Article Two

………. Continued from Month One

Puppy school was fun and the group quickly became cohesive, we all graduated and went on to the advance sessions. Saturday mornings were a highlight in my week and Dobie became ecstatic as soon as the treat bag and harness came out of the cupboard. It was a social event for both dogs and owners and long after class finished the dogs could be seen playfully bounding around the field while we (the owners) shared stories from our week and exchanged dog tales.
 

I had been exposed to Agility in England and South Africa and my interest became renewed after seeing it on the television here in the United States. I motivated my very capable husband to build for us a tire jump and a couple of single jumps and was soon seen packing them into my car and rushing off to Waimea the following Saturday.

We all had fun and soon convinced Tammy to start an Agility Basic class that we could all stumble through together armed with new books and internet printed sheets. The weeks passed quickly and the dogs all progressed. We were soon advancing into the intermediate world of sequencing obstacles, go out and come in commands. By now I had several obstacles in my garden and Tammy with support from her Husband Alan had built professional looking equipment that we religiously set up each Saturday morning.

Then it happened. The more obsessed I became the worse Dobie performed.   Saturday mornings became a mixture of loud NO commands and time outs. Dobie seemed more interested in chasing around the field than performing any agility. When she did perform it was slow and sloppy. Her ears were down and she looked very unhappy. After long discussions with my husband who had witnessed this I decided to spend more time on long walks with Dobie and morning runs as she seemed to enjoy this so much more. Maybe my dog was not to be an agility dog and this was not a sport for us. I packed away our equipment and closed all of the books.

In January 2001 I attended a Two day Agility seminar in Hawi, Hawaii. The seminar was presented by Kathryn Horn a NADAC judge and professional agility trainer, and hosted by Elena Arnold owner of Assistant Dogs Hawaii, now a dear friend of mine. My girlfriend Leslie and I paid our dues and arrived in Hawi for the seminar on a very wet and chilly Saturday morning,

This proved to be a turning point in my agility life. Kathryn introduced us to Clicker training and the concept of Agility as a bonding exercise for owner and dog. NO commands disappeared and I found a new positive reinforcer in the old fashioned tennis ball. The two day seminar would have been worth every cent if I had paid double the published amount.

I came away with a high level of motivation, enrolled in two Academic courses, and educated myself on learning theory, operant conditioning and animal psychology.

I re-introduced Dobie to the Agility field. She advanced so quickly and so precisely using clicker training I could barely keep up with her as she ran the course. We never use the word NO and timeouts are a thing of the past. I have to manage our time carefully now as she will go forever, up, down over and around. I purchased more and more books and studied the theory of Agility training in an attempt to maintain our learning. Now we have truly bonded and deserve to call ourselves a team ……….. More next month.


1. Effects of domestication

Let’s start by looking at the structure of a dog; you may not even know the difference between the brisket and the hock. This is Liberty, trained and owned by Elena Arnold Assistance dogs of Hawaii. Liberty is going to assist us with just a couple of the dog’s anatomy labels.

We all refer to dogs as domesticated, but what exactly does that mean and how did it come about. Well about 15,000 years ago it is believed that humans and canines first came together as a team. At this time humans had a life style that was able to accommodate and in fact needed and desired the skills that a dog could offer. We began to keep livestock and farmed the land. This settled way of life required assistance from dogs for herding and guarding our stocks. As a result of this our herds became larger and our lands expanded as we were able to control more animals and guard larger areas. We began to mould dogs to suit our needs. The dogs that barked were bred for guard dogs and the dogs with prey drives were bred to hunt. In this way our different classifications of dogs today were formed. Herding dogs, hound dogs, working dogs. A natural selection process took place through breeding based on our requirements. It was not until about the nineteenth century that most of the breeds we know today were founded.

2. Sensory abilities

We all know and recognize that our dogs have some special skills in regard to there sensory abilities. But did you know that dogs can see some color though not in the same way we do. They can discriminate between shades of gray. This is important as in the wild dogs will hunt in low light conditions. The field of view for a dog including what we call peripheral vision is about 240 to 250 degrees depending on the dog’s shape of head. We humans have a peripheral vision of about 180. They can and do keep their eyes on us at every moment.

Canine hearing is exceptional, there ears come in all shapes and sizes. The ear flap (pinna) is the area that collects the sound. Dogs are very good at screening noises. We have all seen dogs sound asleep in a room of noisy children but the minute the fridge door is open there ears jump up and send there body into motion. There ears operate independently of each other and are great tools for trainers, we can read so much about their motivation and moods by watching their ear movement. They also have a great understanding of intonations and we all know we get different reactions to commands based on how we say and pronounce them.

The canine sense of smell is the dog’s primary sense. Dogs live in a world of scents and they gain much of there information from odors. The olfactory receptor cells connect with nerve endings leading to the brain. They provide the major reason why dogs excel at scent. Humans have around 5 million cells and dogs have up to 220 million receptor cells. Dogs also have an organ in their mouth called the vomeronasal organ; this is found just behind the canine teeth along the floor of the nose. The dog can pull scent molecules through this organ even under water without needing to inhale. This explains why you can throw a rock into the water and your dog can go after it and retrieve the exact rock for you.

3. Social behavior & communication

Dogs send and receive communication to other canines and to humans in similar ways. The trick is that we need to be able to interpret the messages they are sending to us and this will make us better at sending messages that they understand to them.

Many of the signals dogs send are intention signals that are exaggerated.

	Tactile signals are those that relate to the sense of touch, direct body signals such as jumping, bumping, grabbing, licking, pawing and scratching.
	Visual signals are those related to sight, the stare or glance.
	Auditory signals are those signals related to hearing, growling, barking, and whining. These are great for sending signals over distances.
	Olfactory signals are those related to the sense of smell and these leave a lasting signal. Urine marking is a good example of this. I refer to this as doggie email.

Dogs are pack animals and have developed a very strong social communication system. Communication systems have been developed to regulate conflict. It is not in the best interest for dogs in a pack to fight and they have a communication ritual that for the most part is designed to avoid conflict. It conforms to a pattern of body language that includes submissive displays, body turning, ear movement and smelling. Being able to interpret the signals given by a dog we are able to gather clues about the dog’s emotional state of mind sense of security and motivation level.

In short Charles Darwin’s principle ( Antithesis) is that an aggressive animal attempts to make themselves as large as possible,

Body appears larger

Lean forward

Tail up and erect

Starring directly at its opponent

Ears turned forward

A submissive animal will appear to make itself look smaller

Ears pinned back

Tries to make body appear smaller

Turning its head away

We all know that there are many benefits to social contact with animals and our relationships with dogs are a proven fact that we enjoy sharing our life with them. Petting has been proven to reduce stress levels in humans and bring about healing. Those of us who spend hours stroking and grooming our dogs also witness the relaxing affect this has on our dogs.

4. How dogs learn

There are some guiding principles that govern the way in which we all learn from our environment. Learning theory refers to the study and information gathered by psychologists about how we adjust to our environment. Dogs have become a large part of our lives because over the years they have adjusted so well to living with us. So what is learning? Learning is a change of behavior. For learning to occur we have to understand there is a consequence. The dog obeys we give them a treat. The dog learns if they obey they will receive a treat. We cannot see the actual learning but we can see the result when a dog has learnt a new behavior, the dog then displays the behavior, hopefully on command.

1. Conditioning is a type of learning; this requires a lot more documentation and   will be covered in later months. In summary though classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a biologically relevant stimulus, this creates reflexive behavior.
2. Operant Conditioning is based on behavior performed with a purpose (clicker training)
3. Motor Learning has to do with the acquiring of the necessary skills to perform an activity. Climbing an A frame is a good example of this. The dog has to learn numerous skills and then put them all together.
4. Latent Learning is the belief that learning can occur without a reinforcer. The learned behavior can then appear unpredictably at a later point in time when the learning is needed.
5. Social Learning is when learning occurs through interaction with other animals and people. Observational learning can take place here, dogs learn by observing and then they imitate the behavior.

Dogs will learn if they do not learn from us they will learn on their own. As many trainers will say. All dogs are trained. How they are trained and in what way is the million dollar question.

Next month we will feature......

Conditioning

1. Classical conditioning
2. Operant Conditioning (instrumental Conditioning)
3. The clicker
4. Reinforcements and scheduling of reinforcement

 

Remember, train as you compete and compete as you train.