EG 2007
Ian Dunbar: Dog-friendly dog training
Filmed:
Readability: 2.9
1,216,837 views
Speaking at the 2007 EG conference, trainer Ian Dunbar asks us to see the world through the eyes of our beloved dogs. By knowing our pets' perspective, we can build their love and trust. It's a message that resonates well beyond the animal world.
Ian Dunbar - Animal behaviorist
Veterinarian, dog trainer and animal behaviorist Ian Dunbar understands our pets' point of view. By training dog owners in proper conduct (as much as he trains the dogs themselves), he hopes to encourage better relationships with dogs -- not to mention their friends and children, too. Full bio
Veterinarian, dog trainer and animal behaviorist Ian Dunbar understands our pets' point of view. By training dog owners in proper conduct (as much as he trains the dogs themselves), he hopes to encourage better relationships with dogs -- not to mention their friends and children, too. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
Dogs have interests.
0
0
2000
00:18
They have interest sniffing each other, chasing squirrels.
1
2000
6000
00:24
And if we don't make that a reward in training, that will be a distraction.
2
8000
5000
00:29
It's always sort of struck me as really a scary thought
3
13000
5000
00:34
that if you see a dog in a park, and the owner is calling it,
4
18000
4000
00:38
and the owner says, you know, "Puppy, come here, come here,"
5
22000
3000
00:41
and the dog thinks, "Hmm, interesting.
6
25000
3000
00:44
I'm sniffing this other dog's rear end, the owner's calling."
7
28000
4000
00:48
It's a difficult choice, right?
8
32000
2000
00:50
Rear end, owner. Rear end wins.
9
34000
2000
00:52
I mean, you lose.
10
36000
2000
00:54
You cannot compete with the environment,
11
38000
3000
00:57
if you have an adolescent dog's brain.
12
41000
2000
00:59
So, when we train, we're always trying to take into account
13
43000
4000
01:03
the dog's point of view.
14
47000
2000
01:05
Now, I'm here largely because
15
49000
2000
01:07
there's kind of a rift in dog training at the moment
16
51000
3000
01:10
that -- on one side, we have people who think that you train a dog,
17
54000
4000
01:14
number one, by making up rules, human rules.
18
58000
4000
01:18
We don't take the dog's point of view into account.
19
62000
2000
01:20
So the human says, "You're going to act this way, damn it.
20
64000
3000
01:23
We're going to force you to act against your will, to bend to our will."
21
67000
4000
01:27
Then, number two, we keep these rules a secret from the dog.
22
71000
3000
01:30
And then number three, now we can punish the dog
23
74000
3000
01:33
for breaking rules he didn't even know existed.
24
77000
3000
01:36
So you get a little puppy, he comes. His only crime is he grew.
25
80000
4000
01:40
When he was a little puppy, he puts his paws on your leg --
26
84000
3000
01:43
you know, isn't that nice?
27
87000
2000
01:45
And you go, "Oh, there's a good boy."
28
89000
2000
01:47
You bend down, you pat him -- you reward him for jumping up.
29
91000
4000
01:51
His one mistake is he's a Tibetan mastiff, and a few months later,
30
95000
4000
01:55
he weighs, you know, 80 pounds.
31
99000
3000
01:58
Every time he jumps up, he gets all sorts of abuse.
32
102000
3000
02:01
I mean, it is really very, very scary the abuse that dogs get.
33
105000
5000
02:06
So, this whole dominance issue -- number one,
34
110000
4000
02:10
what we get in dog training is this Mickey-Mouse interpretation
35
114000
3000
02:13
of a very complicated social system.
36
117000
3000
02:16
And they take this stuff seriously.
37
120000
2000
02:18
Male dogs are very serious about a hierarchy,
38
122000
2000
02:20
because it prevents physical fights.
39
124000
3000
02:23
Of course, female dogs, bitches, on the other hand,
40
127000
3000
02:26
have several bitch amendments to male hierarchical rule.
41
130000
3000
02:29
The number one is, "I have it, you don't."
42
133000
2000
02:31
And what you will find is a very, very low-ranking bitch
43
135000
4000
02:35
will quite easily keep a bone away from a high-ranking male.
44
139000
4000
02:39
So, we get in dog training this notion of dominances,
45
143000
3000
02:42
or of the alpha dog. I'm sure that you've heard this.
46
146000
3000
02:45
Dogs get so abused.
47
149000
2000
02:47
Dogs, horses and humans --
48
151000
2000
02:49
these are the three species which are so abused in life.
49
153000
3000
02:52
And the reason is built into their behavior --
50
156000
2000
02:54
is to always come back and apologize.
51
158000
3000
02:57
Like, "Oh, I'm sorry you had to beat me. I'm really sorry, yes, it's my fault."
52
161000
3000
03:00
They are just so beatable,
53
164000
2000
03:02
and that's why they get beaten.
54
166000
2000
03:04
The poor puppy jumps up, you open the dog book, what does it say?
55
168000
5000
03:09
"Hold his front paws, squeeze his front paws,
56
173000
2000
03:11
stamp on his hind feet, squirt him in the face with lemon juice,
57
175000
4000
03:15
hit him on the head with a rolled-up newspaper,
58
179000
2000
03:17
knee him in the chest, flip him over backwards."
59
181000
2000
03:19
Because he grew?
60
183000
2000
03:21
And because he's performing a behavior you've trained him to do?
61
185000
3000
03:24
This is insanity.
62
188000
3000
03:27
I ask owners, "Well, how would you like the dog to greet you?"
63
191000
3000
03:30
And people say, "Well, I don't know, to sit, I guess."
64
194000
3000
03:33
I said, "Let's teach him to sit."
65
197000
2000
03:35
And then we give him a reason for sitting.
66
199000
3000
03:39
Because the first stage
67
203000
3000
03:42
is basically teaching a dog ESL.
68
206000
3000
03:45
I could speak to you and say, "Laytay-chai, paisey, paisey."
69
209000
4000
03:50
Go on, something should happen now.
70
214000
2000
03:52
Why aren't you responding? Oh, you don't speak Swahili.
71
216000
3000
03:55
Well, I've got news for you.
72
219000
2000
03:57
The dog doesn't speak English, or American, or Spanish, or French.
73
221000
5000
04:02
So the first stage in training is to teach the dog ESL,
74
226000
3000
04:05
English as a second language.
75
229000
2000
04:07
And that's how we use the food lure in the hand,
76
231000
2000
04:09
and we use food because we're dealing with owners.
77
233000
3000
04:12
My wife doesn't need food -- she's a great trainer,
78
236000
2000
04:14
much better than I am.
79
238000
1000
04:15
I don't need food, but the average owner says,
80
239000
3000
04:18
"Puppy, sit."
81
242000
2000
04:20
Or they go, "Sit, sit, sit."
82
244000
2000
04:22
They're making a hand signal in front of the dog's rectum for some reason,
83
246000
3000
04:25
like the dog has a third eye there -- it's insane.
84
249000
3000
04:28
You know, "Sit, sit."
85
252000
2000
04:30
No, we go, "Puppy, sit" -- boom, it's got it in six to 10 trials.
86
254000
4000
04:34
Then we phase out the food as a lure,
87
258000
2000
04:36
and now the dog knows that "sit" means sit,
88
260000
2000
04:38
and you can actually communicate to a dog
89
262000
2000
04:40
in a perfectly constructed English sentence.
90
264000
2000
04:42
"Phoenix, come here, take this, and go to Jamie, please."
91
266000
4000
04:46
And I've taught her "Phoenix," "come here," "take this," "go to"
92
270000
3000
04:49
and the name of my son, "Jamie."
93
273000
2000
04:51
And the dog can take a note,
94
275000
2000
04:53
and I've got my own little search-and-rescue dog.
95
277000
2000
04:55
He'll find Jamie wherever he is, you know,
96
279000
2000
04:57
wherever kids are, crushing rocks by a stream or something,
97
281000
2000
04:59
and take him a little message that says,
98
283000
2000
05:01
"Hey, dinner's ready. Come in for dinner."
99
285000
3000
05:04
So, at this point, the dog knows what we want it to do.
100
288000
3000
05:07
Will it do it?
101
291000
2000
05:09
Not necessarily, no.
102
293000
2000
05:11
As I said, if he's in the park and there's a rear end to sniff,
103
295000
3000
05:14
why come to the owner?
104
298000
2000
05:16
The dog lives with you, the dog can get you any time.
105
300000
3000
05:19
The dog can sniff your butt, if you like, when he wants to.
106
303000
3000
05:22
At the moment, he's in the park, and you are competing
107
306000
2000
05:24
with smells, and other dogs, and squirrels.
108
308000
3000
05:27
So the second stage in training is to teach the dog to want to do
109
311000
4000
05:31
what we want him to do, and this is very easy.
110
315000
3000
05:34
We use the Premack principle.
111
318000
2000
05:36
Basically, we follow a low-frequency behavior --
112
320000
2000
05:38
one the dog doesn't want to do --
113
322000
2000
05:40
by a high-frequency behavior, commonly known as a behavior problem,
114
324000
4000
05:44
or a dog hobby -- something the dog does like to do.
115
328000
4000
05:48
That will then become a reward for the lower-frequency behavior.
116
332000
3000
05:51
So we go, "sit," on the couch; "sit," tummy-rub; "sit,"
117
335000
4000
05:55
look, I throw a tennis ball; "sit," say hello to that other dog.
118
339000
4000
05:59
Yes, we put "sniff butt" on queue.
119
343000
2000
06:01
"Sit," sniff butt.
120
345000
2000
06:03
So now all of these distractions that worked against training
121
347000
4000
06:07
now become rewards that work for training.
122
351000
3000
06:10
And what we're doing, in essence, is we're teaching the dog, kind of like --
123
354000
5000
06:15
we're letting the dog think that the dog is training us.
124
359000
3000
06:18
And I can imagine this dog, you know,
125
362000
2000
06:20
speaking through the fence to, say, an Akita,
126
364000
2000
06:22
saying, "Wow, my owners, they are so incredibly easy to train.
127
366000
4000
06:26
They're like Golden Retrievers.
128
370000
2000
06:28
All I have to do is sit, and they do everything.
129
372000
2000
06:30
They open doors, they drive my car, they massage me,
130
374000
4000
06:34
they will throw tennis balls,
131
378000
2000
06:36
they will cook for me and serve the food.
132
380000
2000
06:38
It's like, if I just sit, that's my command.
133
382000
3000
06:41
Then I have my own personal doorman,
134
385000
2000
06:43
chauffeur, masseuse, chef and waiter."
135
387000
4000
06:47
And now the dog's really happy.
136
391000
2000
06:49
And this, to me, is always what training is.
137
393000
2000
06:51
So we really motivate the dog to want to do it,
138
395000
3000
06:54
such that the need for punishment seldom comes up.
139
398000
5000
06:59
Now we move to phase three, when now --
140
403000
3000
07:02
there's times, you know, when daddy knows best.
141
406000
2000
07:04
And I have a little sign on my fridge, and it says,
142
408000
3000
07:07
"Because I'm the daddy, that's why."
143
411000
2000
07:09
Sorry, no more explanation. "I'm the daddy, you're not. Sit."
144
413000
4000
07:13
And there's times, for example,
145
417000
2000
07:15
if my son's friends leave the door open,
146
419000
3000
07:18
the dogs have to know you don't step across this line.
147
422000
4000
07:22
This is a life-or-death thing.
148
426000
2000
07:24
You leave this, the sanctity of your house,
149
428000
3000
07:27
and you could be hit on the street.
150
431000
2000
07:29
So some things we have to let the dog know,
151
433000
2000
07:31
"You mustn't do this."
152
435000
2000
07:33
And so we have to enforce, but without force.
153
437000
5000
07:38
People here get very confused about what a punishment is.
154
442000
4000
07:42
They think a punishment is something nasty.
155
446000
2000
07:44
I bet a lot of you do, right?
156
448000
2000
07:46
You think it's something painful, or scary, or nasty.
157
450000
3000
07:49
It doesn't have to be.
158
453000
2000
07:51
There's several definitions of what a punishment is,
159
455000
3000
07:54
but one definition, the most popular, is:
160
458000
2000
07:56
a punishment is a stimulus that reduces the immediately preceding behavior,
161
460000
5000
08:01
such that it's less likely to occur in the future.
162
465000
4000
08:05
It does not have to be nasty, scary or painful.
163
469000
5000
08:10
And I would say, if it doesn't have to be, then maybe it shouldn't be.
164
474000
5000
08:15
I was working with a very dangerous dog about a year ago.
165
479000
3000
08:18
And this was a dog that put both his owners in hospital,
166
482000
3000
08:21
plus the brother-in-law, plus the child.
167
485000
2000
08:23
And I only agreed to work with it if they promised it would stay in their house,
168
487000
3000
08:26
and they never took it outside.
169
490000
2000
08:28
The dog is actually euthanized now,
170
492000
2000
08:30
but this was a dog I worked with for a while.
171
494000
2000
08:32
A lot of the aggression happened around the kitchen,
172
496000
3000
08:35
so while I was there -- this was on the fourth visit --
173
499000
3000
08:38
we did a four and a half hour down-stay, with the dog on his mat.
174
502000
3000
08:41
And he was kept there by the owner's calm insistence.
175
505000
5000
08:46
When the dog would try to leave the mat,
176
510000
2000
08:48
she would say, "Rover, on the mat, on the mat, on the mat."
177
512000
4000
08:52
The dog broke his down-stay 22 times in four and a half hours, while she cooked dinner,
178
516000
5000
08:57
because we had a lot of aggression related towards food.
179
521000
4000
09:01
The breaks got fewer and fewer.
180
525000
2000
09:03
You see, the punishment was working.
181
527000
3000
09:06
The behavior problem was going away.
182
530000
2000
09:08
She never raised her voice.
183
532000
2000
09:10
If she did, she would have got bitten.
184
534000
3000
09:13
It's not a good dog you shout at.
185
537000
2000
09:15
And a lot of my friends train really neat animals,
186
539000
3000
09:18
grizzly bears -- if you've ever seen a grizzly bear
187
542000
2000
09:20
on the telly or in film, then it's a friend of mine who's trained it --
188
544000
3000
09:23
killer whales. I love it because it wires you up.
189
547000
3000
09:26
How are you going to reprimand a grizzly bear?
190
550000
2000
09:28
"Bad bear, bad bear!" Voom!
191
552000
2000
09:30
Your head now is 100 yards away, sailing through the air, OK?
192
554000
5000
09:35
This is crazy.
193
559000
2000
09:37
So, where do we go from here?
194
561000
2000
09:39
We want a better way.
195
563000
2000
09:41
Dogs deserve better.
196
565000
2000
09:43
But for me, the reason for this actually has to do with dogs.
197
567000
4000
09:47
It has to do with watching people train puppies,
198
571000
3000
09:50
and realizing they have horrendous interaction skills,
199
574000
5000
09:55
horrendous relationship skills.
200
579000
2000
09:57
Not just with their puppy, but with the rest of the family at class.
201
581000
4000
10:01
I mean, my all-time classic is another "come here" one.
202
585000
3000
10:04
You see someone in the park -- and I'll cover my mic when I say this,
203
588000
3000
10:07
because I don't want to wake you up -- and there's the owner in the park,
204
591000
3000
10:10
and their dog's over here, and they say, "Rover, come here.
205
594000
2000
10:12
Rover, come here. Rover, come here, you son of a bitch."
206
596000
3000
10:16
The dog says, "I don't think so."
207
600000
2000
10:18
(Laughter)
208
602000
1000
10:19
I mean, who in their right mind
209
603000
3000
10:22
would think that a dog would want to approach them
210
606000
3000
10:25
when they're screaming like that?
211
609000
2000
10:27
Instead, the dog says, "I know that tone. I know that tone.
212
611000
3000
10:30
Previously, when I've approached, I've gotten punished there."
213
614000
3000
10:33
I was walking onto a plane --
214
617000
2000
10:35
this, for me, was a pivotal moment in my career,
215
619000
3000
10:38
and it really cemented what I wanted to do
216
622000
2000
10:40
with this whole puppy-training thing,
217
624000
2000
10:42
the notion of how to teach puppies in a dog-friendly way
218
626000
4000
10:46
to want to do what we want to do, so we don't have to force them.
219
630000
3000
10:49
You know, I puppy-train my child.
220
633000
3000
10:52
And the seminal moment was, I was getting on a plane in Dallas,
221
636000
3000
10:55
and in row two was a father, I presume, and a young boy about five,
222
639000
4000
10:59
kicking the back of the chair.
223
643000
2000
11:01
"Johnny, don't do that."
224
645000
2000
11:03
Kick, kick, kick.
225
647000
1000
11:04
"Johnny, don't do that." Kick, kick, kick.
226
648000
2000
11:06
I'm standing right here with my bag.
227
650000
2000
11:08
The father leans over, grabs him like this and gives him ugly face.
228
652000
4000
11:12
And ugly face is this --
229
656000
2000
11:14
when you go face-to-face with a puppy or a child,
230
658000
3000
11:17
you say, "What are you doing! Now stop it, stop it, stop it!"
231
661000
3000
11:20
And I went, "Oh my God, do I do something?"
232
664000
3000
11:23
That child has lost everything --
233
667000
3000
11:26
that one of the two people he can trust in this world
234
670000
3000
11:29
has absolutely pulled the rug from under his feet.
235
673000
3000
11:32
And I thought, "Do I tell this jerk to quit it?"
236
676000
2000
11:34
I thought, "Ian, stay out of it, stay out of it, you know, walk on."
237
678000
3000
11:37
I walked to the back of the plane,
238
681000
2000
11:39
I sat down, and a thought came to me.
239
683000
3000
11:42
If that had been a dog, I would have laid him out.
240
686000
2000
11:44
(Laughter)
241
688000
1000
11:45
If he had kicked a dog, I would have punched him out.
242
689000
4000
11:49
He kicked a child, grabs the child like this and I let it go.
243
693000
5000
11:54
And this is what it's all about.
244
698000
3000
11:57
These relationship skills are so easy.
245
701000
2000
11:59
I mean, we as humans, our shallowness when we choose a life-mate
246
703000
5000
12:04
based on the three Cs -- coat color, conformation, cuteness.
247
708000
4000
12:08
You know, kind of like a little robot.
248
712000
2000
12:10
This is how we go into a relationship, and it's hunky-dory for a year.
249
714000
3000
12:13
And then, a little behavior problem comes up.
250
717000
2000
12:15
No different from the dog barking.
251
719000
2000
12:17
The husband won't clear up his clothes,
252
721000
2000
12:19
or the wife's always late for meetings, whatever it is, OK?
253
723000
4000
12:23
And it then starts, and we get into this thing,
254
727000
4000
12:27
and our personal feedback -- there's two things about it.
255
731000
2000
12:29
When you watch people interacting with animals or other people,
256
733000
3000
12:32
there is very little feedback, it's too infrequent.
257
736000
4000
12:36
And when it happens, it's bad, it's nasty.
258
740000
3000
12:39
You see it's especially in families, especially with spouses,
259
743000
5000
12:44
especially with children, especially with parents.
260
748000
3000
12:47
You see it especially in the workplace,
261
751000
2000
12:49
especially from boss to employee.
262
753000
2000
12:51
It's as if there's some schadenfreude there,
263
755000
3000
12:54
that we actually take delight in people getting things wrong,
264
758000
3000
12:57
so that we can then moan and groan and bitch at them.
265
761000
5000
13:02
And this, I would say, is the biggest human foible that we have.
266
766000
4000
13:06
It really is.
267
770000
2000
13:08
We take the good for granted, and we moan and groan at the bad.
268
772000
3000
13:11
And I think this whole notion of these skills should be taught.
269
775000
3000
13:14
You know, calculus is wonderful.
270
778000
2000
13:16
When I was a kid, I was a calculus whiz.
271
780000
2000
13:18
I don't understand a thing about it now, but I could do it as a kid.
272
782000
3000
13:22
Geometry, fantastic. You know, quantum mechanics --
273
786000
3000
13:25
these are cool things.
274
789000
2000
13:27
But they don't save marriages and they don't raise children.
275
791000
4000
13:31
And my look to the future is,
276
795000
2000
13:33
and what I want to do with this doggy stuff, is to teach people
277
797000
3000
13:36
that you know, your husband's just as easy to train.
278
800000
3000
13:39
Probably easier -- if you got a Rottie -- much easier to train.
279
803000
5000
13:44
Your kids are easy to train.
280
808000
2000
13:46
All you've got to do is to watch them,
281
810000
2000
13:48
to time-sample the behavior, and say, every five minutes,
282
812000
2000
13:50
you ask the question, "Is it good, or is it bad?"
283
814000
3000
13:53
If it's good, say, "That was really neat, thank you."
284
817000
3000
13:56
That is such a powerful training technique.
285
820000
2000
13:58
This should be taught in schools.
286
822000
2000
14:00
Relationships -- how do you negotiate?
287
824000
2000
14:02
How you do negotiate with your friend who wants your toy?
288
826000
3000
14:05
You know, how to prepare you for your first relationship?
289
829000
3000
14:08
How on earth about raising children?
290
832000
2000
14:10
We think how we do it -- one night in bed, we're pregnant,
291
834000
2000
14:12
and then we're raising the most important thing in life, a child.
292
836000
3000
14:15
No, this is what should be taught -- the good living, the good habits,
293
839000
5000
14:20
which are just as hard to break as bad habits.
294
844000
4000
14:24
So, that would be my wish to the future.
295
848000
2000
14:26
Ah, damn, I wanted to end exactly on time,
296
850000
2000
14:28
but I got eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two --
297
852000
6000
14:34
so thank you very much. That's my talk, thank you.
298
858000
2000
14:36
(Applause)
299
860000
1000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ian Dunbar - Animal behavioristVeterinarian, dog trainer and animal behaviorist Ian Dunbar understands our pets' point of view. By training dog owners in proper conduct (as much as he trains the dogs themselves), he hopes to encourage better relationships with dogs -- not to mention their friends and children, too.
Why you should listen
We may call dogs man's best friend, but according to Dr. Ian Dunbar, humans often fail to reciprocate. Dunbar's decades of research on hierarchical social behavior and aggression in domestic animals truly give him a dog's-eye view of human beings' incomprehensible and spontaneous -- if involuntary -- cruelties.
Dunbar says we might break our unseemly, unflattering habits and usher in an "era of dog-friendly dog training" by coming to understand why dogs do what they do -- Is Fido misbehaving, or just being a dog? -- and the repercussions of our actions toward them. (We might foster better relationships with our fellow humans, too.) His Sirius Dog Training company focuses on training puppies to be playful, yet well-behaved. His second organization, Animalin, promotes games for dogs and puppies at an international level.
Dunbar has written numerous books, including How to Teach a New Dog Old Tricks and The Good Little Dog Book. He has also hosted several award-winning videotapes on puppy and dog training.
Ian Dunbar | Speaker | TED.com