Infopet|| Books: Dogs: Extended review: Jean Donaldson

Extended review:

Jean Donaldson's The Culture Clash

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The Culture Clash

Jean Donaldson
James & Kenneth Publishers; 2nd edition (1996)
ISBN-10: 1888047054
ISBN-13: 978-1888047059

Looking Back in Time

Dogs have been very successful in evolutionary terms because of their close relationship with humans. Dogs have travelled with us across the globe, sometimes as work colleagues and companions, other times living on the fringes of human settlements. Dogs can pull heavy loads for us, keep us warm at night, and in some societies, they are even eaten. Long ago, humans discovered that selective breeding could enhance certain traits, such as a desire to co-operate with humans, or the stamina to pull a sled in cold weather for long periods.

Dogs are more versatile than wolves, and this is the key to their success. It's not just that we have specialist dogs such as sled dogs, sheepdogs and lapdogs. Dogs have a longer socialisation period than wolves, so it's possible for them to learn more about how to get on with members of their own, and other species. Most dogs are smart when it comes to assessing humans. In contrast to wolf pups, which want to play with each other, dog pups prefer to be with humans. Dogs like doing things with humans, which means that they need to understand us, our body language, and our smells, as well as our words. In the last decade, research on how dogs differ from wolves, and how dogs communicate with us has flourished. Thanks to the work of ethologists like Adam Miklosi in Hungary, and Marc Bekoff in the USA, we have new insights into what makes dogs tick, and what feats even the humble family pet is capable of. We also have more idea of how dogs are, in some ways, similar to humans. Dogs, like humans, are social animals capable of relating to two species, and like all social animals, dogs have social rules, so in this sense they have 'morality', though it isn't quite the same as human morality. They're also sensitive to human moods, and can show empathy, which many dog owners can verify.

Reading 'Culture Clash' today is like moving through a time warp, back to 1996, when the book came out. You're swept back to a time when a simplified version of behaviourism became fashionable among dog people in Britain and the USA. Behaviourism is a school of psychology, and one of its founding fathers was B.F. Skinner, who did work with rats and pigeons, and who publicised the notion of operant conditioning with 'The Behaviour of Organisms', which came out in 1938. If you use the terms 'positive reinforcement' and 'positive punishment', you're talking the language of operant conditioning. Behaviourists aren't very interested in what is inside dogs' heads, but in what you can observe of how animals react to rewards and punishments.

Jean Donaldson spells out at the start of 'Culture Clash' that she aims to market the ideas of B.F. Skinner. She is supremely confident. Behaviourism is, she tells us on p10 'inescapably verifiable'. Donaldson's marketing effort was remarkably successful, in that terms derived from operant conditioning have become an essential part of the vocabulary of anyone taking dog training exams in the UK and US. This book, then, has one major strength, it did what the author intended it to do, and it became very popular. 'Culture Clash' has not only sold well, it's still on the list of recommended reading in some modern training books. This is quite a feat, considering that only the last chapter is an explicit 'how to' guide to training, and many readers complain that it's difficult to find the training points in other chapters, amid the diatribes against views that Donaldson disapproves of.

Biologists, such as the Coppingers, have tended to take a broader view of dogs than have behaviourists. The Coppingers' extremely popular book 'Dogs' appeared in 2001. They looked at canine evolution, dogs in different societies, and ways in which inbuilt behaviour tends to vary according to breed. Working border collies, for example, show some of the patterns of hunting wolves, but a well-bred, well-trained collie 'hunts' to control and direct the sheep, rather than to kill and eat them. Other researchers had noted that dogs also differ in terms of the clarity of the signals they give before they make an aggressive move. Dogs from some breeds, like huskies, tend to be easy for humans and other dogs to 'read', while dogs from other breeds, like rottweilers, tend to be more difficult, more like poker players (see Goodwin et al in Further reading). Both dogs and humans need to be more skilled to 'read' the poker players. Yet though the fashion then was to generalise about breeds, we are now more aware of differences within breeds, especially between working and show dogs. Differences within breeds, especially those with large gene pools, can be greater than differences between breeds.

Initially, ethologists were more interested in wild animals in their natural environment. Dogs weren't seen as fit subjects for study because they were domesticated. This changed when a Hungarian, Vilmos Csanyi, set up a group specifically to study canine ethology, arguing that, because dogs have always had a relationship with humans, domesticated dogs are in their natural environment. 'Canine ethology' is a fancy name for the study of dog behaviour. One big advantage of the new research is that it's actually looking at dogs, rather than saying, as behaviourists tend to, 'this is what has been done with rats, pigeons and dolphins, and it can also be applied to dogs'. Significantly, Csanyi's group moved away from seeing wolves as 'natural dogs' to systematically exploring differences between dogs and wolves. Csanyi includes many observations of how dogs differ from wolves, from what he learnt by comparing those kept by the team he led. He also includes anecdotes from observations of his own pet dogs. Like many writers at the time, he tends to overgeneralise about links between breed and behaviour, but he does show the limitations of the behaviourist view of 'dogs as machines', the importance of inbuilt behaviour, and the pleasure of two-way communication between dogs and their owners.

When Csanyi retired, Adam Miklosi took over as head of the team. Miklosi's 'Dog' is a far more solid and careful text than Csanyi's. Miklosi explains at the start why it isn't helpful to see dogs either as wolves, or as humans in furry suits. He explores the similarities and differences between dogs and wolves, and dogs and children. Dogs are neither wolves not furkids, nor in between, they are dogs. In some ways they resemble wolves, but they also have a lot in common with humans, which is why we can understand one another. His team has focused especially on family dogs. This has led many pet owners to look at their dogs with new interest, make more effort to 'read' them, and work out what they are capable of. All this relatively recent research underlines the deficiencies of 'Culture Clash' as a source of information about the nature of dogs.

So What Was the Book About?

Chapter One is called 'Getting the Dog's Perspective (Dog intelligence and morality), yet there's very little in this chapter on how dogs see the world. Instead, Jean Donaldson embarks on a tirade against very simplistic ideas of wolf society, applied to dogs, and against the Disney portrayal of dogs as being intelligent and moral in the same way that humans are. Well, yes, obviously, one can hardly disagree with this. Oversimplistic views are wrong, but this is true whether it's seeing dogs as 'pack animals' living in rigid hierarchies, or seeing them as 'not pack animals', for whom hierarchies are unimportant. Reality, as Csanyi and Miklosi show, is more complicated. The same goes for seeing dogs as 'intelligent', using human intelligence as the yardstick, or dismissing them as 'lemon brains', as Donaldson does at the end of Chapter 1. Dogs are intelligent in their own way. They are worse at some things than humans are, better at others. Likewise, though Donaldson portrays dogs as amoral, they do have a sense of morality, of social norms that most dogs conform to, it just isn't quite the same as human morality. The chapter is quite easy to read, but is frustratingly uninformative if you really want to know about canine intelligence and morality.

Chapter 2 is called 'Hard-Wiring: What the Dog Comes With (Predatory and Social Behavior)'. There are some useful points in this chapter, such as the benefits of allowing dogs to play with each other, so they can learn social skills, the benefits of dogs and humans playing hide and seek, both training dogs to find objects and the owner, the usefulness of tug games with rules, as a reward in themselves, and as a way of enhancing communication and control, and tips on making permissible chew toys more attractive. Donaldson does, however, tend to play down inbuilt differences between dogs, and the need for supervision. Some dogs learn very quickly how to play nicely, regulating the strength they use in line with their playmate's, others need more training to learn to be less pushy, and yet others may have little interest in play at all, and may be very intolerant of any dog that is too pushily solicitous of play. Novice owners could be left with the impression that you just let dogs get on with it and don't intervene, yet it is important to recognise when to allow play, when play turns into bullying, and when one dog has had enough and it is no longer a game.

Humans need to be with other humans to learn how to socialise. That doesn't mean you want unruly children running up and pushing you when you go for a quiet walk in the park. It doesn't make you 'human aggressive' if you object to this sort of pushy behaviour, especially if you're frail and elderly. Likewise, dogs which object to unmannered, rough play are normal, rather than 'dog aggressive'. Taking sensitive dogs to places where they meet a lot of undisciplined youngsters can teach them to overreact. Doting novice owners of young dogs do need to learn that not all dogs welcome their little darling's attentions. This is especially true if the little darling is a large-breed dog that has not learnt to regulate its strength, or if it's a plaguey small breed youngster that pushes its luck with grumpy large-breed dogs.

Donaldson also plays down inbuilt desires when she talks of retrieving. Anyone who has trained a range of different dogs will know that, given the same or similar training regimes, some dogs become obsessive retrievers, while others have less interest, or want to rip the retrieving object to shreds. It would be helpful to mention 'off switches' for obsessive retrievers, and ways in which owners can channel that desire to higher level work (such as finding lost objects). It's also worth mentioning that the desire to 'bite/hold/shake/kill' (and hang onto) retrieving and other objects (which Donaldson sees as inbuilt) is much stronger in some dogs than others (especially some terriers) and this does present training challenges for owners of such dogs. Playing tug with a release command is in fact one way in which owners can build in an 'off switch'.

Donaldson does see 'separation anxiety' as inbuilt, and again it would be helpful for owners if she explored why some dogs are more prone than others. It´s a term usually applied to dogs that bark a lot and trash the house or injure themselves when left alone. It's especially common in rescue dogs, which come from a busy, structured environment, where they know what's happening, and are suddenly placed in a void of quiet and solitude, where they are less sure about what is going on. Understanding how the dog sees the change, gives owners a chance to make it easier for the dog. A solution is to take time off to be with the dog just after the change, and give the dog a clearly structured day that initially fits the structure of the rescue centre in terms of the timing of feeding and exercise, gradually moving to the owner's structure. The problem is also linked to human lifestyles, especially humans bringing dogs into their homes and leaving them alone there for long periods.

Donaldson's remedies are desensitisation, and getting another dog. While these may help, she misses some important points. Firstly, the question of how long it's reasonable to shut up a dog alone, especially if the dog is confined in a crate. There's no hard and fast answer, because oldsters that sleep much of the day and are used to being left alone can tolerate being shut in for far longer than youngsters with more energy to burn. Generally, being left alone indoors while owners are absent for a full working day plus commuting time, is too long for most active young dogs, so a mention of other solutions would be helpful, for example, day care, or having a friend drop in to walk the dog at lunch time. Secondly, most dogs sleep after a good run, and a half hour of brisk exercise before the dog is shut in means that the dog is much less likely to bark and trash the house.

'Getting another dog' may help if the dogs are compatible, but can create more problems if they wind each other up, or don't get on, so it's essential for owners to choose carefully. Some dogs have a calming effect on one another, but dogs can also get each other overexcited. Dogs may also hate each other, for reasons their owners cannot always fathom, and this is bad news if they're shut in alone together all day. Novices who read this advice and rush out to buy littermates 'to keep one another company' may be in for a nasty shock. My own littermates, Tilly and Conor, are exceptionally good-natured, and can even share a large bowl of food together, but squabbles between littermates are especially common. Would-be owners are wise to to check out whether dogs are compatible before making a commitment, and if they already have a dog, it's worth listening to what that dog tells them.

Another important omission in this chapter is the timing of training. On p35, Donaldson downplays the importance of a dog's age, yet, as ethologists have shown, timing is very important in the socialisation of dogs to both humans and other dogs. She doesn't mention this until the next chapter, and then only in connection with humans. Orphan, bottle-fed dogs need early contact with their own species if they are not to grow up socially inept. Likewise, structured obedience and skills training programmes are more successful if they take into account the dog's level of maturity. Furthermore, it's more efficient to start teaching high-level skills when dogs are young, with lesson contents geared to the dog's stage of development. Again, much of the chapter is taken up with a diatribe against training methods that Donaldson disapproves of. A bit less of the diatribe, and a bit more information would be helpful.

Chapter 3 is called 'Socialization and Conflict Resolution (Biters and Fighters)'. Donaldson argues that spooked dogs have to choose between biting or running away, and she places a lot of weight on socialisation to ensure that dogs are not spooked. In fact dogs that feel threatened have a much wider repertoire than bite or flee, even if they are upset, so a dog that is trapped and cannot flee, does not necessarily bite. The dog may freeze, or try appeasement gestures, such as shrieking 'I give in', or grovelling, or seek protection from their owner. My late Rugby, was once attacked by two greyhounds (he'd just sniffed the bitch when her mate turned up, took exception, and the bitch joined in). Rug was trapped, and shrieked piteously. My bitch, Tilly, doesn't flee if I sound cross with her, she goes into 'grovel mode' and comes towards me. I once tried to bathe Tilly's brother, Conor, in water that was too hot for his comfort. He didn't bite, and didn't try to flee from me, but just tried to climb onto my shoulder. Owners inevitably make mistakes, and making a lot of effort to build trust is one way to ensure that dogs forgive us our occasional misjudgements, and don't bite us when we trap them in threatening situations. How forgiving dogs are depends both on temperament and on training - some dogs need far more effort than others. Tilly and Conor's litter have all been very trusting with their owners. Rug's litter all needed more 'trust building' work, such as massage, to get them to be more relaxed about being restrained and handled.

Donaldson gives advice on developing bite inhibition that's fairly common among trainers, but which goes against my experience. She argues that pups should be allowed to bite their owners, though not young children, and that little pups can't learn to hold back on bites unless you use 'harsh punishments' (p69). Yet Tilly and Conor learnt very quickly not to bite me when they were seven and eight weeks old, respectively. That was the first lesson they learnt, the day they arrived. I just blew a raspberry into their faces when they were lying in my lap and tried nibbling me, and they stopped, and started licking me. They weren't scared, just got the message that if they wanted to be on a nice comfy lap and be stroked, the condition was 'no biting'. Neither has used their teeth on me since those first lessons on my lap, not even mouthing, and they are now geriatric.

Donaldson is right to say that socialising dogs with strange humans is very important. However, her 'socialisation hit list' on p63 makes it appear that socialisation mainly involves getting strangers to give your dog cookies. This isn't a good plan if you want to walk your dog past strangers without the dog getting overexcited! Dogs do need to learn that the default approach is to focus on you, not the stranger. They just go up for a treat if you give permission. Temperament is also very important, especially if you want a dog that can handle a busy environment, with a lot of strange people coming and going, including children. Then it's wise to check a pup's line to ensure its ancestors were tolerant of strangers. Some dogs are extremely tolerant of people they know, but wary of strangers. Choosing a 'sociable breed' isn't enough. Alas, dogs are often bred for appearance or just to make a quick buck, with the result that some dogs from popular 'family'
breeds, like golden retrievers, may have very dodgy temperaments.

Chapter Four is called 'It's All Chew Toys to Them (Behavior problems and solutions)' an odd subtitle, because biting is a more serious behavioural problem than chewing. Certainly, Donaldson is right to note that dogs don't see objects in the same way we do. They don't know that we like a potential chew toy because it came from Aunt Ellen now deceased. However she underestimates the intelligence of dogs when she argues that they have no perception at all of the value of items to the owner, but just see them all as chew toys. Some dogs will deliberately select 'forbidden' items in order to gain their owners' attention, so training has to go beyond just teaching such dogs what is forbidden and what is permissible.

Chapter 5, 'Lemon Brains But We Still Love Them (How dogs learn)', presents dogs as basically not very bright, and only able to learn through rewards and punishments. Donaldson exhorts owners to learn the 'basic rules', that rewards and punishments can be given or taken away, and this is how owners can teach their dogs. She does make some useful points, for example that owners can use the dog's inbuilt desires to do certain things, as a bargaining tool - dogs can be allowed rewards that fit with their natural desires, and get these rewards by being obedient. As she notes, feedback, and the timing of feedback are important. Her comment at the end that commands are like building bricks in training, is also useful. In general, though, this chapter, which is the only one in which behaviourism is presented in any depth, isn't actually very helpful for people wanting to understand the ideas of B.F. Skinner, which Donaldson claims she wants to sell. The chapter also takes very little account of the nature of dogs, so is a very partial and confusing account of how dogs learn.

One of Donaldson's examples of rewards is a gambling machine designed to make humans want to put money into it. She tells readers that we can't help but get hooked on these machines, because they're designed using 'laws governing reinforcement' (p144). That's a bad example to try to prove her point - go into a bar and watch clients and slot machines, and you'll find that some clients are slot machine addicts, and others are immune. Humans, like dogs, have built-in differences. There's no 'law' that tells us whether a particular attempt to provide a reward works for a particular human or dog, nor is it clear whether the slot machine 'reward' is in the payout, or in the adrenalin rush of anticipation. Unravel behaviourism, and it's much less clear-cut than it first appears.

Some of Donaldson's advice on rewards is also unhelpful, for example the idea that one should reward a dog for the absence of unwanted behaviour (p163). How on earth does the dog know what the reward is for? Better to reward a dog for obeying a command in the presence of a distracting stimulus, for example a dog that manages to come to you when you call, despite the presence of the neighbour's cat making rude faces nearby.

Later in Chapter 5, Donaldson claims that punishment doesn't kill behaviour, what kills behaviour is removing the reward. Punishment just temporarily stops the behaviour by upsetting the dog (p159). This is rubbish, in operant conditioning terms, 'punishment', by definition, is a consequence that makes a behaviour less likely to happen. 'Positive punishment' means a nasty consequence, for example, being burned when you touch a hot pan may make you more careful of hot pans in the future. If it does make you more careful, it's 'positive punishment' in operant conditioning terms. 'Negative punishment' means loss of something nice as a consequence, for example, a dog that gets overexcited when you are opening the front door may calm down when you shut it, and learn to be calmer in future, especially if that's always the consequence of overexcitement. If it works, it's punishment, if it doesn't work, it isn't punishment. By definition, 'punishment' in the vocabulary of operant conditioning always works. The problem is that we also use the term in everyday speech to mean 'nasty things we do because certain behaviours annoy us'. That of course may only temporarily interrupt behaviour, and may be ineffective in the long run, for example, kids and dogs both tend to learn to tune out adults who are constantly shouting at them.

Positive punishment can be extremely effective in permanently stopping certain behaviours, in both humans and dogs. A young man recently described to me how his behaviour changed when a friend who'd been drinking died in a car accident. The young man now always drives sober. If animals didn't learn from nasty things happening, they'd be at risk, as a species of becoming extinct. Donaldson is actually aware that attempts at punishment can be effective because she later contradicts herself. She spells out that positive punishment can work under certain conditions, for example if you use it the first time a dog tries to do something you don't want it to do (p162).

Donaldson is also confusing and not entirely honest when she deals with negative punishment. In operant conditioning terms, witholding rewards is a form of punishment if it's effective. Donaldson believes in witholding, or removing rewards, therefore she sees punishment as effective, but she doesn't actually explain that it's 'punishment'. She has left many readers under the delusion that they never inflict punishment, though they may in fact be overdoing 'negative punishment'. And if you believe that negative punishment doesn't hurt, think of what gives you most pleasure, and imagine how you'd feel at having it taken away from you. If you really want to understand operant conditioning, read a clearer and more honest explanation, such as that found in Mary Burch's 'How Dogs Learn'.

There are good reasons for trying to provide rewards rather than trying to inflict punishments, whether positive or negative. Rewards tend to boost trust, while heavy-handed attempts at punishment can undermine trust. This is true for positive punishment. (The risk of loss of trust is one reason why booby traps are often recommended for counter surfers. The dog thinks its own actions caused a nasty clatter, rather than seeing the owner as the bad guy.) Furthermore, what the dog learns from nasty consequences is not always predictable, for example, if a dog is hit by a car and suffers a minor injury, the dog's response may be to keep away from cars, or, if the dog is bold, to chase them because they are dangerous. Attempts at negative punishments can also undermine trust, for example if an owner constantly witholds food rewards, or shuts the dog up alone, the dog may not understand why, with the result that communication and trust break down.

Focusing on rewards makes for a better relationship. The owner tells the dog what it's meant to be doing, rather than what it's not meant to be doing. It can be very depressing to be continually nagged, whereas if you're told when you've got it right, it can make you feel good. Focusing on rewards is more fun for dog and owner. But ... sometimes humans and dogs do need to know when we've got it wrong especially if our behaviour endangers our own lives and those of others. It may hurt to be told, but it's useful information. And if you say 'don't do that, do this instead', you're getting two messages across 'I don't want you to do that' and 'This is what you are meant to be doing instead'. How you say 'don't do that' depends on the dog. Dog training is an art, because dogs aren't machines. Some are very sensitive to owner displeasure, while others are more confident and independent. Your only guide to whether or not you're getting it right is the dog in front of you.

Behaviourism doesn't of course give a complete picture of how dogs learn, and this is clear from the omissions in Chapter 5. First, there's no mention in this chapter of sensitive periods, when dogs need to learn key skills. or teaching them becomes difficult, and sometimes impossible. It's much easier to train a pup to respect small domestic animals, such as rabbits, cats and chickens, for example, than it is to teach an adult dog. Donaldson also claims that dogs only have a desire to please if we teach them that they get to do what they want by obeying us. In fact, little pups are relatively easy to train, because they're dependent on us, so listen to us. Tilly and Conor learnt not to bite me partly because I told them I didn't want to be bitten. They wanted to please this human who was the source of their comfort. Dogs bond to humans in ways that wolves don't, so we have a built-in advantage when training dogs, compared with training wild animals. We can give them information about what we want them to do. A dog is far more likely to listen, and take note of 'I'd rather you didn't do that' than is a wolf or a wild dolphin.

Adolescent dogs tend to be more independent. Young dogs, like young humans, often need work on impulse control. Maybe a young dog would rather zip after a fleeing cat than take notice of you. This 'desire to please' is less evident in adolescents than pups. However, as dogs mature, they and their owners get to know one another, and some dogs do develop a mature 'desire to please'. Dogs, like humans, take time to mature. Relationships, and learning how to communicate with one another, take time to develop. In time some owners can achieve that 'desire to please', especially if they have a dog with a strong inbuilt desire to co-operate with humans.

Dogs can also learn how to do tasks, like opening doors, by imitation, from observing their owners, and observing each other. They can learn both acceptable behaviour, and unacceptable behaviour from each other. (This is one reason why it is important to have your existing dog or dogs well-trained before taking on a new dog.) Toby, an ex-stray, learnt to sit-stay by watching Tilly and Conor. Canela, our neighbour's dog, used to come on walks with us, and learnt how to behave with mules by watching Toby, who was used to them, and knew that if you didn't mess with mules, they didn't mess with you.

Chapter 5 is perhaps the one that most saddens people with working dogs. The list of what owners need to learn, on p168, is all about how owners should tell their dogs what they want. There is nothing about listening to the dog, or encouraging the dog to communicate. However, even pet owners need to listen, if only to learn when a bark means 'a dog has passed by', and when it means 'if you don't take me out immediately, I'm going to expel disgusting substances from both ends. One of the joys of Csanyi's book is that he listens, and records how his dogs communicate with him.

People who work their dogs tend to develop two-way communication to a much higher level, and they do this because they know that their dogs are, in many ways, smarter than humans. A shepherd and his sheepdog, a blind person and their guide dog, or a search and rescue worker with their dog, all know that the relationship is a partnership. Granted, the human is the senior partner, taking the executive decisions. However, dogs can understand some things we cannot, for example, sheepdogs can sometimes read sheep and predict what they are about to do better than the shepherd. So at times, the dog takes over leadership in the details of the operation, while the human listens to the dog. These dogs are certainly not 'lemon brains'.

Furthermore, dogs are carefully selected for high-level tasks, because not all dogs can perform them well. There doesn't have to be a 'desire to please', just an inbuilt desire to do the job the dog is designed to do. The owner is the means by which the dog can do that job. When a dog really wants to do a job, a 'correction' is welcome, and not an aversive. The correction conveys information that the dog needs, and not knowing what the owner wants can be very painful for the dog.

The last, and sixth Chapter deals with obedience training, and again has some good training points, especially for people interested in clicker training. Obedience training is basically teaching dogs self-control, especially sitting, staying, and recall. The basic commands are important building blocks for developing a well-trained dog that you can trust in most situations. Obviously, teaching dogs self-control is very important, to help them stay alive, and for us to enjoy their company. But if that is all owners do, impose their will on their dogs, they're missing out on much of the joy of dog ownership, and giving the dog a very narrow education. Education for kids isn't just about school subjects and passing exams. Dogs also benefit from a broad education that looks at the big picture, a point that could be more strongly spelled out in Chapter 6.

Beyond Behaviourism: Looking at the Big Picture

Simplified versions of behaviourism start to unravel when you look at how humans and dogs relate to one another, especially if they know each other well and are working together in a partnership. A correction (telling a dog that what it's doing isn't what you want) isn't a simple behaviourist 'punishment', if it conveys information that the dog wants to know. The correction may end unwanted behaviour, but not necessarily because it's an aversive.

Donaldson argues that if you use (presumably positive) 'punishment', you should go in big the first time a dog does something you don't want (p162). Yet very mild aversives can be more effective, as with stopping Tilly and Conor's biting. Blowing a raspberry was an aversive, in that they didn't like it, but it didn't much upset them (neither tried to get off my lap). Why might it be helpful to go in gently? Think of breakfasting with a friend for the first time, and being asked to be quiet until your friend has had a second cup of coffee. If they say 'I am afraid I'm subhuman until after two caffeine fixes, and I need quiet until then', that's easy to accept. If your friend bellows at you when you start your bright chatter, this overreaction may make you feel defensive, may affect trust between you. It'll also be counterproductive if are so upset that you start to shout back. In real life, it's often difficult to put behaviourist labels on what we do.
Blowing a raspberry was mildly aversive, but it also had an element of surprise, so got the pup's attention, and it conveyed a message.

Dog training is far more of an art than Donaldson recognises, intuition plays its part. It's about a relationship, and it's the dog in front of you who tells you whether or not you've got it right, not trying to locate every action in a simplistic behaviourist model. As with medicine, a stronger dose is not necessarily more effective, it might, for example, kill the patient. Likewise, mild aversives may be more effective at stopping behaviour than harsh aversives, and this is partly because you've got the dose right. 'Punishments', consequences that stop unwanted behaviour, may also be qualitatively different. Try getting a friend to slap your face without warning, then wait a few days, and throw a pan of water over you, again without warning. Record both how this affects your behaviour, and what you feel. Both actions may stop you doing whatever you were doing, but you're likely to feel differently when the water hits you, more surprise, and less inclined to hit back or grab your friend's arm (you need a very good friend for this experiment). That's why hosing down fighting dogs is more effective than hitting them.

One sad effect of obsessing over behaviourist models of 'punishment' is that dog people often lose sight of the big picture, for example, it's not just the 'how' of training that's important, also the 'why'. If we're training a dog to behave in ways that keep it and others safe, especially children, then it's more justifiable to use aversives than if we're training a dog to do tricks that amuse us.

The big picture also includes our long history of interacting with dogs. Humans have been training dogs for thousands of years. In each century, there have been skilled and inept trainers. Skilled trainers have a knack of two-way communication with dogs, they understand what the dog is saying, as well as being able to tell the dog what they want. We didn't suddenly get more skilled with 'modern methods'. If anything, we tend to be less skilled now, because we tend to interact less with off-leash dogs, so have less chance to learn how to 'read' them. 'Hands off' training methods, based on behaviourism are often marketed as 'kinder' than 'hands-on' methods, but both can be dog-friendly if used by skilled trainers who can 'read' dogs, just as both can be misused. A skilled trainer has a sense of when and how to touch a dog in a way that fosters trust, and is able to use rewards. An inept trainer doesn't know how to use touch in a way that calms the dog, and can spook a dog by getting the timing of rewards wrong, so the dog gets confused about what it is meant to be doing. A seriously inept trainer can't even tell when the dog is spooked. The best trainers are flexible, and can 'read' the dog in front of them well enough to diagnose potential problems, and find solutions that work. This includes extra work for dogs spooked by touch. It's vital to teach dogs to accept gentle restraint and intrusive handling, so they can receive vet treatement. It's all too easy to neglect this essential part of training, if owners use 'hands-off methods, and don't supplement them with 'trust-building touch exercises'.

Behaviourism also tends to focus on rewards for a single behaviour, but it's the wider relationship that's rewarding for both dogs and humans. Dogs like sharing activities with humans, it's rewarding. And, like kids, dogs love to have small responsibilities, to be trusted with jobs in line with their abilities, and to receive sincere praise for doing that job well. Train a dog to retrieve, for example, and your dog can bring you objects from places you can't reach, and even find objects for you.

The 'big picture' also has to include the question 'Why do pet owners have dogs?'. It's because we enjoy their company. We can connect to them in a way that we can connect to no other species. They can tell us a lot about ourselves, because they don't rationalise and kid themselves in the complicated ways that humans do. They can tell us a lot we can't perceive because our senses of smell and hearing are too poor. A well-behaved dog can also connect us to other humans.

There can be an element of joy in spending time with a dog, but for that to happen, humans need to make sensible choices about when they take on a dog, and which dog will suit them. First, human culture has changed, and we now spend more time away from our homes, in places where dogs cannot go. Someone who arrives home from work tired, and wants to slump then go to bed, isn't in a good position to keep a dog. Sometimes we can make time, for example, by watching less late-night TV, and getting up early for a run with the dog, but there are limits if our jobs are very demanding. Secondly, temperament can make a major difference between enjoying a dog's company, and finding the dog a chore. This isn't just a case of 'good' or 'bad' temperament, but finding a dog with the personality and energy levels that suit the owner. Thirdly, owners need to be especially careful when choosing a canine companion for their dog, to ensure that the companion is compatible.

People who don't make sensible choices, and who don't know their limitations, often end up stressed out, too tired to prioritise and set goals. They don't provide the leadership the dog needs, instead shouting inffectually with the dog tuning them out, or ignoring unwanted behaviour because they feel too tired to do anything, until they get so irritated they end up overreacting. And these are just the conscientious owners, who try to do more than feed and water their dogs once a day! To some extent, owners can reorganise their lives, and become more effective leaders, but there are limits.

Donaldson ends her book asking owners to spay and neuter their dogs, presumably to avoid shelters full of unwanted dogs. She doesn't explain why, or that there can be downsides to neutering, especially for pre-pubescent pups. She just assumes that neutering is 'the solution'. Yet in some countries, in particular, in Scandinavia, dogs are rarely neutered, and unwanted dogs are far less of a problem. This is partly because Scandinavians make more sensible choices than Brits and Americans when they take on pups. They seem to be more aware that owning a dog is a privilege and a responsibility. They also don't have puppy farms (mills for Americans) churning out 'adorable pure-bred' pups, or shelters full of cheap dogs, to tempt them. Behaviourists focus on a small part of the dog-human relationship, while ethologists look more at the big picture. Any half-decent trainer has to go beyond behaviourism if they want to give sensible advice to clients on key issues like choosing a dog.

Another part of the big picture is that dogs are social animals. Behaviourism treats dogs as individuals, but their behaviour is very much affected by the society they live in, both the immediate social group, and the wider society. The young of social animals generally learn life skills, like how to obtain food, what is polite and impolite behaviour, and how to perceive and respond to danger, by spending time with experienced adults. Humans can teach dogs about survival in human society, but the best teachers of canine social skills are socially skilled adult dogs. It's very difficult for dogs to learn social skills, if they're isolated most of the day, and never meet other dogs off-leash. It's also difficult if they only meet socially inept dogs in confined spaces, or if they have a body language that is unusual in the dog world. Spitz dogs, for example, may appear threatening to dogs who have never met curly, erect tails, and fur that appears to be bristling. 'Socialisation' involves far more than just putting dogs together and letting them work it out.

Behaviourism also sees the experimenter as the controller, and the animal as a machine. The human is the intelligent experimenter, and the dog is portrayed as simply reacting to what is done to it. Yet guide dogs learn to disobey their owners, if the dog perceives a danger that the owner cannot see. Dogs can tell us a lot we don't know, if we listen to them. Furthermore humans often make unwise, irrational, decisions. One reason is that like dogs, we are group animals, and we're influenced by our groupishness. We tend to feel that if lots of people do something, it's OK, but that's not always true. Large numbers of people took out crippling mortgages, because everyone was doing it ... Burning women as witches was once seen as morally OK, because lots of people did it ... There are many ways in which humans are dumber, and in some ways more unpleasant than dogs. They at least don't kid themselves that they are rational! Yes, owners have to be leaders, we have to have some control over our dogs, and guide them in a human-dominated society, but a good leader listens, and sometimes admits to making mistakes.

Lastly, though dogs aren't little humans in fur suits, just as they aren't machines, or wolves, the first step to a good relationship is to ask 'how would I feel if I were in this dog's position'? This can take you a long way, because dogs and humans have a lot in common. We are both social animals, and for both of us, being shut up all day in solitary confinement tends to feel bad. We like to know what the social rules are, even if we don't always obey them. We respond well to good leadership, can tune out ineffective leadership, and may react aggressively to, or retreat from heavy-handed leaders who don't listen to us. We both have a sense of personal space, and find touch pleasant if we trust the person, and are used to it, but unpleasant if strangers touch us in inappropriate ways, and ways we aren't used to. Yes, humans are different, for example, we have a more highly developed language, and much poorer senses of smell and hearing. However, as a first step, putting yourself in the dog's head is far more useful than seeing the dog as a behaviourist input-output machine.

A Landmark Book

Culture Clash' was a landmark book, and Jean Donaldson has certainly been very successful at marketing a particular 'brand' of dog training. She appeals to human emotions with bang-on-the-table arguments, rather than careful reasoning and meticulous observation. She has also been associated with one side in a 'two camps' model of dog training. Human beings seem to have a built-in tendency to divide the world into two camps, 'us and them', just as dogs may. That is quite a scary side of humans, just look at the history of Bosnia, or Rwanda. We can be subject to collective insanity, and behave quite nastily to 'outsiders'. Members of both species can also get a kick out of 'fence fighting', or 'packing' to go after a stranger. You can see a lot of both when humans discuss dogs online. Humans are primed to brawl with supporters of another soccer team, to attack the infidel, or to hound Galileo for refusing to conform.

Both dogs and humans can, however, learn to control their groupishness, and be flexible in their behaviour with strangers. Talk to dog people individually, and they tend to be more open and thoughtful. You also have more space to listen to the quieter people, who otherwise might be shouted down, by the supremely confident Donaldsons of this world. You find that there's a rich variety of experience, and there are many different ways of understanding dogs which come from different experiences. There's often more than one path to the same truth, and your own vision may only be partial, and could be enriched by listening to people with different experiences. Then you realise that a simple 'two-camps' view of training is a very impoverished view. It may tap into our biology, so feel good, but it doesn't really help us to understand what's going on in dog-human relationships.

So, Donaldson's 'Culture Clash' is worth reading, but mainly as a 'landmark book', which can help you to understand the history of professional dog training in the UK and US. It has a lot of misleading advice, for example on socialisation, and the suggestion to get another dog to combat separation anxiety, with no warning that the dogs need to be compatible. 'Culture Clash' 'sold' the idea of behaviourism, without explaining what it was. It helped to foster a collective delusion that negative punishment isn't really punishment. 'Culture Clash' isn't a 'scientific' text, it doesn't tell you much about what makes dogs tick, and it can distract you away from the bigger picture. If you want to understand classical and operant conditioning, try Mary Burch. If you want to read a more thorough approach to training and behaviour from someone who both has a lot of dog sense, and takes a scientific approach, try Steven Lindsay, especially vol 3. And if you want a serious scientific approach to dog behaviour, which can give you pointers to developing your own techniques, try Adam Miklosi's 'Dog'.

Today in many countries there are far fewer dogs than there used to be, so we have less chance to learn about them. The best humans to learn from in person are those who have a lot of experience, and have got it right. They may be fellow dog walkers in your local park, who are often keen to share their knowledge. They may be professional trainers. Humans have a long history of interacting with dogs. In every age there have been humans who have developed a knack with dogs. They have discovered the pleasures of two-way communication with another species. That is a marvel that dogs can offer us.

Review by Alison Lever

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Janeen McMurtrie for sharing her views on 'Culture Clash'. Thanks also to Wendy Hanson, Heather Houlahan, and Donald McCaig, for informative discussions on behaviourism in general over several years, and to Tiffani Howell for being fun to argue with, and open-minded.