# Willful Disobedience



## Dave Colborn

In any bite sports or work are dogs ever expected to choose between two learned behaviors based on their choice with the right answer being better based on only one stimulus given? Or does everything happen as a result of a clear and separate stimulus? 

in the military, when I was in, the dog is taught to bite on a search of a person if the subject made sudden or aggressive movement. If the subject didn't move, no reattack. This is not what I mean and to me is nothing but two learned behaviors with clear stimulus for two separate responses, movement=bite or no mmovement = no bite.

I am going to scrub a kennel and ponder, but I can't come up with anything yet.


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## Jay Quinn

I think there is a difference between wilful disobedience and intelligent disobedience (I think that's the right term) that is taught to guide dogs, assistance dogs, etc, who sometimes must respond to the environment and not the handler, in order to keep their handler safe...

Wilful disobedience where the dog chooses to disobey a command because it feels like it simply comes down to lack of proofing and/or bad training, trying to push training too fast, or an unfair/unclear handler that has created confusion in the dog... 

imho there is no place for disobedience of any sort in bitework... Things need to be black and white and the dog must respond to conditioned stimuli but also the handler's commands - if my dog responds to something that he has reasonably perceived as a threat but is not in fact so, he MUST obey command to stand down... And on the other side of the coin if something which the dog has not seen as a threat actually is, then I need him to fire up when commanded instead of sitting there thinking "what is there to bark at?" - pick the closest human, buddy, and make some damn noise!


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## Dave Colborn

Jay. I am not talking about guide dogs. They are trained to do what they do I think you'd agree by what you write. Responding to the environment Is responding to a stimulus as taught. I think it is impressive to say the least but not what I asked.





Jay Quinn said:


> I think there is a difference between wilful disobedience and intelligent disobedience (I think that's the right term) that is taught to guide dogs, assistance dogs, etc, who sometimes must respond to the environment and not the handler, in order to keep their handler safe...
> 
> Wilful disobedience where the dog chooses to disobey a command because it feels like it simply comes down to lack of proofing and/or bad training, trying to push training too fast, or an unfair/unclear handler that has created confusion in the dog...
> 
> imho there is no place for disobedience of any sort in bitework... Things need to be black and white and the dog must respond to conditioned stimuli but also the handler's commands - if my dog responds to something that he has reasonably perceived as a threat but is not in fact so, he MUST obey command to stand down... And on the other side of the coin if something which the dog has not seen as a threat actually is, then I need him to fire up when commanded instead of sitting there thinking "what is there to bark at?" - pick the closest human, buddy, and make some damn noise!


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## Dave Colborn

Jay I was incorrect. I DID say work. More interested in sport police bitework to clarify.


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## Jay Quinn

Did you actually read all of my post.....?


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## Wayne Scace

Dave Colborn said:


> In any bite sports or work are dogs ever expected to choose between two learned behaviors based on their choice with the right answer being better based on only one stimulus given? Or does everything happen as a result of a clear and separate stimulus?
> 
> in the military, when I was in, the dog is taught to bite on a search of a person if the subject made sudden or aggressive movement. If the subject didn't move, no reattack. This is not what I mean and to me is nothing but two learned behaviors with clear stimulus for two separate responses, movement=bite or no mmovement = no bite.
> 
> I am going to scrub a kennel and ponder, but I can't come up with anything yet.


*Dave, 
First of all, thank you for your service.
As I have ZERO experience with bitework and bitesport I can't speak to that part of your question.
As an Owner Trainer of Guide Dogs I feel compelled to correct an error on your part.
What Service Dogs ( who are also working dogs ) are taught, as Jay pointed out, is Intelligent, not willful, disobedience. 
The SD's are trained to, in certain scenarios, to draw on their training, experience, Intelligence, self-preservation ( extending their envelope of awareness to their owner ) and judgement to decide to disobey a command ( actually a question ) given to them by their owner.
As Jay pointed out, willful disobedience is when a command is refused because the dog doesn't feel like complying.
Willfull disobedience is unacceptable and repeated willful disobedience will get a pup washed out of SD training.

Wayne And Harley
*


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## Dave Colborn

So if a dog gets a second stimulus, like a car coming, it ignores a command, taking the second stimulus as the more important cue?




Wayne Scace said:


> *Dave,
> First of all, thank you for your service.
> As I have ZERO experience with bitework and bitesport I can't speak to that part of your question.
> As an Owner Trainer of Guide Dogs I feel compelled to correct an error on your part.
> What Service Dogs ( who are also working dogs ) are taught, as Jay pointed out, is Intelligent, not willful, disobedience.
> The SD's are trained to, in certain scenarios, to draw on their training, experience, Intelligence, self-preservation ( extending their envelope of awareness to their owner ) and judgement to decide to disobey a command ( actually a question ) given to them by their owner.
> As Jay pointed out, willful disobedience is when a command is refused because the dog doesn't feel like complying.
> Willfull disobedience is unacceptable and repeated willful disobedience will get a pup washed out of SD training.
> 
> Wayne And Harley
> *


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## Wayne Scace

Dave Colborn said:


> So if a dog gets a second stimulus, like a car coming, it ignores a command, taking the second stimulus as the more important cue?


*Basically, yes that is a simple way to explain it.
Another scenario is ground and overhead obstacles.
A Guide Dog sees an obstacle and a beginner would stop and point it out to the owner. The owner then tries to suggest a direction to get around said obstacle.
A seasoned dog will guide smoothly around said obstacle,, or if the dog stops the owner can ask the dog to select a way around. 
Does this help?

*


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## Dave Colborn

Sounds just like trained behaviors. I would be interested to see how they are trained. What order and how to make one more important than the other.

I still wonder if we leave leeway in other areas of dog traiining for dogs.




Wayne Scace said:


> *Basically, yes that is a simple way to explain it.
> Another scenario is ground and overhead obstacles.
> A Guide Dog sees an obstacle and a beginner would stop and point it out to the owner. The owner then tries to suggest a direction to get around said obstacle.
> A seasoned dog will guide smoothly around said obstacle,, or if the dog stops the owner can ask the dog to select a way around.
> Does this help?
> 
> *


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## Wayne Scace

Dave Colborn said:


> Sounds just like trained behaviors. I would be interested to see how they are trained. What order and how to make one more important than the other.
> 
> I still wonder if we leave leeway in other areas of dog traiining for dogs.


*You are welcome to come observe when I train Harley's successor in a few years. it is easier to show than it is to write.*


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## Dave Colborn

I did read the rest. I think willful disobedience or intelligent disobedience is bs. Change the two terms to trained and untrained as that is what it really is.

I just (still) wonder if there is any point where a trained dog in sport or work is truly encouraged to choose a response based on one stimulus. did you read my question? Or just the title?





Jay Quinn said:


> Did you actually read all of my post.....?


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## Jay Quinn

to the best of my knowledge the only decision a sport dog makes is where to bite when the bite is allowed, if targeting other than the forearm is permitted... the same would go for a PSD or PPD who has been taught more than one target area but that'd be about it... but as I said I don't believe there is any place for any kind of disobedience - no matter whether you call it willful, intelligent, trained, or otherwise - in any kind of bitework, sport or not... we're talking about a sentient weapon pretty much where the onus for responsibility and/or appropriate use of force is still on the handler... therefore what the handler says goes, and compliance is not optional...


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## Dave Colborn

Pretty much how I see it, jay. With all dogs. Trained or untrained. That is my opinion of what we are looking at most time. Willful disobedience is untrained. Intelligent disobedience is trained to do one behavior better than another. Two terms we could dispose of probably to make talking about training/training easier.


Jay Quinn said:


> to the best of my knowledge the only decision a sport dog makes is where to bite when the bite is allowed, if targeting other than the forearm is permitted... the same would go for a PSD or PPD who has been taught more than one target area but that'd be about it... but as I said I don't believe there is any place for any kind of disobedience - no matter whether you call it willful, intelligent, trained, or otherwise - in any kind of bitework, sport or not... we're talking about a sentient weapon pretty much where the onus for responsibility and/or appropriate use of force is still on the handler... therefore what the handler says goes, and compliance is not optional...


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## Haz Othman

Perhaps an example would be leash pressure. The dog is trained to yield to leash pressure. You can teach the dog to hold positions better by applying some leash pressure to try to move the dog from a sit for example. Initially the dog yields to the pressure and moves but if you correct and replace the dog in position until he does not move from the position you can teach the dog to ignore the leash pressure or other stimuli and remain in position until verbally released.

Disobeying a previously taught stimuli?


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## Dave Colborn

I am thinking close to this, but a stimulus the dog could have two correct responses and still be right.
He gets to pick a response.
What you are describing happens all the time I think. Bitework for example, initially may be uncontrolled getting the dog to bite well and freely. The equipment, place and context mean it's okay to bite. Then you demand obedience and the dog no longer should take the context as bitework, only the command, movement, etc. 

Leash pressure would be in this category for me.




Haz Othman said:


> Perhaps an example would be leash pressure. The dog is trained to yield to leash pressure. You can teach the dog to hold positions better by applying some leash pressure to try to move the dog from a sit for example. Initially the dog yields to the pressure and moves but if you correct and replace the dog in position until he does not move from the position you can teach the dog to ignore the leash pressure or other stimuli and remain in position until verbally released.
> 
> Disobeying a previously taught stimuli?


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## Wayne Scace

Dave Colborn said:


> Pretty much how I see it, jay. With all dogs. Trained or untrained. That is my opinion of what we are looking at most time. Willful disobedience is untrained. Intelligent disobedience is trained to do one behavior better than another. Two terms we could dispose of probably to make talking about training/training easier.


*Let me see if I have this right Dave, 
You are stating that my highly trained guide dog, and by extension all guide dogs, is untrained because he uses Intelligent Disobedience every day in the performance of his duties to make decisions that because of my lack of eyesight I cannot safely make?
You cannot, in SD work, wish away intelligent disobediance. It is one of tbe foundations of guide work and has been used, successfully mind you, since the 1920's starting in Potsdam Germany with the blind German WWI veterans.
There may NOT be room in bitework and bitesport training for it, but I, and every other guide dog owner around the globe, are alive today because intelligent disobediance exists and works? 
*


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## Wayne Scace

*Take II, it wouldnt't let me swap out the question mark at the end that should have been a period. WMS
=====
Let me see if I have this right Dave, 
You are stating that my highly trained guide dog, and by extension all guide dogs, is untrained because he uses Intelligent Disobedience every day in the performance of his duties to make decisions that because of my lack of eyesight I cannot safely make?
You cannot, in SD work, wish away intelligent disobediance. It is one of tbe foundations of guide work and has been used, successfully mind you, since the 1920's starting in Potsdam Germany with the blind German WWI veterans.
There may NOT be room in bitework and bitesport training for it, but I, and every other guide dog owner around the globe, are alive today because intelligent disobediance exists and works.*


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## Jay Quinn

this is my take on the two terms:

Intelligent disobedience is something that is trained into the dog, where the dog is taught that safety of the handler is paramount, and the environmental stimuli (eg oncoming vehicle, dangerous obstacle, etc) overrides the command of the handler - the onus is on the DOG to make the judgement call because the handler is unable to...

Willful disobedience is a dog that simply could not be arsed following a command, usually due to poor training, lack of training, confusion in the dog, etc... 

you can teach a dog to do a LOT of things whether the dog likes them or not, if you can find adequate motivation for the dog... so if you have a dog that is showing a continual disregard for commands, you either need to take a look at your training approach and modify it to better suit the dog in front of you, or wash the dog from whatever program you may be trying to teach (be it bitework, service work, or otherwise)....


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## Sarah Platts

Dave Colborn said:


> Willful disobedience is untrained. Intelligent disobedience is trained to do one behavior better than another.





Jay Quinn said:


> this is my take on the two terms:
> Intelligent disobedience is something that is trained into the dog, where the dog is taught that safety of the handler is paramount, and the environmental stimuli (eg oncoming vehicle, dangerous obstacle, etc) overrides the command of the handler - the onus is on the DOG to make the judgement call because the handler is unable to...
> 
> Willful disobedience is a dog that simply could not be arsed following a command, usually due to poor training, lack of training, confusion in the dog, etc...


I don't believe that willful disobedience is purely a matter of untrained or a matter of confusion. All my dogs know the word "sit" but I can say the word and have them not do it. They are not untrained nor is there confusion. They *chose* to not respond. That is willful disobedience to me. 

I tend to go more with Jay's thought on intelligent disobedience where the dog makes the call. I think that part of the issue with this question is that everything is going back to bite work where you need a handle on the dog all the time. In SAR, there comes a time when you have to let the dog go and they work the situation and make judgment calls without handler input. You can be trying to direct their search and they basically blow you off because they have the odor *over here* and not *over there*. The handler just needs to take the back seat, shut up, and let the dog work. The mantra drilled into our heads is "Trust Your Dog". How many folks out there are willing to slip the leash and trust the dog that it will do what needs done? Without you there every step of the way telling it what to do? Usually handlers who are coming into this field from areas that dictate a lot of handler control over the dog and its actions have the toughest time making that adjustment.


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## Dave Colborn

No wayne. You have reached a bad conclusion. I am saying simply that the dog IS trained. It receives a stimulus of a car and performs a behavior of stopping the handler. Trained. I think the term willful disobedience is to make you feel better. The dog, no matter how complex the task and learning is just trained.

Do you agree? He is actually just being obedient.



Wayne Scace said:


> *Let me see if I have this right Dave,
> You are stating that my highly trained guide dog, and by extension all guide dogs, is untrained because he uses Intelligent Disobedience every day in the performance of his duties to make decisions that because of my lack of eyesight I cannot safely make?
> You cannot, in SD work, wish away intelligent disobediance. It is one of tbe foundations of guide work and has been used, successfully mind you, since the 1920's starting in Potsdam Germany with the blind German WWI veterans.
> There may NOT be room in bitework and bitesport training for it, but I, and every other guide dog owner around the globe, are alive today because intelligent disobediance exists and works?
> *


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## Jay Quinn

Sarah Platts said:


> I don't believe that willful disobedience is purely a matter of untrained or a matter of confusion. All my dogs know the word "sit" but I can say the word and have them not do it. They are not untrained nor is there confusion. They *chose* to not respond. That is willful disobedience to me.


you will notice I did say *usually*... and as I said dogs can be taught to do a lot of things whether they want to or not... if you say sit and the dog does not, WHY did he not? *most* of the time it can be put down to a lack of training and proofing... practice "sit" a hundred times with some motivation and I reckon next time you ask for a sit you will be much more likely to get one...

SOME dogs, a very small minority, are just jerks, but MOST willful disobedience can be put down to training problems....


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## Alice Bezemer

Dave Colborn said:


> No wayne. You have reached a bad conclusion. I am saying simply that the dog IS trained. It receives a stimulus of a car and performs a behavior of stopping the handler. Trained. I think the term willful disobedience is to make you feel better. The dog, no matter how complex the task and learning is just trained.
> 
> Do you agree? He is actually just being obedient.


Its just another case of using different terms for the same behaviours much like the way people like to call everything their dog does "Drive"

I agree with you, Dave that it is a trained behaviour and regardless of the name you tag onto it it will always be a learned and trained behaviour and not a behaviour the dog comes up with by itself.

Intelligent disobediance would be if the dog came into an unknown situation like a street crossing and it has not been trained at all for any kind of venue and its owner, whilst having his face glued to his mobile, crosses the street and tells his dog to follow at which point the dog might stand still or pull back creating a tight leash or even stand infront of its owner to indicate there is a car coming.... or something to that affect. That would be inteligent DisOB in my eyes, an untrained, unlearned behaviour where the dog recognizes the danger for itself. 

Wilful Disob is just the dog not reacting or ignoring the command given for whatever reason.....

Wayne, I respect the kind of training that you do but I feel that the names used are confusing at best. You trained your dogs specific behaviours, including to keep you safe and to avoid dangerous situations, to call it intelligent DisOB is a nice name yet it is nothing more then a trained behaviour that has nothing to do with intelligence and all with trained/learned behaviour of the dog. If it were actual intelligent DisOB then everyone training a working dog could say their dog used it since in plenty of exercizes and sports venue's the dog has to make choices between one thing or another.


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## Dave Colborn

Sarah Platts said:


> In SAR, there comes a time when you have to let the dog go and they work the situation and make judgment calls without handler input. You can be trying to direct their search and they basically blow you off because they have the odor *over here* and not *over there*. The handler just needs to take the back seat, shut up, and let the dog work. The mantra drilled into our heads is "Trust Your Dog". How many folks out there are willing to slip the leash and trust the dog that it will do what needs done? Without you there every step of the way telling it what to do? Usually handlers who are coming into this field from areas that dictate a lot of handler control over the dog and its actions have the toughest time making that adjustment.


A dog following an odor is a trained behavior vs. Blowing you off. You say trust the dog, but verbalize it as "blowing off".. 

I think I started getting better as a detector handler when I really got that the dog would find odor without my input if trained properly. Presenting and my leading the dog around in a pattern had little to do with it. My job was to set up and extend training with areas and hide placement.

I used to tell students you have to lose control to gain control. Let the dog go, good or bad so she can learn and progress. The hard part of this is when we are teaching a dog vs. Letting her extend her ability. Standing in a hallway with a dog casting around looking for odor 8 feet up that she is clearly working. Taking 5-10 minutes to respond vs. Stepping in and presenting high. That kind of thing.

I have lived the dream you speak of, trusting a dog. I only wish I would have been living it since day one as a handler. It is hard some days to accept misses in training, but worth it when the dog learns to do it on her own more quickly than "making" them learn it

It's very difficult for veteran cops learning dogs sometimes.. They have controlled everything for so long, it's hard for some to let go. 

Help me find an instance where dogs do choose an untrained response based of a stimulus and can be right. 

I think your dog not sitting is a lack of training. So if you want to call it willful disobedience and I call it lack of training, who's right? Well, how do get a dog to respond more accurately to your commands? Training, right?


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## Dave Colborn

Thanks for bringing clarity to what I was trying to say. I owe you a beer or a coffee.


Alice Bezemer said:


> Its just another case of using different terms for the same behaviours much like the way people like to call everything their dog does "Drive"
> 
> I agree with you, Dave that it is a trained behaviour and regardless of the name you tag onto it it will always be a learned and trained behaviour and not a behaviour the dog comes up with by itself.
> 
> Intelligent disobediance would be if the dog came into an unknown situation like a street crossing and it has not been trained at all for any kind of venue and its owner, whilst having his face glued to his mobile, crosses the street and tells his dog to follow at which point the dog might stand still or pull back creating a tight leash or even stand infront of its owner to indicate there is a car coming.... or something to that affect. That would be inteligent DisOB in my eyes, an untrained, unlearned behaviour where the dog recognizes the danger for itself.
> 
> Wilful Disob is just the dog not reacting or ignoring the command given for whatever reason.....
> 
> Wayne, I respect the kind of training that you do but I feel that the names used are confusing at best. You trained your dogs specific behaviours, including to keep you safe and to avoid dangerous situations, to call it intelligent DisOB is a nice name yet it is nothing more then a trained behaviour that has nothing to do with intelligence and all with trained/learned behaviour of the dog. If it were actual intelligent DisOB then everyone training a working dog could say their dog used it since in plenty of exercizes and sports venue's the dog has to make choices between one thing or another.


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## Alice Bezemer

Dave Colborn said:


> Thanks for bringing clarity to what I was trying to say. I owe you a beer or a coffee.


Tripple Espresso, , 3 lumps, industrial size container please


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## Wayne Scace

Dave Colborn said:


> No wayne. You have reached a bad conclusion. I am saying simply that the dog IS trained. It receives a stimulus of a car and performs a behavior of stopping the handler. Trained. I think the term willful disobedience is to make you feel better. The dog, no matter how complex the task and learning is just trained.
> 
> Do you agree? He is actually just being obedient.


Dave, Jay and Sarah are on the right track. Yet you insist on using an incorrect term in regards to SD training. 
Jack Humphries, the original head trainer of The Seeing Eye, coined the term "Intelligent Disobedience" to describe the dog drawing on its training, intelligence, experience, self-preservation and love for its owner to decide to disobey a given command and keep them both safe. 
Willfulness dies not come into it. 
You cannot use Intelligent and Wilfull interchangeably as they have completely different definitions and connotations when paired with disobedience. 
Jay and Sarah bring up something else that is important. 
All Service Dog owners have "Trust Your Dog" drilled into them from Day One of training.


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## Wayne Scace

Alice Bezemer said:


> Its just another case of using different terms for the same behaviours much like the way people like to call everything their dog does "Drive"
> 
> I agree with you, Dave that it is a trained behaviour and regardless of the name you tag onto it it will always be a learned and trained behaviour and not a behaviour the dog comes up with by itself.
> 
> Intelligent disobediance would be if the dog came into an unknown situation like a street crossing and it has not been trained at all for any kind of venue and its owner, whilst having his face glued to his mobile, crosses the street and tells his dog to follow at which point the dog might stand still or pull back creating a tight leash or even stand infront of its owner to indicate there is a car coming.... or something to that affect. That would be inteligent DisOB in my eyes, an untrained, unlearned behaviour where the dog recognizes the danger for itself.
> 
> Wilful Disob is just the dog not reacting or ignoring the command given for whatever reason.....
> 
> Wayne, I respect the kind of training that you do but I feel that the names used are confusing at best. You trained your dogs specific behaviours, including to keep you safe and to avoid dangerous situations, to call it intelligent DisOB is a nice name yet it is nothing more then a trained behaviour that has nothing to do with intelligence and all with trained/learned behaviour of the dog. If it were actual intelligent DisOB then everyone training a working dog could say their dog used it since in plenty of exercizes and sports venue's the dog has to make choices between one thing or another.


*Alice, I have to respectfully disagree.
I did not come up with the term. A much more experienced and knowledgeable trainer did in tbe 1920's. You may have heard of him. His name was Jack Humphries and he was the original head trainer at The Seeing Eye. Prior to training Kiss ( name changed to Buddy ) to be the first Seeing Eye Dog. Mr, Humphries trained Fortunate Fields GSD's for police and military work.
*


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## Sarah Platts

Dave Colborn said:


> A
> Help me find an instance where dogs do choose an untrained response based of a stimulus and can be right.


The only thing I can quickly think of is the dog altering their alert. At a workshop, I was taken to a fair-sized storage room that was pitch black once the door was shut. Since the handler could no longer see the dog, the handler was suppose to make the call of a find based on the breathing pattern of their dog. What my dog did instead was to give a bark alert. This particular dog has never, ever, been trained for a bark alert. Or to bark for any alerting process (like barking to come into the house) His normal default indication is a scratch. As soon as he started to bark, I called it right then and there. We threw open the door to see the dog sitting correctly by the location. Once he and I made eye contact, then he stopped barking and he scratched on the item containing the odor. Call it what you will but for me that whole incident was a decision on the dog's part, without any previous training, for it to change from a visual alert (the sit and scratch) in a situation where I could not see him to a auditory one where he could tell me he had something. It's not like the dog sat and sat before barking. The whole thing happened fairly quickly from the time the door was shut till the dog made a find and told me.


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## Wayne Scace

Wayne Scace said:


> *Alice, I have to respectfully disagree.
> I did not come up with the term. A much more experienced and knowledgeable trainer did in tbe 1920's. You may have heard of him. His name was Jack Humphries and he was the original head trainer at The Seeing Eye. Prior to training Kiss ( name changed to Buddy ) to be the first Seeing Eye Dog. Mr, Humphries trained Fortunate Fields GSD's for police and military work.
> *


To explain. 
Alice your scenario is an example of untrained intelligent disobedience. below is a simple example of trained intelligent disobedience. 
Picture this:
hlind person on corner with guide dog's harness handle in hand.
Gestures and commands dog forward, waits.
Dog sees approaching vehicle. As per training the dog either puts back pressure on harness handle or body blocks the owner's left knee. 
Now, clear as mud?


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## Alice Bezemer

Wayne Scace said:


> To explain.
> Alice your scenario is an example of untrained intelligent disobedience. below is a simple example of trained intelligent disobedience.
> Picture this:
> hlind person on corner with guide dog's harness handle in hand.
> Gestures and commands dog forward, waits.
> Dog sees approaching vehicle. As per training the dog either puts back pressure on harness handle or body blocks the owner's left knee.
> Now, clear as mud?


It is extremely clear even, Wayne. The point I was trying to make is that that is not inteligent disobediance in my eyes but a simple set of trained behaviours displayed by the dog because it was taught to show reaction a to situation a and reaction b to situation b.... 

Sure, its smart for knowing to choose at that particular moment and pick the correct action, does that make it intelligent behaviour tho? Or is it simply trained behaviour and nothing more.  

I am going to respectfully disagree with you, Wayne.  It is trained behaviour and nothing more or less then that. Every working dog out there shows this kind of behaviour. It's not intelligent DisOB but a simple mix and match or action/reaction. Its cool to know there's a special name for it but still its nothing more then trained behaviour displayed by the dog. It's a pretty label for a trained behaviour, nothing more....


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## Dave Colborn

I think both willful and intelligent disobedience terms are useless and confusing. People need to understand the dog is responding to training or are not trained. Especially when their lack of training can kill the handler. Trained or untrained is what I am saying. Your dog is trained. Nothing more, nothing less. I did misuse willful and meant intelligent. See how trained and untrained would be less confusing AND more accurate. 



Wayne Scace said:


> Dave, Jay and Sarah are on the right track. Yet you insist on using an incorrect term in regards to SD training.
> Jack Humphries, the original head trainer of The Seeing Eye, coined the term "Intelligent Disobedience" to describe the dog drawing on its training, intelligence, experience, self-preservation and love for its owner to decide to disobey a given command and keep them both safe.
> Willfulness dies not come into it.
> You cannot use Intelligent and Wilfull interchangeably as they have completely different definitions and connotations when paired with disobedience.
> Jay and Sarah bring up something else that is important.
> All Service Dog owners have "Trust Your Dog" drilled into them from Day One of training.


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## Dave Colborn

That sounds pretty close to what I am thinking. Had you ever trained in the dark before? Had you ever rewarded your dog for barking in the dark? I am not doubting. I am wondering if inadvertently the dog was trained in a similar context, or offering the bark for another reason.



Sarah Platts said:


> The only thing I can quickly think of is the dog altering their alert. At a workshop, I was taken to a fair-sized storage room that was pitch black once the door was shut. Since the handler could no longer see the dog, the handler was suppose to make the call of a find based on the breathing pattern of their dog. What my dog did instead was to give a bark alert. This particular dog has never, ever, been trained for a bark alert. Or to bark for any alerting process (like barking to come into the house) His normal default indication is a scratch. As soon as he started to bark, I called it right then and there. We threw open the door to see the dog sitting correctly by the location. Once he and I made eye contact, then he stopped barking and he scratched on the item containing the odor. Call it what you will but for me that whole incident was a decision on the dog's part, without any previous training, for it to change from a visual alert (the sit and scratch) in a situation where I could not see him to a auditory one where he could tell me he had something. It's not like the dog sat and sat before barking. The whole thing happened fairly quickly from the time the door was shut till the dog made a find and told me.


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## Sarah Platts

Dave Colborn said:


> That sounds pretty close to what I am thinking. Had you ever trained in the dark before? Had you ever rewarded your dog for barking in the dark? I am not doubting. I am wondering if inadvertently the dog was trained in a similar context, or offering the bark for another reason.


No, neither of us had done this. Low light, yes. Working in the night with a flashlight, yes. But never total blackness. And he's not a barky dog. I've never trained him for anything involving a bark. In fact, he doesn't use a bark for much at all. He will chime in with the rest of the pack but he's just not a barky dog. More of a growler. When he wants something he bumps me or scratches at the door to go in or out. This was something totally unexpected. In fact, I didn't know what would happen. He didn't do anything I thought he would do to alert me. It shocked the hell out of me and made me wonder if I was seriously underrating the intelligence of this particular dog.


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## Bob Scott

I'm also of the opinion that it's a trained response for the seeing eye dog to ignore a forward command when it sees a car approach. 
Is the seeing eye dog capable of ignoring a forward command with a car coming if it had no training to do seeing eye work?
I believe that a dog that naturally avoids a car coming down the street is either a spooky dog or a street smart dog that learned the hard way that cars hurt.


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## Gillian Schuler

http://www.blindenhundeschule.ch/en.html


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## Dave Colborn

This is a good one to ponder. I don't know what your dog was thinking or what led to it. I could guess. It's important to me to think about things like the why because it leads to using innate abilities of a dog vs. What i think i know to train it. I think it is almost as important to explain things that are hard to explain so we don't humanized the dog. Give them credit if it's due to intelligence and believing in training if that is what it is.


Sarah Platts said:


> No, neither of us had done this. Low light, yes. Working in the night with a flashlight, yes. But never total blackness. And he's not a barky dog. I've never trained him for anything involving a bark. In fact, he doesn't use a bark for much at all. He will chime in with the rest of the pack but he's just not a barky dog. More of a growler. When he wants something he bumps me or scratches at the door to go in or out. This was something totally unexpected. In fact, I didn't know what would happen. He didn't do anything I thought he would do to alert me. It shocked the hell out of me and made me wonder if I was seriously underrating the intelligence of this particular dog.


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## Meg O'Donovan

Sarah Platts said:


> No, neither of us had done this. Low light, yes. Working in the night with a flashlight, yes. But never total blackness. And he's not a barky dog. I've never trained him for anything involving a bark. In fact, he doesn't use a bark for much at all. He will chime in with the rest of the pack but he's just not a barky dog. More of a growler. When he wants something he bumps me or scratches at the door to go in or out. This was something totally unexpected. In fact, I didn't know what would happen. He didn't do anything I thought he would do to alert me. It shocked the hell out of me and made me wonder if I was seriously underrating the intelligence of this particular dog.


Sarah, 
Was this the same dog that you linked for video, showing him(?) climbing a ladder to get up to a roof to find scent? (Or at least that's how I remember it.) Wasn't that also a situation where the dog was problem-solving?


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## Sarah Platts

Meg O'Donovan said:


> Sarah,
> Was this the same dog that you linked for video, showing him(?) climbing a ladder to get up to a roof to find scent? (Or at least that's how I remember it.) Wasn't that also a situation where the dog was problem-solving?


Yes, it's the same dog (Sam). This is the dog when I left him with my mom for a week as a several months old puppy while I went off to a search sat me down when I got back and told me I was it deep trouble. I had flights of fancy of the pup killing something important or stampeding the stock through a fence or something really dire. She looked me in the eye and told me again that I was in deep trouble. She told me that puppy was to damn smart for his own good and a hell of a lot smarter than me. She reiterated again that I was in serious trouble and then wished me good luck because I was going to need it.

Yes, this dog is a serious problem solver and pretty unstoppable in that category. Six years later...... I have to agree with my Mom. The dog continues to surprise me and probably is smarter than me.


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## Sarah Platts

I'll throw one more incident that kinda set me back on my heels a bit. When Sam was a young pup he lost his ball behind an ottoman that was shoved up against the wall. Pup's diving and trying to get a foot under to hook the ball back out but to no avail. He's carrying on whining and whatnot when Jack, who was watching all this from a pillow across the room, gets up and walks over. He shoulders the puppy out of the way then he hooks his paw around one of the legs of the ottoman and drags it away from the wall. Then he turns and goes back to his pillow while Sam wiggles behind the piece and gets his ball. I sorta thought that was interesting but it was about to go to a whole new level of weirdness. A day or three later, I was taking a long soaking bath when Jack had decided that I had been soaking long enough. He started barking, scratching at the door and carrying on wanting in. I figured it was time to get out when I hear Sam's toenails click-click-clicking down the hall. I take a seat on the toilet curious to see how this all played out. The door handle begins to turn (did I mention that Sam had figured out how to open all the doors in my house?). Sam gets the door open, pushes it open, and then - without ever coming into or looking into the room - leaves to head back down the hall while Jack comes in to do a welfare check on me.
I sat on that toilet a long time thinking about what I had just witnessed and it kinda scared me at the same time. It was the first instance I had ever seen a cooperative effort by one dog to help another and then see the favor returned with neither dog apparently interested in actually wanting the item or the prize for themselves. I have no explanation for what happened. It just made start thinking of that line from Hamlet. The one about 'there are stranger things in heaven or earth than we have thought of Horatio....."


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> This is a good one to ponder. I don't know what your dog was thinking or what led to it. I could guess. It's important to me to think about things like the why because it leads to using innate abilities of a dog vs. What i think i know to train it. I think it is almost as important to explain things that are hard to explain so we don't humanized the dog. Give them credit if it's due to intelligence and believing in training if that is what it is.


 
Something like this one then? 

With a Dobe. bitch, from lines very strong in protection but raised as a family pet with no actual P.P training..... On my own down the front in the middle of a 10 acre field when a car pulls up along the fence. A guy gets out and jumps the fence, starts running towards me. The Dog gave a sharp warning bark ( to me) and runs at the guy head on. I call, no reaction!! Dog and man skid to a stop face to face
before colliding. The dog moves beside and slightly in front of the man to prevent him running again and escorted him to me at a WALK, thank you! 
Apart from the warning bark, no noise or growling involved, no hackles. I was pretty happy with her, disobedience or not. 
long ago, I miss that girl.


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## Bob Scott

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> Something like this one then?
> 
> With a Dobe. bitch, from lines very strong in protection but raised as a family pet with no actual P.P training..... On my own down the front in the middle of a 10 acre field when a car pulls up along the fence. A guy gets out and jumps the fence, starts running towards me. The Dog gave a sharp warning bark ( to me) and runs at the guy head on. I call, no reaction!! Dog and man skid to a stop face to face
> before colliding. The dog moves beside and slightly in front of the man to prevent him running again and escorted him to me at a WALK, thank you!
> Apart from the warning bark, no noise or growling involved, no hackles. I was pretty happy with her, disobedience or not.
> long ago, I miss that girl.



Could it be possible that the dog's drive over powered the recall command? 

Just a thought!


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## Dave Colborn

What you mention is thought provoking. That one dog helped the other with a task that didn't get them any reward more than satisfaction of helping another dog. Sort of makes you wonder if most dogs communicate generally and yours are maybe more specific. My guess is that they both got the reward they sought when they found you ok in the bathroom. Seems like you may be communicating on their level too or are at least included in the circle. I can explain the tasks they did with training or prior experience. The motivation to do so for another dog is hard to explain.



Sarah Platts said:


> I'll throw one more incident that kinda set me back on my heels a bit. When Sam was a young pup he lost his ball behind an ottoman that was shoved up against the wall. Pup's diving and trying to get a foot under to hook the ball back out but to no avail. He's carrying on whining and whatnot when Jack, who was watching all this from a pillow across the room, gets up and walks over. He shoulders the puppy out of the way then he hooks his paw around one of the legs of the ottoman and drags it away from the wall. Then he turns and goes back to his pillow while Sam wiggles behind the piece and gets his ball. I sorta thought that was interesting but it was about to go to a whole new level of weirdness. A day or three later, I was taking a long soaking bath when Jack had decided that I had been soaking long enough. He started barking, scratching at the door and carrying on wanting in. I figured it was time to get out when I hear Sam's toenails click-click-clicking down the hall. I take a seat on the toilet curious to see how this all played out. The door handle begins to turn (did I mention that Sam had figured out how to open all the doors in my house?). Sam gets the door open, pushes it open, and then - without ever coming into or looking into the room - leaves to head back down the hall while Jack comes in to do a welfare check on me.
> I sat on that toilet a long time thinking about what I had just witnessed and it kinda scared me at the same time. It was the first instance I had ever seen a cooperative effort by one dog to help another and then see the favor returned with neither dog apparently interested in actually wanting the item or the prize for themselves. I have no explanation for what happened. It just made start thinking of that line from Hamlet. The one about 'there are stranger things in heaven or earth than we have thought of Horatio....."


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## Dave Colborn

This is not in the right vein that I was talking about. The dog checked out a stranger and then walked with him to you? Seems like that's all.


Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> Something like this one then?
> 
> With a Dobe. bitch, from lines very strong in protection but raised as a family pet with no actual P.P training..... On my own down the front in the middle of a 10 acre field when a car pulls up along the fence. A guy gets out and jumps the fence, starts running towards me. The Dog gave a sharp warning bark ( to me) and runs at the guy head on. I call, no reaction!! Dog and man skid to a stop face to face
> before colliding. The dog moves beside and slightly in front of the man to prevent him running again and escorted him to me at a WALK, thank you!
> Apart from the warning bark, no noise or growling involved, no hackles. I was pretty happy with her, disobedience or not.
> long ago, I miss that girl.


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

Something to consider is how many times similar circumstances (or even easier one) occur, and the same dog does not do the "smart" thing, that would require rational thought. This is, imo, the crucial bit, most dogs i hear of did less than 10 actions in 10 years that apparently required them to think of consequences outside of their training. If they really were capable of that intense thinking, you would see it every day in smaller things.

This is not to say all dogs are equal or that some aren't more predisposed to being this way, than others. There are dogs that would escort a stranger in the house without training, as Kristen described, if the stranger acts a certain way, an others that would attack "without thought". The first is not necessarily smarter than the second, his emotional triggers are just a little bit different and, according to whomever has that first dog, it can be a genius, or a washout, for not doing what the owner wanted.

Yes, a dog can act in a way that contradicts his training and it can turn out to be a better decision, but it was not a thought-out decision, it was strictly based on the dog's training and genetic make-up.


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## Dave Colborn

I agree with what you said, right now. But what if we are wrong? Most of dogs thinking could have been bred out as it isn't a trait that is useful to us. Could we test and select based on some thing that produces thinkers? Why would one dog pull out furniture for a second dog to get a bone. I don't expect to change my mind quickly if at all but what if?



Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> Something to consider is how many times similar circumstances (or even easier one) occur, and the same dog does not do the "smart" thing, that would require rational thought. This is, imo, the crucial bit, most dogs i hear of did less than 10 actions in 10 years that apparently required them to think of consequences outside of their training. If they really were capable of that intense thinking, you would see it every day in smaller things.
> 
> This is not to say all dogs are equal or that some aren't more predisposed to being this way, than others. There are dogs that would escort a stranger in the house without training, as Kristen described, if the stranger acts a certain way, an others that would attack "without thought". The first is not necessarily smarter than the second, his emotional triggers are just a little bit different and, according to whomever has that first dog, it can be a genius, or a washout, for not doing what the owner wanted.
> 
> Yes, a dog can act in a way that contradicts his training and it can turn out to be a better decision, but it was not a thought-out decision, it was strictly based on the dog's training and genetic make-up.


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## Matt Vandart

Alice Bezemer said:


> Its just another case of using different terms for the same behaviours much like the way people like to call everything their dog does "Drive"
> 
> I agree with you, Dave that it is a trained behaviour and regardless of the name you tag onto it it will always be a learned and trained behaviour and not a behaviour the dog comes up with by itself.
> 
> Intelligent disobediance would be if the dog came into an unknown situation like a street crossing and it has not been trained at all for any kind of venue and its owner, whilst having his face glued to his mobile, crosses the street and tells his dog to follow at which point the dog might stand still or pull back creating a tight leash or even stand infront of its owner to indicate there is a car coming.... or something to that affect. That would be inteligent DisOB in my eyes, an untrained, unlearned behaviour where the dog recognizes the danger for itself.
> 
> Wilful Disob is just the dog not reacting or ignoring the command given for whatever reason.....
> 
> Wayne, I respect the kind of training that you do but I feel that the names used are confusing at best. You trained your dogs specific behaviours, including to keep you safe and to avoid dangerous situations, to call it intelligent DisOB is a nice name yet it is nothing more then a trained behaviour that has nothing to do with intelligence and all with trained/learned behaviour of the dog. If it were actual intelligent DisOB then everyone training a working dog could say their dog used it since in plenty of exercizes and sports venue's the dog has to make choices between one thing or another.


Ok I got this far and had to reply so that I didn't forget so apologies if this has been mentioned.

I have seen a dog do this ^^ with my very eyes (well actually with my very eyes through the media of the idiot lantern) there was a TV show about a fella with tourettes and he had a dog. Now the dude with tourettes obviously shouts stuff due to his tic. He was stood by a busy road and he kept shouting 'go' to the dog, despite cars coming and the dog did nothing of the sort despite this dog being completely following every other 'command'


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## Alice Bezemer

Matt Vandart said:


> Ok I got this far and had to reply so that I didn't forget so apologies if this has been mentioned.
> 
> I have seen a dog do this ^^ with my very eyes (well actually with my very eyes through the media of the idiot lantern) there was a TV show about a fella with tourettes and he had a dog. Now the dude with tourettes obviously shouts stuff due to his tic. He was stood by a busy road and he kept shouting 'go' to the dog, despite cars coming and the dog did nothing of the sort despite this dog being completely following every other 'command'


Does that mean that the dog is using his own initiative or does it mean the dog has "learned" in its past that "Go"doesn't mean what we preceive it to mean to us?

Personally speaking, I do not feel that the dogs listen to the command we utter but to the sounds of the commands.


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## Joby Becker

Dave Colborn said:


> I agree with what you said, right now. But what if we are wrong? Most of dogs thinking could have been bred out as it isn't a trait that is useful to us. Could we test and select based on some thing that produces thinkers? Why would one dog pull out furniture for a second dog to get a bone. I don't expect to change my mind quickly if at all but what if?


I think it is for sure possible as some dogs are fat smarter than others I believe. but then again, would a really smart, thinking working dog with strong working traits be a plus for certain things? too much thinking can be a negative as well....I think..


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## Dave Colborn

I was agreeing saying thinkers might not be bred as thinking might not be as valuable as not thinking I think. This would lead to less intelligence in future generations I would suspect.


Joby Becker said:


> I think it is for sure possible as some dogs are fat smarter than others I believe. but then again, would a really smart, thinking working dog with strong working traits be a plus for certain things? too much thinking can be a negative as well....I think..


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## Matt Vandart

Dave Colborn said:


> I was agreeing saying thinkers might not be bred as thinking might not be as valuable as not thinking I think. This would lead to less intelligence in future generations I would suspect.


I agree with this and believe it is happening/happened.
Very 'independent' dogs such as terriers and particularly English bull terriers show this, I feel this is a major cause of their perceived 'belligerence" and could be co-related to the fact they are not bred for 'work' in the same way a malinois/gsd/dutch/bc.... er doberman would be.

I think intelligence isn't just one thing though, there are many aspects of it. I feel that in the regular idea joe bloggs in the street has of intelligence one cannot beat a BC, a dog which up until recently was bred only for work. I have never met a belligerent or wilfully disobedient BC or welsh collie in my life. 

Having said all that crap, I think alot of what we perceive as intelligence is not genetic per se but rather a result of good socialisation at a very young age @-16 weeks.

@Alice I concur to an extent it is the sound rather than the 'word', still I am not sure what was happening in the case I mentioned. I have looked for the clip on you tube many times but cannot find it and we all know what memory is like.


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## Matt Vandart

Right read the rest....





Dave Colborn said:


> I was agreeing saying thinkers might not be bred as thinking might not be as valuable as not thinking I think. This would lead to less intelligence in future generations I would suspect.


this ^^ is getting very Captain jack sparrow, lol!

Ok two examples of my bull terrier bumpy thinking. 
She opens doors, not very clever one may think, lots of dogs do that, well that's what I thought until she did it for two specific reasons for which I cannot find any training for and only one the motivation for.
Both these instances happened on a regular basis till the doberman died.

Instance one:

Doberman needed a piss/shit Bumpy got up off the sofa opened the back door let the dobe out returned to sofa. Fck knows what the motivation for that was. Don't know how many times she did this before or after but I would guess it was fairly regular from the amount of times I saw it.

Instance two:

Doberman is in Bumpies favourite spot on the sofa, Bumpy let herself out into the garden barked which sent the dobe into action and she went tearing out the back up the steps onto the patio passing bumpy, who was on her way back at equal speed, jumped about 6 ft landed in her spot in curled position and was snoring before Pickle realised there was nothing there and trotted back and went to her bed.
This happened on a very regular basis and I saw the very first time. Bumpy never barks at anything other than the VC never really has. She planned this for sure.

I have more stories of how cunning that dog is but will not bore you with it.


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## Wayne Scace

*I find it disheartening that a group of smart, experienced dog trainers (that I hold in deepest respect because of their extensive knowledge in their specialty ) of one training modality cannot accept the training terminology of another training modality at face value.
I, who have very little knowledge in their specialty, accept their terminology willingly. Rather, I am attempting to learn and expand my knowledge base so I can be a better dog trainer. Knowledge IS Power.
Therefore, I challenge you, the living repositories of your specialty's lore and knowledge to be flexible and extend/expand your own storehouse of knowledge. 
Be willing to ask questions, more importantly, LISTEN to the answers you receive. 
I can, can you??
*


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> This is not in the right vein that I was talking about. The dog checked out a stranger and then walked with him to you? Seems like that's all.


 
No, body language left no doubt she was was ready for more should she need it. Head and tail very high, ears forward. The skidding to a stop could just as easily have turned into a leap if the guy hadn't propped himself.

He then called a greeting, which I answered....So maybe a training thing does come into that. ( Visitors were always welomed in a friendly way, as long as they stopped at the gate and waited for our invitation to come in...otherwise they don't get in. Same thing repeated if I were to close the door to the house on the visitors)

When she fell in beside / in front of him, she was springing with each step to look him in the eye every step of the way.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Could be an extension of actions carried out at the gate. She was a huge dog and extremely confident and stable.

Seems you are after examples of free and intelligent action more than just disobedience tho'?
Lots of them, Some similar to Matts. I've been isolated from formal training. Learning heaps here, but found many differences in how I train and what I look for in my dogs. That won't change, but will hopefully improve.

I agree that kind of dog is not much favoured by some modern training or selection methods.


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## Dave Colborn

I am not really arguing. This is opinion stuff here for me. I don't think that what your dog did took intelligence. That is not meant to be offensive, although even as I read it it sounds that way. I think you are saying the dog is stable and I am saying that is a behavior a stable dog might do the first time it encountered that situation.


Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> No, body language left no doubt she was was ready for more should she need it. Head and tail very high, ears forward. The skidding to a stop could just as easily have turned into a leap if the guy hadn't propped himself.
> 
> He then called a greeting, which I answered....So maybe a training thing does come into that. ( Visitors were always welomed in a friendly way, as long as they stopped at the gate and waited for our invitation to come in...otherwise they don't get in. Same thing repeated if I were to close the door to the house on the visitors)
> 
> When she fell in beside / in front of him, she was springing with each step to look him in the eye every step of the way.


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## Dave Colborn

Wayne, never let anyone influence how you feel especially anyone you havent met and see train. My opinion is mine, and just an opinion.

I will of course file away the terms but I still won't like or use them because the terms make a behavior seem more than it is. I don't think anything you mentioned was more than a well trained behavior.



Wayne Scace said:


> *I find it disheartening that a group of smart, experienced dog trainers (that I hold in deepest respect because of their extensive knowledge in their specialty ) of one training modality cannot accept the training terminology of another training modality at face value.
> I, who have very little knowledge in their specialty, accept their terminology willingly. Rather, I am attempting to learn and expand my knowledge base so I can be a better dog trainer. Knowledge IS Power.
> Therefore, I challenge you, the living repositories of your specialty's lore and knowledge to be flexible and extend/expand your own storehouse of knowledge.
> Be willing to ask questions, more importantly, LISTEN to the answers you receive.
> I can, can you??
> *


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> I am not really arguing. This is opinion stuff here for me. I don't think that what your dog did took intelligence. That is not meant to be offensive, although even as I read it it sounds that way. I think you are saying the dog is stable and I am saying that is a behavior a stable dog might do the first time it encountered that situation.


 
No, I'm not offended at all, thats a reasonable observation.


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## Bob Scott

Thoughts

When my two daughters (both now 40+) were growing up one of the dogs I had was a GSD x Dane.
All my dogs were taught not to go in the street, my neighbors lawn and my drive way without me. 
He was alway very concerned when the two girls tried to go outside those boundaries and would place himself between said boundaries and the girls. This was not taught and he did it from the get go as he learned those boundaries. 
As the girls got old enough to walk to the school yard (6 houses away) by then selves he still tried to push them back away from those boundaries. 
This dog was an intact male and still had the instincts to barf up a meal when he met ANY young pup. 
All instincts? 
How did he decide to keep herd on the kids at the boundaries? Natural herding instincts is my guess. 
I've NEVER seen a male dog feed pups that solicited for food. I certainly didn't teach that!


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## Alice Bezemer

Wayne Scace said:


> *I find it disheartening that a group of smart, experienced dog trainers (that I hold in deepest respect because of their extensive knowledge in their specialty ) of one training modality cannot accept the training terminology of another training modality at face value.
> I, who have very little knowledge in their specialty, accept their terminology willingly. Rather, I am attempting to learn and expand my knowledge base so I can be a better dog trainer. Knowledge IS Power.
> Therefore, I challenge you, the living repositories of your specialty's lore and knowledge to be flexible and extend/expand your own storehouse of knowledge.
> Be willing to ask questions, more importantly, LISTEN to the answers you receive.
> I can, can you??
> *


I'm sorry that you feel disheartned by my views but I have them based on what I know and they are not likely to change anytime soon. I have no issue with the form of training that you do , as a matter of fact I have the utmost respect for your form of training. This does not however mean I will agree with the terminology used simply because its a coined phrase that someone came up with in 1936. Intelligent DisOB is nothing more then a set of learned behaviours that illicit a desired response to a certain action. 

Sure, Intelligent DisOB sounds quite fetching and flashy and suggests something more then it really is but in the end it is learned behaviour and nothing more or less. Simply because the dog chooses one behaviour over the other does not make it intelligent or smarter then the next dog, it only means It knows which behaviours to pick from in a given situation. As Dave said earlier, dog finds decoy and barks or dog finds decoy and bites... the difference being, if the decoy moves he can bite, if the decoy stands still, he has to bark. Is this intelligent DisOB? Nope. Its just doing what it knows to do. 


I am quite willing to listen to any and all explanation yet this does not mean I will see things the same way as others might. I have infact read up on intelligent disob which only managed to solidify my view that it is nothing more then training and learned behaviour. I am sorry if that offends you in any way since its not intended to do so but your views are yours to have as are mine.


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## Dave Colborn

When we aren't around pups learn from their environment and other dogs. 

Did he learn the barfing from mom? Did she do it for him? Did puppy smell illicit that response? Maybe?

As far as the kids, if he learned a boundary and was trying to teach it to your kids, might not that be a dog doing what it was supposed to, and the "pups" just didn't learn it through mimicry as other pups might have? 

But was your dog a better communicator than some dogs? 


I specifically don't have puppies around when I scoop poop in the yard, as they learn some behavior through mimicry.




Bob Scott said:


> Thoughts
> 
> When my two daughters (both now 40+) were growing up one of the dogs I had was a GSD x Dane.
> All my dogs were taught not to go in the street, my neighbors lawn and my drive way without me.
> He was alway very concerned when the two girls tried to go outside those boundaries and would place himself between said boundaries and the girls. This was not taught and he did it from the get go as he learned those boundaries.
> As the girls got old enough to walk to the school yard (6 houses away) by then selves he still tried to push them back away from those boundaries.
> This dog was an intact male and still had the instincts to barf up a meal when he met ANY young pup.
> All instincts?
> How did he decide to keep herd on the kids at the boundaries? Natural herding instincts is my guess.
> I've NEVER seen a male dog feed pups that solicited for food. I certainly didn't teach that!


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## Alice Bezemer

Dogs are by no means stupid. Some are smarter then others...

My dog Max used to open doors in a flash, be it doors that swung out, or in. We changed the handles so they were pointing down, he changed his approach and instead of standing in front of the door moved to the wall as he pushed. We then proceeded to place extra handles on the door which frustrated him for about a day and he managed to open them soon enough as well. Then we bought the window handles with a small lock at the top. A button to push as you moved the handle.... Fk me! He would use his teath to push in the button and then slightly turn his head, then stand against the wall and shove it aside. We ended up with putting key locks in all doors after that :lol:

He sniffed the locks and paid attention to us for a few days but never made an effort to try and open the door again unless he didn't hear the tell tale click of the lock being put in place.

In my eyes it wasn't intelligent behaviour of himself that he came up with as a real problem solver... nope... He watched! He would watch what we were doing and repeat the process soon enough. Dogs are copiers in my eyes. Show them a behaviour often enough and they will copy it. Thats how training works. Repeat, repeat, repeat....


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## Matt Vandart

He sounds cool 
We changed the handles to round knob ones, she learned them as well, using two paws and moving them in different directions, you know, one goes up the other goes down. We gave up trying to keep her in, lol, now she goes wherever she wants.
Bumpy opens baby gates


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## Joby Becker

Dave Colborn said:


> I was agreeing saying thinkers might not be bred as thinking might not be as valuable as not thinking I think. This would lead to less intelligence in future generations I would suspect.


! think I was agreeing with the results of your thinking processes.


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## Jay Quinn

at the end of the day, disobedience means the dog disregarding a command from the handler, does it not?

regardless of it if is a trained response or not, the guide dogs still have to go through the thought process to come to realisation of "i cannot safely comply with that command at this time", and decide to hold their place until safe to resume, or if danger is imminent, take an alternate course of action... 

this is not a skill that comes naturally to a dog and it is not possible to teach to every dog - some dogs will willingly walk their owner off a cliff or under a bus when told "forward" no matter how much training they have received... they are too eager to please, or just don't have the brains or self-preservation instincts to understand that environmenal stimuli must sometimes override a command from the handler... these dogs are of course washed from the program and over here are often adopted by their puppy walkers... 

so, trained or not, the dog is still demonstrating a level of intelligent thought in order to keep the handler safe, thus the term "intelligent disobedience" being used... the dog is not just willfully disregarding the command because it doesn't feel like it, or is otherwise distracted.......


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## Jennifer Marshall

I agree with the others that have said the term intelligent disobedience is misleading and incorrect. In my opinion it is trained or learned behavior and nothing more. 

I see examples of "sometimes obedience" all the time in client dogs. Dogs very quickly learn situational differences for behavior, whether they are intentionally taught these differences or the dog learns on it's own. As an example, client dog that has basic obedience and knows sit, down, stay etc. They have a three year old and when the child tells the dog to sit the dog downs, and the child rewards it by throwing some food to it. Dog does not down when told to sit by any other member of the household. Dog is not being disobedient (which is what I was called for) , the dog simply learned that Sit means to sit... unless it is said by the child in which case Sit means down. 

Bob, I think that great dane x gsd sounds like a great dog from the stories you have told. I have a dog that will do the same thing, with other dogs and animals. Not people, as he's never been in a situation where he had boundaries and a person did not. 

He will also "enforce" rules I have set for other critters. Example, my cat is not allowed on table or counters. I shoo the cat away. Dog first starts coming to get me when the cat is up there and I am not in the room, so I then go and shoo the cat. Dog then barks at the cat when it sees it up there, which startles the cat off the table/counter. Dog now keeps cat off those surfaces on his own. This cat is also not allowed outside, and I have outside cats that aren't allowed inside. He first began letting me know that something was amiss when one went out or one came in (by coming to me, alert, nosing me, walking a few feet towards the door or window, stopping and looking back at me then repeating until I get up and he then leads me to where someone got in/out) If I ever chase off a critter, like a hawk or eagle (I had chickens and ducks and would startle predators away) with the dog around, and he always is with me, he remembers and will keep watch for those animals and chase them off. 

He is a smart dog, he is also very observant. He learns quickly and retains what he learns so well it amazes people. When I discuss intelligence in a dog it is usually in regards to training- how quickly a dog learns and how well it retains what it learns. Problem solving is a different category for me and not always something I like lol



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## Jennifer Marshall

Would like to add that the dog has been praised and allowed to do what he does, but never taught and rarely encouraged or guided. This dog has many jobs, on and off the trial field (I do mondioring) 

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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

One principle common to most sciences is, if you can explain one event/behavior with less or more complicated processes, one should always chose the least complicated path. Not that that is the correct answer all the time, but it leads to less unfounded assumptions.

One example in dog training, retrieving as an instinct, or as a sum of 3-4-5 or more individual instincts.

@*Matt* I know of dogs doing similar things, the problem, for me, still remains: if the dog actually did those things, because she was capable of seeing the consequences before actually doing them, why did you not see this thought pattern every day, in more than just 2 situations ? Or maybe you did ?

As to the motivations, it could be that Bumpy just enjoyed making the Dobe do stuff because she is bored, just like so many dogs enjoy making their owners jump through hoops for no apparent reason.
This could have happened completely accidental, Bumpy wanted to get the Dobe off the sofa, maybe tried for months to do so, one day she barks, just to see what happened, and the Dobe got off the sofa for 0.5 seconds; success. Similar to what happens in a training session, the first time. After that, she worked out the kinks, went outside and barked there, so as to get the Dobe further away, and made the process smother, but the initial success was not deliberate, she just tried to do something and got lucky, then worked on it.

It is a definite sign of intelligence, but i don't believe it's a sign the dog knew what would happen before she did it, the first time, and after that, it was just repetition of something she had learned, that had the desired outcome.

@*Jay* What you are describing, imo, sounds like flight/fight instinct, coupled with a desire to not abandon the owner, and training; the dog sees the potential danger, stops because the fight/flight instinct kicks in (where other dogs might put higher importance on training and just go into the street, others might just give up and go back), and looks for a different route, while his temperament helps him to not give up, and his training helps him identify those safer routes.
It could be that the training itself prepares him a little bit for this, if it challenged him to choose between different acceptable paths, as opposed to many biting sports, in which the dog often is taught from the start there is only one route to take.
This may look like the dog is thinking, and to some extent it is obviously true, but imo he is not thinking of the consequences of something he never did before, he is trying to balance his training with his instincts: go across, but be careful.


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## Matt Vandart

I think a massive problem with modern dog training and society as a whole is the wholehearted and complete submission to the premise that nature is mechanistic, a dog is no more than a biological machine with no purpose, it's a shame as I believe there is alot of potential in the opposite position.

Maybe she did learn to do it as you described, it does not mean she didn't think and work out that if she went up on the patio (where she knew pickle would go) then that gave her more chance to get to the sofa before the pickle returned.

Also this is all focussing on things we would like to happen. What about things we would not like. For example I have known Bumpy to pretend sleep and wait for someone to leave the room before jumping up and scoffing their sandwich and back to pretend sleep. Then there is the dog on youtube that isn't allowed on the bed and the owner filmed what happened when they left the house, dog jumping and rolling all over the bed, the minute she left. 
Youtube is an awesome source of these kinds of displays of 'intelligent actions' of dogs. There are vids of a dog getting up on the counter and dropping hotdogs for his buddy who can't get up.

Humans in general are very vain when it comes to concious thought. 
"Oh look at us are we not the current peak of evolution with our concious thought" i.e 'intelligence' is the sole domain of the human.....

Bullshit.

If you subscribe to the idea that our being/thinking/intelligence whatever is contained within out braincase and in fact within our brain itself, then you must by default prescribe to the fact that all matter is concious as our brains are made from the same matter as everything else. That would straight out point to dogs having the same level of 'concious thought' as ourselves as their brains are made of the same shit.

'Oh but our brains/being/thinking/intelligence is just electricity firing through switches in our nerve system!' some people say, 'concious thought is just an illusion!' well thinking it's an illusion presupposes conciousness, lol.

Anyway, one need not look for signs that dogs are 'intelligent' or 'thinking' or even examples of them doing such, they are and they do, that's the long and the short of it.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Yay Matt!

I doubt any of us who 'believe" can change the minds of those who don't- or vise versa. But its interesting to me the same arguments against a free thinking intelligence in dogs could be just as easily reversed and used to discredit human intelligence....Previous experience, conditioning etc


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## Terrasita Cuffie

Regarding "intelligent disobedience," review Clarence Pffafenberger's work with the guide dogs. He referred to it as dogs that "take responsibility." Its not learned or trained. Its something that I see in my working context all the time. 

T


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## Dave Colborn

Can you quote the text or post a link.


Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Regarding "intelligent disobedience," review Clarence Pffafenberger's work with the guide dogs. He referred to it as dogs that "take responsibility." Its not learned or trained. Its something that I see in my working context all the time.
> 
> T


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## Dave Colborn

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> But its interesting to me the same arguments against a free thinking intelligence in dogs could be just as easily reversed and used to discredit human intelligence..../QUOTE]
> 
> Most people don't require a specific argument to define their lack of intelligence.


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## Sarah Platts

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> Yay Matt!
> 
> I doubt any of us who 'believe" can change the minds of those who don't- or vise versa. But its interesting to me the same arguments against a free thinking intelligence in dogs could be just as easily reversed and used to discredit human intelligence....Previous experience, conditioning etc


+1 to Matt.

I agree that some dogs are smarter than others. Some pass off behavior as nothing more than training or observation. But doesn't that take some intelligence? Also I think it takes a certain level of intelligence or a thought process to see something and then take that observation and be able to replicate or to do trial and error and obtain the desired goal. Like Matt, I had a dog that would want a desired spot only to find another dog in it. So Jack would then leave the room, tear-ass into the backyard barking at the trees or something similar. This would make the other dogs chase out after Jack to back him up. Then Jack would immediately cut behind the shed and come back into the house to claim his spot. I sure didn't train him for this process so it was some kind of self discovery of his own. Which I think denotes a certain level of smarts on his part to figure this out. 

I've run into my fair share of folks in my life. Some are dumber than a box of rocks and others are so smart they're stupid. I won't say all dogs equally smart but I've seen enough flashs of brilliance to not catagorically dismiss it.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Terrasita, 2nd the request for a link?

Mircea, you asked does the dog understand consequences. Not saying I have the answer there, I don't. But have been pondering myself why my boy, with no training, wont allow a fire arm to be leveled in my presence, and will alert me to one being carried. Even rushed over to check out a water pistol aimed at me but relaxed after a sniff.

Hes seen fire arms used, rarely, for vermin controll but thats it.


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## Matt Vandart

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> Terrasita, 2nd the request for a link?
> 
> Mircea, you asked does the dog understand consequences. Not saying I have the answer there, I don't. But have been pondering myself why my boy, with no training, wont allow a fire arm to be leveled in my presence, and will alert me to one being carried. Even rushed over to check out a water pistol aimed at me but relaxed after a sniff.
> 
> Hes seen fire arms used, rarely, for vermin controll but thats it.


That is very interesting.
Crows are a good example of this, you can walk around a field of crows all day and they won't care, get your gun out the car and watch them take off. Could be answered through evolution I suppose or previous learning of the bang that follows, but the ones that know the killing power of the gun are dead so the others haven't experienced first hand the real purpose of the gun or they wouldn't be there to fly away.
Could be a startle response, but I am pretty sure after the first say 10 times they would get used to it.
Crows know what a gun is for sure.

On a side note and risking going into the strange world of spiritualism, when pickle the doberman died, Bumpy didn't even recognise her cold dead corpse any more than a chair or door. She did however go out the garden and bark at about 10pm every night for a few months, one of the other few times bumpy has been vocal. Dunno what to make of that and certainly am not anthropomorphising anything, maybe she was just bored as she has never really recovered from the absence of her playmate and has never replaced her with any of the other dogs.


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## Dave Colborn

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> But have been pondering myself why my boy, with no training, wont allow a fire arm to be leveled in my presence, and will alert me to one being carried.


This is why I havent believed in intelligence in dogs. Statements like this. It's because you see what you want and believe what you want without clear facts.


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## Matt Vandart

Dave Colborn said:


> This is why I havent believed in intelligence in dogs. Statements like this. It's because you see what you want and believe what you want without clear facts.


Interesting. what do you see Dave?

Clear facts and measurable data are very usefull


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

I always try to keep an open mind, but i need some evidence to change it. Like i said, i would like to see a dog making these choices on a daily basis, with different activities, not several in a span of years, and those choices to be very difficult to be explained through training or trial and error, or good luck / genes.

@Kristen, obviously i don't know if any of them are true, but some other possibilities:
- maybe the first time he did this, he was just curious about the gun and did something he normally wouldn't do (or maybe you already taught him to alert to other things), but then you reacted in a way that made him alert again;
- or, just as some dogs react worse than others to weird things like sounds, dark rooms, metal objects, etc., maybe yours simply doesn't like the smell, or shape, or sound of a gun. If anything about the first gun he saw scared him, he could have started alerting and watching out for guns. You could test this theory, by handling a gun yourself and see if the dog reacts.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> This is why I havent believed in intelligence in dogs. Statements like this. It's because you see what you want and believe what you want without clear facts.


You've made a lot of conclusions. My mind is open to explanations but the facts remain.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> I always try to keep an open mind, but i need some evidence to change it. Like i said, i would like to see a dog making these choices on a daily basis, with different activities, not several in a span of years, and those choices to be very difficult to be explained through training or trial and error, or good luck / genes.
> 
> @Kristen, obviously i don't know if any of them are true, but some other possibilities:
> - maybe the first time he did this, he was just curious about the gun and did something he normally wouldn't do (or maybe you already taught him to alert to other things), but then you reacted in a way that made him alert again;
> - or, just as some dogs react worse than others to weird things like sounds, dark rooms, metal objects, etc., maybe yours simply doesn't like the smell, or shape, or sound of a gun. If anything about the first gun he saw scared him, he could have started alerting and watching out for guns. You could test this theory, by handling a gun yourself and see if the dog reacts.


 
Will try that. Guns are kept on the premises, but not mine so I seldom handle them.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Matt Vandart said:


> That is very interesting.
> Crows are a good example of this, you can walk around a field of crows all day and they won't care, get your gun out the car and watch them take off. Could be answered through evolution I suppose or previous learning of the bang that follows, but the ones that know the killing power of the gun are dead so the others haven't experienced first hand the real purpose of the gun or they wouldn't be there to fly away.
> Could be a startle response, but I am pretty sure after the first say 10 times they would get used to it.
> Crows know what a gun is for sure.
> 
> On a side note and risking going into the strange world of spiritualism, when pickle the doberman died, Bumpy didn't even recognise her cold dead corpse any more than a chair or door. She did however go out the garden and bark at about 10pm every night for a few months, one of the other few times bumpy has been vocal. Dunno what to make of that and certainly am not anthropomorphising anything, maybe she was just bored as she has never really recovered from the absence of her playmate and has never replaced her with any of the other dogs.


At the time we let our old girl go, she was very unsteady on her legs and the boy would escort her at her nightly toilet duties. We didn't let him see her body, but he looked for her in the car and stood around her grave for 2 days. After that, he took to laying outside the front door for 3 months, gazing across the yard. He had never done that either,prefering to be where we are.


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## Bob Scott

My terriers would respond to a shovel the same way a bird dog, or crow responds to a gun. 
It's simply a learned behavior. 
Now a couple of those terriers would generalize that shovel and I had to put those dogs up when I planted anything in the garden. They just HAD TO find the critter I was digging to. 
Where they dumber then the dogs that figured the difference? Not at all. They just couldn't get past generalizing that shovel as critters being dug to. 
One Border terrier wouldn't get excited unless I picked up a particular shove. That one I altered for digging critters and he connected the dots on that shovel. 
Why? Hell if I know. They all got the job done in the field.


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## Matt Vandart

Bob Scott said:


> My terriers would respond to a shovel the same way a bird dog, or crow responds to a gun.
> It's simply a learned behavior.
> Now a couple of those terriers would generalize that shovel and I had to put those dogs up when I planted anything in the garden. They just HAD TO find the critter I was digging to.
> Where they dumber then the dogs that figured the difference? Not at all. They just couldn't get past generalizing that shovel as critters being dug to.
> One Border terrier wouldn't get excited unless I picked up a particular shove. That one I altered for digging critters and he connected the dots on that shovel.
> Why? Hell if I know. They all got the job done in the field.


It isn't the same though Bob, the terriers respond to the shovel because there is a good chance a reward (hunting critters) will follow. The crows do one when they see a gun with no reward (one cannot IMO say not being shot is a reward as unless they get shot they should have no concept of being shot)

It could well be a genetic inheritance to be fearful of long pointy things being held by humans I spose.


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## Dave Colborn

Matt.

It is the same thing. Operant conditioning. The boom of the "boomstick" would likely drive the crows away that just don't like the noise. The gun would be the cue.

To train the crows you would want to have a whistle prior to the boom. Then you could have them fly away at the whistle...crow send away. 





Matt Vandart said:


> It isn't the same though Bob, the terriers respond to the shovel because there is a good chance a reward (hunting critters) will follow. The crows do one when they see a gun with no reward (one cannot IMO say not being shot is a reward as unless they get shot they should have no concept of being shot)
> 
> It could well be a genetic inheritance to be fearful of long pointy things being held by humans I spose.


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## Bob Scott

Matt Vandart said:


> It isn't the same though Bob, the terriers respond to the shovel because there is a good chance a reward (hunting critters) will follow. The crows do one when they see a gun with no reward (one cannot IMO say not being shot is a reward as unless they get shot they should have no concept of being shot)
> 
> It could well be a genetic inheritance to be fearful of long pointy things being held by humans I spose.




I suspect somewhere along the line those crows learned that "the long pointy thing" has a consequence. 

My dad had crows roosting on his property. He would go outside and bang trash can lids together cause mom didn't want to kill the birds. :roll:
It didn't take them long to realize the trash can lids had no consequence beyond the noise. A few would rise up and a few would cackle and grumble but none flew off. 
He then shot a couple and in two nights the "consequence" sent them packing when dad walked outside with the 12 ga "long pointy thing". 
Learned behavior!;-)


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

It seems to me the more we specialize for predictabilty , the more we favour contextual learning over conceptual learning. For ourselves as wel las the dogs


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## Matt Vandart

Bob Scott said:


> I suspect somewhere along the line those crows learned that "the long pointy thing" has a consequence.
> 
> My dad had crows roosting on his property. *He would go outside and bang trash can lids together cause mom didn't want to kill the birds. :roll:
> It didn't take them long to realize the trash can lids had no consequence beyond the noise. A few would rise up and a few would cackle and grumble but none flew off.*
> He then shot a couple and in two nights the "consequence" sent them packing when dad walked outside with the 12 ga "long pointy thing".
> Learned behaviour!;-)


Exactly my point dude.

So what did they learn?

They learned that the stick kills despite being not killed themselves...... cannot be explained by OC alone if at all


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## Dave Colborn

Matt. Think of the noise of the gun. Suppose they like or dislike the noise?

I would guess they don't like it, paired mysteriously with birds dying too, yes they would learn without dying, or they would stay and be shot. Gun comes out=noise=friends die=fly away = gun comes out again=fly away. It IS operant conditioning.

A step further, natural selection. Birds that are predisposed to fly away breed more by virtue of not being dead. A genetic predisposition to fly away when guns come out.




Matt Vandart said:


> Exactly my point dude.
> 
> So what did they learn?
> 
> They learned that the stick kills despite being not killed themselves...... cannot be explained by OC alone if at all


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> Matt. Think of the noise of the gun. Suppose they like or dislike the noise?
> 
> I would guess they don't like it, paired mysteriously with birds dying too, yes they would learn without dying, or they would stay and be shot. Gun comes out=noise=friends die=fly away = gun comes out again=fly away. It IS operant conditioning.
> 
> A step further, natural selection. Birds that are predisposed to fly away breed more by virtue of not being dead. A genetic predisposition to fly away when guns come out.


 
But wouldn't that be operant conditioning depending on the birds ability to conceptualize? (death/loss what ever?) Doesn't a dog who learns by observing, or learns that stringing actions together has an end goal more important than the steps taught, need to form concepts ?

Re contextual and conceptual learning....Can a dog form/accept concepts or not?


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## Dave Colborn

I have made a lot of conclusions. The conclusions have been made with the information that most things can be explained by training/genetics. I am keeping an open mind.


Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> You've made a lot of conclusions. My mind is open to explanations but the facts remain.


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## Matt Vandart

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> But wouldn't that be operant conditioning depending on the birds ability to conceptualize? (death/loss what ever?) Doesn't a dog who learns by observing, or learns that stringing actions together has an end goal more important than the steps taught, need to form concepts ?
> 
> Re contextual and conceptual learning....Can a dog form/accept concepts or not?


Dogs can grasp abstract concepts yes, this has been observed and data recorded, scientific peer reviewed papers written and even been on the idiot lantern. I have no doubt that other animals including crows are capable of abstract thought processes.


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

In Dog Talk, John Ross wrote about his dog, that liked to thrash the garbage; when he was home, he would correct the dog, so the dog never did it again when the owner was there, but still did it when he was alone. So the owner came home, saw the garbage in the kitchen, brought the dog to the garbage, pointed it out, and scolded the dog.
After a while, every time the owner got home, 2 things would happen: if the dog greeted him happily, the garbage bin was ok, if the dog ran from him and hid, the garbage was thrashed, every single time.
It wasn't a case of the dog responding to the owner's emotions, because the dog greeted him or ran away at the door, when the owner couldn't even see the kitchen and the garbage bin. The dog knew before the owner did.

It would seem that the dog understood why he was being punished after the fact, because he "knew" he would be punished, before the owner knew himself, why else run away.

This wasn't the case. Ross tested this theory: he brought the dog in the kitchen, then he thrashed the garbage while the dog was watching, left and came back home after 5 minutes. The dog ran away from him.

The dog didn't connect what he was doing now, to what would happen to him later on, he connected thrashed garbage + arrival of owner => correction. Even though he knew not to do it when the owner was home and clearly feared the punishment that came with it, it didn't matter who was doing it when he was alone, all that mattered was the garbage was thrashed.

My first point is, just because a dog seems to be doing something incredible, it shouldn't mean that he is, we should, in fact, expect to find simpler explanations, just because our track record with being fooled by dogs speaks for itself.

My second point, how can a dog be capable of understanding consequences of something he never did before, when there are instances where he can't anticipate consequences he already knows ?


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

Matt Vandart said:


> Dogs can grasp abstract concepts yes, this has been observed and data recorded, scientific peer reviewed papers written and even been on the idiot lantern. I have no doubt that other animals including crows are capable of abstract thought processes.


Any link on those data ?


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## Matt Vandart

Can't be arsed to find link to data sorry but quick search came up with this:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text

I will endeavour to find the papers and data if they are online when I have more brain power.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> But wouldn't that be operant conditioning depending on the birds ability to conceptualize? (death/loss what ever?) Doesn't a dog who learns by observing, or learns that stringing actions together has an end goal more important than the steps taught, need to form concepts ?
> 
> Re contextual and conceptual learning....Can a dog form/accept concepts or not?


I should have directed this question to David. He seems to accept conceptual learning (as it applies to the other thread on contextual vs conceptual learning learning) without allowing for the implications of that.

David, Simplest explanations? I believe cells 'learn" or evolve in 2 ways. One is in response to a successfull biological blue print. When things are working well and the organisms needs are being met, it refines its actions to maximize sucesss and become more efficient. I'll call that contextual learning, specific to that organizms requirments.

The other is in response to environmental stress and the organizisms ability to adapt or respond. Its response- ability.I''ll call that conceptual learning.

I'd need to think on it longer for a more exact language, but hopefully that gives a concept to work with.

Perhaps its the same with higher inteligence too, just more complex and more information to deal with.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> In Dog Talk, John Ross wrote about his dog, that liked to thrash the garbage; when he was home, he would correct the dog, so the dog never did it again when the owner was there, but still did it when he was alone. So the owner came home, saw the garbage in the kitchen, brought the dog to the garbage, pointed it out, and scolded the dog.
> After a while, every time the owner got home, 2 things would happen: if the dog greeted him happily, the garbage bin was ok, if the dog ran from him and hid, the garbage was thrashed, every single time.
> It wasn't a case of the dog responding to the owner's emotions, because the dog greeted him or ran away at the door, when the owner couldn't even see the kitchen and the garbage bin. The dog knew before the owner did.
> 
> It would seem that the dog understood why he was being punished after the fact, because he "knew" he would be punished, before the owner knew himself, why else run away.
> 
> This wasn't the case. Ross tested this theory: he brought the dog in the kitchen, then he thrashed the garbage while the dog was watching, left and came back home after 5 minutes. The dog ran away from him.
> 
> The dog didn't connect what he was doing now, to what would happen to him later on, he connected thrashed garbage + arrival of owner => correction. Even though he knew not to do it when the owner was home and clearly feared the punishment that came with it, it didn't matter who was doing it when he was alone, all that mattered was the garbage was thrashed.
> 
> My first point is, just because a dog seems to be doing something incredible, it shouldn't mean that he is, we should, in fact, expect to find simpler explanations, just because our track record with being fooled by dogs speaks for itself.
> 
> My second point, how can a dog be capable of understanding consequences of something he never did before, when there are instances where he can't anticipate consequences he already knows ?


What you get out that might be different if you look at it conceptualy rather than contextualy.

I get that the dog has learned a concept of what a mess is. Mess + owner = unpleasnt/stressfull environment .He hasn't yet been able to learn an effective response to the cause of the stress. His own actions in satisfying his genetic imperatives cause the stress. Has he the ability or learning needed to respond and address that stress?

It could also be called impulsive learning to satisfy "drives" and compulsive learning to avoid stress.

The dog has learned something, or else he would not be controlling himself in the owners presence either.So far its just contextual.

I can think of an instance where a dog HAS done the 'guilty ' look for some thing its never been punished for before.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

The language I've used isn't right, it needs refinement. I think there are elements of conceptual and contexual learning in either instance.

But it seems we definitely favour the impulsive learning that satisfies drives in our breeding and training programs in our attempts to refine what we have and and make it more predictable or efficient.

That type of learning is not adaptive. It can only work on whats already there in the blue print we have accepted as a a standard.If this theory were correct, it means we are adversly affecting the dogs ability to adapt and evolve by our accepted, standardized breeding and training programs.

We aren't paying enough attention to to a dogs ability to shift perspective into a mode of learning that is adaptive and responsive to stressors.The impulse over rules any compulsion to change perspective enough to lean from compulsion.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

If my world is static, I'm only impelled to learn where the resources are, and the best means of accessing them. Change or unpredictability would be a sort of stressor, compelling a change in my behaviour to match.

Guide dog trainers/ breeders sound like they recognise the value of both types of learning if Response- ability is valued.

Pigs have been recognised as an intelligent species, yet the 'rooting' acting required to obtain food can interefere with their ability to learn. They can be taught complex chains of action to obtain food, but often once the behaviour is learned, it will be interupted by rooting action instead


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

My understanding of inteligence is that it is the end result of learning, and that we learn by pattern recognition.

Eg. patterns in laguage- a word associated repeatedly with an action or object 1st, then concepts etc so that language skills are built on. New neurological path ways are formed in the brain to facilitate these new skills, but also add to the potential of learning in other areas via the new concepts able to be "recognised".

So we are born with a biological potential for inteligence. Understanding areas of potential and excersizing or stimulating it in as many varied ways as possible can bring it to bear.With out stimulation, or the right kind of stimulation, its not.


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Sorry, timed out again. The point i'm trying to make is that you can't explain away inteligence saying a dog has "learned"' or "observed" some thing. If he didn't we would be talking of paranormal ability or ESP.

We TEACH children language and responsibility and even independence. Bilogical potential is going to vary, but in mamals at least, its all grey matter and though theres a lot we still don't understand, theres a lot we do. 

An inteligence with a very wide range is not favoured in breeding animasl that respond in set ways to set scenarios where his actions will always be dependent on his handlers direction. That requires breeding for less possible variation.


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## Sarah Platts

I think there definitely is something to what Kirsten says. The frame work is laid down based on opportunity and capability. I've heard alot of people say dogs can't do this or that but what the biggest thing is that these same folks normally don't even give their dogs an opportunity to try it or learn how to do it. If you don't stimulate or foster some of the behaviors or allow for it then of course the dog won't be able to do this or that. Some dogs also seem more capable of decision making or problem solving. I've seen this with individuals within my breed. Not all dogs are created equal. Some rise higher and some just are.


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## Terrasita Cuffie

Sarah Platts said:


> I think there definitely is something to what Kirsten says. The frame work is laid down based on opportunity and capability. I've heard alot of people say dogs can't do this or that but what the biggest thing is that these same folks normally don't even give their dogs an opportunity to try it or learn how to do it. If you don't stimulate or foster some of the behaviors or allow for it then of course the dog won't be able to do this or that. Some dogs also seem more capable of decision making or problem solving. I've seen this with individuals within my breed. Not all dogs are created equal. Some rise higher and some just are.



Agreed. I think only people who rely on a dog's judgment and analysis can see it for what it is. I'm amazed in what has happened in dogs with the shift towards impulse and satisfaction of drives. We need to get back to selection for problem solving, analysis and intelligence. Suddenly there is the belief that dogs don't have judgment or ability to discern/read situations and people. Well if you breed all that out in the name of easily manipulative prey drive---no, they don't have those traits. 

T


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## Catherine Gervin

wow! i feel that Kristen is saying is absolutely what i consider learning and applied responses to new situations, as in 'i have experience with this but this new thing is similar, so i will apply what i know of that to this' goes on with dogs along the course of trial and error all the time. well said and i totally agree.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

The science seems to support it..

We have convieniently forgotten....You can't improve on predictability, you can only refine it by eliminating possibilities.


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## Dave Colborn

Ok. Let's say theoretically I don't think dogs are intelligent but only conditioned response animals. How would someone present evidence to make me believe? 

Define intelligence? Then provide a study that shows defined intelligence in action?


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## Sarah Platts

For the most part humans are "conditional response animals" too. Part of the dictionary definition is "capacity for reasoning, understanding, and for similar forms of mental activity." To paraphrase a supreme court justice, I know it when I see it. However, I think that each of us has their own personally defined standard of what constitutes "intelligence"


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> Define intelligence? Then provide a study that shows defined intelligence in action?


I have given my definition of intelligence. How do you define it?


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> Ok. Let's say theoretically I don't think dogs are intelligent but only conditioned response animals. How would someone present evidence to make me believe?


I've just presented what I see as evidence.

I don't know how you define it, so I can't see what other evidence I would need to present.
Its not a mater of being 'made' to believe.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Sorry, timed out again.

What would give the shove that shifts your perspective?.


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## Dave Colborn

I'm sorry I must have missed it in the rrading. Could you give your definition again please.

I need a fact to shove me. To have a fact, I think we start with a definition of intelligence and then go to some specific thing a dog has to do or not do to be deemed intelligent. Then it has to be done regularly (regularly has to be defined). It has to be done in view of a camera. 

I think either I will believe or you will change your mind. Those are the outcomes. If you cant change what you believe there is no point in doing anything to prove or disprove it, because if you can't change and I can, the only possible outcomes are for us to disagree or me to agree with you. This would leave "dogs are not intelligent" off the table as an agreeable outcome. Can you believe they arent?



Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> I have given my definition of intelligence. How do you define it?


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## Matt Vandart

Dude, can you please define 'intelligence' so we are on the same page please.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> I'm sorry I must have missed it in the rrading. Could you give your definition again please.
> 
> I need a fact to shove me. To have a fact, I think we start with a definition of intelligence and then go to some specific thing a dog has to do or not do to be deemed intelligent. Then it has to be done regularly (regularly has to be defined). It has to be done in view of a camera.
> 
> I think either I will believe or you will change your mind. Those are the outcomes. If you cant change what you believe there is no point in doing anything to prove or disprove it, because if you can't change and I can, the only possible outcomes are for us to disagree or me to agree with you. This would leave "dogs are not intelligent" off the table as an agreeable outcome. Can you believe they arent?


Thinking of the best way to answer with out timing out.
Yes, please we need your definition of intelligence.

You might be interested in googling Alex, the African Grey Parrot.


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## Matt Vandart

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> Thinking of the best way to answer with out timing out.
> Yes, please we need your definition of intelligence.
> 
> *You might be interested in googling Alex, the African Grey Parrot.*


I already linked that.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Ooops! Sorry, missed that one.


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> I'm sorry I must have missed it in the rrading. Could you give your definition again please.
> 
> I need a fact to shove me. To have a fact, I think we start with a definition of intelligence and then go to some specific thing a dog has to do or not do to be deemed intelligent. Then it has to be done regularly (regularly has to be defined). It has to be done in view of a camera.
> 
> I think either I will believe or you will change your mind. Those are the outcomes. If you cant change what you believe there is no point in doing anything to prove or disprove it, because if you can't change and I can, the only possible outcomes are for us to disagree or me to agree with you. This would leave "dogs are not intelligent" off the table as an agreeable outcome. Can you believe they arent?


I can believe dogs aren't intelligent when the evidence shows that. I have no" beliefs" on intelligence, only ideas based on what information I have, and observation.

So far, the available knowledge we have on intelligence does NOT suggest that dogs aren't "Intelligent". It does show that opperant conditioning works with most species and shows how it works with evolution to facilitate learning and possibly "Fix" traits in species.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> I have made a lot of conclusions. The conclusions have been made with the information that most things can be explained by training/genetics. I am keeping an open mind.


Including intelligence, if its recognised as a biological process.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> In Dog Talk, John Ross wrote about his dog, that liked to thrash the garbage; when he was home, he would correct the dog, so the dog never did it again when the owner was there, but still did it when he was alone. So the owner came home, saw the garbage in the kitchen, brought the dog to the garbage, pointed it out, and scolded the dog.
> After a while, every time the owner got home, 2 things would happen: if the dog greeted him happily, the garbage bin was ok, if the dog ran from him and hid, the garbage was thrashed, every single time.
> It wasn't a case of the dog responding to the owner's emotions, because the dog greeted him or ran away at the door, when the owner couldn't even see the kitchen and the garbage bin. The dog knew before the owner did.
> 
> It would seem that the dog understood why he was being punished after the fact, because he "knew" he would be punished, before the owner knew himself, why else run away.
> 
> This wasn't the case. Ross tested this theory: he brought the dog in the kitchen, then he thrashed the garbage while the dog was watching, left and came back home after 5 minutes. The dog ran away from him.
> 
> The dog didn't connect what he was doing now, to what would happen to him later on, he connected thrashed garbage + arrival of owner => correction. Even though he knew not to do it when the owner was home and clearly feared the punishment that came with it, it didn't matter who was doing it when he was alone, all that mattered was the garbage was thrashed.
> 
> My first point is, just because a dog seems to be doing something incredible, it shouldn't mean that he is, we should, in fact, expect to find simpler explanations, just because our track record with being fooled by dogs speaks for itself.
> 
> My second point, how can a dog be capable of understanding consequences of something he never did before, when there are instances where he can't anticipate consequences he already knows ?


When my kids were still teens, they knew not to run wild with their friends and trash the house. If I left them alone for a week end, I might come home to guilty looks too.

If I had trashed the house myself in their presence, I reckon they might run when I got back too.:-o


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> In Dog Talk, John Ross wrote about his dog, that liked to thrash the garbage; when he was home, he would correct the dog, so the dog never did it again when the owner was there, but still did it when he was alone. So the owner came home, saw the garbage in the kitchen, brought the dog to the garbage, pointed it out, and scolded the dog.
> After a while, every time the owner got home, 2 things would happen: if the dog greeted him happily, the garbage bin was ok, if the dog ran from him and hid, the garbage was thrashed, every single time.
> It wasn't a case of the dog responding to the owner's emotions, because the dog greeted him or ran away at the door, when the owner couldn't even see the kitchen and the garbage bin. The dog knew before the owner did.
> 
> It would seem that the dog understood why he was being punished after the fact, because he "knew" he would be punished, before the owner knew himself, why else run away.
> 
> This wasn't the case. Ross tested this theory: he brought the dog in the kitchen, then he thrashed the garbage while the dog was watching, left and came back home after 5 minutes. The dog ran away from him.
> 
> The dog didn't connect what he was doing now, to what would happen to him later on, he connected thrashed garbage + arrival of owner => correction. Even though he knew not to do it when the owner was home and clearly feared the punishment that came with it, it didn't matter who was doing it when he was alone, all that mattered was the garbage was thrashed.
> 
> My first point is, just because a dog seems to be doing something incredible, it shouldn't mean that he is, we should, in fact, expect to find simpler explanations, just because our track record with being fooled by dogs speaks for itself.
> 
> My second point, how can a dog be capable of understanding consequences of something he never did before, when there are instances where he can't anticipate consequences he already knows ?


Another way to look at this : My kids knew not to trash the house when they were teens.If I had left them alone for the week end I might come home to some guilty looks. If I were to trash the house myself in their presence, I reckon they would have run when I next walked in the door too:-o


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## Bob Scott

With the comparison to "trashing the houses" by kids I don''t believe a dog connects trash all over the floor means it's in trouble to actually getting INTO the trash. That happened how long ago? Five mins, two hours, etc. 
If you want the dog to break the habit you have to connect the dots to actually getting INTO the trash when you not there. Not so easy unless (ideally) you take away the possibility of getting INTO the trash when your out. 
If the dog gets into the trash ANY time is it really the dog's fault since, due to past experiences, you know the potential is there? :wink:


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

My point was, it's very easy to misinterpret a dog's actions. The guilty look is anticipation, not a reflection of something the dog actually did, so we should also be careful interpreting other "intelligent" actions the dog seems to do.

You guys make some interesting points, but the fact is, operant and classical conditioning work, there is ample proof of this. If you want others to believe there is more there, you should bring evidence of the fact, not the other way around.

However, i believe there is some proof that "intelligence" is not there. One of the most important principles of dog training is timing, you need to link rewards and corrections to actions, or the dog will not make the connection (the first time). Imo, this is a sign of "non-intelligence", the dog can't make connections in his head, he can't "recall" something and assign value to it. If he cant do that, can he really think of consequences before doing the deed ?
Imo, this lack of temporal awareness, this living in the moment, as Milan would say, is the one of the most important differences between us and dogs.

I try not to say dogs are or aren't intelligent, because the word has may different interpretations, and because i think it's mostly an intellectual debate. Instead, i try to focus on practical things.
I said it before, for me, proof would be seeing one of these dogs make this kind of decisions on a daily basis, and it is a deal breaker, i can't accept a dog as being "intelligent", if i only see several instances of it.


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## Bob Scott

A dog can easily learn from one act. 
Single event learning can teach a dog to go to or avoid something if that single event is strong enough in reward or correction. 
With no intelligence at all how can a dog solve problems? 
The dog also beats out the chimp when it comes to following the trainer/owner's gaze to go to an object with having no training to do so. The chimp supposedly has the intelligence of a 5-6 yr old child yet cannot connect the dogs for that simple behavior without training.


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

Bob Scott said:


> With no intelligence at all how can a dog solve problems?


Trial and error, completely random, or based on previous learning and the dog's genetic predisposition (some are more predisposed to digging, others to barking, etc., and they will solve problems involving those actions much faster, because they will try those actions first). Then operant conditioning kicks in and the dog chooses the best path based on the responses.

There are obviously dogs that get those connections much faster than others, for which the learning process takes less time or less steps, but it's not because of rational analysis of the situations. We can call them more intelligent with good reason, but again, this is not proof of rational thought.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Bob Scott said:


> With the comparison to "trashing the houses" by kids I don''t believe a dog connects trash all over the floor means it's in trouble to actually getting INTO the trash. That happened how long ago? Five mins, two hours, etc.
> If you want the dog to break the habit you have to connect the dots to actually getting INTO the trash when you not there. Not so easy unless (ideally) you take away the possibility of getting INTO the trash when your out.
> If the dog gets into the trash ANY time is it really the dog's fault since, due to past experiences, you know the potential is there? :wink:


Yeah, I agree. I meant it as an example more, of the risk making any conclusions on so little information.

I remember as a 3-4 yo. catching frogs at the pond across the road and taking them to show my mother. She would scream blue murder. Dad comes and says', "Make your mother scream once more and I'll flog you." 
So next time I go across to the pond and find some frogs I hide them In my hand and say8-[ " If I show you some thing will you promise not to scream?" O.K she says. So I open my hand, She screams blue murder. I get a flogging all "[-( 'cos she broke her promise. Just didn't connect the right dots

Whats to be scared of?!


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## Matt Vandart

I find it odd when people think operant conditioning is the be all and end all of how animals learn. It's a method of describing what was observed.
It's a tool for manipulation which works, it doesn't preclude other forms of learning. Even the fella that came up with it said it was not the whole picture.

Sometimes you will hear people say 'science says it is so' well no actually it doesn't, there has been alot of development in the study of animal learning and behavioural studies since. Dog trainers especially are stuck on OP being all there is because it suits their needs perfectly. It's simple to understand and simple to explain, in the case of 'positively' trainers it is simple to market.

The trash example is perfect.
What if the dog is never actually caught trashing the trash?

What if said dog stopped doing it even though that was the case?
How is this explained purely by operant conditioning?

This actually happened in my house and has puzzled me for a while.


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## Dave Colborn

Mimicry, operant and classical conditioning?



Matt Vandart said:


> I find it odd when people think operant conditioning is the be all and end all of how animals learn. It's a method of describing what was observed.
> It's a tool for manipulation which works, it doesn't preclude other forms of learning. Even the fella that came up with it said it was not the whole picture.
> 
> Sometimes you will hear people say 'science says it is so' well no actually it doesn't, there has been alot of development in the study of animal learning and behavioural studies since. Dog trainers especially are stuck on OP being all there is because it suits their needs perfectly. It's simple to understand and simple to explain, in the case of 'positively' trainers it is simple to market.
> 
> The trash example is perfect.
> What if the dog is never actually caught trashing the trash?
> 
> What if said dog stopped doing it even though that was the case?
> How is this explained purely by operant conditioning?
> 
> This actually happened in my house and has puzzled me for a while.


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## Dave Colborn

How do the chimps do with other chimps? Do they look at something and have a second chimp look? Does a dog do that with another dog?


Bob Scott said:


> A dog can easily learn from one act.
> Single event learning can teach a dog to go to or avoid something if that single event is strong enough in reward or correction.
> With no intelligence at all how can a dog solve problems?
> The dog also beats out the chimp when it comes to following the trainer/owner's gaze to go to an object with having no training to do so. The chimp supposedly has the intelligence of a 5-6 yr old child yet cannot connect the dogs for that simple behavior without training.


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## Matt Vandart

I believe they do and I believe I may be able to get video evidence of it tomorrow morning if I remember.


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## Matt Vandart

I have a lurcher puppy that is really not interested in food as a motivator and I was finding it hard to get him to learn down.
I was doing some stuff with my dobermans, sits and downs and he came along and started doing it too. He still hasn't got a really good down so tomorrow maybe I will be able to catch on Camera him copying another dog.


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## Matt Vandart

Ok someone explain this vid with operant conditioning.
You need a facebook account to see it:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=821360404562795


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## Dave Colborn

My dog looked at the number from a Chinese fortune cookie. I got the feeling he was thinking it would be a winner in the lottery. Hopefully it is the current mega millions as I got my tickets based on my feeling that he was thinking it was a winner. I don't draw the line at thinking they are just as smart. Why not smarter?

I'll let everyone know if we win, tomorrow.



.


Matt Vandart said:


> I have a lurcher puppy that is really not interested in food as a motivator and I was finding it hard to get him to learn down.
> I was doing some stuff with my dobermans, sits and downs and he came along and started doing it too. He still hasn't got a really good down so tomorrow maybe I will be able to catch on Camera him copying another dog.


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## Meg O'Donovan

Matt, so what do you think is going on with that yellow dog and the fish? Is the dog trying to alleviate the fish suffering? 
I don't know what to think of that video, but I have seen my Mal using her nose the same way when she is investigating something of which she is unsure (something she is seeing/smelling for the first time), or when she is trying to bury something. 
There are brain science studies (magnetic resonance on live animals) now being done on dogs and other animals that are going to shed a lot more light on animals' potential for thinking/feeling. Eventually those scientific studies may shift paradigms.


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## Dave Colborn

Explain a dog burying a bone to enjoy later?


Matt Vandart said:


> Ok someone explain this vid with operant conditioning.
> You need a facebook account to see it:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=821360404562795


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> My point was, it's very easy to misinterpret a dog's actions. The guilty look is anticipation, not a reflection of something the dog actually did, so we should also be careful interpreting other "intelligent" actions the dog seems to do.
> 
> You guys make some interesting points, but the fact is, operant and classical conditioning work, there is ample proof of this. If you want others to believe there is more there, you should bring evidence of the fact, not the other way around.
> 
> However, i believe there is some proof that "intelligence" is not there. One of the most important principles of dog training is timing, you need to link rewards and corrections to actions, or the dog will not make the connection (the first time). Imo, this is a sign of "non-intelligence", the dog can't make connections in his head, he can't "recall" something and assign value to it. If he cant do that, can he really think of consequences before doing the deed ?
> Imo, this lack of temporal awareness, this living in the moment, as Milan would say, is the one of the most important differences between us and dogs.
> 
> I try not to say dogs are or aren't intelligent, because the word has may different interpretations, and because i think it's mostly an intellectual debate. Instead, i try to focus on practical things.
> I said it before, for me, proof would be seeing one of these dogs make this kind of decisions on a daily basis, and it is a deal breaker, i can't accept a dog as being "intelligent", if i only see several instances of it.


It is mostly an intellectual debate. Unless we all have the same definition of intelligence we can go in circles endlessly. I do think the connections can be made and the potential increased.

I think I do see examples every day. Its near impossible to 'Show' some one who prefers to find any other explanation and does not live with the dog, so can come up with all sorts of hypothetical reasons that 'could' be skewing what they see.eg the 2 examples I have given.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

It doesn't seem a very scientific approach to discard the most logical explanation
( with precedence) as out of hand, and refuse to give it the same credence accorded to o.p etc. even though its known thats not the whole science.

There is no good reason yet to discard alternate theories rather than work with them, especialy when there are perfectly logical explanations to support them AND the known science.


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## Joby Becker

Dave Colborn said:


> Explain a dog burying a bone to enjoy later?


I had a food guarding psycho dig that would do this same thing..(as the dog with the fish)

would rub his nose almost off, trying to move the carpet, tile or whatever to cover his food...

a smarter dog would have left and found something better to bring over and try to cover it up LOL... I usually left a towel around so he could grab it and put it over his food and then hunker down next to the bowl to wait for someone to attempt to "steal his food" (walk anywhere close or even in the same room)... .he never hardly even ate his food, just wanted to guard it.dog was an idiot, but a hell of a guard dog.


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> However, i believe there is some proof that "intelligence" is not there. One of the most important principles of dog training is timing, you need to link rewards and corrections to actions, or the dog will not make the connection (the first time). Imo, this is a sign of "non-intelligence", the dog can't make connections in his head, he can't "recall" something and assign value to it. If he cant do that, can he really think of consequences before doing the deed ?


Take away language, and I think I would need pretty clear and precise markers too, to understand a bunch of random actions are relevent enough to recall, or even which ones you want me to recall.

Once I've done it a second time it creates a pattern...which I can then recall. 

Some advise I got was to explain to people why an action is needed. Easier to remember it then.The dogs are doing all these things with no idea why for the most part. A reward, timed well, has to suffice.

Do you KNOW he can't make connections in his head? Or assign value to them?


----------



## Meg O'Donovan

Joby Becker said:


> I had a food guarding psycho dig that would do this same thing..(as the dog with the fish)
> 
> would rub his nose almost off, trying to move the carpet, tile or whatever to cover his food...
> 
> a smarter dog would have left and found something better to bring over and try to cover it up LOL... I usually left a towel around so he could grab it and put it over his food and then hunker down next to the bowl to wait for someone to attempt to "steal his food" (walk anywhere close or even in the same room)... .he never hardly even ate his food, just wanted to guard it.dog was an idiot, but a hell of a guard dog.


My Mal bitch does this some times, not so much as guarding as hiding it for later? She did it more when she was in heat, trying to hide stuff in her bed (toys, pieces of raw fat which my kids called "meat babies"). I've also seen her do it more recently for stuff she doesn't want around her sleep place, so she has used the same gesture to gather in OR to get rid of. It seems pretty instinctual. 
I don't know what it all means, but if your dog would rub its nose off, it almost sounds OCD.


----------



## Bob Scott

Dave Colborn said:


> How do the chimps do with other chimps? Do they look at something and have a second chimp look? Does a dog do that with another dog?


It's more about the human "pointing" at an object.
I can't answer that with the monkey or dog simply because I've never seen a study on exactly what your asking. (Looking at something)
My "guess" on the chips is possible because they are excellent mimics. Monkey see, monkey do?

Dog to dog? Also not in the study I've seen but part of that study compared the dog being able to go to a human pointing out subject matter with wolves raised with humans doing attempting the same. The wolves never connected the dots when a human points at an object. I beleive that dog OR wolf will also respond to one "looking" at an object.
With the dog I would say we've selected for traits we want and ignore the ones we don't. 
NOW, if we also did that with chimps for thousands of years...well...........Planet of the Apes comes to mind. :grin: :wink:


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## Dave Colborn

We didn't win the lottery.

Now I have to assume he was looking at "salt" in chinese, or "the journey is not as important as the person you become on the journey."

I already knew he loves the cookies the messages are wrapped in, it's good to know he now likes the fortune messages too....is that intelligence? Is he evolving?



Dave Colborn said:


> My dog looked at the number from a Chinese fortune cookie. I got the feeling he was thinking it would be a winner in the lottery. Hopefully it is the current mega millions as I got my tickets based on my feeling that he was thinking it was a winner. I don't draw the line at thinking they are just as smart. Why not smarter?
> 
> I'll let everyone know if we win, tomorrow.
> 
> 
> 
> .


----------



## Travis Ragin

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Agreed. I think only people who rely on a dog's judgment and analysis can see it for what it is. *I'm amazed in what has happened in dogs* *with the shift towards impulse and satisfaction of drives.* We need to get back to selection for problem solving, analysis and intelligence. Suddenly there is the belief that dogs don't have judgment or ability to discern/read situations and people. Well *if you breed all that out* *in the name of easily manipulative prey drive*---no, they don't have those traits.


Yup, T



http://www.workingdogforum.com/vBulletin/f9/mental-pressure-24813/#post354630

_*"""*_The best dog for what? I don't disagree that having a dog that is able to problem solve is preferable in certain tasks ...agility, detection, etc. However, if I am relying on a dog (or man, for that matter) to protect me when it really matters and there's no time to think, only time to react, I would much prefer the dog (or man) with heart and no inclination to quit. 

Maybe it's the Marine in me, but the time to stop and come up with a game plan is not in the middle of a fight. Hesitation will get you hurt or killed. If I consider a dog a true protection or dual purpose dog, it needs to be there when it matters. I can do the thinking. 

My own dog is what I would consider a "thinking" dog. Honestly, *I would prefer her to be a little dumber and more motivated by pure drive. * She is easy to teach things to, but it always seems like she has her own agenda. This has been useful in detection/scenting tasks, but in competition, *her brain can be a hurdle* for me. She is a sport dog and not my protection dog, but I am still able to see the difference in her and *other dog(s) that think less.*

Personally, I think Ivo is an ideal mix of a dog with heart and blinding commitment and intensity that is also able to be clearheaded enough to think when necessary. That mix seems rare, but if you can find it, I think you would have a superior dual purpose dog._*"""*_


----------



## Dave Colborn

I don't think anyone wants a dog to think when it's performing commands. I know I want the command executed. That's part of what this post was about. Is it ever advantageous or encouraged for a dog to do his own thing in a sport? I say no, after giving it some thought.

I also think dogs do most things for their own benefit and no other reason, just as humans do.



Travis Ragin said:


> Yup, T
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.workingdogforum.com/vBulletin/f9/mental-pressure-24813/#post354630
> 
> _*"""*_The best dog for what? I don't disagree that having a dog that is able to problem solve is preferable in certain tasks ...agility, detection, etc. However, if I am relying on a dog (or man, for that matter) to protect me when it really matters and there's no time to think, only time to react, I would much prefer the dog (or man) with heart and no inclination to quit.
> 
> Maybe it's the Marine in me, but the time to stop and come up with a game plan is not in the middle of a fight. Hesitation will get you hurt or killed. If I consider a dog a true protection or dual purpose dog, it needs to be there when it matters. I can do the thinking.
> 
> My own dog is what I would consider a "thinking" dog. Honestly, *I would prefer her to be a little dumber and more motivated by pure drive. * She is easy to teach things to, but it always seems like she has her own agenda. This has been useful in detection/scenting tasks, but in competition, *her brain can be a hurdle* for me. She is a sport dog and not my protection dog, but I am still able to see the difference in her and *other dog(s) that think less.*
> 
> Personally, I think Ivo is an ideal mix of a dog with heart and blinding commitment and intensity that is also able to be clearheaded enough to think when necessary. That mix seems rare, but if you can find it, I think you would have a superior dual purpose dog._*"""*_


----------



## Joby Becker

Meg O'Donovan said:


> My Mal bitch does this some times, not so much as guarding as hiding it for later? She did it more when she was in heat, trying to hide stuff in her bed (toys, pieces of raw fat which my kids called "meat babies"). I've also seen her do it more recently for stuff she doesn't want around her sleep place, so she has used the same gesture to gather in OR to get rid of. It seems pretty instinctual.
> I don't know what it all means, but if your dog would rub its nose off, it almost sounds OCD.


I "think" it was an attempt to gather the floor up to hide the food in his bowl. OCD or not, I don't really know lol... anything more than a small handful of food, or if he was not hungry, he would do it, probably 75% of the time. I would leave a small hand towel next to his bowl so he could use that to cover the food, even then he mostly tried to push it up the side of the bowl with his nose, instead of just grabbing it in his mouth and dropping it over the bowl.

the point was I think dave was correct in his equating that dog with the fish to a dog burying a bone for later...simple as that, since I have seen my own dog do it countless times with various things, including food. he would also do that with his toys sometimes, although he never guarded toys once he "hid" them (in plain sight), only food...

it was weird for sure. sometimes if you gave him too much food, he would spill it out of his bowl, "gather" it up in a small pile, and then lay on top of it.. anybody but me made the mistake of looking his way in that mood, would be answered with a full set of huge teeth and a pretty long scary growl...a presa canario making a doberman face was pretty gnarly looking for sure...


----------



## Sarah Platts

Dave Colborn said:


> I don't think anyone wants a dog to think when it's performing commands. I know I want the command executed. That's part of what this post was about. Is it ever advantageous or encouraged for a dog to do his own thing in a sport? I say no, after giving it some thought.


I think part of the problem is that there are people out there that WANT their dogs to think and make some of their own decisions about how to execute a command. I can see in sport dogs you want/need that because its all about the points. In my world, I don't want a robot dog. I want my dog smart and not afraid to figure out a better way to do something. I want my dog to question me during a search especially when he's right and I'm wrong. Once that harness or vest goes on, that dog runs the search.


----------



## Dave Colborn

I think the problem is a lack of understanding of the task. Take a bomb dog. I teach it the odor I want it to follow, response and search pattern. Where is there leeway?

People think they want the dog to think, I think.

I am willing to reduce my training/work time by letting a dogs nature do some of the work.





Sarah Platts said:


> I think part of the problem is that there are people out there that WANT their dogs to think and make some of their own decisions about how to execute a command. I can see in sport dogs you want/need that because its all about the points. In my world, I don't want a robot dog. I want my dog smart and not afraid to figure out a better way to do something. I want my dog to question me during a search especially when he's right and I'm wrong. Once that harness or vest goes on, that dog runs the search.


----------



## Matt Vandart

I didn't ask what you thought the dog was doing, I asked someone to explain it through operant conditioning.
I would bet that is not the first time the dog has done that.


----------



## Joby Becker

Matt Vandart said:


> I didn't ask what you thought the dog was doing, I asked someone to explain it through operant conditioning.
> I would bet that is not the first time the dog has done that.


I think it is an instinct, born into a dog to do certain things.


----------



## Sarah Platts

Dave Colborn said:


> I think the problem is a lack of understanding of the task.


Can you expand on this? Who's task, Who's problem, Who's understanding?




Dave Colborn said:


> Take a bomb dog. I teach it the odor I want it to follow, response and search pattern. Where is there leeway?


For you, probably none.



Dave Colborn said:


> People think they want the dog to think, I think.


Can you explain this more fully?


----------



## Dave Colborn

Sarah.

Pick a task. Then explain how a dog needs to think vs. Perform a task as trained. I tried using a bomb dog as an example and you shut the discussion down with your answer. I don't need the dog to think in a search. Do you? How? Explain how thinking should over ride training in a bomb dog, to complete a task or help in its completion.

Because some people don't fully understand a task, or the training and genetics as it applies to the task, they believe they need a dog to think to complete the task. This is vs. Training for the task with a dog of suitable genetics and relying on that training.


----------



## Travis Ragin

Dave Colborn said:


> In any bite sports or work are dogs ever expected to choose between two learned behaviors based on their choice with the right answer being better based on only one stimulus given? Or does everything happen as a result of a clear and separate stimulus?
> 
> in the military, when I was in, the dog is taught to bite on a search of a person if the subject made sudden or aggressive movement. If the subject didn't move, no reattack. This is not what I mean and to me is nothing but two learned behaviors with clear stimulus for two separate responses, movement=bite or no mmovement = no bite.
> 
> I am going to scrub a kennel and ponder, but I can't come up with anything yet.



They are just dumb dogs.(albeit humans best friend on Earth and best intercessor for us into the 'animal kingdom')

So yes, in my experience, everything a dumb dog does is just a learned(at some point) behavior. Alice Bezemer posted that they are basically just *master* copiers, which really is the plainest way to put it...... They come into your pack, at whatever age, observe,learn,think,copy.....the routine/rules of your pack(which keeps them fed and alive) for about a year.


Then live out the rest of their lives on 'mental cruise control' based on the job description & rules *You *gave to them already. When later on they do some stuff not in the script that they want to do, they are doing just that...... the handlers actions right then will then train them in that situation. *You *may forget that 4 second long interaction 2 years from now, but the dog won't.......because that is all they have to think about.. they don't watch newscasts and worry about the Ebola virus.:arrow:


----------



## Sarah Platts

I don't think I shut the conversation down. You made some very vague statements and I simply asked for clarification or drew a conclusion based on your words. 
In the post a couple back you mentioned that you had thought about it and had reached the decision you didn't want a dog to think but to execute the command. You felt it was not advantageous to encourage a dog to do his own thing in a sport. My response was that I didn't want a robot dog just executing a command but I want one that thinks and questions my assumptions. Some have a problem cutting the dog loose and trusting them. That there is a method to the canine madness. That's cool, I get it.

You mentioned that you didn't want the dog to do his own thing in a sport and I mentioned how with a sport dog you probably would not want that because if they did, you would lose points. Then you bring up bomb dogs. Sorry, but I thought we were talking sport dogs. Unless you are pushing all dogs doing any discipline into the all encompassing group of sport?

Then you mention a problem of lack of understanding a task and people who think they want the dog to think. On those two areas I asked for further clarification. Who lacks the understanding of the task? What's the task. The dog's task? The human's task? The folks trying to understand from where you are coming? Or where you are trying to go with this?

Then we come to "People who think they want the dog to think" From my side of the aisle, you made it sound like some have talked themselves into believing something that isn't true. Folks blindly heading to the bright shiny light, drinking their Kool-Aid. Or are you saying that folks say they want a dog that thinks until they get saddled with one and find out it's not all it's cracked up to be? Do you see my dilemma? I don't like to think you are just being rude but would rather think I am failing to understand what you are trying to say. 

I know that several have asked you for clarification on some of your statements and you just brush them off. If you do not believe or feel that dogs are capable of making a decision on their own then just say so. If you feel that dogs are nothing more than a programmed biological machine, that's cool. Just say so. Because if this is your position IMO there will never be sufficient proof or empirical evidence to sway your thoughts on this matter.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Sarah, I think you have about hit the nail on the proverbial head. Regardless of the situation described it will evolve into "trained" therefore, not disobedient. I can think of multiple sport situations where the dog disobeyed to address a change in circumstances. The point hit I took was for disobedience. Had the dog obeyed it would have been more points.


----------



## Dave Colborn

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> I can think of multiple sport situations where the dog disobeyed to address a change in circumstances.


Since this is what the whole thread was about, can you describe any one of the instances?


----------



## Dave Colborn

In regards to your thinking I brush people off...my apologies. I am answering on a phone. Please post a question I might have missed. 

I have not changed my stance on believing dogs do nothing more than learn behaviors or are genetically predisposed to do behaviors. I am considering it and thinking about it. I am not going to change my mind and THEN find evidence. That doesnt make sense to me. I have an idea and want to see if evidence supports it. I am frustrated no one comes up with examples of dogs doing things of their own free will not based on training or genetics.

I actually just thought of one instance. Displacement. When dogs are stressed, some of them for perform an unrelated behavior. Would genetics drive that?

Below clearly answers most of what you ask from my previous post. (Bomb dog refers to an explosive detection dog any breed)

. 

Pick a task. Then explain how a dog needs to think vs. Perform a task as trained. I tried using a bomb dog as an example and you shut the discussion down with your answer. I don't need the dog to think in a search. Do you? How? Explain how thinking should over ride training in a bomb dog, to complete a task or help in its completion.

Because some people don't fully understand a task, or the training and genetics as it applies to the task, they believe they need a dog to think to complete the task. This is vs. Training for the task with a dog of suitable genetics and relying on that training.



Sarah Platts said:


> I don't think I shut the conversation down.
> 
> You made some very vague statements and I simply asked for clarification or drew a conclusion based on your words.
> In the post a couple back you mentioned that you had thought about it and had reached the decision you didn't want a dog to think but to execute the command. You felt it was not advantageous to encourage a dog to do his own thing in a sport. My response was that I didn't want a robot dog just executing a command but I want one that thinks and questions my assumptions. Some have a problem cutting the dog loose and trusting them. That there is a method to the canine madness. That's cool, I get it.
> 
> You mentioned that you didn't want the dog to do his own thing in a sport and I mentioned how with a sport dog you probably would not want that because if they did, you would lose points. Then you bring up bomb dogs. Sorry, but I thought we were talking sport dogs. Unless you are pushing all dogs doing any discipline into the all encompassing group of sport?
> 
> Then you mention a problem of lack of understanding a task and people who think they want the dog to think. On those two areas I asked for further clarification. Who lacks the understanding of the task? What's the task. The dog's task? The human's task? The folks trying to understand from where you are coming? Or where you are trying to go with this?
> 
> Then we come to "People who think they want the dog to think" From my side of the aisle, you made it sound like some have talked themselves into believing something that isn't true. Folks blindly heading to the bright shiny light, drinking their Kool-Aid. Or are you saying that folks say they want a dog that thinks until they get saddled with one and find out it's not all it's cracked up to be? Do you see my dilemma? I don't like to think you are just being rude but would rather think I am failing to understand what you are trying to say.
> 
> I know that several have asked you for clarification on some of your statements and you just brush them off. If you do not believe or feel that dogs are capable of making a decision on their own then just say so. If you feel that dogs are nothing more than a programmed biological machine, that's cool. Just say so. Because if this is your position IMO there will never be sufficient proof or empirical evidence to sway your thoughts on this matter.


----------



## Matt Vandart

Assuming dogs are pure biological machines is referring to a scientific dogma instigated by one man, Rene Descartes, originating as a matter of philosophy, not based on any repeatable experimentation or data collection.
Dave asks for scientific evidence and data to support the concept of dogs being thinking 'conscious' beings rather than just biological automata. I put it forward that there is considerably more evidence to support this fact than there is against it.

Fact of the matter is the whole concept of animals being biological machines incapable of thinking for themselves is not only absurd, it is outdated and based on Descartes philosophical logic and subjective observation ONLY.
Operant conditioning and theories like it do not disprove conscious thought. 

"I think, therefore I am"

Should be revised to:

"I think, therefore I am....in addition I am subject to operant conditioning processes"

As after all, humans are subject to it.

There have been studies that SHOW categorically that dogs/cats/animals experience emotion, not only that but similar to human beings as we observe them in ourselves. This fact alone completely rubbishes the concept of biological machines and Descartes PHILOSOPHY, which is all that it is, unproven theory, just like gravity. 

There are so many dogmas in science that it is getting very close to a religion. People take it all as fact, despite loads of it getting debunked/revised by the day and very few people doing the work themselves.

The theory that animals are not thinking conscious beings will never be widely accepted as the whole industrial farming/slaughter situation relies on it.

I don't know whether you read the article on Alex the parrot Dave but here is an extract. Bear in mind this is coming from a scientist who actually knows a shitload more about this subject than you. me or anyone on here I would guess, seeing as she is actively involved if not at the forefront of investigation into animal intelligence and thinking:



> “That’s why I started my studies with Alex,” Pepperberg said. They were seated—she at her desk, he on top of his cage—in her lab, a windowless room about the size of a boxcar, at Brandeis University. Newspapers lined the floor; baskets of bright toys were stacked on the shelves. They were clearly a team—and because of their work, the notion that animals can think is no longer so fanciful.
> 
> Certain skills are considered key signs of higher mental abilities: good memory, a grasp of grammar and symbols, self-awareness, understanding others’ motives, imitating others, and being creative. Bit by bit, in ingenious experiments, researchers have documented these talents in other species, gradually chipping away at what we thought made human beings distinctive while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities came from. Scrub jays know that other jays are thieves and that stashed food can spoil; sheep can recognize faces; chimpanzees use a variety of tools to probe termite mounds and even use weapons to hunt small mammals; dolphins can imitate human postures; the archerfish, which stuns insects with a sudden blast of water, can learn how to aim its squirt simply by watching an experienced fish perform the task. And Alex the parrot turned out to be a surprisingly good talker.


----------



## Travis Ragin

Matt Vandart said:


> I agree with this and believe it is happening/happened.
> Very 'independent' dogs such as terriers and particularly English bull terriers show this, I feel this is a major cause of their perceived 'belligerence' and could be co-related to the fact they are not bred for 'work' in the same way a malinois/gsd/dutch/bc.... er doberman would be.


Now, after reading this post a second time...... I see hard headedness mentioned, is just rooted in the non-thinking = drive satisfaction part of their breeding genes.....that make them tough,rusted shut,lug-nuts anyway. Which is a Good Thing!!!...for what humans(have always) needed these tough lug-nuts for over the centuries, and into the future too ,hopefully! 

The malinois/gsd/dutch/bc/ doberman.....seem to be really bred for drive satisfaction for work(whatever we decide we need) the same way.....so either way, again that is a good thing for what they are needed for.

So, thank you kindly because this made me realize my last post was actually my own, long ago decided upon, Breed Biased(against herders and terrier/bulls) view, not an objective POV. There should be equal amounts of both _thinking_ and _non-thinking _dogs being bred...for sure. Snake-oil comments still in effect.






> I think intelligence isn't just one thing though, there are many aspects of it. I feel that in the regular idea joe bloggs in the street has of intelligence one cannot beat a BC, a dog which up until recently was bred only for work. I have never met a belligerent or wilfully disobedient BC or welsh collie in my life.


Great point & insight. That is a genetics plus training discussion in itself. Keep posting, I know I'm(still) learning from most recent threads....some good info on the subject of DOG and happy for it.

t


----------



## Dave Colborn

Matt.

All that writing and no examples of dogs. Yes, nice article about a parrot. Anecdotal in that form. Do you have access to and of the studies? 

I am more inclined to think dogs are smarter than us because they do less to get what they want. We do more to attempt to reach unattainable or unrealistic or just plain ridiculous goals most of which are based out of basic needs, just like dogs. Only someone taught our higher intelligence dumb asses what we "need" more to be viewed as stronger, better, more breedable, etc.. Having an expensive house so that you have to work your whole life and stay in debt isn't nearly as smart as calling yourself man's best friend, eating for free, doing tricks to throw your hosts off of how smart you are....



Matt Vandart said:


> Assuming dogs are pure biological machines is referring to a scientific dogma instigated by one man, Rene Descartes, originating as a matter of philosophy, not based on any repeatable experimentation or data collection.
> Dave asks for scientific evidence and data to support the concept of dogs being thinking 'conscious' beings rather than just biological automata. I put it forward that there is considerably more evidence to support this fact than there is against it.
> 
> Fact of the matter is the whole concept of animals being biological machines incapable of thinking for themselves is not only absurd, it is outdated and based on Descartes philosophical logic and subjective observation ONLY.
> Operant conditioning and theories like it do not disprove conscious thought.
> 
> "I think, therefore I am"
> 
> Should be revised to:
> 
> "I think, therefore I am....in addition I am subject to operant conditioning processes"
> 
> As after all, humans are subject to it.
> 
> There have been studies that SHOW categorically that dogs/cats/animals experience emotion, not only that but similar to human beings as we observe them in ourselves. This fact alone completely rubbishes the concept of biological machines and Descartes PHILOSOPHY, which is all that it is, unproven theory, just like gravity.
> 
> There are so many dogmas in science that it is getting very close to a religion. People take it all as fact, despite loads of it getting debunked/revised by the day and very few people doing the work themselves.
> 
> The theory that animals are not thinking conscious beings will never be widely accepted as the whole industrial farming/slaughter situation relies on it.
> 
> I don't know whether you read the article on Alex the parrot Dave but here is an extract. Bear in mind this is coming from a scientist who actually knows a shitload more about this subject than you. me or anyone on here I would guess, seeing as she is actively involved if not at the forefront of investigation into animal intelligence and thinking:


----------



## Matt Vandart

Dude did you read the WHOLE article?



> Just how easily new mental skills can evolve is perhaps best illustrated by dogs. Most owners talk to their dogs and expect them to understand. But this canine talent wasn’t fully appreciated until a border collie named Rico appeared on a German TV game show in 2001. Rico knew the names of some 200 toys and acquired the names of new ones with ease.
> 
> Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig heard about Rico and arranged a meeting with him and his owners. That led to a scientific report revealing Rico’s uncanny language ability: He could learn and remember words as quickly as a toddler. Other scientists had shown that two-year-old children—who acquire around ten new words a day—have an innate set of principles that guides this task. The ability is seen as one of the key building blocks in language acquisition. The Max Planck scientists suspect that the same principles guide Rico's word learning, and that the technique he uses for learning words is identical to that of humans.


----------



## Dave Colborn

Matt Vandart said:


> Dude did you read the WHOLE article?


Sure! 

Maybe you interpret the article as a scientific finding? I believe I could train a dog to recognize two or three items. Sounds like a dog that is a fantastic example of operant conditioning. I wonder what his reinforcer was?


----------



## Matt Vandart

Right, I'm out of this thread, what did you bother for Dave?



> According to Julia Fischer, biologist at the Max planke
> 
> "[Rico's ability] tells us he can do simple logic . . . It's like he's saying to himself, 'I know the others have names, so this new word cannot refer to my familiar toys. It must refer to this new thing.' Or it goes the other way around, and he's thinking, 'I've never seen this one before, so this must be it.' *He's actually thinking.*"


----------



## Dave Colborn

Matt Vandart said:


> Right, I'm out of this thread, what did you bother for Dave?


Thanks matt. I honestly missed that part. I'll re - read the article.


----------



## Sarah Platts

Dave,

Based on your posts, it appears that it will be impossible to pull you out of your box. You have certain developed ideas and mindsets that will always lead you back to any one of the following: operant conditioning, genetics, or a learned behavior. Do I think dogs work on the same level of mental abilities across the canine world or at the same level of some humans? No, but neither do I feel that they don't have some congnitive abilities. Domestication and selection for particular behaviors has intensified those traits selected for. How long does that have to occur before some kind of threshold gets crossed? 

I did list several examples of canine behavior that I witnessed as being far outside the norm but those are not the only times I've witnessed such behaviors. Situations and occurances that I could not explain away with operant conditioning or a learned behavior. Genetics? Quite possibly. But genetics will only take you so far. At some point, something else kicks in. 

Yes, I want my dog to think during a search. I only provide the beginning (aka the start) after that the dog runs the search. They make the decisions, not me. There are things that will occur that I could never forsee or even train for. So the dog has to have the freedom to make decisions on how he gets to accomplish the task. Or modify it. Maybe you have never had one of your dogs do something that makes you scratch your head, or have a "whoa, nellie" moment. Or maybe you have but it goes against your comfort zone and you stick a 'operant conditioning' label on it so you don't have to worry or think about it any more. I've seen folks come up with alot of reasons or excuses to avoid admitting to themselves that it's something else other than what they think it is. 

And like Matt, I just don't see any way of satisfying your criteria because you keep moving the cheese.


----------



## Dave Colborn

[QUOTE/] I've seen folks come up with alot of reasons or excuses to avoid admitting to themselves that it's something else other than what they think it is. [/QUOTE]

Ditto.


If I didn't care of think there was a possibility I wouldn't talk about it and wonder. I haven't thought about it enough to even formulate a really good question to prove or disprove. 

I always suggest people find a good trainer when they actually need training, here. 

Finding evidence vs. Anecdote is similar. 

Sorry you and Matt are getting so wound up. Maybe this isn't the forum to discuss dogs....

I do wish someone as clear thinking and writing as Mircea tried to explain.


----------



## Dave Colborn

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rico_(dog)


----------



## Matt Vandart

This has moved from a discussion about dogs to one of extremely deep philosophical questions, into the realms of the question of consciousness, does it exist or not.

These are very hard questions to ponder without having a completely open mind which is willing to deal with the consequences of having been wrong all ones life and the ramifications of decisions made with potentially faulty knowledge.

There are some very powerful dogmas within science, ones which are holding it back from moving forward. There have been very few real breakthroughs in science for a very long time as a direct result of these 'beliefs' 

To discuss what you seem to be really getting at, this conversation could go very much in a different direction to where many would believe it to be completely off topic and most people would believe me insane. That is why I am out of the thread, not because I am pissed off.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Dave Colborn said:


> Since this is what the whole thread was about, can you describe any one of the instances?


I've described them in the past and you said then as you will say now that it is somehow trained. I think it goes to the relationship you have with the animal. If your only approach is trained response, that is what you will probably get. If your selection is geared towards manipulative drives, that is probably what you will get. Its a shame though because the more emphasis on training through drive manipulation, the more we don't have selection for intelligence and other traits. Although there are dogs that are in it for themselves, there are dogs that are in it for their handlers. They have an intelligence to see, read a situation and respond waayyyyy beyond trained response and when its saved your ass, you respect that. I want mine to think. A split second behind in calling the command and the opportunity can be lost. There are things the handler can't always see and your dog will back you up in that regard. Then there are situations where the dog sees you struggling with something or not quite sure what to do with it and he offers just the perfect action that will get it done. The limitation on the dog is usually the handler.

T


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Dave Colborn said:


> In regards to your thinking I brush people off...my apologies. I am answering on a phone. Please post a question I might have missed.
> 
> I have not changed my stance on believing dogs do nothing more than learn behaviors or are genetically predisposed to do behaviors. I am considering it and thinking about it. I am not going to change my mind and THEN find evidence. That doesnt make sense to me. I have an idea and want to see if evidence supports it. I am frustrated no one comes up with examples of dogs doing things of their own free will not based on training or genetics.
> 
> I actually just thought of one instance. Displacement. When dogs are stressed, some of them for perform an unrelated behavior. Would genetics drive that?
> 
> Below clearly answers most of what you ask from my previous post. (Bomb dog refers to an explosive detection dog any breed)
> 
> .
> 
> Pick a task. Then explain how a dog needs to think vs. Perform a task as trained. I tried using a bomb dog as an example and you shut the discussion down with your answer. I don't need the dog to think in a search. Do you? How? Explain how thinking should over ride training in a bomb dog, to complete a task or help in its completion.
> 
> Because some people don't fully understand a task, or the training and genetics as it applies to the task, they believe they need a dog to think to complete the task. This is vs. Training for the task with a dog of suitable genetics and relying on that training.
> 
> You are evolving. At least its now training AND genetics.
> 
> 
> 
> T


----------



## Dave Colborn

I really do wish that someone intelligent AND a clear communicator would weigh in.





Terrasita Cuffie said:


> I've described them in the past and you said then as you will say now that it is somehow trained. I think it goes to the relationship you have with the animal. If your only approach is trained response, that is what you will probably get. If your selection is geared towards manipulative drives, that is probably what you will get. Its a shame though because the more emphasis on training through drive manipulation, the more we don't have selection for intelligence and other traits. Although there are dogs that are in it for themselves, there are dogs that are in it for their handlers. They have an intelligence to see, read a situation and respond waayyyyy beyond trained response and when its saved your ass, you respect that. I want mine to think. A split second behind in calling the command and the opportunity can be lost. There are things the handler can't always see and your dog will back you up in that regard. Then there are situations where the dog sees you struggling with something or not quite sure what to do with it and he offers just the perfect action that will get it done. The limitation on the dog is usually the handler.
> 
> T


----------



## Mark Herzog

Dave Colborn said:


> I really do wish that someone intelligent AND a clear communicator would weigh in.


I've been silently following this thread since the beginning... Fascinated by the different opinions expressed. I feel that I have to comment on this last post.

It strikes me that just about everything that has been said, denying the dog's ability for intelligent thought, could also be argued denying our own ability for intelligent thought. That our own actions and decisions are nothing more than learned behaviours, etc..

Perhaps it's true, as I've always felt there's a distinct lack of intelligence in the people I meet... But I personally believe that my dogs are capable of intelligent thought and I'm willing to allow their disobedience for the right reasons.

I don't expect to change anyone's mind on the topic... Don't even know how that might be done... It doesn't matter to me what others think. I was taught that our dog is limited by what we the handler believe... If we believe the dog cannot do a thing then the dog will NOT do that thing, the limitation is ours, not the dog's. If you don't believe your dog can think and make good decisions then the dog won't.


----------



## Sarah Platts

Mark Herzog said:


> I've been silently following this thread since the beginning... Fascinated by the different opinions expressed. I feel that I have to comment on this last post.
> 
> It strikes me that just about everything that has been said, denying the dog's ability for intelligent thought, could also be argued denying our own ability for intelligent thought. That our own actions and decisions are nothing more than learned behaviours, etc..
> 
> Perhaps it's true, as I've always felt there's a distinct lack of intelligence in the people I meet... But I personally believe that my dogs are capable of intelligent thought and I'm willing to allow their disobedience for the right reasons.
> 
> I don't expect to change anyone's mind on the topic... Don't even know how that might be done... It doesn't matter to me what others think. I was taught that our dog is limited by what we the handler believe... If we believe the dog cannot do a thing then the dog will NOT do that thing, the limitation is ours, not the dog's. If you don't believe your dog can think and make good decisions then the dog won't.


I will echo this, Matt's, and Terrasita's post. I am leaving not because I'm upset or pissed or angry nor do I feel my posts reflect those emotions. But rather I think that for the discussion to go forward there would need to be a paradigm shift and a willingness from all respondents to entertain something that puts them out of their comfort zone.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Sarah Platts said:


> I will echo this, Matt's, and Terrasita's post. I am leaving not because I'm upset or pissed or angry nor do I feel my posts reflect those emotions. But rather I think that for the discussion to go forward there would need to be a paradigm shift and a willingness from all respondents to entertain something that puts them out of their comfort zone.


For sure once the nerves take over and the lashing out begins, there's no point in continuing.


----------



## Dave Colborn

Maybe real definable intelligence is out there. I don't completely discount it in myself, humans or dogs. I get the feeling walking through life that intelligence in our species isn't a given. Maybe that would be the way to look at dogs and other animals. Just like us, intelligence isn't always there and shouldn't be expected in everyone studied.

Thanks for your post.



Mark Herzog said:


> It strikes me that just about everything that has been said, denying the dog's ability for intelligent thought, could also be argued denying our own ability for intelligent thought. That our own actions and decisions are nothing more than learned behaviours, etc..


----------



## Dave Colborn

Sarah Platts said:


> Dave,
> 
> Based on your posts, it appears that it will be impossible to pull you out of your box.


Based on my post and starting this thread I have an open mind. Based on your post above there is a right and a wrong and I am wrong according to you. That leaves you in the other closed box of being right. Since you can't control what i think or believe, your post leaves you close minded and says nothing of me. I don't think you meant to come up with that, but that's the answer to this word problem. I think you believe what you say and are genuine trying to help me see it the way you do. Just understand I want proof. Until then I'll question and wonder. I love my dogs. I owe it to them to care.

I've trusted dogs and seen neat stuff. I can explain it with operant conditioning and genetics so far.


Intelligence could be mistaken for genetics or conditioning and therefore scrutiny has to be applied to see what's what, I think a reasonable person would agree.


----------



## Travis Ragin

> Originally Posted by *Sarah Platts*  But rather I think that for the discussion to go forward there would need to be a paradigm shift and a willingness from all respondents to entertain something that puts them out of their comfort zone.]





Mark Herzog said:


> , the *limitation* is ours, not the dog's. .


_________________________________________________________________________________





http://youtu.be/Z5wyjl-x4O8

my gyp
http://s684.photobucket.com/albums/vv209/tragin/Decorated%20images/?action=view&current=octoberagility.mp4



Watching the two above videos and ciphering through this thread..... made me even more aware about what a dogs *mental limitations *are. When a handler slips and falls during an agility run, suppose they stayed down where they fell. Could a dog map out the rest of the course and finish it out on their own?

I know they change the layout of the course in-between rounds too....this is purposely done & has an effect on the handlers quick decision making process. So if it's hard for the human, it has to be 100 times harder for the dog? yes? no?

Have they trained BC's who can run a pre-programed course and not need cues from the handler?......and/but if it is done, it surely would shave time off a run?

Could have just walked/mapped my dog through the course real quick, and then walk back to the finish line, sat down, and said 'go'....I pointed to a wrong turn in my first run.....*Willful-Intelligent Disobedience* could-would have steered her the correct way?


----------



## Matt Vandart

Could you do the same?
If I was to tell you what I wanted done in an agility course in welsh could you go and do it, without a mistake?
Probably if I showed you at the same time, but there is a good chance if I did one that was as complex to you for your level of intelligence as one set out for a dog and it's level of intelligence and quickly walked you though it you would get confused/make a mistake. 

Also, the dog would tend not to continue as they have been TRAINED to take cues from the handler, to the point of indoctrination.
Humans are exactly the same. You get indoctrinated in school, your critical thinking ability is taken away/not developed and then you go through life doing as you are told, generally, without a thought for whether what you have been taught is correct/incorrect or right/wrong.


----------



## Travis Ragin

Matt Vandart said:


> Also, the dog would tend not to continue as they have been TRAINED to take cues from the handler,*TO the point of *indoctrination.


Well, Mr.Vandart, not to speak for everyone in this thread of similar perspective, but this is the crux of what 'we' are pointing out.

Dogs have been doing this *FROM the point of *domestication.....and since their man-made designation as 'best friend'.

How have their brains evolved/devolved since? Examples of Non-Training were asked for, some were offered, maybe one head scratching example was given....the rest were just trained responses or animal instinct.


----------



## Travis Ragin

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,



If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without alcohol, 

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,









Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!
























*Handle every Stressful situation like a dog.* 


*If you can't eat it or play with it,*


*pee on it and walk way!*


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> Based on my post and starting this thread I have an open mind. Based on your post above there is a right and a wrong and I am wrong according to you. That leaves you in the other closed box of being right. Since you can't control what i think or believe, your post leaves you close minded and says nothing of me. I don't think you meant to come up with that, but that's the answer to this word problem. I think you believe what you say and are genuine trying to help me see it the way you do. Just understand I want proof. Until then I'll question and wonder. I love my dogs. I owe it to them to care.
> 
> I've trusted dogs and seen neat stuff. I can explain it with operant conditioning and genetics so far.
> 
> 
> Intelligence could be mistaken for genetics or conditioning and therefore scrutiny has to be applied to see what's what, I think a reasonable person would agree.


I understand where you are coming from, but as far as science? I think its accepted you can't 'Prove" a theory, you can only disprove it, or aspects of it.

To me, Humans are biological animals.We say we have" Intelligence". I see intelligence then as a biological thing, so explainable through biological evolution combined with environmental influences on the species. Genetics and environment/genetics and training or conditioning. Same as evolution for every other aspect of biological life as we understand it.

It seems the same sets of rules that apply to life at a cellular and genetic level are repeated endlessly right through to the most advanced and complex forms of life.


----------



## Matt Vandart

Not only that but the operant conditioning process is in itself thinking.


----------



## Matt Vandart

Travis Ragin said:


> Well, Mr.Vandart, not to speak for everyone in this thread of similar perspective, but this is the crux of what 'we' are pointing out.
> 
> *Dogs have been doing this FROM the point of domestication.....and since their man-made designation as 'best friend'.*
> 
> How have their brains evolved/devolved since? Examples of Non-Training were asked for, some were offered, maybe one head scratching example was given....the rest were just trained responses or animal instinct.


How do you know this ^^ ?


----------



## Mircea Hemu-Ha

Kristen, it is you guys who need to prove your theory. Genetics / conditioning is something, i think, we all agree exist, the theory is: is there more to it than that ?

I agree with Matt, conditioning can be viewed as a sign of intelligence, and with Kristen, intelligence is present in every biological entity. However...

This is why i steered clear of the generic term "intelligence": a math genius can be, and usually is, a lousy teacher, while the math teacher who produces olympiad medalists, sometimes was an average problem-solver in his time.
Signs of high intelligence in one aspect, not nearly good enough in another.
Just because a dog can be conditioned, and this is a sign of intelligence, doesn't mean that a dog can do much else, unless you actually prove it. Intelligence is not something that, when found in an individual while performing a task, spills into every aspect of his/her life, it can be contingent on that specific task only.

Intelligence is found in all forms of life, if you chose to define it in a certain way, but some forms of life do not have as much as others do. A plant will not be able to construct a nuclear bomb and destroy the planet, while we can. There are limitations for each species, even if parts of the base is the same, like conditioning.


Back on specific aspects of intelligence, i actually had one that i don't believe dogs are capable of: rational thought, meaning, as i see it, looking at a situation you've never been in before, thinking of different scenarios, and picking the best one, because you can see the outcome.
Every situation i have seen so far, can be explained without rational thought, including the Rico study.
If you don't want to focus on this aspect, because it is too difficult to prove, by all means pick another, define it so we all know what we are talking about, and let's get at it. I am always trying to learn something new.

Terrasita, i understand what you say about not being able to see it, if you don't look for it, makes sense. So i would ask you, and anyone else who wants to answer, what do you do exactly to ensure that your dog has the correct environment in which to show these skills ? I would appreciate concrete actions, not just the "read your dog" generic type advice.


----------



## Matt Vandart

I think dogs are most probably lacking in Rational thought myself, but as a side note, jumping spiders are not


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> Kristen, it is you guys who need to prove your theory. Genetics / conditioning is something, i think, we all agree exist, the theory is: is there more to it than that ?
> 
> I agree with Matt, conditioning can be viewed as a sign of intelligence, and with Kristen, intelligence is present in every biological entity. However...
> 
> This is why i steered clear of the generic term "intelligence": a math genius can be, and usually is, a lousy teacher, while the math teacher who produces olympiad medalists, sometimes was an average problem-solver in his time.
> Signs of high intelligence in one aspect, not nearly good enough in another.
> Just because a dog can be conditioned, and this is a sign of intelligence, doesn't mean that a dog can do much else, unless you actually prove it. Intelligence is not something that, when found in an individual while performing a task, spills into every aspect of his/her life, it can be contingent on that specific task only.
> 
> Intelligence is found in all forms of life, if you chose to define it in a certain way, but some forms of life do not have as much as others do. A plant will not be able to construct a nuclear bomb and destroy the planet, while we can. There are limitations for each species, even if parts of the base is the same, like conditioning.
> 
> 
> Back on specific aspects of intelligence, i actually had one that i don't believe dogs are capable of: rational thought, meaning, as i see it, looking at a situation you've never been in before, thinking of different scenarios, and picking the best one, because you can see the outcome.
> Every situation i have seen so far, can be explained without rational thought, including the Rico study.
> If you don't want to focus on this aspect, because it is too difficult to prove, by all means pick another, define it so we all know what we are talking about, and let's get at it. I am always trying to learn something new.
> 
> Terrasita, i understand what you say about not being able to see it, if you don't look for it, makes sense. So i would ask you, and anyone else who wants to answer, what do you do exactly to ensure that your dog has the correct environment in which to show these skills ? I would appreciate concrete actions, not just the "read your dog" generic type advice.


1 duck. 1 Bouvier. 1 swimming pool filled with water. Dogs instinct and training is to move stock to handler and ensure that stock stay with handler. Dog moves towards duck and duck jumps in stock tank. Dog stalks toward duck. Instead of getting out of the water, duck starts swimming around in circles. Dog grabs duck very carefully by the skin of the neck, lifts it out of the water and sets it on the ground, wagging her tail. Duck runs back to the tub and jumps in the water. Frustration building, dog attempts to lift duck by the skin of the neck. Duck starts flapping wings and she dropped him twice. The third time she takes the entire neck in her mouth, lifts him out and carries him a couple of feet. The second she let him go, he ran frantically back to the water. Once again she goes over and gets him by the neck and lifts him out of the water. This time she carried him all the way across the pen to the opposite fence line. The second she dropped him, she ran to the stock tank and turned and faced him, blocking him and with a fixed stare. Smart Dickie that he was, he walked right to me.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

As, for environment--shut up, get out if the way and let the dog figure it out.


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> Kristen, it is you guys who need to prove your theory. Genetics / conditioning is something, i think, we all agree exist, the theory is: is there more to it than that ?


I think you mean the question, not the theory? Does there have to be? 

And No, I don't have any thing to prove, and thats not what I am trying to do.

I made an observation about my dog. I did not put forth any explanations for his behaviour or use it to draw any conclusions. I was told " Thats why I don't believe in intelligence in dogs." and some thing to the effect of people seeing what they want. 

It was an observation. It was discounted simply because OTHERS drew conclusions from it that did not fit their beliefs, therefore the observation itself was seen to be faulty.

Science has neither proved or disproved intelligence in dogs. I doubt any of us is going to make the break through.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

And genetics is used as a catch all term to mean "what" that is separate and distinct from thinking?


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Duke university has been doing some interesting stuff. 

Brian Hare from Duke says" The dog is the only species I've found that has some of the communication skills that look like what infants need to aquire language and culture".

Studies show less intensive training is retained better for a more flexible response.

Don't know if I can put a link but will try www.newscientist.com/video/1314673917001-dingo-moves-table-to-snag-treat

Taught or not, that dog knows exactly what hes doing and what for.

Betsy, mentioned in another post, was able to not only fetch an object she was asked for by name, but could also understand what to bring from a picture of the item.

There is lots more, if you care to look.


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Travis Ragin;619305
How have their brains evolved/devolved since? Examples of Non-Training were asked for said:


> In your OPINION.Thats not a proven fact.
> 
> I can give many examples of my observations, but thats all they will be- they are not controlled experiments and I'm not going to use them for that reason.


----------



## Matt Vandart

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> It was an observation. It was discounted simply because OTHERS drew conclusions from it that did not fit their* beliefs*, therefore the observation itself was seen to be faulty.


Therein lies the problem.


----------



## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> 1 duck. 1 Bouvier. 1 swimming pool filled with water. Dogs instinct and training is to move stock to handler and ensure that stock stay with handler. Dog moves towards duck and duck jumps in stock tank. Dog stalks toward duck. Instead of getting out of the water, duck starts swimming around in circles. Dog grabs duck very carefully by the skin of the neck, lifts it out of the water and sets it on the ground, wagging her tail. Duck runs back to the tub and jumps in the water. Frustration building, dog attempts to lift duck by the skin of the neck. Duck starts flapping wings and she dropped him twice. The third time she takes the entire neck in her mouth, lifts him out and carries him a couple of feet. The second she let him go, he ran frantically back to the water. Once again she goes over and gets him by the neck and lifts him out of the water. This time she carried him all the way across the pen to the opposite fence line. The second she dropped him, she ran to the stock tank and turned and faced him, blocking him and with a fixed stare. Smart Dickie that he was, he walked right to me.


 
Nice!

In answer to the question of what environment you are likely to develope such behaviours, Its not as likely locked in a run all day untill training /working.

Here at least, its on 2 acres of house and garden, pretty much free roaming with poulty,other dogs, horses,visitors and children. Surounded by native bush.Train as we go and confined only when they don't listen eg. jumping on kids or chasing the chickens after a warning,leaving the yard with out supervision etc and I'm not in the mood or don't have the time to watch.

They are taught a job, not moves, and taught conseqences. A dog ruled by the drive to chase and bite, here is a pain in the butt.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> Nice!
> 
> In answer to the question of what environment you are likely to develope such behaviours, Its not as likely locked in a run all day untill training /working.
> 
> Here at least, its on 2 acres of house and garden, pretty much free roaming with poulty,other dogs, horses,visitors and children. Surounded by native bush.Train as we go and confined only when they don't listen eg. jumping on kids or chasing the chickens after a warning,leaving the yard with out supervision etc and I'm not in the mood or don't have the time to watch.
> 
> They are taught a job, not moves, and taught conseqences. A dog ruled by the drive to chase and bite, here is a pain in the butt.


Its why the founder of GSDs stated that they should be first and foremost herding dogs. Otherwise you will lose judgment, intelligence, ability to discern a threat, etc. Now its all about bite for the sake of bite and fight for the sake of fight and ohhhhh they only act for themselves and pursuant to trained response. If that's what you select for, that's what you get. Its different when they live your life, you rely on them and it isn't a points tally. But for me even when its points, stock don't always play nice. You need a dog that can think, take responsibility and has the nerves to step up to the plate and deal.


----------



## Mircea Hemu-Ha

Terrasita, thank you for the Bouvier example, but what is your interpretation of what happened ?
What i see is trial and error, the dog tried several things, before he finally got it. If he was capable of it, why not guard the tank the second time, why did he need multiple tries, in which to get closer to the solution ?



Terrasita Cuffie said:


> As, for environment--shut up, get out if the way and let the dog figure it out.


I do usually help dogs do what i want initially, but once they do it a few times with my help, i let them figure it out. Does this count ? Because i have yet to see a single dog do something i couldn't interpret "my" way.



Kirsten Fitzgerald said:


> I think you mean the question, not the theory? Does there have to be?
> And No, I don't have any thing to prove, and thats not what I am trying to do.
> *Science has neither proved or disproved intelligence in dogs.*


On the first part, yes, i meant question, sorry.
This is what i was saying, science does not have to _disprove_ roomers, that's not how it works, it can only prove something new, or disprove an older _scientific_ theory.
On this note, i can say i believe in ET, because science hasn't disproved his existence.



Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Its different when they live your life, you rely on them and it isn't a points tally.


What about military dogs, some of whom are those "drive crazy" dogs you mentioned, are you saying they don't live their handlers lives, and their handlers are after points ?

Otoh, this is a good point, maybe i/we can't see what you're talking about, because our dogs were bread for different reasons, but i'm still waiting to see it in your dogs...


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Mircea Hemu-Ha said:


> Terrasita, thank you for the Bouvier example, but what is your interpretation of what happened ?
> What i see is trial and error, the dog tried several things, before he finally got it. If he was capable of it, why not guard the tank the second time, why did he need multiple tries, in which to get closer to the solution ?
> 
> 
> 
> I do usually help dogs do what i want initially, but once they do it a few times with my help, i let them figure it out. Does this count ? Because i have yet to see a single dog do something i couldn't interpret "my" way.
> 
> 
> 
> On the first part, yes, i meant question, sorry.
> This is what i was saying, science does not have to _disprove_ roomers, that's not how it works, it can only prove something new, or disprove an older _scientific_ theory.
> On this note, i can say i believe in ET, because science hasn't disproved his existence.
> 
> 
> 
> What about military dogs, some of whom are those "drive crazy" dogs you mentioned, are you saying they don't live their handlers lives, and their handlers are after points ?
> 
> Otoh, this is a good point, maybe i/we can't see what you're talking about, because our dogs were bread for different reasons, but i'm still waiting to see it in your dogs...[/QUO
> You can't see the analysis and problem solving? She may have been selected for what I've used her for--but not bred for it.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

I have had considerable discussions with a military handler regarding those functions and we like the same type of dog--the thinker. We had military and LE dogs long before the training fad and preference for reactivity. Its easier to breed for psycho prey reactivity than intelligence and willingness to please and partner in a task. With spun up reactivity, they don't think--they just react. Now we have technology that has replaced what used to be a sought after trait---pack drive and trainability. It's why Manfred Heyne wrote to Helmut Reiser the negatively of ecollars and preserving the breed.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

As for the duck and the dog, it had to do with creating enough distance to get in position to prevent him from getting in. Part of this was figuring out the duck's mentality. She expected him to comply once she lifted him out. I certainly did. This is reading a situation and formulating a plan/solution to accomplish the task. She had no way of knowing that duck was prepared to repeatedly say screw you dog. So she came up with something different and turned up the pressure.


----------



## Gillian Schuler

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> I have had considerable discussions with a military handler regarding those functions and we like the same type of dog--the thinker. We had military and LE dogs long before the training fad and preference for reactivity. Its easier to breed for psycho prey reactivity than intelligence and willingness to please and partner in a task. With spun up reactivity, they don't think--they just react. Now we have technology that has replaced what used to be a sought after trait---pack drive and trainability. It's why Manfred Heyne wrote to Helmut Reiser the negatively of ecollars and preserving the breed.


I am only reading this thread and have not participated in it until now but I would like to know what Manfred Heyne wrote about the negativity of e-collars in his letter to Helmut Raiser. I know he stated that "Gehorsam" "obedience" is genetic but where did he state the negativity of e-collars?


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

He selected for the highest drive and obedience. People now don't care about whether the dog has a genetic willingness to please. They say that its easily solved with the e-collar. Same thing about intelligence/analysis--not traits anyone seems to care about other than SAR. Its now all about drive manipulation. If you go to Ellen Nickelberg's website, the letter is there.


----------



## Gillian Schuler

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> He selected for the highest drive and obedience. People now don't care about whether the dog has a genetic willingness to please. They say that its easily solved with the e-collar. Same thing about intelligence/analysis--not traits anyone seems to care about other than SAR. Its now all about drive manipulation. If you go to Ellen Nickelberg's website, the letter is there.


I don't need to go to Ellen Nickelberg's Website. I have read Manfred Heyne's letter to Helmut Raiser in German. There is no mention of negativity towards the E-collar, just his mention that they didn't have this in 1899 and a dog that didn't show the necessary obedience was either tied to a farmer's chain or hung on a tree to die!!


----------



## susan tuck

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> He selected for the highest drive and obedience. People now don't care about whether the dog has a genetic willingness to please. They say that its easily solved with the e-collar. Same thing about intelligence/analysis--not traits anyone seems to care about other than SAR. Its now all about drive manipulation. If you go to Ellen Nickelberg's website, the letter is there.


I've seen the letter, one learned man's opinion, nothing more, nothing less. I'm unaware if he was speaking from personal experience from using an ecollar or speaking from what he thinks he saw.

Terrasita this has not been my experience. People don't train with an ecollar because the dog doesn't have a willingness to please. It's simply a tool like any other, no different from using a pinch collar or for that matter, a fur saver. Most people I know train the dog first without the collar then use it to fine tune for trials. 

As you also know, I also take issue with your statement about dogs being bred for "pyscho prey reactivity" and "spun up prey drive". Certainly there are some hectic dogs, but no one breeds for a hectic dog, it's not a good thing, there are some dogs like this, but it's not the majority, at least in my experience. So I wonder if perhaps you are confusing hectic dogs with high drive dogs? One does not go hand in hand with the other.


----------



## susan tuck

I'm going to bow out of this discussion because otherwise it will turn into the never ending and tired tit for tat battle that T and I have gone round and round about so many times it's stupid. Suffice it to say she and I will never agree on this particular subject!

Dave: My apologies for going off track. I've been following this thread because it is very interesting. I hope it gets back on track.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Gilliam I'm repeating what I've read and heard from others. When you look for a dog and ask about instinct, intelligence and problem solving, people can't respond. I personally don't confuse drive and reactivity. I think its amazing that people question whether dogs have intelligence. This is not an ecollar or drives debate for me. I would love to see people discuss the working dogs in terms of displayed intelligence, ability to problem solve, etc. For instance, this was something Odin v Tannenmiese was noted for.


----------



## Mark Herzog

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Its why the founder of GSDs stated that they should be first and foremost herding dogs. Otherwise you will lose judgment, intelligence, ability to discern a threat, etc. Now its all about bite for the sake of bite and fight for the sake of fight and ohhhhh they only act for themselves and pursuant to trained response. If that's what you select for, that's what you get. Its different when they live your life, you rely on them and it isn't a points tally. But for me even when its points, stock don't always play nice. You need a dog that can think, take responsibility and has the nerves to step up to the plate and deal.


100% agreement with above.


----------



## Mark Herzog

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> ... Same thing about intelligence/analysis--not traits anyone seems to care about other than SAR. Its now all about drive manipulation.


Not just SAR... Those of us who use dogs for protection (I don't mean sport protection) still appreciate and depend on these exact qualities. To me these traits are a requirement to do the job successfully.


----------



## Gillian Schuler

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Gilliam I'm repeating what I've read and heard from others. When you look for a dog and ask about instinct, intelligence and problem solving, people can't respond. I personally don't confuse drive and reactivity. I think its amazing that people question whether dogs have intelligence. This is not an ecollar or drives debate for me. I would love to see people discuss the working dogs in terms of displayed intelligence, ability to problem solve, etc. For instance, this was something Odin v Tannenmiese was noted for.


 Could you just keep to the point and tell me where Manfred Heyne stated negativity towards the E-collar??


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Gillian Schuler said:


> Could you just keep to the point and tell me where Manfred Heyne stated negativity towards the E-collar??


You once told me that you weren't going to do research for me. Now irs your turn to do your own research.


----------



## Terrasita Cuffie

Mark Herzog said:


> Not just SAR... Those of us who use dogs for protection (I don't mean sport protection) still appreciate and depend on these exact qualities. To me these traits are a requirement to do the job successfully.


Didn't mean to leave you guys out. . Really appreciate the perspective of working military and LE handlers; especially from the breeding/selection standpoint.


----------



## Gillian Schuler

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> You once told me that you weren't going to do research for me. Now irs your turn to do your own research.


That's a bit mean isn't it? The research you *demanded* from me would have taken a considerable amount of time which I just don't have. I am a paid up member of Working Dog which you could be, too.


Not to worry, someone from this forum kindly pointed it out to me and it wasn't in his letter to Raiser!!


----------



## susan tuck

Mark Herzog: What breed of dog do you use? I'm a little confused - your signature shows you train Personal Protection are you also law enforcement or military?


----------



## Joby Becker

Mark breeds and trains his own dogs to sell and /or use as trained protection dogs, German Shepherds. "I think".. if memory serves me well this morning...


----------



## Mark Herzog

susan tuck said:


> Mark Herzog: What breed of dog do you use? I'm a little confused - your signature shows you train Personal Protection are you also law enforcement or military?


I use GSD's.

I did serve... now I'm strictly private/civilian.


----------



## susan tuck

Mark Herzog said:


> I use GSD's.
> 
> I did serve... now I'm strictly private/civilian.


Are you a breeder? What lines do you use?


----------



## susan tuck

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Its why the founder of GSDs stated that they should be first and foremost herding dogs. Otherwise you will lose judgment, intelligence, ability to discern a threat, etc. Now its all about bite for the sake of bite and fight for the sake of fight and ohhhhh they only act for themselves and pursuant to trained response. If that's what you select for, that's what you get. Its different when they live your life, you rely on them and it isn't a points tally. But for me even when its points, stock don't always play nice. You need a dog that can think, take responsibility and has the nerves to step up to the plate and deal.





Mark Herzog said:


> 100% agreement with above.





Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Didn't mean to leave you guys out. . Really appreciate the perspective of working military and LE handlers; especially from the breeding/selection standpoint.





susan tuck said:


> Mark Herzog: What breed of dog do you use? I'm a little confused - your signature shows you train Personal Protection are you also law enforcement or military?





Mark Herzog said:


> I use GSD's.
> 
> I did serve... now I'm strictly private/civilian.





susan tuck said:


> Are you a breeder? What lines do you use?


I'm not asking to be argumentative, and I think this is on topic. I'm wondering if since you agree with T, but you still use GSDs:

1. As a breeder, have you been able to cobble together any particular lines that still demonstrate the traits you and T feel have been lost and if so, what are those lines?

2. Can you give some examples from your own dogs displaying judgment/intelligence/problem solving abilities or the lack thereof?


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## Terrasita Cuffie

I don't know that they are lost. At least one GSD breeder that supplies to LE speaks of these traits and lines that have them--Carmspack.

It SEEMS in the sport world and even some working, these aren't traits that people care about.


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## susan tuck

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> I don't know that they are lost. At least one GSD breeder that supplies to LE speaks of these traits and lines that have them--Carmspack.
> 
> It SEEMS in the sport world and even some working, these aren't traits that people care about.


Thanks for clarifying, sorry for misinterpreting...

I've no first hand experience with Carmspack dogs.


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## Joby Becker

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> I don't know that they are lost. At least one GSD breeder that supplies to LE speaks of these traits and lines that have them--Carmspack.
> 
> It SEEMS in the sport world and even some working, these aren't traits that people care about.


What lines are producing "sport only" and not PSD?

my experience is that for both uses dogs are being selected from mostly the same lines / litters.


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## Terrasita Cuffie

The issue isn't separate lines for sport or PSD. Its preference for certain traits and which dog has them.


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## Mark Herzog

susan tuck said:


> I'm not asking to be argumentative, and I think this is on topic. I'm wondering if since you agree with T, but you still use GSDs:
> 
> 1. As a breeder, have you been able to cobble together any particular lines that still demonstrate the traits you and T feel have been lost and if so, what are those lines?
> 
> 2. Can you give some examples from your own dogs displaying judgment/intelligence/problem solving abilities or the lack thereof?


I don't consider myself a "breeder" though I do breed litters when required... for our own selection and training. I have little to no concern for "pedigrees or KC registrations"... only for ability and the traits we are looking for.

I'm not trying to "cobble together" as you put it, and I can't/won't speak for T or anyone else, but from my perspective I don't think the traits are "lost". I think they are still out there, just much harder to find because many of the "lines" out there being used by what I will call sport and show breeders have had those traits bred out of them... I suspect because those traits were of no perceived value to most of the people training and buying the dogs. Over time the value of these traits has been lost and forgotten by many in the dog world and now are lost to those lines. 

For those who believe these traits can exist and who know how to find them and use them, they do still exist... there are some that continue to breed those lines and select for those genetics. If I want a dog like that I know where to look... I don't have to cobble other lines together to try to create these traits... To do that one would have to go back to the beginning and start over, just as Stephanitz did in the beginning.

The "lines" I use originate from sources that few on here know and most will probably scoff at. Two of my dogs came from Baden K9 lines... they have several lines within their breeding program that have proven themselves (for me and others) quite well for what we want. 

From what I've read here, Baden is not well thought of by many on this forum, even though most have never actually seen first hand what they do or been there themselves. When I read Heyne's letters I see his beliefs reflected in what I saw and learned at Baden over the several years I went there. The selection process, the breedings, the raising, herding, and the application of the genetic traits and instincts to protect the herd molded and directed to protection of the handler. The concepts on communication are very similar (at least they seem so to me )... just the end result differs. Where Heyne's purpose and goal was to use the genetics and traits to raise successful herding dogs, Baden uses almost identical beliefs and methods to raise successful protection dogs... just my opinion . 

There are others out there doing very similar things. Svalinn has been doing their own breedings for about 10 years now following practically the exact same philosophies and getting excellent end results. There are others.

To answer your last questions, I have many examples of my dogs using what I believe to be their intelligence, abilities and judgement while doing there jobs. Respectfully, I see no value in listing them here. I am comfortable in my beliefs... I don't feel a need to convince others that my beliefs are "right" or change the opinions of others to agree with me. I respect other people's right to believe what they want.

If you have specific questions feel free to private message me... I'd be happy to discuss any of this further with you, but I won't post specifics onto a public internet forum (for security reasons).


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## susan tuck

Fair enough, Mark. I know there's many times I feel like I just want to post my opinion, and shouldn't have to defend it, not everything has to end up in debate. 

As far as the subject of this thread, I'm on the fence, it's an interesting thread, I'm going to keep watching it.


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## Matt Vandart

Dog thinking?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3466738989518


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## Dave Colborn

Was the dog trained to paddle on the raft?



Matt Vandart said:


> Dog thinking?
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3466738989518


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## Travis Ragin

> Matt Vandart *Re: Willful Disobedience*
> Dog thinking?
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3466738989518



Yes, that dog was thinking


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## Travis Ragin

Dave Colborn said:


> Was the dog trained to paddle on the raft?



Also,

Was the dog trained* to not get in the pool?
*(handler trained or Self-Trained by falling/going in before and not liking it)


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## Matt Vandart

Lol, what does it matter if the dog was trained to paddle on the raft? The dog changed tactic, that is thinking.


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## Dave Colborn

Is it thinking if a dog sits, stands and downs repeatedly until it gets rewarded? That to me would be similar and called offering behaviors.


Matt Vandart said:


> Lol, what does it matter if the dog was trained to paddle on the raft? The dog changed tactic, that is thinking.


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## Matt Vandart

Lol, what do you think proceeds the offering of behaviours?
Stimuli are not levers you press and the door opens, it's not a mechanistic situation.
The whole 'operant conditioning' scenario is inherently a thinking situation.
What about shaping dude? is that just trained responses?


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## Terrasita Cuffie

Matt Vandart said:


> Lol, what do you think proceeds the offering of behaviours?
> Stimuli are not levers you press and the door opens, it's not a mechanistic situation.
> The whole 'operant conditioning' scenario is inherently a thinking situation.
> What about shaping dude? is that just trained responses?


Agree. They have to think to figure out what behavior will produce the reward. And if you take that for granted, try training one who can't figure it out. The key to the dog in t. he did before he ran to the raft. This is a dog considering the available options for accomplishing the end goal. Great video.


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## Dave Colborn

What came before the offering of a behavior? Desire for a reward that the dog values. It knows it will get food for a sit down or stand, so it tries those behaviors. Shaping? Apply reinforcement using successive approximation to get the behavior to repeat itself. Yes, it is just trained responses. The dog doesn't know what you want until you give it a reward, then it can repeat it. 

Dogs that have movement are much easier to train than deadbeat couch potato dogs(although I love a deadbeat couch potato dog). It's because you have a greater chance of a dog stumbling on what you want so you can reward it.

Was the dog taught to paddle?

I think people that think a dog think can blame the dog for thinking when training fails?



Matt Vandart said:


> Lol, what do you think proceeds the offering of behaviours?
> Stimuli are not levers you press and the door opens, it's not a mechanistic situation.
> The whole 'operant conditioning' scenario is inherently a thinking situation.
> What about shaping dude? is that just trained responses?


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## Bob Scott

"I think people that think a dog think can blame the dog for thinking when training fails?"


Training fails when the trainer can't adapt his/her thoughts and methods to alter the individual dog's behaviors. 
Can't blame that on the dog. :wink: 

I won't get into the "can a dog think" simply because it can only be proven one way or the other in the individuals mind. Almost like religion and politics.  8-[:-$
As with most disagreements on any subject those that believe it and those that don't will very rarely convince the other side they are wrong. :grin:


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## Matt Vandart

Bob Scott said:


> "I think people that think a dog think can blame the dog for thinking when training fails?"
> 
> 
> Training fails when the trainer can't adapt his/her thoughts and methods to alter the individual dog's behaviors.
> Can't blame that on the dog. :wink:
> 
> *I won't get into the "can a dog think" simply because it can only be proven one way or the other in the individuals mind. Almost like religion and politics*.  8-[:-$
> As with most disagreements on any subject those that believe it and those that don't will very rarely convince the other side they are wrong. :grin:


Yes, this, because all three are based on Dog-ma and belief in previously encountered information.


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## Matt Vandart

Maybe a bunch of scientists in Cambridge can help you in your quest dude:

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf


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## Terrasita Cuffie

Matt Vandart said:


> Maybe a bunch of scientists in Cambridge can help you in your quest dude:
> 
> http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf


Doubt it. I think the religion analysis is spot on.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Doubt it. I think the religion analysis is spot on.


 
Yep. Maybe people feel they have too much invested in the drives theory to change, but thats pretty silly because the drives are no less relevent. Its just a smaller part of the whole science.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Dave Colborn said:


> What came before the offering of a behavior? Desire for a reward that the dog values. It knows it will get food for a sit down or stand, so it tries those behaviors. Shaping? Apply reinforcement using successive approximation to get the behavior to repeat itself. Yes, it is just trained responses. The dog doesn't know what you want until you give it a reward, then it can repeat it.
> 
> Dogs that have movement are much easier to train than deadbeat couch potato dogs(although I love a deadbeat couch potato dog). It's because you have a greater chance of a dog stumbling on what you want so you can reward it.
> 
> Was the dog taught to paddle?
> 
> I think people that think a dog think can blame the dog for thinking when training fails?


If a human were able to come up with original and practical ideas with NO information, that would not be just intelligence, it would be paranormal. Yet people disregard intelligence in canines because they are acting on information they have?!

A dog that is just as able to learn through response as impulse does not have to be a "deadbeat couch potato" and should still have drives and motivation.


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## Dave Colborn

Thanks matt. Yes, I am sure they could support the argument better for intelligence than anyone is here.



Matt Vandart said:


> Maybe a bunch of scientists in Cambridge can help you in your quest dude:
> 
> http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf


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## susan tuck

Okay....um.....HELP! I'm getting so confused. 

These are not facetious questions:

1. Is the question are dogs capable of intelligence?

2. As it applies to this debate, is there an agreed upon definition of intelligence?


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## Terrasita Cuffie

Actually its just an issue of who Dave thinks is intelligent and who he will accept as credible. Lab scientists--yes. Those that raise, live with, train and work dogs--no. As for definition, I do recall the use of the phraise rational thought and a definition of trying different scenarios to problem solve through. In another couple of years we'll get more studies concluding that dogs can reason.


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## Matt Vandart

susan tuck said:


> Okay....um.....HELP! I'm getting so confused.
> 
> These are not facetious questions:
> 
> 1. Is the question are dogs capable of intelligence?
> 
> 2. As it applies to this debate, is there an agreed upon definition of intelligence?


1. I think so, that is the question I have been addressing anyway.

2: We have asked that question a few times, maybe you will get lucky!


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## Dave Colborn

susan tuck said:


> Okay....um.....HELP! I'm getting so confused.
> 
> These are not facetious questions:
> 
> 1. Is the question are dogs capable of intelligence?
> 
> 2. As it applies to this debate, is there an agreed upon definition of intelligence?



The original question was : *In any bite sports or work are dogs ever expected to choose between two learned behaviors based on their choice with the right answer being better based on only one stimulus given? Or does everything happen as a result of a clear and separate stimulus? *

No one came up with an instance in any training where a dog does this. The discussion took a turn towards intelligence. 

There is no agreed upon definition of intelligence at all which brings the discussion to a standstill. Kristen Fitzgerald (post 107) apparently had a definition in this thread but I can't find it and I asked for it again (post 110). 

The funny maybe ironic part of most of this discussion is that I haven't made up my mind yet, but I am being categorized as having a religious like belief in operant conditioning and genetics over intelligence. Both operant conditioning and genetics are definable and accepted parts of mainstream science, sure I believe in them. I see them in use almost daily with dogs and people. Terrasita and Kristen continuously talk about intelligence based anecdotes where they show *faith* in intelligence from what is probably actually operant conditioning. I am trying to sway no one, while they both are trying to sway me and show that their belief is right. I am not saying they are right or wrong, I am just giving them an opportunity to explain. Who has religious like belief?

Matt had a few references that I would call operant conditioning, very quickly and easily, however he has had some good thought provoking references as well. Sarah had some good anecdotes that are thought stimulating about intelligence vs. operant conditioning or genetics as well. 

I think those are all the highlights.


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## susan tuck

I don't think Dave is being argumentative, he's asking questions, and I think they're fair questions.

When I try to find the definition of "intelligence" I find there really is no one definition that's accepted by everyone. 

I just think each of you who are participating in this debate would really help those of us who are paying attention to this thread if you tell us what your parameters are in regards to your definition of intelligence. 

Otherwise it's that blind men and the elephant thing.


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## Dave Colborn

How's this?

www.freedictionary.com

*1* the potential ability to acquire, retain, and apply experience, understanding, knowledge, reasoning, and judgment in coping with new experiences and in solving problems.


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## susan tuck

Dave Colborn said:


> How's this?
> 
> www.freedictionary.com
> 
> *1* the potential ability to acquire, retain, and apply experience, understanding, knowledge, reasoning, and judgment in coping with new experiences and in solving problems.


So with that definition in mind, I found a couple of things that caught my eye:

First, I keep going back to this one interesting little nugget in the wikipedia article:

"Psychological research has shown that human faces are asymmetrical with the gaze instinctively moving to the right side of a face upon encountering other humans to obtain information about their emotions and state. Research at the University of Lincoln (2008) shows that dogs share this instinct when meeting a human being, and only when meeting a human being (i.e., not other animals or other dogs). As such they are the only non-primate species known to do so.[9][10]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_intelligence

Derived from this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3354028/Dogs-can-read-emotion-in-human-faces.html

And then this:

http://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/research/dogs/research

"The last decade of research has shown that dogs are more than mere learning machines: they have a rich understanding of their world, which allows them to be flexible problem solvers. Some of their skills even resemble those we see in young children."

On this page of the website are 2 you tube videos that I think are very interesting, because as it says on the page, the dog used a human gesture to indicate which cup:

http://evolutionaryanthropology.duk...search/understanding-communicative-intentions

Would the fact that dogs have learned the skill of reading humans and even gesturing as human do, then apply those skills to new human interactions for the benefit of themselves be proof of intelligence? 

Also if dogs are master manipulators of humans, is that not a learned skill applied to many different and new situations?


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## jamie lind

Dave Colborn said:


> How's this?
> 
> www.freedictionary.com
> 
> *1* the potential ability to acquire, retain, and apply experience, understanding, knowledge, reasoning, and judgment in coping with new experiences and in solving problems.


Using your definition a dog shows intelligence every time it comes to a puddle in its path and decides to go around, jump over, or walk thru it. Does a dog have human like Iintelligence? Of course not its a dog.


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## Dave Colborn

Jamie. Its not my definition. It's one I found so we could discuss the subject. Do you have a better definition?

Dogs do have human like intelligence based on that definition and your logic. Otherwise, humans would walk through puddles without jumping or going around. 



jamie lind said:


> Using your definition a dog shows intelligence every time it comes to a puddle in its path and decides to go around, jump over, or walk thru it. Does a dog have human like Iintelligence? Of course not its a dog.


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## jamie lind

Dave Colborn said:


> Jamie. Its not my definition. It's one I found so we could discuss the subject. Do you have a better definition?
> 
> Dogs do have human like intelligence based on that definition and your logic. Otherwise, humans would walk through puddles without jumping or going around.


Intelligence is measured by maximum capability. So no they do not. Do humans have dog like intelligence? Yes, and more.


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## Mark Herzog

jamie lind said:


> Intelligence is measured by maximum capability. So no they do not. Do humans have dog like intelligence? Yes, and more.


I respectfully disagree.


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## Terrasita Cuffie

No the argumentative is insisting that something is operantly conditioned when the person that raised and trained the dog knows that it isn't. Then of course there's his statement that those commenting lack intelligence. Stock dogs make choices all the time. But those aren't acceptable examples.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

susan tuck said:


> I don't think Dave is being argumentative, he's asking questions, and I think they're fair questions.
> 
> When I try to find the definition of "intelligence" I find there really is no one definition that's accepted by everyone.


Agree with all the above.

I think of intelligence as an end result. A biological phenomena of accumulated learning, and an organisms inbuilt ability to utilize it.So I think of it as a scale, rather than a yes or no question." Types "of intelligence or skills demonstrated would vary according to species, their complexity, experience and motivation to respond.


Humans are simply a biological species at the" higher" (?) end of the scale in complexity.


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

I think intelligence can be enhanced through training.

Dave, I have given NO anecdotes since this turned into a disscussion on intelligence.I've said they won't prove anything.

You can come up with endless alternatives to explain behaviour- but so far none rules out the possibility of intelligence. Untill science can rule it out, it must remain a possibility or the science is flawed.

So with all the recent developments into intelligence in other species, its not being ''more scientific" to discard anecdotes and observations by others because they conflict with your beliefs.Thats just prejudicial to your own observations.

My own definition of intelligence is proven, to me.If there is ever a universal definition accepted by all, maybe it will be disproved, but so far thats not the case and I've only got my own definition to go by.


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## Matt Vandart

I suggest it might be good if everyone could read this before this discussion continues. If one doesn't bother then one is discussing from a disadvantaged position:
https://medium.com/repcog-intelligence/the-cetacean-brain-and-hominid-perceptions-of-cetacean-intelligence-c29a0c23e75a


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## Kirsten Fitzgerald

Great article Matt. Yeah, that about covers it!

I think its worth pointing out that domestic dogs have become the species they are through human manipulation, over any where from 30,000 years to to 100,000 years. Bred to co-exsist with minimal disruption or disadvantage and maximum benefit. We have been breeding a compatible intelligence all that time, untill recently.

This has changed over the last 150 years to a different set of priorites.The advent of the kennel clubs has been changing and shaping how we view dogs,and breed them.


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha

http://www.scientificamerican.com/b...han-we-are/?id=are-whales-smarter-than-we-are


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## Travis Ragin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMRod2xwKYk&list=UU4HTUxBosnniOt-ZKfcktCQ

K9 was sent after a specific bad guy.....but chose to bite another person who was behind the blind corner.

The (over stimulated?) satisfaction of a *bite*....overrode the actual job the K9 was sent to do. Bad guy got away clean.


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## Nick Hrycaj

Travis, the dog wanted to bite the civil decoy which is how that SHOULD WORK. Both for street worth and under normal logic the dog was being very obedient to biting the guy without suit as that is the target he was sent on. Only when decoy two all but shoved his arm in he dogs mouth was the dog 'disobedient.' If you were arguing the dog should have spit the suit to return to civil guy would I begrudgingly agree. I don't like the set up of that training...


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## Joby Becker

yeah who knows about that last one,

could be that the dog has not been taught or allowed to bite a passive or civil person (or both), or dog is inexperienced.

either way, since video is titled dangerous moments, I would assume the dog was NOT supposed to bite the first guy running after he froze up against the wall. who knows though...maybe he was supposed to guard him or something.. 

enter in second "decoy" who is working hard to attract the dog and like Nick said, basically trying to shove his way into the dogs mouth there.

At that point, if the dog was actually taking anything seriously at all, I could argue that the 2nd bad guy was the actual threat, to the dog..as he persued the dog and was attempting to engage him.

I do not know what the purpose of that scenario was, so who knows.

one thing I would say is a dog that is sent on one person, may very well bite another for a bunch of different reasons..


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## Travis Ragin

Joby Becker said:


> yeah who knows about that last one,
> I do not know what the purpose of that scenario was, so who knows.


There's an audio narrative throughout the entirety of that last one, it begins with: _"so the plan was..."_


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## Mike Di Rago

The question should be ''what did you want to test?''Was this to proof training? If so,what was to be proofed?
Bad scenario,bad conclusion,''shit happens''.No it doesn't,they made it happen.
Set up a scenario with a clear objective,make sure the dog will succeed.If you are not sure,go back and prepare it.
I usually like what Canczeck dogs do,but this time not so.
Mike


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## Travis Ragin

Joby Becker said:


> At that point, if the dog was actually taking anything seriously at all, I could argue that the 2nd bad guy was the actual threat, to the dog..


The second bad guy was never a threat to the handler though? He wasn't the criminal being pursued.

Can't ever predict what would happen if some innocent suddenly saw a snarling GSD come charging around the corner off-leash, I'd bet more than a few people(man/woman/teen) may even even reflexively *kick or scream* at that dog right then.


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## rick smith

1. regardless of what the total scenario "might have been", since they made it clear the K9 was NOT supposed to tag the guy on the wall, it was clearly a piss poor set up; safety wise
2. and the last comments about "shit happens" and "people get bit" is a NO BRAINER ... BUT it seemed to me like it was being used as an excuse for the piss poor set up 

imnsho....better to have said "we all fuk up sometimes no matter how experienced we think we are" 

i did something similarly stoopid a couple weeks ago that got an innocent cat killed :-(
- bottom line for me : most shit just doesn't need to "happen" :-(


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## Travis Ragin

Nick Hrycaj said:


> ' If you were arguing the dog should have spit the suit to return to civil guy would I begrudgingly agree.


Mr. Nick Hrycaj,

From my perspective, one of the 3 humans out there should have told the *handler, *to tell the dog to spit the suit. They then could have continued the pursuit of the original criminal, chased him off....and made that mistake a teachable moment.







> *Mike Di Rago*
> - Set up a scenario with a clear objective,make sure the dog will succeed.If you are not sure,go back and prepare it


I too, very much enjoy a lot of Canzeck Dog videos. In this instance it appears they did have a clear objective, but mistakes can & do happen.....the men in that instance just didn't seem to be able to "out think" that dumb dog fast enough at that moment. P,S> this post wasn't a dig at these trainers, i thought it had something to do with Dave Colburns o.p. i'lll have to go back and read again


t


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