Must be like being put into a roomful of, say, spiders (if you were really scared of spiders) and then being expected to react in a rational way
What you are describing is flooding... overwhelming someone/dog with what they are frightened of... which in most cases results in shut down! Not what you want. And not what this method does and should do! If it floods the dog, then it is done wrongly!
CAT is not used to flood a dog, you don't go right up to the aggressive dog and make it react! You do it at a distance so the dog is still very able to behave correctly!
- I have to say that most dogs' problems stem from something far more basic and expecting them to react in a way that can be rationalised so easily is a bit hopeful - not to say that I hope you have some success but to be honest it all seems a bit too humanised to actually translate to animal behaviour, which is a little bit more, not simplified, but different, and I can't help feeling that this approach is too much like human psychology and not dog behaviour which is quite complicated when in contrast because we don't factor in all their olfactory, facial and 'pack' behaviours .... They aren't like us and, much as we would like it, we can't plaster our human emotions onto their little features, so as much as we try to emote for them, we don't even come close a lot of the time ...
Dogs, humans, any animal learns the same way... through consequences, which can be good or bad! And yes, canine psychology is very much like human psychology! The more I learn about it and the more I discuss issues with teacher and psychologists, the more I find they are both very similar indeed! We all learn the same way and our reactions are very often very similar, just expressed species specific!
It is perfectly normal for both dog and human to try to avoid something that we don't like. If we find that a certain behaviour gets us a certain consequence we want, we do it more and more to get that consequence. Example: if you find that stomping your foot makes a spider run away every time, then that is what you are going to do when faced with a spider that scares you! That is negative reinforcement... stomping makes the uncomfortable situation go away and is therefore reinforcing (it is called "negative" because something is taken away, not because it is bad! As opposed to "positive" where something is added to reinforce behaviour!) and you will therefore be more likely to stomp your foot as soon as you see a scary spider.
It's the same with dogs in this principle... the dog learns that the scary dog goes away if they behave in a certain way, in this case when looking away, turning away, stop barking etc. The dog going away is therefore reinforcing the wanted behaviour and the dog will be more likely to do it again when he is faced with another dog that scares him.
I know that dogs respond to positive reinforcement for commands simply because they want to please us
I don't agree with that... dogs' behaviour, just like humans' behaviour always has a purpose, and if it is just to make themselves feel good! Yes, some dogs are more interested in co-operating with humans, but I don't think there are many dogs that do things just to please us... an illusion that I have given up a long time ago.
Vera
