The history of dog training goes back to when humans decided to domesticate wild dogs and train them to work side by side with us. Originally dogs had been used for hunting, retrieving, herding and protecting. Later, some dogs were bred and used simply for prestige, comfort and companionship.
Those that used dogs for a particular purpose, other than companionship, had to train them to do specific tasks. Early training practices were shared and taught through experimentation with family members, friends and neighbors. Everything was through trial and error combined with the intentional breeding of certain dogs in order to produce offspring with particular tendencies and traits that made training more likely to be successful. It's a lot easier to encourage a duck to swim than to try and make him ride a bicycle!
In the early 1900s, a German military officer, Col. Konrad Most, was the father of what is referred to as traditional dog training. His teachings are still a part of the military, police and service dog training of today. This traditional method is also referred to as "correction and/or punishment based training". In other words, handlers were taught to correct and punish undesirable dog behaviors, thereby leaving the more desirable dog behaviors to be rewarded simply by an absence of a correction or perhaps an added pat on the head. These methods are considered quite heavy handed by today's standards. Visualize the history of rearing children back in the early 1900s. Some of us born in the 1950s still remember being humiliated with dunce caps at school, sitting in the corner and even being slapped with rulers and paddles when we misbehaved. Imagine raising children by basically following them around, waiting for undesirable behaviors to occur and then PUNISHING them severely, ignoring the desirable behaviors so that the reward for good behavior was simply an absence of humiliation, pain or fear!
In the mid 1930, Col Konrad Most's approach to dog training spread throughout the world, and his methods were the foundation techniques used at some of the first US dog training schools in Philadelphia and Boston. Later on, between 1950-1970,a famous trainer and author, Blanch Saunders, put dog training and responsibility for dogs to the foreground by forming the first AKC obedience trails in our country with her books on dog obedience.
It is important to realize that while traditional dog training was building in its' popularity, that simultaneously there was a growing study of animal and human behavior in the area of operant conditioning; defined as - A process of behavior modification in which the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative consequences each time the behavior is exhibited, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the consequence with the behavior.
Many of us are quick to recall the work of Pavlov, and his early science that taught us about conditioned responses. We remember how he tested dogs with the sound of a bell being paired with the arrival of food, so that in time, the mere sound of a bell would illicit drooling in the dog even without food being present. However, equally as important, is the work of BF Skinner, whose early work with chimpanzees and dolphins is the very foundation of operant conditioning today. It was the application of this type of behavioral science with other animals, which, over time, has leached into the world of dog training, particularly over the past 30 years (but as you now see it goes back as far as 70 years). Skinner's work helped animal trainers of dolphins and bears for instance, successfully communicate and manipulate their brains without the use of physical force. After all, how could you consider the choice to physically control, dominate or leash correct animals that can swim away or maim you for life with one good whack across your face? There had to be another way, as so there is!
The use of a clicker, known as a conditioned reinforcer, or a bridging stimulus, was actually used prior to World War II, by Keller Breland who used a clicker to train dolphins! The Brelands worked with many trainers and associates in a variety of locations, including Sea Life Park, which was then owned by Karen Pryor and her husband. Curious that a method used as far back as that is still considered "new school" today!
Next we welcome William Koehler, whose work was primarily with Hollywood dogs. Koehler wrote the book called The Koehler Method of Dog Training, and his methods were the basis of all dog training in the US from the 1950s Ð 1970s.
In 1984 Karen Pryor wrote a book called Don't Shoot the Dog! This was not a book specifically about dog training, but rather a book on human interpersonal relations. When Pryor met up with Gary Wilkes, who was the first dog trainer to use clickers, the two of them paired up to offer clicker-training seminars across the USA!
What must be emphasized here is that clicker training actually began some 70 years ago and yet is still considered by some to be some "newfangled approach" to dog training, particularly by those who are entrenched in traditional training methods. There is still some resistance to utilizing an approach to the kind of training or teaching that simply rewards desirable behavior while ignoring most of the undesirable ones. Understand that trainers, whose education is in the science of behavior, do see a place for punishment in learning. It's just that science has taught us that there can be undesirable fallout when pain or fear is the consequence to a particular behavior. This fallout is often demonstrated by avoidance behaviors or worse. For instance, dogs could develop a fear of a particular room where a scary or painful punishment occurred or they may no longer feel comfortable around certain people, places or sounds. Instead it can be very effective to withhold rewards that dogs love, like food, fun or attention, until a desirable behavior is offered, as this is often punishing enough. It's all in the timing of the consequence, which does require practice and skill. Consider how we punish children today. We punish our them by banning them to their rooms when they misbehave and encourage them to return to the party when they behave properly. That is a punishment that does not produce fear or pain while it certainly teaches them that there are negative consequences to certain behaviors and that they are able to choose which behavior they prefer to display in anticipation of a positive reward as a consequence.
Since all human psychology is based on animal science, then it makes perfect sense that we trainers simply utilize that same science when working with our dogs!
Go to www.tagteach.com to see clickers being used to help kids learn!
Next month..."how dogs learn"
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