Dog Redux

[seebs]

I'm still having some issues figuring out how to coexist with a dog.

The most fundamental problem, for me, is that people don't seem to have any real agreement on dog psychology. Some people talk about dominance, others about leadership, and so on.

So... Those of you who deal well with dogs, what would you recommend I read to better understand the dog? I have given up hope of being a dog person, but I figure I can at least coexist with him peacably, but I don't understand dogs very well, and this seems to make things harder rather than easier.

[ITSOZAZ]

just remember that pulling their tail and sticking your thumb up their ass seems to calm them...

[Garnet]

*swats ITHOZ with a newspaper* Bad boy! No cookie!

[Artemis Entreri]

I'm curious as well. One minute Kelee is cute and sweet and the next she's an ever growing whirlwind of destruction. I haven't had a puppy since I was a kid and my parents did all the training back then so I'm pretty much in the dark. C'mon people Dog Psychology 101!

[seebs]

What frustrates me is just that if you take ANY claim about dog psychology, you can find any meta-claim from "this has been proven with science" to "if you try this, your dog should be taken away" about it.

So, for instance, should we be dominating the dog or leading it? Should we set a schedule for it, or train it to communicate when it wants water or walkies? Pick an issue, and both sides are well-represented.

[LadyShea]

Wow, I don't even know how to start. Dogs are dogs and as with humans there are some generalizations that can be made, but they are also individuals with personalities and feelings, and you have a relationship with them. There is no simple formula, really.

I thought you hired a dog trainer? What were his recommendations?

[pescifish]

I agree with LadyShea; you've only got the one dog you need to get along with, perhaps it's better to just deal with him as an individual?The most fundamental problem, for me, is that people don't seem to have any real agreement on dog psychology. This statement doesn't make sense to me, really. In order to get along with people (or cats or <any other being>), do you need to know some exact psychological science? Is it really necessary in any fundamental way in order to deal with a dog?
So... Those of you who deal well with dogs, what would you recommend I read to better understand the dog?Not that I'd claim I deal well with dogs, but... I'd more recommend spending time with the dog, being the person you want to be around him, encouraging his behaviors that match the relationship you want with him. Which is pretty much how we deal with people, too, right?

I'm not sure what you have been reading about 'dominance and leadership' but I believe they are related in current dog behavioral concepts. Personally, I think Cesar Millan's understanding of dogs is on target. His emphasis is on establishing yourself as pack leader, with the leadership walk as the most useful time spent. The steady, almost mindless following sets the relationship, which also establishes a position of dominance.

Also, the right kind of exercise is critical, especially with a young, athletic dog like you are living with. Use rollerskates on your 'walks', put him on a treadmill, add a backpack with weights. Tire the guy out in plenty of non-excited/agitated activity and it will be easier for him to get his head in the right frame of mind when you do try to communicate with him.

Cesar's recommendation is: exercise, discipline, affection. In that order.

My only problem with Cesar's methods is that I cannot always control my own emotional state and cannot always maintain the calm, assertive energy to which a dog will respond in a calm, submissive state and able to take direction. But, truthfully, a 45 minute walk with at least 20 minutes start with no sniffing/playing/peeing/etc. really knocks all of us back into our places.

[seebs]

Wow, I don't even know how to start. Dogs are dogs and as with humans there are some generalizations that can be made, but they are also individuals with personalities and feelings, and you have a relationship with them. There is no simple formula, really.

I don't want a simple formula. I want the exceedingly complicated working model of what a dog's cognitive schema looks like. :)

I thought you hired a dog trainer? What were his recommendations?

The dog trainer gave us lots of useful tips on training the dog. However, this is only useful insofar as the goal is to have a dog which behaves well by the underlying structures of dog behavior. Since I don't understand Dogness Itself, I can't make sense of that, so it's still confusing to me.

I agree with LadyShea; you've only got the one dog you need to get along with, perhaps it's better to just deal with him as an individual?

To deal with an individual, I need to form a working theory of mind which describes that individual.

You know how people say they learn by doing, and it's only after they have the experience that they make sense of abstract theory? I'm the other way around. I can only deal with people because I have a working model of human cognition. So I really do want to have some general-case framework in place.

This statement doesn't make sense to me, really. In order to get along with people (or cats or <any other being>), do you need to know some exact psychological science? Is it really necessary in any fundamental way in order to deal with a dog?

Yes.

The dog's behavior is only very marginally predictable to me. I can't predict his responses to my behaviors, so I can't behave in the ways that produce desired results.

Not that I'd claim I deal well with dogs, but... I'd more recommend spending time with the dog, being the person you want to be around him, encouraging his behaviors that match the relationship you want with him. Which is pretty much how we deal with people, too, right?

Well, uhm. Maybe it's how most people deal with people. I deal with them by trying to understand them and adjusting my behavior based on my knowledge of how they respond...

I'm not sure what you have been reading about 'dominance and leadership' but I believe they are related in current dog behavioral concepts. Personally, I think Cesar Millan's understanding of dogs is on target. His emphasis is on establishing yourself as pack leader, with the leadership walk as the most useful time spent. The steady, almost mindless following sets the relationship, which also establishes a position of dominance.

Sounds reasonable.

Also, the right kind of exercise is critical, especially with a young, athletic dog like you are living with. Use rollerskates on your 'walks', put him on a treadmill, add a backpack with weights. Tire the guy out in plenty of non-excited/agitated activity and it will be easier for him to get his head in the right frame of mind when you do try to communicate with him.

He spends a lot of time pulling his owner around on a bicycle. :)

My only problem with Cesar's methods is that I cannot always control my own emotional state and cannot always maintain the calm, assertive energy to which a dog will respond in a calm, submissive state and able to take direction. But, truthfully, a 45 minute walk with at least 20 minutes start with no sniffing/playing/peeing/etc. really knocks all of us back into our places.

Interesting.

Calm/assertive is actually very easy for me. Unfortunately, it's very hard for his owner, who is one of the least calm people I have ever known. I think he may be a bit thrown off by the difference. If I haven't been interacting with him for a while, the first time I give him a command, he blows it off, and then when I fail to repeat it (the way owner usually does), he suddenly remembers that I'm "obey on the first try" guy, hunches over, pees if he can, and then furtively tries to sneak away. If this fails, he gets all happy and enthusiastic about doing tricks. It's sort of funny to watch, I guess. And once he's been reminded, he is very careful to do things on the first try -- and once he gets good at that again (takes him about 5 minutes), he seems so very happy

I've been teaching him a meta-trick of obeying commands quickly while distracted or playing, and he was freaked out at first, but now he's getting into it, I think.

But... Fundamentally, I am pretty sure I don't get some aspect of his cognitive schema, and I am trying to get a handle on what dog cognitive models are usually like.

Basically, I don't understand the whole "pack" concept, and since it seems widely agreed that it is fundamental to how dogs perceive and interact with people, that makes it hard for me to develop predictions and hypotheses about dog behaviors and responses.

[mickthinks]

LOL! You seem to be describing your goal as a relationship with this dog in which he does what you ask without delay, and doesn't do what you want him not to do. Is that what you expect from the people around you?

[Farren]

Seebs I don't think "obey without question" should be on top of your priority list when dealing with a pet. Establishing a strong emotional bond should be. The rest tends to flow out of that, since as LS said dogs have very, very different personalities.

I put aside quality time for my dogs, when instead of absentmindedly scratching them behind the ears I give them 100% attention. Last night I sat with each of them seperately for about 40 minutes, just giving them an all-over massage (very easy with little pugs) and I discovered that you can put a very excited pug to sleep that way. My boy went from snorting and yipping and nibbling my arm to near catatonia, sprawled on his back, legs in the air, snoring loudly.

[LadyShea]

I think the inconsistencies between the humans is problematic seebs. One generalization I have found true of all dogs, is their need to feel secure, and that includes knowing what is expected of them, and what the boundaries are. This is true of humans as well, especially children.

If you expect him to obey immediately, but nobody else does, this sends mixed signals. If the others in the household have different expectations of him, then he doesn't know what he's supposed to do, or who the leader is.


Pack is actually quite simple. There is a clear hierarchy of defined roles...like the military. You can't just say "person A is leader", every individual must ACT as if that person is the leader, and that leader must ACT as a leader and accept that role. It doesn't mean a domineering tyrant, just a calm and assertive person who naturally assumes the "in charge" role.

The dog needs to know what's expected of him, so he can meet those expectations, and that he is accepted and appreciated. They respond well to routine, so should know what to expect daily. Exercise, eat, play, get petted. Maybe for you such a routine would make things easier.

[lisarea]

If you're not used to being around dogs, it might help to learn some basics of how dogs communicate. (http://www.wagntrain.com/BodyLanguage.htm) (That was just one of the first ones that came up on a search--there may be better guides out there.)

The people who adopted Sluggo before I did didn't seem to understand dog language very well. They interpreted his playbowing as a sign of aggression and things like that, and those misunderstandings led them to incorrectly conclude that he was aggressive and untrainable.

And like those guys said, you really have to know the individual dog. Dominance and submission are pretty fundamental to dog behavior, but a lot of dogs are naturally submissive to people, so it's not something you need to establish or be aggressive about. And dominance isn't always a bossing around kind of thing, either. Hugging a dog is a very dominant gesture, as are belly rubs and chin scritches and other things like that. So you can maintain dominance just by cuddling with them and calming them when they're scared and things like that. Go slowly, though, and read your dog carefully. Some dogs take umbrage at things like that, and for dogs that are fear biters, you don't want to be all up in their grill when they're scared.

And what Shea says. You need at least some broadly consistent guidelines for the way you guys treat the dog.

[LadyShea]

The people who adopted Sluggo before I did didn't seem to understand dog language very well. They interpreted his playbowing as a sign of aggression and things like that, and those misunderstandings led them to incorrectly conclude that he was aggressive and untrainable.

:( poor guy.

The people who bought O'Shea (RIP) as a puppy had no business raising a Rottweiler. He was thrown outside, alone, all day every day. We never could trust him around strangers, and had to be very careful in how and to whom he was introduced. He was a really good dog with those he felt secure around, but we never could completely overcome his puppyhood experiences.

[naturalist.atheist]

GENETICS AND THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF THE DOG
by John Paul Scott & John L. Fuller (See other books by author) (http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=dtb551)

Classic study of dog behavior, the authoritative information from 20 years of research at the Jackson Laboratory. Central to the book is the role heredity plays in the development of behavior. Giving puppies an environment designed on the principles of a well-run school, Scott and Fuller tested five breeds representing the major dog groups and carried out a Mendelian experiment with two of the most different breeds: The basenji and the cocker spaniel. They found that heredity affects almost every trait tested; that gender affects aggressiveness and the dominance order, but not trainability and problem-solving; that emotional traits profoundly influence performance; that, although breeds differ widely in emotional and motivational characteristics, none shows distinct superiority in problem solving; and that detailed statistical analyses indicate a highly complex pathway between primary gene action and its final effect on behavior. Includes important information on rearing methods, the origin and history of dog breeds, basic behavior patterns and the psychological and behavioral development of puppies. Originally published in 1965.

Never read it but it looks interesting. However I am mostly a cat person when I am in the mood for taking care of a pet.

[seebs]

Seebs I don't think "obey without question" should be on top of your priority list when dealing with a pet. Establishing a strong emotional bond should be. The rest tends to flow out of that, since as LS said dogs have very, very different personalities.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's possible.

The dog's not verbal. I'm only-verbal. Unless I am constantly actively thinking about my body language, I emit a pretty much random stream of non-verbal cues that have nothing to do with my state.

Humans can get to know me and then just react to what I say, and are only occasionally confused by my non-verbal cues being nonsense -- and are capable of learning that the cues are useless. I don't think the dog can learn that.

Without that, I'm not sure how to try to build an emotional bond. When I'm fully paying attention to the dog, things are mostly okay, but if I'm not, he has no idea at all what to make of me, and tends to react to the background static.

[seebs]

I think the inconsistencies between the humans is problematic seebs. One generalization I have found true of all dogs, is their need to feel secure, and that includes knowing what is expected of them, and what the boundaries are. This is true of humans as well, especially children.

If you expect him to obey immediately, but nobody else does, this sends mixed signals. If the others in the household have different expectations of him, then he doesn't know what he's supposed to do, or who the leader is.

Yeah. And unfortunately, not everyone around can be consistent -- even internally. I am not sure whether it's reasonable to expect him to learn that the boundaries differ from one person to another.

Pack is actually quite simple. There is a clear hierarchy of defined roles...like the military. You can't just say "person A is leader", every individual must ACT as if that person is the leader, and that leader must ACT as a leader and accept that role. It doesn't mean a domineering tyrant, just a calm and assertive person who naturally assumes the "in charge" role.

In practice, I think that means I'm probably the leader, because I'm calm and everyone tends to defer to me, or at least emit body language as though they would.

The dog needs to know what's expected of him, so he can meet those expectations, and that he is accepted and appreciated. They respond well to routine, so should know what to expect daily. Exercise, eat, play, get petted. Maybe for you such a routine would make things easier.

Oh, definitely.

Unfortunately, the dog's owner is pretty much physically incapable of an established routine, so while the dog gets long bike runs just about every day, they are not necessarily at the same TIME every day, and I think this throws him off.

[seebs]

If you're not used to being around dogs, it might help to learn some basics of how dogs communicate. (http://www.wagntrain.com/BodyLanguage.htm) (That was just one of the first ones that came up on a search--there may be better guides out there.)

Oh, very helpful.

I came into this vaguely aware that wagging was generally good, so I need this information.

The people who adopted Sluggo before I did didn't seem to understand dog language very well. They interpreted his playbowing as a sign of aggression and things like that, and those misunderstandings led them to incorrectly conclude that he was aggressive and untrainable.

Oh! I didn't know bowing was a play invitation.

And what Shea says. You need at least some broadly consistent guidelines for the way you guys treat the dog.

I think mostly we do. The big problem is come/go; he likes to pretend he doesn't hear people, and if he's playful or he did something wrong, he is VERY resistant to obeying come. For a while, we thought he hadn't figured out go, but we've noticed that when commanded "go to X", he normally starts in that direction, then goes all sad and droopy and looks back to see whether he's gone far enough.

I don't think he has yet comprehended a distinction between "you should be there" and "EXILE! EXCOMMUNICATION! FAILURE OF DOG!"

[LadyShea]

but we've noticed that when commanded "go to X", he normally starts in that direction, then goes all sad and droopy and looks back to see whether he's gone far enough.

Where is he being ordered to go and why? Perhaps he simply doesn't want to be there...they will dawdle and get distracted and even try to "change the subject" when being ordered to do something they don't want to do...just like people..

[lisarea]

The people who adopted Sluggo before I did didn't seem to understand dog language very well. They interpreted his playbowing as a sign of aggression and things like that, and those misunderstandings led them to incorrectly conclude that he was aggressive and untrainable.

:( poor guy.

Yeah, that was pretty bad. They also admitted to keeping him crated for most of the day (and I assume they probably understated that, based on his behaviors right when he came home). But he was only with them for a couple of weeks or so before they brought him back, and it took him all of about two weeks to completely overcome whatever all he had in his past, including that and whatever there was before the dogcatcher found him. In fact, I kind of suspect he doesn't even remember that he was adopted. (It helps that I'm always telling him about how I almost died giving birth to him.)

My previous dog, Bud, though, had lifelong issues. He was a retired racing greyhound who'd obviously been seriously abused, and he never fully got over it. He was a sweet, gentle, affectionate dog; but he was always kind of fearful. He'd cower if you raised your voice even a tiny bit, or if you held anything up over your shoulder or anything like that. I figured that Sluggo's previous owners were just ignorant. Bud's were malevolent. (And while I know not all racing greyhounds are abused, I still don't like the industry overall.)

[seebs]

but we've noticed that when commanded "go to X", he normally starts in that direction, then goes all sad and droopy and looks back to see whether he's gone far enough.

Where is he being ordered to go and why? Perhaps he simply doesn't want to be there...they will dawdle and get distracted and even try to "change the subject" when being ordered to do something they don't want to do...just like people..

Generically, "go to Luka" or "go to Jesse". Typically, for abstract reasons like "I'm about to do something which would be dangerous with a dog underfoot" or "You look playful and I know Luka was bored".

So it's always "go to person". What's interesting is that, if someone calls him, he's more likely to go (although he's been experimenting with refusing to see how many times we call before the voice starts sounding angry). And if due to a clash he is both called and sent within a few seconds of the same time, it's clear that he likes being called and hates being sent. If you call him, then send him, he starts running when called, then dawdles and gets all submissive (and sometimes pees) when sent. If you send him, he dawdles and looks sad, but if he is called, he runs happily.

I suspect he has very deep abandonment issues.

[seebs]

Yeah, that was pretty bad. They also admitted to keeping him crated for most of the day (and I assume they probably understated that, based on his behaviors right when he came home). But he was only with them for a couple of weeks or so before they brought him back, and it took him all of about two weeks to completely overcome whatever all he had in his past, including that and whatever there was before the dogcatcher found him. In fact, I kind of suspect he doesn't even remember that he was adopted. (It helps that I'm always telling him about how I almost died giving birth to him.)

Dogs are SO gullible.

Ours has a "crate" (it's actually a cage), and he loves it he loves it when it's near people, and he hates it when it's in a separate room. One of my suggestions, which I think is approved in principle but not yet implemented, is to move his "crate" into the primary social space of the house, so it's less of an exile and more of a safe place for him that's still near us.

My previous dog, Bud, though, had lifelong issues. He was a retired racing greyhound who'd obviously been seriously abused, and he never fully got over it. He was a sweet, gentle, affectionate dog; but he was always kind of fearful. He'd cower if you raised your voice even a tiny bit, or if you held anything up over your shoulder or anything like that. I figured that Sluggo's previous owners were just ignorant. Bud's were malevolent. (And while I know not all racing greyhounds are abused, I still don't like the industry overall.)

We still don't know why our dog is so very timid. He was 4-6 months old when we got him, and he terrifies quite easily. It took about a year of me playing with him, sometimes taking things from him, sometimes rewarding him, etc., before he concluded that I wasn't going to kill him out of hand. He still submission-pees when he does something wrong.

[LadyShea]

I think I have a kinda formula you can try seebs. Break down requests/commands into the simplest terms, then go with the "positive" terminology (I have to do this with my toddler too, "yes" always gets a better response than "no", savvy?)

In your example, in the simplest terms, the command choices are either "go away" or "come here". Which, even in human terms, is the most positive? Obviously "come here".

If done in a happy "Come here because I want to see you" voice rather than a "come here because you are a nuisance over there" tone you will get even better results. If necessary, take the dog along with you, until he learns that it is not a punishment to be asked to go see someone else. Try "Come on and let's see Luka, doggie." walk over to Luka, and have Luka make a little fuss with the petting and "hiya boy" to let the dog know "I am happy you are here with me".

As I said, we use these techniques with our toddler who doesn't yet understand that "go over there" is not always a rejection. Dogs simply don't have the potential to eventually understand as humans do.

ETA: Also as with humans dogs respond better to praise than to punishment and over all positivity over negativity. Be sure to always praise the dog when it obeys (even if reluctantly), and offer positive words randomly...just to let the dog know it is a valued family member. If you routinely greet the other humans in the morning or whatever, greet the dog as well with a friendly "hiya" and a quick ear scratch.

[Adam]

Ours has a "crate" (it's actually a cage), and he loves it he loves it when it's near people, and he hates it when it's in a separate room.

The SO has begun taking her dog to a trainer. One of his suggestion was that she sleep in a tshirt for several days so that it smells like her, then keep it in a plastic bag so it doesn't acquire other random smells. When she cages the dog and isn't going to be nearby, she takes the shirt out of the bag and leaves it in the cage with him. Seems to work so far, according to her.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Ours has a "crate" (it's actually a cage), and he loves it he loves it when it's near people, and he hates it when it's in a separate room.

The SO has begun taking her dog to a trainer. One of his suggestion was that she sleep in a tshirt for several days so that it smells like her, then keep it in a plastic bag so it doesn't acquire other random smells. When she cages the dog and isn't going to be nearby, she takes the shirt out of the bag and leaves it in the cage with him. Seems to work so far, according to her.

With the added advantage that she's shirtless with you a few nights a week, eh? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, saynomore, saynomore...

[seebs]

I think I have a kinda formula you can try seebs. Break down requests/commands into the simplest terms, then go with the "positive" terminology (I have to do this with my toddler too, "yes" always gets a better response than "no", savvy?)

Somewhat. It's always a bit weird for me.

In your example, in the simplest terms, the command choices are either "go away" or "come here". Which, even in human terms, is the most positive? Obviously "come here".

Yes.

The problem is that sometimes the person to whom he should go doesn't yet know to call him, so I still want a "go there" command. Eventually.

If done in a happy "Come here because I want to see you" voice rather than a "come here because you are a nuisance over there" tone you will get even better results. If necessary, take the dog along with you, until he learns that it is not a punishment to be asked to go see someone else. Try "Come on and let's see Luka, doggie." walk over to Luka, and have Luka make a little fuss with the petting and "hiya boy" to let the dog know "I am happy you are here with me".

I think the refusal-to-come he's doing is mostly just a test to see who is in charge between him and owner; with me, he fucks around less.

I wonder if I can use "Let's go to Luka", and then gradually wean him off "let's".

[LadyShea]

I wonder if I can use "Let's go to Luka", and then gradually wean him off "let's".

Yes, that was a part of my suggestion, though I don't think I communicated it clearly. Just a start...a way to establish a new habit.

[seebs]

I wonder if I can use "Let's go to Luka", and then gradually wean him off "let's".

Yes, that was a part of my suggestion, though I don't think I communicated it clearly. Just a start...a way to establish a new habit.

That's a neat notion, and I think I will try it.

I think the big take-home lesson for me is that next time someone proposes getting a dog, I should probably say "no" -- it's stressful to me. I do not like having to maintain body language, but it seems I really have to when the dog's around.

[lisarea]

Maybe, but in my experience, you don't have to consciously regulate your interactions after you and the dog get to know each other. It might take a little while to work out communications issues, but once you do, it comes pretty naturally, and you don't have to think about it much at all.

[LadyShea]

Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyShea View Post
I think I have a kinda formula you can try seebs. Break down requests/commands into the simplest terms, then go with the "positive" terminology (I have to do this with my toddler too, "yes" always gets a better response than "no", savvy?)

Somewhat. It's always a bit weird for me.

Lets see if I can make an easy analogy.

What's simpler to explain:
1+1=2
or
1+1 does not equal 1, 3, 4, 5.....

It's easier for a dog to understand "If I obey I get rewarded" ie: "If I do A I get B positive result" than "if I don't do this I will not get rewarded" ie: "If I don't do A I will not get B result".

A consistent positive result to actions simply works better as a motivator to comply.

Does that help?

[vremya]

I think you're overthinking this.

Dogs are kind of dumb, but they love approval, so if he does something good, let him know. If he does something you don't want them to, tell him no. The really, really REALLY important thing is a consistent set of rules from everyone. Otherwise the poor thing will get totally confused and that will make things worse.

[oblomov]

i agree. in my experience, the main thing a dog needs is to know its role. if it receives inconsistent treatment from those it lives with, it can't fairly be expected to then behave in a consistent manner.

[seebs]

Maybe, but in my experience, you don't have to consciously regulate your interactions after you and the dog get to know each other. It might take a little while to work out communications issues, but once you do, it comes pretty naturally, and you don't have to think about it much at all.

I think my problem might be best summarized as closely related to autism. I don't have the underlying social instincts to map things to, so I do actually have to do things consciously. I know how to emit social behaviors, maintain body language, and so on -- but I have to do it consciously. If I am not at least partially thinking about interaction, I tend to emit random and totally spurious nonverbal cues. So, say, if I am thinking, I may look horribly sad, or angry, or delighted, and none of this has any correlation to my state. I will adopt postures which make me look intimidating, or scared, or whatever... and not be aware of them, and they don't correspond.

I am pretty sure that what's happening for all you sane folks is that you learn to read the dog, and then your brain can translate dog body language into inputs to your existing instincts.

To put it another way: I have been working on this with humans for ~30 years, and to this day, I don't have unconscious access to human body language; I have to think about it to read it. I don't think dogs will be easier.

[seebs]

Lets see if I can make an easy analogy.

What's simpler to explain:
1+1=2
or
1+1 does not equal 1, 3, 4, 5.....

It's easier for a dog to understand "If I obey I get rewarded" ie: "If I do A I get B positive result" than "if I don't do this I will not get rewarded" ie: "If I don't do A I will not get B result".

A consistent positive result to actions simply works better as a motivator to comply.

Does that help?

Yes.

For instance, you don't train him "not to chase cats". You train him "lie down when you see a cat". This is easier.

I have not been able to figure out a behavior I can train him to engage in when he thinks he has been abandoned, but I would very much like him to adopt a behavior other than whining.

[Adam]

With the added advantage that she's shirtless with you a few nights a week, eh? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, saynomore, saynomore...

Hells yes! Shirt that smells like girl keeps the dog from crying, shirtless girl keeps me from crying, everyone wins! :tmgrin:

[rigorist]

Seebs I don't think "obey without question" should be on top of your priority list when dealing with a pet. Establishing a strong emotional bond should be. The rest tends to flow out of that, since as LS said dogs have very, very different personalities.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's possible.

The dog's not verbal. I'm only-verbal. Unless I am constantly actively thinking about my body language, I emit a pretty much random stream of non-verbal cues that have nothing to do with my state.


That's pretty much bullshit. I don't even know you all that well and I can pick up all sorts of stuff.

[seebs]

That's pretty much bullshit. I don't even know you all that well and I can pick up all sorts of stuff.

Hmm. This may be, but:
1. I am usually "on" my social behavior when I'm with people.
2. Jesse and I have been actually comparing notes on her perceptions of what she's picking up, and my actual state. The accuracy is much lower than either of us expected.

My interactions when I'm talking to someone are pretty good. My cues when I'm not are apparently noisy. The thing is, humans tend to filter them or just not do much with them, but the dog seems to be very confused by me.

[LadyShea]

Yes.

For instance, you don't train him "not to chase cats". You train him "lie down when you see a cat". This is easier.

I have not been able to figure out a behavior I can train him to engage in when he thinks he has been abandoned, but I would very much like him to adopt a behavior other than whining.

Maybe a special treat only when he's crated or left alone? A special toy, or cow hoof, or bone so he considers it a positive?

[wildernesse]

My cousins had an indoor dog, and when they wanted it to get out from underfoot in the kitchen, they said "Carpet." The dog was trained to leave the tile floor in the kitchen and get on the carpet--where it was out of its way.

Maybe that would be less confusing to the dog than telling it to go find someone who is not always going to be in the same place. If the different kinds of floor don't work, if it has a bed that is in the same place maybe you could teach it to go to "Bed" and stay there until it is safe to leave.

[seebs]

Huh, I like that. Maybe we can move his little house downstairs. I will advocate for this next time everyone's up.

[lisarea]

Have you heard of Temple Grandin, (http://www.templegrandin.com/) seebs?

She's an autistic animal behaviorist, and works primarily on developing humane livestock handling and slaughter techniques and things like that. (She also designed a hugging machine--I've seen a couple of TV shows where they had characters loosely based on her, so if she sounds a little familiar, it's probably because of that.)

Anyway, she's written several books on autism, including one called Animals in Translation, about autism and animal communication.

I've read about her, but I haven't actually read any of her books yet. She is pretty awesome, though, so they're probably at least worth checking out of the library if you're interested in the subject.

[BDS]

I recommend "Animal Happiness" and "Bandit, Dossier of a Dangerous Dog" by Vicki Hearne. Hearne is a dog and horse trainer, with theories about how to best communicate with and train animals. In "Animal Happiness", her theory is that dogs (and other domestic animals) love their work, and that they respond best to a working partnership, instead of a dominant submissive relationship. In fact, she's been hired to train wolves, and claims to dislike it, because they won't partner with a person, and respond only to an "alpha-trainer" kind of method.

She's an excellent writer, and "Animal Happiness" has chapters on Wittgenstein's Lion, and on the Book of Job (the section in which God tells Job about animals, and which Hearne claims shows how well people understood animals 3000 years ago, when they worked more closely with them).

[LadyShea]

BDS, dogs seem to be happiest when they have a role to play...whether that's hunting, tracking, herding, guarding, getting the newspaper, or just companionship...so that book sounds interesting

My dogs take their guardian roles very seriously, and only relax when I have checked out the weird noise, or the "intruder" (whether the mailman or a squirrel, LOL)and tell them it's okay.

[BDS]

Here's one section from the Book of Job that Hearne quotes. Job is getting uppity, so God asks him:


Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible.
He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men.
He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield.
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

Hearne comments: "I have met this horse and his brethren more than once..... You might say that such a horse spooks like a baby if a butterfly flits by, but put that sucker in the Puissance class at Madison Square Garden and watch out! And you understand, as a daily, ordinary fact about such a horse, that, to paraphrase the Voice from the whirlwind, "He smelleth the contest afar off, the announcer and the applause, and he sayeth when he hears the sounds of the horse show, Ha Ha!"

[seebs]

Interesting notes. Actually, I have Animals In Translation around here somewhere, I wonder whether I can find it...

The "likes to do his work" theory would fit the dog; when there's something we want him to do, and he can do it, he is SO happy. We got him a little stool, and he learned to sit on it, and we kept trying to get him to stand up on it, and he just couldn't. One day, he did it, and of course he got a treat. After that, he'd try it ANY time, even though he still tends to fall -- he has the balance of a tin can with a marble in it. But he loves to do things he thinks we want.

I think the problem is that he's good for about 8 hours a day of hard work, and we simply have no tasks which require a dog. We might get him saddlebags so he can carry groceries, I bet he'd LOVE that.

And actually, that does go straight to the question of why he's not really happy near me, probably: He has no role to play. I have no use for a dog. I don't need to be guarded, I don't need a rambunctious playmate, etcetera.

Unfortunately, the job "keep my roommate entertained" is too abstract. So I suppose the issue is that he wants to be Doing Something, and if I'm the person around, well, anything he can do requires supervision and attention, and I don't really want to do that. Hmm.

[LadyShea]

It's a hunting breed, right? They especially need jobs.

Perhaps the dogs owner can get involved in some kind of doggie related sport or activity...something that takes time, training and practice? Obedience trials, agility trials, retrieval trials, search and rescue training and volunteer work, health care related volunteerism (would require therapy dog training and certification), hell see if the dog likes frisbees and teach him to catch them.

There are many such things to choose from. Some might even be of benefit to your roommate, as I seem to recall you mentioning he has some problems...but I can't remember what they are.

[seebs]

It's a hunting breed, right? They especially need jobs.

Well, about half-pointer.

Perhaps the dogs owner can get involved in some kind of doggie related sport or activity...something that takes time, training and practice? Obedience trials, agility trials, retrieval trials, search and rescue training and volunteer work, health care related volunteerism (would require therapy dog training and certification), hell see if the dog likes frisbees and teach him to catch them.

There's been plans to train him as a therapy dog. I think he'd do well at it.

There are many such things to choose from. Some might even be of benefit to your roommate, as I seem to recall you mentioning he has some problems...but I can't remember what they are.

I don't know what the formal diagnosis is. I'd say probably a combination of depression and OCD. It manifests in what we refer to as Epic Fail Syndrome, where you can have a paypal account with $plenty in it, and a bill that can be paid through paypal, and you CAN'T ACTUALLY PAY IT. Because... Because... Well, no reason, just the thing that clicks that allows you to process stimuli to achieve results panics. I guess it's an anxiety disorder. The dog has actually, I think, helped a lot with this, because he is able to provide a series of tasks which need doing, and which he helps owner get done. Still, he is often on the "food comes when we realize that you are acting weird because you are hungry" schedule, not on the "dinner's at six sharp" schedule.

I think this is probably suboptimal for the dog, but I have seen a lot of dog owners, and I think a flaky person who loves him, feeds him, and is not cruel, is probably better for him than a domineering psychopath or one of those people who interacts with the dog once or twice a week in between Important Stuff. The dog is, about 85% of the time, bright-eyed, wagging tail mostly fairly slowly, and he tends to have his mouth open and sort of a "grin".

Hmm. So I think really maybe I should try to find a way to make him useful, and... I wonder. Maybe I should just go buy him some saddlebags. I bet he'd love them to bits.

[Chris Porter]

dog cart is better, seebs. (safer)

Dogs want interaction, and dogs want to know who they are in an hierarchy. It's not all alpha dog/work, it's a combination. From what you've said here, it looks as if the hierarchy in your house is

You
dog
the other humans.

If that's the case, I don't think it's safe for the dog, or the other humans.

Hierarchies that are in flux are confusing to this type of animal. Lack of work or interactions leads to stress or 'bad' behaviors to alleviate boredom, which are likely to cause further training and interaction issues.

I'm sorry your family is in this way, I wonder if your family is doing the dog a favor at all.

Pets are our slaves, we are their gods, we give them food, shelter, health care, make them work for us-we kill them and we breed them. If we don't have the means to do this with their well-being in mind, I think the disservice rendered to the pet speaks poorly on the part of an owner. Pets are living, emotional entities that did not have a choice in beginning their interaction with us. I think we should be very concerned about the ethics in such a lopsided power situation with another living animal, be it human or otherwise. If your family is creating a neurotic creature, is this really the right thing to do?

[seebs]

dog cart is better, seebs. (safer)

Okay. I will look into it. He loooooves to pull things.

Dogs want interaction, and dogs want to know who they are in an hierarchy. It's not all alpha dog/work, it's a combination. From what you've said here, it looks as if the hierarchy in your house is

You
dog
the other humans.

If that's the case, I don't think it's safe for the dog, or the other humans.

Hmm. I don't think that's the case. A lot of the problem, I think, is that we don't have a real hierarchy.

My impression of the dog is that he's quite sure he is at the bottom rank, but that he is inclined to test that a bit -- I understand this is normal.

Hierarchies that are in flux are confusing to this type of animal. Lack of work or interactions leads to stress or 'bad' behaviors to alleviate boredom, which are likely to cause further training and interaction issues.

Yup. And he gets lots of interactions and work -- but I think he's unsure about me, because I'm clearly in some sort of authority, but I mostly don't do much with him.

Do dogs handle multi-level authority structures well? Is it okay for Private Dog to just not interact with General Seebs, and instead spend his time interacting with Sergeant Luka? I get the impression that he wants to figure out where he stands with me, and that a big part of the problem is that, while he's overjoyed with where he stands with me when I'm paying attention to him -- he does tricks, he wags, he lolls his tongue, and he doesn't show any signs of fear -- he has no idea what's going on when I'm doing something else.

I'm sorry your family is in this way, I wonder if your family is doing the dog a favor at all.

Compared to what?

Pets are our slaves, we are their gods, we give them food, shelter, health care, make them work for us-we kill them and we breed them. If we don't have the means to do this with their well-being in mind, I think the disservice rendered to the pet speaks poorly on the part of an owner. Pets are living, emotional entities that did not have a choice in beginning their interaction with us. I think we should be very concerned about the ethics in such a lopsided power situation with another living animal, be it human or otherwise. If your family is creating a neurotic creature, is this really the right thing to do?

I do not think we are creating a neurotic creature. I think we got a neurotic creature from the pound. When we got him, he widdle-waddled nearly any time anything happened, he tended to keep his tail down, he avoided eye contact, and so on. Now he walks tall, he wags a lot, and he acts in ways that, according to web sites, indicate a fairly happy dog. He occasionally does things he's not supposed to do, true, but not often, and mostly he seems to be pretty happy. I'm sure he'd like even more time and attention, but as long as you don't have two full-time staff (in shifts) devoted to attending to the dog, the dog will want more time and attention. :)

[oblomov]

well, really, if the dog seems to be happy, and you are satisfied with him, then perhaps you are overthinking things a little bit. you don't really need to 'understand' each other on a deep, emotional level... and since you don't seem to think that's a possibility, why worry about it?

[seebs]

well, really, if the dog seems to be happy, and you are satisfied with him, then perhaps you are overthinking things a little bit. you don't really need to 'understand' each other on a deep, emotional level... and since you don't seem to think that's a possibility, why worry about it?

Hmm.

I guess... Right now, I'm not very happy about coexisting with a dog. I have a better chance of learning new skills than he does. It's not that he's badly-behaved; it's that the things I don't like are pretty much fundamental to dogs. However: I dislike similar things in humans, and I have found them a lot easier to deal with as I've improved my cognitive model of how humans think and respond. The better I can figure out what the dog is trying to do, or wants, the better I will be at making him happy with minimal involvement on my part. I recognize that "happy dog with minimal involvement" is not a very good attitude for a dog owner, but I think it's a pretty reasonable goal for a person who lives with a dog owner.

Ideally, I'd like it if he would just leave me alone, but I think that's unlikely. I don't think he has a cognitive space for a creature which is not predator, pray, or part of pack, or for a part of pack that is not generally interacted with.

[Chris Porter]

dog cart is better, seebs. (safer)

Okay. I will look into it. He loooooves to pull things.

Dogs want interaction, and dogs want to know who they are in an hierarchy. It's not all alpha dog/work, it's a combination. From what you've said here, it looks as if the hierarchy in your house is

You
dog
the other humans.

If that's the case, I don't think it's safe for the dog, or the other humans.

Hmm. I don't think that's the case. A lot of the problem, I think, is that we don't have a real hierarchy.

My impression of the dog is that he's quite sure he is at the bottom rank, but that he is inclined to test that a bit -- I understand this is normal.

Hierarchies that are in flux are confusing to this type of animal. Lack of work or interactions leads to stress or 'bad' behaviors to alleviate boredom, which are likely to cause further training and interaction issues.

Yup. And he gets lots of interactions and work -- but I think he's unsure about me, because I'm clearly in some sort of authority, but I mostly don't do much with him.
It's really difficult to tell what's going on, because your descriptions tend to be either exaggerated or lacking in enough description to figure out what's going on. Pulling an owner around on a bike is just plain dangerous, and you seem to be making it look as if it's uncontrolled, which adds to my doubts about the appropriate training. You have probably seen tv shows where people are shown doing incredibly stupid things and falling on their butt or otherwise just barely escaping damage. This is what I'm getting from your talk about not only the dog, but the dog's owner-the owner doesn't know how to behave safely around their dog, and is contributing to a dangerous situation. Yet it's the owner's responsibility to not do this. Because the dog doesn't have the sense, nor the responsibility.


Do dogs handle multi-level authority structures well? Not in my experience, no. They've been bred for thousands of years to be comfortable in a human hierarchal system, it's what they are actually quite good at. Expecting a dog to behave well in an anarchist system is not good sense.


Is it okay for Private Dog to just not interact with General Seebs, and instead spend his time interacting with Sergeant Luka? It's not a matter of OK, it's a matter of reality. It's not possible for the dog not to interact with any member of the household, and in fact, it would be dangerous to attempt this. Because if an incident were to occur where the dog comes in contact with the other house member, and lacks training in knowing how to behave civilly, you could have a dangerous incident, where the dog decides the other person is a threat, and attempts protection, or behaves in ways that impede the person (jumping up on the person, grabbing something out of their hand, etc) which could also lead to injury. I get the impression that he wants to figure out where he stands with me, and that a big part of the problem is that, while he's overjoyed with where he stands with me when I'm paying attention to him -- he does tricks, he wags, he lolls his tongue, and he doesn't show any signs of fear -- he has no idea what's going on when I'm doing something else.For that, it sounds as if you need a "how to read body language for dogs type book, and I hope the suggestions here help. I was surprised you didn't recognize the play bow behavior. Maybe it's not just you that needs help in learning how dogs communicate.

I'm sorry your family is in this way, I wonder if your family is doing the dog a favor at all.

Compared to what?Compared to being in a family that can actually understand basic dog communication, and respects the dog's need for stability and hierarchy.

Pets are our slaves, we are their gods, we give them food, shelter, health care, make them work for us-we kill them and we breed them. If we don't have the means to do this with their well-being in mind, I think the disservice rendered to the pet speaks poorly on the part of an owner. Pets are living, emotional entities that did not have a choice in beginning their interaction with us. I think we should be very concerned about the ethics in such a lopsided power situation with another living animal, be it human or otherwise. If your family is creating a neurotic creature, is this really the right thing to do?

I do not think we are creating a neurotic creature. I think we got a neurotic creature from the pound. When we got him, he widdle-waddled nearly any time anything happened, he tended to keep his tail down, he avoided eye contact, and so on. Now he walks tall, he wags a lot, and he acts in ways that, according to web sites, indicate a fairly happy dog. He occasionally does things he's not supposed to do, true, but not often, and mostly he seems to be pretty happy. I'm sure he'd like even more time and attention, but as long as you don't have two full-time staff (in shifts) devoted to attending to the dog, the dog will want more time and attention. :)

Would your dog be safe around children?

[seebs]

It's really difficult to tell what's going on, because your descriptions tend to be either exaggerated or lacking in enough description to figure out what's going on.

Well, I don't always know in detail.

Pulling an owner around on a bike is just plain dangerous, and you seem to be making it look as if it's uncontrolled, which adds to my doubts about the appropriate training. You have probably seen tv shows where people are shown doing incredibly stupid things and falling on their butt or otherwise just barely escaping damage. This is what I'm getting from your talk about not only the dog, but the dog's owner-the owner doesn't know how to behave safely around their dog, and is contributing to a dangerous situation. Yet it's the owner's responsibility to not do this. Because the dog doesn't have the sense, nor the responsibility.

I am not really qualified to speak in detail as to what's safe or not. There is a device (called a "springer") attached to the bike, and the dog is on a harness from it. The dog cannot easily cause the bike to tip. They go out on the bike, and it sounds like the dog is providing some motive power some of the time, and just trotting along the rest of the time. They go some miles, and the dog comes back all happy looking.

Do dogs handle multi-level authority structures well? Not in my experience, no. They've been bred for thousands of years to be comfortable in a human hierarchal system, it's what they are actually quite good at. Expecting a dog to behave well in an anarchist system is not good sense.

I didn't say anarchist, I said multi-level. Hierarchical works too. The key question is, could we reasonably expect the dog to develop the theory that he's subordinate to his owner, and I'm outside his scope -- say, above his owner, or otherwise Way Out There and not for dogs.

Is it okay for Private Dog to just not interact with General Seebs, and instead spend his time interacting with Sergeant Luka? It's not a matter of OK, it's a matter of reality. It's not possible for the dog not to interact with any member of the household, and in fact, it would be dangerous to attempt this. Because if an incident were to occur where the dog comes in contact with the other house member, and lacks training in knowing how to behave civilly, you could have a dangerous incident, where the dog decides the other person is a threat, and attempts protection, or behaves in ways that impede the person (jumping up on the person, grabbing something out of their hand, etc) which could also lead to injury.

So, the answer is effectively no, he can't have people who are outside his social scope; he has to have a direct relationship with everybody?

I get the impression that he wants to figure out where he stands with me, and that a big part of the problem is that, while he's overjoyed with where he stands with me when I'm paying attention to him -- he does tricks, he wags, he lolls his tongue, and he doesn't show any signs of fear -- he has no idea what's going on when I'm doing something else.For that, it sounds as if you need a "how to read body language for dogs type book, and I hope the suggestions here help. I was surprised you didn't recognize the play bow behavior. Maybe it's not just you that needs help in learning how dogs communicate.

I'm by far the worst at it. It's quite possible other people recognize more of these things, and aren't telling me because they aren't consciously aware of how they interpret things.

Compared to what?Compared to being in a family that can actually understand basic dog communication, and respects the dog's need for stability and hierarchy.

Respects and can-meet-perfectly are not the same. It's not as though we're holding kabuki plays in his room at intervals determined by a quantum diode.

Basically, it sounds to me like you're doing the thing I see a lot of in discussions of pets on the internet; comparing the pet's circumstance to the theoretical perfect state the animal would experience absolute bliss in, without any stresses, and declaring that the situation is a poor fit.

Yeah, the dog's not going to like everything. Not everything will meet his "needs" -- but then, I've never met a creature whose "needs" were met all the time, and most of them do fine. So far as I can tell, the dog has a pretty clear sense of whose dog he is, and what is expected of him, and he does those things just about all of the time, and is happy.

Would your dog be safe around children?

I have no idea, but part of this is that I don't understand the intended scope. What standard of safety? What kind of children?

I personally do not believe that any dog can be "safe around children" to my standards. They are creatures with instincts, and I would never leave ANY small child (preteen or so) alone with ANY dog. Period. You can have a dog that's been raised with cats and lived happily with them for fifteen years, and one day it happens to trigger a response in the cat that triggers a response in the dog, and one or both are seriously injured or dead. While I think that the vast majority of "accidents" involving dogs are a result of poor training or upbringing, there are underlying canine instincts that occasionally trigger unexpectedly.

So I wouldn't leave a toddler alone with him, but then, I wouldn't leave a toddler alone in general.

We've had a four-year-old over, and the dog did try to hump his head once, but he stopped when told to knock it off. (The dog is substantially bigger than the kid.) Since then, the kid has been by a few times, and if he tells the dog to "stop", the dog backs off and waits for the kid to feel safe playing. He loooooves playing with the kid. (If it matters, the kid's got previous dog experience.)

I think the dog behaved genuinely aggressively towards a cat maybe once or twice shortly after we got him. Since then, it's all been either failed attempts at initiating play, or barking and lunging attempts to get us to realize that OMG THERE IS A CAT IN THE ROOM. However, 90% of the time, when he sees a cat, he sits down, stares intently at the cat, and wags his tail slowly. If the cat stares back, the dog eventually turns his head away and sighs.

I don't know where this all fits on the spectrum of expected behavior for a dog barely over a year old, but compared to a whole lot of dogs I've seen, he's a sweety, and I think he would be absolutely heartbroken to lose his owner, to whom he is waggily devoted.

[BDS]

I personally do not believe that any dog can be "safe around children" to my standards. They are creatures with instincts, and I would never leave ANY small child (preteen or so) alone with ANY dog. Period. .
.

Jeez! So much for Ol' Yeller and Arliss, eh. Except wouldn't Arliss have been killed by that mother bear? Travis would have been killed by the hogs. And think how many times Rusty would have died, if Rin Tin Tin hadn't been around! (OK, he only would have died once, I suppose.)

I admit it would have been a tragedy if Lassie had chewed off Elizabeth Taylor's face in "Lassie Come Home". But it never happened!

I had a dog when I was a kid (second oldest of 6) and the dog was great around young children (even though we tortured it regularly). (The torture was only psychological, by the way. The kids weren't allowed to bother the dog when it was in its "box". So we'd rough house with her, while one of our brothers hid the box. When our dog got tired of playing, she would run into the kitchen to find the safety of her box -- only to look with horror on the empty spot where it was supposed to be.)

I also had a dog when my son was born. I trusted that dog with anything -- including an infant -- and he never once let me down. I remember when my son's mom was pregnant, the dog would lie with his head on her belly, and when the baby kicked, the dog would look up at us, knowingly. To this day, I think he was as excited about having a kid as we were.

[seebs]

I personally do not believe that any dog can be "safe around children" to my standards. They are creatures with instincts, and I would never leave ANY small child (preteen or so) alone with ANY dog. Period. .
.

Jeez! So much for Ol' Yeller and Arliss, eh. Except wouldn't Arliss have been killed by that mother bear? Travis would have been killed by the hogs. And think how many times Rusty would have died, if Rin Tin Tin hadn't been around! (OK, he only would have died once, I suppose.)

I admit it would have been a tragedy if Lassie had chewed off Elizabeth Taylor's face in "Lassie Come Home". But it never happened!

It's rare with well-adapted dogs, but every so often they snap.

I had a dog when I was a kid (second oldest of 6) and the dog was great around young children (even though we tortured it regularly). (The torture was only psychological, by the way. The kids weren't allowed to bother the dog when it was in its "box". So we'd rough house with her, while one of our brothers hid the box. When our dog got tired of playing, she would run into the kitchen to find the safety of her box -- only to look with horror on the empty spot where it was supposed to be.)

I also had a dog when my son was born. I trusted that dog with anything -- including an infant -- and he never once let me down. I remember when my son's mom was pregnant, the dog would lie with his head on her belly, and when the baby kicked, the dog would look up at us, knowingly. To this day, I think he was as excited about having a kid as we were.

Well, yes. And I know a lot of people who never wear seatbelts and are still doing just fine. I don't think dogs are LIKELY to suddenly act in a destructive way, but I also don't think we can state with real certainty that they won't.

[ChuckF]

Is it okay for Private Dog to just not interact with General Seebs, and instead spend his time interacting with Sergeant Luka? It's not a matter of OK, it's a matter of reality. It's not possible for the dog not to interact with any member of the household, and in fact, it would be dangerous to attempt this. Because if an incident were to occur where the dog comes in contact with the other house member, and lacks training in knowing how to behave civilly, you could have a dangerous incident, where the dog decides the other person is a threat, and attempts protection, or behaves in ways that impede the person (jumping up on the person, grabbing something out of their hand, etc) which could also lead to injury.

So, the answer is effectively no, he can't have people who are outside his social scope; he has to have a direct relationship with everybody?

It isn't realistic to expect a dog not to interact with someone living in his environment. You're there, you're a human, and the dog will want to find out about you. It knows that you are not the primary caregiver, but you're still there for interaction. You have territory, and if you want the dog to respect that territory, you will have to build a relationship with it. Further, being familiar with and comfortable in the home environment is very important to proper socialization. It's fine to have "no go" areas where the dog isn't allowed, but having someone that the dog doesn't trust living in the house is not good. This is especially important when there are guests over or the dog is interacting with new people on his/her turf; the safer the dog feels, the more comfortable (s)he'll be with strangers.

[seebs]

It isn't realistic to expect a dog not to interact with someone living in his environment. You're there, you're a human, and the dog will want to find out about you. It knows that you are not the primary caregiver, but you're still there for interaction. You have territory, and if you want the dog to respect that territory, you will have to build a relationship with it. Further, being familiar with and comfortable in the home environment is very important to proper socialization. It's fine to have "no go" areas where the dog isn't allowed, but having someone that the dog doesn't trust living in the house is not good. This is especially important when there are guests over or the dog is interacting with new people on his/her turf; the safer the dog feels, the more comfortable (s)he'll be with strangers.

Hmm. Well, to distinguish more clearly: Granted that he obviously needs some clue about who I am or what our relations are.

The issue so far has been that being "safe" for the dog imposes more effort on me than I anticipated. I've had roommates with cats and fish before, and I was not aware of just how much more work a dog is. Of course, some of it will be less work as I get better at it.

[lisarea]

I personally do not believe that any dog can be "safe around children" to my standards. They are creatures with instincts, and I would never leave ANY small child (preteen or so) alone with ANY dog. Period. .
.

Jeez! So much for Ol' Yeller and Arliss, eh. Except wouldn't Arliss have been killed by that mother bear? Travis would have been killed by the hogs. And think how many times Rusty would have died, if Rin Tin Tin hadn't been around! (OK, he only would have died once, I suppose.)

That was a perfectly sound answer and a perfectly sound policy, especially since seebs openly admits he can't read dogs well.

Unlike a lot of people, he's being realistic. Most people think their dogs are safe with children. You frequently hear them say that on the news and stuff after their dog has ripped a kid's face off.

[Chris Porter]

Do dogs handle multi-level authority structures well? Not in my experience, no. They've been bred for thousands of years to be comfortable in a human hierarchal system, it's what they are actually quite good at. Expecting a dog to behave well in an anarchist system is not good sense.

I didn't say anarchist, I said multi-level. Hierarchical works too. The key question is, could we reasonably expect the dog to develop the theory that he's subordinate to his owner, and I'm outside his scope -- say, above his owner, or otherwise Way Out There and not for dogs. Yes, this is possible. Teach the dog people manners. (Don't jump on people, sit when told to sit, etc. Had a nice petting session with my cousin's skye terrier a while back. When I was done petting, I put my hand away and said, "I'm done now." and the terrier looked at me, got off my lap, and went to another guest for petting. That is good manners, but it takes training and socialization skills that perhaps your family doesn't yet have (to give to the dog. My cousins have had dogs for years and years, and train them well for meeting strangers).

Is it okay for Private Dog to just not interact with General Seebs, and instead spend his time interacting with Sergeant Luka? It's not a matter of OK, it's a matter of reality. It's not possible for the dog not to interact with any member of the household, and in fact, it would be dangerous to attempt this. Because if an incident were to occur where the dog comes in contact with the other house member, and lacks training in knowing how to behave civilly, you could have a dangerous incident, where the dog decides the other person is a threat, and attempts protection, or behaves in ways that impede the person (jumping up on the person, grabbing something out of their hand, etc) which could also lead to injury.

So, the answer is effectively no, he can't have people who are outside his social scope; he has to have a direct relationship with everybody?Well. He has to know how to be polite. That, in a way, is a direct relationship.

I get the impression that he wants to figure out where he stands with me, and that a big part of the problem is that, while he's overjoyed with where he stands with me when I'm paying attention to him -- he does tricks, he wags, he lolls his tongue, and he doesn't show any signs of fear -- he has no idea what's going on when I'm doing something else.For that, it sounds as if you need a "how to read body language for dogs type book, and I hope the suggestions here help. I was surprised you didn't recognize the play bow behavior. Maybe it's not just you that needs help in learning how dogs communicate.

I'm by far the worst at it. It's quite possible other people recognize more of these things, and aren't telling me because they aren't consciously aware of how they interpret things.Aha, that is not so bad, since I got the impression your family is new at owning large, potentially dangerous pets. Let your family know you need help interpreting the dog's behavior. The dog should be very proficient at displaying it's emotional state, it's up to you the figure out what that state is. To a dog, things like eye contact, position of tail, ears, corners of the mouth, and position of the whole body can be very telling of their mental state. Some you might recognize without being conscious of it, because they are similar to ape* behaviors. (Dogs tilting their head "quizzically", or dogs narrowing their eyes and moving the ears down and back while lifting their upper lips in "anger", and so on, are pretty much mammalian traits that many animals have.

Compared to what?Compared to being in a family that can actually understand basic dog communication, and respects the dog's need for stability and hierarchy.

Respects and can-meet-perfectly are not the same. It's not as though we're holding kabuki plays in his room at intervals determined by a quantum diode.

Basically, it sounds to me like you're doing the thing I see a lot of in discussions of pets on the internet; comparing the pet's circumstance to the theoretical perfect state the animal would experience absolute bliss in, without any stresses, and declaring that the situation is a poor fit.No, I'm saying you are explaining your situation as if your family is bereft of the needed tools to socialize your dog. That can be dangerous, to you and others. And the dog. But I'm more concerned about a family taking on a potentially dangerous animal while lacking skills to teach it and themselves what's needed to have a happy, social, and safe pet.

Yeah, the dog's not going to like everything. Not everything will meet his "needs" -- but then, I've never met a creature whose "needs" were met all the time, and most of them do fine. So far as I can tell, the dog has a pretty clear sense of whose dog he is, and what is expected of him, and he does those things just about all of the time, and is happy.

Would your dog be safe around children?

I have no idea, but part of this is that I don't understand the intended scope. What standard of safety? What kind of children?I used a really open ended question to find out if you have considered the consequences of not socializing your dog. Your nice, friendly dog that runs up and jumps on a toddler to lick it in a frenzy of happiness at seeing the toddler. Who falls backward on the sidewalk, and hits her head on the concrete, necessitating a trip to the ER for a couple stitches for her heavily bleeding scalp. While the dog then gets reprimanded for being friendly! This is why manners to everyone is a positive benefit not only to the dog, but to your family. It's not enough to have a friendly dog that wouldn't hurt a toddler or baby deliberately. Dogs should have manners. And that does mean that teaching your family's dog to sit and stay, and come when called, is beneficial, not only to your family but to others. These skills will ease issues in the house as well as outside.

[quote]I personally do not believe that any dog can be "safe around children" to my standards. They are creatures with instincts, and I would never leave ANY small child (preteen or so) alone with ANY dog. Period. You can have a dog that's been raised with cats and lived happily with them for fifteen years, and one day it happens to trigger a response in the cat that triggers a response in the dog, and one or both are seriously injured or dead. While I think that the vast majority of "accidents" involving dogs are a result of poor training or upbringing, there are underlying canine instincts that occasionally trigger unexpectedly.

So I wouldn't leave a toddler alone with him, but then, I wouldn't leave a toddler alone in general.

We've had a four-year-old over, and the dog did try to hump his head once, but he stopped when told to knock it off. (The dog is substantially bigger than the kid.) Since then, the kid has been by a few times, and if he tells the dog to "stop", the dog backs off and waits for the kid to feel safe playing. He loooooves playing with the kid. (If it matters, the kid's got previous dog experience.)I don't think, from what you describe, that your pet is an immediate danger due to aggressiveness. But I was unaware if you folks have thought about what to do in circumstances where your pet has inadvertently injured someone because of poor training. Nobody wants to discipline their dog when it was being friendly, nor do they want to have a dog with play behaviors that can lead to injury. (I say, having been severely bitten by a family's pet, who was then put down because of the incident. My guilty feelings for having precipitated that death were never addressed.)

I think the dog behaved genuinely aggressively towards a cat maybe once or twice shortly after we got him. Since then, it's all been either failed attempts at initiating play, or barking and lunging attempts to get us to realize that OMG THERE IS A CAT IN THE ROOM. However, 90% of the time, when he sees a cat, he sits down, stares intently at the cat, and wags his tail slowly. If the cat stares back, the dog eventually turns his head away and sighs.

I don't know where this all fits on the spectrum of expected behavior for a dog barely over a year old, but compared to a whole lot of dogs I've seen, he's a sweety, and I think he would be absolutely heartbroken to lose his owner, to whom he is waggily devoted.
Time to take the dog to obedience school, I would think. There, owners learn how to understand their dogs, and work with them to socialize the dogs and make them safe for society.

[seebs]

Unlike a lot of people, he's being realistic. Most people think their dogs are safe with children. You frequently hear them say that on the news and stuff after their dog has ripped a kid's face off.

My college advisor was late for our first meeting because a dog had ripped his kid's face off. The owners had spent months saying they didn't need to tie him up or monitor him, because "he's friendly".

I think it vanishingly unlikely that our dog will ever intentionally hurt anything under reasonable circumstances, or even under rather unreasonable circumstances.

I think he might well kill a cat trying to play with it, if he were able to get close enough to "pounce" with his 60 pounds on his front paws on the cat. I also think he is liable to lose an eye if he is left unmonitored and allowed to pursue cats without restraint -- I have seen him try to chase a cat under a bed. Tail wagging and all, but REALLY FUCKING STUPID. (Not for a dog, mind.)

So I don't think he's a bad dog at all, but dogs make mistakes, and have essentially no metacognition to warn them when they're out of control, so far as I can tell.

[seebs]

I didn't say anarchist, I said multi-level. Hierarchical works too. The key question is, could we reasonably expect the dog to develop the theory that he's subordinate to his owner, and I'm outside his scope -- say, above his owner, or otherwise Way Out There and not for dogs. Yes, this is possible. Teach the dog people manners. (Don't jump on people, sit when told to sit, etc. Had a nice petting session with my cousin's skye terrier a while back. When I was done petting, I put my hand away and said, "I'm done now." and the terrier looked at me, got off my lap, and went to another guest for petting. That is good manners, but it takes training and socialization skills that perhaps your family doesn't yet have (to give to the dog. My cousins have had dogs for years and years, and train them well for meeting strangers).

That could work. I think dog can probably learn that, and is actually starting to -- but he still feels rejected when people don't want to play. Maybe when he's older.

[quote]So, the answer is effectively no, he can't have people who are outside his social scope; he has to have a direct relationship with everybody?Well. He has to know how to be polite. That, in a way, is a direct relationship.

Yeah. The big stresser for me is that, if he's in a room, I can't reliably just walk through the room ignoring him.

[quote]Aha, that is not so bad, since I got the impression your family is new at owning large, potentially dangerous pets. Let your family know you need help interpreting the dog's behavior.

Oh, I have.

The deal is, one of us is a dog person, and another has previous dog experience but isn't really a dog person.

However, dog people are often atrocious at explaining dogs to people who can't Just See It Isn't It Obvious.

The dog should be very proficient at displaying it's emotional state, it's up to you the figure out what that state is. To a dog, things like eye contact, position of tail, ears, corners of the mouth, and position of the whole body can be very telling of their mental state. Some you might recognize without being conscious of it, because they are similar to ape* behaviors. (Dogs tilting their head "quizzically", or dogs narrowing their eyes and moving the ears down and back while lifting their upper lips in "anger", and so on, are pretty much mammalian traits that many animals have.

So far as I know, I don't recognize nonverbal cues I don't know about. I have to be told about them, or infer them from study.

No, I'm saying you are explaining your situation as if your family is bereft of the needed tools to socialize your dog. That can be dangerous, to you and others. And the dog. But I'm more concerned about a family taking on a potentially dangerous animal while lacking skills to teach it and themselves what's needed to have a happy, social, and safe pet.

Oh! No. Dog's fine. Dog has perfectly adequate social skills for a puppy about a year and a couple of months old, is very obedient, and is as free of aggression as any dog I've ever seen.

The problem is that I don't like dogs, and can't read them, and I will have a very hard time dealing with the dog without developing, say, a working cognitive psychology of dogs.

I used a really open ended question to find out if you have considered the consequences of not socializing your dog.

Once again, I should clarify. The dog's socialized. I'm not.

Your nice, friendly dog that runs up and jumps on a toddler to lick it in a frenzy of happiness at seeing the toddler. Who falls backward on the sidewalk, and hits her head on the concrete, necessitating a trip to the ER for a couple stitches for her heavily bleeding scalp. While the dog then gets reprimanded for being friendly! This is why manners to everyone is a positive benefit not only to the dog, but to your family. It's not enough to have a friendly dog that wouldn't hurt a toddler or baby deliberately. Dogs should have manners. And that does mean that teaching your family's dog to sit and stay, and come when called, is beneficial, not only to your family but to others. These skills will ease issues in the house as well as outside.

Absolutely, and the dog is indeed working on all these skills, and doing very well most of the time. He still loses it sometimes, and "acts up" -- say, barking when I come home, or running to the door. Rarely, though, because we're quite clear about correcting these behaviors. (Not by shouting, mind. As an example, if he jumps up on someone, he tends to get a gentle knee to the sternum; enough to remind him, not enough to hurt him or scare him. Seems to work well.)

I don't think, from what you describe, that your pet is an immediate danger due to aggressiveness. But I was unaware if you folks have thought about what to do in circumstances where your pet has inadvertently injured someone because of poor training. Nobody wants to discipline their dog when it was being friendly, nor do they want to have a dog with play behaviors that can lead to injury. (I say, having been severely bitten by a family's pet, who was then put down because of the incident. My guilty feelings for having precipitated that death were never addressed.)

Oh, that's awful. I'm am not a big fan of the "he's just being friendly" excuse; I think that it is up to the dog's owner to ensure that the dog learns appropriate ways to be friendly.

Time to take the dog to obedience school, I would think. There, owners learn how to understand their dogs, and work with them to socialize the dogs and make them safe for society.

The dog's been through a bit of training, and he's quite safe for society.

He annoys me, because fundamentally I am not a dog person. I do not want an animal to have demands on my attention or interest.

These are not flaws in the dog; the dog is a marvel of doggy goodness, so far as I can tell, and probably the best trained, most obedient, dog I have ever known that was not a service animal.

But I don't like dogs, and I think a big part of my discomfort is that I lack a working cognitive model of dogs. I didn't get along with people until I had a degree in cognitive psychology and years spent matching that model to human behavior. I assume dogs are easier, but I still really do need the abstract cognitive model to get along with them.

(Cats are easy, because there is no requirement that I get along with them.)

[Chris Porter]

You have always struck me as a very quick learner, and from your posts on games like WoW, I suspect you are a visual learner, or at least have skills that can be used in visual learning. Perhaps you would learn most quickly by watching videos. If what's needed is skills in reading dog language (body language), it's a matter of practice. Go with some short stuff first, and see if this helps.

You tube videos on dog behavior (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dog+body+language&search_type=) (even the first, awful video, has some value, as it discusses anxiety issues)

[seebs]

While practice is important, I have had very poor luck practicing something before I understand it. Yes, I know, everyone says "you learn by doing". Learning styles vary; I'm very much a schema-first guy.

So, I looked at one of those ("learn to speak dog"). I am not much better off than I started out. A few frames gave specific details to look for -- but wait, tail high is a "warning"? I thought tail high was a sign of happiness and confidence! Or is that wagging/not-wagging?

I feel as though I've been handed a set of things like "even numbers, addition", and "look at this, it's odd numbers and multiplication, see?", and I'm being asked to invent the concept of closures. Hmm.

[Chris Porter]

I understand, "learn the concept first, learn the details last", since that's what I do best. But your handicap is not that, so much as your dislike of having to be put in the position to learn. "I don't like dogs", I think you've said. Disliking a subject makes it more difficult to learn, so learning shortcuts may work out for you, even if it's not your preferred method of learning.

Learning animal behavior came easy for me, I like animals just for being animals, and not humans. Their emotions are all in their body language, so much easier to identify and catalog than human speech rife with innuendos. So I've gobbled up all sorts of books from popular literature to scholarly works, in an effort to understand how animals communicate. This likely wouldn't work for you, even if it's your best method of learning.

Yes, tail high, and still, with body slightly tense, and eyes focused on a point, means the dog is paying a great deal of attention to something. If you watch a dog doing that, you may notice that if annoyed or distracted from the focus of attention, they may quickly turn and nip at the distraction before going back to what's got their attention. That's why it's best to grab the attention before grabbing the dog.

For cats, they rarely stand high, but the use the same stare, slight body tensions, and a level tail or low but stiff tail, or if crouched, a slight twitch at the very end. If the cat goes from attention to stalk, the tail begins quivering further up the tail from the tip. Cats seem more likely to move away from a distraction from attention, rather than nip at it, but that's not hard and fast.

Animal behavior is based on fairly "clean" or "unambiguous" emotional cues such as happiness, contentment, play, sex, fear, concern, greed, and so on. Animals can often spot and interpret these cues in other animals, and other species, allowing them some basic communication skills between species. Dogs have been bred to the point that they have quite malleable skills, and their behaviors fit in well with human society to a great degree.

Horses, bears, moose, raccoons, etc, all have a sort of "let's be still and quiet, as I must pay close attention to this thing" type of behavior that winds up being similar across species. Mammal fear and defense is similar across species, you see one hissing, chuffing animal face you and back away with teeth bared and ears down, you'll see something similar in another species.

So learning to recognize your dog's behaviors and what they mean, give you a real leg up on interpreting other animals people interact with as well.

(don't count on this for birds or invertebrates, or animals that lack facial muscles (like fish))

[LadyShea]

That was a perfectly sound answer and a perfectly sound policy, especially since seebs openly admits he can't read dogs well.

Unlike a lot of people, he's being realistic. Most people think their dogs are safe with children. You frequently hear them say that on the news and stuff after their dog has ripped a kid's face off.

I trust my dogs with adults, and older kids...but the Kiddo and other little ones are a different story. The kids don't know not to poke eyes, or step on guts, or wake the dog up by a sharp pull to the ear. And Kiddo is face to face with them height wise, so if they take a corrective nip (as adult dogs do with annoying puppies) or a startled "remove source of pain" bite, it's gonna be to the face.

Nope, Kiddo doesn't get to interact with the dogs without supervision.

[LadyShea]

Yes, tail high, and still, with body slightly tense, and eyes focused on a point, means the dog is paying a great deal of attention to something.

I suddenly woke one night to the view of Rottweiler butt. The dog was standing completely over me (back paws to either side of my shoulders and front paws to either side of my thighs) perfectly still and staring out the window. We don't know what he hard that night, but it concerned him enough to bodily shield me. If anything or anyone had appeared in that window, I am sure he would have launched right through it.

[BDS]

Well, yes. And I know a lot of people who never wear seatbelts and are still doing just fine. I don't think dogs are LIKELY to suddenly act in a destructive way, but I also don't think we can state with real certainty that they won't.

It depends on whether we think there's a VALUE for a child to have a dog, I suppose. I believe about 20 people in the U.S. are killed by dogs each year (on approx. average). Of those, probably two or three are kids killed by their own dogs. Of those, only a small percentage are killed by dogs that a reasonable dog owner (i.e. me) would have trusted around kids. So, yes, there is a risk. But the risk is very slim, and there are rewards, as well (think of that she-bear and Arliss, aside from the fun and companionship).

Everyone knows seatbelts save lives, despite occasionally causing someone to die because he can't get out of a burning car quickly enough. But is it clear that dogs kill more kids than they save? Is it credible that his own beagle would kill or severely injure a 7-year-old (as opposed to an infant)? Heck, we could make all kids wear crash helmets 24/7, and it would save far more lives than refusing to own a dog -- but would it be worth it?

p.s. Diane Downs, the notorious Oregon murderer who killed her own children, is up for parole next year. I say kids should not be allowed near their own mothers -- I'll bet live-in mothers kill far more kids than live-in dogs.

[Adam]

I guess... Right now, I'm not very happy about coexisting with a dog. I have a better chance of learning new skills than he does. It's not that he's badly-behaved; it's that the things I don't like are pretty much fundamental to dogs...Ideally, I'd like it if he would just leave me alone, but I think that's unlikely.

It's like you're reading my mind. In my case, I don't actually even live with the dog. Dogs are great, but they're more or less a full time job, almost like kids. If you aren't at a time and place where devoting a lot of time to interacting with a dog is something you're prepared to do happily, it's a pain in the ass. It sounds like you're taking more initiative here that the dog's actual owner, which kinda sucks for you (and, probably, for the dog too).

[seebs]

I understand, "learn the concept first, learn the details last", since that's what I do best. But your handicap is not that, so much as your dislike of having to be put in the position to learn. "I don't like dogs", I think you've said. Disliking a subject makes it more difficult to learn, so learning shortcuts may work out for you, even if it's not your preferred method of learning.

The main thing, I think, is that those aren't really shortcuts for me -- they're the extra-hard way to learn.

Learning animal behavior came easy for me, I like animals just for being animals, and not humans. Their emotions are all in their body language, so much easier to identify and catalog than human speech rife with innuendos.

Keep in mind the mild autism. I learn body language only sporadically and by rote. I don't have the underlying natural tendency to ascribe internal state to posture or "expression".

So I've gobbled up all sorts of books from popular literature to scholarly works, in an effort to understand how animals communicate. This likely wouldn't work for you, even if it's your best method of learning.

I suspect it would. Right now, the problem I have is I don't have any framework on which to hang attempts to ascribe "moods" to dogs. I don't have a good sense for what the range of dog moods is, or what cognitive schemata a dog is likely to have. A discussion of whether or not a dog is "confident" is not much use without a model of what dogs like (a stable social situation with understood roles) in which to understand what they are confident about.

Yes, tail high, and still, with body slightly tense, and eyes focused on a point, means the dog is paying a great deal of attention to something. If you watch a dog doing that, you may notice that if annoyed or distracted from the focus of attention, they may quickly turn and nip at the distraction before going back to what's got their attention. That's why it's best to grab the attention before grabbing the dog.

Cool. How do you grab a dog's attention?

We've been gradually working on generalizing "leave it" from "do not bite that tasty thing" to "stop trying to look at that, it's none of your business". It's not fast.

So learning to recognize your dog's behaviors and what they mean, give you a real leg up on interpreting other animals people interact with as well.

Yup.

BTW, I was bored and there was dog, so I tried emulating the "playbow" -- palms flat, duck head and shoulders. It does indeed very clearly communicate to him that playtime has arrived. Woo!

[seebs]

It depends on whether we think there's a VALUE for a child to have a dog, I suppose.

I suspect there is.

But I wouldn't want to leave the child unsupervised with the dog, especially if either the dog or the child has less than a couple of years' experience with it.

I believe about 20 people in the U.S. are killed by dogs each year (on approx. average). Of those, probably two or three are kids killed by their own dogs. Of those, only a small percentage are killed by dogs that a reasonable dog owner (i.e. me) would have trusted around kids. So, yes, there is a risk. But the risk is very slim, and there are rewards, as well (think of that she-bear and Arliss, aside from the fun and companionship).

I'd say there's a lot more risk than "risk of dying". I can think of one person killed by a dog in the last decade, but badly bitten is much more common.

Everyone knows seatbelts save lives, despite occasionally causing someone to die because he can't get out of a burning car quickly enough. But is it clear that dogs kill more kids than they save? Is it credible that his own beagle would kill or severely injure a 7-year-old (as opposed to an infant)? Heck, we could make all kids wear crash helmets 24/7, and it would save far more lives than refusing to own a dog -- but would it be worth it?

I never said anything about refusing to own a dog. I said that I would not leave a dog unsupervised with a small child. It's not just that the dog might do something "wrong"; it's that the child might act in a way to which the dog's "right" response is very bad for us (and subsequently, through no fault of its own, for the dog).

The dog who ripped the face off my faculty advisor's kid was probably not acting in a way contrary to the sum of doggy instinct and training. We could, I suppose, blame the kid for walking into a place the dog thought was its territory, or something like that. Or, we could blame the owners for leaving a territorial dog loose without supervision.

On the one hand, the dog was probably killed, and I think it's probably the right social policy to have (because we don't want to take any risks about whether the dog will act that way again, no matter whose fault it is)... But I still don't necessarily feel the dog was at fault.

(BTW, "ripped the face off" = "a lot of skin completely detached", but they got the kid back together okay, as I understand it.)

[seebs]

I guess... Right now, I'm not very happy about coexisting with a dog. I have a better chance of learning new skills than he does. It's not that he's badly-behaved; it's that the things I don't like are pretty much fundamental to dogs...Ideally, I'd like it if he would just leave me alone, but I think that's unlikely.

It's like you're reading my mind. In my case, I don't actually even live with the dog. Dogs are great, but they're more or less a full time job, almost like kids. If you aren't at a time and place where devoting a lot of time to interacting with a dog is something you're prepared to do happily, it's a pain in the ass. It sounds like you're taking more initiative here that the dog's actual owner, which kinda sucks for you (and, probably, for the dog too).

The dog's owner is doing a good job of teaching him things, exercising him, and otherwise interacting with him productively. I'm taking additional steps because I have additional problems which are not normal.

[BDS]

I never said anything about refusing to own a dog. I said that I would not leave a dog unsupervised with a small child. It's not just that the dog might do something "wrong"; it's that the child might act in a way to which the dog's "right" response is very bad for us (and subsequently, through no fault of its own, for the dog).



Actually, you said "preteen child" (like Travis more than Arliss). Most dogs I've known are protective of family members -- and I bet that kids 4 and older are SAFER owning a dog (if their parents are at all reasonable about choosing a child-safe breed and assessing the dog's temperment) than they are not owning one. (Of course if the family owns a dog, the kids will often be at least temporarily unsupervised around it.)

I'll agree that dogs that are NOT part of the family are riskier around kids (and adults, for that matter) -- although my own parenting preference is to refrain from being overprotective of children. I'd also agree that everything else being equal, I wouldn't get a dog if my kid was under 2 or so. We had our dog already when my son was born, so that wasn't an option.

I was once bitten by a German Shepherd, for no apparent reason. It was an acquantance's dog, and I was over at her house. I didn't do anything about it (except not come over to her house any more), but I learned later that the dog severely injured a two year old kid, and I regretted not reporting the incident when it bit me. (This dog was mean enough that any reasonable owner would have gotten rid of it long before it bit me -- but dog owners are often unreasonable, partly because they love their dogs.)

[seebs]

Actually, you said "preteen child" (like Travis more than Arliss).

Preteens look small to me. BTW, I have no idea who either Travis or Arliss are.

Most dogs I've known are protective of family members -- and I bet that kids 4 and older are SAFER owning a dog (if their parents are at all reasonable about choosing a child-safe breed and assessing the dog's temperment) than they are not owning one. (Of course if the family owns a dog, the kids will often be at least temporarily unsupervised around it.)

That may be, but I would be pretty uncomfortable with that. I would not feel it was safe.

I know, people often leave children "just for a minute". I have attended at least one funeral with a coffin about 3' long that involved an accident under such circumstances. (I don't know that it was preventable, mind.)

I am not saying it is wrong to own a dog, just that my personal sense is that I would not leave it unsupervised with a small child. With a dog the size of ours (60 pounds), "preteen" would be about the right place to draw the line. Maybe with a Lhasa Apso, smaller kids would be okay.

I was once bitten by a German Shepherd, for no apparent reason. It was an acquantance's dog, and I was over at her house. I didn't do anything about it (except not come over to her house any more), but I learned later that the dog severely injured a two year old kid, and I regretted not reporting the incident when it bit me. (This dog was mean enough that any reasonable owner would have gotten rid of it long before it bit me -- but dog owners are often unreasonable, partly because they love their dogs.)

I probably overestimate dog dangers some, and I suspect most dog people underestimate them some.

When I was a kid (elementary school age), there was a large black dog in my neighborhood that acted in ways that at least seemed threatening to me. I don't know whether it was actually threatening. But it's probably part of my basic feeling that dogs should not be loose, in general.

[BDS]

Arliss and Travis are the two human heroes of Ol' Yeller (the most famous dog movie not starring Elizabeth Taylor). Travis was a preteen (probably 11 or 12); Arliss was probably 5 or 6.

[seebs]

To be fair, in a preindustrial situation, I think dogs might be a much lower risk for kids than the other risks the dogs might protect them from. I would guess that "child unsupervised with unknown and unknowable variety of poisonous, carnivorous, or merely rabid animals" is more bad than "child unsupervised with dog".

[BDS]

Even in an urban situation, dogs can save people -- barking at or biting home invaders; waking up the family in the case of fire; protecting their masters against bullies or strange dogs, etc. Of course it doesn't happen very often -- but neither does dogs seriously injuring their masters. I'd bet that even for families with young kids, owning a dog is no more dangerous than not owning one (it's probably about a wash).

[seebs]

Even in an urban situation, dogs can save people -- barking at or biting home invaders; waking up the family in the case of fire; protecting their masters against bullies or strange dogs, etc. Of course it doesn't happen very often -- but neither does dogs seriously injuring their masters. I'd bet that even for families with young kids, owning a dog is no more dangerous than not owning one (it's probably about a wash).

I'd probably agree -- our dog noticed a thing that was starting to make burned electronics smells long before we did.

I agree that it's probably not that big a deal. But in response to the question "is your dog safe with children", my answer would be "not safe enough for me to leave him unsupervised with one, and I don't think any dog is". Obviously, sometimes you have to approximate -- and I've driven cars under circumstances preventing the use of a seatbelt, too. But I think that what dangers there are, however small they may be, can be easily reduced dramatically with supervision, and that it seems like it would make the dog a better deal for the family. For that matter, that supervision may well result in the dog finding out that a given line of behavior is bad long before anyone gets hurt, preventing things entirely.

I guess it seems to me that it'd be sort of unfair to the dog to leave it unsupervised with a kid without a whole lot of time and practice with that particular kid first.

[lisarea]

Kids and dogs are both unpredictable, and there is no such thing as a safe breed for either.

Of course, people who know both the kid and the dog in question well usually will have a fairly good idea of when they're trustworthy enough that the risks are very minimal. But unless they were my kid and my dog, I wouldn't even consider leaving them unsupervised.

[seebs]

So, wobbling back on topic: I've been trying to apply some of the new cues I've picked up, and it seems to help. Still, I think there's some kind of basic dog cognition I just don't get. He's clearly not socially equivalent to humans or cats, which are the animals whose social rules I can mostly understand.

[lisarea]

OK. Here are a few key things off the top of my head.

Note that I'm not a dog behaviorist or trainer or any other kind of pro, so this is mostly stuff I've observed and think I'm interpreting accurately.

Dogs smell things a lot. They communicate and gather information by smell. This is why they sniff each others' butts, pee on and smell other dogs' pee on telephone poles and trees, and inspect people's crotches and pants legs. Dog butts are their biggest smelly parts, so this is why a confident dog will raise his tail. It's his way of saying, "I'm here, I'm queer. Get used to it" or something. And conversely, this is why they put their tail between their legs when they're scared. They're sort of hiding.

It's like an introversion-extroversion thing, and is not in itself a clear indicator of aggression or passivity in itself. Think of it like with people. You can't get an accurate gauge of someone's mood based solely on the fact that, say, their eyebrows are way up on their forehead. You take it in context. What is the person doing with the rest of his face, and with his body language?

Fortunately, dogs are much easier to read than people are. They're simpler, and while I do believe dogs can be deceptive, they really aren't complicated about it, so you don't get the multilayered, ego-driven types of deception that you do with people.

So a few other things to look for, off the top of my head:

Hackles. In at least short haired dogs, they'll often get a little raised patch of hair on the back, between their front shoulders, when they're agitated. If they're really worked up, this can extend all the way to the base of the tail. A dog with his hackles up is agitated and potentially aggressive.

Dogs prick their ears up when they're paying attention.

Dogs tilt their head when they're paying attention, but are maybe a little confused. That dog in His Master's Voice is doing this, and that guy looks almost exactly like Sluggo, who is the cutest and best dog in the world. But I digress.

A dog's belly and throat are both vulnerable areas. If a dog rolls over and shows you his underside, that's generally a sign of submission, and a request for a belly scritch.

Similarly, a dog lifting his front paw at you, sort of like he's waving or beckoning you, is also a submissive gesture, sort of a belly-showing without having to get all the way on the ground.

Dogs sometimes will lean on you, too, which I'm pretty sure is a submissive thing. My previous, super-submissive dog did this constantly; and Sluggo does it a lot, too, especially when he's excited and trying really hard to behave himself. Like he's leaning on me for strength or something.

On the other end, dogs often show dominance by getting all up in your grill, maybe climbing up on you and putting their face in your face, maybe licking your face, stuff like that. (A dog resting his head on your lap or sitting on you without doing the face thing doesn't count. That's just love.)

Like I said, I'm no expert, so these are just amateur explanations for amateur observations, but I could probably keep going if this is the sort of thing you're looking for.

[BDS]

Kids and dogs are both unpredictable, and there is no such thing as a safe breed for either.

.

I'll go along with that - I was simply asserting that a small dog wouldn't present much danger to a big kid.

[seebs]

Thanks! Those cues help.

Our dog loves to "dock" -- walk over near someone, then very slightly lean on them while looking around. I'm pretty sure it's somehow friendly, but I can't tell what it says about his view of roles.

The hard one for me is telling interested-happy from interested-afraid. I think the ears tend to go back or down when the dog's afraid he's going to get them ripped off or something.

My current theory on obedience is that it seems to be pretty much necessary to him to test occasionally to see what he can get away with. With me, since he's still pretty skittish about me, this means that about one time in ten when I call him, he'll not come, and then he'll slink around and possibly pee, because he knows he's doing something bad.

The rest of the time he comes to see what's going on and whether there are treats or love to be had.

[lisarea]

Thanks! Those cues help.

Our dog loves to "dock" -- walk over near someone, then very slightly lean on them while looking around. I'm pretty sure it's somehow friendly, but I can't tell what it says about his view of roles.

Yeah, this is one of the reasons I'm a little hesitant to make generalizations. I think in some cases leaning against someone can be a dominant behavior, but I don't have a lot of experience with that myself. With both Sluggo and with my dog before him, they'd do that to show affection or to get some reassurance. Bud was afraid a lot, so I'd put myself between him and whatever was making him nervous, and he'd lean against me. Sluggo is naturally very friendly and kind of rambunctious, so if he's resisting temptation really hard, like when I've told him to sit still when he's worked up, he'll lean against me. He also leans on me really hard during thunderstorms, which terrify him.

But I think that points up what I think is one of the silliest dog behavior notions--that everything is defined as either dominance or submission. While I'm worried about making things seem overcomplicated, behaviors need to be taken in context of your understanding of the dog, the circumstances, and other behaviors. I know what the leaning means because of the context.

My guess is that you're probably right. It sounds like maybe it's a security/affection thing.


My current theory on obedience is that it seems to be pretty much necessary to him to test occasionally to see what he can get away with. With me, since he's still pretty skittish about me, this means that about one time in ten when I call him, he'll not come, and then he'll slink around and possibly pee, because he knows he's doing something bad.

One time out of TEN?

Please come to Colorado and train our dog.

[seebs]

The dog is naturally very obedient, and I am fairly good at training him:
1. It is easy for me to be extremely consistent.
2. I am not afraid of hurting his feelings.

So from me, he gets positive responses if and only if he obeys. He does not get positive responses for being cute, or affectionate, or for acting like he's scared or afraid. Obey, get a treat. Disobey, get shunned or growled at.

So he obeys me quite well. :)

He just has his days where he wants to give people attitude, and show off. I've been working him on "orders count even when playing" lately. I'll play tug of war with him, and then, with no real warning, suddenly tell him to sit. If he doesn't, the rope goes away and I stop playing. If he does, he gets a good boy, some head scritchies, and I keep playing.

He knows. :)

[Chris Porter]

I understand, "learn the concept first, learn the details last", since that's what I do best. But your handicap is not that, so much as your dislike of having to be put in the position to learn. "I don't like dogs", I think you've said. Disliking a subject makes it more difficult to learn, so learning shortcuts may work out for you, even if it's not your preferred method of learning.

The main thing, I think, is that those aren't really shortcuts for me -- they're the extra-hard way to learn.Yes, but you've already decided it's going to be extra hard, because learning something you don't want to learn is hard. No matter what type of learning you attempt, you are setting yourself up to fail at it if your attitude remains negative about having to spend time learning. Leaning by short guides may be all you can 'stomach' which means that your preferred learning method will not help in this endeavor.

Learning animal behavior came easy for me, I like animals just for being animals, and not humans. Their emotions are all in their body language, so much easier to identify and catalog than human speech rife with innuendos.

Keep in mind the mild autism. I learn body language only sporadically and by rote. I don't have the underlying natural tendency to ascribe internal state to posture or "expression".I'm find these "I'm autistic" excuses tedious. You're smarter than average. That means you have the means to overcome your deficits. I had to learn body language by rote too, and I'm fine at it. Granted, I've about 20 years more experience, but I did it by applying my intelligence to the problem, and finding methods I can use to be able to identify body language in people and animals. Granted, I'm still not as good as average, but I'm far better than I was when I was in school. You already know and appreciate the foundational key to this sort of learning: communication is important! Use that appreciation and apply it to the adjunct of verbal communication; how people and animals use their bodies to convey underlying emotion. Since I don't think you can handle long treatses on body language, seach through the web or pick up How to Read a Person like a Book (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Person-Like-Book/dp/0671735578), or search on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_communication), or some pdfs with pictures (http://www.desertanimalcompanions.org/ruff/AnimalBodyLanguage.pdf).

So I've gobbled up all sorts of books from popular literature to scholarly works, in an effort to understand how animals communicate. This likely wouldn't work for you, even if it's your best method of learning.

I suspect it would. Right now, the problem I have is I don't have any framework on which to hang attempts to ascribe "moods" to dogs. I don't have a good sense for what the range of dog moods is, or what cognitive schemata a dog is likely to have. A discussion of whether or not a dog is "confident" is not much use without a model of what dogs like (a stable social situation with understood roles) in which to understand what they are confident about.

Yes, tail high, and still, with body slightly tense, and eyes focused on a point, means the dog is paying a great deal of attention to something. If you watch a dog doing that, you may notice that if annoyed or distracted from the focus of attention, they may quickly turn and nip at the distraction before going back to what's got their attention. That's why it's best to grab the attention before grabbing the dog.

Cool. How do you grab a dog's attention?All kinds of ways. clap hands, say the dog's name, rattle food (really worked with my cat), use a clicker, scream; all good for dogs that hear. What can you use to get a person's attention? If you can answer that, you've gone a good way into figuring out how to capture a dog's attention.

We've been gradually working on generalizing "leave it" from "do not bite that tasty thing" to "stop trying to look at that, it's none of your business". It's not fast.What would be wrong with looking at something? Is the dog supposed to be doing something else, but is instead stopping to look? Then the issue is one of training the dog to keep on task, not one of stopping it from looking at something. Think, how do you stop someone from looking at something? You capture the person's attention, and draw them back to the task at hand. You do the same with any animal. If the dog doesn't have a task, I'm unclear on why they would need to stop looking at something, or smelling something, or even tasting something. Sometimes you need to take something out of a dog's mouth (or some other animal). In this case, being the dominant leader is a big help, most social animals are "hard-wired" to submit even goods they hold onto to their leader. So establishing leadership is healthy, in case you need to put your fingers where they can get harmed.

So learning to recognize your dog's behaviors and what they mean, give you a real leg up on interpreting other animals people interact with as well.

Yup.

BTW, I was bored and there was dog, so I tried emulating the "playbow" -- palms flat, duck head and shoulders. It does indeed very clearly communicate to him that playtime has arrived. Woo!

Yes, it does, the dog was probably delighted it got through to you. Here's a method of dog training your family might consider after they get you trained up to recognize body language.
Clicker (http://www.clickertraining.com/node/275) training

[seebs]

Yes, but you've already decided it's going to be extra hard, because learning something you don't want to learn is hard. No matter what type of learning you attempt, you are setting yourself up to fail at it if your attitude remains negative about having to spend time learning. Leaning by short guides may be all you can 'stomach' which means that your preferred learning method will not help in this endeavor.

Long and involved things that I think will work are usually fine. I don't actually think I don't want to learn this. I'd rather not have to, but it's clear that I do, and I enjoy the process of learning. It is neat being able to figure the dog out better.

I'm find these "I'm autistic" excuses tedious. You're smarter than average. That means you have the means to overcome your deficits. I had to learn body language by rote too, and I'm fine at it. Granted, I've about 20 years more experience, but I did it by applying my intelligence to the problem, and finding methods I can use to be able to identify body language in people and animals.

Yes. My point is not that I can't do it, but that I have to do it differently. What works for me is to get real information on what is going on, rather than just guessing a lot.

Yes, I'm smart enough to derive the fundamental theorem of calculus. That doesn't mean my time wouldn't be better spent having someone explain how it was derived and walk me through it.

All kinds of ways. clap hands, say the dog's name, rattle food (really worked with my cat), use a clicker, scream; all good for dogs that hear. What can you use to get a person's attention? If you can answer that, you've gone a good way into figuring out how to capture a dog's attention.

One of the problems we've had, and I think this is probably mostly a puppy-age thing, is that the dog tends to get enthralled by things.

What would be wrong with looking at something? Is the dog supposed to be doing something else, but is instead stopping to look? Then the issue is one of training the dog to keep on task, not one of stopping it from looking at something.

Hmm. You have a point. The problem I've actually got is that, once he goes into "intent staring and observation", it is essentially inevitable that he will attempt to go and mess with whatever it is. I would like to introduce into his world the concept of "none of your business. Not for taking, not for barking, not for telling us about, not for pursuing. You don't know what it is, so leave it alone."

Basically, I'd like to short-cut through the case where he gets really intent on something, and then later does something perfectly reasonable and doggy, by warning him up front that it's not his problem.

Think, how do you stop someone from looking at something? You capture the person's attention, and draw them back to the task at hand. You do the same with any animal. If the dog doesn't have a task, I'm unclear on why they would need to stop looking at something, or smelling something, or even tasting something. Sometimes you need to take something out of a dog's mouth (or some other animal). In this case, being the dominant leader is a big help, most social animals are "hard-wired" to submit even goods they hold onto to their leader. So establishing leadership is healthy, in case you need to put your fingers where they can get harmed.

True. And actually, that is some of the problem -- he gets intent on something and decides that monitoring another animal's position is more important than obeying commands, so any command you give him, he very briefly does, then goes immediately back to, say, staring intently. I think his behavior is reasonable given the information available to him, but I don't know whether dogs have a slot for "Not For Dogs".

Yes, it does, the dog was probably delighted it got through to you. Here's a method of dog training your family might consider after they get you trained up to recognize body language.
Clicker (http://www.clickertraining.com/node/275) training (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC367wKGi4M)

I think we may have a clicker around here somewhere.

Anyway, to get back to the starting point: No, really, I am pretty sure I will do better at studying dog cognitive psychology than I will with short subjects that offer a variety of mutually-exclusive explanations of what dog signals mean. I think my chances of success would go up a lot more if I could get a better notion of what underlies all these debates about dominance, leadership, submission, and pack hierarchies. I have multiple accounts of how dogs view social life, and they are inconsistent. If I could get past that, I think I'd have a better framework on which to attach theories about what the dog is trying to communicate. (Or, in at least some cases, is not trying to communicate, but is expressing anyway. I think. I don't think all of his signals are conscious.)

[Chris Porter]

Yes, but you've already decided it's going to be extra hard, because learning something you don't want to learn is hard. No matter what type of learning you attempt, you are setting yourself up to fail at it if your attitude remains negative about having to spend time learning. Leaning by short guides may be all you can 'stomach' which means that your preferred learning method will not help in this endeavor.

Long and involved things that I think will work are usually fine. I don't actually think I don't want to learn this. I'd rather not have to, but it's clear that I do, and I enjoy the process of learning. It is neat being able to figure the dog out better. I've just gone back over my library, but I have no books to recommend to you, my books on cognition are mainly at the neuron level at this point. I do have a book, Animal Minds (http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Minds-Beyond-Cognition-Consciousness/dp/0226308650), but don't think that would be of much help. Yet I'm sure I read many books or articles in books, on canine behavior, so the stuff must be out there.

I'm find these "I'm autistic" excuses tedious. You're smarter than average. That means you have the means to overcome your deficits. I had to learn body language by rote too, and I'm fine at it. Granted, I've about 20 years more experience, but I did it by applying my intelligence to the problem, and finding methods I can use to be able to identify body language in people and animals.

Yes. My point is not that I can't do it, but that I have to do it differently. What works for me is to get real information on what is going on, rather than just guessing a lot.There's a significant problem with this attitude. Animals don't talk, nor do they have a language in the strictest sense. So much of the information will not seem "real" to you, you will pick up immediately on the fact that the people writing about this are writing from the pov of inference, and may be incorrect. However, there's a way to get past this. Recognize that the most closely held mental abilities we have in common with other animals is our basic emotions. We have the mental tools to recognize this, other animals don't. This is basic, real biology. So in our attempts to understand, focus on those people that explain animal behavior without giving the animal strong thinking capabilities. Dogs don't think, "What should I do?" so much as they recognize a current event is like a past event (memory is good in our pets, for the most part), and attempt to learn to behave based on past events. A good reason to have stability in the home, it reinforces trained behavior.

Yes, I'm smart enough to derive the fundamental theorem of calculus. That doesn't mean my time wouldn't be better spent having someone explain how it was derived and walk me through it.

All kinds of ways. clap hands, say the dog's name, rattle food (really worked with my cat), use a clicker, scream; all good for dogs that hear. What can you use to get a person's attention? If you can answer that, you've gone a good way into figuring out how to capture a dog's attention.

One of the problems we've had, and I think this is probably mostly a puppy-age thing, is that the dog tends to get enthralled by things.Yes, it can be a puppy thing. It needs to be trained.

What would be wrong with looking at something? Is the dog supposed to be doing something else, but is instead stopping to look? Then the issue is one of training the dog to keep on task, not one of stopping it from looking at something.

Hmm. You have a point. The problem I've actually got is that, once he goes into "intent staring and observation", it is essentially inevitable that he will attempt to go and mess with whatever it is. I would like to introduce into his world the concept of "none of your business. Not for taking, not for barking, not for telling us about, not for pursuing. You don't know what it is, so leave it alone." As much as I think most animals are far more intelligent that we give them credit for, I think this is beyond dogs. What needs training is the skill "Stay." and "Come", which can actually override this behavior to investigate. You don't see guide dogs going off to investigate fascinating things, yet they are constantly aware and alert to their surroundings. Thus demonstrating that dogs can indeed be taught not to get close when investigating

Basically, I'd like to short-cut through the case where he gets really intent on something, and then later does something perfectly reasonable and doggy, by warning him up front that it's not his problem.It's very reasonable for a dog to investigate unknowns, however. So instead of stopping that behavior, create a stronger one of "Sit. Stay"

Think, how do you stop someone from looking at something? You capture the person's attention, and draw them back to the task at hand. You do the same with any animal. If the dog doesn't have a task, I'm unclear on why they would need to stop looking at something, or smelling something, or even tasting something. Sometimes you need to take something out of a dog's mouth (or some other animal). In this case, being the dominant leader is a big help, most social animals are "hard-wired" to submit even goods they hold onto to their leader. So establishing leadership is healthy, in case you need to put your fingers where they can get harmed.

True. And actually, that is some of the problem -- he gets intent on something and decides that monitoring another animal's position is more important than obeying commands, so any command you give him, he very briefly does, then goes immediately back to, say, staring intently. I think his behavior is reasonable given the information available to him, but I don't know whether dogs have a slot for "Not For Dogs". Hm. There are things dogs shouldn't do, but mostly the training I've seen is to prevent the behavior by asking the dog to do something else, like "Down" or "Sit" or "Stay".

Anyway, to get back to the starting point: No, really, I am pretty sure I will do better at studying dog cognitive psychology than I will with short subjects that offer a variety of mutually-exclusive explanations of what dog signals mean. I think my chances of success would go up a lot more if I could get a better notion of what underlies all these debates about dominance, leadership, submission, and pack hierarchies. I have multiple accounts of how dogs view social life, and they are inconsistent. If I could get past that, I think I'd have a better framework on which to attach theories about what the dog is trying to communicate. (Or, in at least some cases, is not trying to communicate, but is expressing anyway. I think. I don't think all of his signals are conscious.)

Healthy socialized dogs like: companionship, being near their family, having a sense of usefulness (like having tasks, games or doing tricks*), and wanting to defend those that care for it.

They dislike inconsistency, being unable to do something they want (here, look up displacement behavior), being chastised. Put enough of these sorts of stimuli in the dog's environment, and the dog may become neurotic. Neurotic animals are dangerous to new learners. They cannot accurately communicate their emotional state because their emotional state has become messed up. So avoid an environment that stresses the dog unduly.

And they don't care about being clean, eating only some foods but not others, the cleanliness of their environment.

* it appears to be a different kind of contentment than just lounging around on an owner's lap.

[naturalist.atheist]

Seebs you might want to start with B.F. Skinner.

[seebs]

There's a significant problem with this attitude. Animals don't talk, nor do they have a language in the strictest sense. So much of the information will not seem "real" to you, you will pick up immediately on the fact that the people writing about this are writing from the pov of inference, and may be incorrect. However, there's a way to get past this. Recognize that the most closely held mental abilities we have in common with other animals is our basic emotions. We have the mental tools to recognize this, other animals don't. This is basic, real biology. So in our attempts to understand, focus on those people that explain animal behavior without giving the animal strong thinking capabilities. Dogs don't think, "What should I do?" so much as they recognize a current event is like a past event (memory is good in our pets, for the most part), and attempt to learn to behave based on past events. A good reason to have stability in the home, it reinforces trained behavior.

They certainly seem a lot less analytic than us, but... Their emotional responses seem to me to be different, and I don't understand them. I am poor at recognizing emotional responses to begin with. My strategy with humans is mostly to model their cognition so I can narrow the field while trying to figure out what I'm seeing.

As much as I think most animals are far more intelligent that we give them credit for, I think this is beyond dogs. What needs training is the skill "Stay." and "Come", which can actually override this behavior to investigate. You don't see guide dogs going off to investigate fascinating things, yet they are constantly aware and alert to their surroundings. Thus demonstrating that dogs can indeed be taught not to get close when investigating

Okay. That's encouraging!

It's very reasonable for a dog to investigate unknowns, however. So instead of stopping that behavior, create a stronger one of "Sit. Stay"

Ahh, I think I get it.

Hm. There are things dogs shouldn't do, but mostly the training I've seen is to prevent the behavior by asking the dog to do something else, like "Down" or "Sit" or "Stay".

Okay. That makes some sense. Of course, it leaves us with the problem that he'll come back to it later when we're not giving him advice. By default he spends a fair amount of time with the option of wandering the house. Mostly he goes from one person to another looking for play or naps.

Healthy socialized dogs like: companionship, being near their family, having a sense of usefulness (like having tasks, games or doing tricks*), and wanting to defend those that care for it.

They dislike inconsistency, being unable to do something they want (here, look up displacement behavior), being chastised. Put enough of these sorts of stimuli in the dog's environment, and the dog may become neurotic. Neurotic animals are dangerous to new learners. They cannot accurately communicate their emotional state because their emotional state has become messed up. So avoid an environment that stresses the dog unduly.

And they don't care about being clean, eating only some foods but not others, the cleanliness of their environment.

* it appears to be a different kind of contentment than just lounging around on an owner's lap.

This is very useful.

I think our dog's big weakness is that he's got a mischevous streak or something -- he periodically has to test us a bit. Except that he's still pretty timid. So, let's say we're eating out on the porch. Six days a week, that's fine, he can come by and see us eating, wag a bit, and wait for someone to call him. The other day, he'll come over, express interest in our food, and the instant he realizes he's done this, cower submissively, possibly peeing. Sometimes before we even get as far as saying "leave it".

I have no idea where the timidity came from -- it was there the moment he came home from the shelter, and I sometimes suspect his previous family was a lot harsher with him. The thing is, if he sniffed at our food, and we told him to knock it off, and he could deal with this emotionally, that'd work. And if he didn't express interest in our food, that'd work.

But on the other hand, compared to other dogs I've seen interacting with people eating, he's pretty good.

It is sort of weird, though, watching him obviously starting to do something he knows is wrong, then suddenly freaking out about how he did something wrong. I don't get it.

[seebs]

Seebs you might want to start with B.F. Skinner.

Skinner's pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum from anything I've found useful.

[LadyShea]

Of course, it leaves us with the problem that he'll come back to it later when we're not giving him advice. By default he spends a fair amount of time with the option of wandering the house. Mostly he goes from one person to another looking for play or naps.

As with small children, seebs, you have to rearrange your environment somewhat to accommodate the dog. And sometimes rearrange the dog to suit the people.

What makes more sense, to leave an interesting-to-dogs object at doggie's level and keep pestering him to leave it, or to put it someplace where it won't be a temptation? At least while he's a puppy, you should puppy proof your home and things, including as I mentioned way back, closing doors. Put preciouses in closets, drawers, or on high shelves and when that's not practical close it off to the dog.

Older dogs aren't as inquisitive with the stuff in their home environment...they get used to it. When Duck was a puppy we had to block off access to everything when we weren't around, and he still ate the sofa. Now he's very calm, but still wants the Kiddo's toys for his own if we don't keep them off the floor (which is a great motivator for teaching Kiddo to pick up his things "Duck will get it if you leave it there").

All of the advice about "Sit. Down" etc. when the dog is too intense in its investigations was for when you're out and about seeing new things. Following the dog around the house telling it not to investigate its own home is unfair, and ultimately frustrating.

As for when you're eating, try feeding the dog at the same time, or crate him with a special treat. Of course he's going to be interested in your food. You can spend your whole meal chastising the dog (who will eventually learn, but I have never bothered with that bit of training), or you can remove him from the temptation, or you can allow him to share in mealtimes with his own dinner. Our dogs are either put in our bedroom or outside at mealtimes. Period, end of story.

I have a much more relaxed attitude to living with dogs (and child rearing, actually) than many, and try to find the most pragmatic way to solve problems. Removing access to things I don't want broken, chewed, or played with has made life with dogs and toddlers quite a bit easier.

[seebs]

What makes more sense, to leave an interesting-to-dogs object at doggie's level and keep pestering him to leave it, or to put it someplace where it won't be a temptation? At least while he's a puppy, you should puppy proof your home and things, including as I mentioned way back, closing doors. Put preciouses in closets, drawers, or on high shelves and when that's not practical close it off to the dog.

The problem case is the cats. Which, it turns out, do not stay put.

As for when you're eating, try feeding the dog at the same time, or crate him with a special treat. Of course he's going to be interested in your food. You can spend your whole meal chastising the dog (who will eventually learn, but I have never bothered with that bit of training), or you can remove him from the temptation, or you can allow him to share in mealtimes with his own dinner. Our dogs are either put in our bedroom or outside at mealtimes. Period, end of story.

I think at this point he knows about our food and his food -- owner's belief is that it's best if the dog eats just after us.

I have a much more relaxed attitude to living with dogs (and child rearing, actually) than many, and try to find the most pragmatic way to solve problems. Removing access to things I don't want broken, chewed, or played with has made life with dogs and toddlers quite a bit easier.

Oh, certainly, we prefer that when it's feasible. But, for instance, it's very hard to remove cats from dog level -- and he freaks out sometimes if we carry them.

So, today there were sirens, and the dog went psycho with alert barking.

It turns out there was a very good reason for this, which is that he had run home to tell us that owner was hit by a car. (No serious injuries.) It took a while for anyone to realize that this was not just dog being annoying about telling us something we already knew -- he has a sort of dog-who-cried-woof problem with events and alert barks sometimes. But he's fine, and owner's mostly fine (will have some very impressive bruises, and lost a little skin, but nothing really serious).

[LadyShea]

I'm glad nobody is seriously hurt!

owner's belief is that it's best if the dog eats just after us.

And this belief is based on...?

[seebs]

owner's belief is that it's best if the dog eats just after us.

And this belief is based on...?

I don't know. I've seen many people advise that dogs should eat after their people eat. I have never understood the argumentation.

Dog seems to get it, though... It's just when he's all bouncy and excited that he starts inquiring too much, and I think that's mostly just puppy. The lag from when he does something to when he realizes he wasn't supposed to do that has been decreasing with age, and at this rate, in a couple more months he should be pretty much fine.

[lisarea]

owner's belief is that it's best if the dog eats just after us.

And this belief is based on...?

I don't know. I've seen many people advise that dogs should eat after their people eat. I have never understood the argumentation.


I've heard of this. It's supposed to be a dominance thing. The dominant members of the pack eat first, and the schmucks have to wait until they're done.

[seebs]

Anyway, dog doesn't seem to mind it, and seems pretty happy.

Well, today, there's a lot of lick-lipping (I understand that's a stress thing) and a bit of moon-eye, but I am just GUESSING that "owner covered in blood and making pain noises" has been a stressor for him. When we make soothing sounds and rub his head a bit, he closes his eyes, relaxes, and looks like he just needs some reassurance.

[LadyShea]

Yes, injury to his person would be cause for concern and stress. Dogs even mourn if a member of their pack dies.

My dogs respond to my illnesses and injuries pretty strongly. They even let me know when the baby wakes up, etc.

[seebs]

Today, dog is freaky. Neighbor walked across neighbor's lawn. Dog has known neighbor for months. Response? BOowwwwwwwowowwowowwowo. Hackles up. The guy we bought the house from came by. Dog went psycho, came to door staring, hackles HUGELY up. (And yet, being a good boy, he obeyed commands, sat, and did not try to get in either person's face.)

He's spent the whole day trying very hard to "guard" owner, so I guess he's decided that even pretty much incapacitated, owner is still an alpha to defend in tough times, not so old and weak as to need challenging.

It's sorta cute, I guess. I can see, I think, why some people would like to have a pet which responded to them that way.

[JamesBannon]

The bottom line here seebs is that, if you don't trust the dog, the dog will not trust you. It's that simple. Being a social animal, dogs are very quick to pick up on any tension, and if you're tense you will automatically communicate that to the dog, even if you are unaware of it. The best thing to do is to just relax when in the dog's company.

[seebs]

The bottom line here seebs is that, if you don't trust the dog, the dog will not trust you. It's that simple. Being a social animal, dogs are very quick to pick up on any tension, and if you're tense you will automatically communicate that to the dog, even if you are unaware of it. The best thing to do is to just relax when in the dog's company.

So far as I can tell, he's reacting to body language, but since my body language is sometimes wrong, he sometimes misreads me. That's what makes it sometimes confusing; if I'm too distracted, I tend to start emitting bogus cues.