t's not unusual for Willow to whine a bit when she's on lead and watching Shadow perform. I've worked on this by reducing the time she has to wait and gradually build it up. She's getting a lot, lot better. However, when I was training her yesterday, working on lines, I lined her up and sent her to a target pole, but she veered off to a different one, so I called her back - it was then she let out a whine as she came back. I then reduced the distance to the target to set her up for success on the next go, and she did it well, to lots of praise. The thing that spoke to me was that she obviously found me calling her back frustrating and therefore punishing. I don't want her to associate coming towards me as anything negative at all. So, how do I deal with this going forwards? If she goes to the wrong target, should I just let her do it but not treat her on her return, then do as I did and reduce the distance? Will this be a clear enough signal to her that she's not getting the treat because she went to the wrong one? It goes back a bit, I think, to our conversation on using "no". Could calling her back be classed as a NRM?
We were always taught to call the dog back immediately it went off line. I don't find that punishing, but learning. You can do all this with a smile so that the she doesn't feel there is anything punishing. However, you probably gave Willow a distance too far; start closer and then move back as you did and saw that she did that well. Having her whine in frustrating and you seeing that calling her back is punishment, you can now make sure you do not overface her in the future
Yes and no. Obviously yes because she went to the wrong marker. However, it wasn't anywhere near her maximum distance; it was her first try of the training session and so I had already made the distance very achievable. There was clearly something about the environment (maybe a breeze, maybe a smell) that I didn't pick up on that caused her to go off line. I don't think it's feasible to ensure success 100% of the time because there are so many variables, so the question is, how do I deal with it when it does happen?
Willow shouldn't really find being stopped on the way to a marker frustrating. She should find her stop/recall as rewarding as reaching the target. I'd say if both have been positively trained (which of course they have), the whine might not have been anything to do with you calling her back. In this situation, if Charlie's desire to get to where he was going was greater than his desire to recall, Charlie would simply not have stopped - he won't do anything that he doesn't find rewarding. Why would he? He has never been punished, so there is only one motivation which is a reward. You might be connecting two unconnected things here....just a thought.
Maybe that's possible. I've never come across it before. I didn't use the whistle, just called her back by name in a normal happy tone. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Her body language wasn't that she was upset in any way. I wish I'd had my camera on. Tch. She was excited to have her go, because I had both dogs and J holding one while I worked the other, and it was her first turn at this. She doesn't normally whine in excitement though. She certainly doesn't find the stop or recall at the target punishing - I did one stop later on on the way to the target and she sat there with a happy face and wagging her tail. I dunno, maybe she twinged something as she turned back.
I don't think there is a reason why a positively trained dog would let out a frustration whine in this situation. Unless you have used negative punishment and the target has been removed (highly unlikely with a target stick, although I do this with a dummy for Charlie).
No, the target wasn't removed and, had she wanted to, like Charlie, she would have just continued on her merry way.
Then I doubt the whine was frustration. She might just have whined. Just well, because. She was a little excited to have her turn and work - whatever. Stood on a nettle....
Um....no. Give it another couple of months. You might have to worry about lovely green shoots right now. We.... no. We do not.
Why would she think it punishing? We call our dogs back all the time, even when headed towards something they like or want. Frustration is a fact of life that we all have to live with, even dogs except we tend link it more with impulse control, but it comes down to frustrating them over something they want.
And that is punishment in one of its forms. Negative punishment, by preventing them doing or getting to something they want. I know that most people agree that negative punishment is OK in some situations, and I certainly do it myself when it comes to lead walking etc. But I would be very concerned to use any type of punishment, however unintentional, with something like a recall - it's far too risky. So, if Willow found it frustrating to be recalled, rather than continuing to the target, then I would have to rethink my approach, otherwise I could face breaking my recall, as well as making the training environment a less positive experience.
I think I would worry if it kept happening, but as a one-off I'd put it down to 'one of those things' .
I do agree. I think the risk of creating problems around frustration is as clear as day with negative punishment. Not all negative punishment scenarios of course, some are trivial - but clearly the very essence of negative punishment is to have a highly desirable reward within clear access of the dog and remove it for the 'wrong' behaviour. For this reason, I like to minimise the impact of negative punishment in my training now. I go to great lengths, and a LOT of steps on a spreadsheet to avoid having a guard person have to pick up a dummy. Even though it would be quicker to have Charlie run in and the dummy removed. Well, I'm not sure it's quicker and certainly it's less reliable (as removing the guard is difficult). I have trained recall away from a retrieve (just a toy at this stage) with placeboards and treats only - it took a long time, and I will have to have a guard when I take it 'on the road' - the alternative would be positive punishment, and that's worse.
Well, I started this conversation assuming she was frustrated, and I'm now wondering if that's the case. But if she was frustrated, then I would want to change my approach. I don't think there's any extra human thinking being applied on top of the original assumption about her being frustrated. I have only ever heard her make a similar noise in situations where she's clearly frustrated. She's a grunter, barks on occasion and squeals if something hurts (no typical Labrador stoicism from my Willow, she'll come running for her mum if she stands in a cold puddle unexpectedly), but a whine has always meant frustration on some level - wanting it to be her turn when training, wanting the door opened so she can go outside, wanting to get out of the car when we're on our way to a walk. I'm making it sound like she whines a lot. She really doesn't, it would be less than once a week. I've just come to associate it with a particular emotion.
... so if she wanted to go to a different marker pole and you called her back how is it different to how you manage her other frustrations. Presumably you don't open the car door because she in whining to get out on your way for a walk. How do you act when she whines for her turn to train?
The difference is because I think it's very dangerous for her to find coming to me frustrating. In stopping her from pulling on lead, it's not damaging her desire to be with me by causing her frustration, it's actually the opposite - she finds if she stays with me, she gets no frustration. If she whines when she's waiting her turn, then it's because I've asked her to wait too long, so I really reduced the amount of time she was expected to sit nicely to a level she could cope with and built that up gradually. This allowed her to get used to the fact that her turn would come through waiting. She gets the occasional treat when waiting if she is sitting quietly. She gets ignored if she whines, but once she stops whining, she gets treated and maybe asked to do a couple of simple behaviours when waiting.
May be she used the frustration whine to lower her impulse and control herself. She made her choice and that was to return to you, great choice, had a bit of excess adrenaline and released it as a whine. She was then rewarded by being sent to her target pole albeit made simpler, succeeded and rewarded again.
Couldn't it be that she was a little confused by you calling her back after sending her out even though she was heading to the wrong marker? The important thing to remember is she came to you, she did the next marker without problems and has continued to return to you when asked. I really don't believe that Willow will start thinking that she won't recall to you because you may or may not have frustrated/confused her on one occasion. I think in the circumstances you describe though I would have just let Willow complete the task and return and just moved on to the next (reduced level) without any comment or fuss
That's interesting Julie, because the way we train our dogs they don't get a reward every time - once they know what to do it's deliberately random whether they get a reward or not. Then sometimes it's high value and other times it's a bit of kibble. I write my random rewards down for myself when training at home as I can very quickly get into an unintended pattern, which Twiglet then predicts. For weeks we have been working on pigeon distraction - as soon as she saw a pigeon a high value treat was virtually put on her nose, once she was looking for a treat after seeing a pigeon then she was given it every time. But now we have moved to a random pattern. We went to Manchester shopping today - lots and lots of pigeons - she was a star, still interested but no longer obsessed and still easily able to work (ie look where she is going and take me round any obstacles or stop if she can't see a way, stop at kerbs and stairs etc). She couldn't possibly have a treat every time she saw a pigeon as she did when she was learning - but the jackpots still come for good work - and always will .
