a bit of forethought & planning & it usually will mean a paradigm shift for the person doing the training as most of us will be so accustomed to using punishment & negative reinforcement in every day life that we are probably not even aware that we are doing it. But this does not mean that we cannot strive to use positive reinforcement for the vast majority of the time, and particularly, when we are consciously having a training session with our dogs, we can set things up for the dog to be successful & be positively reinforced for desired behaviours.
Trainers of marine mammals & cats know that punishment & negative reinforcement rarely works. The usual response from the subject is to avoid the trainer/person, (flight), become aggressive (fight) or just shut down completely & cease all behaviours (learned helplessness). Unfortunately these methods can work with dogs & many other social domesticated species, usually because of fear of being social outcasts, the need to please the person who provides food, shelter etc & the need to remain part of a social group for safety's sake. I think (& this is a personal opinion) that this is why aversives methods of training & changing behaviours is so ingrained in the dog-owning public ~ because it does work. But as i've said before, it does not take into account the emotions of the subject.
As mirandashell says, if punishment is used very rarely, then it has a far greater impact on the subject than if it is used routinely. So if shouting at a dog only occurs in an emergency, such as when it is about to run across a busy road, then you are far more likely to halt the dog in its tracks than if you spend most of your time at the park shouting your dog's name (possibly perceived as constant nagging by your dog:eek:) or at the very least habituation to the sound of your raised voice.
As for using negative punishment (withholding something the subject desires), then the art of shaping desired behaviours addresses this. You set the dog up to be successful by just reinforcing small increments towards the desired behaviour & avoiding circumstances where the dog is likely to fail. No, this is not a fool proof method, & is very easy to get wrong if you don't think about what you are doing & carefully plan how you are going to do it. But if you have to resort to negative punishment then perhaps the fault lies with the trainer for not setting things up properly in the first place?
Clearly most of us are not professional enough or clever enough to go through life only using positive reinforcement in everything we do but I see no wrong in striving to use positive reinforcement as much as possible. We all know the pleasure we receive in getting praise from a teacher, & how, as children, we would be more inclined to enjoy that teacher's lessons & work harder to win that praise. But the teacher that nagged till we did our homework (negative reinforcement), made us feel foolish in front of the class or gave detention, (positive punishment) or withdrew privileges (negative punishment) was feared, or disliked. Yes we may still have done our homework or stopped talking in class but we did not enjoy the lessons with that teacher, we would probably have only done just enough to avoid the punishment & we would not have liked that teacher.
So yes, I shall continue to use positive reinforcement as much as I possibly can with my dogs and if things go wrong, the first thing I will do is examine my own behaviour & think about how I can do things differently to get the behaviours I want by positive reinforcement & not by using punishment or negative reinforcement. If I can do this 90% of the time & my dogs experience success 90% of the time, then I think we will all be much happier.
Wow! This appears to be an example of doctrine overcoming common sense.
Common sense tells you that the most effective relationships between people and people or between people and dogs rely on mutual respect.
You can't achieve mutual respect by hoping to set up situations where there is nothing to correct!Cannot be done.
Telling people what not to do, and explaining why, coupled with educating them on what to do to be a responsible member of society to is how to build up a respectful community.
It is this lack of mutual respect which has grown up since the "permissive society" of the 1960's and beyond, because it was wrong to tell people not to misbehave, that has caused many of the problems of society that we are seeing today.
Wilhelmina's doctrine seems to support the idea of never telling dogs they are wrong........ this isn't logical! It comes from the human psychology "psychobabble" of the past thirty years.
Tell them they are wrong and show them what is right. That's how I train my dogs and they think I'm great. And I think they're great too. Never have to hit them.
In response I would like to say that my original post was that "by using positive reinforcement instead, there's very little that can cause negative emotions in a dog". At no time did I say "reward does no harm" which was put in quotes by Tass as though I had said it.
People who are against any sort of punishment like to stress the potential problems of punishment, fair enough, but many then claim as a contrast that “reward does no harm”.
How can the quote be attributed to you when I say "many" and I had not put up a quote from your post as a reference for this comment?
While I quote and address some of your points in a later post, you are maybe taking things too personally when I use the word “you” when what I meant was “one” but use of that word often seems somewhat pretentious, albeit more accurate.
Yes I discussed how positive reinforcement can sometimes result in negative emotions and other unwanted results but at no time did I misquote you and surely a discussion is about exploring differing views and experiences?
My points were not intended to be directed at you personally but are a response directed at an oft-quoted philosophy, that you just happened to cite, that I believe to be vastly over-simplified and so inaccurate and only a part of the story.
My reference to an oft-quoted philosophy relates to your post that positive reinforcement is unlikely to produce negative results, while punishment should be avoided i.e. not considered to be any part of normal training, (given that an emergency is not a normal event) and I do quote you here, including your bold:
I find it difficult to envisage deliberately using punishment, except maybe in an emergency, in any situation
If punishment is only used in an emergency it can need to be much sharper and more traumatic to be effective, especially when combined with the possible trauma, arousal and distraction of the emergency itself, than if a dog is accustomed to taking note of a mild corrective tone in normal situations and being required to sometimes defer its agenda at that time in favour of adopting the owner’s agenda.
I have already explained why this cannot always be achieved with all dogs with exclusively positive reinforcement from the outset.
If a dog has not been taught to respond/defer to a verbal correction, a raised voice does not necessarily have any deterrent effect and can merely result in increased excitement and intensification of the unwanted behaviour. Additionally if you only ever “punish” a dog in an emergency how would you know what the appropriate type and intensity for your dog would be? No point yelling at him not to knock someone over when you then frighten him into running in the road instead!
We have all seen people yelling at dogs who react by either ignoring them or getting more excited and more exaggerated in their behaviour.
I entire agree with Mirandashell that correction is most effective when used sparingly, but this is not the same as trying to use it when the dog is entirely unfamiliar with it. I have also posted agreeing with Davonator that moderation is the best approach.
As I said in my post, in the illustrative training game/exercise you described I would use far more warm “yes”s than neutral “no”s. In fact the 90% positive you suggest is probably about what I would expect to use, with the positives rising over time and the negatives/neutrals reducing as the dog became more responsive and more attuned to what I was aiming to teach.
However I do not think using as an example a exercise that is based on Most’s abusive methods is a remotely fair illustration of appropriate use of timing and type of punishment which as I have said already, in my opinion, should always be paired with a greater amount of positivity for the dog in terms of encouraging an alternative behaviour.
In real life though, as opposed to theory or the controlled circumstances of a (re)training session, it is sometimes unavoidable to correct an unwanted response before an alternative required response can be obtained and rewarded. This is accepted to sometimes be the case by various professional behaviourists organisations. As I have pointed out even the AVSAB punishment position statement you post about accepts that punishment is sometimes necessary.
Dog training is an art as well as a science because real life events and circumstances intervene and all dogs, trainers and situations are individual combinations and have to be assessed and read as such. Aspirational goals are fine but should not ignore the fact that real life frequently intervenes and has to be accounted for.
Tass ~ I agree with much of what you say & I apologise for taking your comments too personally, if, as you say, that was not your intention.
In particular I agree that, if properly taught, the use of a corrective signal, be it a word/gesture/cue, such as "no" can indicate "that is wrong, try again". But this is completely dependent on how the meaning of this signal (let's call it "no") is taught. If it becomes only a signal for punishment or negative reinforcement, then it will still lead to a negative emotional association. But if it is taught not just as a "Stop what you're doing", but that positive reinforcement may follow a different behaviour, then the "no" starts to become associated with a positve outcome if you/the dog etc does something else. In this context, the "no" starts to have positive connotations and therefore, no negative emotional associations for the subject.
Unfortunately I don't think this is properly explained or taught in the vast majority of cases. Many dog owners just use a harsh "no" or corrective term/gesture/action as an out & out punisher without any consideration for teaching a correct or alternative behaviour or without even teaching what that word means ~ they just rely on the intonation of the voice & their own body language, which most dogs will interpret as something negative.
My other concern is that the use of punishment & negative reinforcement has become an accepted method, not only for dog training, but in all walks of life, but without any consideration for the consequences. As I've said before, I do appreciate that nobody can go through life without encountering punishment & negative reinforcement ~ it teaches all of us (animals as well) lessons that are vital for our survival. But in the context of personal relationships & teaching our pets what is acceptable behaviour & what is unacceptable, I prefer to use positive reinforcement as much as possible. To make myself absolutely clear ~ this does not mean that I don't & won't resort to punishment &/or negative reinforcement on occasion ~ I'm only human & have off days too, when I can snap or shout out of tiredness, frustration etc ~ but I would not consciously do so without first considering if I could achieve the same outcome using positive reinforcement. And if I have to consciously use punishment or negative reinforcement, I would try to think through the possible consequences beforehand & try to find someway of finding a behaviour that I could positively reinforce.
I see that you also try for the vast majority (90%) of positive reinforcements ~ so I don't think, in practical terms, that there is a vast difference in our training methods, perhaps just differences in the underlying philosophy.
Of course there is much more to dog training & behaviour than just associative learning theory ~ ethology, physiology, non-associative learning, phenotype/genotype awareness, etc etc ~ I suppose the art is in drawing all the strands together to approach each dog-owner relationship individually which is effectively what you have said in the last paragraph of your post.
Did anyone see the episode of The Dog Whisperer that involved the pink lady? All the clothes she had in here closet were pink, her home was pink everything was pink including her dog. The dog was nuts and the owner was nuts.
Only in the U.S.A. or is it?
Of course there is much more to dog training & behaviour than just associative learning theory ~ ethology, physiology, non-associative learning, phenotype/genotype awareness, etc etc ~ I suppose the art is in drawing all the strands together to approach each dog-owner relationship individually which is effectively what you have said in the last paragraph of your post.
I hope that this clears up any misunderstandings.
Yes, and that is why posts, however well written, are inevitably limited in how well or throughly they can express things, as a poster can never explain/cover all the possible variables and combinations thereof, not just in each relationship but throughout the different circumstances under which that relationship operates throughout the lifetimes of each of the participants .
A poster is endeavouring to summarise in a single post areas that have entire books devoted to their separate disciplines, never mind to the interactions of those various disciplines and then to individual quirks and exceptions to a rule
Did anyone see the episode of The Dog Whisperer that involved the pink lady? All the clothes she had in here closet were pink, her home was pink everything was pink including her dog. The dog was nuts and the owner was nuts.
Only in the U.S.A. or is it?
I didn't see it but there used to be some lady with dalmations in Britain who had all her clothes, her house and her car and pretty much everything else coloured white and covered in big black spots :eek:
I actually disagree with that, as does feline behaviourist Vicky Halls. She helped me with a bullying problem between my cats, and 'negative consequences' were extremely effective. The negative consequence was to calmly but firmly remove the offending cat to a room 'where he would never choose to go' - the bathroom - and shutting him in there for a few minutes. This had no effect on his relationship with me, but greatly decreased his aggression against our other cat. In my experience, cats can be very sensitive to negative consequences, if used in the right way - and of course in the context of a generally loving and positive relationship with the owner. Assume the same can apply to dogs.
Lippincote ~ you are welcome to enter a discussion on dogs so don't apologise (& this thread doesn't need to be confined to dogs) ~ all input & views are welcome.
I did say "rarely", not always. And this was in the context of training a cat or marine mammal to perform desired behaviours, not behavioural modification of a species-specific behaviour that in the feline world is a normal behavioural response to the presence of a perceived adversary or competitor for resources. You haven't said what the reason was for the "bullying" by one of your cats but I take it was because of disputes over territory or resources. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Perhaps I should have worded this more carefully to say that, in the context of training cats, they rarely learn what we want or intend them to learn from punishment or negative reinforcement. Of course cats learn by punishment ~ if every time they go into a neighbour's garden the neighbour squirts them with water, they will very quickly learn to avoid going into the neighbour's garden when the neighbour is there. However this may not deter them from going into the neighbour's garden when the neighbour is not there if the cat has made the association between the neighbour's presence & the squirt of water. Remote punishment may be more successful in this scenario but it still relies on the cat making an association between the squirt of water & the place. rather than anything else & this cannot be guaranteed.
It is also difficult to know exactly how your cat perceived being removed to the bathroom in the scenario you have described. If your cat perceived that being removed to the bathroom was that something aversive was happening to it or being added to it's environment then this would be positive punishment. Likewise your cat could have perceived that taking it to the bathroom was effectively taking it away from from the presence of a potential aggressor, i.e. removing something bad/dangerous from it's environment or getting rid of a threat to it's safety. In this case it would be negative reinforcement ~ removal of something seen as aversive. Yet another scenario could be that the cat perceived that something good was being taken away from it, e.g. being removed from human company, removed from it's safety area, food, warmth etc ~ in this case your actions could be perceived as negative punishment ~ something good is taken away or withheld as a consequence of its actions.
Whatever the cat's perceptions were, your act of removing it to the bathroom relied on your cat making the association between it's behaviour to the other cat & the consequences of it's behaviour. I'm not sure how anyone could tell that this was definitely the case. What would happen when you were not there? At what stage in the cat's "bullying" behaviour was it removed?
However as the unwanted behaviour i.e bullying, decreased, it is feasible that your cat perceived it's removal to the bathroom as positive or negative punishment ~ the likelihood of a behaviour occurring is decreased by positive or negative punishment but increased by positive or negative reinforcement.
But it still remains that the species-specific behaviour of domestic cats to something aversive happening to it will, if at all possible, be to avoid that aversive. If the aversive cannot be avoided by flight or avoidance-type behaviours, or if the particular resource is very important to it, then it may be that a cat will resort to aggressive behaviours or displays of aggression. If fight/flight behaviours are not an option for whatever reason, then freezing may be an alternative.
So in the context of training desired behaviours in cats, like getting a cat to sit, or jump through a hoop, the cat will have the option of just walking away from you (avoidance). If you grab the cat & force it to do something, it will probably struggle, maybe scratch or bite if it is very frightened (fight), or possibly (but unlikely) freeze. Although if the cat is completely restrained & has no possibility of flight/fight, & is faced with extreme danger, then freeze-type behaviours may be it's only option.
In all these cases the cat has not learned the desired behaviour of sitting or jumping through a hoop. To teach a cat to do these things, you need to find something that the cat perceives as a positive reinforcer e.g. food, & use its motivation to gain the food, to teach it to perform the behaviour.
I hope that I've explained myself a bit better (although I've probably just confused you:eek:!.). I would certainly not criticise Vicky Halls' advice given that I've often recommended her books to people wanting to learn more about cat behaviour.
Hi wilhelmina, Vicky reckoned the bullying was due to a dispute over 'who was no.2 cat' (so yes, partly resources - who sat where etc). No1 was well established and R wanted to be recognised as no.2. M was not disputing it anyway - but R was Burmese and enjoyed a good ruckus, while M was timid and played the victim.
Vicky saw the method as removing him from the situation to give him time to calm down, so breaking the cycle of aggression/terror. The timeout only lasted about three minutes. Interestingly, when the door was opened, he had always 'forgotten' what he was doing and never sought M out even if she was nearby. Vicky said it was important not to talk to him when putting him in or letting him out - so, not giving him any vocal feedback. (He was put in the bathroom at whatever point during the dispute I could get to him!)
I will never know how he 'saw' the issue - he was a cat, he wasn't going to tell me.:D But it allowed them all to live more or less in harmony, and he did stop doing it even when I wasn't present (previously he would chase her outdoors, where I could watch but couldn't catch him, but that ceased too). Partly probably because M became less afraid of him so wouldn't immediately run when he came into view. Anyway - good result all round, and I have used it since during similar cat disputes.
So in the context of training desired behaviours in cats, like getting a cat to sit, or jump through a hoop, the cat will have the option of just walking away from you (avoidance). If you grab the cat & force it to do something, it will probably struggle, maybe scratch or bite if it is very frightened (fight), or possibly (but unlikely) freeze. Although if the cat is completely restrained & has no possibility of flight/fight, & is faced with extreme danger, then freeze-type behaviours may be it's only option.
Who could blame it! Diverting an animal away from antisocial/dangerous behaviour is one thing, making it jump through a hoop etc is another, and not something I would undertake - but I agree with you that the only way forward would be bribery.:D
Forgive me if I misunderstand, but doesn't most your posting criticise Vicky Halls' advice?
Maybe you wouldn't recommend her advice after all?
I don't think anything I've said criticises Vicky Halls' advice
All I said in reply to Lippincote was that there could be several reasons why the advice worked ~ it would depend on the cat's perceptions of the situation. If there had been very severe territorial disputes between the two cats, just giving one "time-out" in another room for a few minutes would not necessarily work. With Lippincote's cats, the disputes were clearly not very severe & any escalation of a conflict could be halted by removing one of the cats.
Learning theory is only one element of behaviour ~ many other factors affect behaviour as well, including physiology. If one or both of the cats had been highly aroused, full of adrenaline, it may have been more difficult to stop a dispute by removing it. Also any territorial disputes could have been bubbling under for some time so that the cats would have had plenty of time to "rehearse" or "practice" aggressive behaviour, so again, this would be a more ingrained behaviour & more difficult to alter.
My reply to Lippincote was only discussing the various interpretations from the perspective of associative learning theory.
I just took a look at the report Vicky H wrote for me, and thought you would be interested in exactly what she said, wilhemina:
"R howls and postures aggressively which results in M withdrawing or running away closely pursued by R. He has tried this behaviour towards B and C [my other two cats] but they ignore him and he has not persevered.... behaviours continue if actions are rewarded and B and C just didn't respond in the appropriate way. M however did and this is constantly rewarding his competitive displays. The diagnosis is therefore inter-act aggression motivated by a hierarchical status challenge.... by helping R to associate his aggresive behaviour with a less desirable area of the house and distracting the sequence of aggression, the constant reinforcement of his undesirable behaviour will be removed."
Thanks for that Lippincote ~ interesting to know VH's thoughts on your cat's behaviour. As she said, the cat that reacted to R's posturing by running away positively reinforced R ~ he got what he wanted! But the other 2 cats didn't react so his aggressive posturing was not rewarded & was extinguished.
With regard to M's behaviour, the fact that R was removed when he started posturing at M may have resulted in M not needing to run away so again, R was not rewarded for his behaviour & it decreased.
I'm glad that it has worked for your cats.
On the physiological level, it is better to avoid circumstances when undesired behaviour occurs if possible. The more that behaviours are practised, the more the neurological pathways associated with those behaviours are used & "strengthened" & the more readily the behaviour will occur again in the same or similar circumstances. The behaviours can be modified via desensitisation & counter-conditioning programmes where the same events occur but in controlled conditions where the stimulus is at such a distance or of such an intensity that the behaviour does not occur & where an alternative behavioural response can be substituted by positive reinforcement.
In your cats' circumstances R & M could be rewarded for non-aggressive or non-fearful behaviour in R's presence. However the problem seems to have resolved itself without the need for this:).
I used to have a Burmese too ~ lived up to their reputation as very territorial, urine-sprayed very frequently & patrolled his territory regularly. Luckily my other cats were elderly, non-territorial & non-threatening so the Burmese restricted his aggressive behaviour to other neighbouring cats!
I just took a look at the report Vicky H wrote for me......
..."The diagnosis is therefore inter-cat aggression motivated by a hierarchical status challenge...."QUOTE]
Which is odd, as the "behaviourist" mantra nowadays normally is that "domestic cats don't have a hierarchy".
Which is what Vicky Halls normally says.... in public at least. (I think the concept was invented by John Bradshaw. )
Whereas any person who has had a multi-cat household knows that domestic cats most certainly do have a hierarchy.... including, it seems, the "private" Vicky Halls?
That's interesting duncan - Vicky wrote that report a few years ago and I haven't read anything she has written recently. As you say, it is obvious to any cat owner that there is a hierarchy.
R has gone to the great cat basket in the sky now, but I have another male Burmese who is practically a carbon copy in terms of behaviour - like you say wilhemina they are very dominant and he likes to show everyone 'his moves':rolleyes:
I think most behaviourists nowadays tend to think of what are termed "hierarchical " disputes, as conflicts over resources. It is too simplistic to say that cat & dog behaviour is caused by a desire to achieve a higher "rank" over the other cat/dog. There are plenty of examples where, for instance, a dog may be "food-aggressive" but only around food, whilst another dog would show aggressive behaviour when someone tried to turf it off the sofa but quite happily share it's dinner! Similarly a cat may show aggressive behaviour towards another cat when it is in the garden, but not in any other place where they happen to meet. If it was simply a matter of hierarchical disputes over "rank" then the aggressive behaviour would be apparent in many other circumstances. You only have to look at the behaviour of group-living feral cats to see that "hierarchy" does not explain all their behaviours.
To determine an animal's motivation for, e.g. acting aggressively, you also have to have a pretty good knowledge of the ethology of that species. Learning theory alone cannot provide all the answers.
With regard to VH's report to Lippincote, it is, perhaps, correct to say there was a "hierarchical" dispute over that particular territory, but not that one cat is trying to achieive a higher rank or status within a social group for all resources.
That's interesting duncan - Vicky wrote that report a few years ago and I haven't read anything she has written recently. As you say, it is obvious to any cat owner that there is a hierarchy.
R has gone to the great cat basket in the sky now, but I have another male Burmese who is practically a carbon copy in terms of behaviour - like you say wilhemina they are very dominant and he likes to show everyone 'his moves':rolleyes:
Rachel Casey, Sarah Heath and John Bradshaw for example all claim cats don't have hierarchies before going on to describe behavioural problems whereby one cat is preventing another having access to resources or is deliberately intimidating it. In my book that is dominant/controlling/hierarchical behaviour.
As another example Franchesca Riccamini, a veterinary APBC member, consistently states in her writings that cats do not have a hierarchy, while again describing how the owner should increase access to resources to prevent one cat deliberately denying access to another in order to resolve stress marking behaviour and to prevent house soiling where one cat is preventing another from access the litter tray (also examples given, amongst others, by Casey, heath and Bradshaw). I gather in a recent lecture Riccamini said she had recently discovered that they do have a hieracrchy but she still doesn't acknowledge this in her articles written since this date, presumably as it would be considered to be herasey (sp) by her peers.
Hence as duncan said, you have the "private" and the "public" views.
Certainly I would entirely agree that virtually any owner who has kept more than one cat, myself included, can see that cats very definately do operate a hierarchy. Several American Behaviourists e.g Karen Overall, also very much support the view that cats are hierarchical.
A hierarchical dispute is not the same thing as whether a hierarchy exists. The function of a stable hierarchy is to reduce aggression as the rank structure is maintained by ritualised behaviour and learned experience, not by aggressive dispute, although as with people, some higher placed individuals can be bullies.
Also hierarchies are rarely as simplictic as to be linear. Cat hieararchies in particular can be time-related so a place may "belong" to one cat at one time of the day but another cat may routinely have presidence of that same place at a different time of the day.
Basic rank and dependent rank also comes into it i.e you and your friend may displace spmeone else that neither of you could displace independently.
Motivation in each situtaion also effects hierarchy and it can be a stable situation whereby one dog/cat e.g routinely defer to another over food but the situation may routinely be the other way around over a favourite bed, depending who is more motivated over that resource.
Similarly the dog who is higher-ranking at home is not necessarily the same as the dog, in the same cohabiting pair, who is "top dog" outside on walks.
In summary rank relates to factors of the situation, as well as the individual.
For clarity, this is the generally accepted meaning of hierarchy:
a. Categorization of a group of people according to ability or status.
b. The group so categorized.
For the purposes of this discussion, the people are all cats.....
Anyone that keeps cats and observes their behaviour can soon tell you where each cat is in their hierachy. It's a means of keeping the peace and preventing constant battle.
You will see the same thing in a neighbourhood, so not sure where the differences are between feral colonies and multicat households. Are there any????
Territorial disputes and hierarchy disputes can co-exist imo. Cats that might be involved in hierarchy issues indoors may even happily work together to defend territory outside against other cats.
With regard to VH's report to Lippincote, it is, perhaps, correct to say there was a "hierarchical" dispute over that particular territory, but not that one cat is trying to achieive a higher rank or status within a social group for all resource
I dunno wilhemina, the behaviour would occur in the house, in our garden or neighbours' gardens- just basically whenever he spotted her - as Vicky said, it became self-rewarding because she reacted. (But interestingly, never happened at mealtimes or at night when they were shut in the breakfast room to sleep together, so seemingly not about those particular resources.)
the function of a stable hierarchy is to reduce aggression as the rank structure is maintained by ritualised behaviour and learned experience
That is so true Tass, that was exactly how it operated when my tabby cat B was alive. He was the unquestioned boss but a very benign ruler - a flick of the tail and a hard stare were the only weapons he needed. When he died last year, all hell broke loose over who in charge... and unfortunately the newly crowned King is a bit of a bully.
Comments
Thats exactly how I am with my dog. He gets his long walks and play time in the park so he is happy if not a bit pampered. I would never in a million years take him to a hotel or a bar!!! poor little thing!
And I would appauld you for the consideration and balance of your posts, and the realisation that different people interpret or apply the same phases in very different manners and to mean very different things.
I think it's not just what each person considers to be excessive or cruel in general terms but it is also about the personality and stage of training of the dog in question.
For example to a soft compliant dog a raised voise could be excessive and cruel but to a determined, hard-headed over confident youngster who is still in the process of training it may require a certain degree of volume and assertion in the voice to get its attention, depending what other distractions are on offer at the same time.
As ever what is appropriate should be assessed based on all the considerations of each individual's circumstances (dog and human) at that time, and these constantly changing variables are what keeps dog training interesting and challenging
But “punishment” also includes negative punishment such as withholding a treat or attention including eye contact if the dog doesn’t e.g "Sit" when asked. Many people will deliberately and calmly use this negative punishment without it being in any way due to their frustration, anger or tiredness. Are you saying you would never utilise ANY negative consequence, to a dog’s behaviour including withholding of praise? Surely exclusively errorless learning can only be employed within circumstances that are sufficiently controlled that no other outcome can be offered by the dog, without any coercion by the trainer?
IMO any unavoidable negative consequence should ALWAYS be paired with positive consequences for desirable responses, these ar eteh two sides of the coin. However “yes” and “no” (or some equivalent register of required or unrequired actions/responses) are both important communication tools and can communicate more when used together with appropriate intonation and good timing than either might do in isolation. The intonation would make yes a warm approving tone and tone a more neutral tone so there is mild reward and withholding of reward/mild negative punishment. Yes I would very deliberately use this type of punishment in training but I would “yes” much more than I would “no”
I much prefer the term correction to punishment because this conveys what you are aiming to achieve so “no” can be used as a correction in terms of enhanced communication rather than a punishment, and reward and punishment do not have to be used in an either/or basis.
For example in your game in my world there would have been encouragement for moving the correct way and awareness of having moved in the incorrect way by a mild verbal ”no”, i.e. negative punishment of withholding of enthusiastic praise, certainly not “verbal abuse”!!
Your negative experience of the training game would be going back to the abusive world of Conrad Most’s methods where the “reward” is merely the ceasation of punishment!! I would hope no one would treat a dog, or anyone, that way these days!!
As you say there are times when for safety and legal responsibilites responses have to be reliable. Good recall because the dog want to be with you is ideal. However some dogs are always going to consider chasing something to be more fun that being with you, especially if they are confident they can always rejoin you after the chase. Not all dogs are like this but if what the dog is doing is + 10 in value and what you are offering is +4 that dog isn’t going to give up what it is doing to come for what you are offering unless it understands that life cannot always be about making your own choice at to whether to comply or to continue with a self reward. This is where with some dogs negative consequences of some degree play a part in their training. If the object of the chase is a flying bird, a butterfly or a shadow it would be impossible, all of which I have seen, it would be impossible to predict when these may occur and have the dog on the lead before. By using mild reprimand and anticipation with reward for compliance it can however be entirely possible to give the dog free exercise while preventing a chase into a possible area of danger form occurring. In these circumstances the dog can also be allowed a harmless chase when safe for it to do so.
Believe it or not I have also known people’s relationships with their dogs destroyed and the dog given up due to lack of any negative consequences and so no discipline. As Davonator says, moderation is usually the best route.
The other method of increasing a behaviour is by negative reinforcement, i.e. the removal of something that the subject doesn't like, such as releasing the choke chain or stopping nagging. The dog may stop pulling on the lead or the child may remember to make its bed, so the desired results are obtained. This is positively reinforcing to the person holding the end of the choke chain or doing the nagging, i.e. they get want they want because the behaviour of the subject alters. In these circumstances the positively reinforced person's behaviour is likely to increase so they will continue yanking at the lead or nagging their child.
BUT what about the feelings of the subject when they are negatively reinforced? If the dog is pulling on the lead because of it's excitement at going to the park, or the child has to stop to make its bed before doing something more desirable but then has to stop & suppress its desires, then this is can lead to negative emotions towards the person who has effectively controlled the subject's natural desires, i.e feelings of resentment, anger, frustration etc.
There are other ways of altering behaviours & getting desired behaviours without having to resort to punishment or negative reinforcement. For instance train an inconpatible behaviour, or put the unwanted behaviour on cue so that it only occurs on cue & not at other times, or shape the absence of the behaviour or change the motivation for the behaviour. All of these methods can be accomplished using positive reinforcement.
I am not naive enough to think that we can all go through life without ever experiencing punishment or negative reinforcement. It occurs naturally & the lessons learned can be very powerful, e.g. eating food past it's sell-by date will make you very sick, touching an electric fence will give you a shock. The other side of the coin is, of course, negative reinforcement, because the behaviour of not touching the electric fence or eating mouldy food will increase. But there will be a decrease in the original behaviour because of the punishment, leading to fear/anxiety/resentment or other negative emotions.
In the context of dog training, there is no reason why positive reinforcement cannot be used in preference to negative reinforcement or punishment. Yes it may take a bit of forethought & planning & it usually will mean a paradigm shift for the person doing the training as most of us will be so accustomed to using punishment & negative reinforcement in every day life that we are probably not even aware that we are doing it. But this does not mean that we cannot strive to use positive reinforcement for the vast majority of the time, and particularly, when we are consciously having a training session with our dogs, we can set things up for the dog to be successful & be positively reinforced for desired behaviours.
Trainers of marine mammals & cats know that punishment & negative reinforcement rarely works. The usual response from the subject is to avoid the trainer/person, (flight), become aggressive (fight) or just shut down completely & cease all behaviours (learned helplessness). Unfortunately these methods can work with dogs & many other social domesticated species, usually because of fear of being social outcasts, the need to please the person who provides food, shelter etc & the need to remain part of a social group for safety's sake. I think (& this is a personal opinion) that this is why aversives methods of training & changing behaviours is so ingrained in the dog-owning public ~ because it does work. But as i've said before, it does not take into account the emotions of the subject.
As mirandashell says, if punishment is used very rarely, then it has a far greater impact on the subject than if it is used routinely. So if shouting at a dog only occurs in an emergency, such as when it is about to run across a busy road, then you are far more likely to halt the dog in its tracks than if you spend most of your time at the park shouting your dog's name (possibly perceived as constant nagging by your dog:eek:) or at the very least habituation to the sound of your raised voice.
As for using negative punishment (withholding something the subject desires), then the art of shaping desired behaviours addresses this. You set the dog up to be successful by just reinforcing small increments towards the desired behaviour & avoiding circumstances where the dog is likely to fail. No, this is not a fool proof method, & is very easy to get wrong if you don't think about what you are doing & carefully plan how you are going to do it. But if you have to resort to negative punishment then perhaps the fault lies with the trainer for not setting things up properly in the first place?
Clearly most of us are not professional enough or clever enough to go through life only using positive reinforcement in everything we do but I see no wrong in striving to use positive reinforcement as much as possible. We all know the pleasure we receive in getting praise from a teacher, & how, as children, we would be more inclined to enjoy that teacher's lessons & work harder to win that praise. But the teacher that nagged till we did our homework (negative reinforcement), made us feel foolish in front of the class or gave detention, (positive punishment) or withdrew privileges (negative punishment) was feared, or disliked. Yes we may still have done our homework or stopped talking in class but we did not enjoy the lessons with that teacher, we would probably have only done just enough to avoid the punishment & we would not have liked that teacher.
So yes, I shall continue to use positive reinforcement as much as I possibly can with my dogs and if things go wrong, the first thing I will do is examine my own behaviour & think about how I can do things differently to get the behaviours I want by positive reinforcement & not by using punishment or negative reinforcement. If I can do this 90% of the time & my dogs experience success 90% of the time, then I think we will all be much happier.
Common sense tells you that the most effective relationships between people and people or between people and dogs rely on mutual respect.
You can't achieve mutual respect by hoping to set up situations where there is nothing to correct!Cannot be done.
Telling people what not to do, and explaining why, coupled with educating them on what to do to be a responsible member of society to is how to build up a respectful community.
It is this lack of mutual respect which has grown up since the "permissive society" of the 1960's and beyond, because it was wrong to tell people not to misbehave, that has caused many of the problems of society that we are seeing today.
Wilhelmina's doctrine seems to support the idea of never telling dogs they are wrong........ this isn't logical! It comes from the human psychology "psychobabble" of the past thirty years.
Tell them they are wrong and show them what is right. That's how I train my dogs and they think I'm great. And I think they're great too. Never have to hit them.
Moderation is the key.
No. What I posted was:
How can the quote be attributed to you when I say "many" and I had not put up a quote from your post as a reference for this comment?
While I quote and address some of your points in a later post, you are maybe taking things too personally when I use the word “you” when what I meant was “one” but use of that word often seems somewhat pretentious, albeit more accurate.
Yes I discussed how positive reinforcement can sometimes result in negative emotions and other unwanted results but at no time did I misquote you and surely a discussion is about exploring differing views and experiences?
Indeed what I also posted was :
My reference to an oft-quoted philosophy relates to your post that positive reinforcement is unlikely to produce negative results, while punishment should be avoided i.e. not considered to be any part of normal training, (given that an emergency is not a normal event) and I do quote you here, including your bold:
If punishment is only used in an emergency it can need to be much sharper and more traumatic to be effective, especially when combined with the possible trauma, arousal and distraction of the emergency itself, than if a dog is accustomed to taking note of a mild corrective tone in normal situations and being required to sometimes defer its agenda at that time in favour of adopting the owner’s agenda.
I have already explained why this cannot always be achieved with all dogs with exclusively positive reinforcement from the outset.
If a dog has not been taught to respond/defer to a verbal correction, a raised voice does not necessarily have any deterrent effect and can merely result in increased excitement and intensification of the unwanted behaviour. Additionally if you only ever “punish” a dog in an emergency how would you know what the appropriate type and intensity for your dog would be? No point yelling at him not to knock someone over when you then frighten him into running in the road instead!
We have all seen people yelling at dogs who react by either ignoring them or getting more excited and more exaggerated in their behaviour.
I entire agree with Mirandashell that correction is most effective when used sparingly, but this is not the same as trying to use it when the dog is entirely unfamiliar with it. I have also posted agreeing with Davonator that moderation is the best approach.
As I said in my post, in the illustrative training game/exercise you described I would use far more warm “yes”s than neutral “no”s. In fact the 90% positive you suggest is probably about what I would expect to use, with the positives rising over time and the negatives/neutrals reducing as the dog became more responsive and more attuned to what I was aiming to teach.
However I do not think using as an example a exercise that is based on Most’s abusive methods is a remotely fair illustration of appropriate use of timing and type of punishment which as I have said already, in my opinion, should always be paired with a greater amount of positivity for the dog in terms of encouraging an alternative behaviour.
In real life though, as opposed to theory or the controlled circumstances of a (re)training session, it is sometimes unavoidable to correct an unwanted response before an alternative required response can be obtained and rewarded. This is accepted to sometimes be the case by various professional behaviourists organisations. As I have pointed out even the AVSAB punishment position statement you post about accepts that punishment is sometimes necessary.
Dog training is an art as well as a science because real life events and circumstances intervene and all dogs, trainers and situations are individual combinations and have to be assessed and read as such. Aspirational goals are fine but should not ignore the fact that real life frequently intervenes and has to be accounted for.
In particular I agree that, if properly taught, the use of a corrective signal, be it a word/gesture/cue, such as "no" can indicate "that is wrong, try again". But this is completely dependent on how the meaning of this signal (let's call it "no") is taught. If it becomes only a signal for punishment or negative reinforcement, then it will still lead to a negative emotional association. But if it is taught not just as a "Stop what you're doing", but that positive reinforcement may follow a different behaviour, then the "no" starts to become associated with a positve outcome if you/the dog etc does something else. In this context, the "no" starts to have positive connotations and therefore, no negative emotional associations for the subject.
Unfortunately I don't think this is properly explained or taught in the vast majority of cases. Many dog owners just use a harsh "no" or corrective term/gesture/action as an out & out punisher without any consideration for teaching a correct or alternative behaviour or without even teaching what that word means ~ they just rely on the intonation of the voice & their own body language, which most dogs will interpret as something negative.
My other concern is that the use of punishment & negative reinforcement has become an accepted method, not only for dog training, but in all walks of life, but without any consideration for the consequences. As I've said before, I do appreciate that nobody can go through life without encountering punishment & negative reinforcement ~ it teaches all of us (animals as well) lessons that are vital for our survival. But in the context of personal relationships & teaching our pets what is acceptable behaviour & what is unacceptable, I prefer to use positive reinforcement as much as possible. To make myself absolutely clear ~ this does not mean that I don't & won't resort to punishment &/or negative reinforcement on occasion ~ I'm only human & have off days too, when I can snap or shout out of tiredness, frustration etc ~ but I would not consciously do so without first considering if I could achieve the same outcome using positive reinforcement. And if I have to consciously use punishment or negative reinforcement, I would try to think through the possible consequences beforehand & try to find someway of finding a behaviour that I could positively reinforce.
I see that you also try for the vast majority (90%) of positive reinforcements ~ so I don't think, in practical terms, that there is a vast difference in our training methods, perhaps just differences in the underlying philosophy.
Of course there is much more to dog training & behaviour than just associative learning theory ~ ethology, physiology, non-associative learning, phenotype/genotype awareness, etc etc ~ I suppose the art is in drawing all the strands together to approach each dog-owner relationship individually which is effectively what you have said in the last paragraph of your post.
I hope that this clears up any misunderstandings.
Only in the U.S.A. or is it?
Yes, and that is why posts, however well written, are inevitably limited in how well or throughly they can express things, as a poster can never explain/cover all the possible variables and combinations thereof, not just in each relationship but throughout the different circumstances under which that relationship operates throughout the lifetimes of each of the participants .
A poster is endeavouring to summarise in a single post areas that have entire books devoted to their separate disciplines, never mind to the interactions of those various disciplines and then to individual quirks and exceptions to a rule
I didn't see it but there used to be some lady with dalmations in Britain who had all her clothes, her house and her car and pretty much everything else coloured white and covered in big black spots :eek:
I actually disagree with that, as does feline behaviourist Vicky Halls. She helped me with a bullying problem between my cats, and 'negative consequences' were extremely effective. The negative consequence was to calmly but firmly remove the offending cat to a room 'where he would never choose to go' - the bathroom - and shutting him in there for a few minutes. This had no effect on his relationship with me, but greatly decreased his aggression against our other cat. In my experience, cats can be very sensitive to negative consequences, if used in the right way - and of course in the context of a generally loving and positive relationship with the owner. Assume the same can apply to dogs.
I did say "rarely", not always. And this was in the context of training a cat or marine mammal to perform desired behaviours, not behavioural modification of a species-specific behaviour that in the feline world is a normal behavioural response to the presence of a perceived adversary or competitor for resources. You haven't said what the reason was for the "bullying" by one of your cats but I take it was because of disputes over territory or resources. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Perhaps I should have worded this more carefully to say that, in the context of training cats, they rarely learn what we want or intend them to learn from punishment or negative reinforcement. Of course cats learn by punishment ~ if every time they go into a neighbour's garden the neighbour squirts them with water, they will very quickly learn to avoid going into the neighbour's garden when the neighbour is there. However this may not deter them from going into the neighbour's garden when the neighbour is not there if the cat has made the association between the neighbour's presence & the squirt of water. Remote punishment may be more successful in this scenario but it still relies on the cat making an association between the squirt of water & the place. rather than anything else & this cannot be guaranteed.
It is also difficult to know exactly how your cat perceived being removed to the bathroom in the scenario you have described. If your cat perceived that being removed to the bathroom was that something aversive was happening to it or being added to it's environment then this would be positive punishment. Likewise your cat could have perceived that taking it to the bathroom was effectively taking it away from from the presence of a potential aggressor, i.e. removing something bad/dangerous from it's environment or getting rid of a threat to it's safety. In this case it would be negative reinforcement ~ removal of something seen as aversive. Yet another scenario could be that the cat perceived that something good was being taken away from it, e.g. being removed from human company, removed from it's safety area, food, warmth etc ~ in this case your actions could be perceived as negative punishment ~ something good is taken away or withheld as a consequence of its actions.
Whatever the cat's perceptions were, your act of removing it to the bathroom relied on your cat making the association between it's behaviour to the other cat & the consequences of it's behaviour. I'm not sure how anyone could tell that this was definitely the case. What would happen when you were not there? At what stage in the cat's "bullying" behaviour was it removed?
However as the unwanted behaviour i.e bullying, decreased, it is feasible that your cat perceived it's removal to the bathroom as positive or negative punishment ~ the likelihood of a behaviour occurring is decreased by positive or negative punishment but increased by positive or negative reinforcement.
But it still remains that the species-specific behaviour of domestic cats to something aversive happening to it will, if at all possible, be to avoid that aversive. If the aversive cannot be avoided by flight or avoidance-type behaviours, or if the particular resource is very important to it, then it may be that a cat will resort to aggressive behaviours or displays of aggression. If fight/flight behaviours are not an option for whatever reason, then freezing may be an alternative.
So in the context of training desired behaviours in cats, like getting a cat to sit, or jump through a hoop, the cat will have the option of just walking away from you (avoidance). If you grab the cat & force it to do something, it will probably struggle, maybe scratch or bite if it is very frightened (fight), or possibly (but unlikely) freeze. Although if the cat is completely restrained & has no possibility of flight/fight, & is faced with extreme danger, then freeze-type behaviours may be it's only option.
In all these cases the cat has not learned the desired behaviour of sitting or jumping through a hoop. To teach a cat to do these things, you need to find something that the cat perceives as a positive reinforcer e.g. food, & use its motivation to gain the food, to teach it to perform the behaviour.
I hope that I've explained myself a bit better (although I've probably just confused you:eek:!.). I would certainly not criticise Vicky Halls' advice given that I've often recommended her books to people wanting to learn more about cat behaviour.
Vicky saw the method as removing him from the situation to give him time to calm down, so breaking the cycle of aggression/terror. The timeout only lasted about three minutes. Interestingly, when the door was opened, he had always 'forgotten' what he was doing and never sought M out even if she was nearby. Vicky said it was important not to talk to him when putting him in or letting him out - so, not giving him any vocal feedback. (He was put in the bathroom at whatever point during the dispute I could get to him!)
I will never know how he 'saw' the issue - he was a cat, he wasn't going to tell me.:D But it allowed them all to live more or less in harmony, and he did stop doing it even when I wasn't present (previously he would chase her outdoors, where I could watch but couldn't catch him, but that ceased too). Partly probably because M became less afraid of him so wouldn't immediately run when he came into view. Anyway - good result all round, and I have used it since during similar cat disputes.
Who could blame it! Diverting an animal away from antisocial/dangerous behaviour is one thing, making it jump through a hoop etc is another, and not something I would undertake - but I agree with you that the only way forward would be bribery.:D
Forgive me if I misunderstand, but doesn't most your posting criticise Vicky Halls' advice?
Maybe you wouldn't recommend her advice after all?
I don't think anything I've said criticises Vicky Halls' advice
All I said in reply to Lippincote was that there could be several reasons why the advice worked ~ it would depend on the cat's perceptions of the situation. If there had been very severe territorial disputes between the two cats, just giving one "time-out" in another room for a few minutes would not necessarily work. With Lippincote's cats, the disputes were clearly not very severe & any escalation of a conflict could be halted by removing one of the cats.
Learning theory is only one element of behaviour ~ many other factors affect behaviour as well, including physiology. If one or both of the cats had been highly aroused, full of adrenaline, it may have been more difficult to stop a dispute by removing it. Also any territorial disputes could have been bubbling under for some time so that the cats would have had plenty of time to "rehearse" or "practice" aggressive behaviour, so again, this would be a more ingrained behaviour & more difficult to alter.
My reply to Lippincote was only discussing the various interpretations from the perspective of associative learning theory.
"R howls and postures aggressively which results in M withdrawing or running away closely pursued by R. He has tried this behaviour towards B and C [my other two cats] but they ignore him and he has not persevered.... behaviours continue if actions are rewarded and B and C just didn't respond in the appropriate way. M however did and this is constantly rewarding his competitive displays. The diagnosis is therefore inter-act aggression motivated by a hierarchical status challenge.... by helping R to associate his aggresive behaviour with a less desirable area of the house and distracting the sequence of aggression, the constant reinforcement of his undesirable behaviour will be removed."
With regard to M's behaviour, the fact that R was removed when he started posturing at M may have resulted in M not needing to run away so again, R was not rewarded for his behaviour & it decreased.
I'm glad that it has worked for your cats.
On the physiological level, it is better to avoid circumstances when undesired behaviour occurs if possible. The more that behaviours are practised, the more the neurological pathways associated with those behaviours are used & "strengthened" & the more readily the behaviour will occur again in the same or similar circumstances. The behaviours can be modified via desensitisation & counter-conditioning programmes where the same events occur but in controlled conditions where the stimulus is at such a distance or of such an intensity that the behaviour does not occur & where an alternative behavioural response can be substituted by positive reinforcement.
In your cats' circumstances R & M could be rewarded for non-aggressive or non-fearful behaviour in R's presence. However the problem seems to have resolved itself without the need for this:).
I used to have a Burmese too ~ lived up to their reputation as very territorial, urine-sprayed very frequently & patrolled his territory regularly. Luckily my other cats were elderly, non-territorial & non-threatening so the Burmese restricted his aggressive behaviour to other neighbouring cats!
R has gone to the great cat basket in the sky now, but I have another male Burmese who is practically a carbon copy in terms of behaviour - like you say wilhemina they are very dominant and he likes to show everyone 'his moves':rolleyes:
To determine an animal's motivation for, e.g. acting aggressively, you also have to have a pretty good knowledge of the ethology of that species. Learning theory alone cannot provide all the answers.
With regard to VH's report to Lippincote, it is, perhaps, correct to say there was a "hierarchical" dispute over that particular territory, but not that one cat is trying to achieive a higher rank or status within a social group for all resources.
Rachel Casey, Sarah Heath and John Bradshaw for example all claim cats don't have hierarchies before going on to describe behavioural problems whereby one cat is preventing another having access to resources or is deliberately intimidating it. In my book that is dominant/controlling/hierarchical behaviour.
As another example Franchesca Riccamini, a veterinary APBC member, consistently states in her writings that cats do not have a hierarchy, while again describing how the owner should increase access to resources to prevent one cat deliberately denying access to another in order to resolve stress marking behaviour and to prevent house soiling where one cat is preventing another from access the litter tray (also examples given, amongst others, by Casey, heath and Bradshaw). I gather in a recent lecture Riccamini said she had recently discovered that they do have a hieracrchy but she still doesn't acknowledge this in her articles written since this date, presumably as it would be considered to be herasey (sp) by her peers.
Hence as duncan said, you have the "private" and the "public" views.
Certainly I would entirely agree that virtually any owner who has kept more than one cat, myself included, can see that cats very definately do operate a hierarchy. Several American Behaviourists e.g Karen Overall, also very much support the view that cats are hierarchical.
Also hierarchies are rarely as simplictic as to be linear. Cat hieararchies in particular can be time-related so a place may "belong" to one cat at one time of the day but another cat may routinely have presidence of that same place at a different time of the day.
Basic rank and dependent rank also comes into it i.e you and your friend may displace spmeone else that neither of you could displace independently.
Motivation in each situtaion also effects hierarchy and it can be a stable situation whereby one dog/cat e.g routinely defer to another over food but the situation may routinely be the other way around over a favourite bed, depending who is more motivated over that resource.
Similarly the dog who is higher-ranking at home is not necessarily the same as the dog, in the same cohabiting pair, who is "top dog" outside on walks.
In summary rank relates to factors of the situation, as well as the individual.
a. Categorization of a group of people according to ability or status.
b. The group so categorized.
For the purposes of this discussion, the people are all cats.....
Anyone that keeps cats and observes their behaviour can soon tell you where each cat is in their hierachy. It's a means of keeping the peace and preventing constant battle.
You will see the same thing in a neighbourhood, so not sure where the differences are between feral colonies and multicat households. Are there any????
Territorial disputes and hierarchy disputes can co-exist imo. Cats that might be involved in hierarchy issues indoors may even happily work together to defend territory outside against other cats.
It's a bit like being in the Army I guess......
I dunno wilhemina, the behaviour would occur in the house, in our garden or neighbours' gardens- just basically whenever he spotted her - as Vicky said, it became self-rewarding because she reacted. (But interestingly, never happened at mealtimes or at night when they were shut in the breakfast room to sleep together, so seemingly not about those particular resources.)
That is so true Tass, that was exactly how it operated when my tabby cat B was alive. He was the unquestioned boss but a very benign ruler - a flick of the tail and a hard stare were the only weapons he needed. When he died last year, all hell broke loose over who in charge... and unfortunately the newly crowned King is a bit of a bully.