I think the first place to start is to understand what barking is. Barking is the way that dogs communicate various things, and it is completely normal. It is not a sure sign that your dog is becoming aggressive. That being said just because something is normal and not threatening does not mean it needs to be allowed all the time. It is one of those things that a command can be put on like "quiet". That being said, I don't like to take away a dog's ability to communicate, but I do like to be able to control it in appropriate situations. Here are some great dog barking situations:
- There is a funny odor or sound (perhaps neither of which I notice at first) in the house.
- There is a stranger approaching. I may want that stranger to be hesitant of my barking dog, while I find out what they are doing here.
- You have lost electricity, are alone, and someone comes to your door. I like to check that it is in fact my neighbor checking on me, instead of a criminal looking to take advantage of a situation.
- Strange wild life or dog in the yard. Helpful for me to know before I let the dogs out, though they are all trained to be recalled from those situations. Better to know what is out there though, and just because your dog can recall, does not mean certain animals won't attack your dogs!
- In my auto if someone is snooping around it. I worry often about someone getting ideas to steal my dogs, cause I think they are the best, personally
. I like my dogs to give someone the idea that breaking into house or auto is not a good idea. - My dogs alert when daycare clients come up, which is good because when the windows are closed I don't always hear or notice them. They work much better than a doorbell (or our doorbell anyway).
- Dogs have the ability to communicate not only to each other, but to humans when they are not sure. Often this prevents conflicts. Most dogs if they feel so threatened that they will bite, are not going to announce it with a bark. However, a bark or growl can alert the human or other dog to approach a bit differently or to at least not corner the canine.
Most dogs, except some breeds and occasional personalities, are going to bark. Asking them to never bark is like asking a human to never speak. Also as I had mentioned, this is a necessary part of their communication mechanisms. What we can do is teach them not to bark when we give them a command. We can also modify behavior so the dog feels more confident and self assured (therefore less likely to bark due to feeling vulnerable).
Every dog is different, and every dog learns differently and responds differently to different methods. Additionally, the solution is usually a combination of methods and possibly tools used in training that are worked on over a period of time, and then maintained over the owner and dog's relationship. How you are going to teach your dog to stop barking via a verbal of visual cue may differ from how my dogs or clients' dogs have learned.
Here are some things to think about:
- As with training anything, you need to work up to distractions. If you just wait until the biggest distraction comes along, this will not be effective training. You need to be proactive instead of reactive.
- Regarding number 1, setting up "fake" situations that cause your dog to bark (IE not waiting for a stranger to come over, but having your spouse set up a situation or have a remote control doorbell) can help you prepare your dog for what you want them to do (with the proper training).
- Redirection is ONE of the things you can use to help. My dog, Boris, will pick ball over stranger (human or dog) approaching the house. You can start to ween off the ball with a proper training regime designed to do that and increase distraction, but still only ONE aspect of this.
- Obedience training in general will allow you to give a command that does not lend well to an unwanted action. This is called counter conditioning. Many times if a dog goes into the command down (taught well and to a standard) they will not bark. Other times, it will take time for them to learn to relax, and another command "quiet" can be used to do this.
- If the distraction comes, you need to get up block or contain your dog. The more you just let your dog practice, the more they are convinced it is their job to bark and not listen to you. If my dog is not listening (and I am being consistent), then it is time for me to get up and control things. Ideally, I want my dog well trained enough not to have to do this. Sometimes, something really unexpected ends up in your yard or driveway though, or you have been lax in training (it happens).
Just some ideas, this is a bigger topic than just this blog post. Remember every dog is different as far as the way they learn, what they find rewarding, and what they think their jobs are. It is our job to know our dogs (by training, playing, and spending quality time with them) in order to best get the results that we want.
I hoped this helped some of you. Remember there is no quick "magic wand" to this. All training requires thought, time, commitment, patience, work, repetition, and consistency (and most of all your involvement).
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http://mannerlymutts.blogspot.com/
7 comments:
Thanks for joining our Monday Mischief Bloghop! Hope you had fun and met lots of new anipals! *waggy tail*
Reading about the hiking incident gave me the chills. Smart barking! Thought I would stop by and say hello on the blog hop. : )
@Alfie-Thank you, and we have. It's always nice to find new blogs where people are so interested in animals in general and their pets in specific:)
@Just Ramblin' It was a very scary incident, and one where I was totally glad Jazz barked and new to keep barking when I said nothing about it. She was an awesome dog.
"Obedience training in general will allow you to give a command that does not lend well to an unwanted action. This is called counter conditioning."
While this is a good strategy, this is not counter conditioning. Counter conditioning is a form of classical conditioning that involves changing an existing association. Classical conditioning deals mainly with involuntary behavior. Obedience training is primarily operant conditioning because it largely deals with voluntary behavior. "Pavlov is always on your shoulder," (Bob Bailey) however, and classical conditioning is always in play (this is why dogs get excited when training collars come out, because it means they are going to go have fun, not because they enjoy being corrected), but most obedience training is operant conditioning.
Reactive Champion - Learning Theory 101: Desensitization and Counter-Conditioning
The example you give is closer to incompatible behavior. A dog can't jump on visitors if he's sitting. A dog CAN bark while laying down, so this is not a perfect solution. Often concentrating on laying down helps the dog calm himself down so he does not feel the need to bark hysterically. Seeing the owner go take care of the situation helps too.
"I have heard that you need to teach your dog to "speak" in order to be "quiet". That is not really true, and in fact can backfire on people that do not study dog training. You can actually teach your dog to bark at you demanding all the time with a "speak" not thought out well. In fact, before I became a dog trainer, I instructed my neighbors ways they could keep Neptune from barking at them. They were all very friendly with Neptune, but we still didn't want him barking as a greeting. So we told them when they came home (and if he was out with us), to tell him to sit and then to give him a cookie. What I now know to be a predictable result, now Neptune barked at them every time he saw them, because he wanted the cookie LOL. So we had to change those directions up a bit, and really think about what we were "teaching" Neptune. We had actually taught him "speak" as a greeting instead of "quiet" as a greeting. Oops."
You don't have to, but it is an option. The flaw is that it usually isn't thought out well, as you say. The problem is that most owners don't train strict enough stimulus control:
1. The behavior always happens when you ask for it
2. The behavior never happens when you ask for a different one
3. No other behavior happens when you ask for the intended behavior
4. The behavior never happens when you don't ask for it
Wikipedia: Stimulus Control
For teaching speak to teach quiet, the most important one is the last one, and most people don't get to that point. Most people don't have sit and down on true stimulus control.
As a variant of this, you can teach the dog to speak and then ask him to speak /all/ /the/ /time/. It's a little like eating an entire chocolate cake, or being made to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in a row. Fun at first, but by the end you're over it and don't want another for a long, long time.
Sorry let me try this again. I don't think you understand the effects of obedience training and how it changes behavior or desensitization. Actually if you teach the down correctly and defined, the dog will learn not to bark when in the down for instance. You do this through a series of steps. Note the begging for attention with his nose below, this is exactly what I meant and mean.
"1. Counter-conditioning: Counter-conditioning is a behavior modification technique which consists in associating one or more response-triggering stimuli to a physiologically different, or "conflict" response. The dog is led to react in another way when he is presented with stimuli that provoke an undesirable response. We recommend this type of conditioning for various forms of aggressiveness, problems of emotional co-dependency, as well as fears. For example, a dog can be accustomed to sitting and remaining calm in order to be petted instead of begging for affection with his nose. Counter-conditioning means learning a behavior which is incompatible with the unacceptable behavior. Therefore, you must swiftly give a command as soon as you believe that a problem might occur. On another level, this technique attempts to replace emotional reactions by those related to appetite and the need for affection. Counter-conditioning is often combined with systematic desensitization. Example: a dog is aggressive towards pedestrians. The master recreates the situation from a distance. Later on, the dog shows no interest nor any signs of anxiety or aggressiveness. He is rewarded immediately (treats, affection). This approach results in combining systematic desensitization (distance) to counter-conditioning (reward)." from http://www.seefido.com
In my glossary you will see another definition of counter conditioning and it's source which talks about incompatable behavior as a ingredient in counter conditioning.
In any case, this response and your post are a little long for the comment section. I look forward to seeing a post on your blog on the subject and your own strategies.
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