Training Without Conflict 팟캐스트 에피소드 3: Clive D.L. Wynne

And for the first 20 or something years, I studied a whole variety of animals, especially pigeons, which psychologists have a long history of studying. But then the decade I spent in Australia, I studied marsupial behavior, which hardly anybody had looked at, which was fascinating. But there came this point where I realized that I was not just fascinated by the minds of animals. I was fascinated by how people and animals interact. And as soon as you become interested in that, you have to be interested in dogs because there is no animal that human beings have had a longer relationship with than dogs. And when you ask people about how they live with dogs, of course, different people live in different ways with dogs. But when you talk to people about their pets, they love their pets with such a passion. So that's sort of the story of my professional life in a nutshell. Yeah. Very, very, very interesting. And yes, the dogs are. It just seems like it's becoming more and more popular as far as science paying attention and trying to really understand, as you said, the relationship between human and dogs. And also just dogs in their own special way, who they really are. Because somehow they have stepped in their little own area of how they interact with us. And that's really very, very interesting for me. What I want to talk a little bit. I'm very curious to hear what is the latest things that you guys are working on at the center. Yeah. So we do. There are two. You already said this. I'm fascinated by, you could say, what makes dogs special. Because dogs really are objectively. Dogs are objectively special. There are probably as many as one billion with a B dogs on the surface of this planet. And that means that dogs are by a very wide margin, the most numerous larger mammal on the surface of this planet. And they're all over the planet. So one key fundamental question is, how did dogs get to be so successful? And so I continue to think about that. I mean, that's what my book, Dog is Love, is primarily about. It's about my understanding of how dogs got this special situation. And I continue to think about that. I continue to learn about that. And we continue to do studies on that. So it did just make it into the end of the book. Although it had not, in fact, been published as a scientific publication at that point. And that is this study where we have people climb into a box and cry out in distress to see whether their dog will try and help them. So that's recent on that side.

But then in terms of the group, my center, most of our work, in terms of what most people are doing most of the time, is trying to help dogs who have got into difficulties. Because that's where I think our science can do the most good. That's where we can do the most good in the world. And that primarily for us people living in a wealthy first world nation, the most difficult situation that dogs find themselves in is the animal shelter. Where there are still something like 4 million dogs going into animal shelters every year. The amount of euthanasia has gone down, thank goodness. Now there are probably half a million, three quarters of a million euthanasias a year. It's getting better. But what that then means in turn is that more dogs are spending more time in kennels that were originally only designed for animals to be in for a couple of weeks before they either went home or they got a lethal injection. And now they're in there for months on end. And so we do a lot of work trying to understand what makes that a stressful existence for a dog, how to help the dogs find new homes, cope with new homes. So that's it's sort of probably 80-20 in terms of if you look at the people in my group and the hours that people spend doing different things, it's probably 80% trying to help dogs in difficulties and just 20% work that's related to understanding the fundamental questions. Although I think understanding fundamental issues then helps you solve practical problems better too. Very interesting. Yeah, I have my, I've spent about five years in the 90s at San Francisco SPCA working, you know, with this type of dogs. And they have a special, special place in my heart. At the time, at that time, the San Francisco SPCA was the very first no-kill shelter in the world. So that's kind of where that whole movement started. We used to go there every spring. We used to use their space to do a seminar. And so I used to visit every spring. We actually got too big for their venue. Their space wasn't big enough. But anyway, we love them. And I agree with you 100%. They're one of the best in the country. I must say, though, when I'm thinking about how to help shelters help their dogs, I also always keep in mind the poorer shelters. And when I started working with dogs, I was at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. And we used to do quite a bit of work at the Alachua County Animal Care and Control. Now, the people who work there, their hearts are totally in the right place. But they don't have the resources of a place like the San Francisco SPCA. And I think we have to be careful.

It's in some sense too easy to come up with solutions, especially if you know how to train dogs and you know how to help dogs. It's too easy to come up with solutions that are great for the San Francisco SPCA and that handful of well-funded private centers around the country, but that are not really going to help the millions of dogs that live in the poorly resourced, county-run animal care and control shelters. We've got to develop techniques. You know, I'm a professor, you're an expert dog trainer. We have to be careful to think about solutions that the kinds of people who volunteer and who work at county animal shelters, that's within their level of knowledge and expertise to be able to implement effectively. Yes. Yeah, very true. Very true. And you just said something very important, and I'm sure we have to get there to where really high-level dog trainers and scientists find a way to come together and talk about behavior and training a little bit more honestly, if I can say it that way. I think right now it's coming to become a little bit more polarized, the way dog trainers specifically are divided, and that's something to talk about. But back to the shelter work, I also believe that the smaller shelters are more honest and try to do more for the dogs than the now very big shelters, because I think the big ones are almost, they're under a lot of pressure. And I know from my own experience that sometimes in the big animal shelters and the SPCIs, there is a little bit of games that are played about a dog being adopted, but then it kind of comes back, but it's not, just to make the records right. There is also what I find quite, I wouldn't say disturbing, but definitely saddens me, the criteria how dogs get accepted in a shelter. Because I believe now it's much harder for dogs to get accepted simply because of the no-kill rules. And a lot of, especially the smaller organizations, they're afraid that they will get stuck with a dog, as you said, not for months, but I know dogs that are living their entire life there with the idea that they will get adopted eventually. And everybody knows that this is not possible. And there is a problem with that. And hopefully, again, we find a ways. When we talk about helping dogs in shelters, we cannot not talk about training and methods of training and where do we draw the line of what is acceptable morally, ethically, and what also works and what does not work. Like, I'm sure you're familiar with the, like, early 2000s, there was quite a few studies that came out from Europe, one famous one, I think it was 2003,

there was one of the very first that made a big impression training the dogs with electric color versus positive reinforcement. It was Matthias Schilder and Joan van der Borg. There was, like, some of those studies, I don't know, I wish, like, I've been trying to find a lot of information and trying to talk to a lot of the people that conduct those studies just because I personally see a lot of holes in some of the studies and almost, like, the study almost starts with a conclusion and trying to prove the point that they are correct. I think, Arvind, you make a very good point. So it's very difficult to compare methods of training. It's very difficult for a number of reasons. You mentioned the study of Van der Borg and... Schilder, yeah. And I agree with you entirely. That study included a condition where they just shocked the dogs for no particular reason. Well, let's hope that's not part of anybody's training program, right? I mean, it seems pretty obvious that random shocks are going to produce stress and nothing else. There cannot possibly be a good outcome. Now, clearly, some very poor trainers, amateurish, unskilled trainers may end up just basically shocking or random. But I think you're not going to find anybody who's going to defend that as a practice, right? That cannot... That has to be just a mistake. 100%. The better study... There's a better study by Daniel Mills and his group at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom, in England. And they took dogs who had... The British used the term worried sheep. Now, I don't think Americans use the term worry in that sense. It means that these were dogs that had harassed livestock. Dogs that had harassed livestock. Now, I think in the United States, if your dog harasses livestock and you get caught, I think the rancher can just shoot your dog, I think. I don't know exactly. But in Britain, people don't have guns. And so your dog can be arrested, right? The rancher can call the police and your dog can be arrested. And your dog will be sentenced to school. Your dog will be sentenced to be trained. And the training usually takes the form of putting a collar on the dog, having some sheep. And every time the dog goes towards the sheep, the dog gets a shock, right? That's the normal practice. But there are also in Britain, some trainers who use positive reinforcement to stop the dogs from going for the sheep. And Daniel Mills and his group in their study, they took these dogs who had been sentenced to school and they split them into three groups. One group was sent to a positive reinforcement trainer. One group was sent to punishment trainers,

shock collar trainers. And the third group, interestingly, went to the shock collar trainers, but they took the batteries out of the collars. So they then looked at how stressed the dogs were by the training. And you know which group was the least stressed? The group that was sent to the shock collar trainers, but they took the batteries out of the collars. Now that's very interesting to me because what that tells you is that the identity of the human being doing the training makes a very big difference. Nevermind what technique they use, just them, something about their personality, their skills, their observational skills, their timing skills, that makes a big difference. So that's a very important thing. And it makes studying this question very difficult and complex. And the other thing is that even that study, although I consider it the best study that was done, it has good measures of the dog's stress levels, as does the Dutch study you mentioned, but neither study has good measures of training effectiveness. Now, I'm an agnostic on, well, I'll tell you what I think about e-collars, electric shock collars. I don't think they should be in the hands of civilians. I think the risk of causing harm is quite substantial. And for most ordinary people, they will manage just fine with positive reinforcement, with treats, perhaps with clickers. And at least if they're not very good at it, they cannot do any harm. Whereas it is possible by giving a dog shocks that are unpredictable and don't relate clearly to anything in the relationship, it's possible to really hurt a dog and do the dog harm. Now, in the hands of a professional, I think it's possible that in a situation like worrying livestock, it's possible, or here in the Arizona desert, keeping away from snakes and other things that could kill the dog, if the outcome could be as negative as being killed by a rattlesnake, or could be as negative, I mean, even in Britain, if the dog harasses livestock a second time, it will be killed. So if the dog's life is on the line, then I think we should look seriously at the possibility of using these collars. But they should be used by professionals who know what they're doing. And yeah, I would like to see higher quality studies, but it's a pretty challenging thing. I've been concerned about this for some time, but I've never done a study of my own because I haven't been able to figure out how to do a good study that would really produce a convincing outcome. Yeah, I feel quite similar to how you think about it. I really believe that these kind of studies are needed. In my mind, again, working with pet dogs,

working in a high level of competition, I know that there is place and time when, you know, when you just, just as we said, we weigh in costs and benefits and sometimes it will be the right thing to do. Experience, knowledge, and education, I think it's a much better strategy. This is what I'm afraid that's happening right now. And I don't know how much you know about what goes on in Europe, really. Most countries are banning electric colors and altogether any training tool that will be aversive. In my opinion, it's a feel-good agenda. From what I see, unless we are able to show, not just in a study, but to actually show dog trainers that this works and even if it doesn't work better, let's say some differential reinforcement techniques work just as equally as if we use aversives. My guess would be that the majority of trainers that actually have passion and love for the animals will completely abandon aversives. There is always going to be that small percentage of people that will do dumb things. But I don't think they need training equipment to do that anyway. So we don't even need to talk about those. What I'm very puzzled about with the studies that come and including the one that you mentioned is the fact that dog trainers don't really have the access. So when somebody says I have a better way in the dog training world, the moment we know that there is a better way, like if I know that somebody in Hong Kong right now has found a better way than how I would train, regardless if it's using or not using aversive, positive or whatever the magic it is, but it's a better way. I will get my ticket even though we are with the virus and everything. I will find a way and I will go and I will learn that way. And I'm certain that I'm not alone in this. I know the dog trainers spend, like the serious professional dog trainers, we spend our time and life to get better at it. And we go to seminars and we learn. and I wonder what is your take on why when we have a study that says this works better, then we look at everyday training or look at competitions. For example, to me, competitions are very interesting and that's why I've been competing in dogs probably since late 80s. It's called now IGP but it's the protection type sports that has the tracking, obedience, and protection. I have won two world championships, I have won 14, 15 national championships. I'm pretty good at what I do but nevertheless, we never really stop learning and if there is something that is better, I want to learn it. At the same time, if I know something that is better, I want to give it to the community and what puzzles me with the

studies is that we say, we look at the data and of course, it's not easy to make studies. I mean, I'm not the one to tell you this. I mean, starting from getting the grants to actually putting the whole thing together and there always will be some gaps and some holes to where we can say, oh, that was not done exactly how it should or that was misinterpreted and so on. But that's just the nature of the beast, correct? But the overall picture is that if we say that there is a better way, why can we not find a way that dog trainers get truly exposed to what that way is? Okay, okay. Well, so, Ivan, you raised, I mean, I've had the same feeling, right? I've had the same feeling starting from a completely different place. And one of the things is that in the dog training world, it's a marketplace. It's a marketplace. And people are trying to make a living. People are trying to make a living by saying, hey, I've come up with a wonderful new method. Come to my seminars, pay me, and I will teach you my special secret recipe. And the number of times, so I've spoken at, I sometimes speak at conferences where there are dog trainers, like Clicker Expo, like, oh dear, what's it called? APDT, right? And I have people come up to me afterwards and they say, Professor, what do you think of Method X? And I've never even heard of Method X because Method X is the secret source of, I'm not going to name any of the names, but we know who we're talking about. And they have a book and the book says, this is my special method, it's better than anybody else's. Or they have a TV show and they do that. Or they just have seminars and they keep it tight. You have to get the level one certification and then the level two certification and then the best business in the world is when you've got some kind of a qualification and the people have to get CEUs. They have to keep paying you just to be able to keep doing what they're already doing. Which is like money. It's just, anyway. So one problem is that it's a marketplace where people are trying, I mean, it's easy for me, I'm a university professor. The university pays me even if I'm asleep all day. Right? So people in the real world have to make a living and they have to have something to sell. And so a lot of the time, and I'm sure you've seen this, Ivan, a lot of the time you ask a bit more until they tell you enough that you have a sense what they're on about. And it turns out they've got nothing. They've got nothing. They've just got the same old stuff that people have been doing for 50 years that Conrad Morst was doing more than 50 years ago. And they've come up with some buzzwords. And I love the buzzwords that have to do with the brain. We're going to activate the amygdala. We're going to get the cerebellum working. There's actually any technique that could be used to manipulate the brain directly. So that's part of it. And then you look at people like

me, people like Daniel Mills in the UK, people like the Dutch people that you mentioned, Van der Borg and the others. They, like me, are all university people. And we're paid by the university, even if we're asleep all day, we're paid by the university. And we want to do good science. And our satisfaction comes from feeling that we did a good study, and then we publish it in the scientific literature, which is what gets us professional recognition. That's our professional recognition. More, I try, I try, and I know that the others do too, to get the word out. But the truth is, getting the word out is firstly, something we were never originally trained in, second, secondly, something that a lot of people who become professors don't maybe have the personality for. I mean, I'm relatively extrovert as a professor type goes, but a lot of really good scientists are shy and they don't want to be on the radio or the telegram or whatever, right? And thirdly, it doesn't contribute to your professional progression. I mean, I'm old now, they're not going to promote me any further, so I can just do whatever I like, and I love talking to people, I love getting the word out, but by and large, we don't have the same motivations as the private people in the private sector who are commercially motivated to get their story across. So you have this strange world that vast numbers of people are involved in, and it's a big business with all the tools that you can buy and all the classes you can take, and almost none of it has a scientific basis, and that's because we scientists have no motivation to get involved. It's, you know, studying, comparing positive training to aversive training. I would love to do that, but I haven't got a clue. I would need probably, let's say, $100,000 to get a project off the ground that was of a sufficient scale to be worth doing. I don't know any, nobody's offering me that $100,000. I haven't got any ideas where to go and ask for that money. We will have that conversation. I think I will come up with the money. Oh, great, good. This will be a very interesting, I'm very serious, this can be a very serious collaboration, and I really think we need to find ways to unite what you guys do and what the average, or even not the average, but the above average dog trainer does. As I said, I personally, I'm really, really, really interested. This is, you know, people watch whatever the latest shows on Netflix are right now. I read your books, I read studies, and I am just obsessed with it. in that quest of finding some sense of what is going on and where, really, how to make dog training better for the dogs and better for the people. And I think it's possible, but when we talk about how to find, you know, like if we may, let's say you make a study and we say, okay, well,

this is what we find within the study, then would it make sense to present, make a presentation to dog trainers and have a serious, I wouldn't say a debate, just a, you know, a presentation, but kind of interactive type of presentation to where it's really become very educational to where trainers can go home, play with the findings and come back and say how it's been for them. This can be an amazing collaboration between trainers and science. Right now, there is the marketing and I think the marketing piece goes every direction. I think it doesn't necessarily it's not one branch of trainers or one branch of science. Money and marketing, this is where things are right now. I don't even know, you probably know how many canine research centers are in the world right now. They are really, really picking up momentum because I believe for one thing, it's interesting and we should study dogs. But I also believe that to some extent it's any person would like and would read anything that would come about dogs, any kind of paper. And it may not be deep scientific and actually it's better that it's not very deep. But we know that the moment we start talking dogs and the moment we start talking research and the next thing that comes up it's very trendy. This is where I like competitions, dog sports. That's really the ground where you truly get to compare your skills and your approach to training to anything else out there. And the reason some trainers become more famous besides the ones that we just talked about, the marketers and just money making machines, but actual people that are very successful in training and that are very willing to give back to the community and share how they do it. Dog trainers love to learn. They really, really love to learn and I wish that there is a way because from our side of the story, when we read a study and we say, okay, well, this is what we find, this works better. But we don't have even enough information to understand how exactly it was done. And we cannot replicate, we cannot really start to even play around with that approach because there is just not enough information. information. And this is a problem. If we want to, if we want to, scientific community and dog trainers that care for the dog as a being, to be treated with the respect and dignity, I think we need to, we need to start to be honest and find these ways and share those ways because otherwise, what is happening right now,

especially in the countries in Europe that some things are banned, people continue to use them. They just hide. And this is the sad part. And the sad part is because on one thing they are hiding and when, you know, when something is taboo and it's done under their ground, you don't even learn to do it correctly because you cannot openly talk and share ideas. So you're doing some stupid things that you should not be and you're experimenting. The unfortunate thing is that this is happening and on the other hand, if they, if they are presented with, hey, no, this is how it can work better. And that part is missing. And I think we need to really try to find that part because just thinking and hoping that, oh, we're going to ban this scholar or we're going to say that punishment doesn't work. Unless we become very practical in demonstrations, education, this is exactly the technique, this is exactly how it can be done, right? And somehow I cannot find, I try, like, for example, with Daniel Mills, like, I would love to see the videos because from what I know, the study, the latest study was done from the previous one based on the videos that they watch, dog behavior, correct? I think there was something like that, but the bottom line is there is actual footage because it's just the nature of how the studies were conducted from what I know. people. So let me come in because you've made a number of interesting points that I want to respond to. And one I will say that sadly, the explosion of interest in studying dog behavior, I'm not going to name names, but not all the studies are good. I'm sorry, but it's true. Not all the studies are good. It is so attractive to so many people. My main complaint is that I think a lot of the studies are unimportant. They don't address any very interesting question, but it's also the case that they're not all high quality. Now, we as scientists are supposed to write our scientific reports so that somebody with a suitable educational background could repeat what we have done. Now, that isn't always the case. What I do is every scientific paper nowadays has the corresponding authors, right, there's usually more than one author, but one person is the person who takes responsibility for answering questions, and their email address is there. And you shouldn't be shy. I mean, you should write them and you should say, hey, I read your paper. I can't see how this bit was done. Please tell me. I find it's very rare that anybody writes you about things that you've published. Very, very rare. So if somebody writes me about that, I mean, you've had bitter experience, Ivan, and I know I don't always get to emails, but generally speaking, it's at the very least, if I get an email like that, I feel I should be answering it. If I can find the time, I will try and answer it because it is

something that I'm supposed to be doing. then there's the fact that in this day and age, why on earth are the videos not just on YouTube? Why can't we all just see what was done? If video was involved, why isn't it there? It costs nothing. It costs nothing but a little bit of time to put the videos up on YouTube. And it is, yeah, that study with Daniel Mills, now that you mention it, I'm friends with Daniel. He's a great guy. He's a very sincere guy. And yeah, I would love to see the videos because, well, for a whole bunch of reasons that we're discussing. Right, right, right. No, that's... But the thing, the thing, Ivan, is you've got to, you know, what is the professional life of a scientist? How does that work? And a crucial part is where's the money? You know, I mean, the university pays me, but it doesn't, I'm, you know, I'm here at my desk. If we're going to get this work done, we've got to be funding younger people who I tell them what to do and they go out and do it. And it's, you know, the only, the only organization that funds, to my knowledge, that funds research into dog training methods is the APDT, right? The Association of Professional Dog Trainers. and they provide grants of, I think it's $1,500. Well, I'm, you know, I'm not looking at gift horse in the mouth. I mean, if it was $1,500 of my money, that's a lot of money. But it doesn't, it doesn't get this kind of work done. And nobody else, to my knowledge, is putting up any money. So, so we need, we need a system. We need a system to support science. And then, if you, if some organization puts up, you know, I mean, realistically, we need tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this. Well, then, that organization would have every right to say, well, damn it, if we're paying for this, you better write it up so we can understand it. And you better put those videos on YouTube so that we and anybody else who's interested can see what really happened and make our own decisions about how it played out. But at the moment, we it's, it's not there. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you're saying. Yeah. I really love what you're saying. Hopefully, hopefully there is a way to this. Have to find a way to this. If we don't, again, we're leaving everything to interpretation and speculation, good and bad. Like, for example, I, as I said, I, I, I mean, I dive deep into the studies. I, in fact, I will have, I don't want to, well, I now gave it away already, but one of my next guests of the podcast is a professor from, from Holland. And she actually participated. She, she was the person that gathered the dog for that original study that we just mentioned. And this is the closest that I've gotten so far to somebody on that study, at least to, to be able to talk firsthand about the experience. In the

Netherlands, the government supports some research into dog welfare, dog training questions. That study by Daniel Mills in England, the English government wanted to have reliable information, so they funded that study. But here in the United States, to the best of my knowledge, there's no, there's no government support for that. Correct. I guess the, one of the things is the, you know, where the money comes, of course, affects the integrity of the studies. And that scientific curiosity, are we, are we really trying to find out? Or are we trying to prove something that we want to prove? And a lot of times, it seems like some of those studies that, again, I'm not mentioning, no reason to mention, but there are studies that are very, very easy to see how, what the point of the study is. Well, I mean, you're exactly right. That's always there, right? I mean, inevitable. A good scientist tries to be even handed, but usually, if you care enough to put the energy into doing the study, you have some interest. But in the case of these studies of dog training methods, I think you're right. I think that there is a very heavy prejudice in one direction. That said, if all other things were equal, as I already said, at least if people use positive methods, they're unlikely to do any harm. Whereas using aversive methods riskier, riskier, now it could be that under certain circumstances that risk is one that has to be taken. Because as I say, there might be circumstances where the alternative is much, much worse, like death by rattlesnake or death by whatever, right? Or living forever in an animal shelter. Yeah, right. So, but I agree entirely. We need quality studies. And I think, I don't know, I'll be curious to hear a little bit about how you as a, you as life, not the scientist, not the studies, not, you know, just you as a person, how you feel and do you even, do you feel that you can openly talk about punishment, for example. Because I think at this point where we are, just saying that word, immediately brings unbelievable amount of tension in a conversation. And, and judgment happens within less than a second. Yeah. No, I mean, you're right. People have, you know, there are, there are set positions, strongly held positions. I have, I have given talks about, about punishment. I have given talks where I have, where I have brought out the data from the study from the Netherlands, from the study from England. And I have, I have gone through it carefully with audiences a couple of times talking about how these studies don't prove very much. And I don't know, I, I still have friends. So I think I have, I mean, I, I am very careful how I introduce the topic because I know, and I, and I share those emotions. I mean, the idea, I have, I have one of these colors. I was given one and I, the idea of

putting it on my poor, silly dog. Yeah. I mean, I have those emotions. So, you know, like I, this was interesting. I want to, I want to jump into this a little bit because you said you have one of the scholars and I was, I don't know, I probably was a few, few weeks back, somewhere, maybe a month. Well, you mentioned that you read the new skid book and then the pet cool situation came and everything and I want to give you a little bit of a different take on, on electrical or specifically and, and, and, and get your, and, and, and try to have that conversation with you basically. It's highly misrepresented. For example, in, in most of the studies they say that it leaves burn marks and we know that the actual studies show that it cannot, it's just scientifically this is not the case. But there, there is a lot of propaganda that, that is just very, I, in my opinion, very damaging because if we accept that punishment has its place and I believe that punishment just as reinforcement has its place. I, I think we are one of the most fundamental things that we come, at least all the species in, in our world, is to approach and avoid. We are programmed and we are, we are functioning very well to approach and avoid. and if we are not, we will be extinct. The good thing about the use of electric collar in the right hands for the right reasons is that it signals to the dog that something very scary is about to happen or it's happening fine. But actually it's not physically harmful. It can be, it can have some mental effect and it should because it, it really, it's pretty much like pushing a panic button and saying, hey, this is dangerous. But that is kind of the point of when, when we use it correctly. there is, and everybody has, you know, an idea of what is correct and what is not correct. It would be, in my opinion, a bad idea to use an aversive and try to make it as a, you know, a conditioned positive response. but when, when you have a electric stimulation and that panic button hits and you say, hey, this is really, really a bad idea. Don't do that again. But no harm is done. It's just a really big scare. And now we don't chase ship. We don't chase car. We open, I mean, just, just few of the, the, the big ones, right? And now we open the door actually for good things to happen so they can get reinforced. Including, including any kind of differential reinforcement programming. To where, again, the proper punishment applied by an expert will speed up that process. Because without it, we will play for a very long time with differential reinforcement programs. And we still wouldn't know where we're gonna, how long it's gonna take. And most of the time, the pet owner doesn't have the patience. Even if it works, if it works for six months from today, chances are the dog probably will

end up in the shelter. behavior. But the bigger point that I'm trying to make is that we have also sometimes behaviors or the dog acting and we don't necessarily understand what is reinforcing it, so we cannot, or we cannot, even if we understand it, we cannot control it. So any of the differential reinforcement programs become very difficult. It actually, you need more than advanced expert level to come up even theoretically how to deal with it. Yeah. To where a proper form of punishment can suppress and give you enough time to actually do the right things afterwards. I'm just kind of curious to hear your take on what I'm saying. Well, so I'm, you know, I should have said at the beginning, I'm not a dog trainer. You know, I happen to be blessed with a perfect dog who doesn't require any training whatsoever and is just so easy to get along with. And so I probably should have more respect for, think more about people whose dogs do cause problems or people who make it their business to help people whose dogs cause problems. All I can say is, in a perfect world, whether with our dogs or with our children or with our husbands and wives, in a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if we could just find ways of using positive reinforcement and nobody ever had to punish anybody? Then I can also say that it scares me to think of major retail stores selling shock collars to anybody who wants them. I don't know. I mean, the one I have, the one I got, you can give an animal a very painful shock with that. I don't know whether it would actually burn if you kept doing it. I mean, in principle, I would think it probably could. I don't know. I've never tried it. I don't want to try it. And then on the other hand, when I'm talking to somebody like yourself, who's an expert, I would trust you implicitly to be using an e-collar on a dog because I know you have the dog's well-being at heart and I know you know what you're doing and you're an expert. So, and then beyond that, all I can say is, damn it, we've got to get some science into this because, hey, maybe it's true, as some of my friends claim. Some of my friends claim it doesn't matter how difficult the problem is. They can find a way just with positive reinforcement. Well, if that's true, what a beautiful world we live in. And then on the other hand, when you tell me that a little bit of punishment can do a lot of good, I see the logic of what you're saying too. And you are absolutely right. The punishment is an intrinsic part of our lives. You never have to teach a child or a dog not to stick their finger or their snout in a hot oven because, damn it, the hot oven teaches them that, right? You don't have to have some kind of positive reinforcement or shock collar. Don't touch the hot oven.

The hot oven teaches that lesson. Yes, yes, exactly the point. Like that's kind of what we, I mean, punishment happens, you know, it's all around us. And we're fortunate that we actually respect and respond the majority of the time correctly to it when it makes sense to us, right? Now, if it's uncontingent, then of course things can go wrong. But so can everything. Everything can go wrong when it's not done the way it should be done. What I'm way more interested, and hopefully we have a little more time, about play. Play versus anything else. because in all of my time training dogs, I have put my, all of my efforts in understanding play, the interaction of play, the different games, and what they bring to the table, the cooperation, the rules, the consequences, the, I mean, it's an endless thing, and it's, and, and play, as we know, it's not a, it's not something we do in our spare time, and it's a biological need. We come programmed, play, we have to, even, even to, to be able to hunt, as a social group, you, you get a little feather, and you chase it, and you play games as the puppies, and they learn how to be teams, and how to, you know, it's all, I mean, it's such a huge thing, and I know that you've put some time in, in that, and I'm very, very curious to, to hear anything about what you guys. Yeah, well, so we, we've done some studies on play. Lindsay Mayakam, who did her PhD with me, and now faculty at Monmouth University of New Jersey, she's studied play quite extensively, and it's been known for a long time, all animals play when they're small, but most animals give it up as they get older, and it's one of the striking things about dogs, that they continue to play throughout life, and a question that I have become more and more interested in recently is, well, why do people care about dogs so much, especially in modern times, where dogs don't, you know, dogs used to have all sorts of functions, they used to be useful, modern dogs, pet dogs, are not, objectively speaking, useful, and yet we care for them, and I think one of the things is that this play is very engrossing, it draws, it draws our interest to the animals, and one of the fascinating things that Lindsay looked into, Lindsay Merkam, was, well, if you've got two dogs that live together, when do they play? Because clearly they could be playing all day, right? They're in each other's company all day, they could just be playing all day, but the interesting thing she found was that if you ignore them, they don't play. They only play when the human is watching, nothing, and that I think is very, very interesting. She did a very simple study. This was, again, back in Gainesville, back at the University of Florida. Gainesville is just a

college town, right? So she did this with other students, her friends, and she told them, look, read your textbook for two minutes. Okay, now look up, say one of the dogs' names and look at the dogs and pay attention to them. When the student's reading their textbook, the dogs go to sleep. Nothing, yep. When the human looks up and takes an interest, the dogs, but they're not playing with her, they're playing with each other. That's what's so interesting, that the dogs find something reinforcing about the human attention, and their response to that is that they play with each other, as if it's perhaps even a way of sustaining human attention. The dogs know, if we do this thing, the human will attend to us, and when the human attends to us, other good things can follow from that. You know what? I actually have a theory of how humans and dogs ended up together, and I don't think it was the scavenger type of idea. I think it was somehow much more based on the play. Just because of the fact that there was this element of, of course, food is important, but once that need is met, there is a need for play, especially in the youngsters. Well, so I think that the, the history of the dog has multiple phases, and I think that the very original phase was scavenging, and I think at that point, people were not terribly interested in those animals. But then things changed, the ice age came to an end, the world changed, and people began to find dogs more useful, because the dogs could help the people hunt. The interaction. And I think it's at that stage that the affectionate bonds began to grow, especially from the dog towards the people, but from at least some of the people back towards the dogs. And I think the play, because it's so youthful, it's so like, you know, you love watching your children play, it's engaging, it pulls on your heart strings, and I think that that is, is then part of the story, this sort of later fate, when I say, I mean, still probably seven, eight thousand years ago, but not the absolute beginning story, 15,000 years ago. Has anybody thought to compare play? versus using food in training, and the effects. And even when we talk about dogs with problem behaviors, the tendency is always to find ways how to work with, you know, rewarding or reinforcing good behaviors using food. And I think food always stops shorter, much shorter, because it misses that special interaction and the need to cooperate that play provides. But for some reason, the majority of dog trainers are fixated on using food. I can say, you remember the dog Chaser? Yes, of course. I actually have talked with John quite a bit. Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, I met John and Chaser. I like to say I knew Chaser before she was

famous. Wow. So anyway, and so you know then that Chaser was rewarded entirely with play opportunities. Yeah. But that said, a very particular kind of play, which is to say chasing after an object. That's why they called the dog Chaser, because she was so crazy about chasing. And I'm not a hundred percent. I mean, in some sense, that's defined as play because it's. Oh, hundred percent. Yes. It's not practical. But on the other hand, when you watch Chaser doing it, it's this is not scientific talk, but there was a certain kind of seriousness to her chasing that seemed to me to be more directly predatory and less, I would say, playful. I don't know. No, no. Very. Yeah. No, you're right. It's spot on because I mean, it's one of those things that I don't think it's well known, but she actually had a serious problem chasing cars as a puppy. And they did have to use some form of aversive, some form of negative reinforcement because anything else that was tried, you know, was stopping short. And so the, you know, the dog already was showing that genetic predisposition. I like to chase things. So allowing it to chase the right thing, it really flourished. And it was the ultimate reason to learn all these things that they did. And that could never have been done with food reinforcement because they were working together for hours every day and the dog would have become full. If you'd been giving the dog treats, you'd have had to stop after 30 minutes or I don't know, maybe 60 minutes. But they worked for hours every day. And that was only possible because Chaser found these opportunities to chase things so reinforcing. Yeah. And I mean, you know this world better than I do, Ivan. My sense is the people who work with dogs, if they find a dog that can be reinforced with a non-consumable reinforcer with the opportunity to chase something or to play in some other way, then isn't it the case that trainers like that and work with that? And the food is used because every animal finds food reinforcing. So, I have a little bit different take on this. I think food is used mostly because it's easy to control and you don't have to, like, not that it's easy, you completely have control of when and how much you want to give. To where when you give a toy to the dog, the dog has to cooperate. It needs to come and bring it to you. And any time we have a game going on, there are certain rules that we need to agree on. Of course, rules will break because you play a game. You want to bend the rules as far as you can. That's just the nature. When we have rules in the game and they are broken, then there's consequences. And I think, especially the more positive reinforcement, strictly

trainers, they don't, they're afraid to get to that part where the rules are broken and there is consequences. So, it's much easier to control a dog that's in a calmer state of mind, not as aroused and not as, oh, I need that ball now and I don't think I can give it to you because that takes a lot of cooperation. You need to find that way. Once it's done to the level where John and Chase are playing, it's without a doubt, 100 levels, different, more meaningful interaction than anything you can do with food with a dog. But that's what I think that one of the reasons is that food, when you give food to a dog, you become the food dispenser in a way. And I'm not saying it necessarily in a bad way, but it puts immediately the dog in a kind of the puppy mindset, begging for food from mom. And there is that subordinance immediately, but it becomes manageable. So, for an average person or trainer, it's much easier to manipulate with food and never really get to that place to where the dog is really hyped up and gets so aroused and so into the games that starts to break the rules. But what gets accomplished through play, I don't think ever can get accomplished with food. And as you said, food can go that far to where you will eventually you're full. You don't need food. But we know very well that if we like to play, like for example, let's say I like skiing or swimming or whatever, whatever it is, I will skip a meal. If I have the choice to do my favorite activity versus having a really good meal, I probably will skip quite a few meals and go with the play. Yeah. And I wish that it becomes more, we pay more attention and even in the scientific communities, there is a little bit more attention to that. Well, I agree with you, Ivan. It's a very interesting question. I mean, Chaser struck me as rather exceptional, quite fanatical about chasing things. My own dog would not, simply would not do that. And I don't know if, certainly nobody has studied, right? There's never been a scientific study grabbing a hundred or a thousand dogs from a variety of breeds in a variety of life circumstances and just exploring what do they find rewarding and for how long. I don't think anybody's ever looked at that. As I say, Chaser to me was off the charts. I mean, she was, she was, so we worked with her. We worked with her for a couple of days and we worked for as long as we could sort of cope with from about 8.30 in the morning until 2.30, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Just one long session. And we were exhausted just with the relatively modest effort that we, the humans, had to put in. But this dog was running, running, running, running, running the whole time.

And it was like those movies of rats who've had electrodes implanted in their brains. Because every time they press the lever, they get a jolt of electricity in the reward center of the brain. That's what Chaser was like. She was a crazy animal for chasing things. And when we stopped on one of the days and we finished what we were working on and we walked away to get a late lunch, Chaser was limping. She had somehow hurt one of her legs or paws in the course of what we were doing. But she was like a junkie. So long as we kept giving her the opportunity to chase, she didn't show any discomfort at all. But when the chasing was over, she limped. She had hurt herself. And that surely is not normal, not typical. She was a really exceptional, I mean, beautiful, don't get me wrong. Very interesting. Exceptional animal. Very, very interesting. I wish I met that dog. And it's, well, that must have been one of those experiences that you just never forget. It's amazing. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. How about the one latest thing with the games? And I know you mentioned it somewhere. I'm not sure. Somewhere on social media came about the buttons and the interaction. Like it, yeah, I cannot. It's, again, it's a beautiful marketing and it hits a soft spot. It's not marketing because I don't think anybody makes any money off. Oh, they sell them. Oh, of course they sell them. There's quite a few brands that they sell. And there is actually, there is actual trainers that teach them. Oh, it's picking up speed. Oh, I had no idea. Well, I wrote to one of the people, one of the first ones I saw, I wrote to them and I said, do you have more extensive videos so that I can see what's really going on? But no, it's always, you know, it's always just 30 seconds or a minute. It never, never shows anything meaningful. Yes. I just find it interesting because the very beginnings of a scientific animal psychology in the 1880s, Charles Darwin had a neighbor. He had a neighbor who was a very wealthy man and owned banks and all sorts of stuff. And Charles Darwin spoke to his neighbor, Sir John Lubbock. And so Lubbock did some little experiments that because in those days, you know, anyway, these experiments got published in the scientific literature of the day. And one of Lubbock's experiments was that he got big cards and he wrote on the cards in big letters, words, the names of things he thought his dog might be interested in. And if the dog brought him a card with that word written on it, he would give the dog whatever was written on the card. And he convinced himself that the dog was talking to him because if the dog brought him the card and it said like meat on it

and he gave the dog the meat, the dog would eat the meat. So that proved that the dog wanted the meat. And that's, or if the dog brought the card that said walk and he took the dog for a walk, the dog was excited to go for a walk. Yeah, that's very, that's really very much right within the same line. Yeah, that's very much. But this is how it shows how much we, in one side, we really want them to be like us and they're who they are. And I mean, in fact, they do communicate, they do talk with us. I mean, I have conversations with my dog all day long. I'm sure you do too. And, but it doesn't need to be to push a button. I, you know, like I, I know some of my dogs just the way they will breathe. I know that there is a form of like, okay, no, I, I'm going to relax now or I want to do this or like you, you just start to learn them. And it's, it's very interesting to, to pay more attention to who they are and how they interact and find, kind of go, go on their level in their language instead of trying to make them little babies. Yeah, great point, Ivan. Yeah, we should, we should concentrate on understanding what our dogs really are telling us rather than trying to force them to make human language sounds, which doesn't mean anything. You know what? I, I am very interested in, uh, uh, uh, talking with somebody and maybe you will be interested to talk further about this. And I believe that I can find the, the, the money to support such a study. Well, that would be fantastic. negative, reinforcement in dog training, the effects of negative reinforcement in dog training. Negative reinforcement or punishment? Negative reinforcement. I think, I mean, we can, I, as, as I said, I, I believe that, uh, punishment has its place. I believe also that, you know, at the time Skinner decided that it's, I mean, he wasn't even saying that it's morally wrong. he was just saying plain, out that it doesn't work and which is kind of ridiculous. I mean, I mean, please, you know, but, but it's that, you know, like this, this is for me a very easy conversation. I, I can, you know, a contingent punishment, there is place and time and the side effects, the good side effects of punishment, they will outweigh all day long the negative side effects. Assuming, again, that we have the cost and benefit to use punishment and it's on contingent basis, you know, but the, the interesting part for me is the use of negative reinforcement because I, again, I train dogs. That's, that's my lab. It's outside on my training field and I, I have played with many dogs in many different approaches of training. I know that I can present negative reinforcement as a game. That there is, there is, you know, think about, what is it called? The, the game, hot hands, you know,

where you play, where, where you kind of slap each other, you know, like the hands and you get yourself and, you know, I don't know if that's, was the name of the game, but, but there is a bunch of games like this to where you, you do want to play them. Yes, you get talked sometimes, but then you don't and there is a, there is a way to present it and there is a value to it because it becomes, you really can, create a little bit more of a stress resilience if you want. Like, like, I'm sure you know the studies with the learned helplessness and, and, you know, the, the, one of the interesting part to me of that study was that dogs that were introduced and were successful to escape and avoid prior to being put in the box, they, they showed resilience to it. Um, but it will be very, like, I, I would really be interested to see a study that will compare the negative side effects of negative reinforcement done correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so as I said, I have a talk I've given a few times about, and Skinner, Skinner was, you know, he was just talking nonsense about punishment. I'm glad you're saying that. That was nonsense, complete nonsense. And I have a talk where I pick, I pick Skinner apart on this. Um, I mean, the thing, the thing is, Ivan, we really need to get together. I want to, I want to come over and I want to see what you're doing with your dogs. And if it weren't for this damn pandemic, I mean, I have friends in Gainesville still. I would love to fly over to Orlando, visit my friends in Gainesville, and come and visit you. That will be amazing. I, we will, we have to make this happen because I, when I was talking to John, he was like, I, I, I don't feel like I, I, I have the, the excitement right now and I'm kind of stepped down from it, but I know, I know that Clive will be very interested and, and, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. there is, there is something to be, to be explored there that would be very interesting. So maybe, maybe we definitely go further. I mean, hopefully in the spring, but it, it still might not be till summer. I don't really want to come to Florida in the summer. Right. Yes, for sure. For sure. We'll do it because I'm very, very interested. I'd like to, I'd like you to be able to just show me what you're talking about. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then, and yeah, oh my God, I'm, I'm already excited about this. Yeah. Well, we'll do it. We'll do it. Very good. Very good. I think, um, I, as I said, I will post all the, the, the books and everything, all the, the articles that you've done, there's so much, um, but I will have them for, for, I'm sure, I'm sure people will love this conversation that we are having. And I, I hope that these are the conversations that dog trainers need. But I, I also believe that if we have this kind of

honest conversation, on your end, you also get stimulated. You also get excited to, to, to find a way to reach back to us and, and, you know, do what you do and say, hey, you know, this is how we can, this is where it comes in place and this is, yeah, it's such a big gap that we have right now and, ultimately, it's the dogs that benefit from this. yeah, totally. That would be amazing. That would be amazing. Let's keep this communication going. Thank you. Particularly, I'd like to really see for myself. It's the kind of thing I would learn a lot just by watching you for an hour. For sure. we're making this happen. I'm excited. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on the show and we will be in touch and I, I bet that we will have a lot of response and most likely we will, it could be after we do some hands-on and, and, and conversation in person we make another one because I know, I know the dog training audience that I have will be like when it's the next one. Like, I know that this will be happening. So, looking forward to it. Thank you so much for coming on the show and we talk again. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Have a good evening. Thank you. Okay. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Okay. Bye for now. Great. Okay, everybody. Thank you for listening to episode three of the Training Without Conflict podcast. This time with Professor Clive Wynn. There were some very exciting things that we talked about and we will have to have a follow-up episode in the future for sure. Again, thank you guys for listening. You can find the TWC podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and all the other major podcast applications. See you all on the next one. Bye. ! Thank you.