----- Original Message -----
From: "keith_w"
Subject: Re: PESO: Tanja
Dogs' deceit is more sneaky. Getting away with something the master has
told them to NOT do! I've seen 'em do it and then smile at the owner when
caught! Yup. Smile! Or is it a smirk?
I see what you are saying, but prefer to look at that behaviour from a
different point of view.
The dog looks at the behaviour it is about to present, and decides if this
is an appropriate behaviour or not.
If it doesn't have a better alternative, then the path it is considering at
the moment is the best one.
Part of that decision making process is what we have taught them, either
through positive means or negative associations.
Some behaviours are relatively easy to modify.
Getting a dog to heel, rather than range out in front is relatively easy to
acomplish for most dogs. For some, it is admitedly much more difficult,
sometimes to the point you admit you will have a pretty good heal, but not a
dog you can trust off leash.
So it goes.
It is still mostly an easy learn for a dog.
Getting a dog to not grab the Christmas turkey off the undefended dining
room table may be impossible if the dog is left to make his own decision,
even with prior negative reinforcement. The motivator is stronger than the
pre-learned negative motivation.
Dogs are natural scavengers, I don't think it is possible to make them 100%
reliable. A cooked bird carcass on the counter has gotta look pretty good,
especially when all the pack Alphas have abandoned it.
Generally, that means that the lesser dogs in the pack get their turn at the
carcass.
If the dog is smirking at you, it is because you have, in some way,
reinforced the behaviour he is showing.
The smirk he shows you as he gaily wags his tail and runs off with tomorrows
lunch (and supper, and soup the next day and then a few more sandwiches)
shows that he is playing and is confident of winning a game of chase with
you.
It's a fun game, one that they like to play, since they most always win.
And this time, he is really motivated to win, and so is really enjoying the
game.
In this instance, I would remove the temptation.
Sometimes we just have to be the smart ones.
Another story;
My male Rottie knows not to take from the undefended dining room table
(other places are still fair game, it seems).
Instead, he guards the table from his siblings.
So we clean the table off right after supper.
Once, after we had thought the table was cleared, we heard him doing his
little guard dog interpretation, and discovered we had failed to remove a
lemon rind from the table.
Male Rotties are natural guards. In this instance, I believe his natural
instinct to guard something valuable (in his mind, anyway) was greater than
his desire to actually eat what was left behind.
This behaviour is probably reinforced by our requirement that things not be
removed from the table by him.
He really likes guarding spinach, Feta cheese & Italian sausage pizzas for
some reason.
Here's a classic example: The annoying dog who runs along the other side of
the fence from you barking and snarling.
Why do they do this?
It's a territorial instint, and it is entirely self reinforcing.
The dog is warning you away from his yard, and every time he barks, you
leave, thereby satisfying his instictive need to preserve his boundaries.
You walk past, he chases you off, he's done a good job.
He wins every time, so he is going to keep doing it.
That you were on your way to the 7-11 doesn't enter his head.
The dog is probably wagging his tail too.
At the same time, it annoys both the dogs owners and the victims of this
behaviour. One would think they would stop doing it, since it annoys
everyone.
But wait, there may be more happenning here.
What if the dog knows he is trapped in the yard. He knows how big his
boundary is after all.
So now we have taken away from him one of the two things that he uses as his
core survival instinct.
Under stress, a dog tends to use a flight or fight behaviour. Take away one,
especially flight, and the dog may be forced into an undesirable decision
making process, where believes he has to act, and has only one action to
choose from.
This is the chained dog syndrome.
So, the dog at the fence may be doubly motivated to chase you away, one of
those motivations being really deeply imbedded.
Thats why it is so difficult to stop them from doing it, and most dogs will
at least investigate something at the fence, if not actually bark at it,
unless it is engaged in an activity that is of sufficient interest to keep
it from noticing the threat.
So, build a run nearer the house than the fence and pen your dogs in it when
they have to be outside. Cut off their view of the fence if you have to.
Removing the motivation behind the bad as much as possible, removes the bad
behaviour, as much as possible.
Everyone is happier.
William Robb
