Real People, Real Dogs, Real Results

Have you ever noticed that nearly everyone in the world believes that they are an expert on what is best for your dog?

Personally and professionally, I have found that one of the toughest areas of training can be teaching good greeting behavior.

I’m not talking about the dog training part of it. It’s the people training that’s real tough.

Why is it that when we tell people to “please just ignore my dog when you come in”. That they inevitably take that statement to mean “stare at my dog who is trying to sit still, and make cooing noises while approaching him head on as if you are going to pet him, then stop just out his reach and stare some more while giving him a dissertation on why you feel bad for him because he has to stay on his dog bed.”

The dog is easy, teach him to stay on his “place”, make sure he knows that there is a clear and predictable set of rewards and consequences related to that behavior, and viola! But the humans have their own agenda.

Well. . . . I devised a solution to this conundrum several years ago that is based in the ridiculousness of human psychology.

There is one great truth known to mankind: Humans are suckers for talking dogs!

That’s right, tell the humans yourself to ignore the dogs, and you can bet that your words will fall on deaf ears. But have the dogs say it. . . . . and you’ll be cookin’ with fire.

That’s right, us Silly Humans will do anything the dog says.

Pressure is a term that I use a lot when discussing dog training. The concept of pressure is somewhat central to my system of training and influencing dogs’ behavior, and understanding how pressure works will make anyone a better handler.

The most important to remember is that pressure motivates, and the release of pressure educates. Say that out loud, repeat it and let it sink into your memory.

Pressure motivates, release educates.

Any pressure, to be motivating, is by its nature going to be aversive. The degree of aversiveness can, of course, vary from mildly annoying, to painful. Ideally, when working with dogs, we want to be as minimally aversive as possible. Although a dog may encounter many sources of pressure throughout their lives, there are three main types of pressure that we use to influence dogs.

Physical Pressure is probably the most natural for people to think about. Examples of physical pressure are: leash pressure, guiding with hands, or even electronic pressure. I would even consider the pressure from and unpleasant noise, or smell to be a physical pressure.

Social Pressure is often undervalued. Social pressure can be strong eye contact, stern voice, and assertive/forward body language. The most practical use of social pressure that I find, is using eye contact and body language to move a dog and claim space. Because you are creating space, some may call this spacial pressure. Among horsemen, this technique is often referred to as yielding. Social pressure is likely to be the most primal form of pressure. Nearly all animals who live within social groups use this as a part of their dominance rituals.

Achievement Pressuremay be a made-up term, I’m not sure. I use this term to refer to the type of pressure we all feel when there is something that we strongly want to achieve, and we have to figure out how. This is the type of pressure associated with positive reinforcement training. Of all the types of pressure, for the average dog this is likely to be the least stressful or aversive. Although for an extremely driven dog, achievement pressure can actually create a significant amount of stress.
Not all positive reinforcement training will involve achievement pressure however. Capturing, or the technique of waiting until a dog naturally offers a behavior and then marking it with a reward, will not involve achievement pressure because in most cases the dog did not know that there was something to achieve, and was not trying to figure it out. (If she were trying to figure it out we would more likely call that free shaping.)
Unfortunately, it is un likely that anyone would be able to adequately train a dog using only capturing techniques, so understanding how achievement pressure works, and how it can be stressful is still important, even for the “reward-only” dog trainer.

Again I must re-state, this is not intended to be a scientific, or exhaustive definition of pressure. It is meant to be functional, for the purpose of further discussion of my training techniques and philosophies.

There will definitely be more to come on this topic, so check back soon!

The staff here at K9 Connection, including myself, recently completed a workshop in canine socialization which had it’s main focus on understanding the causes and dimensions of inter-canine aggression.

The workshop leader Chad Mackin (founder of the Pack to Basics program, and board member of the International Association of Canine Professionals) outlined a model of aggression that he termed the “Layered Stress Model of Aggression.”

Although it may be argued that standing alone this model does not represent a complete understanding of the causes of aggression, I believe that it does supply a very practical vantage point that every dog owner can benefit from.

The Layered Stress Model essentially says:

1. Every dog has a pre-determined stress threshold, beyond which they can potentially become dangerous.
2. The stress threshold itself is generally unchangeable.
3. Various factors in a dog’s life can add “layers” of stress, each of which brings the dog closer to their threshold point.
4. Layers of stress can be diminished or eliminated by: a) removing the stressor, or b) changing the dog’s response to that stressor through counter-conditioning.
5. The more “layers ” of stress we remove, the less likely any one specific event is to push the dog beyond the threshold point and result in aggressive behavior.

This model is very practical if we begin to look at the behavior of an individual dog.

Lets take an example of “Snarly” the terrier.

Snarly has a history of being very reactive when company come over to the house. He is fine as long as people are sitting down and behaving relatively calmly. However, if someone gets up to use the bathroom or makes a sudden movement, Snarly will get up and lunge at the guest potentially biting.

The action of someone getting up or making a sudden movement is for Snarly a specific stressor that pushes him beyond his threshold, thus putting him in the danger zone. While it is appropriate to work with this specific context by desensitizing Snarly to peoples movements and counter-conditioning him to respond differently. It can be of great importance to also look at other areas of Snarly’s life and work to remove or reduce any layers of stress possible.

To be more clear, lets give numerical values to stress. Lets say that Snarly’s threshold is 150 units on the stress scale. What this means is that if his stress level goes beyond 150, he is likely to snap.

Now lets look at various things in Snarly’s life. Snarly lives with very inconstant humans, who don’t always give clear commands that he understands, but rather tend to speak to him in full sentences that he has to decipher. The confusion adds a relatively constant stress level of 20 to Snarly’s daily life. Snarly also does not get regular physical exercise, and often has pent up energy which leaves him feeling a little “edgy”, this pent up energy adds another 30 to Snarly’s stress level. Snarly also is getting older now and is developing some arthritis in his joints, this discomfort ads another 30 to his stress level.

So before guests have even arrived, Snarly is living with a stress level of 80. This medium level level of stress may not be visibly apparent to his owners, but it is there regardless.

Now arrive the guests, and having strangers in the house adds 40 more stress points. And finally, quick moments by those guests add 50 more stress points. We suddenly find poor Snarly’s stress level at 170! Well beyond his threshold and he snaps.

If you are like me, you can relate to Snarly’s situation. When I have a bad day, it typically is compiled of lots of small stressful events that continue to build. Eventually one small thing, something that normally is very tolerable, puts me over the edge, and I snap.

So, if we really truly want to help snarly, we need to look at the whole picture. Lets add constant consistent obedience training and clear human leadership to Snarly’s life. This brings stress of living with humans down to 5. Let’s also add consistent structured exercise to Snarly’s daily routine in the form of controlled walks, and playtime with his humans in the back yard (not by himself). This eliminates the stress caused by the edgy feeling of pent up energy. We also take Snarly to the veterinarian and add a supplement to his diet to help with his arthritis, thus reducing the discomfort. Bringing the stress from that condition down to a 10.

Now we have reduced Snarly’s daily stress level to down to 15. See where I’m going here?

Company then arrives, adding 40, somebody makes a sudden movement adding 50, we still are only at an overall stress level of 105! Suddenly Snarly isn’t biting people anymore.

Of course, dogs are creatures of habit, so unless we started making this changes very early in Snarly’s biting career, it is likely that he has developed a conditioned response to people moving around. However, since we have removed enough stress, counter-condition this behavior and teaching Snarly to lay calmly in his his bed is now a breeze, since he is well below his threshold of stress, and thus perfectly capable of coping with those actions.