tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39387291249437373572024-03-14T02:11:48.269+11:00CREATURE TEACHERArticles about animal training and behaviour, and life with dogs in the Sutherland Shire, Sydney. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-90804340566928119542014-10-21T17:51:00.001+11:002015-06-16T11:57:07.512+10:00Your personal experience is not the highest truthIn a <a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2013/12/a-bias-smorgasbord.html">previous post</a>, I described some common cognitive biases and how they may be relevant to animal training. In this post, I am going to focus on arguably the biggest reason why we believe the things we do, and why it is actually a pretty rubbish thing to base beliefs on. I am talking about personal experience.<br />
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<h3>
Personal experiences are powerful</h3>
Personal experiences change the way you see the world. How many times have you heard something like "I wouldn't have believed it, except I saw it myself"? Have you said it yourself? I certainly have. When we have a memorable experience, we naturally become very convinced of it. It only takes one experience to make us into a believer. What happens when we are a believer?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0azcWr_Kmv4/VEYAAE_TUUI/AAAAAAAAAUk/BkoGwz4u4Ak/s1600/Cognitive%2Bdissonance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0azcWr_Kmv4/VEYAAE_TUUI/AAAAAAAAAUk/BkoGwz4u4Ak/s1600/Cognitive%2Bdissonance.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Believers are attached to their beliefs</h3>
Believers are highly vulnerable to <a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2013/12/a-bias-smorgasbord.html">confirmation bias</a>. As a believer, we preferentially seek evidence that supports our belief. We fail to notice all the times our belief does not hold true. We actively avoid evidence that refutes our belief. We are also vulnerable to cognitive dissonance, which means evidence that refutes our belief makes us feel very uncomfortable. To ease this discomfort, we have <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Od8JW0fDfs0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">three basic choices</a>:<br />
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1. We can <b>change our beliefs</b> and/or our actions so that they align with the new information.<br />
2. We can <b>seek new or revisit old information</b> that supports our belief, thus increasing our conviction in it and reducing the conflict created by the refuting information.<br />
3. We can <b>discredit</b> or downplay the refuting information, thus reducing its importance and the conflict it creates.<br />
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EVERYONE feels cognitive dissonance sometimes. It is a good reason to be gentle with those that have beliefs that conflict with yours, and give them space to decide how they will handle the dissonance you have brought into their life.<br />
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But, I saw/smelled/heard/felt/tasted it!</h3>
The tragic thing is that our personal experiences are not reliable. We put far more stock in them than we really should. The senses that we rely upon so heavily are malleable and open to interpretation. Here are some reasons why we should not be so convinced by our own personal experiences:<br />
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<i>Memory is malleable -</i> It is quite disturbing how malleable our memories are. Just <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3644056/">asking someone</a> if they remember something specific can result in them remembering it when asked again months later, even though it never occurred. False memories have been planted in people in several experiments using doctored photos, fabricated journal entries, and even just suggestion. See <a href="http://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/LoftusLearning%26MemoryMisinfo05.pdf">Loftus (2005)</a> for a fascinating account. What we remember happening may or may not have actually happened.<br />
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<i>People are not very good at probability - </i>We have a <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=KJ7nrlJqcRYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">poor sense of what is likely and what is unlikely</a>. Unlikely events can actually occur quite often purely by chance where there are large numbers involved. This means we will underestimate the occurrence of coincidences.<br />
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<i>People find meaning in meaningless stimuli - </i>We are <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1207/s15516709cog2605_1/asset/s15516709cog2605_1.pdf?v=1&t=i1iuvdj5&s=79ac59c6bfdba0cd52b3a01ae29ddcc655488939">wired to find meaning and patterns</a>. This is adaptive for us, but it also means we are prone to falsely identifying patterns, and linking two events together that may have actually been unrelated. For example, let's say I tried two training interventions at the same time, as well as homeopathy, and saw an improvement, which resulted in me believing homeopathy is effective, even though the improvement could have been a result of any number of things.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rf3u1C1IGQY/VEYArVYk9zI/AAAAAAAAAUs/bPBkIopaMU0/s1600/expectations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rf3u1C1IGQY/VEYArVYk9zI/AAAAAAAAAUs/bPBkIopaMU0/s1600/expectations.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">(<a href="http://www.doctordisruption.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/expectations.jpg">image source</a>)</td></tr>
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<i>We see what we expect to see - </i>Expectation biases prime us to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000334721400092X">see or hear what we expect to</a>. If I go into an internet discussion, and you are used to disagreeing with me, you will see evidence of my stances you disagree with in what I say, regardless of whether I was thinking about them when I typed my message. This one is particularly dangerous in animal training, because we wouldn't use an intervention we didn't expect to work.<br />
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<i>Things have relative meaning to us -</i> We will tend to give things meaning by their relative relationship to other things we know rather than judging them on their own merits. We we will tend to make decisions based on how the information is presented to us, which is known as the <a href="http://worthylab.tamu.edu/Courses_files/03_Levinetal_1998.pdf">framing effect.</a> For example, we could be given the same two choices, but phrased in two different ways, and we might make different decisions based on how the choices were framed. You would think that you would make the same choice every time, but you pick the one that SOUNDS better rather than the one that is logically better.<br />
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So, there are a bunch of cognitive things we do that aren't so reliable. So what? I still know what I saw. Science doesn't know everything. And my experiences are valuable. </h3>
Yep, that is your cognitive dissonance talking. Do you know what you saw? Really? Hopefully this article has made you question that, because you should. It is the exact reason why we have a careful and thorough scientific method. Because it is SO HARD to be free of bias. No, science does not know everything, but where there are data and they are of good quality and have been analysed well, we really have a responsibility to think about changing our beliefs if that data conflicts with them. Those data were collected because our personal experiences are unreliable. The data are supposed to be more reliable. And, of course your experiences are valuable. Most especially to you! Studies have been conducted based on personal experiences, and this is a wholly acceptable reason to conduct a study. But, the point is to find out if the personal experiences are true, or just a factor of bias or misinterpretation. Nonetheless, oftentimes in training we don't have scientific data. We only have personal experiences. What should we do? Be as sure of your personal experiences as you can be! That means objective recordings of baseline behaviour so that progress can be tracked throughout treatment. It is tedious, and I am yet to convince a client to do it, but numbers are more convincing than your subjective experiences.<br />
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References</h4>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Wicklund, Robert A., and Jack Williams Brehm. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Od8JW0fDfs0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Perspectives on cognitive dissonance</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">. Psychology Press, 2013.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Lommen, Miriam JJ, Iris M. Engelhard, and Marcel A. van den Hout. "<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3644056/">Susceptibility to long-term misinformation effect outside of the laboratory</a>."</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">European journal of psychotraumatology</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 4 (2013).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Loftus, Elizabeth F. "<a href="http://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/LoftusLearning%26MemoryMisinfo05.pdf">Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory.</a>" </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Learning & Memory</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 12.4 (2005): 361-366.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Gigerenzer, Gerd. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=KJ7nrlJqcRYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Calculated risks: How to know when numbers deceive you</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">. Simon and Schuster, 2002.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Rozenblit, Leonid, and Frank Keil. "<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1207/s15516709cog2605_1/asset/s15516709cog2605_1.pdf?v=1&t=i1iuvdj5&s=79ac59c6bfdba0cd52b3a01ae29ddcc655488939">The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth.</a>" </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Cognitive Science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 26.5 (2002): 521-562.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Tuyttens, F. A. M., et al. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000334721400092X">Observer bias in animal behaviour research: can we believe what we score, if we score what we believe?</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Animal Behaviour</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 90 (2014): 273-280.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Levin, Irwin P., Sandra L. Schneider, and Gary J. Gaeth. "<a href="http://worthylab.tamu.edu/Courses_files/03_Levinetal_1998.pdf">All frames are not created equal: A typology and critical analysis of framing effects.</a>"</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Organizational behavior and human decision processes</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 76.2 (1998): 149-188.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-22845265383417929912014-08-11T21:22:00.000+10:002014-08-12T19:34:34.369+10:00Dominance in Dogs - Does it exist and what does it mean?<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>12/8/14 Edits: I have added some things since this went live, to clarify some points I made poorly. Edits appear in italics.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dominance continues to be an issue of great controversy amongst dog trainers, scientists, and enthusiasts. And little wonder, considering the sometimes inhumane and deeply misguided things people have done to dogs in the name of dominance. A vehement rejection of these practices has led to a wild swing away from dominance, and claims that dominance does not even exist in dogs. It is no small ask, but to truly investigate this issue, we need to put aside our preconceptions and ignore emotional connotations. Come with me on a journey of the science of dominance in domestic dogs, but leave everything you think you know at the door. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is dominance?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before we go anywhere, we first need to know what people mean when they use this word. It has many meanings in different contexts, so let's be clear we are talking about an ecological context, or how animals interact with each other and their environment. Within the ecological context, we are referring specifically to social dominance, which is how individuals interact with each other in order to gain access to resources. Resources are anything that will help an animal survive. Resources are often limited, so an animal in a social group will sooner or later be in competition with others in their group for limited resources. Social living has many benefits when it comes to resources, so social animals need ways to figure out who gets access to resources and when, without getting into fights, which are dangerous. Inevitably, social animals that live together will have many such contests over resources. Dominance becomes stable where one individual is typically <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787814000392">dominant over another in a variety of contexts.</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A further development of the dominance concept is to look at "formal dominance", which may be thought of as signals of dominance and submission that are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787814000392">one-sided</a>. These allow animals to avoid aggression in contests and 'negotiate' who will defer to whom. Deference is an important concept, here. The subordinate individual will <a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/443.short">defer to the dominant animal</a>, and thus, <a href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/84470/rkt_1.pdf?sequence=1">dominance is more often supplied by the subordinate individual</a>, not enforced by the dominant individual. This is important to remember! Trainers that say they are enforcing their dominance over a dog probably don't really understand what it is. Some signals of formal dominance have been proposed in dogs in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000334720600443X">play</a> and in the presence of <a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/443.short">resources</a>. </span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l240/DPU_2006/Bob002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l240/DPU_2006/Bob002.jpg" height="290" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Formal dominance signals are one-sided. One dog directs them towards another, but not the other way around. <a href="http://www.prodoggroomingsupplies.com/dog-forums/showthread.php?t=80817&page=9">Image </a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>A dominance construct is most valuable when the dominant animal in any given situation is predictable before there is a contest and an outcome. So, while we might talk about dominance signals and interactions, what we are especially interested in is how these play out in multiple scenarios with different resources, and whether we can predict the outcomes of dominance interactions based on previous interactions or current signals - in other words, <b>dominance relationships</b>. This article will therefore emphasise predictors of dominance, and social groups where there are clear dominance relationships. This does not always occur! Dogs are social acrobats, and can find many paths to group harmony. Don't undersell them by assuming they are on a path without checking if it's the one they are actually on. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does dominance exist in domestic dogs' interactions with other dogs?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes. The scientific literature is actually quite clear on this point. Studies find that at least between two dogs in situations where they are both exposed to a resource, such as food, one dog will typically win out, usually without violence. This is an evolutionarily stable strategy, and is widespread in social species of all kinds. Check the references listed at the bottom of this post for more details.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is there a social hierarchy in dogs?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stable dominance relationships should lead to a linear or almost linear hierarchy. A linear hierarchy is where Dog A is dominant over Dog B, Dog B is dominant over Dog C, and Dog A is dominant over Dog C. A non-linear hierarchy is usually seen in triads. So, Dog A might be dominant over Dog B, Dog B is dominant over Dog C, but Dog C is dominant over Dog A. Furthermore, if there are several individuals in the group, there may be very few dominance interactions between some individuals and far more between others. Imagine that Dog E is 4 dogs from the most dominant dog, Dog A. If Dog A is anywhere near a valued resource, Dog E may be staying well out of the way. It has been argued that dogs may have dominance interactions, but<a href="http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_139885255.pdf"> not form a linear hierarchy</a> because in some cases individuals may not interact with each other much at all, and in others, individuals may interact frequently, but no dominant animal is established. Scott and Fuller found in the 60s that some dogs<a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ajPrMYi6a2kC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=scott+and+fuller+1965+genetics+of+the+dog&ots=umzLX18Tfe&sig=9mviWIsLvPQ49mNZd63eBa2f1kc#v=onepage&q=scott%20and%20fuller%201965%20genetics%20of%20the%20dog&f=false"> did not establish a dominant and subordinate relationship</a> when in contest with another dog. However, the first study examined a group of male, neutered dogs with no scarce resources, and did no tests for linearity in behaviours. The second established dominance soley through contest over a meaty bone, ignoring formal dominance signals. It may be that these are not good representatives of dog society. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another researcher found that there was little parental behaviour in free-ranging dogs, and </span><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Behavioural_Biology_of_Dogs.html?id=SpkSd__EdKYC" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">no social hierarchy</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://www.caninemind.co.uk/images/hierarchies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.caninemind.co.uk/images/hierarchies.jpg" height="287" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Social hierarchies come in different types. <a href="http://www.caninemind.co.uk/pack.html">Image</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other researchers have found evidence for linear hierarchies in domestic dogs. Hierarchies were determined in small numbers of feral dogs in West Bengal (see references to Pal), although it is unclear whether behaviours used to investigate dominance and submission in these studies were asymmetrical like the formal dominance signals discussed earlier. A recent study of 27 free-ranging dogs in Italy examined which behaviours were performed towards which dogs and found that a suite of agonistic (e.g. threat signals, chasing, growling, snarling, etc.) behaviours and submissive (e.g. looking away, flattening ears, tail and head down, crouching, etc.) behaviours were one-sided and their pattern of occurrence within the group was linear. This means that they found behaviours that were good indicators of dominance and submission, predicted which dogs would defer to whom and which dogs would win contests, and this resulted in a <a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/443.short">linear hierarchy</a>. Another recent study in dogs at a dog daycare centre also found that submissive and agonistic behaviours <a href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/84470/rkt_1.pdf?sequence=1">revealed a linear dominance hierarchy</a>, and a similar study that is yet to be published in full <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/257626355_Dominance_and_its_behavioral_measures_in_group_housed_domestic_dogs">also found a linear dominance hierarchy</a> by the same means, and identified active submissive postures (crouched, on back) and licking muzzle as the best indicators of dominance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The take home message here is that linear hierarchies can exist in dogs, but not necessarily must. Dogs in our homes may or may not form a linear hierarchy. Keep in mind one-sidedness. Studies that have found linearity used careful collection and analysis of data. This was not arbitrary, so beware applying it arbitrarily to your own situation. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, wasn't dominance in dogs originally extrapolated from studies on captive wolves, which were later found to be flawed?</span></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.woofandwordpress.com/dominancesubmissionblogphotos/passivesubmissioninguinaltwist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.woofandwordpress.com/dominancesubmissionblogphotos/passivesubmissioninguinaltwist.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Dominance in wolves is alive and well. <a href="http://woofandwordpress.com/blog/?m=200912&paged=2">Image</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes. Which does not mean dominance does not occur in dogs. It means that the original studies in wolves a) should not have been based on artificial groups in captivity where stress may have heightened conflict, and b) should not have been applied to dogs. Data can actually be collected on dog social groups. And where that data has been collected, dominance exists, and social hierarchies are often recorded. To be absolutely clear about the wolf situation, wolves certainly do have social dominance. It is just more a factor of age and experience than the exchange of dominance and submission signals - although, age is a factor in dogs as well, with older dogs usually being <a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/443.short">more dominant</a>. Some canine researchers argue that <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787814000392">dominance in dogs is actually quite similar to dominance in wolves</a> based purely on data and behaviours that indicate dominance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does social dominance apply in our homes where resources are plentiful?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The work by <a href="http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_139885255.pdf">Bradshaw et al.</a> and <a href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/84470/rkt_1.pdf?sequence=1">Trisko</a> suggests that it probably depends to some extent on the individuals that make up the group, who will in turn dictate the unique dynamics of that group. Resources aplenty may reduce or remove a lot of the pressure on dogs to form hierarchies. But, dogs are opportunistic by nature. They don't necessarily know that resources are plentiful, or care. There are also situations in homes where resources may not be plentiful. Proximity to and attention from an attachment figure (e.g. owner), high value food like bones, food that is dropped on the floor accidentally are all likely to be in limited supply, and some dogs may just never feel that their resources are safe. That may be because it's not (e.g. humans or other dogs regularly take them), or it may be because they live in a generally unpredictable environment, or it could just be that is who they are. It is not necessarily because a leader in the group has not stepped forward to tell them when they can and can't have something.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does dominance play a role in interactions between dogs and humans?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is sometimes argued that the concept of dominance in the dog-human relationship may well do<a href="http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_139885255.pdf"> more harm than good</a>. It is also sometimes argued that dogs obviously know humans are not dogs, and they do <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159199000787">treat humans differently to dogs</a>, so perhaps do not consider them as part of their social group. My research group published a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787811001171">review paper</a> in 2012 that makes the point that dogs use dog language to try to communicate with people, just as people use people language to try to communicate with dogs. If dogs are using their own social language to communicate with us, is it reasonable to assume that they view us as social objects? If they view us as social objects, could they consider us potential competitors in some situations? Considering resource guarding can certainly be directed towards humans, maybe so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This is not to draw a line between resource guarding and dominance. There are many reasons why a dog may resource guard and it is not considered a good indicator of dominance. Studies found submission the strongest indicator, followed by agonistic and dominant behaviours or postures. Remember that to establish a rank, there needs to be one-sidedness in multiple scenarios. If a dog still greets you with lots of submission, the fact that they also resource guard against you simply means that it's probably not because they think they are socially dominant. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does dominance play a role in dog training?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a really key question, and not easy to answer. In general training, it probably has little bearing. However, owner-directed aggression is not uncommon, and is frequently assessed as caused by <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787807001803">social conflict</a> between dog and human, or possession aggression. Many dogs may exclusively display submissive signals towards humans and never present a problem on this front. Many people almost instinctively instigate something like Plenty In Life Is Free (PILIF), Nothing In Life Is Free (NILIF), Learn to Earn, Say Please, or variations thereof. These protocols do many things (check my <a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2013/12/nilif-nothing-in-life-is-free.html">post on NILIF</a> for details), but one key thing is they train a dog to defer to humans over resources. A dog learns that to get what they desire, they must first follow the directions of the human. This may be quite protective against social conflict between human and dog. For those dogs that do display dominant signals towards humans, it is critical to assess why before attempting a treatment.<b> Dominance is not simply all owner-directed aggression, and a dog may try to control a situation that distresses them by directing the same agonistic behaviours and signals that they may use in dominance interactions with other dogs towards humans that are distressing them. Treating a dog that does not feel safe with a deference protocol is unlikely to make it feel safe. </b><i>Safety trumps everything, including dominance and dominance hierarchies, and therefore must be considered first and foremost in any behavioural problem. Furthermore, where dominance signals and threats are being directed towards a human and there is an absence of submissive signals in any context, it should absolutely not be treated in any way that is even remotely confrontational, and that includes how you might apply a deference protocol. A multi-pronged and non-confrontational treatment tailored by a behaviourist is recommended. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dominance and leadership - what it ain't</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is most important to stress that dominance and leadership in dog society is not typically aggressive, and submissive behaviours are better predictors of social rank than dominance or aggressive behaviours. Leadership is not demanded by a dominant member, but maintained by subordinates <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347210000783">WANTING to be close to leaders</a> and therefore following them. Dominance interactions are often a very subtle exchange of signals that we as humans could not hope to copy, not least of all because we do not have things like mobile ears and tails that are important parts of this communication. A few general recommendations can be extracted from this literature exploration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) The clumsiness of human body language is not suited to the subtlety of dominance and submission signalling in dogs. Trying to talk dominance to your dog the way a dog would is likely to result in excessively strong signals to a dog, which may in turn be confusing, threatening, or obnoxious. This could in fact <a href="http://binalunzer.com/Links_files/aversivestimulation.pdf">provoke aggression </a>rather than reduce it. <b>Alpha rolls, poking or kicking, making harsh noises, staring at dogs... all of these signals are over-bearing and intimidating to dogs. </b>They will act submissive because you are <b><span style="color: red;">threatening them</span></b> and they don't understand why. They are trying to tell you that whatever you want, you can have it, just please don't hurt them. Or they may just retaliate and bite you.</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N7vM0-xpNVo/U-ikY1xs8QI/AAAAAAAAATs/bYlFOBJPPgk/s1600/SubmissionCompetition.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N7vM0-xpNVo/U-ikY1xs8QI/AAAAAAAAATs/bYlFOBJPPgk/s1600/SubmissionCompetition.JPG" height="271" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Dominance is often given through submission rather than enforced by the dominant individual.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Dominance is not demanded or enforced so much as offered by a dog's own free will through submission. Dogs can be taught to habitually defer to humans through a deference protocol such as NILIF. It needn't be strict and should not be harsh. Routine rules like going through doors first, eating first, and insisting dogs stay behind you or below you are not necessary and oftentimes meaningless to dogs. Dogs are usually focused on resources that are important to them in the moment and how to get them rather than social status as an abstract concept. Unless they show you that these things are resources to them by attempting to secure and protect access to them, there is no need to pay any attention to them yourself. Even then, dominance can be taken neatly out of the picture in most cases by simply making access to resources happen when the dog does as you ask them to. Be careful not to confuse simple resources with concepts of dominance. A bed may put a dog higher and closer to you, and you might think it yours, but it's also very comfortable, and it smells like you, whom they want to be close to. That is what matters to them, not that it's yours. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) If you want to be a good leader for your dog, you should be the kind of person they want to be around. Being the kind of person that gives them clear instructions and makes it rewarding to follow those instructions will make you attractive to your dog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>A final word - Is my dog dominant over me? Or my other dog? Or a dog at the park? Or the mailman?</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I wrote this article because I was tired of attempting to explain over and over that actually, science has NOT debunked dominance in dogs, or dominance hierarchies, or dogs as pack animals, for that matter, although I didn't cover that one. Just because it is a poorly understood concept does not mean it has no value or that it should be discarded, and to discard it is to run against current scientific thinking. If we accept dominance in dogs, it does not mean that we have to therefore accept that we must dominate our dogs, or that rank reduction is sensible, or that our dogs are out to rule the household, if not, the world. On the contrary, we just need to understand what it's for - reducing conflict. This may leave you wondering whether there is an aspect of dominance to your own relationship with your dog, or your dog's relationships with other dogs. Here is a simple, practical guide. Please note that research in this area is lacking, and this could change in the future.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>1. Remember there are dominance interactions and dominance relationships. Your dog may negotiate with others over resources using dominance and submission signals, yet not have a clear dominance relationship with those individuals. In other words, there may be plenty of peaceful give and take and no clearly dominant or subordinate individuals.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>2. Submission is the best predictor of dominance, so if a dog is submissive towards you in greetings, and defers to you (looks to you for direction) around resources, your dog probably sees you as dominant in your relationship, even if it is aggressive towards you in other scenarios. Aggression does not equal dominance. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>3. Dominance interactions are defined by outcomes (who gets the resource), and should be thought of as a two-way negotiation towards a peaceful outcome. A dominance relationship is where that negotiation has been successfully made many times before, and barely needs to be made anymore. Negotiations should become quite subtle and non-aggressive, and may be barely detectable. If you have a dog that is routinely aggressive or threatening and shows dominance signals in several scenarios, and rarely shows submissive signals, the dog may perceive the dominance relationship as unstable, which is super stressful for the dog. This should be dealt with by a professional behaviourist. It is the exact situation where attempting to enforce dominance is dangerous, and fights between dogs can escalate. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">References</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Boitani L, Ciucci P, Ortolani A. 2007. Behaviour and social ecology of free-ranging dogs. In: Jensen P, editor. <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Behavioural_Biology_of_Dogs.html?id=SpkSd__EdKYC">The behavioural biology of dogs</a>. Wallingford (UK): CAB International. p. 147–165. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Bauer, Erika B., and Barbara B. Smuts. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000334720600443X">Cooperation and competition during dyadic play in domestic dogs, <i>Canis familiaris</i>.</a>" </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Animal Behaviour</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 73.3 (2007): 489-499.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Bradshaw, John WS, Emily J. Blackwell, and Rachel A. Casey. "<a href="http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_139885255.pdf">Dominance in domestic dogs—useful construct or bad habit?</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 4.3 (2009): 135-144.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Scott, John Paul, ed. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ajPrMYi6a2kC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=scott+and+fuller+1965+genetics+of+the+dog&ots=umzLX18Tfe&sig=9mviWIsLvPQ49mNZd63eBa2f1kc#v=onepage&q=scott%20and%20fuller%201965%20genetics%20of%20the%20dog&f=false">Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">. University of Chicago Press, 1965.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Cafazzo, Simona, et al. "<a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/443.short">Dominance in relation to age, sex, and competitive contexts in a group of free-ranging domestic dogs</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Behavioral Ecology</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 21.3 (2010): 443-455.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Trisko, R.K., 2011. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027">Dominance, Egalitarianism and Friendship at a Dog Day Care </a></i><i><a href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/84470/rkt_1.pdf?sequence=1">Facility</a></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. PhD Thesis. University of Michigan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">van der Borg, J.A.M., Schilder, M.B.H., Vinke, C., 2012. <i><a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/257626355_Dominance_and_its_behavioral_measures_in_group_housed_domestic_dogs">Dominance and its Behavioural</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/257626355_Dominance_and_its_behavioral_measures_in_group_housed_domestic_dogs"><i>Measures in Group Housed Domestic Dogs</i>.</a> Proceeding in Canine Science Forum 2012, Barcelona. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Schilder, Matthijs BH, Claudia M. Vinke, and Joanne AM van der Borg. "<a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/261716288_Dominance_in_domestic_dogs_revisited_useful_habit_and_useful_construct">Dominance in domestic dogs revisited: Useful habit and useful construct?</a>"</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> (2014).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Rooney, Nicola J., John WS Bradshaw, and Ian H. Robinson. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159199000787">A comparison of dog–dog and dog–human play behaviour</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied Animal Behaviour Science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">66.3 (2000): 235-248.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">McGreevy, Paul D., et al. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787811001171">An overview of the dog–human dyad and ethograms within it.</a>" </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">7.2 (2012): 103-117.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Fatjo, Jaume, et al. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787807001803">Analysis of 1040 cases of canine aggression in a referral practice in Spain</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 2.5 (2007): 158-165.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Bonanni, Roberto, et al. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347210000783">Effect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour in free-ranging dogs</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Animal Behaviour</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 79.5 (2010): 981-991.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Herron, Meghan E., Frances S. Shofer, and Ilana R. Reisner. "<a href="http://binalunzer.com/Links_files/aversivestimulation.pdf">Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied Animal Behaviour Science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 117.1 (2009): 47-54.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-71566006113863276492014-06-04T18:24:00.005+10:002014-06-04T18:26:55.563+10:00Boldness in Dogs<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As part of my PhD project, I conducted a survey on dog personality. This is a summary of the findings with a little commentary on personality in dogs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Why study dog personality?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The study of dog personality may play an important role in
better understanding our dogs and why they behave the way they do. Different
dogs can respond to signals and experiences in a variety of ways. Some of that
variation may be explained by their personality. Finding ways to measure
personality so that dogs’ personalities can be compared may eventually help us
learn how individual dogs are likely to behave in the future, and how we might be able to select dogs that suit particular roles, and support or manage dogs that may have difficulties in human society because of who they are.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BF9Lfwf5Ets/U47MvKpZbII/AAAAAAAAAM0/F4ncoTEERy0/s1600/Classic+Erik.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BF9Lfwf5Ets/U47MvKpZbII/AAAAAAAAAM0/F4ncoTEERy0/s1600/Classic+Erik.jpg" height="400" width="257" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
How do you study dog personality?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are two main ways to measure personality in dogs. One
is by recording behaviour, and the other is by asking people who know the dogs
to answer questions about their behaviour. Both methods have their advantages
and disadvantages. For example, recording behaviour produces very high quality data, but only
shows the dog’s behaviour in a limited set of circumstances. Surveys can collect
data on a dog’s behaviour in a much broader set of circumstances that may
better represent their usual behaviour, and can collect a lot more data. But on
the downside, it’s difficult to determine how people interpret questions in the
survey and how much of their dog’s behaviour they are aware of. There are ways
around this, though. We can investigate whether different people that know a
dog answer the questions the same way, which is called inter-rater agreement. We can also check whether the results from surveys are repeatable by having people do the survey twice, which is called test-retest reliability. And we can check whether answers to survey questions
are related to dog behaviour that is recorded by scientists. Kenth Svartberg has published several papers along these lines, which can be found online for free. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survey data is subjective. That does not mean it is not scientific. It can be dealt with in very scientific ways. If I had a dollar for every time someone said a survey was flawed, or survey data was useless because it was too subjective, well... I'd be able to eat out for a day. Anyway, my survey was, like most scientific surveys, carefully researched and planned. It was constructed to investigate
the shy-bold axis and coping styles in dogs. The shy-bold axis is known from a
range of species, from fish to humans. Several studies in dogs have examined how boldness may be
seen in dog behaviour (see Svartberg's work). A survey and recording behaviour were both used in these
studies, and it was found behaviour recorded and answers to the survey were
related in some areas, showing that the survey questions were meaningful. Many
of those questions were incorporated into my survey. My survey also included some questions on coping styles, which refers to the way
individuals may tend to behave when stressed. These questions were new and
therefore it wasn’t clear if they would be meaningful.</span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Survey results</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first step in analysing the survey data was to find out if
there were patterns in the answers provided that could describe personality
traits. This was done using a Principal Components Analysis (PCA), which is a way to find out (in this case) how traits can be described by people's answers to several related questions? There was one such pattern. This trait included high scores for
willingness to approach strangers whether they were humans or dogs, and for
willingness to play with other dogs or humans. The trait also included low
scores for anxiety or fear related to dogs or humans or novel objects. This is
quite similar to – although not exactly the same as – how boldness has been
described in other studies of dogs. So we called this trait boldness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next step was to see if boldness was influenced by other
factors. We tested if it was influenced by the dog’s age, their breed, their
breed group, their sex, whether they were desexed or entire, where they were
obtained from, how old they were when obtained, and the age and gender of their
owner. The results were very interesting. No characteristics of the owners or
where and when the dogs were obtained had an effect on boldness. Boldness was
influenced by breed, and by breed group. The boldest group was the guardian
group, which included mastiff types, livestock guardians, and the Doberman. The
next boldest group was the spitz breeds, including sled dogs, Akitas, and Shiba
Inu. Next was the gundog group, including retrievers, pointers, spaniels and setters.
Next boldest was the herding group, then the terrier group, and then the
sighthound group, which included such breeds as greyhounds and whippets. Next
was mixed breeds, then scenthounds such as beagles and harriers, and the least
bold group was the companion group, which included toy breeds. These results
are shown below. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kXQNHTU_J3Q/U47JjTY53rI/AAAAAAAAAMo/xLDID-fGQ48/s1600/Breed+groups+boldness+final+boxplot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kXQNHTU_J3Q/U47JjTY53rI/AAAAAAAAAMo/xLDID-fGQ48/s1600/Breed+groups+boldness+final+boxplot.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Relative boldness in breed groups. Asterisks show significantly difference to Companion group. X-axis labels: Guardian, Northern, Gundog, Herding, Terrier, Sighthound, Mixed, Scenthound, Companion. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The herding and gundog groups were broken down again into
sub-groups based on their original purpose. The tending sub-group (GSD, Belgian shepherds) was the boldest, then loose-eyed (e.g. Collie, Shetland sheepdog), heading (e.g. Border collies, Kelpies), and
driving (e.g. Cattle dogs). In the gundog group, the retrievers were the boldest, and all other gundog
sub-groups were about the same. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Male dogs were significantly bolder than female dogs, and
entire dogs of both sexes were significantly bolder than desexed dogs of both
sexes. Previous studies have also identified male dogs as bolder than female dogs, and entire dogs bolder than desexed dogs. However the effect in previous studies wasn’t always strong or consistent. The effects of desexing on a dog’s personality are not well understood, but this is one of several studies to present data that suggest there is an effect. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most interestingly, boldness decreased as age increased. So older dogs were
less bold than younger dogs. This suggests that boldness is not fixed and may
change over the course of a dog’s life. Older dogs may be less inclined to be social, which has been seen in other species.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The boldest breeds were generally the
most popular breeds in Australia based on ANKC registration numbers. For
example, Labrador retrievers, Rottweilers, Miniature poodles, German shepherd
dogs, and Staffordshire bull terriers all had high boldness scores and are
amongst the most popular breeds in their respective breed groups, which raises an interesting question of whether they are popular because they are bold or if their popularity has prompted selective breeding towards boldness.</span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Final word</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I admit to feeling frustrated about the state of dog personality research. For all that we have tools like inter-rater agreement and test-retest reliability to assess the validity of survey data, I don't know that it really does enough validating. Inter-rater agreement seems to vary with the trait in question, typically being high in dogs for most traits, but low in others (e.g. <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pawsoflife.org%2FLibrary%2FTemperment%2FLey%25202008.pdf&ei=QdGOU5amO47PlAXOg4GYDg&usg=AFQjCNGo63Wg1Ye8sbejWC8yGYlH6bQygg&bvm=bv.68235269,d.dGI">Ley et al. 2009</a>; <a href="http://ecite.utas.edu.au/65139/1/Sinn,%20personality%20and%20performance%20in%20MWDs.pdf">Sinn et al. 2010</a>; <a href="http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/HomePage/Group/AnimPersInst/Animal%20Personality%20PDFs/R/Rooney%20et%20al%202007.pdf">Rooney et al. 2007)</a>, which is not well understood. Possible explanations for this include different levels of acquaintance with the dogs in question, communication between raters, how well each rater understands the species, and whether some animals or traits are inherently harder to judge than others (see <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/12060860_From_mice_to_men_what_can_we_learn_about_personality_from_animal_research/file/60b7d51814af636635.pdf">Gosling 2001 </a>for further discussion). We know this, yet studies tend to be designed to discover whether there is inter-rater agreement rather than identifying reasons why inter-rater agreement may be different between traits, so the discrepancies remain a mystery. Similar problems exist in test-retest reliability procedures that test the stability of traits and whether their measurement is repeatable over time. High test-retest reliability has been reported for some traits over <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pawsoflife.org%2FLibrary%2FTemperment%2FLey%25202008.pdf&ei=QdGOU5amO47PlAXOg4GYDg&usg=AFQjCNGo63Wg1Ye8sbejWC8yGYlH6bQygg&bvm=bv.68235269,d.dGI">short time-frames</a><a href="http://pawsoflife-org.k9handleracademy.com/Library/Temperment/Svartberg_2005.pdf"> (up to 6 months)</a>, but lower over longer periods of time (<a href="http://pawsoflife-org.k9handleracademy.com/Library/Temperment/Svartberg_2005.pdf">1-2 years</a>). Discrepancies also exist between studies. For example, aggression was reported to have high test-retest reliability over 6 months in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159196011264">one study</a>, but low in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347285801950">another</a> over the same period. These inconsistencies were also shown in a <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0054907#pone-0054907-t008">recent meta-analysis</a> of dog personality studies, although the study nevertheless concluded there was moderate consistency in personality traits reported in the dog literature. Discrepancies in results may be because of one or more of a variety of conditions, such as a lack of standardisation in methodology, subjectivity of interpretation of behavioural observations, or a lack of validation of both behavioural observations and data collected by a survey. Validity is supposed to mean we know we are collecting data on what we say we are collecting data on. How can we say surveys are valid if it kind of depends on what part of the survey you are talking about and we're not entirely sure why that is? The field may benefit from a more mathematical approach to defining personality, perhaps based on probabilities of performing various behaviours and measurements such as latencies, extinction curves, and standardising the number of trials. More numbers, I say! Perhaps this could iron out some of the inconsistencies and allow for better validation. In this way, a framework for understanding and explaining personality may be built from validated data rather than fitting the data to an already established (and possibly invalid) framework. And that's my 2 cents.<br /> </span><!--EndFragment--><br />
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Further reading</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;">Starling,
M., Branson, N., Thomson, P., McGreevy, P. (2013). “Boldness” in the domestic
dog differs among breeds and breed groups. Behavioural Processes, 97,
53-62.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635713000818">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635713000818</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Starling, M., Branson, N., Thomson, P., McGreevy, P. (2013).
Age, sex and reproductive status affect boldness in dogs. The Veterinary
Journal, 197 (3) 868–872<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090023313002335">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090023313002335</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Ley, Jacqui M., Pauleen C. Bennett, and Grahame J. Coleman. "<a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pawsoflife.org%2FLibrary%2FTemperment%2FLey%25202008.pdf&ei=QdGOU5amO47PlAXOg4GYDg&usg=AFQjCNGo63Wg1Ye8sbejWC8yGYlH6bQygg&bvm=bv.68235269,d.dGI">A refinement and validation of the Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire (MCPQ).</a>"</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied animal behaviour science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 116.2 (2009): 220-227.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Svartberg, Kenth. "<a href="http://pawsoflife-org.k9handleracademy.com/Library/Temperment/Svartberg_2005.pdf">A comparison of behaviour in test and in everyday life: evidence of three consistent boldness-related personality traits in dogs</a>."</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied Animal Behaviour Science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 91.1 (2005): 103-128.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Sinn, David L., Samuel D. Gosling, and Stewart Hilliard. "<a href="http://ecite.utas.edu.au/65139/1/Sinn,%20personality%20and%20performance%20in%20MWDs.pdf">Personality and performance in military working dogs: Reliability and predictive validity of behavioral tests</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied animal behaviour science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 127.1 (2010): 51-65.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Rooney, Nicola Jane, et al. "<a href="http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/HomePage/Group/AnimPersInst/Animal%20Personality%20PDFs/R/Rooney%20et%20al%202007.pdf">Validation of a method for assessing the ability of trainee specialist search dogs</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied Animal Behaviour Science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 103.1 (2007): 90-104.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Netto, Willem J., and Doreen JU Planta. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159196011264">Behavioural testing for aggression in the domestic dog</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Applied Animal Behaviour Science</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 52.3 (1997): 243-263.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Goddard, M. E., and R. G. Beilharz. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347285801950">Individual variation in agonistic behaviour in dogs.</a>" </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Animal Behaviour</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 33.4 (1985): 1338-1342.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Fratkin, Jamie L., et al. "<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0054907#pone-0054907-t008">Personality consistency in dogs: a meta-analysis</a>."</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">PloS one</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 8.1 (2013): e54907.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Gosling, Samuel D. "<a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/12060860_From_mice_to_men_what_can_we_learn_about_personality_from_animal_research/file/60b7d51814af636635.pdf">From mice to men: what can we learn about personality from animal research?</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Psychological bulletin</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 127.1 (2001): 45.</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-14091884159872094142014-04-22T18:13:00.000+10:002014-04-22T18:13:38.914+10:00Stanwell Park Beach and the Scarborough HotelThe Sutherland Shire is full of great places to take dogs, but it's also right by the northern Illawarra, which is also full of great places to take dogs. On Good Friday, we took our two dogs for a little sojourn down the coast. First a play at the beach, and then lunch in the dog friendly beer garden at the Scarborough Hotel.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Stanwell_Park_Beach_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Stanwell_Park_Beach_1.jpg" height="305" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stanwell Park Beach. Image - Hadi Zaher</td></tr>
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<h2>
Stanwell Park Beach</h2>
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Stanwell Park is a really gorgeous place just south of the Royal National Park. To get there from the Shire, you can either come down the freeway and exit at the Helensburg exit, then travel down Lawrence Hargrave Drive, which does a strange, tight turn to the right at Stanwell Tops just before Bald Hill Reserve where there are often hang-gliders when the wind is good. It then winds down the hill and goes through Stanwell Park. Exit off Lawrence Hargrave Drive just as you come into Stanwell Park. There is an access road where there are a few shops. Then take the second left onto Station St, which takes you down to a car park. You need to cross the creek to get to the unrestricted dog area, which runs along the north side of the grassy reserve. There is a cute footbridge. </div>
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The other option coming from the Shire is to go through the Royal National Park. It is a nice drive, but if you have dogs you cannot stop in the park or you could be fined. You can come through from the Loftus end and simply drive all the way through on Lady Wakehurst Drive. Or you can enter the park just by Waterfall Station and travel down McKell Rd until you reach the T-intersection with Lady Wakehurst and turn right. Lady Wakehurst Drive eventually butts into Lawrence Hargrave Drive at the intersection just past Bald Hill.</div>
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There is one main beach in Stanwell Park, and the part of it that is north of the lagoon is open to dogs at any time and the other part south of the lagoon is open to dogs on a timed arrangement. In the summer (September school holidays to ANZAC day), dogs are allowed on this part of the beach before 9am and after 6pm. The rest of the year, dogs are allowed here before 9am and after 4pm. There is a very large grassy area where dogs must be on leash adjacent to the beach. There is also a children's playground, BBQ facilities, and a cafe where dogs are not allowed. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4ALYJWWmp6Y/U1Yf9n9lPjI/AAAAAAAAAMM/w7PGcLHZYEg/s1600/Stanwell+Park+lines.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4ALYJWWmp6Y/U1Yf9n9lPjI/AAAAAAAAAMM/w7PGcLHZYEg/s1600/Stanwell+Park+lines.png" height="355" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">South of the lagoon (outlined in orange) is a timed zone for dogs. North (outlined in green) is unrestricted.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Size</h3>
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The unrestricted part of the beach north of the lagoon is relatively small compared to other dog beaches in the area. It is about 200m long, so long enough for a game of fetch and a swim, but not a long walk. At low tide it is larger and you can go onto the rock platform. South of the lagoon is another roughly 500m of beach dogs can go on as well if you visit early or late in the day.</div>
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Safety</h3>
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Stanwell Park is a small community and people are very friendly in our experience. The beach carries the same dangers of potential fish hooks and pufferfish that any other beach carries. It is back from the road, but there are no dunes between the beach and the road. There are tall cliffs of sandstone at the northern end. They are beautiful, but don't get too close. There are signs warning of falling rocks.</div>
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Other dogs and owners</h3>
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We don't visit Stanwell Park Beach often. In our limited experience, it has been no different to any other dog beach in the Illawarra. There are other dogs, they are off leash, owners vary in how they manage their dogs. However, we were there on a public holiday with spectacular weather and we only saw a few other dogs. </div>
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Further notes</h3>
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There are some bird species on beaches and rock platforms in the Illawarra that are threatened. As such, if you see them, please be responsible and keep your dogs from bothering these birds. The most common one we see is the Sooty Oystercatcher. It is unmistakable. It is a large, black bird with a long, bright, orange/red beak.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.duadepaton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/131-Sooty-Oystercatcher-UlladullaNSW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.duadepaton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/131-Sooty-Oystercatcher-UlladullaNSW.jpg" height="221" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Keep dogs away from Sooty Oystercatchers. Image <a href="http://www.duadepaton.com/portfolio/sooty-oystercatcher/">Duade Paton</a>.</td></tr>
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<h2>
The Scarborough Hotel</h2>
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The Scarborough Hotel is a short drive south from Stanwell Park Beach. Back on Lawrence Hargrave Drive, over the spectacular Sea Cliff Bridge (which you can stop and walk the length of with the dogs if you wish - it's about 1km and the views are lovely), and about another 2-3 km south. The Scarborough is on Lawrence Hargrave Dr. There is a car park, but at busy times it is likely to be full. There is street parking around, though, and another couple of car parks just north of the hotel.</div>
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This place gets very busy in nice weather on weekends and public holidays, but the dog friendly beer garden out the back is quite large, and has great views of the ocean. To access the beer garden without going through the hotel, walk down past the main entrance to a disabled access next to a second car park. There is a pool fence and gate. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oXZvoJCaAxs/U1Yjiss0k0I/AAAAAAAAAMY/Y3jAIH6Xfk8/s1600/Scarborough.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oXZvoJCaAxs/U1Yjiss0k0I/AAAAAAAAAMY/Y3jAIH6Xfk8/s1600/Scarborough.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beer garden at the Scarborough Hotel.</td></tr>
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The beer garden is pretty big, so even if there are other dogs there, you can be comfortably away from them if your dog is likely to get upset about other dogs nearby. Be sensible and keep your dog on leash and make sure it doesn't bother other patrons. We had several people come up to us to meet our dogs, but you know, our dogs are stunningly attractive and perfectly behaved and all that. ;)</div>
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The food at the Scarborough is pretty decent. There is only one vegetarian meal on the menu (a pumpkin salad), and otherwise it is standard pub fair. The quality of the food is quite good, and the hot chips are excellent. They are well equipped to handle the holiday crowds. I recommend the Mars bar cheesecake. It is surprisingly understated!</div>
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Keep your eyes out for whales in the right season (April-August and September-November). I think there are a few rocky reefs around the hotel that would keep them farther out, but you never know. We often see whales from several headlands in the northern Illawarra. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-86918129073991241352014-03-20T21:22:00.000+11:002014-03-21T09:05:58.728+11:00Negative Reinforcement - The good, the bad, and the ugly<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Disclaimer: I am mostly a behavioural scientist. I know about animal behaviour from the outside. I know about measuring emotional states, assessing welfare, and looking for behavioural indicators of stress. Some of the topics in these blog posts on negative reinforcement are not my strongest areas. I can only offer my interpretation of the literature. I am certainly open to discussing alternative interpretations.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Negative reinforcement (R-, NR) is an operant conditioning quadrant. Quadrants basically predict how stimuli will affect the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of future behaviour depending on whether they are rewarding or punishing and whether they are added or taken away. In the case of negative reinforcement, future behaviour increases in frequency, duration and/or intensity when something is taken away. In other words, the animal will learn to perform a behaviour in order to gain relief from something they find aversive. Some well known trainers have created what's called a humane hierarchy of training methods as a guide to rank training methods on how humane an intervention they represent. Negative reinforcement is conspicuously far up on these humane hierarchies, prompting many trainers to stringently avoid it. This seems like a tenuous reason to condemn an entire learning quadrant. It makes a few very broad assumptions, such as even the mildest aversive experiences strong enough for an animal to want to avoid have no place in training behaviour. Is having someone brush past you, making you feel too close to them so that you step away really the same beast as having someone scream in your face until you move? I use extreme examples to show the breadth of the quadrant we're talking about. Some forms of negative reinforcement are extremely mild and some are jumping on the toes of downright punishment. And is avoiding an aversive experience always less humane than, say, reinforcing a different behaviour. Has anyone ever asked you to do something still like lie down when you'd rather be running away? But you can have a chocolate if you lie down. Thanks, but I think I'll run. So what's the story? Can negative reinforcement be a humane way to train an animal? How do we assess that? Let's have a good look at the related scientific literature and see if we can reason out an answer. </span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QIKuqbPA4Hw/UyYVIbqvhII/AAAAAAAAALc/61EJ6ywvGNs/s1600/hierarchy-road-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QIKuqbPA4Hw/UyYVIbqvhII/AAAAAAAAALc/61EJ6ywvGNs/s1600/hierarchy-road-map.jpg" height="321" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Susan Friedman's "humane hierarchy"</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would seem like the place to start is examining what it feels like for an animal to be negatively reinforced. Perhaps this is the most important question and yet the hardest to answer. I can present what we know of emotions and welfare in animals. I am hesitant to delve into neurotransmitters, neuroanatomy, and stress physiology because it is not my area of expertise. My understanding of the literature may be simplistic. Yet, there are claims being made that negative reinforcement should be avoided on that basis, so let's have a quick look at it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neuroscience</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are chemicals that carry signals throughout the brain. The type of neurotransmitter is important, as is where it is going, but do not for a second think that this is remotely straight forward. The brain is crazy complicated, and very adaptable. Our understanding of it is not complete. Some neurotransmitters are associated with 'good' emotional experiences. One example is dopamine, which is heavily implicated in reward and the anticipation of good things happening. That is a good feeling! But, the lack of a certain type of dopamine receptor inhibits learning of <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452202002579" target="_blank">both positive and negative associations with a physical place, and an active avoidance task</a>. That suggests dopamine is implicated in unpleasant feelings as well... All right, so there's also serotonin involved in negative reinforcement. According to recent research, serotonin may have a role to play in<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899314001401" target="_blank"> how both rewarding (appetitive) and punishing (aversive) stimuli are processed</a>. What does that mean? It means we don't really know exactly what serotonin does and we are probably going to need to study specific serotonin receptors to better understand it. So then there is noradrenaline, (or norepinephrine to use the American name), which is implicated in negative reinforcement learning and also features strongly in stress responses. Its role in stress responses is largely an arousing one, which, as it happens, appears to <a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/21/13/4908.long" target="_blank">enhance memory and learning</a> in discrimination tasks. It would be important in understanding what this all means to an animal to know where the neurotransmitters were going and what neural systems were involved. I would go into this except it would probably take me years to understand it enough to be able to condense it into a blog post. Suffice to say, nothing is straight forward in the brain. Even the amygdala, which everyone 'knows' is all about fear, flight and fight and freezing, also plays a critical role in <a href="http://www.geneqol-consortium.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2013/07/Burgdorf_The-neurobiology-of-positive-emotions_Neurosci-Biobehav-Rev-2006.pdf" target="_blank">positive emotional states</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stress</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The concern about neurotransmitters and neuroanatomy involved in negative reinforcement may be in its association with stress and negative emotional states. So let's try there for some clearer answers. Is negative reinforcement stressful to animals? First, let's define what we mean by 'stressful', here. The body's stress response is very adaptive and can handle everything from minor stressors such as being hungry to major "I'm going to die" moments. And it covers positive experiences as well. A dog that is chasing a ball is very aroused and will be experiencing elevated stress hormones. The strength of a stress response is typically proportional to the intensity of the emotion associated with it. A strong stress response associated with a negative event basically means a lot of fear or anger, but a weak stress response means being a little perturbed. The strength of stress responses can be measured in a variety of ways, but most commonly through concentrations of stress-related hormones such as cortisol, either in blood, urine, or saliva. It is not quite an exact science. Check out this <a href="http://dogzombie.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/why-cortisol-sucks-as-measurement-of.html" target="_blank">excellent blog post</a> for a really nice summary of the issues. At any rate, lots of normal, everyday things raise cortisol concentrations, and cortisol (and glucocorticoids, and other stress-related hormones) are not "bad" per se; we need them! This system is fabulous at what it does, which is to keep us engaged and motivated when we need to be, and to keep us safe and help us recognise opportunities and threats and take appropriate action. We can't learn without stress, and we don't remember things that weren't very stressful all that well. But stress can be very unpleasant, and prolonged or frequent stress responses are dangerous and can cause serious disease and illness. Most people in modern society have experienced chronic stress in some form. It is not fun. To delve into this fascinating topic more, I cannot recommend Professor Robert Sapolsky enough. He has many videos available free on YouTube and his book "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" is entertaining and very informative and still one of my favourites. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stress is also not always as simple as isolated events. There are unique stress responses for all kinds of stressors, which speaks to just how finely tuned stress responses are. There is a large body of literature on uncontrollable versus controllable stressors and how exposure to various kinds of stressors moulds future stress responses. All of these changes are 'good' in that they are adaptive and help animals best handle the cards they have been dealt. But some hands are terrible and the best you can do is try to minimise how much you lose out. Some hands offer the beginnings of a better hand down the track. An example of where stress adaptation may be the beginnings of something better is in what is usually called stress inoculation. Animals that have learned to control stressors are more resilient in the face of future stressors. They try for longer to make things better for themselves when they are stressed, which means they are more likely to succeed and less likely to sink into despondency. They also show more <a href="http://parkerlab.stanford.edu/documents/pdf/SI_NHP_review.pdf" target="_blank">curiosity, better emotional processing, and better cognitive control</a>. All of these things are good for an individual animal. It will help an animal respond appropriately to stress and also handle mild challenges </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in their life better</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, such as social situations and impulse control.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if stress is an important part of everyday life and plays critical roles not just in keeping us safe, but also motivating us, helping us remember and learn, and in some cases has a positive effect on future experiences and responses to stress, then how do we assess the role of stress in negative reinforcement and whether it is good stress, unpleasant stress, or beneficial stress?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At a basic level, looking at what animals find negatively reinforcing can tell us what they wish to avoid, and therefore, what they find unpleasant. Indeed, this has been proposed as an <a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/~abrg/papers/dawkins/eth1557.pdf" target="_blank">indicator of welfare</a> by a leading animal welfare scientist. And we do find indications that training animals with negative reinforcement results in less <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-010-0326-9#page-1" target="_blank">approach behaviour towards people, and stronger emotional response</a>s towards people, and these animals are also <a href="http://www.journalvetbehavior.com/article/S1558-7878(14)00007-0/abstract" target="_blank">less engaged with t</a>heir handlers than animals trained with positive reinforcement. And this brings us to an enormous body of research in avoidance learning, which is where things get interesting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Active avoidance and stress inoculation</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Avoidance is something we all do, keeping ourselves safe, comfortable, and healthy. Lots of research has been done on avoidance learning in animals, but I'm going to focus on active avoidance because it is most like what trainers do when they use negative reinforcement to train animals. Active avoidance is where an animal performs a behaviour on cue to avoid an aversive event. An example we might see often with animals is dashing under furniture to hide when a child comes into the room. The presence of the child cues the avoidance behaviour. Another variation is escape behaviour, where the animal learns to perform a behaviour to 'switch off' an aversive experience. So the animal dashes under the furniture when the child is too rough with it. Both are sensible strategies. The animal gains immediate refuge. But we wouldn't think this was necessarily an ideal sequence of events. Active avoidance is associated with a large <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/com/82/1/170/" target="_blank">elevation in cortisol concentration</a> during the learning phase. It is distressing for animals when they are exposed to something unpleasant. Their distress is generally proportional to how strong the unpleasant experience is (brushing past vs yelling in face). And if their response (run and hide) is one that requires a fair bit of energy, their arousal will be elevated as soon as they see what they will need to run from. Heightened arousal means more intense feelings. Furthermore, if their response isn't always reliable in gaining them refuge, or they sometimes miss the cue, or the cue comes often and randomly, that is a layer of uncertainty that will make them very vigilant and very focused on potential threats to the point where they are likely to see them where they don't exist. All in all, not good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what if they are exposed to something unpleasant and have a reliable way to handle it? Is it just as distressing? A <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/com/82/1/170/" target="_blank">significant drop in cortisol</a> concentrations occurs once an avoidance behaviour has stabilised. It does not drop to baseline, because it is arousing to perform an avoidance behaviour no matter how nonchalantly. But the drop in cortisol correlates with an increase in behaviours associated with a relaxed state, suggesting that<a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/com/82/1/170/" target="_blank"> fear has diminished quite a lot</a>. Commonly, there is no outward appearance of fear or distress, and this nonchalance has been noted by <a href="http://jschoi71.cafe24.com/publications/2010%20Cain%20et%20al%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Behavioral%20Neuroscience.pdf" target="_blank">several researchers</a>. Animals are not frantically performing an avoidance behaviour to stave off the bad things. In fact, they tend to wait until the last possible moment to perform it and otherwise go about their usual business. Humans also report <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789486800697" target="_blank">reduced fear and an increased sense of control</a> when they use active avoidance during phobia treatment. Furthermore, studies suggest that animals that are taught active behaviours to successfully avoid aversive experiences learn to <a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/9/3815.full.pdf+html" target="_blank">suppress their natural freezing responses</a>, which in turn enables them to control the stressor through operant means. Freezing up helplessly is considerably worse from a stress perspective than actively coping because it is probably <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/enriquezerda/comportamientoyfisiologiadelstress.pdf" target="_blank">experienced<u> more intensely</u></a>. Active coping also leads to stress inoculation, which we have already discussed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So it seems like successful avoidance is not necessarily associated with significant fear or distress. How could that be? The animals still don't like the aversive they are trying to avoid, right? If they are trying to avoid something it must be unpleasant. That's what Dawkins' suggestion for negative reinforcers as indicators of poor welfare was all about. It turns out there may be some pretty cool and strange things going on...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bear with me while I give a brief but necessary background, here. A safety signal tells an animal that they are safe in the immediate future. It is trained by giving the animal an aversive experience and then pairing the ABSENCE of that aversive experience with a particular signal. So the signal comes to mean "You are safe for now". Safety signals appear to be able to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159417/pdf/nihms305840.pdf" target="_blank">inhibit fear surrounding an uncontrollable aversive experience AND inhibit the anxiety expressed after that event</a>. This is pretty amazing stuff when you think about it. Safety signals themselves are not entirely negative reinforcement because no response is necessary so no particular behaviour is being reinforced, although an aversive experience is required in order to train one. But, an operant behaviour can take on a similar role, and these are learned through negative reinforcement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> New research shows that it is inherently rewarding to avoid an expected aversive event - in other words, avoidance itself can be a form of <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0040233" target="_blank">positive reinforcement</a>. Wha...? How does THAT work?? It has been suggested that there comes a point where an animal is not so much avoiding the aversive stimulus but <a href="http://jschoi71.cafe24.com/publications/2010%20Cain%20et%20al%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Behavioral%20Neuroscience.pdf" target="_blank">approaching safety</a>. Let's call these safety behaviours. It's not necessarily an official name. This is a pretty poorly understood area of science and I am not aware of anyone that has tested whether these behaviours have the same properties as a safety signal. They can be escape behaviours or avoidance behaviours in that they may switch off something unpleasant or avoid it completely, and that's how they become safety behaviours. It seems like a slippery distinction that could be used to justify some quite terrible things that are done to animals using negative reinforcement in the name of training, so let's be very clear about what this means. Safety has to be real to be sought. This means several things for the development of safety behaviours: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) It needs to be very clear to the animal that safety has now been attained - ideally, a specific signal (safety signal, possibly a cue or marker can take on this role). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) That safety has to be real and meaningful to the animal, not simply declared by a trainer or handler. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) Learning a behaviour to attain safety is actually quite hard in many circumstances, because animals already have natural behaviours they will tend to use when they feel threatened. If they are being taught a behaviour that runs counter to their goals (i.e. get distance from the scary thing), they may never be reliable or never learn it at all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) The effectiveness of safety signals are inversely proportional to the strength of the threatening stimulus - in other words, the ability of safety signals to inhibit fear is influenced by arousal. The more threatening something is, the more aroused an animal becomes, and the more aroused they are, the less effective a safety signal will be in inhibiting fear. In short, if someone routinely threatens to clobber you with a baseball bat, it won't make you feel very safe to know that they never will as long as you run to the other side of the room whenever they make the threat. But if someone routinely threatens to swat you with a newspaper, knowing they won't as long as you run to the other side of the room probably will make you feel pretty nonchalant about the threat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5) Animals that are regularly becoming afraid are most likely going to become pessimistic, even if they are practiced at avoiding aversive experiences and seeking safety. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: red;">There is no line between "animals like safety" and "I should therefore create scenarios in training where I can reward them with safety."</span> </b>They like safety, but they like tangible rewards more, and if we want happy, optimistic animals, we should be very much focused on giving them as many opportunities to access tangible rewards as we can. We should also be very aware that their sense of safety comes first to the point where if they feel unsafe they will be primarily motivated to seek safety. Food, play, social contact... all of these things come secondary to seeking safety. We should therefore make their safety our first priority. Compromising their sense of safety ourselves is not clever and runs counter to our goals if we want happy animals first and foremost. Training safety signals and safety behaviours can and should be done opportunistically. If you are able to keep your dog safe and protected from aversive experiences at all times, you do not need safety signals. Although it may mean your animal is both more sensitive to aversive experiences and may experience them more intensely. I do not believe it is in any animal's best interests to attempt to protect them from all aversive experiences. They have evolved a truly wondrous system to handle them, just as we have. We just have to be careful that what they experience is well within their coping abilities and does not have a lasting impact on their mood or health. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Safety behaviours can also play a role in the treatment fears and phobias by increasing the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16506073.2013.819376" target="_blank">acceptability of exposure</a>. This has, to my knowledge, only been done in humans where safety behaviours can be quite problematic. However, in some circumstances they can offer a stepping stone to further treatment, making sufferers <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001804" target="_blank">feel less fear </a>during exposure and they tend to approach closer to the object of their fear. I have done this with a wild hare and found indications of similar results. The hare was taught to 'ask' for space by pulling away from me. If he pulled away, I respectfully did not follow or I backed up. He soon began allowing me to touch his flanks, head, and legs, which put him in a very vulnerable position, as if I had wanted to grab him (something that is probably always on a hare's mind), I was in an excellent position to do so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this talk about the ambiguity in neuroscience, stress, and even approach and avoidance behaviours has left us with a bit of a quandary. If neuroscience is crazy complicated, and sometimes stress is good, and sometimes avoidance is positive reinforcement, and safety signals inhibit fear, and negative reinforcement can be very scary or barely register and everything in between, how can we tell if negative reinforcement is an ethical training approach? I believe the answer is in emotional states. Possibly because I have done a lot of work in detecting emotional states. But really, emotional states are at the center of all this. Whatever the animal is experiencing, it should be detectable in behavioural changes, although they may be subtle and take some careful observation. Whether stress or avoidance is good or bad will directly influence emotional state, either positively or negatively, and that will affect behaviour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An animal will tend to develop a positive mood if they experience a lot of good things, and if they experience unpleasant things, they will tend to develop a negative mood. There are passing few ways to reliably measure emotional state in animals, which is why I was able to do a PhD on it. Lacking the ability to measure neural activity, cortisol concentrations, reward sensitivity, and cognitive bias, we are left with the terrible inadequacy that is behavioural indicators. The biggest problem with behavioural indicators is that they are hard to identify and open to interpretation. There are a few behaviours we know in dogs are associated with <a href="http://www.dierenwetenschap.com/Portals/0/Beerda%202000%20enduring%20stress%20anim%20welfare.pdf" target="_blank">elevated cortisol concentrations</a> in an environment where this is almost certainly due to emotional distress, such as increased urinating, physical activity, and increased displacement behaviours (lip licking and paw lifts in particular). In turn, there are very few indicators of positive emotional state. Play is one, and anticipatory behaviour surrounding rewards is another. It is pretty hard to identify positive anticipatory behaviour in dogs because the work hasn't been done, but it's probably fair to say if they are looking something like the picture below, we're on the right track. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Anticipatory! Image <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/edanley/3246241416/" target="_blank">Eric Danley</a></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not as useful as we might hope. These are behaviours generally associated with major, chronic stress. It is quite unlikely that we would see this as a result of simply using negative reinforcement in training. Even if we ONLY used negative reinforcement in training. We need something more sensitive. While we can't formally measure cognitive bias and reward loss sensitivity, we can look for it in everyday behaviour. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Exploration and approach behaviour - We would expect a reduction in exploration and approach behaviour if emotional state is tipping towards negative, and an increase where the emotional state is tipping towards positive. It fits in very nicely with what we know about optimism. The horse study cited earlier showed horses trained with negative reinforcement were less explorative and approached people less, which suggests the training has a negative effect on the horses' emotional state. <b>This will hurt our training goals if we like to shape behaviours!</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Interest in training - If an animal becomes less willing to participate in training, which may manifest in distractibility, nervousness, skittishness, lots of displacement behaviour (sniffing the ground, staring into the distance, scratching, anything to delay having to train), disinterest, and general unwillingness to approach either the trainer or the training environment, this is BAD. It suggests the animal does not enjoy training. We want to see them engaged and readily coming to you, prick eared and leaning forward. Unless they don't have visible ears. Then just leaning forward.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Willingness to offer behaviours - Animals in a negative emotional state are expected to be behaviourally suppressed to some degree. They will not really want to try new behaviours and may be reticent to offer those they know even when cued because it is risky to them. If we have an animal that is either offering behaviours on its own or can easily be coaxed into doing something new, they are most likely in a positive emotional state. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/4/330.full" target="_blank">Sensitivity to reward loss</a> - Animals that are in a negative emotional state feel keenly when they think they have missed out on a reward they were expecting. In training this may manifest in relative slowness and reluctance particularly where reward rate has decreased or when attempting to move to a variable reinforcement schedule. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So... what's the verdict?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2014/03/negative-reinforcement-is-it-ethical.html" target="_blank">Click here</a> for an analysis of the literature and my take on the ethics of using negative reinforcement in training and behaviour modification (plus a reference list). </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-85477476083318516982014-03-20T21:21:00.001+11:002014-03-22T10:38:13.112+11:00Negative Reinforcement - Is it ethical?<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>In the <a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2014/03/the-much-maligned-and-misunderstood.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> I did a brief review of the literature relevant to negative reinforcement. So are there ever cases where negative reinforcement should be viewed as more humane than its current placement on humane hierarchies?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my opinion it's not a black and white issue. On the one hand, there is ample evidence that negative reinforcement is associated with elevated cortisol and a reduction in approach and explorative behaviour and therefore can be assumed to be more stressful and unpleasant than training with positive reinforcement. This certainly makes sense in the context of literature on emotions as well. So, it seems its place fairly late in the humane hierarchy is justified in most scenarios.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://melroseandfairfax.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/not-everything-is-black-white.html" target="_blank">Image source</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>But wait... What about safety? </i></b><a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/41/14118.full" target="_blank">Safety signals are a powerful inhibitor of fear</a>, which is surely a good thing, particularly in behaviour modification where problem behaviour is motivated by fear. On the other hand, safety signals are only relevant where an animal anticipates danger. Shouldn't our goal be to stringently avoid our animals anticipating danger? On the face of it, I would say yes, we don't want our animals to anticipate danger. But what if they are already anticipating danger in spite of our efforts to protect them from this? So many problem behaviours are distance increasing behaviours - they are designed to buy an animal distance from something they find threatening. The animal is already anticipating danger. They are already in the exact situation we were hoping they wouldn't experience. How do we get them out? Generally the answer is to use counter-conditioning and desensitisation to change their emotional response to that threatening thing so that they no longer find it threatening. But what if you could tell them straight away "It's okay, you are safe" and have them believe you? Is that a worthwhile trick to have up your sleeve?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my experience, absolutely. These safety signals generalise easily and can be attached to behaviours that are sensible for animals to do when they feel threatened. For example, one of my dogs falls into a formal heel when he feels threatened and the other walks between my feet. They do this because they firmly believe they will be safe if they do. Not only does it calm them and according to them, magically fix scary situations so they don't have to be scared, but it puts them right by me where I can best protect them and my proximity can make them feel more secure. It puts their attention on me so that they are less likely to react to changes in the threatening thing, for example, a dog starting to run instead of walking. It also means they will move with me, so I can calmly walk them right out of danger, and I have done this on occasion around loose dogs that are acting a bit volatile. Is it a replacement for counter-conditioning and desensitisation? Nope. It is an ace in the hole. It can help you out of a sticky situation, it can buffer your animal from an otherwise upsetting moment by inhibiting stress and anxiety during and following it, and there is almost certainly counter-conditioning occurring at the same time, as feeling relieved and confident around something scary instead of scared and anxious is going to be incorporated into associations made with that scary thing and should make it less scary. At least, that has been my experience and the literature supports this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>But don't you need to deliberately apply an aversive in order to train a safety signal? I thought you said that was stupid.</i></b> Yes, I did. Because it is, and it's also unnecessary. I don't train safety behaviours like they do in studies. I just train them opportunistically. Sooner or later something will upset my animal and it's already too late to avoid it. I can, however, pair a sound with the moment when they realise they are now a comfortable distance from the scary thing, or to make things easier, the moment they retreat (at a run if you like). With my dogs, I can also ask for a behaviour at the moment when my dog has calmed down enough that they are able to perform it and reward that with a treat. If I always ask for the same behaviour, my dog comes to associate that behaviour with the end of the aversive experience, a sense of relief, and a period of immediate safety. The result is my dog starts performing this behaviour earlier and earlier until realising something scary might be going to happen cues the behaviour. They calm down, they focus on me, they successfully get themselves out of the situation without losing their marbles. Why wouldn't I just counter-condition? Because sometimes the environment isn't as controllable as we would like. I need to walk my dogs for their wellbeing. Sometimes our walks unexpectedly dump us way too close to something scary. There is no way around it. This is just a way to use these unfortunate scenarios for everyone's ultimate benefit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>What about escape behaviours and active avoidance? It might reduce fear, but surely teaching an animal to perform a behaviour in order to escape from an unpleasant experience is ethically questionable? </i></b>Again, this is not black and white. In general, no, we do not want our animals to feel the need to escape. And again, it happens anyway, just as it happens to us. Sharing the road with a vehicle that looks unsafe makes me want to escape. I feel relief when I successfully distance myself from this naturally occurring situation that makes me intensely uncomfortable. I think it is inevitable that our animals will also find themselves in similar situations, particularly dogs who are out and about in the community with us, and dogs with anxiety problems, and dogs that are highly emotionally reactive. There is every possibility they will bump into a dog that frightens them, for example. Teaching them a controlled escape behaviour that will make them feel calm and in control and also avoid troublesome behavioural outbursts seems humane to me. I sure like it when someone tells me how I can escape from situations I dislike. They are much less stressful when you can quickly and confidently handle them. Have you ever set up an agreement with someone to have them call you away from a situation if you signal to them you want to leave? It gives you an almost guaranteed fast and effective out. Does it make you feel more confident going into that situation? Developing reliable escape and active avoidance behaviours gives animals the means to signal they want out. Sometimes it is argued that this means the animal will forever be asking for outs and handlers will need to be vigilant for the rest of the animal's life. I have not found this to be the case. I mentioned that safety behaviours do have a place in treatment of human fears and phobias, allowing people to feel safer and more in control so they can get closer. Exposure is important for overcoming fears. If the animal clings to their avoidance behaviours to the point where they won't venture any closer willingly, they may need a wee bit of encouragement to find they don't need the avoidance behaviours so much anymore. For animals, I believe that on the odd occasion this happens, it is likely to be an antecedent arrangement at the core of it. Change the setup slightly, or change the sequence of events or the behaviours cued slightly and they should pop right out of their rut and make huge bounds forward. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Kivi's expression when heeling for treats, and when heeling away from dogs that scare the bejesus out of him. </td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>What about stress inoculation? Improving resilience and giving animals the skills and confidence to work at solving problems seems like a positive thing in general. But is it worth exposing animals to stressors?</i></b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> That is a difficult question to answer, because what kind of stressor would be necessary? Puppies are typically exposed to stressors while they are still with their mother, such as being left alone for short periods, handling physical obstacles like uneven ground, and dealing with frustrations such as siblings that are in competition. On another level, there is frustration later in training where dogs may need to learn to persist in trying to solve a problem in order to access something they are motivated to have. And on another level still, there are more significant stressors like older dogs that do not appreciate puppy behaviour, being confined or restrained, experiencing car rides... As you can see, stress is part of everyday life. The positive effects of stress inoculation are likely to benefit any animal that is going to find themselves in novel environments or in novel contexts (which may include training a new behaviour, incidentally). This does not mean we should all rush out and expose our animals to some form of controllable stressor. Just make sure that when your animal does encounter mild stress, they are equipped to control it. If they are not, sometimes letting them find their own way to controlling it if it is not far beyond their comfort zone can have lasting benefits. See the series on </span><a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2014/01/risk-aversion-or-pessimism-in-dogs-1.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">risk aversion</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> for more information, particularly </span><a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2014/01/risk-aversion-3-training-for.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">this one</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In summary, there may be situations where negative reinforcement doesn't contravene our training goals if those goals are to have optimistic, confident animals that expect good things to happen to them. Those situations can be generally categorised as where the animal has already encountered something that has threatened their sense of safety and where a sense of control and safety would aid rehabilitation as long as arousal (which may be considered a surrogate for how scared the animal is in this context) is low to moderate and no higher.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we have seen, negative reinforcement is not without risk. It behooves us to be careful with this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Do not use it to train approach behaviours - you don't want an animal approaching something in order to make it leave them alone. This is how we end up with things like dogs rushing and lunging in the first place. Some horse trainers do this kind of thing and it works, but personally, I am wary of it. I rely on whether my animals will approach to tell me if they like or are comfortable with something. Teaching an approach behaviour with negative reinforcement robs me of that information. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Know when to bail - This will vary from animal to animal, but you should know before you do anything how far you will go. Generally speaking, I would abandon training if my animal is trying to escape, if they are frozen, and if their arousal has climbed to the point where they are darting glances around. They should be calm enough to respond to their name readily and be able to perform cued behaviours reliably. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Keep track of indicators of emotional state. The point of using negative reinforcement in the contexts suggested here is to improve welfare and give your animal some flexibility in how they cope with stressors. You need to stop and rethink if it is not obviously doing that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Beware sticky avoidance behaviours hampering progress - Many psychiatric disorders in people are maintained to some degree by safety and avoidance behaviours. This seems like a minor concern in animals, who do not have such complex psyches, but it is well known that animals can continue with avoidance behaviours long after they are necessary. There is a problem here with prediction errors. In order for an animal to learn that they do not need their avoidance behaviour, they need to see that they didn't use their avoidance behaviour and nothing bad happened. If they are practiced avoiders, they may not have the opportunity to see this. As mentioned earlier, it's not that big a deal. Change the context just a little and they should change their behaviour. Sometimes allowing an animal to continue to avoid if they are comfortable with that is smart. We don't necessarily need them to approach everything and may not want them to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">References</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Macoveanu, Julian. "Serotonergic modulation of reward and punishment: Evidence from pharmacological fMRI studies." </span><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899314001401" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Brain research</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> (2014).</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Smith, J. W., et al. "Dopamine D2L receptor knockout mice display deficits in positive and negative reinforcing properties of morphine and in avoidance learning."<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452202002579" target="_blank"> </a></span><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452202002579" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Neuroscience</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 113.4 (2002): 755-765.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Christianson, John P., et al. "Safety signals mitigate the consequences of uncontrollable stress via a circuit involving the sensory insular cortex and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis."<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159417/" target="_blank"> </a></span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159417/" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Biological psychiatry</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 70.5 (2011): 458-464.</span></a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Christianson, John P., et al. "Inhibition of fear by learned safety signals: a mini-symposium review." </span><a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/41/14118.full" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">The Journal of Neuroscience</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 32.41 (2012): 14118-14124.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Helmreich, Dana L., et al. "Active behavioral coping alters the behavioral but not the endocrine response to stress." </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358794/" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Psychoneuroendocrinology</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 37.12 (2012): 1941-1948.</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Moscarello, Justin M., and Joseph E. LeDoux. "Active avoidance learning requires prefrontal suppression of amygdala-mediated defensive reactions." </span><a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/9/3815.long" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">The Journal of Neuroscience</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 33.9 (2013): 3815-3823.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Kim, Hackjin, Shinsuke Shimojo, and John P. O'Doherty. "Is avoiding an aversive outcome rewarding? Neural substrates of avoidance learning in the human brain." </span><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0040233#pbio-0040233-g005" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">PLoS biology</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 4.8 (2006): e233.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Coover, Gary D., and Holger Ursin. "Plasma-corticosterone levels during active-avoidance learning in rats." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Journal of comparative and physiological psychology</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 82.1 (1973): 170.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Innes, Lesley, and Sebastian McBride. "Negative versus positive reinforcement: an evaluation of training strategies for rehabilitated horses."</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://www2.univet.hu/users/knagy/Irodalomjegyz%E9k/Innes%202008%20PR%20vs%20NR.pdf" target="_blank">Applied animal behaviour science</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://www2.univet.hu/users/knagy/Irodalomjegyz%E9k/Innes%202008%20PR%20vs%20NR.pdf" target="_blank"> 112.3 (2008): 357-368</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Lyons, David M., and Karen J. Parker. "Stress inoculation‐induced indications of resilience in monkeys." </span><a href="http://parkerlab.stanford.edu/documents/pdf/SI_NHP_review.pdf" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Journal of traumatic stress</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 20.4 (2007): 423-433.</span></a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Sankey, Carol, et al. "Reinforcement as a mediator of the perception of humans by horses (Equus caballus)." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-010-0326-9#page-1" target="_blank">Animal cognition</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-010-0326-9#page-1" target="_blank"> 13.5 (2010): 753-764</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Beerda, B., et al. "Behavioural and hormonal indicators of enduring environmental stress in dogs." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://www.dierenwetenschap.com/Portals/0/Beerda%202000%20enduring%20stress%20anim%20welfare.pdf" target="_blank">ANIMAL WELFARE-POTTERS BAR-</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://www.dierenwetenschap.com/Portals/0/Beerda%202000%20enduring%20stress%20anim%20welfare.pdf" target="_blank"> 9.1 (2000): 49-62</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Cain, C. K., J. S. Choi, and J. E. LeDoux. "<a href="http://jschoi71.cafe24.com/publications/2010%20Cain%20et%20al%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Behavioral%20Neuroscience.pdf" target="_blank">Active avoidance and escape learning</a>." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience. New York: Elsevier</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">(2010).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Levy, Hannah C., and Adam S. Radomsky. "Safety Behaviour Enhances the Acceptability of Exposure." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16506073.2013.819376" target="_blank">Cognitive behaviour therapy</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16506073.2013.819376" target="_blank"> 43.1 (2014): 83-92</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Hood, Heather K., et al. "Effects of safety behaviors on fear reduction during exposure." </span><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001804" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Behaviour research and therapy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 48.12 (2010): 1161-1169.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Rachman, Stanley, et al. "Does escape behavior strengthen agoraphobic avoidance? A replication." </span><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789486800697" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Behavior Therapy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 17.4 (1986): 366-384.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Dalley, Jeffrey W., et al. "Distinct changes in cortical acetylcholine and noradrenaline efflux during contingent and noncontingent performance of a visual attentional task." </span><a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/21/13/4908.long" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">The Journal of Neuroscience</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 21.13 (2001): 4908-4914.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Burgdorf, Jeffrey, and Jaak Panksepp. "The neurobiology of positive emotions." </span><a href="http://www.geneqol-consortium.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2013/07/Burgdorf_The-neurobiology-of-positive-emotions_Neurosci-Biobehav-Rev-2006.pdf" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 30.2 (2006): 173-187.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Dawkins, Marian Stamp. "The science of animal suffering." </span><a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/~abrg/papers/dawkins/eth1557.pdf" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Ethology</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 114.10 (2008): 937-945.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deldalle, Stephanie, and Florence Gaunet. "Effects of 2 training methods on stress-related behaviors of the dog (<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Canis familiaris</i>) and on the dog–owner relationship."</span><a href="http://www.journalvetbehavior.com/article/S1558-7878(14)00007-0/abstract" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #eef4f9; border: 0px; line-height: 16.799999237060547px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research </i>9.2 (2014): </span><span style="background-color: #eef4f9; line-height: 16.799999237060547px; text-align: center;">58-65.</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Koolhaas, J. M., et al. "Coping styles in animals: current status in behavior and stress-physiology." </span><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/enriquezerda/comportamientoyfisiologiadelstress.pdf" target="_blank"><i style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews</i><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 23.7 (1999): 925-935.</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Burman, Oliver HP, et al. "Sensitivity to reward loss as an indicator of animal emotion and welfare." </span><a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/4/330.full" target="_blank"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Biology letters</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> 4.4 (2008): 330-333.</span></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-17251352794776778672014-03-10T09:49:00.001+11:002014-03-10T09:52:43.215+11:00Forbes Creek, WoronoraWe are very fortunate in the Sutherland Shire as there are plenty of bushy places we can take our dogs. I mentioned the Woronora pipeline in the post about <a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2014/01/the-needles-engadine.html" target="_blank">the Needles</a>. The pipeline is generally a reliable starting place for lots of bushy adventures with dogs. At the northern end of the pipeline, there is a section between Woronora and Woronora Heights/Yarrawarah that goes through a nice little patch of bush surrounding Forbes Creek. There is a surprising network of narrow mountain bike tracks east of the creek, and the pipeline is on the western side. I have prepared a map with a loop walk using the large access track alongside the pipeline and then into the bike trails. Don't worry too much about following the correct bike trail. I think most of them join up eventually.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--Efu6lzLB64/Uxzj7dvpWNI/AAAAAAAAAKo/RMA2jVvc6uA/s1600/Forbes+Creek.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--Efu6lzLB64/Uxzj7dvpWNI/AAAAAAAAAKo/RMA2jVvc6uA/s1600/Forbes+Creek.png" height="499" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A loop walk around Forbes Creek, Woronora.</td></tr>
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Access the pipeline in this section either from the end of Thorp Rd in Woronora or Bundanoon Rd in Woronora Heights. The pipeline access road is easily visible on Google Maps. We come the Woronora end and walk up alongside the pipeline. We turn off the pipeline road close to Bundanoon Rd. The track is small and difficult to see. Check the photo below for what it looks like where it joins the pipeline track.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xAyzaFhYVn8/UxzuD4TjKgI/AAAAAAAAAK4/0xOeUAbNvTA/s1600/FC+trail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xAyzaFhYVn8/UxzuD4TjKgI/AAAAAAAAAK4/0xOeUAbNvTA/s1600/FC+trail.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The trail leaving the pipeline road is hard to see.</td></tr>
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Follow the narrow bike track down to Forbes Creek and look for the track on the other side. It goes both ways along the creek, but turn to the right and follow it south. There will be a few more branches. Go right again, then left to curve around up higher above the creek and it will double back and head north. Eventually it will wind down towards the creek again. There are more branches around this area, but they all end up in much the same place. You will come out at the creek, then go up the hill a little ways again and eventually end up on a large fire trail. Follow it down the hill where there is a bridge across Forbes Creek, and then you will be back on the pipeline track.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RRojJNV-HME/Uxzug-cqwnI/AAAAAAAAALA/VL4LvV2YxK8/s1600/Forbes+creek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RRojJNV-HME/Uxzug-cqwnI/AAAAAAAAALA/VL4LvV2YxK8/s1600/Forbes+creek.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forbes Creek crossing on bike trail. </td></tr>
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<h3>
Size</h3>
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This patch of bush is not huge, but certainly big enough for a good wander. The loop walk on the map is about 5.4km long and takes about 1 1/2-2 hours if you take it at a leisurely pace. </div>
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Safety</h3>
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As with most bushy areas, there are snakes here. There are also bikes. If you visit on a nice, sunny weekend you will probably see one or two bikes. The bike trails are narrow and winding and you may not get a lot of warning before they arrive. There are also a few wooden structures that give bikes purchase on steep, slippery slopes and keep them off muddy areas. These are not dog friendly, as there are gaps between the wood slats that paws can fall into. There are ways around, though. There are some short sections that are very steep and a bit loose. The dogs will cope fine, but people will need to be steady on their feet and wearing shoes with decent grip. Be aware that when it has rained, the soil here has a lot of clay in it and can become extremely slick and treacherous in places. The pipeline road is all right, but around the bridge across Forbes Creek it can get pretty slippery. Forbes Creek itself can also get quite swollen after rain. Crossing it might require gumboots and carrying small dogs. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JQtQAAl2Hu0/Uxzvce5pFiI/AAAAAAAAALM/FJvgXWWWNSA/s1600/bike+trail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JQtQAAl2Hu0/Uxzvce5pFiI/AAAAAAAAALM/FJvgXWWWNSA/s1600/bike+trail.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steep, loose sections and mountain bike wooden structures can be tricky for dogs and people.</td></tr>
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Other dogs and owners</h3>
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Dogs are supposed to be on leash. We rarely see other dogs and their owners in this area. If you do see other dogs, it is likely they will not be on leash and they may not be friendly. However, we have only ever seen dogs on the pipeline road and there is plenty of room there to keep clear of other dogs. </div>
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Further notes</h3>
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We are very fortunate to be able to walk our dogs in these bushy areas. Please show your gratitude by cleaning up after your dogs and minimising their impact on the environment. As well as the odd snake, there are also sometimes wallabies and water dragons in this area, and we have seen echidnas nearby. The birdlife is also quite healthy. Keep your dogs close and under control so they don't harass the wildlife. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-15441638053567778032014-03-02T19:34:00.000+11:002014-03-02T19:34:54.751+11:00Happy as a pig in mud - a beginner's guide to using research in discussionsA blog post has been doing the rounds lately entitled "<a href="http://eileenanddogs.com/2014/02/21/reading-citing-research-journal/" target="_blank">Don't Get Mud On Your Face! Citing Research In Discussions</a>", which lists some very sensible and thorough rules to follow when considering citing research in a discussion. Presumably in support of a point you are making, which is generally the accepted purpose of citing research in discussions. In the humble opinion of this young scientist, the list of rules is a very good list and I follow most of the rules when I am reading papers. But reading papers and citing research is part of my job that I have been formally trained to do over many years. Maybe the average person with a curious mind and Google Scholar at their fingertips can get a lot out of simply dipping their toes into research literature without being expected to dive in and swim a lap or two. So here is a friendly guide I have put together for beginners, hobbyists, and those that are just up for a paddle and not much more. Science is for everyone! And I heartily encourage anyone from any field to go poking around primary literature.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8034465792/h997C9910/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8034465792/h997C9910/" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Science is for everyone! (<a href="http://www.funny-memes.org/2014/02/hello-yes-i-would-like-to-science-please.html" target="_blank">Image source</a>)</td></tr>
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1) Chasing down the original article is indeed an excellent first step. Reporters and journalists are notorious for slightly mangling published research in the retelling. If you cannot get hold of the original article, or you don't understand much of it, that's okay, all is not lost. Knowing something about the credibility of the reporter will help you. If they have good credentials, such as being a scientist themselves, that is a very good thing. Ideally, they would have university level qualifications in the field they are reporting on. Also, where is it being reported? An online magazine or blog dedicated to reporting science is better than a general news site, but be aware that even dedicated science journalism sources tend to twist things around a bit to make it sound more significant, exciting, and potentially game-changing than it really is. Their job is to get people to read it. If it's a personal blog, be aware that the writer may have an agenda they are pushing.<br />
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2) If you can track down the original article and you don't understand it, DON'T PANIC. And don't give up there. A well-written paper that is easy to read is a rare gem. Most scientists are appalling writers, and some fields are thick with jargon. Back when I was a wee little undergrad, I read papers in the order they were written. I recommend this for beginners. The Abstract is a good place to start. The Introduction will put the study in context. Some Introductions do this well and some do them terribly, so don't be dismayed if you still don't really get it. Methods can be heavy going. It's possible I will be lynched for this, because to people like me this section of the paper is crucial, but if you can't easily follow it, just skim it. It's unlikely that a beginner will get a whole lot out of it anyway. Same for the Results, although give the graphs some attention. The Discussion is where things get interesting and you will probably get the most use out of it. It will outline the important results and tell you whether they were expected and offer explanations for why they differed from expected if they did, as well as hopefully identifying limitations with the study. If you just understand a few key points from the paper, that is okay. It doesn't mean you are too ignorant to present those points to other people. Just acknowledge that you are a beginner and offer it up politely rather than beating someone over the head with it.<br />
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3) Keep your critical thinking cap on and step away from your<a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2013/12/a-bias-smorgasbord.html" target="_blank"> biases</a>. It could be the hardest bit about reading papers. Try to remember you are not reading it to ultimately find proof for an argument you hold dear. That is not how science works. Science provides evidence in support of ideas. The literature often isn't clear, particularly in behaviour. If you look, you will probably find papers that seem to support things you don't believe. Don't be afraid of them. If you are trying to argue a point, knowing about those papers that seem to refute it is a good thing! And sometimes it will change your mind. If you are brave enough. Below is the first of a series of helpful little shorts on critical thinking by TechNyou that can be found on YouTube. They are really good!<br />
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4) One reference does not an argument make. For all that science is about gathering evidence objectively and testing hypotheses with as little bias as possible, it's unlikely that a single paper will solve the issue once and for all. Science is a cumulative process after all, and it's ridiculously hard to test all variables at once. </div>
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5) Lastly, a few tips about critiquing peer reviewed research:</div>
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Don't. </div>
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This is where you generally need a good, solid background in the field with several years of practical experience in research behind you. Be aware that the study was done by scientists and then judged by other scientists to be suitable for publication. Do you know better than 3+ scientists and a journal editor or two? Think very carefully before you decide you are. It is true that there is plenty of poor science out there, but don't be too hasty with your cynicism. </div>
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* Remember that a single study can only really examine one slice of the pie, but that's okay. As long as the authors know that there is a pie and have some idea what it looks like and therefore some idea of which slice they have and what is not in it. </div>
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* Statistics can do some clever things and can make up for some tricksy variables that are hard to pin down. Statistics can also find patterns in data that are not obvious otherwise. </div>
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* Scientific methods have to be as standardised as possible. We can't, for example, apply rules for one dog but change them for another simply because they don't work as well for that dog for whatever reason. To make comparisons or find patterns, all dogs need to have been exposed to the same treatment or procedure. Individual differences is not something that is especially compatible with statistics, but that doesn't mean scientists have never noticed them. It just means it's very hard to do anything about it. We're working on it, though!</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-62903419914890453452014-01-28T14:42:00.001+11:002014-01-28T14:42:36.593+11:00The Needles - EngadineThe Needles is a spot where there is a causeway across the Woronora River between Engadine and Barden Ridge. You can get to it from either the Barden Ridge side or the Engadine side. It is one of our favourite places to go with our dogs, because it's not far to walk, the road is sealed most of the way on the Engadine side, so it's pretty easy going aside from being a massive hill, and the river is lovely. Dogs should be on leash only, but one side of the causeway is deep and the other is shallow, so every dog can have the water how they like it. It also a popular swimming spot for people, so you can swim with your dog if that's how you roll.<br />
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If you're coming from the Engadine side, the most direct route is to park where Mt Carmel Pl comes off Woronora Rd. There is a gate here to prevent vehicle traffic. The orange dot on the map below is where you can park. If you're coming from the Barden Ridge side, you can park somewhere on Thomas Mitchell Dr and find your way to the fire trail. It's not as obvious where it is from this side, but you'll find it.<br />
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For a longer walk, you can come to it from Waterboard Rd, which follows the Woronora pipeline. Park in Kelton St in Woronora Heights where there is another gate and the road down is steep and sealed. I'm not sure where you can access Waterboard Rd from Engadine, as I think there are a few places.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2n-kdIr-oIs/UuciJMuBL4I/AAAAAAAAAKM/VnebftKyJww/s1600/Needles.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2n-kdIr-oIs/UuciJMuBL4I/AAAAAAAAAKM/VnebftKyJww/s1600/Needles.png" height="548" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Needles is where the causeway crosses the Woronora River between Woronora Rd and Old Illawarra Rd.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Size</h3>
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It can be as short as about a 700m walk down from Woronora Rd to the causeway, or it can be a lengthy hike, depending on what you feel up to, as there are several fire trails and smaller walking trails in the area. The fire trails you can usually see on Google Maps or similar, but the smaller walking trails are harder to find and may take a bit of exploring. You may end up with wet feet, or a bit of bush bashing, or navigating a rock wall. That is the joy of this region!</div>
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Safety</h3>
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It is bushy and so comes with all the usual related hazards. We have seen Brown Snakes on the side of the road, a python, and been warned about Red-bellied Black Snakes by the river. There may be ticks in the area, so make sure your dog has a tick collar and check them afterwards to be safe, particularly in spring and summer. There are also dirt bikes sometimes. The council appears to be trying to keep them out, but they often find a way. Most bikers only go as far as the causeway from the Barden Ridge side, then turn around and go back. The Engadine side is usually clear. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hs9u--mQg_Y/UucmMuGeY1I/AAAAAAAAAKY/_8Xh3ZbFvvE/s1600/Needles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hs9u--mQg_Y/UucmMuGeY1I/AAAAAAAAAKY/_8Xh3ZbFvvE/s1600/Needles.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kivi and Erik sitting on the causeway after a paddle in the river.</td></tr>
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Other dogs and owners</h3>
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It is moderately common to see another dog on the road or down at The Needles, although sometimes you can have the place to yourselves. It is less common to see other dogs on the surrounding trails, but often those you do see are not entirely friendly and may be off leash. We have never had any particularly scary moments, but it pays to be alert. </div>
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Further notes</h3>
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There is a fair bit of wildlife around. Apart from the snakes, we have also seen a Lace Monitor, and turtles and water dragons down by the river. If you're into birds, this is a pretty good spot. It's not unusual to see Rock Warblers down at the river if it's quiet, and there are Lyrebirds in the gullies. Please be careful with your dogs and don't let them chase the wildlife. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_20TjWwa_ilE/TKSIKmNWeHI/AAAAAAAABgk/heHIXyZCk70/s1600/Rock-Warbler-IMG_5072-Royal-NP-24-Sept-2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_20TjWwa_ilE/TKSIKmNWeHI/AAAAAAAABgk/heHIXyZCk70/s1600/Rock-Warbler-IMG_5072-Royal-NP-24-Sept-2010.jpg" height="223" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rock Warblers can be found around the river. <a href="http://samwoodsbirding.blogspot.com.au/2010_09_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Image source.</a></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-220167352813129682014-01-11T23:05:00.000+11:002014-01-11T23:06:46.306+11:00Risk Aversion 3 - Training for persistence, resilience, confidence and optimism<i>This is the third in a series of posts about risk aversion, or pessimism, in dogs. The first instalment looks at general tendencies of risk averse dogs, and the second looks at how risk averse dogs behave in day-to-day life, whether we can treat risk aversion, and if we should. In this instalment I will talk about how to make risk averse dogs less risk averse. This is pretty experimental, but is based on literature. I can at least say that I did it with my risk averse dog and had phenomenal results. </i><br />
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If we have decided that it is in our dog's (and our) best interests to reduce their risk aversion, we would do well to break risk aversion down into smaller pieces and treat each one. However, we will have trouble picking and choosing which pieces we want to work on and which we don't because they are all kind of related. Working on one will probably benefit others to a lesser extent as well.<br />
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Persistence</h3>
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As discussed in the first post, risk averse dogs lack persistence. Training persistence is simple, but not necessarily easy (to use a saying from Bob Bailey, godfather of modern animal training). Literature on persistence training reports on partial reinforcement procedures, in other words, instead of a reward after every time a dog performs a behaviour, you would reward after only some of the times. You might choose to do this randomly, or predictably. I suggest predictably, because it's easier! For example, count a set number of responses. Research shows that partial reinforcement leads to animals that persist longer in learning situations than animals that get continuous reinforcement (reward every time). However, starting with continuous reinforcement and then later moving to partial reinforcement is <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1422374?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103313589483" target="_blank">even better</a>!</div>
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Another aspect of persistence is called "generalised <a href="http://www.psychology.uh.edu/faculty/Eisenberger/files/18_Learned_Industriousness.pdf" target="_blank">industriousness</a>". What this means is that you can teach a dog to put in more effort, to work harder, and for fewer rewards. It can be done with a variation on the persistence training outlined above. The dog needs to put in a little more effort each time before they get a reward. But don't just hold out for them to work harder. With a risk averse dog you will need to make sure whatever you ask them to do is easily achievable. Start very easy, then gradually make it harder either by counting a few seconds more before you reward, or ask for an extra behaviour or two before you reward, or make a well understood task slightly harder the next time. Our favourite industriousness game we call "up-up". We find an obstacle in the environment that is low and safe for our dogs to jump onto, point to it, and say "up-up". Dog jumps onto obstacle and gets a treat. Think of this like a video game. The dog just finished level 1. Level 2 might be a little higher, or the surface might be uneven, or smaller. Level 3 might have one very simple obstacle to jump on in order to get to the next obstacle where we are pointing. When we train a dog to be industrious, we are pairing the <a href="http://www.psychology.uh.edu/faculty/Eisenberger/files/18_Learned_Industriousness.pdf" target="_blank">feeling of working hard</a> whether that be physical or mental with rewards, improving self-control and contributing to teaching dogs that if they just try that little bit harder it will pay off. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://funny-pics.co/wp-content/uploads/funny-persistent-dog-445x363.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://funny-pics.co/wp-content/uploads/funny-persistent-dog-445x363.jpg" height="260" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Persistent dogs tend to get more rewards. <a href="http://funny-pics.co/photo/persistent-dog/" target="_blank">Image source</a>.</td></tr>
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More variety in training tasks also leads to <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/74/4/499/" target="_blank">increased effort</a>. Get your dog learning a variety of skills. Pay them for trying, even if they are nowhere near the behaviour you want, or they make a mess of it. All you want them to do is give it a go, so make giving it a go rewarding. As they grow more confident, you may decide to hold off and wait for a 'better' try with more effort or conviction from your dog. Reward handsomely when they deliver, again, even if all they do is put in a little extra effort. </div>
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Resilience</h3>
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I am not going to detail how to train this here because it is a little bit controversial and probably deserves its own dedicated discussion. Think of it this way: if you have a dog that starts to fall apart if faced with minor problems they don't know how to solve, what do we need to teach them? Why are they easily distressed and what would make them better able to cope with stressful situations? By my reckoning, we need to teach them how to problem solve on their own without needing much help from us. There is a body of literature on "mastery" and "resilience" or "inoculation", which refers to an individual's ability to learn to control something stressful and the positive effects of this in later stressful situations. See <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ISezR6pODo8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA41&ots=D0uJim27hH&sig=MmAYwwpcgo9FeCZc3T9FK1Hsi2I#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">here</a> for a nice review. Resilience may be trained using very careful exposure to low level stress that the dog can resolve on their own. This is something to be cautious about as a little too much stress or the wrong kind of stress is likely to backfire and make things worse. More about this in a later post.</div>
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Confidence</h3>
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This one really depends on the ways in which a dog is lacking confidence. My risk averse dog was quite clumsy and found things like balancing or moving his back feet with precision very challenging. I felt that this was probably holding him back, because when you fall or feel unbalanced a lot, it seems risky to try things with your body that you haven't done before. I did a lot of balance and body awareness training with him. I used logs at our local dog park to train him to balance better, and to move his back feet independently of his front feet. This is known as rear end awareness and is popular training for dogs in dog sports because it helps them be more agile and move with more precision and efficiency. Here is a video of Erik demonstrating 'log games' for rear end awareness and balance. </div>
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Learning what he could do physically and making him feel more balanced and agile had a huge positive effect on his confidence. He went from standing in front of something the height of his chin and staring helplessly at it while we spent an age trying to coax him to jump over it or onto it, to going out of his way to find things to climb on. This opened up a whole new world for him where he could seek rewards. See him in the video below giving me heart palpitations negotiating rocks at some height on a rock platform at the beach. </div>
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Body awareness and balance exercises are a good place to start for general confidence building, but it is worthwhile trying to identify where a dog lacks confidence the most and applying similar principles. Start small, keep it easy. For example, little Erik has a lot of confidence in general, but lacks confidence around water. We let him take it at his own pace but encourage him to challenge himself. He is much more confident about creek crossings, now, but still doesn't want to swim. That's okay. </div>
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Optimism</h3>
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Optimism is basically the expectation that good things are going to happen. So when you are optimistic, you tend to feel pretty good, because at any moment probably something terrific will happen to you. This is associated with mental wellbeing, better outcomes in serious illness, and better physical health in humans. Learning to be optimistic is relatively simple for an otherwise healthy dog. If a dog has a lot of good things happen to them, they will expect more good things to happen to them. Training a dog to be optimistic doesn't just mean you throw a lot of rewards at them, though. It's important to note that in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03209386#page-1" target="_blank">some situations</a>, non-contingent reinforcement (reinforcement a dog can't control) can also interfere with learning in much the same way as learned helplessness. This is usually called "learned irrelevance". So for best results, offer opportunities for reinforcement in a large variety of situations. Make it easy to earn rewards often. Set them up sometimes to find their own way to success rather than have you show them or tell them what to do. This can take some skill. You want to make the path to success obvious enough that they won't have to try very hard, but just hard enough that they will have to think their way through it. The video of Kivi in the rocks is not a bad example. I move, so it is obvious to him he should follow me, but he has to find his own way through the rocks. The goal is getting access to rewards, whatever your dog loves. The game is for them to figure out how to get it. Again, think of video game levels. Getting them to use their nose and search for things is great. </div>
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Final Word</h3>
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These are all fairly general tips light on details. Treating risk aversion should be considered a broad thing with many components, because risk aversion itself is quite broad with a variety of components. It is quite easy to make things too hard for a risk averse dog. If you have a dog like this, above all remember to be patient and do one or two steps at a time and then just leave it for another day. Otherwise you risk making things worse by overdoing it. If they don't get success easily they will likely become stressed and give up. Let them find their own way as much as possible and set their own pace. You are there to encourage and guide (and provide lots of rewards). If you have a seriously risk averse dog that may have other fear related problems as well, get professional help from a behaviourist. Treating risk aversion doesn't treat specific fears or behaviour problems. </div>
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Further reading</h4>
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<br />
Nation, Jack R.; Cooney, John B.; Gartrell, Karen E., 1979. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/88/2/121/" target="_blank">Durability and generalizability of persistence training.</a> Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 88(2), 121-136<br />
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Eisenberger, Robert; Masterson, Fred A.; McDermitt, Maureen 1982. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/74/4/499/" target="_blank">Effects of task variety on generalized effort.</a> Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 74(4),</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">Nation, J. R., & Boyajian, L. G. (1980). <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1422374?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103313589483" target="_blank">Continuous before partial reinforcement: Effect on persistence training and resistance to extinction in humans</a>. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">The American Journal of Psychology</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">, 697-710.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span dir="ltr">Martin E. P. Seligman</span>, <span dir="ltr">Jane E. Gillham, </span>2000. <span style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ISezR6pODo8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA41&ots=D0uJim27hH&sig=MmAYwwpcgo9FeCZc3T9FK1Hsi2I#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="fn"><span dir="ltr">The Science of Optimism and Hope</span></span>: </a><span class="subtitle"><span dir="ltr"><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ISezR6pODo8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA41&ots=D0uJim27hH&sig=MmAYwwpcgo9FeCZc3T9FK1Hsi2I#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Research Essays in Honor of Martin E.P. Seligman</a>. </span></span></span><span dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent;">Templeton Foundation Press.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span><span dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">Job, R. F. S. 1988. I<a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03209386#page-1" target="_blank">nterference and facilitation produced by noncontingent reinforcement in the appetitive situation</a>. </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">Animal Learning & Behavior</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">, </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">16</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">(4), 451-460.</span></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-28806544988779719492014-01-07T11:42:00.003+11:002014-01-07T13:07:57.255+11:00Risk Aversion in Dogs 2 - Spotting it and can/should we treat it?<i>This is the second in a series of posts about risk aversion, or pessimism, in dogs. This instalment deals with how to spot risk aversion in everyday life and whether we should treat it or accept it. </i><br />
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In the previous instalment we looked at the general traits of risk averse dogs. They are low in persistence, creativity/spontaneity, and resilience, and they don't take many risks and are pessimistic (expect more bad things to happen and less good things).<br />
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How might we see risk aversion in dogs in day-to-day life? Think of a dog that stays close to their owner and doesn't run off. They seek safety and don't go out of their way to access rewards. As such, they are not very exploratory. They may sniff around the area, but probably won't go far or very fast. They are likely to react strongly to something bad happening to them, and be surprisingly distressed by quite minor problems they encounter, like a small obstacle they need to find their way around, or being unable to immediately access a reward they can see. They may be easily frustrated and respond by giving up. They may also seem poorly motivated, not willing to put in a lot of effort for rewards, and while it may be easy to teach them to stay still, it may be difficult to teach them to keep doing something without steady reinforcement (e.g. heeling). They may be reluctant to perform a behaviour on cue if they are not confident on how to respond. So we may see them failing to perform a cued behaviour, not because they are being difficult and refusing, but because they are unsure what they are being asked and don't want to risk doing the wrong thing.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ronmartin.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/dog-frustrated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.ronmartin.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/dog-frustrated.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ronmartin.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/dog-frustrated.jpg" target="_blank">Image source</a></td></tr>
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The first question is, do we need to treat risk aversion in dogs? At this point, I think this question can only really be answered subjectively. As I suggested in the previous instalment, there are reasons why we might want a risk averse dog. Certainly there are dogs that are naturally risk averse, and this may make them highly suited to particular jobs or environments where a steady, quiet, predictable dog that only really does what it has learnt to be rewarding is required. On the other hand there are many aspects of being risk averse that may make a dog challenging to train in complex tasks, so if you are looking for a dog that will throw themselves into a task, be easy to train complex behaviours, and persist with low levels of reinforcement, you may want your dog to be less risk averse. Finally, we can and probably should consider this from a welfare perspective as well. Arguably, good wellbeing is characterised by an animal having positive experiences. The more positive experiences they have, the <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/07/30/rspb.2010.0303.long" target="_blank">better their wellbeing</a>. We also know that there are a couple of things that mammals generally enjoy. One is playing, another is getting resources like food, and another is exploration, because it's tied to finding resources. So we might wonder about the wellbeing of a dog that does not explore much or try very hard to access resources. Their accumulation of positive experiences may be a little low, and therefore they may be not as happy as they could be, although this is not the same as being unhappy. Furthermore, I think we should consider how they handle adversity. As much as we might like to, we can't create an environment for our dogs where there is no adversity, and nor should we, because there is evidence that a little adversity helps an individual become more <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2010-21218-001" target="_blank">resilient to stress</a> later on, thus enhancing their wellbeing. Low level and intermittent stress also results in animals being less <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.20500/full" target="_blank">emotionally reactive</a> so that they are better able to cope with new situations and are <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759374/" target="_blank">more curious</a> and explore more. It also helps them <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.20500/full" target="_blank">adapt to changes</a> and solve problems better than individuals who have not been exposed to low level stress. So if our dog is risk averse, they may have difficulties finding solutions to stressful situations and be hesitant to try new things, and in this way their ability to adapt to and cope with stress may be compromised.<br />
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The second question is can we treat it? Risk aversion, like much in behaviour, can be considered to be a product of both nature and nurture. Dogs can be born more or less risk averse by nature, and then that potential for risk aversion can be further modified by learning and experience. We can assume that we may be able to adjust a dog's current risk aversion if it falls within their genetic potential. When faced with a dog it may not be clear if they are already as optimistic as their genetic potential allows while still being overall pretty risk averse. So in conclusion, we may be able to treat it, or we may not, and if we can, the extent to which we can may be a lot or a little. The graphic below illustrates this, but be aware it's grossly simplified. This stuff is complicated! In fact, it's argued by academics that optimism and pessimism don't even belong on the same scale.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7Xs63Q3ox08/Uss7yQakiWI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/wBQK38YwKiY/s1600/Genetic+potential.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7Xs63Q3ox08/Uss7yQakiWI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/wBQK38YwKiY/s1600/Genetic+potential.jpg" height="181" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imagine a risk aversion/optimism scale. A dog may be born with the potential to fall anywhere in a particular range on that scale (blue line), and their experiences will narrow that range to where they actually fall on the scale.</td></tr>
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So if there are arguments for treating risk aversion in dogs, and we probably can treat it at least to some extent, should we go ahead and try? If we are seeing a dog that becomes quite distressed out of proportion to the problem they are facing, or cannot solve problems on their own, or becomes distressed if they can't use a solution they have used before, or even who is emotionally reactive and has difficulty regulating their arousal, I think as humane trainers and owners we should think very hard about whether this is okay. For me, I think if the dog is a pet and in a competent home, there are good arguments for trying to reduce their risk aversion. If the dog is a working dog, or in a home where the owners may not have the skills to adapt to a dog that may be a little more adventurous and possibly naughty, then I think it is at the discretion of the dog's trainers. Just be aware that optimistic dogs have their own problems, and once you have a reward-seeking dog, it becomes necessary to harness that sudden enthusiasm for exploration and finding rewards and use it for the forces of good rather than evil, and that may mean more training.<br />
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In the next instalment in this series, we will talk about how to reduce risk aversion through training.<br />
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<h4>
Further reading</h4>
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<ol class="contributor-list" id="contrib-group-1" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 13px; list-style: none; margin: 15px 0px 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<li class="contributor" id="contrib-1" itemprop="author" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" style="border: 0px; display: inline; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="name" itemprop="name" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">M.<a class="name-search" href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/search?author1=Michael+Mendl&sortspec=date&submit=Submit" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: 0px; white-space: nowrap;"> Mendl</a> </span>, </li>
<li class="contributor" id="contrib-2" itemprop="author" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" style="border: 0px; display: inline; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="name" itemprop="name" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">O. Burman</span> and E</li>
<li class="last" id="contrib-3" style="border: 0px; display: inline; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="name" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="name-search" href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/search?author1=Elizabeth+S.+Paul&sortspec=date&submit=Submit" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px; outline-style: none; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: 0px; white-space: nowrap;">. Paul</a> 2010. </span></li>
</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/07/30/rspb.2010.0303.long" target="_blank">An integrative and functional framework for the study of animal emotion and mood</a>. Proceedings of the Royal Society B </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"></span></ol>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Seery, Mark D.; Holman, E. Alison; Silver, Roxane Cohen 2010. </span><a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2010-21218-001" target="_blank">Whatever does not kill us: Cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience</a>. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 99(6).<br />
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D. Lyons,<span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.140625px;"> </span> K. Parker,<span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.140625px;"> </span>M. Katz and A. Schatzberg<span style="line-height: 22.140625px;">, 2009. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759374/" target="_blank">Developmental cascades linking stress inoculation, arousal regulation, and resilience</a>. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 3.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 22.140625px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 22.140625px;">Lyons, David M., </span><span style="line-height: 22.140625px;">Parker, Karen J., </span><span style="line-height: 22.140625px;">Schatzberg, Alan F, 2010. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.20500/full" target="_blank">Animal models of early life stress: Implications for understanding resilience</a>. Developmental Psychobiology 52(7)</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-49234722536619171462014-01-04T23:38:00.005+11:002014-01-05T08:08:18.906+11:00Risk Aversion or Pessimism in Dogs 1 - General tendencies<i>This is the first in a series of posts about risk aversion or pessimism in dogs, welfare and training implications, and what can be done about it. To be absolutely clear and up front, this is the 'fuzzy' side of my research. At this stage, the observations and interpretations I bring up here are not supported by data. This is the 'experience' side of spending 3 1/2 years watching different dogs in the same situation over and over. I will update this series as more information comes to light. </i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-46gsnLNcM1k/Usf3iSHfLmI/AAAAAAAAAJI/oa0ZzgAT6TM/s1600/Glass-of-water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-46gsnLNcM1k/Usf3iSHfLmI/AAAAAAAAAJI/oa0ZzgAT6TM/s200/Glass-of-water.jpg" width="135" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dogs, like people, can also see the <br />
glass as half empty or half full.</td></tr>
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I did my PhD on optimism and pessimism in dogs. I was looking at how they interpret signals and whether they tend to think good things or bad things are going to happen to them. The assumption is that pessimism is associated with a negative emotional state and optimism with a positive emotional state. By the time I finished my data collection, I'd had some 50 dogs go through the study and had a pretty good idea of how a wildly optimistic or a profoundly pessimistic dog tended to behave. The balanced dogs weren't so easy to typify. In this post, I'm going to ignore the wild optimists, given we assume that they are probably happy dogs, and concentrate on the pessimists.<br />
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I'll start by saying I don't really like "pessimistic" to describe these dogs. I prefer "risk averse", because I'm not so sure they expect bad things to happen to them so much as they don't like to find out if they don't have to. They would rather not take chances. We see their risk aversion in a variety of ways. They are usually not very persistent. If they try something that has worked in the past a couple of times, and it doesn't work, they are liable to give up. This tendency has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it is dead easy to discourage unwanted behaviour. If it's not immediately and consistently rewarding they will give up on it. On the downside, it is difficult to shape these dogs using successive approximations of a behaviour because they give up so easily. They may need a lot of help and encouragement to keep them engaged.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1665-aHsCio/Usf50Oulo0I/AAAAAAAAAJU/pReleoRkNw8/s1600/bad-puppy-dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1665-aHsCio/Usf50Oulo0I/AAAAAAAAAJU/pReleoRkNw8/s320/bad-puppy-dog.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Risk averse dogs are easily discouraged. <a href="http://fascinatingly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/bad-puppy-dog.jpg" target="_blank">Image source</a></td></tr>
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Risk averse dogs are also not very creative or spontaneous. They are reluctant to try new things. Not necessarily because they have been punished a lot, although this could be implicated in risk aversion, but because they are comfortable. They don't want to risk upsetting anything by trying something new. Basically, if it's not broke, don't fix it is their motto. Again, this is good if we want a dog that is not likely to come up with new ways to perplex us. If we want a steady dog who just does what they have been taught to do and not much else, we would probably do well with a naturally risk averse dog. However, if we want a dog that is easy to shape because they come up with lots of new behaviours to try out and are happy to throw them at us just in case they work, then a risk averse dog may try our patience and test our own training creativity as we try to find ways to get them doing new behaviours.<br />
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Risk averse dogs are also not particularly resilient. If they feel like they have got something wrong, they will take this quite hard. I used to think descriptions of dogs as being "hard on themselves" were weird and meaningless, but it's actually a good way to describe how the risk averse dog behaves in a training scenario. They are quite sensitive to signals that they may have done the 'wrong' thing - as in, they won't get rewarded. They may respond by whining or pacing or with lots of displacement behaviour like yawning or looking away or licking their lips. You may see them sniff the ground as if to say "Well, anyway, I was just going over here to do something really important." It may be difficult to coax them into giving it another go. There is some evidence from rat literature that individuals in a negative emotional state are very sensitive to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610134/" target="_blank">reward loss</a>. So in some cases sensitivity in training may suggest a negative emotional state, which is in turn associated with pessimism.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BCHaniEpuGA/Usf88zN7gPI/AAAAAAAAAJg/GUx09Jzlooc/s1600/lip+licking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BCHaniEpuGA/Usf88zN7gPI/AAAAAAAAAJg/GUx09Jzlooc/s320/lip+licking.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This dog is looking away and lip licking, a displacement<br />
behaviour signalling stress.</td></tr>
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And finally, these dogs are pessimistic. They seem to expect more negative outcomes and fewer positive outcomes. We assume that their unwillingness to take risks is at least in part because they are more inclined to expect it will go poorly for them. In contrast, the wildly optimistic dogs seem to think anything is worth a shot. If it doesn't turn out great after all, they are not very bothered, whereas a risk averse dog is very bothered. There is plenty of literature (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159113001901" target="_blank">latest here</a>) that suggests this could mean risk averse dogs are experiencing a negative emotional state.<br />
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Tune in for the next instalment discussing how risk aversion may appear in everyday life, how it may impact welfare, and whether we should do anything about it.<br />
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<h4>
Further reading</h4>
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<h1 class="content-title" lang="en" style="background-color: white; display: none; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 1.3846em; line-height: 1.5; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em;">
Sensitivity to reward loss as an indicator of animal emotion and welfare</h1>
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O. Burman, R. Parker, E. Paul, and M. Mendl, 2008. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610134/" target="_blank">Sensitivity to reward loss as an indicator of animal emotion and welfare</a>. Biology Letters 4(4). </div>
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<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A. Destrez,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="line-height: 0px;"> </span></span></li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">V. Deiss, </li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">F. Lévy, L.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Calandreau, </li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">C. Lee, </li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">E. Chaillou-Sagon, </li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; display: inline; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Arial Unicode', Arial, 'URW Gothic L', Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A. Boissy, 2013. <span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159113001901" target="_blank">Chronic stress induces pessimistic-like judgment and learning deficits in sheep</a>. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 148(1-2).</span></li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-54386370592144431332014-01-03T16:43:00.000+11:002014-01-03T16:43:31.427+11:00Upper Burnum Burnum Sanctuary - SutherlandBurnum Burnum Sanctuary is a small bush reserve on the edges of Sutherland and Bonnet Bay in the Sutherland Shire. It has some very lovely trails and dogs are allowed as long as they are on leash.<br />
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The trails all inter-connect and there are several access points, shown in the map as blue dots. One from Coolgardie Pl, one at Tyler Pl (not on map), one off Tudor Rd, and one from the southern end of the playground and picnic areas of Burnum Burnum Reserve in Bonnet Bay. The trail starting in Bonnet Bay goes up to the ridge and is quite steep in places. It is also very difficult to see from the top, so if attempting this one for the first time, I suggest you start at the bottom.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bY2BTNMngmw/UsZJsa_sbCI/AAAAAAAAAIk/ZhzZ7LvWErs/s1600/Burnum+Burnum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bY2BTNMngmw/UsZJsa_sbCI/AAAAAAAAAIk/ZhzZ7LvWErs/s640/Burnum+Burnum.jpg" width="616" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blue dots show access points, blue line shows tracks that skirt the ridge perimeter.</td></tr>
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The upper part of the reserve accessed from Sutherland or Tyler Pl in Bonnet Bay is set on a ridge top. Starting at Coolgardie Pl or Tudor Rd, you can walk around the perimeter of the ridge on the paths marked in blue. The eastern side is known as the Cliff Track. It skirts along a rocky outcrop that in parts has a 4m+ sheer drop into bushland below. This is a small, single file trail that joins the main, centre trail at both ends. At the Tudor St end, you can then walk up the main trail for a little ways and turn west onto another single file trail that is called the Eagle Rock trail. It is hard to spot, so look for a lot of small rocks on the ground leading into the bush. This track also skirts along a rocky outcrop that in parts has a 4m+ drop into bushland below, and also affords some great views of Bonnet Bay below. This track then widens out as it heads up the hill alongside the powerlines.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2tqAHX0wv8M/UsZKqqkiwNI/AAAAAAAAAIs/1w5mg2MoYb0/s1600/Kivi+BB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2tqAHX0wv8M/UsZKqqkiwNI/AAAAAAAAAIs/1w5mg2MoYb0/s400/Kivi+BB.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kivi admiring the view from the Eagle Rock track.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Size</h3>
The full loop takes around 35 minutes, but you can shorten it by only doing one of the rocky trails and going down the centre main trail instead of right around to the other rocky trail. If you are looking for a longer walk, you can start from Tyler Pl. This track is lower on the slope than the Eagle Rock track and joins up to the track that goes to the Woronora River in Bonnet Bay about halfway up. If you head up that track and then head left when you get to the top of the ridge, this trail will join up to the tail end of the Eagle Rock track. If you then turn right onto this track, then left onto the centre main trail a little ways up, you can walk back to Tudor Rd and along this road back to Tyler Pl. This walk takes about an hour. Starting from the bottom in Bonnet Bay and climbing the river track up to the ridge takes about 10 minutes one way if you challenge yourself, and maybe about 20 minutes if you walk more slowly.<br />
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<h3>
Safety</h3>
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There are some big drop offs on the rocky trails skirting the upper sanctuary. If a dog fell off they would likely be injured. Keep your dog close on leash. There are also Brown Snakes in the reserve. Be careful, especially in spring. I have only seen one snake in there and it was in July, so be aware they could be around any time of year. </div>
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<h3>
Other Dogs and Owners</h3>
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This place is usually quiet and it is uncommon to see another soul. Occasionally you may meet other dog walkers, and the dogs may be on leash or off leash. It can be difficult to see them coming on the bushy trails and if passing them on small trails it can be tight and a little tense. </div>
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<h3>
Further Notes</h3>
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It is quite a lovely place with some good habitat for wild animals. If you like birds, there are sometimes red robins, mistletoe birds, and Scarlet Honeyeaters. There are no wallabies or kangaroos, but there is fox activity in the reserve. The views down to the Woronora River in Bonnet Bay are impressive and there are rocks you can sit on to take it in. Particularly lovely around sunset. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G1lz72qerWI/UsZNujY-zTI/AAAAAAAAAI4/7wAC34mrvUY/s1600/Burnum+Burnum+view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G1lz72qerWI/UsZNujY-zTI/AAAAAAAAAI4/7wAC34mrvUY/s640/Burnum+Burnum+view.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woronora River from Eagle Rock track. </td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-65592755795132416042014-01-03T13:30:00.000+11:002014-01-03T13:30:04.727+11:00Greenhills Dog BeachGreenhills beach is by far the best dog beach in Sydney. It is not a dedicated dog beach and access for dogs is limited to before 10am and after 4pm, but it is much, much bigger than Bayview in Sydney's north. There is a lot of sand to run on, surf for the more adventurous dogs, and it is far from other hazards like traffic.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ICe3nSXT394/UsYb_zVhCoI/AAAAAAAAAIU/QzLpIoiVCSM/s1600/Greenhills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ICe3nSXT394/UsYb_zVhCoI/AAAAAAAAAIU/QzLpIoiVCSM/s400/Greenhills.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greenhills beach, Cronulla, late afternoon on a still day.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Size</h3>
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The dog section of Greenhills beach starts at Gate 5 and extends to the 4WD area, which is just over 2km of beach. Enough beach to allow even the most energetic of dogs to stretch their legs and go for a good gallop. It is easy to spend an hour or more walking the length of the dog section and back if you play or train with your dog on the way. </div>
<h3>
Safety</h3>
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The beach car park ends some distance from where the dog off leash area starts. Behind the beach are extensive sand dunes (which dogs are not allowed in), but no roads in the vicinity. The 4WD section of the beach starts where the dog section ends, so there is very little risk of dogs coming into contact with cars. </div>
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Small numbers of fishermen are common on the beach, but they are generally very considerate and responsible. Stray fish hooks or lures or even fishing line are not a problem. It is polite to put your dog on leash or keep them close as you pass fishermen so that your dog doesn't go looking for bait or getting in the way. </div>
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Occasionally, dead pufferfish can be found on the beach. These are spiny and avoided by most dogs, but they are HIGHLY TOXIC. If your dog eats one, you need to get them to the vet immediately. Even a fish a couple of weeks dead can be toxic enough to kill a dog in less than an hour. If you find one, dig a deep hole (to your elbow at least) and bury it so other dogs will be safe as well. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qq2aJ4bYHYw/UsYJ1gcjAPI/AAAAAAAAAHg/UvesBrhrJNI/s1600/puffer-fish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qq2aJ4bYHYw/UsYJ1gcjAPI/AAAAAAAAAHg/UvesBrhrJNI/s320/puffer-fish.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pufferfish are deadly if eaten by dogs. <a href="http://adelaidevet.com.au/news/toadfish-and-puffer-fish-at-the-beach" target="_blank">Image source</a></td></tr>
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The beach is not patrolled and it is open, so currents and rips may be present. It drops off gently, so if the dogs can withstand the waves, they can have a swim without a very strong undertow. Some days it can be very calm and some days very rough.<br />
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<h3>
Other Dogs and Owners</h3>
<div>
Greenhills beach was briefly trialled with 24 hour access for dogs in 2013. This lasted only a few days before the trial was aborted due to some dangerous behaviour from dogs on the beach. It is a great pity, as usually the other dogs encountered on the beach are no trouble. As with any off leash dog area, some dogs do not wish to be approached by other dogs, and you may meet the odd dog that is overly friendly or retaliates when approached. If you see a dog on leash, keep your dogs clear of it, as it may just be trying to enjoy the beach without interacting with other dogs. The beach is usually large enough that you can steer clear of other dogs if you wish, but when the tides are very high, there are sections of the beach that can be quite narrow. Think carefully before visiting on public holidays or warm weekend days in the summer, as the beach can be very busy with lots of dogs that don't normally go to the beach. During the winter months it can be hard to fit a walk in before sunset, but if it's cold or windy or a little wet, you will have the place to yourself. </div>
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Drinking water is available for dogs at Gate 5 on the grass, and on the hill immediately north of the car park. There is a dish that owners rinse and refill regularly. If another dog is drinking, allow them to finish before you let your dog approach the water. </div>
<h3>
Further Notes</h3>
<div>
The beach is quite lovely to walk along, and at sunset you can get some beautiful lighting for photos. Sometimes dolphins can be seen riding waves just off the beach. The beach is usually clean, but sometimes there are dead seabirds, like at many beaches. Usually they are not very stinky. If your dog gets into the dunes, there are foxes, and a dog that has eaten or rolled in fox scat stinks to high heaven. Cronulla CBD is a short drive or a moderate walk away where there are many options for food and drink. Cronulla mall is moderately dog friendly. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3i8vuOrV3oE/UsYRIDqIpaI/AAAAAAAAAH4/2UOWSd19CV0/s1600/Glowing+Tarro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="301" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3i8vuOrV3oE/UsYRIDqIpaI/AAAAAAAAAH4/2UOWSd19CV0/s400/Glowing+Tarro.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice afternoon lighting makes for great photos.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Getting There</h3>
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Greenhills beach is at the northern end of Cronulla. Access to the car park is off Mitchell Rd/Murdock St. Drive past the playground and exercise equipment to park at the northern end of the car park. Walk diagonally (E) down the hill across the grass to Gate 5, which is the last access point to the beach before the scrub on the edge of the sand dunes. The dog section extends north from this gate. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HgN0NBhadSk/UsYXjvcDZ-I/AAAAAAAAAII/Doo6FHz0hMc/s1600/GH+Beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="301" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HgN0NBhadSk/UsYXjvcDZ-I/AAAAAAAAAII/Doo6FHz0hMc/s640/GH+Beach.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Park where blue dot is, walk dogs on leash along blue path, and red section is off leash. </td></tr>
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For more information, see the <a href="http://www.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/Recreation/Beaches/Beach_Locations/Greenhills_Beach_Cronulla" target="_blank">Sutherland Shire Council website</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-38205474570977919302013-12-10T15:20:00.000+11:002013-12-10T21:38:57.774+11:00Building a reward system, or "My dog won't work for food"<div style="background-color: white; color: #1b0500; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Getting an animal to work for food is sometimes a little bit tricky. It is absolutely worthwhile, though, even if you have your animal working for another kind of reward. Food as a reward comes with several advantages. For example, it can be delivered and consumed very quickly so that the flow of the training is not disrupted and more repetitions can be fit into a short training session. It can also be delivered slowly (e.g. in lots of little bits one after another), stretching out the moment of reinforcement to make it seem like the animal has just hit the jackpot. It's a very flexible kind of reward. It can increase and decrease arousal, it can be delivered close to you or farther away, it's easy to carry, and it's one of the most reliable ways to improve emotional state, so invaluable for behaviour modification.</div>
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If your dog (or other animal) currently won't work for food, don't write the whole thing off. All animals will work for food. They have to eat, after all. Work through the following steps and pretty soon your animal will be working for their regular food whenever you give them the opportunity.</div>
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Step 1: Desensitisation</h3>
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Animals won't eat unless they feel safe. If an animal is not safe it is just like when we are very anxious. Our stomach roils and we may even feel nauseous. We do not want to eat. They feel much the same way. Therefore, the first step in building a food-based reward system is to make sure your animal is comfortable with the environment. This means they are comfortable with their surroundings, the other animals and people in it, and the trainer. With dogs we tend to skip this step because many of them are very opportunistic about food and always seem ready to eat, but I can't emphasise enough how important it is to keep in the back of your mind. If you have a dog that is glancing around a lot, staring at other things in the environment, or seems very distractible or unwilling to move much, chances are the dog is not comfortable in the environment. For other animals you may see freezing and staring and a lack of response to you or any food you offer. The fix for this is desensitisation. Give them time to just take in their surroundings and get used to it. If they are in a whole new place, like they have just been rehomed, give them a few weeks. If they are in novel or unfamiliar surroundings but have a good relationship with you, give them a few days or sessions in those surroundings. If they are still not comfortable you can help them along with some counter-conditioning and active desensitisation. Stay tuned for an article detailing this.</div>
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Step 2: Establishing Food as a Reward</h3>
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Some animals have not really had the opportunity to realise that food is something they actually can have control over. They are used to having it dished out to them and left to eat it in their own time. They don't know there might be other ways to get food, or that it might be much better than what they are used to. Other animals may naturally eat food that doesn't exactly run away from them, like grass. Basically they can eat whenever they feel like it and they won't have the motivation of a more opportunistic animal like a dog to take advantage of when it is available.</div>
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My preferred way of handling this is to find a food the animal particularly likes and make sure they only ever get it from my hand. For dogs, fresh or cooked meat is usually a winner. For very fussy dogs, try cooked heart. I boil lamb hearts in a saucepan until they are cooked through and then cut them up small. For herbivores, sometimes fresh fruit can hit the spot, or a favoured vegetables. I've had success with berries and carrot tops (the leafy bit from dutch carrots is a rabbit favourite). Grain-eating birds can be trickier. Watch what grains they choose first to work out their favourites. Try dark, oily seeds like a canary tonic mix, or egg and biscuit. For parrots, you may find fruit and nuts or a commercially available treat work. Make sure you check with experts if your animal's treats may cause health or digestive problems.</div>
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Step 3: Practice</h3>
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Once we have some tasty rewards to choose from and our animal is interested in us and our food, then it just comes down to practising working for food. Many companion animals just don't realise they can earn food any time. If they can only earn food at meal times, or in training sessions, then how will they know it's worthwhile listening to you at other times? Make it really easy for them to earn food. They need to learn that just interacting with you pays. Making eye contact, following you, staying close, following gestures, and of course, lots of sits and downs. I love a default sit or down. Keep treats handy and play a game of trying to surprise your animal with treats or opportunities to earn treats when they are not expecting it. Note: This may work better for dogs than other animals.</div>
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Transitioning to using treats other than the amazing ones you found in Step 2 is quite easy. Wait until your animal is looking for a treat. This will usually happen a few days into Step 3. They will do something that has recently been rewarded and their ears will come forward and they will look at you and may dance around a little in anticipation. This is when you can try popping them a different treat. If they won't take it, go back to the good one for another day or half a day, then try again. If they do take it, good! Start offering it only 20% of the time at first, then after a day or so, move to 50% of the time, then 80%. Once you get to about 50% of the time, introduce a third treat in much the same way. Phase out the best treats at the same time. It is good to save these ones for when you really need them.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Next step - the big wide world. These dogs are in the habit of looking to humans for rewards, even somewhere as exciting and full of rewards as the beach.</td></tr>
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Step 4: Taking it on the Road</h3>
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It's easy to trip up, here. I know it's a drag, but if you have treats on you all the time you will see things to reward and you will have the means to do so. Why be stingy? The more opportunities your animal has to earn rewards the more attentive they will be to you. Once you get into the big wide world (if you take your animal there), they may completely forget about treats and earning food. It's okay, just be patient. The work you put in here will pay off in a big way. Go back to Step 1 and work through the protocol again somewhere that is not the most exciting place on the planet. You need to have your animal relaxed enough that they can stop running around and be content to look around instead, or even sit or lie down. Alternatively, teach them a cue that means "I have your favourite treats right here, right now." Use the amazing treats you discovered in Step 2 and pair them with a word or sound. I use "Hey!", but other people use a kissy sound, or clicked fingers, or "Oi!". Start at home, and every time you say the word, wait for your animal to look at you and then feed them the amazing treat. Do this a lot. Until when you say the world they whirl towards you. This can sometimes help you get your foot in the door once you are out in the world again by getting their attention.</div>
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Remember not to ask much of your animal at first. Be a good bet. All they need do is look at you when you say their name and you can reward that. If you ask for a sit, expect a one second sit and reward it if you get it. You can work up to more attention and longer sits later. To begin with this is all about teaching your animal that you frequently have good things for them, so it's worth their while to keep track of you and listen to you. If you can get their attention you're 90% there.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-71585556998418945812013-12-10T15:12:00.000+11:002014-03-02T12:28:25.938+11:00NILIF - Nothing In Life Is Free<div style="background-color: white; color: #1b0500; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Nothing In Life Is Free, or NILIF is a phrase that according to Karen Overall was originally coined by veterinary behaviourist Victoria Voith, although Bill Campbell had a similar concept at around the same time. Since then various trainers and behaviourists have developed variations on the NILIF concept, which is still in broad use. Why it is still in use after all this time is because it is a valuable protocol, but perhaps is sometimes misunderstood as it seems harsh and regimental. This article describes NILIF and what it does.<br />
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The Protocol</h3>
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The idea of NILIF is that whenever your dog wants something, they must perform a particular behaviour before you give it to them. Usually a sit or down is used because it is a stationary behaviour that is incompatible with things like jumping up, so you are setting your dog up to do a lot of polite sits. If your dog wants to go out, they should sit first. If they are to get food, their leash on for a walk, or their leash off at the dog park, sit first. If they want affection or attention, sit first. Before they get to do anything they enjoy or want to do they should sit. It does sound regimental, but think of it as the dog asking nicely, the way we teach our children to say 'please'. If the dog doesn't sit, you don't have to make them. Assume they don't want what is on offer after all and walk away. Try again in 10 seconds or so. If they still won't do it, walk away again and leave it at that. They will quickly learn to just do it the first time, and then they will start doing it before you even ask them to.</div>
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The degree to which you implement NILIF is up to you. Most people believe that some things in life should be free, like water, and shelter. Others believe things like affection and going out to toilet should also be free. Really it depends on the dog. If you have a dog that is very opportunistic and pushy, you may want to use stricter NILIF than if you have a dog that is laid back and mellow. If you have a dog that rarely seeks your attention you may want to give them attention for free to encourage them to seek it more often. This protocol is quite flexible. It can be Some Things In Life Are Free or Many Things In Life Are Free or Occasional Things In Life Are Free. Read through the next section on why it works to decide the level you want to use.<br />
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How NILIF Helps</h3>
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NILIF can help with a broad range of problems, as it offers a dog several things.</div>
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1) Predictability - The dog knows when good things will happen and that they will be able to get them. This is particularly helpful for a nervous or soft dog, as predictability = security. It takes pressure off them as they don't have to guess what you want of them. For these dogs you may want to adjust how much is for free depending on how nervous they are. Very nervous dogs will probably really appreciate a strict structure because it takes all the guesswork out of their lives, but you may want to let them have things for free that they are cautious about seeking.</div>
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2) Control - NILIF also gives dogs a sense of control while simultaneously giving actual control to the humans. This is good for dogs because control makes dogs feel secure and confident. It is good for humans because the dog will not try to take what they want. Instead they will sit quietly to 'ask' for it, which means they will be reinforced for good, calm, controlled behaviour and will not get the opportunity to do things you don't want them to do, like snatching or jumping up. This benefits all dogs, but is particularly important for those whirlwind youngsters that can do six dismaying things in the time it takes you to think what to do about the first one.</div>
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3) Deference - NILIF teaches dogs to get into the habit of checking with you and giving you priority access to resources. In other words, they are content to let you decide who gets what when. This means they will be less likely to become aggressive if they don't get what they want, or if you try to make them do something. This helps dogs that tend to be controlling to relax and let the people take care of things.</div>
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4) Trust and Reliability - NILIF teaches dogs that they probably want to do what you ask them to do. Rather than thinking about whether they really want to come to you and sit right now, they tend to assume if you asked them it will probably turn out well for them if they do it. Great for dogs that are independent or stubborn.<br />
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5) Impulse Control - You can use NILIF to teach your dog to control their impulses once your dog knows the game well enough that they don't need to be told to sit anymore. All you do is wait for your dog to 'ask' for something by sitting. When you have something they want, wait quietly for them to think for themselves how to get it. A sit often works for them if you have used NILIF, so sooner or later they should decide to give it a go. This is excellent because if they were being impulsive they would jump around like a lunatic or try to snatch. Instead, they can think through the problem and control their urges to bounce and grab and instead do something calm and controlled. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BP3zWcCdijU/UqaUXXl3gqI/AAAAAAAAAF4/3z-jALlZgFw/s1600/Erik+downs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BP3zWcCdijU/UqaUXXl3gqI/AAAAAAAAAF4/3z-jALlZgFw/s1600/Erik+downs.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Erik performs a down at the river to 'ask' for a treat. </td></tr>
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So that's NILIF in a nutshell. It's good practice for all dogs to ask nicely for some things, like their dinner and waiting to go out a door because it helps them stay calm at times when they may normally be very excitable. But a more extensive use of NILIF gives dogs structure and puts them in your control, and that can help with all kinds of problems. As a general rule of thumb, the more extreme a dog's behaviour regardless of what it is, the more they may benefit from NILIF. Just remember not to push the matter, as it may put you in direct confrontation with your dog, and that is exactly what NILIF is supposed to help you avoid. You're not <b>making</b> them listen to you, you are gently showing them how it benefits them to listen to you.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-68604509700756371952013-12-10T15:07:00.001+11:002013-12-10T19:33:53.224+11:00Behavioural Medication<div style="background-color: white; color: #1b0500; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Animals, just like people, can sometimes find themselves unable to cope with aspects of their life, either temporarily or long-term. This may be because they have been subject to a traumatic experience, chronic stress, panic attacks, ongoing states of anxiety, or it may be more complicated than that. Like some people, some pets may just find everyday events difficult to cope with, have trouble controlling their responses to things, or tend to over-react or be overwhelmed. They may be particularly sensitive or have phobias that prevent them from functioning normally at times. But pets, like people that have these problems, don't have to suffer. We can treat them, and sometimes psychotropic medication is a very appropriate way to do that and will improve their quality of life. Sadly, it seems there is a stigma around mental illness in humans, and something similar exists for animals. Many people consider this medication to be an absolute last resort, as if there are many options they should try first. This is interesting when you consider how readily we often accept medication as a first port of call for physical ailments. Why the leery avoidance of behavioural medication, in some cases even after a veterinary behaviourist has diagnosed an anxiety disorder, phobia, or other emotional illness? Here are a few reasons that seem to come up regularly.</div>
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1) <i>I don't want to change my dog or cat's personality.</i> Are you your moods? Your pet's personality is not something set in stone as it is a beautifully complex and adaptable thing, but it is not so affected by brain chemistry that making a small adjustment to how the brain functions is going to completely change who your pet is so that they are unrecognisable. Rather, you are clearing the way for their personality to shine through their anxiety, phobias, or compulsive behaviour. If they are zonked out and not very responsive, the dose or medication is not right.</div>
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2) <i>Medication doesn't teach them anything; it just treats symptoms.</i> This assumes the animal is often in a state where they CAN learn. This is not necessarily true. It also assumes the problem can be solved by simply training the correct behaviour. Also not necessarily true. Emotional responses are not isolated from each other. There is ongoing emotional feedback that influences mood and how the animal sees the world. See the <a href="http://www.creatureteacher.com.au/Science.php">articles on emotional states in training</a> for more information. Strong emotional responses override attempts to train behaviours. The medication will help address the emotional response so that training can be effective. It's not one or the other. They should go hand in hand.</div>
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3) <i>Behavioural medication is over-prescribed, often used by people who can't handle the animal they have.</i> This shifts the focus unfairly away from the animal, who may not be able to handle the life they have. Why should they suffer more than everyone else when there is medication available that can make them feel better? Most likely some animals are prescribed medication as a management measure because their owners can't cope with them. This may not be the disaster it sounds like. After all, this is about their welfare, not pet owner abilities.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oArG7pxcz3A/UqaSpEw1hkI/AAAAAAAAAFs/-R31hF0M9CM/s1600/Erik.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oArG7pxcz3A/UqaSpEw1hkI/AAAAAAAAAFs/-R31hF0M9CM/s1600/Erik.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erik is a great dog, highly trained, very obedient. He is on fluoxetine (Prozac) as he is prone to getting overwhelmed, which makes life for him stressful. The medication helps keep his emotional responses moderate so he can be his best and happiest self. </td></tr>
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The psychological reasons why we might avoid behavioural medication may be more significant, and many of these may come down to cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when our ideals contradict reality. It makes us feel icky and conflicted. We don't like it and strive to resolve it. We resolve it either by justifying our ideals and beliefs in this new context, for example, with reasons not to medicate, or we discard those old ideals and beliefs and adopt new ones based on new experiences and information. The latter is extremely difficult for many people! See the <a href="http://creatureteacherblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/a-bias-smorgasbord.html" target="_blank">article on cognitive biases </a>to understand why. We are just not wired to discard beliefs we have held for a while. Here are some possible sources of cognitive dissonance related to behavioural medication in pets.</div>
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1) <b>Surely my pet is not THAT sick.</b> This comes up with people with mental illnesses as well. Perhaps we feel that we should be in control of our own behaviour and so should our animals, yet if we medicate a behavioural problem, are we taking their control away? It must be really serious for medication. But this has been going on for months. Maybe years. You pride yourself on being a good owner and taking your pet to the vet right away when they are unwell. It's okay! You are not a bad owner. You just don't know everything. Focus on the future. You are going to overcome all your reservations and hang-ups so you can give your pet this extra help. That makes you a good owner.</div>
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2) <b>I'm a good trainer. A good trainer would be able to fix this with training.</b> This is a big one for some dog owners. There is some confusion about what training can and can't do. As above, their ability to learn may be compromised without the support of the medication. Furthermore, your skill as a trainer is really a moot point. However skilled or unskilled you are, you are all your dog has. If that is not enough, your job is to recognise that so you can get your dog help now. You could be the best trainer on the planet and still not be 'good enough' to train an animal to alter their brain chemistry. If the medication helps, not only will training be much easier and more effective, but what training you have already done will come to the fore more often. Your dog is trying to be a good dog. They're just up against emotional states that are bigger than the both of you. When the medication is making that emotional problem much smaller and more manageable, your training will emerge like a beach when the tide recedes.</div>
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3) <b>He's been much better lately. I think we are making progress. </b>Don't think, know. See the end of the <a href="http://www.creatureteacher.com.au/Bias.php">bias article</a>. Be very careful with this one. It is so easy to accept a very high baseline for 'normal' behaviour because that is what you usually see. If the animal is typically anxious and highly emotionally reactive, does this mean that if you see a small improvement the animal is no longer struggling to cope?</div>
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So when should you consider behavioural medication? Well, that's something you should discuss with a veterinary behaviourist. As a general rule, I would recommend a veterinary behaviourist when the animal is significantly stressed on a daily basis, when they are having panic attacks related to phobias or separation, and when they are engaging in behaviours so obsessively that it is impacting on their ability to function normally or is causing them harm. In short, when your animal's quality of life is diminished because of what they are going through. Remember that behavioural medication is not an exact science. If one medication doesn't work as hoped, don't be afraid to discuss adjusting doses or changing the medication. Just like people, individual dogs and cats can respond differently to the same psychotropic medication. Give it a proper chance.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-6074663195690207372013-12-10T14:57:00.000+11:002013-12-10T19:34:34.716+11:00A Bias Smorgasbord<span style="color: #1b0500;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After 3 1/2 years of studying cognitive bias in dogs, this has become a deep and abiding passion. Biases are fascinating and mind-bogglingly prevalent. They help us in many ways, but sometimes they are profoundly unhelpful. This article discusses just some of the many cognitive biases that have been documented in humans. If we know about some of the main offenders, we can decide for ourselves whether to let our biases help us or reject them as a hindrance.</span></span><br />
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A healthy dose of skepticism is one of the best things you can cultivate when it comes to caring for and training your animals. The reason why is because it is astonishing how what we come to believe can be twisted and warped by bias. And most of the time we have no idea it's happening. The training world is full of ideas that were formed through bias and then supported by bias until they come to represent fact purely on the basis that a lot of people have said it, and some of them sounded like they knew what they were talking about, or were perhaps professionals.</div>
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Firstly, it's important to understand that the decisions we make are based on risk assessment. All the biases described below are most likely to occur when the consequences of being wrong are less risky than the consequences of being right. There is a great paper by Haselton and Nettle (2006) that explains this concept in terms of natural selection.</div>
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Brace yourselves for a reality check, folks. Generally people have inflated views of themselves, being quite optimistic and considering themselves more in control of events than they are likely to be (Taylor and Brown, 1988; Roese and Olson 2007). Our first question of ourselves in training should be are we as good at it as we think we are? Will we truly see the details we imagine we would see? Is the change in behaviour we think we see real and is it a result of our training? As we explore some of the biases we are subject to, the answer to that last question may become more and more uncertain.</div>
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Where events are random to some degree, people believe they have more control over the flow of events than they do in reality, creating an illusion of control (Alloy and Abramson 1979). We develop rituals and a strong belief in our ability to control events (Matute, 1994, 1995). This is where superstitions come in, and, incidentally, obsessive/compulsive behaviours. Animal behaviour is not random, but it is extremely complex and there can be an element of uncontrollability. We should be very careful how much of an animal's behaviour we attribute to our actions. Remember that when we are training an animal, our behaviour is still subject to reinforcement. If the animal does what we intended it to do, it's part of our nature to attribute that to something we did and so we do it again. And once we think we are creating an effect, we will do just about anything to find support for our continued belief in that effect. This is called confirmation bias, where we seek or interpret evidence in ways that support existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand (Nickerson 1998). For example, success with a training method once may lead to an inflated belief of its effectiveness. You will see success where it doesn't really exist and fail to see problems with the method when they do exist. One obvious reason for this is the desire to find a hypothesis correct or incorrect, usually because people like being right. We'll do just about anything to make sure we are right! Not only do we look specifically for evidence to support us, but we tend to ignore or even avoid evidence that goes against an already held belief (Koriat et al. 1980). Confirmation bias may include selective testing of a hypothesis that will fail to test both sides of the story (Wason, 1960), paying more attention to positive evidence than negative evidence (e.g. Gilovich 1983), and seeing what you are looking for or expect (e.g. Foster et al. 1976). People often draw conclusions early on in a process and then seek evidence to support those conclusions, which is known as the primacy effect (Anderson 1965). What's more, once a belief is formed, it tends to be very resistant to change even in the face of strong evidence against it (e.g. Ross and Leper 1975), and we are entirely likely to take information unrelated to the hypothesis at all as evidence for our continued belief (Pitz 1969)!</div>
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On top of this, we have other odd little biases to contend with. We tend to think we are less biased than everyone else (Bias Blind Spot) (e.g. Pronin et al. 2002), which is just gloriously ironic. And we tend to prefer immediate pay-offs over long-term pay-offs (Hyperbolic Discounting) (Green and Myerson 1996 for review) which reminds me of that sublime split second in which a dog pauses in its barking after you shout at it. There's the Mere Exposure Effect, where people prefer things they are familiar with, particularly at a sub-conscious level (Bornstein and D'Agostino 1992), and Negativity Bias, where people pay more attention to negative than positive experiences (e.g. Rozin 2001). And lastly, perhaps the most insidious of biases, Inattentional Blindness, where we just don't see what we're not looking for (see Simons 2004 for a decent review). There are some good videos on YouTube that will demonstrate this. It's a lot of fun and very enlightening, so look them up. Do a search for "inattentional blindness" or "change blindness". The most well known example is embedded below. The things we think we will notice we often don't. That goes for small details and major changes. This could hurt both our training effectiveness and our assessments of the welfare of animals we are training.</div>
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These human biases are NOT defects, they are adaptations. We all do it, even scientists. Scientists have just had it drilled into them to look for bias and always try to find something more concrete than their own interpretation of events. Remember that biases have all run through the natural selection gauntlet and ultimately benefit us in many circumstances. They are often like cognitive shortcuts that help us use our experiences to find patterns and make decisions where we don't have a lot of information. But they can be real pitfalls in training and interpreting behaviour. Our animals are at the mercy of our decisions and interpretations, and the way we make decisions and interpret events is coloured by our biases. We can easily be led astray by our natural tendencies to be biased, and our animals may suffer for it.</div>
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When trying to prove something scientifically, the general rule is numbers don't lie (although interpreting numbers puts us squarely back in bias wonderland). Our animals can't tell us directly when we are wrong about them, but they can often tell us indirectly. Count the occurrences of behaviour within a set timeframe to determine whether it is increasing or decreasing or staying the same. Calculate success rate. There is a photo of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1416639575216234&set=a.1416639571882901.1073741828.1414607215419470&type=1&theater">a simple success rate counter</a> on the Creature Teacher Facebook page. Get a stopwatch. Record unwanted behaviour in a diary. Familiarise yourself with an ethogram for your species or make one for your animal. Look for the behaviours in your ethogram, even when you don't expect to see them. That's what we do to convince ourselves in science. It's actually not that hard on a small scale for a layperson, and my guess is it will be a real eye opener. Start with one behaviour at a time and do lots of watching. I think it's a bit more kind to yourself than becoming your own biggest skeptic, which I guess is the second best thing you can do to keep yourself honest.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. 1979. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/528910">Judgment of contingency in depressed and non-depressed subjects: Sadder but wiser?</a> Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 443-479.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Anderson, N.H. 1965. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/2/1/1/">Primacy effects in personality impression formation using a generalized order effect paradigm.</a> Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2(1): 1-9.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bornstein, R. F., D'Agostino, P.R. 1992. <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/345/345%20Articles/Chapter%2006%20Bornstein%20&%20D'Agostino%20(1992).pdf">Stimulus recognition and the mere exposure effect.</a> Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 63(4).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Foster, G., Schmidt, C, & Sabatino, D. 1976. Teacher expectancies and the label "learning disabilities." Journal of Learning Disabilities, 9, 111-114.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Gilovich, T. 1983. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1984-00441-001">Biased evaluation and persistence in gambling.</a> Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 1110-1126.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Green, L and Myerson, R. 1996. <a href="http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/4/496.full.pdf">Exponential Versus Hyperbolic Discounting of Delayed Outcomes: Risk and Waiting Time.</a> American Zoologist 36(4): 496-505.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Haselton, M.G., Nettle, D. 2006. <a href="http://psr.sagepub.com/content/10/1/47.short">The paranoid optimist: An integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases.</a> Personality and Social Psychology Review 10(1):47.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Koriat, A., Lichtenstein, S., & Fischhoff, B. 1980. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xlm/6/2/107/">Reasons for confidence.</a> Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 107-118.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Matute, H. 1994. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023969084710125">Learned helplessness and superstitious behavior as opposite effects of uncontrollable reinforcement.</a> Learning and Motivation, 25, 216-232.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Matute, H. 1995. Human reactions to unavoidable outcomes: Further evidence for superstitions rather than helplessness. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 48, 142-157.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nickerson, R. 1998 <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175%3E">Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises.</a> Review of General Psychology 2(2):175-220.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Pitz, G. F. 1969. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/cep/23/1/24/">An inertia effect (resistance to change) in the revision of opinion.</a> Canadian Journal of Psychology, 23, 24-33.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Pronin, E., Lin, D.Y., Ross, L. 2002. <a href="http://psych.princeton.edu/psychology/research/pronin/pubs/The%20Bias%20Blind.PDF">The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others.</a>Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(3):369-381.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ross, L, Lepper, M.R., and Hubbard, M. 1975. <a href="http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:9LX4BjqqussJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5">Perseverance in Self-Perception and Social Perception: Biased Attributional Processes in the Debriefing Paradigm </a>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1975, Vol. 32, No. 5, 880-802</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Roese, N.J., Olson, J.M. 2007. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2429993/">Better, Stronger, Faster: Self-Serving Judgment, Affect Regulation, and the Optimal Vigilance Hypothesis.</a> Perspectives on Psychological Science 2 (2): 124-141</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Rozin, P. 2001. <a href="https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/rozin/files/negbias198pspr2001pap.pdf">Negative bias, negativity dominance, and contagion.</a> Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (5)4: 296-320.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Simons, D. 2000. <a href="http://invibe.net/biblio_database_dyva/woda/data/att/61a3.file.pdf">Attentional capture and inattentional blindness.</a> Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(4): 147-155.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. 1988. <a href="http://taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/1988_Illusion%20and%20well-being_A%20social%20psychological%20perspective%20on%20mental%20health.pdf">Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health.</a> Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-201.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wason, P. C. 1960. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470216008416717#.UjbWUWQmmZY">On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task.</a> Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 14, 246-249.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3938729124943737357.post-59258912835984797342013-12-10T14:50:00.002+11:002014-01-20T09:30:19.505+11:00What is an Animal Behaviourist?<div style="background-color: white; color: #1b0500; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
In Australia, anyone can call themselves a dog behaviourist or animal behaviourist, or a dog trainer, animal communicator, dog behaviour consultant, or any variation of those terms, for that matter. It is unsurprising that there is a large variety in skill and knowledge among those calling themselves dog behaviourists or animal behaviourists. This makes it very difficult to know who to contact for help when your dog or other pet has a behavioural problem or needs training. This article explains differences in qualifications in Australia and what they mean.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dog behaviourist, dog trainer, animal behaviourist, behaviour consultant, behaviour specialist... So many names.</td></tr>
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Certification</h3>
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There are a couple of places where someone can get a Certificate III or IV in dog training and behaviour. These are recognised as advanced post-secondary qualifications in Australia. There are other similar qualifications that can be obtained overseas. They are not recognised in Australia. Practically, this means they may be better or worse than a Certificate III or IV. To find out you will have to research what the courses leading to the qualifications involve and compare it to Australian recognised courses. The National Dog Trainers Federation (NDTF) and Delta are the two main schools in Australia that train dog trainers. The main difference between them is Delta deliberately avoids using punishment and NDTF does not necessarily.<br />
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Tertiary Qualifications</h3>
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Generally someone in Australia calling themselves a dog trainer or behaviourist and possessing a relevant tertiary qualification has a Bachelor degree. Bachelor degrees give graduates a broad knowledge base they can apply to specific situations and are internationally recognised. A Bachelor degree with honours signifies advanced knowledge and skills beyond that of a straight Bachelor degree. In science or psychology this usually involves a research project. A Masters or PhD comes after honours, and again in science and psychology which are the most relevant fields to animal behaviour and training, usually involve a longer and more involved research project. A PhD is the highest qualification that can be obtained in Australia.<br />
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Veterinary Behaviourist</h3>
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A Veterinary Behaviourist holds a degree in veterinary medicine and usually a post-graduate degree in animal behaviour. Veterinary Behaviourists in Australia have undertaken rigorous assessment by exam. This guarantees a high level of minimum knowledge AND experience. Veterinary Behaviourists are skilled in identifying the causes of behaviour problems and can prescribe medication that will help more than training alone. In some cases this medical support is the difference between success and failure.<br />
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So... which do I need?</h3>
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Training animals to do basic behaviours is not necessarily difficult. Anyone can learn how to do it and many people without qualifications of any kind are good at it. Those with background knowledge of how animals learn are likely to be successful. Anyone with a dog training qualification will certainly possess the bare minimum of this background knowledge.</div>
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Behavioural problems can get a lot more complicated, particularly when the behaviour is motivated by something other than obvious rewards or punishments, or is influenced by several factors. For this reason, it is often asserted that a behaviourist should have a relevant advanced tertiary degree like a Masters or PhD. But what does that give you that a certificate doesn't?</div>
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a) Detailed, extensive knowledge of animal behaviour. There is no way you can learn in 1-2 years of a certificate-level course what you can learn in 6-7 years of university-level study.</div>
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b) A scientific background, which will aid immeasurably in identifying the source of the problem, being able to test assumptions, and staying free from bias, thus giving pets their best chance at better behaviour without compromising welfare. See <a href="http://www.creatureteacher.com.au/index.php?page=philosophy">Creature Teacher's philosophy</a> for more information, and the <a href="http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2013/12/a-bias-smorgasbord.html" target="_blank">article on biases.</a></div>
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So in conclusion, it depends on what your problem is. Ultimately qualifications just tell us the minimum knowledge someone has. If you need help with training particular behaviours, or discouraging common problem behaviours like pulling on leash and jumping up, a trainer with a Certificate III or IV will possess the knowledge required to do that at least. If your dog is displaying behaviour that may be driven by emotion or excitability, or your animal is not a dog, someone with tertiary qualifications preferably advanced ones such as a PhD should have the knowledge required for that. If your dog's behaviour is driven by anxiety or fear or some other emotional imbalance, you should see a Veterinary Behaviourist. The difficulty is in identifying what the problem is before seeing a professional. It may appear to be a simple problem but be much more complex in reality. A trainer with a Certificate may or may not be able to identify this. A behaviourist with an advanced degree will be able to identify that, but will not be able to help with medication. A Veterinary Behaviourist will be able to identify that and be able to prescribe medication that will help.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12592861490751144074noreply@blogger.com0