March 31, 2020 • 44 mins
Chuck and Josh explore the age-old question: Should you train your dog by treating it like a living, feeling being or should you beat them up and break their spirit?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's guest
producer Roll over there, and that makes this Stuff you
Should Know about dogs. We love dogs, heart them. We
(00:25):
talk a lot about dogs, have dogs, We have dogs.
Just love dogs in general. They're the best. Train them
up the end the end, train them right though. Yeah,
this was an interesting one for me because I am
terrible at dog training. Uh and I just I do
a mix of so many things. I'm just my poor
(00:46):
dogs don't even know what to do. None of their
behaviors their fault. Well, yeah, I think my fault. That
seems to be true among um like like I want
to say, not high end, but a good dog trainers,
like professional dog trainers. Trainers. Yeah, they they would agree
(01:06):
that not just with you, but any dog's bad behavior
as a result of their human not training them well
or properly, are at all true. Although I will say,
I mean any dog can be trained supposedly. I've seen
those shows. But uh, you know, my dog Nico is
just so hot wired when someone comes over. Now, she's
(01:28):
the uh brindle, just so hot wired when people come
over that I just don't know what to do. What
do you mean hot wired? Just so excited and like
so excited she's about to implode into a nuclear fission reaction,
(01:50):
like just really really low knows he knows, Nico. It's
like it's very very tough to rain her in when
someone knocks on that door and comes over. Chill out
after ten minutes, but it's just hard to not get
her to jump up on people and stuff because they
got to be in on it too, you know. Well,
I would say that probably any high end dog trainer
(02:11):
would would say that you should give her tranquilizers all
the time, especially when somebody's coming over, but you better
sleep her life away. Your instinct as a dog owner
is when someone comes over and your dog jumps on him,
it's to say, now, Nico, get down, get off of them,
and even like pull them off. But this article says like,
like no, even a scolding is reinforcing that behavior, because
(02:34):
all that dog wants his attention, even if it's a scolding, right,
and and if you if you say no or whatever,
the dog gets the attention. It prefer positive attention where
you're like, yeah, jump up, that's great, but it'll take
you know, Nico or any other dog will take UM
will take the the know what they say to do
is to just ignore it. Just ignore the dog until
(02:55):
they're doing what you want them to do, and then
reward the dog. And I think that what you said,
and I'm glad you said this because we really need
to get this across. What people have been discovering more
and more about dog training in the last like twenty
years is that having a dog and raising a good
dog is requires way more than we previously thought. It did,
(03:20):
way more attention, way more research, way more patience, way
more persistence, way more than it used to and and
rightfully so, I mean it should require this and one
of the reasons why it does require more is because
there's been a real shift in mentality over what direction
you should take to train a dog. I keep saying
(03:40):
raise a dog. I think that's a good way to
put it too, but um that it used to be different,
and that still is that way for some people. Who
is we'll see, but there there. It used to be
much easier because you just asserted yourself physically, psychologically, you
yelled at your dog, you spanked your dog, and you
basically showed your dog who was boss, and then after
(04:02):
that they would just kind of behave. They're saying like, no,
don't do that anymore. That's not good. It really has
really terrible effects on the dog, harms your relationship with
the dog, and instead, um, you really need to just
give a hundred and ten percent whereas before you're giving.
Maybe that's right. So what you're talking about are the
two main approaches dominance or positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is
(04:26):
a straight up operat conditioning technique where you reward your
dog for good behaviors or I guess we shouldn't even
say good and bad. They say not to do that
with children and dogs, desirable behaviors and a focus on
what a dog should do, whereas dominance is a technique
to discourage unwanted behaviors what you should not do. And
(04:48):
the whole dominance theory is based on this idea, and
this has been around since well who knows where it
got its original start, but at least since the seventies.
They're these dog training monks in Cambridge, New York called
the news Skeet Monks and they are monks who raise
and breed German shepherds and write dog training books. Right, well,
(05:10):
I mean that the monks are supposed to give something
back to the world. Someone throw beer, and these guys
trained dogs. I like the beer brewers better. But um,
it's been at least around since then. But this is
based on the the idea that dogs are really just
wolves two point oh in dogs clothing. Yeah, and that wolves.
(05:31):
We should look at the behavior of wolves and they
are pack animals with an alpha male and an alpha female.
Will get more into that, and we can extrapolate that
to dogs. And so that's how and this is what
these monks say too, that's what you should be doing
is mimicking what wolves do. And well it's about to
say in the wild, not that not the case. Really
(05:52):
what wolves have been studied doing in captivity, which is
a key point. Right And then like because they have
packs with the leader calling out alpha male and alpha female,
the alpha male and female um maintain their position um
through dominance, through acts of like aggression, violence, and that
they're constantly challenged for these positions. So that so much
(06:15):
so that this constant struggle over dominance and alphadom, uh
is what shapes wolf society, and that that if you
take that and you just assume, like you said, that
dogs are just a different type of wolf, that they're
so closely related to wolves and descended from wolves, that
the same kind of mentality applies to dogs. If you
(06:36):
create that kind of situation in your own home, you
will have a happier, more obedient dog who understands its
place in this household, which to your dog is just
a pack. That's right. Uh. This has started in the
nineteen sixties. There were a bunch of studies observing these
wolf packs and their social structures. I saw it even
(06:57):
earlier than that. I saw a guy named Rudolph Schenkel
was doing this in n and that he's the one
who coined this ide the idea and the term alpha.
And he was also the guitarist for the Scorpions. If
I'm not mistaken, I think you're thinking of John Fogerty's guitarists,
which is I think was his brother Rudy Schenko. Rudy Schenko.
(07:18):
So uh yeah, So they're they're observing these wolves and
they're saying that, um, there's a continual pattern in the
in the pack of the male members vying for control,
challenging the alpha, and then the alpha putting it down,
usually physically and also psychologically. I guess as much as
you can get into the psychology of a wolf. And um,
(07:42):
here's the thing. I mean, should we go ahead and
say what the deal is? I feel like that's there.
Should that be a third ex spoiler? No? No, I
think we can go ahead all right? That I said
they were studying captive wolves. That's the that's the rub
here is that they're studying wolves in captivity. And it
took this the guy and the when was that then?
(08:02):
The nineties? Yeah, David meck, Yeah, that actually studied wolves
in the wild. And he's like, that's not what's going
on at all, because you're it's like studying humans in
a refugee camp or a prison, Like the behaviors aren't
gonna be the same. What I'm observing is these animals
that follow what most animals in the animal kingdom do
or many, which is uh, their their families. And the
(08:25):
alpha is the alpha because he's the dad, right exactly.
That Like when they said like, oh, no, wolves are
constantly you know, under these physical attacks for their status
is the alpha alpha wolf. Um. They what they were
saying was like, these these wolves are in a completely
unnatural setting in situation, and you've got a bunch of
(08:46):
different alpha's who are trying to figure out who's in charge.
And yeah, there was a lot of aggression and dominance.
But this was a terrible thing to base this idea
on how to train a dog because it was a
totally artificial situation. And it wasn't until I think, what
did you say that mec he actually revised in earlier book.
(09:07):
He wrote a book in nineteen eighty that took these
earlier ideas and said, yeah, these are totally correct. And
now he's like, I wish I'd never I got it
so wrong. Yes, there is dominance, there are alpha's, but
it's like you said, Chuck, their mom and dad that's
what we would call him, just in the same way
that your mom and your dad are the boss of
(09:28):
you when you're a kid, same thing in a wolf pack. Yeah,
and dad goes out and gets the food. Uh, moms
takes care of the kids and protects the kids and acts,
as you know, the defensive guard over their den. And
that's just how it works. And then after a couple
of years. Um, the male puppies, I guess leave. They've
(09:50):
become alpha's of their own families. And he observed the
stuff over where is it Canada's Elsmere Island every summer
for thirteen years and they have the that island has
the best carnival in Canada. It really changed the way
people look at wolves and ergo dogs. Yeah for the
UM what the revision of it or the earlier stuff, Well,
(10:14):
the revision of it, sure, yeah, it totally did because
everybody realized that this dominance based training that people have
been doing, where you basically beat up your dog if
there if there is like a sense of like alpha
dom that your dog is following, your dog is basically
like my dad is beating me up and yelling at
(10:34):
me all the time, and I'm just scared and anxious
about everything. So the dog training world realized that this
is what was happening, that it was based on faulty
preliminary original research, and they switched. They change. They went
to a much more respectful, happier, friendlier UM way of
(10:55):
training that doesn't involve punishment, it involves basically rewards. An
extinction is well, we'll look at later on. All right, well,
let's take a break. We were talking about beating up
your dog, but when we come back, we'll talk about
specific techniques the people that subscribe to the dominance theory believe.
And all right, so you talked about people beating up
(11:35):
their dogs. I know you're sort of kidding, um, but
there are actual physical things that they say to do
in dominance training. Uh. And they are as follows. One.
It's called the alpha roll, uh not R O L
E R O L L. So this is when the
trainer will are you know, I guess if you're the owner,
(11:58):
and trainer will pin the dog on its back and
hold the dog there by the chest or the throat
until the dog gives in and and stops the struggle. Okay,
that is slightly different than dominance down. That is pinning
the dog on its side until the dog stops struggling.
So same thing. I mean, you've got a dog that
(12:18):
is doing something that you don't want it to do,
so you are pinning it. You're physically restraining it in
an aggressive manner until it just basically dies inside. I
will say that I have have done the dominance down
before because of a dog fight between my two dogs,
getting the dogs separated, and then you know, pinning one
(12:40):
down until they calm down. One thing I saw um somewhere.
I don't remember where I saw it, but the um
Actually i've heard it. I heard it a little while ago.
The way that you break up a dog fight is
you grab them by the back legs. Is to rub
yourself a steak. Right, you just walked through and be like,
who's a steak? Why fight when you can have steak
grabbed the back legs? Yeah, that makes sense. Here's the
(13:03):
thing though, if you've ever been involved in a dog
fight up close, it's an adrenaline rush. You don't know
quite what to do. Uh, and it's scary. It's like
super scary. Yeah, well, your brain just becomes totally Like
my brain becomes clouded. When like Momo starts barking at somebody,
I'm like, I get all flustered and whatever. A dog
fight is like it is one of the most flustering,
(13:24):
like clouding experiences you can you can have. I've heard
through a water on them, I could see that. I
could also see him just fighting right through the water.
If the fight's bad enough. Yeah, I mean my dog Lucy,
who isn't with us, gotten to a fight with my
former co dog, Jake, the pit bull who you know,
my prince justin ended up taking and it was ugly, man,
(13:46):
and they're both not with us, and they're both really
sweet dogs, but they looked at each other wrong and
it was on from the get go, and like Lucy
took off part of Jake's ear and it was just
like it was bad. He was scary. You don't know
what to do, right, And so a person who um
who is who subscribes the dominance theory training says, you
(14:06):
need to show that both of those dogs that you're
in charge, and you tell them they're not fighting there,
that they're acting out their misbehaving because they don't understand
their role. But at the same time, I would be like, well, no,
it sounds like that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't
think you're the alpha. They're trying to figure out what
their position over one another in this packet or just
dogs being dogs, man, that's another way to look at it.
(14:28):
For sure. You know, like Lucy got attacked at a
dog park when she was young, and from that day
forward was you know, if a dog was slightly aggressive,
it was on and scary. Yeah, so we couldn't take
around other dogs, that's the up shot. Yeah, and they
would say so. One of the other things I want
to call out here, rather than waiting, um, when a
dog acts aggressively, every trainer I've seen on both sides
(14:53):
says that it's fearful that the dog is actually afraid.
That was for sure Lucy's case. Yeah, so yeah, and
it's that's why I thought of that, because you know,
she had a negative experience and she was afraid, so
she would act aggressive in the face of fear. So
one of the reasons why people criticize dominance training, as
we'll see, is that you're physically and aggressively punishing aggressive behavior.
(15:18):
So you're you're punishing a dog for feeling fearful, which
is going to make it more fearful of whatever it
is it's afraid of at that moment, which means it's
actually probably likelier that it will become more aggressive rather
than it's like a human kid too. You know, if
you have a kid who has learned to be aggressive,
in your way of discipline them is to hit them, Like,
(15:40):
what do you think is gonna happen? I don't know,
I don't know anything about human kids. I only know
about dogs. They're the same. So back to the uh,
the physical methods of dominance training. There was alpha role
dominance down. There's the scrub shakes when you grabbed the
dog's jowls they're scruff with both hands and shake it
really hard and stare them, stare them in the eyes.
(16:04):
Leash jerk if you're on a on a walk with
your dog and they're pulling you let them get up
ahead and then jerk back really really hard. Uh. And
then using choke collars or pinch collars or shot collars
uh instead of like the more humane gentle leaders what
they call them. This sort of looks like a muzzle,
(16:24):
but when the dog pulls, it just sort of pulls
their nose down and they don't like that. Right. The
that's for the other kind. Physically hurting them when they
pull on the leash correct or when you jerk the
leash back right or the choke pinch or shot collars
are all all dominance or there's psychological methods to um
(16:46):
staring at the dog until the dog looks away like
I'm boss, who's gonna blink first? You dog? You? Or
Growling at a dog or making dog noises to the
dog is another dominance technique. Yeah, psychological dominance. So so
you've got all these techniques and UM as far as
dominance training goes. If you employ them in a UM
(17:09):
consistent manner, eventually your dog is going to figure out
who's boss. And they the people who subscribe to dominance
theories say this is actually a gift to your dog,
because if your dog is acting improperly, if it's misbehaving,
if it's being aggressive, it's asserting itself because it doesn't
(17:31):
realize that you're the alpha because you haven't asserted yourself
over your dog, and so somebody's got to be the alpha.
So this dog is confused and is trying to step up.
So if you assert your dominance over this dog, you
will reassure that there is an alpha in charge and
it can just relax and be a good, happy dog.
(17:51):
That's what people who who subscribe to dominance theory say
is the whole purpose of dominance theory. Right on the
other side, you have people saying, no, your dog is
not just becoming super happy because they know you're in charge.
They're going on into shutdown mode. Basically, because they're afraid
to do stuff and they're basically living in a state
(18:12):
of shutdown mode because they're afraid of being alpha rolled
or barked at or pinned or whatever. Yeah, and so
that what they'll do is is here's the thing, and
this is really important to remember. Nobody's saying dominance training
doesn't actually, at least in the short term, curb problem
(18:33):
behavior and dogs. But the way that you're doing is
actually like breaking the dog's spirit. You're not you're not
providing it this comfortable position in the household. It's pack
You're basically just breaking a spirit so that it it
it doesn't do anything until you tell it to do something.
It's that shutdown that you were just talking about. And
(18:53):
people who subscribe to the other way. So no, there's
a there's a different, better way to do this which
doesn't involved breaking the dog, which allows the dog to
lead a happier, healthier life. And and there's um what's
called the least intrusive, minimally aversive list of how to
train a dog and using dominance theory techniques are at
(19:18):
the bottom of this list. Yeah, I think they listed
six things, and that was number six was positive punishment,
which is a bit of a contradiction in terms I guess,
but yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, that's what the
whole list or just the positive punishment, well, just about
the punishment problem. Yeah, I mean, that's when you're delivering
(19:40):
what they called an aversive consequence or I guess averse
consequence to reduce probability that a behavior will occur. Yeah.
So in this in this sense, positive and negative doesn't
necessarily mean like good or bad. It means the introduction
or the removal of something. So so you can have
a negative reward where something bad is removed in reward
(20:05):
for the you know, the dog doing the behavior you want.
And then you also have negative punishment, where you remove
something good when the dog does something you don't want
it to do. You also have positive rewards, which is
basically giving a treat to a dog it does something
good and you say hey, here you go, or praise
or something like that. And then positive punishment, which sounds
(20:26):
like okay, that's an alright kind of punishment, that's actually
the worst of all of them as far as the
most professional dog trainers are concerned. That is where you're
introducing punishment because the dog is doing something. So you're
yelling at the dog, you're alpha rolling the dog, you're
spanking the dog, you're introducing a punishment as a response
for an unwanted behavior in this hope to train the dog.
(20:48):
And so they say, well, here's there's the basic problem
right there with dominance theory and dominance training is that
eventually you're going to come to positive punishment. It's woe
even into the fabric of dominance theory. And if you're
punishing your dog, if you're yelling at your dog or
outa rolling your dog, you're going to create this shutdown dog.
(21:09):
And what's more, it seems that positive punishment, as far
as training techniques, conditioning operat conditioning techniques go, is the
least effective of all of those four. And not it's
not just dog trainers saying that. Even B. F. Skinner himself,
who created a Skinner box and raises poor little barefoot
electrocuted children, and he said, yes, positive punishment is the
(21:32):
least effective of all of these. Yeah, they say, the
number one on that list is health, nutritional and physical factors.
And this is basically setting up your house then being
assured that your dog is like healthy and well fed
and like there's nothing physically wrong with a dog. Like
if your dog is peeing in the house and won't
(21:53):
get housebroken, they're saying, the first step you should do
is take your dog to a vet and make sure
it doesn't have like a urinary tract infection. Yeah, I mean,
let's go over this list, because that's really helpful. There
was um The Association of Professional Dog Trainers have a
list of misinterpretations. Urinating the house is one of them.
A dominance explanation would be like, no, they're peeing on
(22:13):
your bed, because they're trying to show say like this
is my territory. It's it's a really paranoid place to
come from, kind of you know, all the dog, the
dog thinks it's better than me. What is really going on,
they say, is that it's just the house training has
been inconsistent, Yes, which or you have a urinary tract
(22:35):
infection or something right, and you would find that out
by taking that first step, which is taking the dog
to the vet to make sure there isn't a health
or medical issue that can solve this problem, because again,
it all comes down to this problem behavior. Why is
the dog doing it or what do you want the
dog to do instead right, jumping up on people. This
is Nico Steele. A dominance explanation would be that that
(22:57):
she's doing this to assert their height and rank over you,
like I'm just as big as you are, Whereas what's
really going on is she wants to lick your face
and it's fun and she's excited and wants to say hello. Right,
So what you would do is you would say, teach
your dog to sit um whenever you go to open
the door something like that, or if your dog is
(23:19):
jumping up um, to to ignore it until it's sitting
with all all four paws on the floor and then
you reward it. Because it's, like you were saying, one
of the easiest ways to train your dog is accidentally,
And what you're doing is training your dog to do
all the stuff you don't want your dog to do. Yeah,
I mean, you come home from vacation and Nico jumps
(23:39):
up on you, like your first instinct is to kiss
her face and tell her how good it is to
see her, and that's the wrong thing to do. Like
I'm good at that, Like I can come in and
just turn my back and ignore and it works. But
you gotta get people coming in the house, all your
friends coming in and family, like everyone's got to be
on board. Yeah, Like like Momo barks that stranger is
(24:00):
when they come into her house. She does not like,
like say a contractor coming over to to bark or
to come to her house. She just doesn't like it.
So ideally I would give the stranger a treat, say
the contractor treat. I'd be like, by the way, can
you show up five minutes early to our appointment. I'm
gonna give you a dog treat. Slide a treat under
(24:20):
the door. You and I are going to go and
sit and get situated at the at the table, at
the dinner table, and we're gonna just talk calmly. And
then my wife is going to bring my dog into
the room and you're going to give her a treat.
Don't stand up in the presence of my dog. Once
my wife removes our dog, then we can go on
with our appointment. That would be the ideal thing. What this,
(24:42):
what this thing says to do is Okay, instead of
all that, just keep your dog outside. Go hang out
outside with your dog. Make it say your dog has
no idea. Anybody even came over. Yeah, that's easier sometimes. Yes,
that's the number two thing that you're supposed to do
after taking the dog to a vet. Um is just
changing the dog's world so that the problem behavior doesn't exist,
(25:05):
because the thing that creates that problem behavior isn't part
of the dog's world anymore. Yeah, the situation last week
where I was out of town. You know, we had
our house worked on in the contractor. The framer guy
who was there most of the time, like hands on,
really loves dogs and loves our dogs, but he had
to come over and do something. He hadn't been over
in a while, and I was gone, and I was like,
(25:27):
you know, I can tell you how to get in
my house if you want to go put them in
the in the bedroom so the plumber can come in.
I was like, this is on you, man, if you
want to do this. He's like, sure, I'll do it.
And he came in and texted me afterwards that said
that Charlie. He said, as soon as I walked in,
bolted and ran into the bedroom basically, and that Nico
(25:49):
like barked and barked, and then it was just like
downstairs trembling and afraid, and he eventually was like, come on, Nico,
come on up, and he got her into the bedroom.
That is that is so sad. It's but it's also
really sad too when you think about your dog, um,
you know, barking or being aggressive or something like that,
(26:10):
when you're just like, oh, it's so obnoxious, be quiet,
But then if you realize like they're actually doing it
because they're scared, witness makes the whole thing just heartbreaking.
But I think it's a really important thing to remember
too because it changes your perspective on it. It It goes
from being like, stop being aggressive, stop being hostile, you know,
to to realizing you're saying, stop being afraid, you know,
(26:31):
stop being a chicken. That's no way to talk to
something that you love. And that holds true for a
dog too, so to think that really kind of changes
your perspective. The advice of my monologue, uh and then
a couple of other behaviors pulling on a leash. A
dominance explanation might be that no, they're trying to assert
that there the Aleph and get out in front of
(26:52):
you and be in charge. Whereas what's really good going
on as your dogs excited to be on a walk
and they love to get out there and smell things,
and um, that's why they're pulling. Uh and then finally
running through the doorway. First I get run over by
my dogs all the time trying to get outside. Um.
And the dominance theory is that they're trying to push
you out of the way to show you there in
charge again. Uh. They what they're doing is pushing out
(27:15):
of the way because you're blocking them from getting outside
where they love life a lot more. Right So, and
this really kind of I think, does a beautiful job
Chuck of putting side by side the dominance theory and
the um the What is the positive positive reinforcement I
guess yeah, positive reinforcement theory, those are the two main ones.
(27:36):
But just the the almost night and day ways that
they see dogs like what makes dogs dogs? That to
a dominance theory person, the dogs just like I'm in
charge of you, get out of my way. Where the
the positive reinforcement theory says, no, dog just likes to
go have fun and it's really not very concerned with,
(27:57):
you know, social niceties of letting you go first. It
wants to go have fun immediately. It doesn't really have
anything to do with you it's a dog exactly. I
just I don't know if if everyone's figured this out
or not, but I tend to fall a little more
on the positive reinforcement side of that same here. So
let's take a break then and talk about a little
(28:18):
bit more about the problems with dominance training, but then
the joy and the goodness that is positive reinforcement beautiful. Alright,
(28:46):
So earlier in the show, you said that dominance training
can achieve results. No one argues that that can be
effective at times, but we talked about why it's effective
that your dog is being shut down. Essentially, your dog
might be fearful. Uh. And one of the other problems
besides harming the relationship between you and your dog that
you might even know it's harmed, is that if your
(29:07):
dog is aggressive at all, this can really ramp that up,
and that can be a big problem. Yeah, because again,
you're punishing your dog for being fearful if it's if
you're punishing it for aggressiveness, and you're just making it
more fearful. So two of the other big problems that
can arise from dominance training our injury to the dog.
If you say, you know, do an alpha role too
(29:29):
hard and you break its rib or something like that
that can happen, or if you're instilling further aggressiveness in
the dog, an injury to you or the trainer or
somebody else. Yeah, there was a study in two thousand nine,
so it's a little old, but I imagine it's still
pretty true. Uh, published in the Applied Behavioral Science. UM.
(29:51):
I guess journal, Um extravaganza. Uh. They serve a dog
owners who would reported problem behavior and a rssian. They
completed the survey about their training techniques and of the
dogs that were physically punished, hit or kick, which I
can't even go there in my mind, of those dogs
(30:12):
responded with aggression, duh um. And then what else if
you that a dog it was for dogs, Um became aggressive? Okay,
that staring was the scruff shake of dogs. Um, we're
(30:33):
aggressive in response. And the alpha role was right. And
this is one reason, another reason why there's a near
consensus despite what Caesar Milan might say on dominance training
not being the way to go. The Association of Professional
Dog Trainers, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, American Veterinary
Society of Animal Behavior, Pet Professional Guide, and the Certification
(30:56):
Council for Professional Dog Trainers all say this is not
the way Caesar. Yeah, they say it's like, not only
is it bad for the dog, it's not rooted in science.
That the whole thing that dominance theory was based on
is not correct. Yeah, the whole wolf thing. Yeah, but
Caesar will still say I mean, he's still out there
saying nope. Animals love, they want to be in a
(31:19):
pack and they want to have a strong pack leader
and that is up to you to be that pack leader. Yes,
So this article kind of says that, Um, basically the
people who are in the dominance are amateur dog trainers, unaccredited,
and UM, I guess not high end is the way
I would have put it, you know, twenty minutes ago. Um,
and the a lot of pet dominance training, UM, tool
(31:44):
industry people like that sell the shot colors are yes.
And then people who watched Caesar melt right because he
is He's a force onto himself as far as dominance
training goes, because people watch his show and they're like, oh, wow,
this really works. You can go to a dog and
the dog will like stop doing what you want to do,
(32:05):
and and so he does. He produces results. But again
that that question of what what kind of a dog
or what kind of a mentality he's producing in the dog,
or that that kind of training produces in a dog,
that's the that's what's that question that's also heavily edits
the TV show. We have to remember it is well,
you know, he got in a lot of I don't
(32:26):
want to say he got in a lot of trouble
um water, maybe a little bit. But there was like
a petition that got like ten thousand signatures to have
a show canceled on National Geographic because, um, yeah, the
pig thing where he there was a French bulldog that
had killed two pot bellied pigs in its past and
the owner was like, I don't want my dog to
(32:48):
kill pigs anymore, and Caesar is like, I have just
the idea. Let's put it in a pen with another pig.
And apparently it was going very well, but then um,
they let it off of the lead and the dog
atta at the pig and took a chunk out of
its ear. And they aired this um and I'm sure
they aired it because they were trying to be true
(33:09):
to their documentary roots, I guess, rather than just editing
the whole thing out and being like, well, we can't
show that they included it, and there was a lot
of outrage and they were like, this is a clear
act of animal abuse, like this pig was harmed because
of this shows actions and seizure bonds actions. And there
was an investigation by Los Angeles County, I think um
(33:29):
to see whether you know, they could charge him with
animal abuse, and they cleared him eventually, but it created
it produced this round of um of interviews for him,
a lot of publicity for the show, but also he
did a lot of interviews and in every single one
he said, I understand that you know, the people who
are who are who prompted this investigation care about animals,
(33:50):
and they are you know, the people who are doing
the investigating are doing their job and they should and
it's it's great and I'll cooperate. But in every single
one he stood by dominance training. He did not question
it for a second. That's true. He still believes in it.
So on the other side, we have positive reinforcement, and
that's generally like a two pronged thing where you reward
(34:12):
good behavior. And this next part is really key because
it's easy to reward good behavior but not accidentally reinforcing
bad behavior, which she talked about earlier, which is someone
comes in, Nico jumps on them in my instinct is
to pull her off and say, no, I am reinforcing
that bad behavior just by giving her even negative attention,
right exactly. So, So what's the whole point of positive
(34:37):
reinforcement is ignoring the behavior that you don't want to happen,
which means you're not accidentally reinforcing bad behavior, and then
rewarding the behavior that you do want to happen. So,
in the case of Nico, the um the part where
you're ignoring it's called extinction, where this idea that the
unwanted behavior goes away if you do nothing. Um, when
(35:02):
you come in and she's jumping up, you just turn
your back to her and ignore and just go about
your business, say, unpacking your shoes. Maybe you've got a
wet bathing suit that you need to get out of
your suitcase with that kind of thing. You know, you've
just come home from a beach vacation. Did she does
this when I go get the mail? Okay? All right, wow, okay,
(35:22):
So you come back and you're looking to your your mail,
your Garnet Hill catalog, and you know, you're thinking, maybe
I will spend a little more on Halloween decorations than
last year. And um, you you you're ignoring her. You're
just doing your thing. And then the moment she sits
quietly and looks up at you, Bam, you're there with
the treat, with the tug of rope, tug of war rope,
(35:44):
the verbal praise. You're like, you're right there. And then
you go back to it. She jumps up, and you
go right back to your mail. You just totally ignore it.
In the moment her feet are on the floor, Bam,
you're right back there with another treat. So you're you're
very consistently. This is really really key. You're consistently rewarding
the behavior that you want, and you're consistently ignoring the
(36:06):
behavior that you don't want. Yeah, and again, I'm pretty
good at about this with myself. Um, and she doesn't
jump on me, but it's just it's with other folks.
So that's the thing. I got to really really work on.
Some of our closest friends that come over a lot, understand,
and they ignore her and try and turn their back
and stuff. Until she comes they hate me. Oh goodness.
(36:28):
Another thing you can use is the clicker um, and
that is uh, something you hold in your hand that
makes us clicking sound and you just sort of reinforce
that along with the treat. But they hear that click,
and I guess it's sort of like that Pavlovian response
where the precision of that click it makes it easier
for them to to put two and two together. And
(36:50):
pretty soon you can make that click and they know like, oh,
you know, maybe I'll just sit down and behave because
the treats coming my way. Well, you're with the click.
I think you're more marking the behavior. Like there's five
different things that she's doing as she says settling in
or whatever. Maybe she was looking up out the window
and you said good girl because she was sitting down.
(37:10):
But to her, you're saying good girl because she's looking
out the window. If you clicked, if you clicked the
moment she sat down and settled, um, she would know
that what you were talking about was the seating, the
sitting part, rather than looking out the window part. The
clickers just it's it happened so fast. It allows the
dog to mark that behavior. More than your praise, right,
because it takes a lot longer to say Nicol, you're
(37:32):
so good then that little click, So you'd want to
click first and then hit her with the praise. But
the click is like, oh that thing, that's right. And
the consistency that you were talking about is so key
because you can be going down a good path for
a couple of weeks and undo it all in a
couple of days or even a single action if you're
not consistent with you know, this training. But but it's
(37:55):
like with the being in the house thing, maybe the
house the house training that you engaged in originally did
you didn't quite finish, You weren't quite consistent enough, so
go start over. It's not like it's like, oh, well,
I'll never have a nice rug again. My dog just
peas in the house. It's like, no, you you go
back to house training your dog or you know, if
(38:16):
you have this, uh whatever, the unwanted behaviors, you just
have to go back to it and do it again
and your dog will pick it up um probably way
faster the second time, and you just stick to it.
It's just more consistency, which is why I was saying
earlier it's you know, a little more involved owning a
dog than we used to think it was. But the
dogs that were, you know, like sharing our lives with are,
(38:40):
I would argue, are way happier and healthier mentally and
probably physically too than say they were thirty years ago.
In general. Yeah, and there is a certain amount you know,
you don't get dogs and cats if you want to
have um, well it is not necessarily true, but if
you need a pristine house that's hairless, you probably shouldn't
(39:02):
have pets. Like, there's a certain amount of giving into
the fact that, um I mean, and you may have
rules where like pets aren't allowed on any furniture, which
is great. That helps, but like in my house, their
furniture dogs. So we know, our sunroom couch is never
going to be the nicest, greatest couch in the world.
It's always gonna have some dog here on it. Uh.
(39:22):
And that's just the way it is. That's fine with us. Yeah,
you me and I are defiant. We have not one
but two white couches. Yeah, luckily MoMA doesn't shed. But
as as Mom ever thrown up on the couch, no,
she hasn't. And I know now that I'm saying this
back at home, she's throwing up on the couch for
the first time ever. Are you know my friend Justin Uh.
(39:46):
He and his partner Melissa have a great dog named Fully,
who is Nico's best friend, and Fully is not allowed
on their furniture and is really good about it, but
he is allowed on our furniture. So when Fully comes
over for spend the nights and played times, he fully
milks that stuff. But it doesn't they and I was
worried it was gonna mess them up at home, but
it hasn't. He gets a difference. Yeah, I think probably
(40:08):
because dogs are a lot smarter than than we give
them credit for. Probably, he probably likes a spender. Two.
I can tell you Mama was very smart. Yeah. My
dogs are smart and dumb, you know. Yeah, Okay, that's
a good way for a dog to be too. It's
like sometimes you think, man, what a smart dog, and
then you see them eating like poop out of the
cat litter box and be like, wow, you're really not
(40:30):
very smart. After and they're like, oh, it's so God.
Or they come around the corner with cat litter on
their nose. They're like, what I wouldn't do it anything right,
play it off, just played cool. They don't know anything,
they can't prove anything. You got anything else about cat poop?
I got nothing else. Don't hit and kick your dogs, man,
don't beat up your dogs. That's uh well, if you
(40:54):
want to know more about dog training, there is a
lot to go read about on the internet and a
lot of these conflicting So definitely choose wisely. And since
I said choose wisely, it's time for a listener mail.
I'm gonna call this one. It delighted us. Oh, I
think you probably read this one. Um, I enjoyed the
(41:15):
short stuff. Guys. On barbed wire, I wanted to share
the fact that my great great grandfather, one William Harvey Beale,
invented the barbed wire tightener. How about that? Yeah, this
is what enabled ranchers and farmers to install their own fencing.
I am the twelfth generation and a long line of
Beals that began in the US in the sixteen eighties
(41:36):
from England, first landing in Pennsylvania and gradually by creating westward. Um.
I don't know why that remind have you ever? Do
you watched what we do in the shadows I have
seen it here there, yes, so you know it was
a it was a movie and now it's a TV show.
And the TV show one of the elder vampires, uh
(41:57):
any time that you know they're on Staten Island and
talks about Manhattan, he calls it Mannahatta. That's hilarious, but
there's no reason for it to be hilarious, but it
describes that. I like the TV show more than the
movie because almost exclusively because of Matthew Berry. Really, I
think anything he's in is just that guy is good.
(42:21):
It's great. You know, one of the writers on that
show and producers is Tom Sharplin of The Best Show. Anyway,
I don't know how that reminded me of it. I
think I was thinking about them landing in Pennsylvania and
what it was called back then, Pennsylvana. Back to the letter,
William Barby, whose generation eight was homesteadying in Kansas nine
(42:45):
and took a job as a barbed wire fence salesman,
and he said that Goodness knows, there was plenty of
fencing being shipped into the country by that time. You
couldn't do any good trying to farm without it. Big
problem there for farmers they got the fence up, was
how to pull the wire tight on the post. So
he tinkered in a forge and developed a device to
pull the wire tight. So kind of patent and was
(43:05):
soon selling the beal wire tightener to quote every bedevilled
fence tender for miles around in quote. She sent pictures
of the device and the patent and William working on
a ranch and that was great, she said. He traveled
around the West. He traveled around the West for eight
years selling his invention, was able to pay off his debts.
Eventually moved to California, a with the next four generations remain.
(43:28):
I'm writing from San Diego. I know all these details
thanks to William's youngest daughter who recorded extensive oral histories
and books. What a great letter. That is a great letter, um.
I've been listening to show for about five years. Flew
to Phoenix to see you live last year. Here the
highlight of my week. With love and gratitude, Chandra in
San Diego. Thanks a lot, Chandra, Pennsylvania to San Diego. No,
(43:50):
I love it. Over three hundred and forty years the
Mannahatta Um. That was a great one. Thanks and for
the pictures too. That was just excellent. If you want
to get in touch with this, like Sandra did Schaendra right? Yes, okay,
you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
com and check out our social links. And if that
doesn't work, you can always try a good old fashioned email,
(44:12):
Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send
it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios
How stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's guest
producer Roll over there, and that makes this Stuff you
Should Know about dogs. We love dogs, heart them. We
(00:25):
talk a lot about dogs, have dogs, We have dogs.
Just love dogs in general. They're the best. Train them
up the end the end, train them right though. Yeah,
this was an interesting one for me because I am
terrible at dog training. Uh and I just I do
a mix of so many things. I'm just my poor
(00:46):
dogs don't even know what to do. None of their
behaviors their fault. Well, yeah, I think my fault. That
seems to be true among um like like I want
to say, not high end, but a good dog trainers,
like professional dog trainers. Trainers. Yeah, they they would agree
(01:06):
that not just with you, but any dog's bad behavior
as a result of their human not training them well
or properly, are at all true. Although I will say,
I mean any dog can be trained supposedly. I've seen
those shows. But uh, you know, my dog Nico is
just so hot wired when someone comes over. Now, she's
(01:28):
the uh brindle, just so hot wired when people come
over that I just don't know what to do. What
do you mean hot wired? Just so excited and like
so excited she's about to implode into a nuclear fission reaction,
(01:50):
like just really really low knows he knows, Nico. It's
like it's very very tough to rain her in when
someone knocks on that door and comes over. Chill out
after ten minutes, but it's just hard to not get
her to jump up on people and stuff because they
got to be in on it too, you know. Well,
I would say that probably any high end dog trainer
(02:11):
would would say that you should give her tranquilizers all
the time, especially when somebody's coming over, but you better
sleep her life away. Your instinct as a dog owner
is when someone comes over and your dog jumps on him,
it's to say, now, Nico, get down, get off of them,
and even like pull them off. But this article says like,
like no, even a scolding is reinforcing that behavior, because
(02:34):
all that dog wants his attention, even if it's a scolding, right,
and and if you if you say no or whatever,
the dog gets the attention. It prefer positive attention where
you're like, yeah, jump up, that's great, but it'll take
you know, Nico or any other dog will take UM
will take the the know what they say to do
is to just ignore it. Just ignore the dog until
(02:55):
they're doing what you want them to do, and then
reward the dog. And I think that what you said,
and I'm glad you said this because we really need
to get this across. What people have been discovering more
and more about dog training in the last like twenty
years is that having a dog and raising a good
dog is requires way more than we previously thought. It did,
(03:20):
way more attention, way more research, way more patience, way
more persistence, way more than it used to and and
rightfully so, I mean it should require this and one
of the reasons why it does require more is because
there's been a real shift in mentality over what direction
you should take to train a dog. I keep saying
(03:40):
raise a dog. I think that's a good way to
put it too, but um that it used to be different,
and that still is that way for some people. Who
is we'll see, but there there. It used to be
much easier because you just asserted yourself physically, psychologically, you
yelled at your dog, you spanked your dog, and you
basically showed your dog who was boss, and then after
(04:02):
that they would just kind of behave. They're saying like, no,
don't do that anymore. That's not good. It really has
really terrible effects on the dog, harms your relationship with
the dog, and instead, um, you really need to just
give a hundred and ten percent whereas before you're giving.
Maybe that's right. So what you're talking about are the
two main approaches dominance or positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is
(04:26):
a straight up operat conditioning technique where you reward your
dog for good behaviors or I guess we shouldn't even
say good and bad. They say not to do that
with children and dogs, desirable behaviors and a focus on
what a dog should do, whereas dominance is a technique
to discourage unwanted behaviors what you should not do. And
(04:48):
the whole dominance theory is based on this idea, and
this has been around since well who knows where it
got its original start, but at least since the seventies.
They're these dog training monks in Cambridge, New York called
the news Skeet Monks and they are monks who raise
and breed German shepherds and write dog training books. Right, well,
(05:10):
I mean that the monks are supposed to give something
back to the world. Someone throw beer, and these guys
trained dogs. I like the beer brewers better. But um,
it's been at least around since then. But this is
based on the the idea that dogs are really just
wolves two point oh in dogs clothing. Yeah, and that wolves.
(05:31):
We should look at the behavior of wolves and they
are pack animals with an alpha male and an alpha female.
Will get more into that, and we can extrapolate that
to dogs. And so that's how and this is what
these monks say too, that's what you should be doing
is mimicking what wolves do. And well it's about to
say in the wild, not that not the case. Really
(05:52):
what wolves have been studied doing in captivity, which is
a key point. Right And then like because they have
packs with the leader calling out alpha male and alpha female,
the alpha male and female um maintain their position um
through dominance, through acts of like aggression, violence, and that
they're constantly challenged for these positions. So that so much
(06:15):
so that this constant struggle over dominance and alphadom, uh
is what shapes wolf society, and that that if you
take that and you just assume, like you said, that
dogs are just a different type of wolf, that they're
so closely related to wolves and descended from wolves, that
the same kind of mentality applies to dogs. If you
(06:36):
create that kind of situation in your own home, you
will have a happier, more obedient dog who understands its
place in this household, which to your dog is just
a pack. That's right. Uh. This has started in the
nineteen sixties. There were a bunch of studies observing these
wolf packs and their social structures. I saw it even
(06:57):
earlier than that. I saw a guy named Rudolph Schenkel
was doing this in n and that he's the one
who coined this ide the idea and the term alpha.
And he was also the guitarist for the Scorpions. If
I'm not mistaken, I think you're thinking of John Fogerty's guitarists,
which is I think was his brother Rudy Schenko. Rudy Schenko.
(07:18):
So uh yeah, So they're they're observing these wolves and
they're saying that, um, there's a continual pattern in the
in the pack of the male members vying for control,
challenging the alpha, and then the alpha putting it down,
usually physically and also psychologically. I guess as much as
you can get into the psychology of a wolf. And um,
(07:42):
here's the thing. I mean, should we go ahead and
say what the deal is? I feel like that's there.
Should that be a third ex spoiler? No? No, I
think we can go ahead all right? That I said
they were studying captive wolves. That's the that's the rub
here is that they're studying wolves in captivity. And it
took this the guy and the when was that then?
(08:02):
The nineties? Yeah, David meck, Yeah, that actually studied wolves
in the wild. And he's like, that's not what's going
on at all, because you're it's like studying humans in
a refugee camp or a prison, Like the behaviors aren't
gonna be the same. What I'm observing is these animals
that follow what most animals in the animal kingdom do
or many, which is uh, their their families. And the
(08:25):
alpha is the alpha because he's the dad, right exactly.
That Like when they said like, oh, no, wolves are
constantly you know, under these physical attacks for their status
is the alpha alpha wolf. Um. They what they were
saying was like, these these wolves are in a completely
unnatural setting in situation, and you've got a bunch of
(08:46):
different alpha's who are trying to figure out who's in charge.
And yeah, there was a lot of aggression and dominance.
But this was a terrible thing to base this idea
on how to train a dog because it was a
totally artificial situation. And it wasn't until I think, what
did you say that mec he actually revised in earlier book.
(09:07):
He wrote a book in nineteen eighty that took these
earlier ideas and said, yeah, these are totally correct. And
now he's like, I wish I'd never I got it
so wrong. Yes, there is dominance, there are alpha's, but
it's like you said, Chuck, their mom and dad that's
what we would call him, just in the same way
that your mom and your dad are the boss of
(09:28):
you when you're a kid, same thing in a wolf pack. Yeah,
and dad goes out and gets the food. Uh, moms
takes care of the kids and protects the kids and acts,
as you know, the defensive guard over their den. And
that's just how it works. And then after a couple
of years. Um, the male puppies, I guess leave. They've
(09:50):
become alpha's of their own families. And he observed the
stuff over where is it Canada's Elsmere Island every summer
for thirteen years and they have the that island has
the best carnival in Canada. It really changed the way
people look at wolves and ergo dogs. Yeah for the
UM what the revision of it or the earlier stuff, Well,
(10:14):
the revision of it, sure, yeah, it totally did because
everybody realized that this dominance based training that people have
been doing, where you basically beat up your dog if
there if there is like a sense of like alpha
dom that your dog is following, your dog is basically
like my dad is beating me up and yelling at
(10:34):
me all the time, and I'm just scared and anxious
about everything. So the dog training world realized that this
is what was happening, that it was based on faulty
preliminary original research, and they switched. They change. They went
to a much more respectful, happier, friendlier UM way of
(10:55):
training that doesn't involve punishment, it involves basically rewards. An
extinction is well, we'll look at later on. All right, well,
let's take a break. We were talking about beating up
your dog, but when we come back, we'll talk about
specific techniques the people that subscribe to the dominance theory believe.
And all right, so you talked about people beating up
(11:35):
their dogs. I know you're sort of kidding, um, but
there are actual physical things that they say to do
in dominance training. Uh. And they are as follows. One.
It's called the alpha roll, uh not R O L
E R O L L. So this is when the
trainer will are you know, I guess if you're the owner,
(11:58):
and trainer will pin the dog on its back and
hold the dog there by the chest or the throat
until the dog gives in and and stops the struggle. Okay,
that is slightly different than dominance down. That is pinning
the dog on its side until the dog stops struggling.
So same thing. I mean, you've got a dog that
(12:18):
is doing something that you don't want it to do,
so you are pinning it. You're physically restraining it in
an aggressive manner until it just basically dies inside. I
will say that I have have done the dominance down
before because of a dog fight between my two dogs,
getting the dogs separated, and then you know, pinning one
(12:40):
down until they calm down. One thing I saw um somewhere.
I don't remember where I saw it, but the um
Actually i've heard it. I heard it a little while ago.
The way that you break up a dog fight is
you grab them by the back legs. Is to rub
yourself a steak. Right, you just walked through and be like,
who's a steak? Why fight when you can have steak
grabbed the back legs? Yeah, that makes sense. Here's the
(13:03):
thing though, if you've ever been involved in a dog
fight up close, it's an adrenaline rush. You don't know
quite what to do. Uh, and it's scary. It's like
super scary. Yeah, well, your brain just becomes totally Like
my brain becomes clouded. When like Momo starts barking at somebody,
I'm like, I get all flustered and whatever. A dog
fight is like it is one of the most flustering,
(13:24):
like clouding experiences you can you can have. I've heard
through a water on them, I could see that. I
could also see him just fighting right through the water.
If the fight's bad enough. Yeah, I mean my dog Lucy,
who isn't with us, gotten to a fight with my
former co dog, Jake, the pit bull who you know,
my prince justin ended up taking and it was ugly, man,
(13:46):
and they're both not with us, and they're both really
sweet dogs, but they looked at each other wrong and
it was on from the get go, and like Lucy
took off part of Jake's ear and it was just
like it was bad. He was scary. You don't know
what to do, right, And so a person who um
who is who subscribes the dominance theory training says, you
(14:06):
need to show that both of those dogs that you're
in charge, and you tell them they're not fighting there,
that they're acting out their misbehaving because they don't understand
their role. But at the same time, I would be like, well, no,
it sounds like that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't
think you're the alpha. They're trying to figure out what
their position over one another in this packet or just
dogs being dogs, man, that's another way to look at it.
(14:28):
For sure. You know, like Lucy got attacked at a
dog park when she was young, and from that day
forward was you know, if a dog was slightly aggressive,
it was on and scary. Yeah, so we couldn't take
around other dogs, that's the up shot. Yeah, and they
would say so. One of the other things I want
to call out here, rather than waiting, um, when a
dog acts aggressively, every trainer I've seen on both sides
(14:53):
says that it's fearful that the dog is actually afraid.
That was for sure Lucy's case. Yeah, so yeah, and
it's that's why I thought of that, because you know,
she had a negative experience and she was afraid, so
she would act aggressive in the face of fear. So
one of the reasons why people criticize dominance training, as
we'll see, is that you're physically and aggressively punishing aggressive behavior.
(15:18):
So you're you're punishing a dog for feeling fearful, which
is going to make it more fearful of whatever it
is it's afraid of at that moment, which means it's
actually probably likelier that it will become more aggressive rather
than it's like a human kid too. You know, if
you have a kid who has learned to be aggressive,
in your way of discipline them is to hit them, Like,
(15:40):
what do you think is gonna happen? I don't know,
I don't know anything about human kids. I only know
about dogs. They're the same. So back to the uh,
the physical methods of dominance training. There was alpha role
dominance down. There's the scrub shakes when you grabbed the
dog's jowls they're scruff with both hands and shake it
really hard and stare them, stare them in the eyes.
(16:04):
Leash jerk if you're on a on a walk with
your dog and they're pulling you let them get up
ahead and then jerk back really really hard. Uh. And
then using choke collars or pinch collars or shot collars
uh instead of like the more humane gentle leaders what
they call them. This sort of looks like a muzzle,
(16:24):
but when the dog pulls, it just sort of pulls
their nose down and they don't like that. Right. The
that's for the other kind. Physically hurting them when they
pull on the leash correct or when you jerk the
leash back right or the choke pinch or shot collars
are all all dominance or there's psychological methods to um
(16:46):
staring at the dog until the dog looks away like
I'm boss, who's gonna blink first? You dog? You? Or
Growling at a dog or making dog noises to the
dog is another dominance technique. Yeah, psychological dominance. So so
you've got all these techniques and UM as far as
dominance training goes. If you employ them in a UM
(17:09):
consistent manner, eventually your dog is going to figure out
who's boss. And they the people who subscribe to dominance
theories say this is actually a gift to your dog,
because if your dog is acting improperly, if it's misbehaving,
if it's being aggressive, it's asserting itself because it doesn't
(17:31):
realize that you're the alpha because you haven't asserted yourself
over your dog, and so somebody's got to be the alpha.
So this dog is confused and is trying to step up.
So if you assert your dominance over this dog, you
will reassure that there is an alpha in charge and
it can just relax and be a good, happy dog.
(17:51):
That's what people who who subscribe to dominance theory say
is the whole purpose of dominance theory. Right on the
other side, you have people saying, no, your dog is
not just becoming super happy because they know you're in charge.
They're going on into shutdown mode. Basically, because they're afraid
to do stuff and they're basically living in a state
(18:12):
of shutdown mode because they're afraid of being alpha rolled
or barked at or pinned or whatever. Yeah, and so
that what they'll do is is here's the thing, and
this is really important to remember. Nobody's saying dominance training
doesn't actually, at least in the short term, curb problem
(18:33):
behavior and dogs. But the way that you're doing is
actually like breaking the dog's spirit. You're not you're not
providing it this comfortable position in the household. It's pack
You're basically just breaking a spirit so that it it
it doesn't do anything until you tell it to do something.
It's that shutdown that you were just talking about. And
(18:53):
people who subscribe to the other way. So no, there's
a there's a different, better way to do this which
doesn't involved breaking the dog, which allows the dog to
lead a happier, healthier life. And and there's um what's
called the least intrusive, minimally aversive list of how to
train a dog and using dominance theory techniques are at
(19:18):
the bottom of this list. Yeah, I think they listed
six things, and that was number six was positive punishment,
which is a bit of a contradiction in terms I guess,
but yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, that's what the
whole list or just the positive punishment, well, just about
the punishment problem. Yeah, I mean, that's when you're delivering
(19:40):
what they called an aversive consequence or I guess averse
consequence to reduce probability that a behavior will occur. Yeah.
So in this in this sense, positive and negative doesn't
necessarily mean like good or bad. It means the introduction
or the removal of something. So so you can have
a negative reward where something bad is removed in reward
(20:05):
for the you know, the dog doing the behavior you want.
And then you also have negative punishment, where you remove
something good when the dog does something you don't want
it to do. You also have positive rewards, which is
basically giving a treat to a dog it does something
good and you say hey, here you go, or praise
or something like that. And then positive punishment, which sounds
(20:26):
like okay, that's an alright kind of punishment, that's actually
the worst of all of them as far as the
most professional dog trainers are concerned. That is where you're
introducing punishment because the dog is doing something. So you're
yelling at the dog, you're alpha rolling the dog, you're
spanking the dog, you're introducing a punishment as a response
for an unwanted behavior in this hope to train the dog.
(20:48):
And so they say, well, here's there's the basic problem
right there with dominance theory and dominance training is that
eventually you're going to come to positive punishment. It's woe
even into the fabric of dominance theory. And if you're
punishing your dog, if you're yelling at your dog or
outa rolling your dog, you're going to create this shutdown dog.
(21:09):
And what's more, it seems that positive punishment, as far
as training techniques, conditioning operat conditioning techniques go, is the
least effective of all of those four. And not it's
not just dog trainers saying that. Even B. F. Skinner himself,
who created a Skinner box and raises poor little barefoot
electrocuted children, and he said, yes, positive punishment is the
(21:32):
least effective of all of these. Yeah, they say, the
number one on that list is health, nutritional and physical factors.
And this is basically setting up your house then being
assured that your dog is like healthy and well fed
and like there's nothing physically wrong with a dog. Like
if your dog is peeing in the house and won't
(21:53):
get housebroken, they're saying, the first step you should do
is take your dog to a vet and make sure
it doesn't have like a urinary tract infection. Yeah, I mean,
let's go over this list, because that's really helpful. There
was um The Association of Professional Dog Trainers have a
list of misinterpretations. Urinating the house is one of them.
A dominance explanation would be like, no, they're peeing on
(22:13):
your bed, because they're trying to show say like this
is my territory. It's it's a really paranoid place to
come from, kind of you know, all the dog, the
dog thinks it's better than me. What is really going on,
they say, is that it's just the house training has
been inconsistent, Yes, which or you have a urinary tract
(22:35):
infection or something right, and you would find that out
by taking that first step, which is taking the dog
to the vet to make sure there isn't a health
or medical issue that can solve this problem, because again,
it all comes down to this problem behavior. Why is
the dog doing it or what do you want the
dog to do instead right, jumping up on people. This
is Nico Steele. A dominance explanation would be that that
(22:57):
she's doing this to assert their height and rank over you,
like I'm just as big as you are, Whereas what's
really going on is she wants to lick your face
and it's fun and she's excited and wants to say hello. Right,
So what you would do is you would say, teach
your dog to sit um whenever you go to open
the door something like that, or if your dog is
(23:19):
jumping up um, to to ignore it until it's sitting
with all all four paws on the floor and then
you reward it. Because it's, like you were saying, one
of the easiest ways to train your dog is accidentally,
And what you're doing is training your dog to do
all the stuff you don't want your dog to do. Yeah,
I mean, you come home from vacation and Nico jumps
(23:39):
up on you, like your first instinct is to kiss
her face and tell her how good it is to
see her, and that's the wrong thing to do. Like
I'm good at that, Like I can come in and
just turn my back and ignore and it works. But
you gotta get people coming in the house, all your
friends coming in and family, like everyone's got to be
on board. Yeah, Like like Momo barks that stranger is
(24:00):
when they come into her house. She does not like,
like say a contractor coming over to to bark or
to come to her house. She just doesn't like it.
So ideally I would give the stranger a treat, say
the contractor treat. I'd be like, by the way, can
you show up five minutes early to our appointment. I'm
gonna give you a dog treat. Slide a treat under
(24:20):
the door. You and I are going to go and
sit and get situated at the at the table, at
the dinner table, and we're gonna just talk calmly. And
then my wife is going to bring my dog into
the room and you're going to give her a treat.
Don't stand up in the presence of my dog. Once
my wife removes our dog, then we can go on
with our appointment. That would be the ideal thing. What this,
(24:42):
what this thing says to do is Okay, instead of
all that, just keep your dog outside. Go hang out
outside with your dog. Make it say your dog has
no idea. Anybody even came over. Yeah, that's easier sometimes. Yes,
that's the number two thing that you're supposed to do
after taking the dog to a vet. Um is just
changing the dog's world so that the problem behavior doesn't exist,
(25:05):
because the thing that creates that problem behavior isn't part
of the dog's world anymore. Yeah, the situation last week
where I was out of town. You know, we had
our house worked on in the contractor. The framer guy
who was there most of the time, like hands on,
really loves dogs and loves our dogs, but he had
to come over and do something. He hadn't been over
in a while, and I was gone, and I was like,
(25:27):
you know, I can tell you how to get in
my house if you want to go put them in
the in the bedroom so the plumber can come in.
I was like, this is on you, man, if you
want to do this. He's like, sure, I'll do it.
And he came in and texted me afterwards that said
that Charlie. He said, as soon as I walked in,
bolted and ran into the bedroom basically, and that Nico
(25:49):
like barked and barked, and then it was just like
downstairs trembling and afraid, and he eventually was like, come on, Nico,
come on up, and he got her into the bedroom.
That is that is so sad. It's but it's also
really sad too when you think about your dog, um,
you know, barking or being aggressive or something like that,
(26:10):
when you're just like, oh, it's so obnoxious, be quiet,
But then if you realize like they're actually doing it
because they're scared, witness makes the whole thing just heartbreaking.
But I think it's a really important thing to remember
too because it changes your perspective on it. It It goes
from being like, stop being aggressive, stop being hostile, you know,
to to realizing you're saying, stop being afraid, you know,
(26:31):
stop being a chicken. That's no way to talk to
something that you love. And that holds true for a
dog too, so to think that really kind of changes
your perspective. The advice of my monologue, uh and then
a couple of other behaviors pulling on a leash. A
dominance explanation might be that no, they're trying to assert
that there the Aleph and get out in front of
(26:52):
you and be in charge. Whereas what's really good going
on as your dogs excited to be on a walk
and they love to get out there and smell things,
and um, that's why they're pulling. Uh and then finally
running through the doorway. First I get run over by
my dogs all the time trying to get outside. Um.
And the dominance theory is that they're trying to push
you out of the way to show you there in
charge again. Uh. They what they're doing is pushing out
(27:15):
of the way because you're blocking them from getting outside
where they love life a lot more. Right So, and
this really kind of I think, does a beautiful job
Chuck of putting side by side the dominance theory and
the um the What is the positive positive reinforcement I
guess yeah, positive reinforcement theory, those are the two main ones.
(27:36):
But just the the almost night and day ways that
they see dogs like what makes dogs dogs? That to
a dominance theory person, the dogs just like I'm in
charge of you, get out of my way. Where the
the positive reinforcement theory says, no, dog just likes to
go have fun and it's really not very concerned with,
(27:57):
you know, social niceties of letting you go first. It
wants to go have fun immediately. It doesn't really have
anything to do with you it's a dog exactly. I
just I don't know if if everyone's figured this out
or not, but I tend to fall a little more
on the positive reinforcement side of that same here. So
let's take a break then and talk about a little
(28:18):
bit more about the problems with dominance training, but then
the joy and the goodness that is positive reinforcement beautiful. Alright,
(28:46):
So earlier in the show, you said that dominance training
can achieve results. No one argues that that can be
effective at times, but we talked about why it's effective
that your dog is being shut down. Essentially, your dog
might be fearful. Uh. And one of the other problems
besides harming the relationship between you and your dog that
you might even know it's harmed, is that if your
(29:07):
dog is aggressive at all, this can really ramp that up,
and that can be a big problem. Yeah, because again,
you're punishing your dog for being fearful if it's if
you're punishing it for aggressiveness, and you're just making it
more fearful. So two of the other big problems that
can arise from dominance training our injury to the dog.
If you say, you know, do an alpha role too
(29:29):
hard and you break its rib or something like that
that can happen, or if you're instilling further aggressiveness in
the dog, an injury to you or the trainer or
somebody else. Yeah, there was a study in two thousand nine,
so it's a little old, but I imagine it's still
pretty true. Uh, published in the Applied Behavioral Science. UM.
(29:51):
I guess journal, Um extravaganza. Uh. They serve a dog
owners who would reported problem behavior and a rssian. They
completed the survey about their training techniques and of the
dogs that were physically punished, hit or kick, which I
can't even go there in my mind, of those dogs
(30:12):
responded with aggression, duh um. And then what else if
you that a dog it was for dogs, Um became aggressive? Okay,
that staring was the scruff shake of dogs. Um, we're
(30:33):
aggressive in response. And the alpha role was right. And
this is one reason, another reason why there's a near
consensus despite what Caesar Milan might say on dominance training
not being the way to go. The Association of Professional
Dog Trainers, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, American Veterinary
Society of Animal Behavior, Pet Professional Guide, and the Certification
(30:56):
Council for Professional Dog Trainers all say this is not
the way Caesar. Yeah, they say it's like, not only
is it bad for the dog, it's not rooted in science.
That the whole thing that dominance theory was based on
is not correct. Yeah, the whole wolf thing. Yeah, but
Caesar will still say I mean, he's still out there
saying nope. Animals love, they want to be in a
(31:19):
pack and they want to have a strong pack leader
and that is up to you to be that pack leader. Yes,
So this article kind of says that, Um, basically the
people who are in the dominance are amateur dog trainers, unaccredited,
and UM, I guess not high end is the way
I would have put it, you know, twenty minutes ago. Um,
and the a lot of pet dominance training, UM, tool
(31:44):
industry people like that sell the shot colors are yes.
And then people who watched Caesar melt right because he
is He's a force onto himself as far as dominance
training goes, because people watch his show and they're like, oh, wow,
this really works. You can go to a dog and
the dog will like stop doing what you want to do,
(32:05):
and and so he does. He produces results. But again
that that question of what what kind of a dog
or what kind of a mentality he's producing in the dog,
or that that kind of training produces in a dog,
that's the that's what's that question that's also heavily edits
the TV show. We have to remember it is well,
you know, he got in a lot of I don't
(32:26):
want to say he got in a lot of trouble
um water, maybe a little bit. But there was like
a petition that got like ten thousand signatures to have
a show canceled on National Geographic because, um, yeah, the
pig thing where he there was a French bulldog that
had killed two pot bellied pigs in its past and
the owner was like, I don't want my dog to
(32:48):
kill pigs anymore, and Caesar is like, I have just
the idea. Let's put it in a pen with another pig.
And apparently it was going very well, but then um,
they let it off of the lead and the dog
atta at the pig and took a chunk out of
its ear. And they aired this um and I'm sure
they aired it because they were trying to be true
(33:09):
to their documentary roots, I guess, rather than just editing
the whole thing out and being like, well, we can't
show that they included it, and there was a lot
of outrage and they were like, this is a clear
act of animal abuse, like this pig was harmed because
of this shows actions and seizure bonds actions. And there
was an investigation by Los Angeles County, I think um
(33:29):
to see whether you know, they could charge him with
animal abuse, and they cleared him eventually, but it created
it produced this round of um of interviews for him,
a lot of publicity for the show, but also he
did a lot of interviews and in every single one
he said, I understand that you know, the people who
are who are who prompted this investigation care about animals,
(33:50):
and they are you know, the people who are doing
the investigating are doing their job and they should and
it's it's great and I'll cooperate. But in every single
one he stood by dominance training. He did not question
it for a second. That's true. He still believes in it.
So on the other side, we have positive reinforcement, and
that's generally like a two pronged thing where you reward
(34:12):
good behavior. And this next part is really key because
it's easy to reward good behavior but not accidentally reinforcing
bad behavior, which she talked about earlier, which is someone
comes in, Nico jumps on them in my instinct is
to pull her off and say, no, I am reinforcing
that bad behavior just by giving her even negative attention,
right exactly. So, So what's the whole point of positive
(34:37):
reinforcement is ignoring the behavior that you don't want to happen,
which means you're not accidentally reinforcing bad behavior, and then
rewarding the behavior that you do want to happen. So,
in the case of Nico, the um the part where
you're ignoring it's called extinction, where this idea that the
unwanted behavior goes away if you do nothing. Um, when
(35:02):
you come in and she's jumping up, you just turn
your back to her and ignore and just go about
your business, say, unpacking your shoes. Maybe you've got a
wet bathing suit that you need to get out of
your suitcase with that kind of thing. You know, you've
just come home from a beach vacation. Did she does
this when I go get the mail? Okay? All right, wow, okay,
(35:22):
So you come back and you're looking to your your mail,
your Garnet Hill catalog, and you know, you're thinking, maybe
I will spend a little more on Halloween decorations than
last year. And um, you you you're ignoring her. You're
just doing your thing. And then the moment she sits
quietly and looks up at you, Bam, you're there with
the treat, with the tug of rope, tug of war rope,
(35:44):
the verbal praise. You're like, you're right there. And then
you go back to it. She jumps up, and you
go right back to your mail. You just totally ignore it.
In the moment her feet are on the floor, Bam,
you're right back there with another treat. So you're you're
very consistently. This is really really key. You're consistently rewarding
the behavior that you want, and you're consistently ignoring the
(36:06):
behavior that you don't want. Yeah, and again, I'm pretty
good at about this with myself. Um, and she doesn't
jump on me, but it's just it's with other folks.
So that's the thing. I got to really really work on.
Some of our closest friends that come over a lot, understand,
and they ignore her and try and turn their back
and stuff. Until she comes they hate me. Oh goodness.
(36:28):
Another thing you can use is the clicker um, and
that is uh, something you hold in your hand that
makes us clicking sound and you just sort of reinforce
that along with the treat. But they hear that click,
and I guess it's sort of like that Pavlovian response
where the precision of that click it makes it easier
for them to to put two and two together. And
(36:50):
pretty soon you can make that click and they know like, oh,
you know, maybe I'll just sit down and behave because
the treats coming my way. Well, you're with the click.
I think you're more marking the behavior. Like there's five
different things that she's doing as she says settling in
or whatever. Maybe she was looking up out the window
and you said good girl because she was sitting down.
(37:10):
But to her, you're saying good girl because she's looking
out the window. If you clicked, if you clicked the
moment she sat down and settled, um, she would know
that what you were talking about was the seating, the
sitting part, rather than looking out the window part. The
clickers just it's it happened so fast. It allows the
dog to mark that behavior. More than your praise, right,
because it takes a lot longer to say Nicol, you're
(37:32):
so good then that little click, So you'd want to
click first and then hit her with the praise. But
the click is like, oh that thing, that's right. And
the consistency that you were talking about is so key
because you can be going down a good path for
a couple of weeks and undo it all in a
couple of days or even a single action if you're
not consistent with you know, this training. But but it's
(37:55):
like with the being in the house thing, maybe the
house the house training that you engaged in originally did
you didn't quite finish, You weren't quite consistent enough, so
go start over. It's not like it's like, oh, well,
I'll never have a nice rug again. My dog just
peas in the house. It's like, no, you you go
back to house training your dog or you know, if
(38:16):
you have this, uh whatever, the unwanted behaviors, you just
have to go back to it and do it again
and your dog will pick it up um probably way
faster the second time, and you just stick to it.
It's just more consistency, which is why I was saying
earlier it's you know, a little more involved owning a
dog than we used to think it was. But the
dogs that were, you know, like sharing our lives with are,
(38:40):
I would argue, are way happier and healthier mentally and
probably physically too than say they were thirty years ago.
In general. Yeah, and there is a certain amount you know,
you don't get dogs and cats if you want to
have um, well it is not necessarily true, but if
you need a pristine house that's hairless, you probably shouldn't
(39:02):
have pets. Like, there's a certain amount of giving into
the fact that, um I mean, and you may have
rules where like pets aren't allowed on any furniture, which
is great. That helps, but like in my house, their
furniture dogs. So we know, our sunroom couch is never
going to be the nicest, greatest couch in the world.
It's always gonna have some dog here on it. Uh.
(39:22):
And that's just the way it is. That's fine with us. Yeah,
you me and I are defiant. We have not one
but two white couches. Yeah, luckily MoMA doesn't shed. But
as as Mom ever thrown up on the couch, no,
she hasn't. And I know now that I'm saying this
back at home, she's throwing up on the couch for
the first time ever. Are you know my friend Justin Uh.
(39:46):
He and his partner Melissa have a great dog named Fully,
who is Nico's best friend, and Fully is not allowed
on their furniture and is really good about it, but
he is allowed on our furniture. So when Fully comes
over for spend the nights and played times, he fully
milks that stuff. But it doesn't they and I was
worried it was gonna mess them up at home, but
it hasn't. He gets a difference. Yeah, I think probably
(40:08):
because dogs are a lot smarter than than we give
them credit for. Probably, he probably likes a spender. Two.
I can tell you Mama was very smart. Yeah. My
dogs are smart and dumb, you know. Yeah, Okay, that's
a good way for a dog to be too. It's
like sometimes you think, man, what a smart dog, and
then you see them eating like poop out of the
cat litter box and be like, wow, you're really not
(40:30):
very smart. After and they're like, oh, it's so God.
Or they come around the corner with cat litter on
their nose. They're like, what I wouldn't do it anything right,
play it off, just played cool. They don't know anything,
they can't prove anything. You got anything else about cat poop?
I got nothing else. Don't hit and kick your dogs, man,
don't beat up your dogs. That's uh well, if you
(40:54):
want to know more about dog training, there is a
lot to go read about on the internet and a
lot of these conflicting So definitely choose wisely. And since
I said choose wisely, it's time for a listener mail.
I'm gonna call this one. It delighted us. Oh, I
think you probably read this one. Um, I enjoyed the
(41:15):
short stuff. Guys. On barbed wire, I wanted to share
the fact that my great great grandfather, one William Harvey Beale,
invented the barbed wire tightener. How about that? Yeah, this
is what enabled ranchers and farmers to install their own fencing.
I am the twelfth generation and a long line of
Beals that began in the US in the sixteen eighties
(41:36):
from England, first landing in Pennsylvania and gradually by creating westward. Um.
I don't know why that remind have you ever? Do
you watched what we do in the shadows I have
seen it here there, yes, so you know it was
a it was a movie and now it's a TV show.
And the TV show one of the elder vampires, uh
(41:57):
any time that you know they're on Staten Island and
talks about Manhattan, he calls it Mannahatta. That's hilarious, but
there's no reason for it to be hilarious, but it
describes that. I like the TV show more than the
movie because almost exclusively because of Matthew Berry. Really, I
think anything he's in is just that guy is good.
(42:21):
It's great. You know, one of the writers on that
show and producers is Tom Sharplin of The Best Show. Anyway,
I don't know how that reminded me of it. I
think I was thinking about them landing in Pennsylvania and
what it was called back then, Pennsylvana. Back to the letter,
William Barby, whose generation eight was homesteadying in Kansas nine
(42:45):
and took a job as a barbed wire fence salesman,
and he said that Goodness knows, there was plenty of
fencing being shipped into the country by that time. You
couldn't do any good trying to farm without it. Big
problem there for farmers they got the fence up, was
how to pull the wire tight on the post. So
he tinkered in a forge and developed a device to
pull the wire tight. So kind of patent and was
(43:05):
soon selling the beal wire tightener to quote every bedevilled
fence tender for miles around in quote. She sent pictures
of the device and the patent and William working on
a ranch and that was great, she said. He traveled
around the West. He traveled around the West for eight
years selling his invention, was able to pay off his debts.
Eventually moved to California, a with the next four generations remain.
(43:28):
I'm writing from San Diego. I know all these details
thanks to William's youngest daughter who recorded extensive oral histories
and books. What a great letter. That is a great letter, um.
I've been listening to show for about five years. Flew
to Phoenix to see you live last year. Here the
highlight of my week. With love and gratitude, Chandra in
San Diego. Thanks a lot, Chandra, Pennsylvania to San Diego. No,
(43:50):
I love it. Over three hundred and forty years the
Mannahatta Um. That was a great one. Thanks and for
the pictures too. That was just excellent. If you want
to get in touch with this, like Sandra did Schaendra right? Yes, okay,
you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
com and check out our social links. And if that
doesn't work, you can always try a good old fashioned email,
(44:12):
Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send
it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
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