13/03/2023
Such vital comments about training methods
Channel 4ās Dogs Behaviour Badly with Graeme Hall
In the opening driving shots the self proclaimed ādog fatherā insists that people think he is a maverick. A maverick is someone who is unorthodox in their field - unorthodox meaning untraditional. To the contrary,Graeme Hall is actually quite the opposite of a maverick - instead approaching behaviour science from an incredibly traditional place: pre science-based training and from a time when we didn't have the ability to read dogs or the compassion to give them choices.
Hallās wisdom is based on the idea that dogs, like wolves, are pack animals and that they have a dominance hierarchy structure, much like wolves except that people are in that structure as well. As such Hall continually explains problems by suggested the owner needs to be Top Dog. David Mechās book, The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species was the book, in the 80s, that started this. In the 90s thankfully he realised he made a mistake. As technology and advancements in our own ideas allowed us to study dogs more scientifically Mech himself changed his mind. He corrected these ideas in 1999 in his paper Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs. We moved on from this and changed our ideas - realising that dogs are cooperative animals who desire for peace with the humans who they depend upon,
And it isn't just the wisdom that is a step back in time. Poor ignorant wisdom from the 80ās is actually something I can forgive - the thing that I found most disturbing about Dogās Behaving Badly was the methods. The methods I cannot forgive.
OK - so punishment works. It is one of those things that as trainers who use Least Intrusive minimally aversive methods, don't rush out to tell people. But it does. Often checking and shouting at dogs actually suppresses behaviour far quicker that it would take us to train it out. Ill be honest, Addy the poodle who, on the show, was fearful towards the male in the house - his behaviour would have taken a few weeks at the least, for me to train out. Hall did it in 40 minutes - a quick āfixā indeed. However, what he did in 40 minutes was to identify an animal as scared and then frighten it into a state of learnt helplessness. Then bully the dog for looking at the man he was frightened of. And give the man the confidence to shout at the dog - and his girlfriend - for trying to reassure the dog, for trying to warn the man. If the top dog meme was correct then Addy will be killing the boyfriend in his sleep tonight, more than likely though the biting will return at an ill timed gathering or party and someone other than the boyfriend will suffer the damage from a dog who has been punished out of warning; a dog with no stable relationships from which to seek comfort.
And that got me thinking: surely what he is doing is illegal? I mean it wasn't in Barbara Woodhouseās day - but surely it is now? To my knowledge the Animal Welfare Act 2006 Section 4(1) under prevention of harm states unnecessary suffering is when a person (in this case Hall) causes an animal to suffer - knowingly or having reasonably to have known. You only have to look at the conformation of a Great Dane to know that continued short, sharp yanks to his head via a head collar will be putting pressure on his thyroid gland and also causing tissue damage. This is, without a doubt, suffering and and harm surely? And surely as one of the āUKās top dog expertsā he has reasonably to have known this would cause this damage. And that isn't even considering the clear psychological welfare issues.
Really - thats the thing about this show that has people (myself included) shouting at the TV and up in arms once again. Its not a funny ālove to hate himā type affair with irritating celebrities living and arguing about cleaning in the big brother house. This show has wide implications. It has taken a decade of careful scientific studies and newspapers covering these studies to finally put the likes of confusing pseudo science to bed. When we did Super Dog to rescue Dog it felt exciting to finally be TV training using methods that don't upset the dog - and have channel 4 interested and invested in taking the time. With our knowledge of where dogs stands cognitively and emotionally (yes, they are actually a bit like us - see Gregory Berns FMRI scans and his other studies about love and the canine brain) people are finally realising that training - is just teaching. And that it is about trust and enjoyment and engagement. What Hall is doing is muddying those waters for owners - suggesting dogs are like us when it comes to needing consequence but not like us when it comes to feelings of trust or love. And he fails to recognise that dogs don't have a moral compass. His TED video is frustratingly misquoting science with a poor understanding of basic learning theory. Annoyingly this will not put owners off listening to this fool whose been given a platform. I'm sure we have months of him explaining how it's still ok to bully and shout and check dogs on a lead because it will produce a quick fix. It will cause a huge spike in ignorance-based cruelty and reduce the welfare of many, many dogs in this country. What is most confusing is that the researchers for this show and the Series Producers too decided this was OK - to ignore the science. Perhaps they were brainwashed into believing it was just another point of view or that people would love to hate it and it would be popular via controversy. What they failed to recognise was that this sort of high profile cruelty wonāt just effect the poor, poor dogs who have been physically hurt on TV and who have also had their stability, trusted relationships and comfort pulled out from under the, - but this will also have a knock on effect to dog owners nationwide. Winter is coming.
Make sure youāre not ignorant like Greame https://caninescience.online
