Understanding Dog Language - 50 Points

Whistles created a system of 2-way communication. By having separate whistles for object and action, Herman could reorder commands without fresh teaching take hoop to ball. In , Herman had taught 6 whistles to a female bottle-nose dolphin, Kea, to refer to three objects and three actions, and the dolphin followed his instructions. He wrote, "In addition to mouthing the three familiar training objects in the presence of the mouth name, Kea correctly mouthed on their first appearance a plastic water pipe, a wooden disc, and the experimenter's open hand.

The same type of immediate response generalization occurred for touch and fetch. Richards, Wolz and Herman [30] trained a dolphin to make distinct whistles for objects, "so that, in effect, the dolphin gave unique vocal labels to those objects. Herman's later publications do not discuss the whistle communication.

The Tell-Tale Tail

Herman started getting US Navy funding in , [31] so further expansion of the 2-way whistle language would have been in the classified United States Navy Marine Mammal Program , a black project. Herman also studied the crossmodal perceptual ability of dolphins. Dolphins typically perceive their environment through sound waves generated in the melon of their skulls, through a process known as echolocation similar to that seen in bats, though the mechanism of production is different. The dolphin's eyesight however is also fairly good, even by human standards, and Herman's research found that any object, even of complex and arbitrary shape, identified either by sight or sound by the dolphin, could later be correctly identified by the dolphin with the alternate sense modality with almost per cent accuracy, in what is classically known in psychology and behaviorism as a match-to-sample test.

The only errors noted were presumed to have been a misunderstanding of the task during the first few trials, and not an inability of the dolphin's perceptual apparatus. This capacity is strong evidence for abstract and conceptual thought in the dolphin's brain, wherein an idea of the object is stored and understood not merely by its sensory properties; such abstraction may be argued to be of the same kind as complex language, mathematics, and art, and implies a potentially very great intelligence and conceptual understanding within the brains of tursiops and possibly many other cetaceans.

Accordingly, Lilly's interest later shifted to whale song and the possibility of high intelligence in the brains of large whales , and Louis Herman's research at the now misnomered Dolphin Institute in Honolulu , Hawaii , focuses exclusively on the Humpback whale. From Roman times to modern Brazil, dolphins have been known to drive fish toward fishermen waiting on shore, and signal to the fishermen when to throw their nets, even when water is too murky for the fishermen to see the arrival of the fish.

The dolphins catch unnetted fish disoriented by the net. From about orcas smacked the water off Twofold Bay in New South Wales to signal to human whalers that the orcas were herding large baleen whales nearby, so the humans would send boats to harpoon the whales, killing them faster and more assuredly than the orcas could.

My, What Expressive Ears You Have

The orcas ate the tongues and lips, leaving the blubber and bones for the humans. Bonnie Bergin trained dogs to go to specific text on the wall to ask clearly for "water, treat or pet me. She says service dogs can learn to find EXIT signs, bathroom gender signs, and report what disease they smell in a urine sample by going to a sign on the wall naming that disease.

Police and private dogs can be trained to "alert" when they find certain scents, including drugs, explosives, mines, scent of a suspect, fire accelerants, bed bugs. The alert can be a specific bark or position, and can be accepted as evidence in court. Stanley Coren identifies 56 signals which untrained dogs make and people can understand, including 10 barks, 5 growls, 8 other vocalizations, 11 tail signals, 5 ear and eye positions, 5 mouth signals and 12 body positions.

Dogs can be trained to understand hundreds of spoken words, including Chaser 1, words , [49] Betsy words , [50] Rico words , [51] and others. Shepherds and others have developed detailed commands to tell herding dogs when to move, stop, collect or separate herd animals.

Humans teach animals specific responses for specific conditions or stimuli. Training may be for purposes such as companionship, detection, protection, research and entertainment. During training humans communicate their wishes with positive or negative reinforcement. After training is finished the human communicates by giving signals with words, whistles, gestures, body language, etc. APOPO has trained Southern giant pouched rats to communicate to humans the presence of land mines , by scratching the ground, and tuberculosis in medical samples. They have identified , mines from , certifying 2, hectares 5, acres as mine-free.

They are accurate enough that the human trainers run on the land after removing the mines which rats have identified. Rats Wistar, Rattus norvegicus have been taught to distinguish and respond differently to different human faces. Patricia McConnell found that handlers around the world, speaking 16 languages, working with camels, dogs, donkeys, horses and water buffalo, all use long sounds with a steady pitch to tell animals to go more slowly whoa, euuuuuu , and they use short repeated sounds, often rising in pitch, to speed them up or bring them to the handler Go, Go, Go, claps, clicks.

Chimpanzees, dogs, gulls, horses, rats, roosters, sheep and sparrows all use similar short repeated sounds to tell others of the same species to come closer. Even fish, which lack a neocortex , have been taught to distinguish and respond differently to different human faces archerfish [58] or styles of music goldfish [59] and koi [60]. Molluscs, with totally different brain designs, have been taught to distinguish and respond to symbols cuttlefish [61] and octopus [62] , and have been taught that food behind a clear barrier cannot be eaten squid [63].

Opening the iTunes Store. If iTunes doesn't open, click the iTunes application icon in your Dock or on your Windows desktop. If Apple Books doesn't open, click the Books app in your Dock. Click I Have iTunes to open it now. View More by This Author.

Description Dogs are constantly communicating with their masters and fellow creatures. Customer Reviews Great book. All About Dogs Oleksandr Kotenko. Authors and Editors of Instructables. Puppy Dog Tales Alice V. At 38 days of age, the demonstrator puppies took an average of seconds to succeed, while the observers succeeded in an average of 9 seconds. Strictly following the model set out in the Koehler Method of Dog Training , some 50 years later, the Koehler method continues to be taught in both class and private training formats. The method is based in the philosophy that a dog acts on its right to choose its actions.

Koehler explained that a dog's learned behavior is an act of choice based on its own learning experience. When those choices are influenced by the expectation of reward, the behavior will most likely be repeated, and when those choices are influenced by the anticipation of punishment, they will most likely cease.

Once the dog has learned that its choices result in comfort or discomfort it can be taught to make the correct decisions.

Dog training - Wikipedia

Adherents believe that once the behavior has been correctly taught, it should be performed, thus making any correction, fair, reasonable, and expected. Purely positive or motivational training employs the use of rewards to reinforce good behavior, and ignores all bad behavior. Motivational training has its roots in captive animal training, where compulsion and corrections are both difficult and dangerous, and ignoring bad behavior is not problematic as the animal lives under controlled conditions.

As a dog training strategy, purely positive training is feasible, but difficult, as it requires time and patience to control the rewards the dog receives for behavior. Some activities such as jumping up or chasing squirrels are intrinsically rewarding, the activity is its own reward, and with some activities the environment may provide reinforcement such as when the response from dog next door encourages barking. Clicker training is a nickname given to a positive reinforcement training system based on operant conditioning. Clicker training can also be referred to as marker training.

The system uses conditioned reinforcers which are able to be delivered more quickly and more precisely than primary reinforcers such as food. The term 'clicker' comes from a small metal cricket adapted from a child's toy that the trainer uses to precisely mark the desired behavior; however, some trainers use a whistle, a word, or even a light as the conditioned reinforcer.

Electronic training involves the use of an electric shock as an aversive. Common forms are collars which can be triggered remotely, or that are triggered by barking, fencing that delivers a shock when a dog wearing a special collar crosses a buried wire, and mats that can be placed on furniture to deliver a shock. Some aids deliver an aversive such as a spray of citronella when triggered.

Supporters claim that the use of electronic devices allows training at a distance and the potential to eliminate self-rewarding behaviour, and point out that properly used, they have less risk of stress and injury than mechanical devices, such as choke chains. Opponents cite the risks of physical and psychological trauma associated with incorrect or abusive use. In one study laboratory-bred Beagles were divided into three groups.

Group A received an electric shock when the dogs touched the prey a rabbit dummy fixed to a motion device. Group H received a shock when they did not obey a previously trained recall command during hunting. Dogs in group R received the electric shock arbitrarily, i. Group A did not show a significant rise in salivary cortisol levels, while group R and group H did show a significant rise.

This led to the conclusion that animals which were able to clearly associate the electric stimulus with their action, i. In a study was published that was based on the observation of a variety of breeds trained for protection work using shock collars, which showed that although electronically trained dogs can excel as guard dogs, their behavior toward humans and work circumstances changed, often indicating heightened uncertainty and reactivity.

Lindsay says of this study, "Schilder and Van der Borg have published a report of disturbing findings regarding the short-term and long- term effects of shock used in the context of working dogs that is destined to become a source of significant controversy The absence of reduced drive or behavioral suppression with respect to critical activities associated with shock e. Although they offer no substantive evidence of trauma or harm to dogs, they provide loads of speculation, anecdotes, insinuations of gender and educational inadequacies, and derogatory comments regarding the motivation and competence of IPO trainers in its place.

Based on the principles of social learning, model-rival training uses a model, or a rival for attention, to demonstrate the desired behaviour. McKinley and Young undertook a pilot study on the applicability of a modified version of the model-rival method to the training of domestic dogs, noting that the dog's origins as a member of large and complex social groups promote observational learning. The model-rival training involved an interaction between the trainer, the dog, and a person acting as a model-rival, that is, a model for desired behaviour and a rival for the trainer's attention.

In view of the dog, a dialogue concerning a particular toy commenced between the trainer and the model-rival.

Your dog understands what you're saying, sort of

The trainer praised or scolded the model-rival depending on whether the model-rival had named the toy correctly. It was found that the performance times for completion of the task were similar for dogs trained with either operant conditioning or the model rival method. In addition, the total training time required for task completion was comparable for both methods. The mirror method philosophy is that dogs instinctively learn by following the example of others in their social sphere. Core to the program is including the dog in all aspects of the owner's life and positive reinforcement of copying behaviors.

Mirror method dog training relies on using a dog's natural instincts and inclinations rather than working against them. The concepts of "pack" and "dominance" in relation to dog training originated in the s and were popularized by the Monks of New Skete in the s. The model is based on a theory that "dogs are wolves" and since wolves live in hierarchical packs where an alpha male rules over everyone else, then humans must dominate dogs in order to modify their behavior.

Animal behaviorists assert that using dominance to modify a behavior can suppress the behavior without addressing the underlying cause of the problem.

Your Dog's Body Language Decoded

It can exacerbate the problem and increase the dog's fear, anxiety, and aggression. Dogs that are subjected to repeated threats may react with aggression not because they are trying to be dominant, but because they feel threatened and afraid. Researchers have described several reasons why the dominance model is a poor choice for dog training. Derived from the theories of symbolic interactionism , relationship based training exploits the patterns of communication, interpretation and adjustment between dogs and their trainers. Building on a positive relationship between them, the method sets out to achieve results that benefit both the dog and the trainer, while at the same time enhancing and strengthening their relationship.

The basic principles include ensuring that the dog's basic needs have been met before beginning a training session, finding out what motivates the dog and using it to elicit behaviours, interpreting the dog's body language to improve communication between dog and trainer, using positive reinforcement to encourage desired behavior, training incompatible behaviors to replace unwanted behaviours, and controlling the dog's environment to limit the possibility of unwanted behaviours.

Training can take as many forms as there are trainers, however a detailed study of animal trainers found common characteristics of successful methods: Dogs have become closely associated with humans through domestication and have also become sensitive to human communicative signals. Generally, they have a lot of exposure to human speech, especially during play, and are believed to have a good ability to recognize human speech. Two studies investigated the ability of a single dog that was believed to be exceptional in its understanding of language.

Both studies revealed the potential for at least some dogs to develop an understanding of a large number of simple commands on the basis of just the sounds emitted by their owners. However the studies suggested that visual cues from the owner may be important for the understanding of more complex spoken commands. In considering the natural behaviours of specific breeds of dogs, it is possible to train them to perform specialised, highly useful, tasks. For example, Labrador retrievers are the favoured breed for the detection of explosives.

This is because of a combination of factors including their food drive which enables them to keep focused on a task despite noise and other distractions. Most working breeds of dogs are able to be trained to find people with their sense of smell as opposed to their sense of sight. Cocker Spaniels are able to be trained as part of a termite detection team. Their relatively small size enables them to fit into small spaces, and their light weight allows them to walk on areas of ceiling which would be dangerous to anything heavier.

In fact, although unusual, termite detection dogs are much more reliable at detecting termites than humans who rely on a basic system of tapping and listening. Because of their ability to learn signals by sight and for their energetic and athletic natures, German Shepherds are able to be trained for work alongside search and rescue teams and human apprehension teams. Individualised training is used with dogs that have an urgent or unique training problem such as fear, hyperactivity, aggression and other related problems , separation anxiety, biting, excessive barking, insecurity, destructive behaviors, walking difficulties, and inappropriate elimination.

Class training can be effective in encouraging socialization and play with a peer group. Classes are often offered at a more affordable rate and can cover both problem behaviors and teach new skills.