Pepperdine University – Robert Cabral Animal Behavior Lecture Clip #1 – Dog Training
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so the thing about animal behavior if to
look at first of all dogs have
co-evolved with man I gave a lecture at
UCLA not too long a few years ago that
talked about the coevolution of dogs and
dogs are really the only animal that has
co-evolved with us completely on has
completely integrated into our lives
dogs will choose to be with humans over
other dogs like if I’m playing with my
dog and another dog walks by he’s gonna
choose to stay with me as opposed to
being with another animal of his own
species that is the one of the most
unique behaviors that we can attribute
to dogs and humans right so our Co
evolution has span they say close at
least 10 to 15 thousand years possibly
more possibly up to a hundred thousand
years so if you look at any of the
programs on man’s exodus from Africa
that’s when we started domesticating the
what animal what animal did the dogs
spawn from the wolf right so a dog is
more closely related to a wolf than even
any other animal that if it goes and
your common chew our house dog has more
in common with a wolf than it does with
any other animal as well so all
behaviors that are innate into the the
personality we should say where the
drives of the dog are stemmed from the
wolf and those behaviors are what we
call drives and doesn’t know what drives
means drives are the subconscious energy
or actions that a dog will exhibit
during times of stress during times of
need or anything like that so we have
things the basic two drives that dogs
have are a preservation of the species
drive and a self-preservation Drive
everything stems from there right so
just like you if a bunch of aliens came
down you would and they were trying to
kill us we would all fight together to
fight off the aliens but if somebody
starts to fight you you’re gonna fight
to protect yourself so of those two
drives which one do you think is
stronger the self preservation of the
preservation of the species anybody
okay so let me ask you an example and
then tell me if you stay with if you
stay with your thought right so on a
self-preservation species if somebody
comes up to me and says I’m gonna kick
your butt right and then and the guy is
a big burly mean-looking tattooed crazy
muscley guy I have two options what are
my options
flee our fleet fight or flee right I can
run away or I can stand and fight
that’s the self-preservation Drive so
those are the two components that go
into the self-preservation drive the
other drive the preservation of the
species drive is somebody comes up and
starts murdering my mother my father my
child my aunt what am I gonna do am I
gonna flee no I’m gonna fight so the
preservation of the species Drive
actually is a stronger drive innately
subconsciously in all creatures right if
I die it’s one thing if I run away it’s
one thing but if I if everybody around
me dies and the species dies off it’s
much more powerful right so and you’ll
see that like when you see a lion
hunting a bunch of gazelles in Africa
right he’s running running running and
everybody’s running running running and
then boom one nails it well what they do
is they kind of go on I get okay where
we lost one right they don’t go in now
if somebody was search going after a
bunch of lines lines would go out and
fight but one on they generally kind of
let it go so really important to do that
to think about that and when we think
about animal behavior or what we’re
talking about here is how animals work
or how dogs in particular work there’s
only two things that really motivate any
of us what are those
we
what what motivates us to do anything
there’s this one is a positive and one
is a negative pleasure and pain
right all animals seek to avoid pain and
to pursue pleasure right so if you can
go walk on nails to get to class or you
can walk on soft grass which one are you
going to do walk on soft grass right so
when you look at an animal’s behavior or
an animal’s actions or the way an animal
exudes itself it’s based on simply
finding pleasure so if an animal can
find pleasure through eating through
resting through playing or anything like
that or reproduction which pleasure is
this the the sex drive is in the
pleasure drive then the animal follows
that drive in avoiding pain they’re
gonna know ok I don’t want to fight four
or five big guys but if I can fight that
guy and take his food I’ll take that
fight because I can win that fight and I
can pursue pleasure that way right so
what you have to think about the way
animals think in very rudimentary terms
because they don’t communicate verbally
there’s certain animals that will
communicate verbally for example
mountain gorillas have a very complex
form of communication with each other I
was just spent three weeks in Africa and
I spent time in Rwanda with the mountain
gorillas and you’ll see that the the
trackers in Africa and in Rwanda can
actually communicate with these gorillas
so when the little gorilla comes up and
starts beating his chest and playing the
tough guy and gets too close the
trackers will push the gorillas back
with a sound sound and that sound
teaches the gorillas to back off because
when the big silverback does it
everybody backs off
there is no question right so it was an
amazing trip I had there and it taught
me a lot more about animal behavior
because I’m fascinated by all this stuff
so it’s not to me just my job to train
dogs it’s my job to help animals have a
better life right so that’s where I put
my goal so I was a really good dog
trainer I made money and I did all this
stuff and
I realized that by taking what I knew
and teaching it to people who need it if
somebody said to me once is going back a
long time like nine 10 years and this
lady said can you help take a look at
this dog and give me an evaluation on
the dog and I said I said I’m busy and
she said well if I was you I would do
what you do all day for free and I said
that’s a really good idea all I got to
do is teach a bunch of people to do what
I do and they can do it for free and
then I don’t have to do as much right so
that became really the the mindset to
bound angels let’s take what we know
what can help somebody else or help
another animal and let’s teach it to as
many people as we can and that’s what I
started doing with with bound angels
university teaching shelter employees
how to better work with dogs so shelter
dogs and dogs and wolves are almost
three very different animals they’re all
the same species right but when a dog
goes into a shelter he ceases to become
a dog and the reason for that is because
behaviorally he’s shutting down he’s
becoming something different he’s going
into a very high-stress situation so his
behaviors will adapt to that now the
topic of what we’re talking about here
today is using dogs for behaviors and
and and training them stuff like I’m
gonna get into all that but I want to
give you a little background on how dogs
work because I think it’s the most
important part of what you’re going to
learn today so when dogs change their
behavior when they get into that
fight-or-flight mode which we just
talked about that’s when things change
in the dog’s mind when we’re full in
pleasure mode and have any of you guys
studied like animal behavior like as
relates to like optimal based training
on our plus training anything like that
no as it relates to like conditioned
training like Pavlovian training
okay great okay so you’ve studied some
animal behavior in animal psychology
good so a lot of currently we’re seeing
a lot of movement since the animal
psychology has become much more popular
is this movement towards what what what
is in layman’s term called positive only
training or R plus training right in
that psychology what we’re looking at
sadly and I’m glad you guys are here to
listen to what I’m saying because I’m
out there dealing with real dogs not in
a lab dealing with twelve golden
retrievers it tends to be a death
sentence for dogs because we’re limiting
the things we can do on dogs it’s kind
of like saying okay we’re really good
Hospital but we’re not gonna use an
electric defibrillator because it’s just
– it’s too aversive right it’s just when
I put the pads on the person-to-person
shocks and it might kill them but it
might save them so and I’m not saying
that electric collars for the answer or
more pinched calls to the answer but I’m
saying a variety of training methods is
the answer and what we need to look at
is what does a dog need to succeed in
life just like what does a person need
to succeed in life and that overall
answer is structure right when I came in
here I stopped at the red light I turned
left from the left turn lane I went I
stopped at the security guard I got my
pass I turned right here and I parked my
car I didn’t just like his zip up the
middle of PCH and flip aue and then come
in here and park in the middle of the
field because I understand that
structure is a guideline for life and
that’s where dogs tend to break down
when they end up in the shelter somebody
gave up on them either they were too big
too small they barked too much or bark
too little or they were too old or too
young they couldn’t be trained or they
were too dominant and all these
behaviors see because people give up on
dogs so well we want to look at is how
to conditioned behaviors and I’ll bring
goofy out in one second show you just a
couple behaviors and I’ll bring them in
and out a couple times so that you guys
have a time to see him and a time to
observe what he’s doing and then time to
ask me questions and it gives him a
break to kind of be away from us because
he he’ll get crazy I want to play with
everybody so and when he comes out just
ignore him try not to like he’ll start
the hippo
lick you and stuff like that but I’ll
get them away from you but is anybody
here afraid of dogs oh you aren’t really
okay so you’re gonna be an actress today
afraid of dogs right
just ignore so the best thing and it’s a
really good thing why are you afraid of
dogs were you bitten at one point no
okay but you’re just you’re just afraid
okay well there’s a big dog coming out
so so very common at dogs I’m not saying
this to scare you in any way because he
won’t bite you but dogs will bite people
who are afraid of them just like dogs
are coming to bite children because what
happens is in a dog’s drive the
self-preservation and the preservation
of the species drive they see that
apprehension that you might have as a
negative so they see that as something
suspicious like why are you afraid of me
I’m not gonna hurt you but if you’re
acting suspicious perhaps you want to
hurt me
and that’s just rooted so deeply in the
animal’s behavior that it’s hard to
unwire without exposing them over and
over to that which is why at very young
ages we take dogs out and we bring them
around children and people who don’t
know what they are about loud sounds
slippery surfaces and stuff like that to
overall condition them to that right but
when we look at training dogs or
training animals for behaviors anybody
seeing like what they do at SeaWorld
with the the whales of fishy blackfish
by the way okay which side are you more
on just curious let’s not the lecture
but are you more on the side of the
people training the the mammals or the
people who are against the training of
the mammals
you’re cool with the training you’re
against it just raise your hands if
you’re if you like the training of those
animals okay and if and then raise your
hand if you’re against it okay all right
well thank God because yeah right right
sure right so that’s actually really
nice to hear a professor saying that
because most often than not it’s very
black-and-white it’s very scientific
yes dogmatic so I’m against it I mean I
am all for training dogs because dogs
have been domesticated and co-evolve of
us for at least fifteen thousand years
you know so you have to think about how
many cycles of dogs there have been in
those fifteen thousand years there’s
been hundreds of thousands of cycles of
dogs that have gone through and have
co-evolved us so they’re actually
looking to us for that whenever you look
at mammal training for example and I’m
gonna stay with sea mammals for now so
you look at a whale all that training is
based on what they consider positive
only training so in other words the dog
the dog the whale is lured with a fish
which means if but if he’s full he’s not
going to come up to you for one fish so
you tend to have to deprive them of that
which will do with a dog if a dog is not
working properly will deprive them one
or two meals and then show them that
they can get their meal by exhibiting a
certain behavior finding the bad guy
finding the dope biting the bad guy or
jumping through a hoop whatever that
trick is or whatever the behavior is
it’s very natural for the dog to want to
do it because he’s going volved with us
for so many years and he wants to relate
to us the dog is just really looking for
a way to relate to us and other animals
aren’t so whales generally tend to be
avoidant of humans like lions they’re
very few step out of the car with a lion
the lion will flee you know now if you
pressure the lion the lion will kill you
right it which is what we’ve seen now
with a lot of the trainer’s not a lot
but a few of the trainer’s who have been
training these crazy big animals with
positive-only there’s no really if
there’s no downside to the animal
because if never you can’t punish how
are you going to punish a four-ton whale
you know you can’t hit them on the nose
with a stick you know so and you can’t
put them on a leash and drag them out to
the other pool and have a word of them
so it’s it’s going to be much harder to
ever pass that level of training on to
whales that we have on dogs because
have a neck dogs have four legs they
walk with us they stay with us they’re
conditioned to behave with us and
they’re very conditioned to want to
please us which is the root of my talk
here right that dogs want to please us
we just have to show them how they can
please us even dogs that are completely
despondent and checked out or whatever
they’ve just checked out because they
don’t think they can please us right but
if we show them hey I just start hand
feeding the dog I start playing with the
dog I start showing the dog this this is
a fun relationship it’s gonna spark that
right back into the dog’s mind even a
dog that’s feral because feral dogs are
really only labeled feral dogs when
they’ve been twice removed from
domestication feral is wild right
resorting to the wild right secondarily
right correct it has to be
yeah it looks in other words if my dog
went and became feral
so I started living in the wild without
me okay then he had a puppy and then
that dog had a dog that next dog is
considered truly feral because the first
dog is still learning the behaviors from
him who is a domesticated dog right this
dog is it’s not going to be able to pass
onto that so and as you get more and
more down line but even feral dogs
because of their DNA can easily be
conditioned back into society back into
domestication and a human habituation
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