“The Culture Clash” Chapter 1
Getting the Dog’s Perspective: (Dog Intelligence and Morality)
Jean starts off her book with what she calls “Walt Disney vs B.F. Skinner” dogs. Here, she explains how most people are inclined to assume a dog is a “Walt Disney dog: he is very intelligent, has morals, is capable of planning and executing revenge, solves complex problems, and understands the value of the artifacts in Walt’s home.” A Walt Disney dog is, in other words, as complex as a human. On the other hand, however, there is the B.F. Skinner dog: “the input-output black box.” B.F. Skinner is most well-known in psychology for his experiment, a Skinner Box, where a rat was put in an empty cage save for water and a lever. The rat learned, over a simple accident and time, that pulling the lever would produce a pellet of food. Once the rat realizes this, he will pull the lever all day long. This is how our dogs think, and how we can understand them.
A perfect example of assuming your dog is a Walt Disney dog rather than a B.F. Skinner dog is when they stress chew when you are away. Typically, this unwanted behavior arises from being punished for chewing when the pet parent is home. The dog experiences stress when the pet parent leaves, and knows that chewing will calm him, so he chews. To the pet parent, this dog “knows” what he is doing wrong and chews when the pet parent is away to “get back at” them. As Jean puts it, “our fear is that if we accept [Skinner’s] viewpoint, we strip dogs of their status as honorary humans, with the logical extension of negative ramifications for their welfare.”
To make sure our dogs live the best lives they can, and become the best dogs they can, “it is our responsibility to be informed about the basic needs of the species we are trying to live with as well as the vast and well-developed behavior modification technology available to us.”
Next, Jean goes over how dogs have lemon brains, but we can still like them. The two areas she believes “there is the greatest amount of myth and knowledge void” is dog behavior and animal learning. Dogs are amazing learners and can point out small nuances in their environment, besides having heightened olfactory powers. Dogs are very smart, but they don’t think abstractly. In other words, they can’t move themselves through time mentally and learn from insights. Jean makes a great point when saying, “dogs…are multitalented but they are also not very smart the way humans are.” We often anthropomorphize our dogs into small humans with IQs just as we have. This, however, can be the downfall of training: bestowing intelligence and morality on a simple canine.
When we, as pet parents, see our dog make a mistake, we are inclined to punish them, for, say, peeing behind the couch. “That’s just what dogs have been getting - a lot of punishment. We set them up for all kinds of punishment by overestimating their ability to think.” This is a great point, as it’s interesting to think of the psychology of why dogs do things once we take off the rose-colored glasses.
Another point made in this book is the concept that a dog desires to please. This is an old, overused concept. Dogs seek out interactions with the environment for possible play, chewing, or relaxing. There is no “desire to please” built into them unless we use positive reinforcement to cement good behavior paired with a treat. Then, they will push to do what you ask to please you. In fact, “dogs learn by the immediate results of their actions, and by tip-offs to important events in their lives.” Jean explains that when pet parents uses food in training, they often find moralistic resistance within themselves.
To first train a dog, you must find out what motivates it. Not all dogs love freeze-dried beef, and some just really want to play tug. Some pet parents find their dogs responding to their tone (e.g. angry, excited, scared) and react accordingly. In fact, “any interest your dog has in your mood is based on what he has learned it means for him. And that’s okay.” When we work hard training a dog, we may also confuse bonding activities with training or behavior modification. There is a key difference, one of which is that the latter requires heavier artillery to be used.
One of the first problems that arise from getting a new dog for the family is that the dog is not predisposed to spend so much time alone in your home. Dogs are “highly social and genetically unprepared for the degree of absence from family members” within a human environment. This isn’t to say we don’t have a bond with our dogs. We naturally are both bonding species.
When one thinks of training their dog, they have to control their behavior. This looks like “constantly manipulate[ing] the consequences of their action and the order and intensity of important stimuli.” This goes back to simple input-output thinking. What is the reward, and how powerful is it in the dog’s mind?
Next, Jean goes on to describe the so-called “pack theory.” This includes the notion that we, as the dominant species, must force those in the pack below us to listen and respect us, usually through force. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. In reality, the man who came up with the dominance theory, Rudolph Schenkel, faked most of his data and was soon thrown out of the scientific community. This was too late, however: the damage had been done. Even to this day, people believe in the dominance theory and drill it into dogs that often become fearful. In all, rank isn’t on the minds of the dog during any of these very normal behaviors. “When most people say they have a dominance problem, usually they mean one of two things: they have a compliance problem, or else the dog is biting or threatening them.”
Here are what Jean lists as the top 10 behaviors people attribute to “Dominance:”
Biting/aggression
Pulling on leash
Pottying in the house
Chewing up valuable possessions
Jumping to greet
Failing to come when called
Begging for access (e.g. food, toy, go outside)
Going through doorways first
Sleeping on forbidden furniture
Food/laundry stealing
When you, as a dog parent, worry about why the dog isn’t learning, rule out two things: it’s being reinforced in the environment somewhere, and/or because the dog was never taught otherwise. Unfortunately, the dominance theory is so blown out of proportion that there are schools that create dog trainers who rely on thinking that once dominance is achieved, everything will fall into place.
Here, in contrast, are the top 10 things we know about real dogs:
Everything is a chew toy
Amoral (no right vs. wrong, only save vs. dangerous)
Self-interested
Lemon-brains
Predator ancestry (search, chase, bite, dissect, and/or chew)
Highly social and bond strongly (aren’t good at isolation)
Short socialization period
Opportunistic scavengers
Resolve conflicts through ritualized aggression
Well-developed olfactory system
