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Basic Principles

by Ed Frawley



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From childhood onwards we are taught a great deal that is wrong about the psychology of animals. In fables, fairy-tales and stories describing animal life and behavior we are often presented with living beings that think, understand human speech and perform moral or immoral acts. If we adopt these anthropomorphic views we shall be at a disadvantage whenever we try to train animals of any kind, but particularly when we are dealing with dogs.

We can save ourselves much disappointment and ensure the dog's more rapid and cheerful response to instruction by allowing him to learn in the canine way.

The dog most closely resembles man in his emotional and instinctive reflexes. He is capable of showing his emotions very eloquently and his manner of expressing his feelings is clearly reflected in our own.

It is responses of this kind that largely account for our deep affection for dogs. We are so impressed by the acuteness of such senses as those of scent and hearing, and with the capacity to learn, that we are prone to assume that a dog's mental equipment approximates to our own. We credit him with capacity for thought and with an understanding of human behavior and morality. By introducing the dog into a world which is, in reality, forever dosed to him, we prevent ourselves from recognizing the unbridgeable mental gap that exists between man and dog.

The instruction in training methods developed following pages is intended to serve as a guide to a system of teaching suited both to the emotional and to the instinctive life of the animal.

A dog's ability to grasp an idea resembles in certain respects that of an infant that has not yet learned to speak. Such a child is incapable of understanding any particular word spoken. One may, for instance, say to a recumbent child, "Get up." But the sound remains an empty echo that dies away without producing any response.

Let us suppose that an infant and a dog are to be photographed by time exposure. It will be impossible to explain the meaning of what is intended to either. They know nothing about photography or its requirements. They do not understand the request 'Keep still' whether it is spoken as a command or as an entreaty. We must, therefore, restrict ourselves to an appeal to the senses only. We may, for example, rattle something. This will, in many cases, arouse attention, and thus immobility, for a few moments. The conduct desired is, thereby, obtained without either the infant or the dog having the slightest idea of the intention of the photographer.

What happened when the rattling sound was made? Both heard a noise; an impression was made on their auditory senses. We call an impression of this kind a sense-stimulus, or simply a stimulus. Both man and dog possesses five senses, if we keep to the five-fold division hallowed by tradition; they are: hearing, sight, scent, touch and taste. Each of these senses only responds to such stimuli as are appropriate to the special physical structure of each of the sense organs.

In the example cited we deliberately imposed a sensestimulus upon both infant and dog, and it resulted in the reaction we expected.

In dealing with children or dogs we are restricted to the use of such external impressions. As soon as the infant masters human speech this situation changes, but it does not do so in the case of the dog.

Let us consider for a moment how the dog learns, in play, to fetch something. What sense-stimulus will cause the animal to seize the required object in its jaws? The answer to this question is: the movement of some object congenial to the dog immediately in front of him. By means of this we succeed in making the dog snap at the object, which becomes, from his point of view, a species of prey. This is the result of an inherited connection between the sense-stimulus denoting the escape of prey and the reaction resulting in pursuit and seizure.

But it is not sufficient if the dog merely snaps at such objects when we move them, and brings them to us. We want him to do this at an audible or visual signal; at a sense-stimulus corresponding with our purpose. But there is no inherited connection between such stimuli and seizure of the object. At this point therefore, training begins. It consists in making the dog accustomed to behaving in certain ways as a result of deliberately imposed sense-stimuli based on memory. In order, for example, to teach the dog to retrieve, we employ, at the same time as the impression of a moving object, a further impression in the form of a sound, e.g. 'Fetch it.'

This auditory stimulus is, of course, wholly without effect to begin with. How does it happen, then, that the dog learns to snap at the object on receipt of the auditory stimulus 'Fetch it'? As already explained, this stimulus is always given simultaneously with a movement of the object. In this way the inherited association between the stimulus afforded by the escape movement of the ostensible prey and the reaction of snapping at it is reinforced, after a number of repetitions, by an association, induced by memory, between the auditory stimulus 'Fetch it' and the snapping action. As a result, the dog will then snap even when the sound 'Fetch it' is made without the addition of any other stimulus. At this point the sound is substituted for the moving object, and becomes the secondary inducement. Accordingly, we must distinguish between primary inducements as immediately creative of the action desired and secondary inducements; the latter become operative only when a memory-induced association between them and the behavior we require is established.

It is not, however, always possible to make use of an inherited association as a basis for canine instruction. Nor can we always do so in the case of a child not yet able to speak. One may wish him, for instance, to raise both arms in response to the question, 'How big are you?' In such circumstances all one can do is to take both the child's arms, raise them, and at the same time rapidly ask the question. In this case the raising of the arms by the adult is the primary inducement given. After a number of repetitions the infant will one day raise its arms at the sound of the question alone, without any accompanying gesture by the adult. A memory-induced association has been established between auditory stimulus and movement.

The sound of the question has therefore become a 'secondary inducement'. The raising of the child's arms, however, is to be distinguished from the primary inducements given by rattling something during photography or by moving an object in teaching a dog to fetch, by the fact that the arm-raising is at first brought about mechanically. The infant is treated like a puppet. One of the differences between puppet and child is that the latter possesses a brain and nerves, and that its nerves transmit to its brain the stimulus, which comes with the raising of its arms. In training dogs many similar operations become necessary whenever behavior in which inherited instincts can play little or no part is required. Primary inducements, therefore, are not restricted to simple sense-stimuli.

In the case of secondary inducements, however, we are always concerned with simple sense-stimuli; usually those of hearing and sight permitting control of the dog from a distance. The aim of training is to work upon the animal in such a way that he can eventually be relied upon to obey auditory or visual signs alone, in the absence of primary inducements.

It would, in theory, be perfectly possible to employ the senses of smell, taste or touch as secondary inducements. But there would be no point in doing so, since the object is not to train the working dog to act-e.g. to bark-on experiencing any particular scent, taste or touch of any part of its body.

In order to avoid the mistake of anthropomorphism when auditory stimuli are concerned, we should not speak of giving orders, but of uttering calls or other sounds and of making gestures when the stimuli concerned are visual. In individual exercises the various signals should be clearly distinguishable from one another. Auditory signals, moreover, should be made as brief and penetrating as possible. They should not be rendered as written words, but as sounds.

It cannot be too often repeated that there is but a purely external connection between these secondary inducements and the behavior the dog comes to associate with them through an act of memory. A dog remembers only the temporal and spatial consequences of events, without grasping their connections as causes and effects. Still less does he understand the remoter aims we have in view when we induce him to initiate or suspend action. Nor is it necessary, for training purposes, that he should reach a higher level of comprehension.

As the dog is a far keener observer of movement than ourselves, the trainer must observe the following rules in making his own gestures or signals.

Let us assume that sufficient progress has been made in teaching the down to permit the trainer walking a few paces away from a dog left lying in the open. After taking a few steps he turns back and, as he turns, whistles for the animal. After a certain amount of repetition the dog will get up and come to the trainer as soon as the latter turns round, without waiting for the whistle. For the turning movement that has hitherto followed the call on every occasion has by this time come to mean the same thing to the dog as the whistle. The turning movement has become a secondary inducement, a visual signal for the recall. An undesirable association has been established between the turning round of the trainer and the signal to recall him. Undesirable associations are impeded by a separation in time of the events concerned. In the case under consideration the exercise must consist in the trainer first turning round, noticing that the dog is still lying down and then, after an interval, calling him.

In all such cases the trainer's gestures achieve the same effect as his audible signals and, therefore, anthropomorphically speaking, become 'commands', whenever certain auditory signals coincide in time with certain gestures. If the trainer is unaware of this fact, a whole series of undesirable associations will arise in the course of training and mistakes will ensue and be regarded as 'forgetfulness', 'disobedience', 'indifference', etc., on the part of the dog, with the result that he will be punished in error, with all the disadvantages thus entailed.

The question whether a dog should be trained to obey both sounds and gestures, or sounds alone, or gestures alone, depends upon the use to which the animal is to be put. Visual signals, for example, will not serve in complete darkness, but if silence is required, training in visual signals may, perforce, be an essential preliminary.

We have said that the dog cannot understand what we have in view in our use of him. But this fact should be clearly distinguished from the wider question whether animals have intelligence. This remains open to discussion. The question whether or not the dog employs intelligence and rudimentary thought in any human sense is not relevant to practical training. Experience in thousands of cases has proved that it is only training on a memory basis that can lead to reliable service. It is, therefore, necessary to make some remarks on the nature and power of memory.

The ability to retain in the mind what has been perceived, to take due note of it and reproduce or recall it, is known as memory. An experience is grasped by the memory as a whole. If a part of the experience is later undergone anew, its other parts automatically recur to consciousness. Thus, if we hear the words 'Silent night' or 'To be or not to be' or 'The curfew tolls', anyone who knows where these phrases occur and who has therefore always thought of the words referred to in connection with what follows, will immediately reproduce the words 'holy night', 'that is the question' or 'the knell of parting day', if not aloud, at any rate inwardly. The separate parts of what has been experienced become, so to speak, associated.

For practical purposes we deliberately establish such associations of ideas when we desire to remember anything particularly. If, for instance, we wish to remind ourselves to return a borrowed book, we may tie a knot in our handkerchief. When we notice the handkerchief again, perhaps while we are going to bed, and thus again perceive a part of what we have experienced in connection with it, that part reproduces its appendage, 'Return the borrowed book', through memory. As a rule, a single act of perception does not enable any related experience to be retained in the memory for very long: only a temporary, not a lasting, association has been formed. If one catches sight of the knotted handkerchief in the evening, one cannot always remember what it means. Repetitions are necessary if we desire to recollect something for a longish period; for instance, telephone numbers or a poem.

We must now proceed with our investigation of sense stimuli and their consequences, in order to be able to understand the different way in which the dog, as contrasted with the adult human being, reacts to experience.

Hitherto we have only considered stimuli initiated by the trainer himself. A number of other stimuli remain to be studied. In some training exercises we make use of assistants. For example, those who play the part of criminals in the case of the guard dog. These assistants participate in the training. In collusion with ourselves they bring certain sense-stimuli to bear upon the dog to induce him to perform the actions we require. The dog, for example, may be irritated by the assistants, so that he may show hostility to them, or the assistant may run away, to get the dog to pursue him.

An important part is also played by the numerous sense stimuli imposed on the dog by external conditions. Ignorance of such influences may cause undesirable associations to be formed, with refusal of the dog to act, and erroneous interpretations may be placed on such a refusal, which may in turn be succeeded by the adoption of erroneous measures for their correction. For instance: the trainer of a tracking-dog foresees the possibility of a culprit escaping across a ploughed field into a neighboring wood and they're climbing a tree. If this exercise is repeated several times and the dog is repeatedly given the corresponding stimuli, the visual stimulus of the visible track across the ploughed field causes the dog to become, contrary to the object of the training, accustomed to using the eye in tracking. The discovery of the assistant in a tree also causes, again contrary to the object of training, the sense-stimulus 'tree' to be transformed into a secondary stimulus 'person to be found'. Accordingly, the dog keeps his head up while tracking, on the look-out for footprints and trees along the trail, or else he actually leaves the track and runs off after any footprints or trees he may catch sight of.

We are here confronted by the extremely important question to what extent canine powers of understanding permit the animal to adapt his preliminary training in dealing with the real thing. The rule to be laid down is: the final aim of training is to make every exercise as appropriate as possible to the ultimate service required. If, however, training for such a service, when repeated, leads to the formation of undesirable associations, it should be undertaken only rarely. It must, indeed, take place, in order to accustom the dog to stimuli, which will occur when he takes up serious duty, but if it is found that training has formed undesirable associations it should be altogether avoided. If undesirable stimuli are produced during the actual performance of duty itself, the word must be 'go ahead', for there is nothing else to be done. It should be added, however, that a single experience does not by any means always establish an association. If it does, such an undesirable association may be dispersed, and thus withdrawn from the dog's memory, by further training.

Finally, a most important part is played by distractionary stimuli from external conditions. These are the distractions which almost always occur during the activity of the working dog on actual duty. The trainer of the working dog must take the greatest pains to introduce such distractions into the exercises performed in such a way as to guard against refusal by the dog when the real test comes. There is a fundamental difference here between common circus training, when only slight and invariably similar distractions are introduced during practice, and training for practical purposes, where the most variable and forcible interruptions that may occur on actual duty must be taken into consideration.

If only a dog's memory had to be considered while he was under instruction, successful training would be a very easy matter. As we know, however, the dog does not spontaneously perform all the services we require of him. We are often asked whether we should train a dog by kindness or compulsion. A kind heart is certainly an advantage to a trainer, but this alone will not induce the dog to perform reliable service, nor will treatment by those who are anthropomorphically inclined and who constantly see 'sullen resistance' on the part of the dog and inflict 'punishment' accordingly. Good training needs a kind heart as well as a cool and well-informed head for the proper direction of the indispensable compulsion.

What is the actual object of training? It is that the dog shall only do what we find convenient or useful, and refrain from doing what is inconvenient or harmful to us. This requirement cannot be completely reconciled with what is acceptable by, or of advantage to, the dog. A man often requires a dog to refrain from its natural activities or undertake those which are unnatural to it. Canine instincts, for example, prompt a dog to pursue, comer and catch prey, but not to bring it to a man. The aim of training can be achieved only by exercising compulsion whenever the dog does not spontaneously do what is required of him.

No one in ordinary circumstances drinks dirty water; but people will do so when they are tormented by thirst and there is nothing else to drink. Thirsty persons will even enjoy drinking dirty water. Under certain conditions, therefore, something disagreeable is done in order to avoid something still more disagreeable. The latter may be something so extremely unpleasant that it may compel the transformation of something unpleasant in itself into a positive pleasure. On the other hand it is possible for something agreeable to become disagreeable. A child loves playing with fire; but if it gets burnt it withdraws its finger. Why does a thirsty person drink filthy water? Why does a child refrain from its attractive game with fire? They have learnt that it is to their advantage to do so. It is only when a dog learns that the adoption or abandonment, disagreeable in them selves, of certain actions will be to his own advantage that training can be proceeded with on a sound basis. Such is the object of compulsion. A dog, too, will perform an uncongenial act, if it can thus avoid one still less congenial. He will stop doing something he likes if something disagreeable makes him dislike it. The animal has no idea of the service he renders to man by acting, or ceasing to act, for his own advantage. He has just as little understanding of the reason for his treatment by man. Nor are his acts or renunciations ethically directed. A dog cannot, therefore, in any true sense of the words be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished. We can only do something disagreeable or agreeable to him. It is also obviously pointless, in his case, to utter threats of future punishment.

A child that understands speech can be told to 'Come here!' The phrase is an order and is understood as such. If the child does not obey, it can be told, 'If you don't come, you'll get a smacking!' The child immediately realizes that it is being threatened by something disagreeable which it can avoid by obeying the previous order. This kind of realization is quite impossible in the case of a dog.

It is extremely important for us to be quite clear on this point. If our approach to training is based on moral ideas regarding punishment, reward, obedience, duty, etc., we are bound to handle the dog in the wrong way.

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