the kennel club dont recognise qualifications and arent an accrediting organisation for canine qualifications.

they run their own scheme called the Kennel Club Accredited Instructors scheme, which is like a points system, based on your evidence and portfolio of experience.
Any dog trainer can put themselves forward for this, its not soley connected to any organisations such as APDT or BIPDT.
For the purposes of the scheme, 'dog trainer' means anyone that trains dogs, which incudes if you work in a rescue centre or only do one to ones (good things), and 'club' means any oprganisation whereby you have trained dogs, ie, rescue centre (again, a good thing).

Their are private canine qulaifcation accediting organisations, such as ASAB.
And semi govenment ones, such as the OCN.

But their is no formal state recongised qualifcation for dog training or behaviour.

You can get a degree in a state university for animal behaviour,etc.
Even then, that isnt automatically a stamp of excellence, as some of these people will have the dergree, yet no practical experience and not actually be much good at training dogs.

na

Yes I agree that negative reinforcement is not punishment ~ I don't think I ever said that it was. But negative reinforcement is not based on the "absence of reward/response". Negative reinforcement means that something aversive is removed so by definition it means that something aversive must be present in the first place. Examples of negative reinforcement include things such as choke chains, or pinching an ear until the dog drops whatever it shouldn't have been holding. It still involves the use of aversives & it is the removal of something horrible due to some action that the dog performs, that makes it negative reinforcement ~ the behaviour that made the bad thing go away will increase.

Postive reinforcement or punishment means the addition of something ~ i.e. something the dog perceives as a reward is positive reinforcement & therefore causes the behaviour to increase. The addition of something the dog perceives as nasty is positive punishment & will cause the behaviour to decrease.

Negative reinforcement means that something nasty is taken away, so the behaviour increases. Negative punishment means the removal (or witholding) of something the dog perceives as good.

It may be that you mean negative punishment when say the dog "gets no reward"? If the reward is clearly on offer but is witheld until it performs the correct behaviour, then that would be negative punishment.

But I think that perhaps what you really mean is that the dog's behaviour has NO consequence, i.e. the dog is ignored when it is performing an unwanted behaviour, but then rewarded when it performs the wanted behaviour. Now IF this causes a behaviour to decrease, then it is negative punishment. For some dogs the witholding of something it perceives as highly rewarding can be extremely frustrating ~ it can lead to the dog trying everything in it's behavioural repertoire to try to get the reward. It's very difficult to train wanted behaviours this way because of the likelihood of the frustration factor creeping in, but it may lead to a decrease in unwanted behaviours. However it's much more difficult for the dog to understand exactly what it is you want it to do, or stop doing, using this method. Whereas using positive reinforcement makes it much easier to capture wanted behaviours & reward those ~ & much easier for the dog to understand.

Reinforcers are anything that makes a behaviour increase, & anything that makes a behaviour increase is a reinforcer ~ I know it's circular reasoning but obviously what is reinforcing to one person/dog/animal may not be reinforcing to another.

Punishments (positive or negative) are things that cause a behaviour to decrease and anything that makes a behaviour decrease is a punisher. Again, what one dog finds punishing (e.g. some dogs get extremely anxious about the removal of their owner's attention) another dog may not find punishing at all.

Where possible, to stop unwanted behaviours, I would use positive reinforcement to train an incompatible behaviour. For instance a dog that jumped up at people would be taught to sit when greeting people. My mother's taught my dogs this extremely well because she doesn't want several stones of chunky labradors knocking her over! She always turns up at my house with a couple of biscuits in her pocket & the dogs know they have to sit then they get a biscuit. It is now such an ingrained & automatic response that as soon as they see her coming through the garden gate, they rush over to sit in front of her. Okay she may not be able to move any further up the garden because both dogs are blocking her way in anticipation of getting a biscuit, but at least she's not knocked over by their excited greetings.

Similarly a dog that barked at visitors coming into the house would be taught to hold a soft toy ~ this effectively would stop the barking as it can't bark with it's mouth full! But this is not the complete story ~ the very act of holding a soft toy produces gentle pressure in the mouth which in turn causes the production of endorphins in the brain (the feel good chemicals) which in turn causes the dog to feel better, less stressed & more able to cope with the anxiety of having a stranger in the house. Many dogs will learn this for themselves as a coping mechanism & will go & get a soft toy ~ it looks as though it is bringing the visitor a present, but isn't really, so visitors should be asked not to try to take the toy away. But this also illustrates that associative learning theory alone, is not enough to explain everything about dog behaviour ~ physiology & ethology are just as important.

Ah well, that`s me told then .

testing


testing

This is a good site for getting to grips with the terms - they can be very confusing!

http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/

The method being disussed - it sounds a bit like the CAT method that has been discussed on here a little bit. I'd agree that it was negative reinforcement, as it involved an aversive being applied (application of scary thing, scaring dog) and then being removed when the dog gave the "right" behaviour. This causes "relief" which can be reinforcing.

Rune and Tassle i think we've talked about John Fisher using this haven't we? Twas the same thing I think.

It does teach the dog to look to the human for decison making (which is very important - although that can also be taught in other ways) however, it is unlikely to alter the dog's emotions towards the scary thing.

Dog behaviour and training is fascinating. I think the reason it is so hard when problems occur is often due to environment - for instance when helping an aggressive dog, it's hard to avoid other dogs coming up etc etc ..,

Wys
x

Something Good can start or be presented, so behavior increases = Positive Reinforcement (R+) Treats, rewards, toys added ...

Something Good can end or be taken away, so behavior decreases = Negative Punishment (P-) Treats, rewards, toys, affection etc taken away

Something Bad can start or be presented, so behavior decreases = Positive Punishment (P+) Addition of harsh words, smacks, pinning alpha rolls, choke chains etc

Something Bad can end or be taken away, so behavior increases = Negative Reinforcement (R-) Removal of mental or physical discomfort or pain eg choke chain does not get used when dog is in the right place, etc.

Coloured examples are mine - sorry, messed up the colours!

http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/#Consequences

Wys
x

Hallo

Wys
x

It was-----CAT does go a stage further though. Personally I wouldn't use CAT except for extreme desperate problems.

rune

My brain isn't on today at all Rune - how does CAT go further please? I can't recall!

Say with dogs-dog problems (as opposed to people), it's about presenting the aggressive dog and stooge dog where the aggressive dog reacts, then finally stops (or shows it's showing appropriate behaviour perhaps) and is then "rewarded" by the stooge dog (scary thing) being removed, isn't it? Have I remembered it correctly or have i missed something... I too would not use it (apart from anything else, I don't agree with the use of stooges in this way, far far too stressful).

Wys
x

In our antisocial dogs class stooge dogs were not used. The dog reacted to other dogs being in his space (and it was a big space!) So a dog would begin by having a dog at the other side of the field , back turned, then when he was quiet with that, facing him, then maybe moving across his line of vision. So it was desensitisation rather than confrontation.
Definitions are the devils playthings but I still say it`s negative reinforcement when the `problem` (scary thing) doesn`t go away when the usual strategies are used.
I`d also personally avoid `aggressive` because often these dogs are not aggressing - they are fearful and voicing their distress. Maybe reactive is less emotive?