Superstitious Behavior In Dog Training: Beware The Killer Bees! #149
Shaped by Dog with Susan Garrett
DogsThat
4.8 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Visit us at shapedbydog.com
Do you have superstitious behavior like wearing a lucky shirt or lucky socks? Dogs can have superstitious behaviors too, and often, we contribute! We don’t want inadvertent or cheap behaviors to become part of what our dogs learn, so I’m covering what to look for and what you can do to avoid reinforcing superstition unintentionally. We’re also looking at why you need to beware of the killer bees in dog training!
In the episode you'll hear:
• How B. F. Skinner described superstitious behavior back in the 1940’s when working with pigeons.
• That my mentor Bob Bailey used the term cheap behavior and what that looks like for dogs.
• How my husband, John, had a superstitious behaviour at traffic lights.
• The ways dogs can develop superstitious behaviors in daily life and dog sports.
• How cheap behaviors like vocalizing, pawing, spinning, foot paddling, nipping, and the killer bees like biting, bopping, bouncing, boxing and more can be built into our training or routines.
• About preventing cheap behavior or superstition in your dog training and why to look at reinforcement.
• That reinforcement can be more complex than what you think you are rewarding.
• How some behaviors can be because the dog is overwhelmed or over faced in training and why to look at your
dog’s success percentage.
• Why to work out your dog’s rate of reinforcement and how that can vary depending on what you are training.
• About the importance of a training plan that will set you and your dog up for success.
• How to help your dog with something like barking in the crate if that is superstitious.
Resources:
1. Podcast Episode 141: Average Or Better Dog Training Question: What Did You Just Reward? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/141/
2. Podcast Episode 2: Reinforcement - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/2/
3. Podcast Episode 125: Why Isn’t My Dog Learning What I’m Training? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/125/
4. Podcast Episode 139: Remove Confusion And Build Your Dog’s Confidence With One Simple Dog Training Habit - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/139/
5. Podcast Episode 21: The 5 Critical Dog Training Layers for Confidence with Anything - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/21/
6. Podcast Episode 98: Puppy Home Alone: Are You Creating Chaos or Calm? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/98/
7. Watch this episode on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh28zCwQi8o
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | To record my podcast today, I decided to wear my Toronto Raptors We the North sweatshirt. |
| 0:25.8 | I wore this sweatshirt for the very first time when I flew out to San Francisco to watch my Toronto Raptors win the NBA championship back in |
| 0:35.0 | 2019. And guess what? I wear this sweatshirt every time the playoffs roll |
| 0:41.4 | around. That's called superstitious behavior. And believe it or not, our dogs too can have |
| 0:47.5 | superstitious behavior. Sometimes, well, most of the times we contribute to it. Today I'm going |
| 0:53.1 | to talk about why we want to avoid it |
| 0:56.3 | and how you can avoid it. Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog. B.F. Skinner |
| 1:02.7 | described superstitious behaviors back in the 1940s when he was working with pigeons and he noticed |
| 1:08.9 | that they would sometimes like bop their head before they did the targeted behavior that he was working with pigeons. And he noticed that they would sometimes like bop their head |
| 1:11.3 | before they did the targeted behavior that he was looking for. And that that behavior would |
| 1:17.9 | grow in frequency and sometimes making it almost impossible to get rid of. And so what a |
| 1:25.1 | superstitious behavior is, is an inadvertent behavior that gets reinforced |
| 1:30.5 | unintentionally. |
| 1:32.8 | And so, in dog training, my mentor, Bob Bailey, used to refer to something as a cheap |
| 1:39.4 | behavior. |
| 1:40.1 | I'm going to talk about cheap behaviors and generally superstitious behaviors. |
| 1:43.6 | And truthfully, I think they're all could be behaviors and generally superstitious behaviors. And truthfully, |
| 1:44.8 | I think they're all could be blanketed as superstitious behaviors. Let me tell you what I mean. |
| 1:49.7 | A superstitious behavior would be a dog barking in its crate. Now, with the asterix, some dogs |
| 1:55.6 | truly have separation anxiety. But over the 30 years that I've been helping people with their dogs, |
| 2:02.6 | I find a lot more is superstitious behavior. It goes like this. Dog barks in crate. |
| 2:08.1 | Here's footfalls on the, on the hall, and then it stops barking because it knows its person's |
... |
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