Dogs

Will using rewards make my dog constantly look for food?’

Owners are often worried that if they use reward-based training for puppies, they are encouraging them only to behave well within sight of food. This is not true. Reward-based training begins with rewarding the desired behaviour every time it occurs and connecting the command to the behaviour.

Verbal praise is also given with a food reward. Once the behaviour has been learned, the food rewards are given intermittently and finally can be phased out entirely if you wish. This is because your verbal praise is automatically associated with the food reward and becomes an adequate reward in itself. Simply put, the food is a primary reinforcement and your voice a secondary reinforcement

To own a well-adjusted, well-behaved dog with which you can enjoy and share life requires a considerable investment of time and energy on your part. It is important to prepare yourself as much as possible prior to purchasing it. Keeping up to date on the latest information on dog training and behaviour will enable you to gain an under­standing of what to expect from your dog as it grows and develops, much as you do when rearing a child. If you are diligent with training, particularly in the first two years of its life, you will reap the rewards of a well-behaved companion that is a joy to own. Remember, though, to be realistic in your expectations and prepare to forgive mistakes and celebrate achievements.

TRAINERS

Trainers are those who run dog-obedience schools. Some of these people have certificates in dog training from recognized training schools using modern approved methods.

However, there are many people who have set up as trainers with little or no formal qualification, and others who are still using obsolete training methods based on punishment. Make sure you approach an approved trainer. Bear in mind, though, that although they can address your dog’s unruly behaviour, they are not equipped to advise on aggression and barking, and are not qualified to deal with anxiety-based disorders.

This is an excessive training method that has been shown to be nothing more than a pointless act of cruelty. It involves grabbing the puppy and holding it on its back while staring directly into its eyes, until it stops wriggling and crying and gives up. Trainers will tell you that this is how bitches deal with naughty puppies. This is not true. Bitches don’t have the hands to physically inflict this on the puppy.

This sort of treatment can either make the puppy scared of its owner or more aggressive. People who do this to adult dogs to assert their dominance are in serious danger of being badly bitten. Biting in puppies should be redirected to a toy and/or the time-out method used as described.

Does my dog know when he has done wrong, because when I come home he looks really guilty and I think he expects to be punished?’

Studies have proven that dogs do not remember having done something wrong earlier in the day as their association span between the ‘crime’ and the corrective measure is less than three seconds. The dog that has soiled the carpet or chewed a piece of furniture does not think to itself ‘oh no, here comes Mum. I’m really going to be in trouble for making a mess.’

It will not make any association with what it has done earlier in the day and your reaction on finding the mess. It will not understand why you are pointing and yelling, but will slink away in response to your body language, confused and upset by your behaviour. There is no point in punishing a dog in this situation.

VETERINARY ANIMAL BEHAVIOURISTS

Experts with a veterinary degree and further qualifications in the field of animal behaviour, are fully versed in the use of medication with behavioural modification and have In-depth knowledge of neurophysiology.

Veterinary animal behaviourists are qualified to assess whether an animal is neurologically abnormal and are able to prescribe appropriate treatment if it is. They are the equivalent of human psychiatrists.

Early Training – Getting It Right

The best way to discipline your dog is to enroll it in puppy preschool. Many veter­inary practices are now running puppy preschools and these, if well managed, are invaluable because they allow puppies to socialize with other puppies and people, and they enable you to start training your dog from as early as seven weeks of age.

A good puppy preschool should not be a free-for-all with large numbers of uncon­trolled puppies and children nor should it be a boring, regimented military camp. It should wherever possible, combine super­vised off-lead socialization with short periods of individual instruction on basic training. As the class progresses the training should also be practised in a group situation.

Reward-Based Training – Positive Reinforcement

Training should be based on positive reinforcement, not punishment. Reward-based training using food treats is, in my opinion, the best way to train puppies as they are very food-oriented at this stage in their life and are open to learning new things.

In reward-based training, the puppy receives a food treat the moment it performs a desirable behaviour. It is a also praised verbally at the same time. For example, to teach a puppy to sit, a treat is held just in front of its nose and when it shows interest, the treat is moved up and back­wards so that in reaching up and back for the treat, the puppy automatically sits. The ‘sir command is given at this time and when the puppy achieves the position, the treat is released and the puppy is verbally praised. Using this technique, puppies learn to sit happily on command very quickly, sometimes within minutes!

Stay away from classes run by control freaks who physically force puppies to sit by pulling their necks up and pushing their bottoms down, or who get them to lie down by pulling their legs out from under them while pulling down on their collars. This is not acceptable in training. Physically forcing puppies to behave in certain ways can be psychologically and sometimes physically damaging.

EQUIPMENT
There is a range of training aids and equipment  available. Some of it is excellent while the rest is totally inappropriate.

The Head Collar
This is a wonderful training aid. It is similar to a horse halter, allowing your dog freedom to pant, drink and bark if it wants to while giving you full control of its head. The head collar is also designed to mimic the way a bitch controls her puppies by putting gentle pressure around the muzzle and behind the ears. Most dogs visibly relax and are more controlled when wearing a head collar.

Head collars should be correctly fitted. Your veterinary staff should be able to help you do this. It is usually a good idea to fit the head collar and take the dog straight out for a walk. Some dogs will paw at the collar when it is first put on and may rub their faces on the ground. They soon forget about it however, and by the end of the walk are quite comfortable with the

Choker chains
These have been used for years in training. They are based on negative reinforcement. If the dog pulls, the chain tightens and causes discomfort. If he stops pulling the discomfort goes away. Eventually, the sound of the chain slipping is enough to make the dog stop whatever he was about to do in anticipation of discomfort. The problem is that inexperienced people tend not to use the chain correctly and the dog does not learn to make the connection. The result is a dog pulling hard on a chain that is tightening around its neck. Chains used in this way can cause serious damage to the dog’s airway.

Dogs should never be tied up in a choker as they can     strangle themselves should they panic for some reason.    Nor should they ever be held up in the air on the choker as is advocated by some trainers. This method, which was a cruel and potentially damaging UK army training method, is now discredited

No-Pull Harnesses
These are designed to restrict the dog’s forelimbs when it pulls. They are effective in some dogs. Usually they are used on dogs that cannot wear a head collar. It is important to check regularly for chafing under the forelegs.

Problem barking should always be assessed by a behaviorist. Never use any sort of anti-bark collar without expert advice. There are reasons why your dog barks and a suitable modification programme should be implemented. There are occasions where an anti-bark collar may be used tem­porarily as part of a behaviour- modification programme.

There are several types of anti-bark collar available: citronella collars that deliver a spray of citronella every time the dog barks, air-shot collars that deliver a blast of cold air rather than citronella and electric collars that deliver an electric shock.

In my opinion there is no place for electric dog collars in behavioural medicine. They are barbaric. Imagine how you would feel if you were to receive an electric shock each time you tried to speak.

Dogs are given no recourse to alternative behaviour. In fact, they are often left alone and unobserved during the day, wearing the corrective collar while their owners are at work. As a result, many of them end up as quivering wrecks, hiding under beds and shaking when their owners arrive home because they do not understand what is happening to them. These symptoms are exacerbated for dogs suffering from anxiety-based disorders.

Remote-controlled electric collars are used by some trainers to control dogs that chase livestock or cars. They should only be used by a n experienced person, and then only in extreme circumstances, however, there’s no guarantee that the dog won’t revert to its former behaviour

based disorders. These collars deliver a spray of citronella into the dog’s face whenever it barks. Some dogs become nauseated and vomit, others learn to ignore the spray and yet others stop barking while wearing the collar, but soon start again when it is removed.

Air-shot collars automatically emit a short jet of very cold gas in response to a loud bark. The sudden release of this gas causes an unpleasant mild to severe tactile sensation under the dog’s chin in and a hissing noise that momentarily startles it. These collars can also be operated by remote control, which makes them useful in modifying car chasing behaviour.

Punishment is the use of an aversive stimulus in response to undesirable behaviour in order to decrease the likelihood of that particular action being repeated. If punishment is to be used, it must be appropriate in type and intensity, and must occur within seconds of the performance of the undesirable behaviour. It must also be followed by a command that enables an alternative action to be performed. For example, if your dog is jumping up at the bench to steal food and ignores the command ‘no’ followed by ‘come’, squirt him with a water pistol or use a foghorn to startle him. Then immediately ask him to sit, then to come and sit beside you. Reward his good behaviour with a pat. It is never acceptable to physically punish a dog by beating it.

Continue with your training after puppy school. Keep practising everything you have learned daily. If you are interested in agility or other areas of training, ask your veterinary surgeon to recommend a good training class. These classes usually start the puppies at six months of age.

WHO TO CONTACT IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS

If you are experiencing behavioural problems with your puppy or dog, ask your veterinary surgeon to recommend someone who can help you The options are varied, a good trainer, an animal behaviourist, or a veterinary animal behaviourist, depending on the type and severity or your problem.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOURISTS

These experts have science degrees in behavioural zoology or behavioural science. They have an understanding of animal psychology and development and can assess and advise on behavioural problems. They are not veterinary surgeons and are not licensed to prescribe medication, rather they resemble psychologists in human medicine.

Police dogs are important members of the force. Their acute sense of smell is used to detect human scent and to follow a trail for long distances. The police force benefits from their natural predatory aggression and instinct to guard and protect by training them to apprehend suspects once they have been tracked down. They are taught how to avoid injury by taking hold of the weapon-bearing arm of a suspect. Many police officers have a police dog to thank for saving them from injury or death.

RESCUE DOGS

Dogs are used for search and rescue in natural disasters such as earthquakes and avalanches where people may be trapped beneath snow or rubble and are undetectable to rescuers on the surface.

Having an acute sense of hearing and smell, dogs can detect trapped people and will alert searchers to their presence. These dogs also need a high play drive to remain motivated to perform this work. They are taught scent discrimination and they learn how to fetch and locate a handler buried in snow or under debris. When they locate the person, they receive an ecstatic greeting from their owner and lots of praise.

These dogs have to learn to ride on snowmobiles and need to become familiarized with being dropped down or winched up by helicopters. It is a lot to ask of them, but they do it well and willingly.

FARM DOGS

Working dogs on farms are important extensions of their owners. Sheep dogs are invaluable in finding individual sheep, bringing them together and driving flocks.

During the training process their natural instincts to round up and drive prey animals are exploited but they are selectively bred and trained so that the predatory aspect of this behaviour is not carried through to an overt attack.

Dogs can move large numbers of sheep over long distances and rough terrain. The task would take people far longer and could even prove impossible. These dogs, however, have an amazing ability to weigh up a situation and to predict an outcome.

While working on a sheep farm as a student I was sent to bring a flock of sheep down to the yards with a young dog which was in training. The sheep were difficult to move and kept breaking away and running back up the hill. Jack, an experienced dog belonging to the farmer, suddenly ran towards me, rounded up the mob and took them through to the yards. There was no one else around. He had summed up the situation and acted to remedy the problem.

Billy loves riding in the car and motivates Vera to drive co the beach or to one of the parks. In this way, the little dog has helped Vera regain her physical and mental health.

It is nonsense to say that a person is too old to own a dog because they might die leaving it homeless. The sensible thing to do is to make provision for its ongoing care should this be necessary. ‘In fact, no matter what age an owner is, thought should always be given to a dog’s ongoing care in case of the owner’s death by accident or illness.

Increasingly, young couples delay having a family or elect not to have children at all. For them a dog is often a child substitute, something that they can care for and nurture together. It can be taken on walks, outings to the beach or the park, or even to the cafe. It needs to be bathed and fed and can be bought toys and collars.

When a pet is lost through death by illness or accident, people go through a grieving process equivalent to that experienced by the loss of a human family member. Pets also grieve when they lose an owner or a companion pet. They often become very depressed, go off their food, and spend time sitting in areas that the pet or person frequented. They need a lot of love and attention and distractions to help them through their suffering.

In a strange way, seeing the pet grieve can help a bereaved partner get over her loss more rapidly. She wants to make the pet feel happier and thus makes the effort to do things for it, thereby taking her mind off her own grief.

GUIDE DOGS

Guide dogs make a wonderful difference to the lives of blind people. They learn to take their owners safely across roads, down stairs, onto transportation and to specific destinations such as shops or the doctor’s surgery, the dogs remember the routes associated with the destinations.

Guide dogs undergo very strict selection criteria and are intensively trained. It is a hard job for them to do as they must be constantly aware of their owner’s needs and safety.

They must not be distracted by sensory stimuli in their surroundings. Many fail the training course because they just cannot resist food on the street or because they are too protective of their handlers. They have to learn to modify their natural behaviour to suit their owner’s needs.

Those that pass the course do their jobs extremely well.

When they are in harness, they are in work mode when they are free of the harness they can behave naturally.

DEAF-ASSIST DOGS

These dogs are trained to alert their owners to everyday noises such as the doorbell, the telephone, the smoke alarm or something burning on the stove. These dogs are usually of a mixed breed and are often also rescue dogs.

Much of what they do builds on natural behaviour. Most dogs will bark when someone rings the doorbell, many of them will bark in response to the telephone and will become concerned at unusual sounds on the stove. These behaviours are encouraged and reinforced so that the dog learns to paw at and generally bother the owner to alert her to important sounds, and not give up until the owner has taken some action.

Increasingly, young couples delay having a family or elect not to have children at all. For them a dog is often a child substitute, something that they can care for and nurture together. It can be taken on walks, outings to the beach or the park, or even to the cafe. It needs to be bathed and fed and can be bought toys and collars.

When a pet is lost through death by illness or accident, people go through a grieving process equivalent to that experienced by the loss of a human family member. Pets also grieve when they lose an owner or a companion pet. They often become very depressed, go off their food, and spend time sitting in areas that the pet or person frequented. They need a lot of love and attention and distractions to help them through their suffering.

In a strange way, seeing the pet grieve can help a bereaved partner get over her loss more rapidly. She wants to make the pet feel happier and thus makes the effort to do things for it, thereby taking her mind off her own grief.

DETECTING DISEASE BY DOGS

There are reports that dogs can detect cancer. As yet there is insufficient scientific data to verify this absolutely, but there are some interesting repot on the topic.

Once of the earliest reports as published in the 1989 edition of the lancet, an international journal of medical science and practice. A border Collie cross belonging to a British women repeatedly sniffed a mole on her owner’s leg. She even tired to bite it off. The women eventually decided to have the mole checked and it was diagnosed as a melanoma.

In another report a Labrador took excessive interest in a lesion on its owner’s leg. It turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma.

A dermatologist, Armand Congetta, was fascinated by this and worked with a police dog handler to train dogs to locate tissue samples containing melanomas. They achieved close to a 100 per cent detection rate. Other research are exploring the possibility of training dogs to detect prostate cancer by sniffing urine samples.

Because the social structure of the dog pack is so similar to the human social structure, it is relatively easy for dogs and humans to live closely, communicate effectively and to form strong bonds. Many dogs fulfill vital roles in our lives, providing protection, companionship and to those who are elderly and alone, a reason for living. They fulfill the role of surrogate children for many couples, and for those with a disability, help them lead more fulfilling lives. Dogs are now not only guiding the blind, but are also acting as ears for the deaf, hands and feet for the physically disabled and offering advanced warnings of seizures in epileptics. Dog’s patrol our borders, detecting drugs, and work with police to help in the tracking down and arrest of criminals. They detect bombs and rescue people trapped in fallen buildings or under avalanches, and so provide a constant source of help in our dire moments of need.

DISABILITY DOGS

Dogs are used increasingly to assist people with limited mobility. They are trained to open doors, fetch clothing fetch telephones, fetch walking sticks, fetch the mail and  even to load and unload washing machines and dryers.

Due to this assistance, these dogs make a huge difference to their owner’s lives, helping them to be partly independent of other humans: for some disabled people, the constant presence of a human helper is bad for their self-esteem, making them feel inadequate

The dog is both companion and helper and does not watch its owner with pity or condescension. In fact, the dogs seem to really enjoy their daily tasks and will often spontaneously bring objects to their owners which they think they might require.

It has recently been documented that some dogs seem to sense when their epileptic owners are going to have a seizure. It is as yet unclear just how they know this. It may be that the person’s scent changes or they may be picking up changes in electrical activity in their owner’s brain. It may even be as simple as subtle change in body language.

As yet there are no scientific studies confirming that dogs will alert consistently to every seizure, although there are owners who swear they do. Many owners describe how their dog often stares and paws at them, whines and generally behaves out of character.

Owners soon learn that if their dog behaves in this way, they are about to seizure and can then seek help, or sit or lie down so that they do not get hurt by falling with the onset of the fit.

The dogs, otherwise known as epilepsy-alert dogs, have an innate ability which is enhanced by training. The dog’s natural behaviour is reinforced and it is disciplined to do things such as fetch a pouch of medication or seek help. The dog also has to learn to trust other people to approach and assist its owner.

Epilepsy-alert dogs need to be strongly bonded to their owners. A dog that is kept outside and only has limited contact with its owner is unlikely to alert during the onset of a seizure or help its owner feel secure.

The training procedure for these dogs involves teaching them how to behave in public areas, namely, how to be calm and focused on their owner in a crowded restaurant or on public transport. It also teaches them to accept that other people carrying medical equipment may need to approach their extremely vulnerable owner in a rushed and threatening manner.

The alerting behaviour of the dogs is reinforced, and they have a daily practice routine that may involve fetching objects or finding a particular person who may assist their owner, such as a family member. Having a dog opens up a new world to people suffering from epilepsy.

When Jackie, an attractive, vivacious 78-year-old studying to become a social worker, was diagnosed with epilepsy, her world collapsed. She was having four seizures daily, and couldn’t drive, work or study. Her medication made her tired and depressed. She became afraid to venture outside.

Jackie’s father bought her a puppy as a companion. The Golden Retriever cross wham she named Zac was cute and fluffy and very bright. He became the centre of her world. When Zoc was about six months old, he began to behave in a difficult manner. He frequently jumped and pawed at Jackie, refusing to sit down, and at times knocking her over. The family was disappointed. Zac had been to training school and had done really well. Why was he behaving so badly now?

They decided if it didn’t stop they would have to find him a new home.

Jackie took Zac to an animal psychologist, who made the connection that here was a pattern to his behaviour Zac would begin behaving strangely 10 to 20 minutes before Jackie had a seizure. At all other times he would behave normally. Thus, each time he was alerting Jackie to on oncoming seizure.

They went to a special training school where Zac was taught to alert Jackie in a more controlled manner and Jackie learned to listen to him. He was 0150 taught to fetch her medication and to alert family members.

Jackie found that with many of her seizures, if she sat dawn and relaxed at the onset, they would be very mild, and pass quickly. Zac would alert her in time for her to achieve this. Having Zac changed Jackie’s life; she had the confidence to leave home and even finished her degree.

BORDER PATROL DOGS

These dogs are taught to detect the presence of drugs and foodstuffs on travelers and in their luggage. At first, the dogs are taught scent discrimination as a game, and then taught to apply this to work situations.

They learn to detect and then alert by sitting in front of the object or person carrying the forbidden goods. They are rewarded with a game and a lot of attention. Border-patrol dogs need to have a high play drive to be suitable for this type of work. They also need to be able to remain focused and be comfortable in crowded, noisy situations. These dogs are highly useful in keeping drug trafficking under control.