Why it is okay to say no, but never okay to punish!

I haven't written a blog post in a very long time because, well, I have a full time job now so have NO TIME TO WRITE ANYMORE! But the issue of not being able to say 'no' if you are a positive trainer of animals (which I consider myself to me) and the lack of understanding of what we are actually doing as we train animals by many who claim to be 'purely positive' (something that is impossible if you plan on having a safe, well rounded animal to live or work with) has driven me to write another slightly ranting blog post :D 

I will put a disclaimer though - animal trainers and animal behaviourists are two different things, and I like to consider myself as a bit of both. I work mainly with dogs and horses, so my information is focused on those two species. Before using any kind of training process you must understand the behaviour of the animal you are working with or else you will just become severely frustrated (i.e. if you say to your dog 'no' when he is barking, and find he keeps barking, it is most likely because he thinks you are reinforcing his behaviour by barking back at him) or injured, (if you can't read when a dog is fearful, no matter how much you click your clicker, he will resort in biting you if you don't stop what it is you are doing that is causing him to freak out). Finally - animal behaviour, and training, is very complex and here I am talking about the more general concepts and instances... and not every animal responds in accordance to scientific princples so just always keep that in mind!!

Anyway... onto the blog post :D

In animal training, as most people know, the concepts of classical and operant conditioning are the key to success. The modern way of training focusses on positive reinforcement and positive punishment, and how as a trainer you should be either one or the other. The problem with this is that we miss out both negative reinforcement and negative punishment, and in the process we lose all boundaries and undesirable behaviour elimination. Or, as is often the case, we actually are using these techniques – we just don’t know we are and so become hypocritical when we tell people they should only use positive reinforcement training methods.

So, first things first, what is positive and negative reinforcement, and positive and negative punishment, and why is it important? If you already know the answer to these questions then please do bear with me while I explain it to those who are unfamiliar with these terms – which is mostly anyone that hasn’t studied animal or human behaviour and learning to a degree level!

In this context, the word positive means ‘added’ and the word ‘negative’ means removed. Reinforcement, as you can probably gather, means ‘keep doing this’ and punishment means ‘stop doing this’. So one promotes a behaviour and keeps it happening, the other attempts to eliminate it. So when you positively reinforce a behaviour you are adding a reward to keep the behaviour in existence, and when you positively punish a behaviour you are adding an aversive (bad) stimulus (thing) to eliminate it. When you negatively reinforce a behaviour you are using an aversive stimulus to promote a new behaviour, and when the desirable behaviour occurs you remove the aversive stimulus and so have reinforced the desirable behaviour. When you use negative punishment you are taking away a positive to eliminate an undesirable behaviour. It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t and we all do this sort of thing every day in how we interact with our animals and each other.

For example, I vocally ask my dog to sit and he does, so I give him a tasty piece of chicken – he has been positively reinforced. I ask my horse to walk on by using the heel of my foot to put pressure on my horse on her side, by her ribcage approximately, this is uncomfortable to her and so is aversive, and makes her move forward - she has been negatively reinforced. My dog jumps up and I turn away from him, removing the attention he desires, and so he stops jumping up – he has been negatively punished. My horse refuses to walk through a puddle so I hit her with my whip, she then walks forward – she has been positively punished. I must say here that I never use positive punishment with my horse, and so this is purely hypothetical ;)

Classical conditioning is the process of association that creates the stepping stones for trainers when using positive/negative reinforcement and punishment. Classical conditioning is when an animal, or person, creates a link between one stimulus and another, which can then create instantaneous physiological or emotional responses. I.e. when you hear the kettle boil you might start feeling saliva build up in your mouth and possibly even feel ‘happy’ or a positive emotion because you have associated that sound with a cup of your favourite hot drink.

So in the context of animal training this is commonly seen when people use a clicker as a precursor to a treat, and therefore creates an association with the click noise and the reward of a treat – again both a physiological and emotional response is elicited by a treat. A whip can be used in horse training in the opposite way, where you create an association with the sight of the whip and the pain, and also fear, of its contact with the horse’s skin. And these classically conditioned associations form the building blocks of operant conditioning training because we can use the positive association with the clicker to instantaneously positively reinforce a behaviour, or the negative association with a whip to instantaneously positively punish a behaviour.

Hopefully I have explained that so we can now all understand the basic science behind it, which I do think is very important if we are to successfully train our animals.

And back to my original statement: Why it is okay to say no, but never okay to punish.

The clicker in clicker training is a ‘marker’ for the desirable behaviour, it tells the animal that the thing they have just done is correct and in the near future they will receive a reward for doing the correct behaviour. In my mind, the use of the word ‘no’ is also a marker, but a marker for an undesirable behaviour and that in the future you will lose a reward for doing the incorrect behaviour. So where a clicker perfectly utilised positive reinforcement, saying the word ‘no’ utilised the concept of negative punishment.

If my dog jumps up and I turn away from him, I am punishing his jumping up behaviour by taking away the positive that is my attention. This I have already said. If I say no, or ‘ah-ah’, as I turn away, or just before, then I am using the same principle of the clicker in positive reinforcement by marking the undesirable behaviour. The whole point of the clicker is to improve timing and reduce the amount of treats, because the dog has a classically conditioned response to the clicker it will have the same emotional and physiological response to the sound of the click as it would to eating a treat, therefore you don’t actually need the treat every time. Is it not also logical to assume then that by using the word no, or maybe even a whistle (or another type of clicker with a different but non-human sound to the rewarding click), we can improve timing and reduce the amount of punishment we need to give to the animals we are training? Furthermore, by marking behaviours as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (‘desirable’ or ‘undesirable’), we can use those markers in new situations to ease the training process in novel contexts.

I.e. my dog knows that a click from my clicker means he has done something good, or desirable, because it has been used to train him sit, stay and lie down. If he barks at the door but my desired behaviour is for him to be quiet, and this is something I have never trained, then when he stops barking and I click he knows instantly that something he has just done is correct. It may take him a couple of times to know it is his silence that was the correct behaviour but he will know that I am marking something he has done as correct, and he will then try to do it correctly again so as to gain his reward.

If my dog pulls on his lead and I say ‘no’ and stop walking, then he knows that something he has done was undesirable and has so removed the reward of moving forwards. Again, after a few tries, it should become clear to him that it is the moment when he strains on the lead that is resulting in the ‘no’ marker and thus the loss of reward. And of course if you use a clicker as well to mark the walking on the lead which is good, then you are just going to increase the learning process massively!

By using markers we can precisely and accurately teach our animals, dogs, cats, horses and everything else that is reward driven, which behaviours are desirable and which are not – all the while without using fearful or painful tactics that we see in positive punishment.

Positive punishment in learning can be extremely detrimental to an animal’s wellbeing because it utilises fear and pain to eliminate behaviours, and timing is absolutely crucial. The problem is humans aren’t always able to be precise in timing and when you get this wrong with punishment you can quite quickly punish the wrong thing, in turn making your situation a whole lot worse: i.e. your dog bites you, and as he lets go you smack him on the nose, punishing the moment of him releasing you rather than the thought process he had that made him bite you. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, undesirable behaviours to us humans are often behaviours that an animal performs out of fear or discomfort. So the reason that dog bit you just now wasn’t because he was biting you for the sake of it, but it was most likely because you had done something that had caused him to feel intense fear – or enough fear that it warranted a bite, the most severe of dog warnings, and so by punishing him you will just spiral that situation out of control by injecting more fear into the mix. Not only will you lose your dog’s trust in you, but you may create an animal that is experiencing learned helplessness which is possibly the most damning psychological state any animal can be in.

So to finish, (because I really hadn’t planned on waffling on for so long), using the word ‘no’ is okay (in my opinion it is actually very good!) – it can make training your animals more precise and therefore better for them (because confusion can be the most stressful thing for an animal in training). This also means that negative punishment is not a bad concept either because it allows you to eliminate behaviours in a non-harmful and unaggressive way, creating boundaries and discipline – something that is massively important when working with animals, especially those that do pose a risk to us, (dogs and horses primarily in this pet context). But using positive punishment is the worst thing you can do in an all manner of ways! Yes, positive punishment will eliminate behaviours in certain circumstances, as seen when watching programmes such as the ‘Dog Whisperer’, but these animals will be experiencing high stress, fear and often pain – which creates a very unbalanced animal. And an unbalanced animal is one that does not learn cohesively and will either become listless and unresponsive (will be showing signs of learned helplessness), or it will resort to more desperate measures to fight against whatever it is that is causing them to be fearful or stressed in the first placed – which might be as simple as your presence or your touch.  

The Harsh Reality

In 2013 the Dogs Trust reported that 9000 dogs were put to sleep in 7-day pounds, the majority of these dogs were abandoned and/or unclaimed strays. In 2012 the RSPCA reportedly put to sleep 53,000 dogs that were mostly healthy, just classed as "unrehomable". And these numbers don't take into account the dogs put to sleep at smaller shelters. Nor do they account for the dogs that do not make it into the rescue kennels.

Meanwhile, in 2013 the Kennel Club registered 223,770 new dogs - this number includes puppies from registered litters, imported dogs, ownership transfers and changes of names. Outside of this the number of puppies bred in the UK by backyard breeders and those not registered with the Kennel Club is unknowable. However, a quick search for 'Puppy' on the Preloved.co.uk free online market reveals 7125 relevant adverts, and 18, 649 adverts for 'Dogs' on Pets4Homes.co.uk, although these also include adverts for dogs at stud and some KC registered puppies and dogs looking for homes.    

For every home that one of these thousands of puppies are sold into, the higher the chance one of the thousands of dogs in rescue will be put to sleep through no fault of its own, simply because there are no homes willing or able to adopt. This disconnect between those who breed dogs, those who work in rescue, and those who want to provide homes for dogs, is fueling this issue of overpopulation.

Presumably both breeders and rescue workers love dogs, presumably both have the same desire to put dogs into homes and save dogs from being PTS. The problem is that for breeders they are mostly motivated by profit. However, rescue centres are not without fault, often turning away good, loving homes due to working hours, age restrictions or being too strict, (i.e. some rescues refuse to rehome Staffies into homes with other dogs, without taking into consideration the Staffy's individual personality). For those who want to own dogs they find themselves stuck between the restrictions of rescue centres, as well as misconceptions of the dogs that find themselves in rescue, and the morally ambiguous ease of buying a puppy. Many people give up on rescue dogs because they are turned away, and so they buy a puppy. Others fear the issues that a rescue dog may have and so don't even try. And even more don't realise that the breed they specifically want to own may be in rescue, so they too don't even bother looking at shelters.

It is great that the puppies are finding themselves homes, however even this isn't always a permanent situation as according to the Guardian article linked below the puppies bought in time for Christmas end up filling the rescue centres periodically in March - when the puppies stop being adorable cute fluffballs and turn into preteen, highly energetic dogs that can be difficult. Puppies are extremely time consuming pets and require a lot of care and attention, and the novelty can wear off pretty quickly. For the dogs that are in rescue being beaten out of homes by the puppies people will sometimes pay thousands of pounds for, the outcome for them is very likely to be death. And if not death, psychological trauma from staying in a kennel for months or years on end.

It is time that breeders, rescues and owners start working together to reduce the number of puppies being born without homes for them to enter and to reduce the number of dogs dying in rescue. Rescues need to be less stringent on who they allow to own dogs, and owners need to forget the myths they have been sold as truths and realise that many of the dogs in rescue are not there due to behavioural issues.

I came across an article today that really emphasises the reality of this issue. It puts a face on these numbers of dogs in rescue dying so often cited. If you are a dog lover then please look at this article and if you are ever considering bringing another dog into your home, please just walk around your local rescue centre first - don't get lost in the statistics and the myths. Visualise the reality that these dogs are living in and then decide on whether you want to buy that puppy, or whether you want to give the dog (which may also be a puppy) in rescue a second chance at having a life.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/these-powerful-portraits-of-dogs-minutes-before-being-put-down-show-the-harsh-realities-facing-many-rescue-centres-9810297.html

References:

http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/media/128966/quartstatsallgroups.pdf

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/367872/RSPCA-puts-down-53-000-animals-in-just-one-year

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/dec/08/dog-pounds-nightmare-christmas-unwanted-pets

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/these-powerful-portraits-of-dogs-minutes-before-being-put-down-show-the-harsh-realities-facing-many-rescue-centres-9810297.html

Thinking Outside of Your Bubble

One of the most important things that I think everybody should learn to do is to think outside of the bubble you live your life within. Everyone has a bubble, and it is okay to have a bubble. The bubble is your own, self-centred world that is necessary for survival. In your bubble you are allowed, nay you are encouraged, to think about your needs and to actively fulfil them. Which is great, because everyone needs to be selfish to some degree if they are to get anywhere in life. Where you take this level of selfishness, however, is where the idea of you being a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person comes in to play. Or rather, whether you are an empathetic person or not. This is where the whole thinking outside of the bubble comes in.

You know the saying, ‘Sorry to burst your bubble’ or any of the idioms similar to that, well that is what learning to think outside of your bubble can prevent. A burst bubble is an unpleasant experience. It is sudden, it is sharp and it often leads to a painful fall back down to Earth. Cliché heaven is happening right here [and I love it]. By learning to think outside of the bubble, in effect you are making your bubble more flexible and elasticated – you are able to push your bubble’s boundaries close to bursting, but you are in control and so can keep your bubble intact. The greatest thing about learning to think outside of your bubble is that eventually you may realise that you don’t even need a bubble.

I personally feel like I shed my bubble some time ago. I’ve always been a naturally empathetic person. Even when people do completely, unforgivable, shitty things, I have always been able to think about it from their perspective. Depending on the level of shitty, it often leaves me thinking, “I understand why they would do such a thing, like I get it… but at the same time… I just don’t get it.” This kind of thought process appears to make no sense but it actually does make a lot of sense. I have the mental capacity to understand the thought process behind someone’s actions but that doesn’t mean I understand their emotional justification or their reasoning for why they think it or act on it. For example, I understand the thought process of somebody who is able to kill an animal at an abattoir. I get it. But I just don’t get how they can physically take the life of another living thing, like how they can physically rip the head off of a chicken. Because emotionally I am on a completely different wave length. Mentally, I can put myself in their position and understand the logic, and that can help to make me not dislike people who do terrible things, (even things much more terrible than killing a chicken for food in a society that has plenty of food and resources to replace that kind of protein).  

By losing the bubble you are actually more protected than when it is surrounding you. It takes away the shock when someone does something shitty to you and it helps you to move on. It also makes you think about the issues in your life differently, you see the world around you differently and if you can extend your empathy to the people around you, as well as the animals, plants and basically everything else around you – such as the planet – you just become a much more rounded, healthier person. It is much easier to justify your decisions if you know you have thought about how it may affect others, or how it may come across to other people. If you feel you can understand their thought process regarding your own actions then you can know if what you are doing is the right or wrong thing.

What’s more is that by thinking like this, you can also acknowledge your negative characteristics and not beat yourself up about them and in theory change them, if you are so inclined. For example, I know that I am a bitchy person. I enjoy a good bitch, I think biologically it has arisen as a way to bond with people, or at least that has been its role in my life. By being aware of those outside of my bubble, I know when and where it is okay to be a bitch and I also don’t try to justify my bitchiness. If someone comments on me being a bitch, which is rare because let’s face it – we all are. But if someone does comment, I won’t try to defend my comments with anything more than, ‘I know,’ and ‘Sorry.’ Trying to justify a bitchy comment just makes you mean, and yes there is a big difference between the two concepts.

Anyways, that’s my little thought for the day that I felt like writing down… do with it what you will. Agree, disagree, whatever makes you happy. 

Just a little one about being happy :)

So I have always been an incredibly insecure person. I never believed anyone actually liked me or wanted to be my friend, and the idea of a penis wielder wanting to date me was just unfathomable. Over the last few years however I’ve slowly shed that insecure past self and have become the person I am today. A happy person. A confident person. I still have my moments but on the whole I generally feel pretty happy with who I am. I know who my friends are, I know that when I leave Canterbury I will be missed and that breaks my heart but it is also reassuring that the bonds I have created are true and will last. I know that some oddball guys do apparently find me attractive and I know that I have a lot to offer someone if they want it, and if I want them. I know that people trust me, and I know that their trust is very well placed. I know what I like, I know what I need from those around me, I know what I am good at and I know what I am bad at. It is safe to say that I know who I am and I am happy with who I am. Also this realisation has only come this last week – or rather it has finally meshed together this last week, it has been brewing for some time.

This is a tiny blog post but I just wanted to put it out there on the interwebs because I want people to know that you can be happy even if you are alone, or single – because no one is truly alone, although it can desperately feel like you are. I have flirted with courtship, courted with potential, I have been the bad guy and I have been screwed over… and my status presently is me, myself and I. You can be happy without having a job – I am at that lovely stage of life where I am graduating from my obscure degree with no real job prospects because nobody is hiring, and all of my experience is so tailored to the role I want that it’s not really going to help me in any other field. You can be happy even if things aren’t going the way you planned – my grades this term haven’t exactly been as impressive as one would hope. And you can be happy if you are a weirdo – which I have been told that I am on so many occasions these last few weeks that I am beginning to believe it ;)

If you are able to accept your flaws, acknowledge your strengths and just be you, well then you can be happy no matter what the context.

Sometimes shitty things happen or you feel completely sucker punched by life, but it does seem to be those moments that prelude the state of happiness that I am currently experiencing – the happiness that comes with self-acceptance. So yeah, cliché and probably super unhelpful but soz – I just wanted to share. 

What makes them so different?

Ever since I was a child I have seen non-human animals as equal to myself and others around me. Sometimes I feel that films such as Disney’s ‘The Lion King’, ‘Oliver and Company’ and ‘Pocahontas’ shaped this viewpoint. I mean I spent quite a few years truly believing that my toys were secretly alive, too many years to admit, so Disney clearly influences me on some level… but did they shape this belief, and if they did, is it wrong? Am I incorrect? Are we humans somehow different to every other animal species on the planet, in some league above them and is that why it is okay for us to exploit them in every conceivable way? Which we do, and many people (if not most people) don’t even question these exploitative practices.

As an adult I know that to have my viewpoints respected they have to be justified, especially when my viewpoints do not align with the mainstream ideology. People find out I am a vegetarian, and I am asked why. Is it an ethical reason? If so, why? I, on the other hand, am not allowed to question why someone eats meat if I want to keep the opinion of others towards myself positive.

It is a kind of running joke, semi-joke, in my family that they believe I wouldn’t save a human over an animal if I had a gun to my head. And where most people would instantly save the human without hesitation, I can’t help but feel a little torn in my gut. Why does the human deserve to live more than an animal?  Of course, in reality I would probably have to let the animal die purely because of social pressure to accept the idea that we humans are superior, and thus have the right to survive over other species. I mean even writing this I can’t help but be like, obviously I would save the person, but then at the exact same time I’m like, but why!?

Why are we better? What is it that sets us apart? We are different, yes, but are we better?

Emotionally we appear to be matched (if not bested) by several other species – most cetaceans, the great apes, elephants and even the animals we share our homes with (dogs)… there is countless anecdotal evidence for this, as well as scientific evidence.

Intellectually we on the surface seem superior because we have technology and weapons, yet why would a dolphin need a gun? Why would an elephant need a computer? And where these non-human animals do need to improvise and create tools, they do… even birds use tools…

Physiologically we are all considered sentient and have the ability to suffer and feel pain, this is a general understanding accepted by science for all vertebrates and some invertebrates.

Is it that we have language? But all animals communicate, does language have to be words and syntax and grammar to be a language? Is dolphin echolocation not language? They have names for each other, and dialects. They also understand our syntax and grammar, even though they do not use it themselves. Is communication through body language not language? Dogs are able to communicate their emotions and desires to the other animals around them (including humans) with very little verbal communication, but it isn’t language… because… why? Why is the way we communicate some special, defining phenomena?

Is it that we can read and write? Because I’m pretty sure an illiterate human has the same rights as a literate one.

We judge other animals so critically because they do not live as we do, because they do not require the same things we require.

Or maybe they are different to us because we are able to enslave them? Because we are able to exploit them, to farm them, to mass produce them, to abuse them, to force them to entertain us… but isn’t that something that also happens to other humans? With enough psychological manipulation and damage you can coerce anyone and anything into behaving in any way, no matter how degrading, if they think it is going to keep them alive. If you were stolen from your home as a child and placed into an unfamiliar environment, an unenriched environment, surrounded by others who don’t communicate in the same way you do, and if you were not in control of your own food source – would you not behave as instructed if that was the only way you were to receive sustenance and in some cases comfort?

I don’t know, maybe I am wrong in the way I see the other species we share our world with. Maybe we are superior, but as someone who doesn’t subscribe to any form of religion and as someone who believes in science and as someone with eyes who can actually see passed the fur or the feathers, I just can’t see why we would be.

And finally, I would much rather be wrong and try my hardest to protect the rights of those less than us, than to be happy exploiting them because they aren’t as intelligent as us, or because they don’t have the same spectrum of emotions as us… or… God forbid… because they don’t understand syntax!