Eager to please?

A few months ago, I made a post on Instagram about how dogs don’t understand what “no” means in the way we think they do. At best, “no” momentarily interrupts a behavior, but more commonly it is a predictor of incoming aversives (stop what you’re doing or else).

A friend alerted me that they saw a balanced trainer (someone who uses punishment procedures in their training) disparaging my post, using my graphics, and saying they didn’t want to live in a world where trainers can make such bold claims. Hah! I wouldn’t know what that feels like…

Their reasoning was that of course dogs understand “no”, because if they didn’t, that would mean they didn’t understand “yes” either! Checkmate! Score one for the balanced trainers. Not really though :-P I appreciate this person for giving me an opportunity to elaborate and include “yes” to the list of concepts that we expect dogs to understand the way we do, when they really don’t.

Despite common tropes about being “man’s best friend”, dogs do not have an innate drive to please us. They are not constantly trying to figure out what we want. Training is not a game of “hot and cold” (nor “yes and no”) as a dog searches for what will make their human happy. Training is the evidence-based and ethical application of the laws of learning. (It’s also equal parts management and enrichment.)

Behavior is shaped by its consequences. For dogs, morality plays no part. Right and wrong simply do not exist for them. Think about it… what each human community values is often completely different from another. Morality is subjective and culturally nuanced. Even though dogs did coevolve with humans, they do not have the biological capacity for this kind of complex thinking.

At first, it may seem like an insult to purport that dogs don’t care about being morally good. But to me, this is one of the most magical things about them. They live in the moment. They act functionally and selfishly. There is no pretext. They are just trying to get their needs met. It’s so refreshing and pure and makes me happy.

So in trying to get a dog to understand “no” – that something they are doing is “wrong” – all we can really teach them is that their behavior will result in punishment (via application of an aversive or the removal of access to a reinforcer). There are mountains of research showing that learning through punishment has a very high risk of behavioral and emotional fallout. It’s also just not effective; you don’t need to learn a million different wrong ways to do something in order to learn how to do it right.

As a positive reinforcement trainer, “yes” is part of my vocabulary while “no” isn’t. “Yes” is a commonly used marker word; but again, this isn’t about morality. We use it the same way we use a clicker. It is just a sound that means something good is about to happen. I know that I’m not teaching a dog how to make me happy or how to be a good dog. I’m just teaching them that whatever happened when they heard the “yes” is a predictor of food/play/etc (and the associated emotional response).

When might a dog look like they are trying to “please”? Primary reinforcers (things that need no conditioning in order for a dog to find them valuable) like food, water, safety, and control, are pretty much universal. Secondary reinforcers are things that have taken on the value of a primary reinforcer via association. I think that human contact fits somewhere in the middle. Dogs do have an evolutionary history of relying on humans (I would listen to someone make an argument that this can be a primary reinforcer) but we’re also often associated with food and access to other resources (secondary reinforcer). So they may repeat behaviors that have previously resulted in some pleasant response from a human. I think this nuance is important. Dogs don’t live to please us; they live to please themselves. Occasionally there is overlap.

I think this discussion is especially relevant within coercive training environments. Appeasement is when a creature uses their behavior to soothe someone who appears angry in order to prevent conflict. Dogs often display appeasement behaviors in order to prevent or end punishment. This is known as a fawn response, one of the four Fs of trauma/stress (flight, fight, freeze, fawn). Licking, nuzzling, grinning, play bowing, exposing the belly, and other commonly misinterpreted behaviors can function as appeasement signals. Dogs can read our body language and facial expressions remarkably well, and may learn what behaviors will calm us down.

This is a negative reinforcement contingency. Something aversive is applied (whether it’s obvious like the stim from an ecollar, or something more subtle like social pressure or stern body language) and the dog works to “turn it off”. They experience relief as a reinforcing consequence. This may look like a dog who enjoys making their human happy. Really they just don’t like it when we’re upset because it is a threat to their own sense of safety. And, as always, the associated emotional response (fear, stress, relief, etc) is tagging along for the ride. No thanks. Not in my training.

This is the heart of why I love dogs so deeply. They exist for themselves. I think it’s super creepy to insist that your dog lives to please you. What are you compensating for?

In summation… thank you, random dude, for enabling me to ramble on about one of my favorite subjects. I had your post removed for violation of my intellectual property.