@tanza, interesting information, thanks.

You can use treats sparingly for training. When you are teaching a new behaviour treats may be appropriate (depending on the dog) but once the behaviour is on cue it is not necessary or desirable to reward every effort. Anything frequently available loses its value. Reward with praise, again, "good dog" or similar is sufficient for routine obedience, keep the effusive praise for an exceptional effort. An unpredictable schedule of rewarding is generally more effective than the "reward every time" method used by many.....think "casino". You want your dog to try again and again, hoping that this is the time they will receive the treat! You might consider using part of his daily food ration as rewards, giving something "special" only occasionally and for a particularly good response.

Nice going! Congratulations!

Height and weight would fit. Not as square as a Basenji, but the picture of him trotting is suggestive to me. Certainly possible. Always hard to tell with mixed breed dogs. DNA tests sometimes spit out surprising results!

How tall is he and what does he weigh? Would like to see a side view standing....

The only sure way to know is a DNA test. Nice looking dog!

@elbrant said in Operant Conditioning (explained):

@eeeefarm said in Operant Conditioning (explained):

some professional trainers suggest to their classes that they starve dogs that aren't all that food motivated

This is just disturbing... in today's society, this type of behavior would be considered animal cruelty. Certainly we can find a way to encourage compliance without depriving an animal basic care.

I know, it shocked me too when I heard it. The first instance was a friend of mine whose Border Collie was disinterested in food rewards, and she was advised by the instructor not to feed the dog anything on class days so there would be an incentive to accept treats. The second instance was my niece, and in this case a German Shepherd dog that again didn't want to take treats, and she was given the same advice by a different trainer, in fact in a different city, so it appears that it isn't unusual. Both these dogs work well for praise and in both cases the owners declined to starve the dogs....

@Roux Thanks. I was hoping it would be useful to clarify terms that are often used incorrectly.

One of the things about terminology is the way people perceive labels. You hear "punishment" and immediately many picture the poor dog being whipped to within an inch of its life, but punishment in operant conditioning terms is anything that makes it less likely that the unwanted behaviour will recur. It doesn't denote a violent thrashing of the animal! Also, many use punishment, either positive or negative, without recognizing it as such. Again, it helps to clarify what it actually is.

Reinforcement is also subject to misinterpretation but people are not put off by the term.

Again, I would like to emphasize that the dog is the ultimate arbitrator of whether your action is reinforcement or punishment. Observation will tell you if you are on the right track.

Nice capture!

@elbrant said in What's in a name?:

Since this isn't directly related to a question that someone has asked.... I'm left to assume that you just want everyone to know that you are an expert in this concept... ?

Not really. As stated, I wanted to clarify the terminology. It has come up on a number of past occasions and I thought it might be useful to post on it. As far as posing a question, well, lots of people post things that aren't really questions, e.g. brags about what their dog has achieved in the show ring or posts about how they are learning various techniques related to showing or breeding. Also information pertaining to food or dogs for sale or dogs in shelters needing homes, etc. I didn't know the forum was restricted to only questions, but if so I will be happy to cease posting things I think might be informative and interesting.

@elbrant said in What's in a name?:

How long are forcing your dog(s) to go without food? Is it a matter of minutes? Or hours? Are you removing their food bowl or not filling it with their dinner?

Um, no. Just not giving them the treat they might expect to receive if they had performed the expected behaviour. Interestingly, some professional trainers suggest to their classes that they starve dogs that aren't all that food motivated so that they will be more interested in food rewards at class. Happened to a friend of mine because her Border Collie was disinterested in food treats as motivation at dog class. Don't expect all trainers to be well informed about breed differences. Border Collies are more motivated with praise rather than food. Basenjis, OTOH as a breed are more likely to respond to food.

In other disciplines, however, starving animals to get their compliance is common. Any honest dolphin trainer will admit that it's hard to get a sated dolphin to perform, so they withhold food to obtain the performance. We don't tend to do that with pet dogs, even if some professional trainers suggest it.

It was a clarification. These terms get bandied about quite often, and it helps if we are all talking about the same thing!

And yes, positive reinforcement can be anything the dog finds salient. Praise, toys, walks, cuddles, whatever. In fact, a great strategy for a dog that loves walks is to do your training session before your walk, so the walk acts as the reward, and you also have the option of "jackpotting" him by immediately taking him for his walk when he does something especially good.

Just to add, food is the most common reward because it is easy and works with most (not all!) dogs. Once paired with the clicker, the click itself becomes reinforcing because it signifies reward to come later, but may actually stand on its own. Using a marker word also tells the dog the specific thing that you will be rewarding and can become salient itself.

Terminology.

Often someone posts something referencing operant conditioning, mostly “positive reinforcement”. But there is more to operant than that. It helps if everyone is on the same page when using technical language, but often it becomes obvious that the terminology is not well understood, so herein is a brief refresher course.

Back in the day a guy named Pavlov conducted an experiment involving food, dogs, and bells. Pairing a neutral stimulus (bell) with an unconditioned stimulus that causes salivation (food) results in salivating at the sound of a bell. This is Classical Conditioning. It’s also what you do when you “load the clicker” in clicker training. You pair the sound of the clicker with the food reward.

A guy named Skinner coined the term “Operant Conditioning” for the process of conditioning responses by means of reward or punishment. In Operant Conditioning the reinforcement or punishment follows the behaviour to either strengthen it (reinforcement) or discourage it (punishment).

Positive reinforcement typically is the “click/treat” method most people are familiar with, but the other “positive” is positive punishment, i.e. an unpleasant consequence that follows the behaviour to discourage its recurrence. This could be as mild as a disapproving word, or perhaps a dose of water from a spray bottle, but to be effective it needs to be something the animal would prefer to avoid, otherwise known as an aversive.

Negative reinforcement is the application of pressure of some sort, which is removed when the animal performs the required behaviour. This is how horses typically are trained….e.g. pressure from the rider’s legs is removed when the horse moves forward, pressure from the bit is removed or lessened when the horse turns or stops. Negative punishment is removing something the animal wants, as in walking away from a nippy puppy, thus denying your attention that he craves. This could also be crating as a “time out”, denying him his freedom. Withholding expected food or praise is another example.

But here is where it gets tricky. Sometimes we misinterpret what the dog finds salient. If the response to bad behaviour lands our dog in his crate, it is the dog who decides if this is in fact negative punishment. If he has misbehaved because he is fed up with our training session, being confined to his crate might actually be preferable to the training, thereby becoming a positive reinforcement of the misbehaviour, since we are no longer bugging him to perform.

The most important element of training is observation. You can do everything “correctly”, but if it isn’t working you need to figure out why and modify what you are doing. Often people are not reinforcing what they think they are reinforcing. Ultimately it is the animal who decides what is reinforcing and what is punishing, and their response tells you what you need to know.

You don’t have to be a clicker trainer to employ operant conditioning. Many people who didn’t know the jargon have been using the principles since well before Karen Pryor popularized clickers and “all positive” training. And you don’t need a clicker, either. A marker word will suffice when using positive reinforcement. A clicker is more precise, but in practice isn’t always easy to employ. But if we want to use operant terms when discussing training it’s useful to know the precise meaning of them. To reiterate, positive means adding something, negative means taking something away. Reinforcement means increasing the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated, punishment means decreasing the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated. Clear as mud?

It would be useful to know more about this dog. Has resource guarding been an issue in the past? Has he bitten either you or your wife before? (a real bite, not playful nipping). Or anyone else? A dog that isn't used to children may be fearful of their loudness or quick movements. Perhaps you could do some socialization work with him, e.g. hanging around places where young kids congregate to accustom him to their noise and activity. Obviously not allowing any interaction as you are unsure of his behaviour. Dogs react differently to newborns. In my experience bitches are more likely than dogs to be tolerant, but it is very much the individual dog's reaction that counts. People have been blindsided when their supposedly tolerant and gentle dog turns out to be hostile to a young child. Bottom line, no dog should be left unsupervised around young kids, so in any event you would have to monitor his behaviour carefully once your baby arrives.

On a personal note, of the five Basenjis I have owned, two bitches were entirely reliable with kids, the other was tolerant as long as they respected her space. One of the males adored children and was curious about them, the other curious but uncertain and would react to fast movements. I did not trust him and controlled any interaction closely. IMO, he would have bitten had he felt threatened. And kids, especially babies, tend to grab and pinch, ears, tails, whatever. Caution is always the safest route.

....know when to run! As mentioned by a member previously on this forum, running stimulates the dog to chase and follow. It is useful in police work where you want the dog to chase and hopefully bring down a subject. Malinois and GSD's are typically the breeds of choice for this activity. I don't see a lot of sight hounds in police work, although they are very quick and definitely like to chase moving objects. The thing of it is, they aren't normally aggressive with humans. Wouldn't know what to do with the subject once they caught him.

But there is another reason for running that some might find useful. It can work very nicely to sharpen up a recall. With a dog that doesn't like to be left alone, running away after you summon the dog can help in changing a lackadaisical recall into a speedy one. I have used this technique with Basenjis and other non aggressive breeds, including a Greyhound. But you do have to know your breed and your dog, and it could produce an unwanted result with some dogs, which is why caution is advised until you see what kind of response you get.

It's also a neat way to put a "Border Collie" drop on recall on an otherwise not so responsive dog. Run away calling your dog, and when he is close spin around and drop him. (obviously he must already know the command). I've managed to get an otherwise lazy dog to really hit the ground by doing this. But we are far away from what you are likely to be doing with the average Basenji unless you are into obedience.

The more you know your dog the better you can put training tips to good use. I've never attended a clinic where I didn't learn something, even if it was what not to do! And I like to listen to experienced people. Often you will find a little gem of an idea that happens to be just the thing to get that little extra in your relationship with your dog. The trick is to separate good advice from advice that might not be appropriate for your dog or your breed.

Some of my trainees, back in the day....

One advantage breeders have is the opportunity to observe how a bitch behaves with her pups. I've been lucky enough to have a window into this behaviour because one of my friends is a breeder of Great Pyrenees.

We can learn a lot from observation. Case in point, when puppies get close to weaning age, the bitch gets tired of feeding them and will cut feeding sessions short by getting up and walking away. She exhibits the same behaviour when playing with her offspring when she tires of it or if they become too aggressive. As a result, pups understand from infancy that walking away signals end of food and/or play. We can use this knowledge with our young dogs when their play is aggressive. Walking away is a signal that playtime is over, and once it becomes associated with specific behaviour, e.g. biting and playing rough, they learn that fun time will cease when they display this behaviour.

You may have observed dogs playing at a dog park. If a pair is playing and one has had enough, again, the usual disengagement is to walk away. If the other persists, sometimes it leads to a nasty encounter, but usually a brief growling and stiff legged departure ends it.

So what do we do if the pup doesn't take the hint and continues to persist by following and nipping? What does the bitch do? If ignoring him doesn't work, she often snarls in his face, and/or pins him down with a foreleg. My own approach (which has always worked for me, your mileage may differ) is to restrain the pup, who will initially struggle or try to bite, but I don't release until he is quiet. Then "good" and let him go. Rinse, repeat.

I learned a lot from my breeder friend. When dealing with a large breed you cannot afford to let bad manners go in your pup, who when mature is likely to outweigh you!

For anyone wondering where walking away lands in "operant" terms, I would label it negative punishment, i.e. removing something the dog wants (your attention) to cause the undesired behaviour (biting) to cease.

Good to hear you are fine.

Sounds like you are on the right track! Glad things are improving.

Sounds like he has become dog aggressive as he matures. It's not unusual. What you are describing is dangerous for both him and the other dogs and you may need to consider just avoiding the situation altogether before there is a serious incident. When walking on leash, if he sees another dog and starts to react it may be best to change direction or watch the other dog pass by from a distance. If he is pulling on the leash, don't allow him to continue walking until the leash is slack. Don't allow bad behaviour to be reinforced by him getting what he wants.