DOGS ARE FROM NEPTUNE, 2ND EDITION

By Jean Donaldson

But people are on another planet! Dogdom’s most influential dog trainer and behaviorist, Jean Donaldson, is back with a newly revised and expanded edition of her popular Dogs are from Neptune. In 41 essays, Jean highlights the common and frequently wrong-headed notions people have about why dogs behave the way they do, and explains what really motivates your pooch and how to change behavior. Jean’s innovative ideas are delivered via quirky and witty—but always scientifically based—essays will help create “Aha!” moments for every dog lover on earth. If you loved Jean’s best selling The Culture Clash, you will enjoy learning more about the dogs who inhabit planet Neptune and the people who don’t!

Your dog is from Neptune—narrow the gap by learning more about:
The truth—and power—of consequences and how you can use them to train your dog.
The best ways to deal with common problem behaviors including guarding, separation anxiety and fear.
Why you should be skeptical of anyone whose training techniques and philosophies sound appealing but cannot be backed up with scientific evidence.
Dispel common myths associated with using food in training, dominance and whether playing tug with your dog really encourages aggression.
While we may be on different planets, learn how the fundamentals of behavior apply equally to dogs and people.
Why it seems that owners become more attentive trainers when they dress their dogs in costumes!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dogwise Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781617810084

Jean Donaldson

Author Jean Donaldson has over 30 years experience in dog behavior and training and is the Founder and Director of the San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers. Jean's award winning books include The Culture Clash and Oh Behave! She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her Chow, Buffy. Visit www.jeandonaldson.com to keep up to date with Jean and her work.

Book preview

Dogs are from Neptune

2nd Edition

Jean Donaldson

Wenatchee, Washington U.S.A.

Dogs are from Neptune

2nd Edition

Jean Donaldson

Dogwise Publishing

A Division of Direct Book Service, Inc.

403 South Mission Street, Wenatchee, Washington 98801

1-509-663-9115, 1-800-776-2665

www.dogwisepublishing.com / [e-mail]

© 1998, 2009, Jean Donaldson

On the Cover: Polly owned by Lauren Richmond

Cover Photo: Steve Surfman Photography

Interior Photos: Jean Donaldson

Graphic Design: Lindsay Peternell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Limits of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty:

The author and publisher shall not be liable in the event of incidental or consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of the instructions and suggestions contained in this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donaldson, Jean.

Dogs are from Neptune / Jean Donaldson. -- Rev. 2nd ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-929242-65-8

1. Dogs--Behavior. 2. Dogs--Training. I. Title.

SF433.D673 2009

636.7’0887--dc22

2009022397

ISBN: 978-1-929242-65-8

Printed in the U.S.A.

Author’s Note

Welcome to the second edition of Dogs Are From Neptune!

I’ve made some extensive changes. These are:

Revision of actual how-to content. None reflect any philosophical sea change but I did update some recommendations and change emphasis in many cases.

An effort to improve the writing.

The addition of some of my favorite recent essays.

The two essays I am most excited about are in the new People section, one on applied behavior analyst Susan Friedman and one on cognitive neuroscientist Steven Pinker. They are among my most respected intellectual heroes. Not only are they the best at what they do but also the best at teaching it to others.

Susan Friedman is little known in the dog behavior world but this scandalous state of affairs will change, and soon. She is a goddess of understanding behavior, and more specifically behavior change. She is especially good at knowing what does matter in this regard (e.g., a good functional analysis), and what does not (e.g., working with the right species). I am grateful to her daily for her eloquent admonition to not take our eye off the modification ball.

Steven Pinker’s work may at first brush appear more tangential to dog behavior and training, but his steady mantra of genetics matter, genetics matter is highly relevant in a culture where dog owners are cast as perpetrators, and his championing of science is second to none. I’ve tried to summarize his persuasive argument about how the rules governing the field of play in science should (and must) differ from other arenas of social exchange. We seem to have muddled this in the dog training biz. A reluctance to vet ideas in the guise of niceness and openness is anathema to science. Pinker’s advice couldn’t be more timely either. The flood of information in the popular dog behavior and training literature is formidable. How might we sift it? Some is potentially valuable and some is pure junk. How do we tell the difference? Well, science already has a way. If we are to migrate toward a higher level of discussion, there will need to be some standards regarding who can say what in a professional publication or at a professional conference. Pinker does not pull punches when he points out that rules governing social exchange (such as be nice! or free speech!) serve to actually retard what science does best—inch toward the truth. Of all he has contributed to the understanding of behavior (and this is a considerable mountain of work), this is to my mind the most important.

As always, in the case studies, I’ve morphed details in order to protect identities. I hope you enjoy it.

Part One

Training

Common Training Errors

The Truth About Consequences

I think I speak for a good many dog trainers when I say if we could wave a wand and instill one idea in dog owners, it would be that dogs must be motivated in order to do what we want. There is a widespread presumption of intrinsic motivation and it corrodes the training process every step of the way. As soon as one buys the idea that the only necessary task in training is making one’s wishes clear to the dog because he naturally just wants to please us, legions of dogs are doomed to be labeled some version of stubborn, stupid or dominant, when they are behaving exactly the way a properly functioning living organism should. There is no free lunch in animal training.

Dogs can be motivated by positive reinforcers such as food, play and affection, and by their desire to avoid painful or scary things such as leash corrections, frightening noises and being struck or pinned. Some trainers get the job done with exclusively positive reinforcement, some with exclusively punishment and some with a mix of both. I’d like to sidestep the philosophy wars for the moment in order to underscore the one thing all effective trainers have in common: they recognize that there is no behavior change without the provision of consequences. The biggest single thing you can do to increase your effectiveness at training your dog is to sit down and write out a list of consequences that meet two conditions:

they actually work on your dog, and

you’re comfortable using them.

For instance, your dog may be willing to do one or two repetitions of a behavior for patting or praise, but no more. He might work much longer and around distractions for cubed chicken, and also to avoid being hit or jerked by his collar. You might enjoy praising him, be uncomfortable using food, uncomfortable hitting him, but feel okay about collar corrections. Or you might be happy to praise and happy to use food, but be uncomfortable hurting him. It’s up to you (these motivators are all still legal), but do use motivators that work.

The Contract

Once you’ve got the why part of training worked out, the next order of business is the what part: what exactly does the dog have to do to be reinforced or to avoid the painful, scary stuff? The operative word is exactly. If the contract with the dog is not clear in your mind, is a moving target, or is simply too difficult, the training will bog down. For example, let’s say your goal is for your dog to go over to his bed and lie down on cue, then stay there for up to a half-hour, and to do this amid the distractions of boisterous kids coming and going through the front door, and you doing food prep in the kitchen. To train this properly, the components—lying down on cue, staying for a particular length of time, targeting the bed from across the house, the distraction-proofing—must all be identified so that training steps can be constructed that are the right level of difficulty given the dog’s education to date.

The first step might be that the dog perform a down on his bed from a foot away, with you right next to him, helping with hand-signals, with no distractions and a two-second stay. Once the dog fulfills all these contract clauses, he is reinforced with a piece of carrot or cheese tid-bit, and/or avoids being corrected with a jerk on the collar or a slap. Only after many successful repetitions at this level is the exercise made more difficult, by decreasing the amount of hand-signaling, increasing the distance the dog must travel to the bed before lying down, or the length of the stay. These components should be increased separately and gradually. It’s naughty to double dip and increase the difficulty of two at the same time, or to increase difficulty sharply. This sets the dog up to fail. How would you like to be given a Rachmaninoff concerto at your third piano lesson?

Timing

The idea that one shouldn’t punish a dog hours after the fact seems to have seeped into our mass consciousness, but did you know that you’re pushing your luck with rewards and punishments even a few seconds after a behavior? Behavior is constantly changing. The dog lies down on the mat, stands back up, looks over at you, walks in your direction, wags and bows, requesting a chase-me game. If you intend to reinforce the down but stroke him or give a tid-bit a second or two late, you could very well capture the stand or the looking-at-you-while-standing. Likewise, if your intention is to punish the standing back up with a thundering yell or a yank on his neck, a late consequence will end up punishing looking at you or approaching you.

Order of Events and Cue Obsession

Because we are such verbal beings, with dedicated modules in our brain for interest in and acquisition of language, we are very inclined to rush to the command part of training. The best practice, however, is to build a nice strong behavior with all those consequences and gradual steps and then and only then, once it’s built, name it. Think of it as building a ship and then christening it at the end with a bottle of champagne. Prematurely chanting go to bed, go to bed, go to bed at a partially (or wholly) untrained dog is like smashing the champagne bottle on a pile of corrugated metal gaskets. Build behavior first, then teach the dog when to do it.

The order of events not only matters in the macro sense of build-behavior-first-add-cue-later, but in the micro sense as well, i.e., where in the stream of behaviors and consequences should the cue be inserted? Cues must come first, before behaviors and consequences and even before prompts such as hand-signals or food lures, which are often used to obtain behaviors. This means it’s no good to say go to bed as your dog heads over to do his down-stay, and it’s not good practice to say good sit after your dog sits. It’s also poor technique to say sit as you press rear quarters down or tilt heads up with food lures. Say sit first and then commence any prompting.

Off Leash Control

Dear Jean,

The dog training revolution apparently hasn’t hit my neck of the woods. All the group classes I’ve tried advertise positive methods but ended up using collar corrections. Godzilla, my Tibetan Terrier, and I have completed three such classes. She still bolts off leash. In despair I sent her to a rehab specialist. He used a shock collar on her and I got her back a month later afraid of sheep but still unreliable. I am not comfortable shocking her any more, and regret having done it at all.

I’m not prepared to do this. The main problems are an unreliable recall at the beach, especially around dogs or picnics and two instances of aggression to small dogs. For this reason I exercise her on a flexi at the beach. I now worry that the frustration of watching the other dogs off leash is contributing to the aggression. If any approach her, she is very aggressive even though I try to keep the leash loose and reinforce for absence of hackles or growling.

Her obedience is okay indoors or on leash. We’ve been clicker training, but she is difficult to motivate. She is not interested in toys.

Here are my suggestions:

If Godzilla is in good health, go all out food-training her. Put her on a closed economy for a while, i.e., 100% of her daily ration is obtained in training, none for free (zero). Then condition your clicker to medium value treats, such as a nutritious but tasty brand of salami-style dog food. Then, practice at home and in your yard using these rewards, especially recalls and a watch me behavior. List three or four ultra-high-value rewards, something like Pecorino Romano cheese cubes, freeze-dried liver, roast chicken pieces or deli ham. These will be for beach recalls and nothing else.

Practice recalls every day on the beach for generous handfuls of The Good Stuff. If you do enough recalls to make up her approximate daily caloric intake, omit the at-home obedience. If you can’t make it to the beach one day, make her earn her ration (of the lower-value stuff) at home. If you don’t make up her entire ration at the beach, supplement with obedience in the house (lower-value stuff again). In other words, still nothing for free.

At the beach, start off with her dragging a long line. When she’s had several days with approximately 90% quick response, go off the line. The reward system is extremely important. Divide the treats into high value, higher value and highest value. Divide the recalls into easy, medium and difficult. Differentially reward her based on the difficulty of the recall.

Easy means she is relatively close to you and there are no distractions: no dogs, no picnics. Medium means distance but no distraction. Difficult means away from a distraction. Don’t try mediums until she’s really good at easy. And avoid attempting difficult recalls until she’s mastered mediums.

If they are not full-fledged fights, ignore her aggressive displays at dogs. Either turn and briskly walk the other way or, when she’s progressed to difficult, try a recall. Meeting random dogs needs to become more of a non-event. Too much of the time, owner intervention, however well meant, heats things up rather than cooling them down. When she passes dogs peacefully or investigates without incident, heap on the