The use of the word "no"

[snowbunny]

I don't know where the idea for this post came from but here's my take on it.

There is a world of difference between saying the word "no", "ah-ah", "getoffthatyoulittlegit" and all those sorts of things in everyday life compared to during planned training. We are all human, and these things tend to slip out from time to time.

Does the dog find it aversive? Maybe. Is it a positive punishment? The only way to know this is to look at the data. It can only be classified as a positive punishment if the behaviour that preceded the word becomes less frequent over time. It has nothing to do with whether it stops the particular instance of the behaviour when you use it. We cannot define anything as a "reinforcer" or a "punisher" until we know how the frequency of the behaviour is affected. So it's very easy to throw phrases like "positive punishment" around, but often people are making wild assumptions. Just because something is aversive, it doesn't mean it's punishing the behaviour.

Anyway, I digress.

I don't think there's anyone who lives with dogs who can say, hand on heart, that they never say "no" to their dogs. It's what happens after that is the important thing. A good trainer will prick up their ears when they hear themselves saying it, and think, "Aha! This is a gap in my training!". The choice is then between choosing whether you care enough about the behaviour to fix it or not. If you do want to fix it, you come up with a training plan to do so.

And that's where the use of "no", for positive reinforcement trainers, has no place. Because we devise plans which don't need to tell the dog when he's doing something wrong, because we set up scenarios where this doesn't happen, and we gradually increase criteria to reach the desired outcome.

And I think this is where the confusion comes in. I was confused about it myself for a while. I said, "I don't say no to my dogs", and went out of my way to make sure I didn't. But the point shouldn't be "never say no to your dogs in daily life", but rather, "telling your dog he's wrong has no part in a good training plan". And, as I mentioned, if you do find yourself in the situation where you're having to tell your dog "no" frequently, just take it as information that maybe you have an issue you need to address through actual training.

 

[Emily]

And then there's the 'no reward marker'. I inadvertently began using "no" (well, actually I said "nope") as a no reward marker when Ella didn't quite get it right and I wanted her to try again.

I personally didn't find a 'no reward marker' to be useful (even though I never intended to use one - in fact, I didn't actually know that was what I had begun doing). I found it frustrated Ella and I've done my best to stop. Now, if it occasionally slips out, Ella just looks at me like

 

[HAH]

if you do find yourself in the situation where you're having to tell your dog "no" frequently, just take it as information that maybe you have an issue you need to address through actual training.

I think this is SUCH a valuable point - those ‘no’s, ‘oi’s and ‘aaarghyoubugger!’s are helpful windows to a training gap.

 

[snowbunny]

And then there's the 'no reward marker'. I inadvertently began using "no" (well, actually I said "nope") as a no reward marker when Ella didn't quite get it right and I wanted her to try again.

Yep, NRMs suck. Just my opinion

Occasionally, I'll let something slip out, too. "Try again" is my usual one. I don't like it, and, again, it makes me rethink my training plan.

 

[Emily]

Yep, NRMs suck. Just my opinion

Good job you added the second part - a was going to ask for your supporting evidence

 

[snowbunny]

Haha, I'm pretty sure there has been some research into them that concludes they increase stress with little (or no) behavioural gain, but I'd have to dig it out, and I can't be bothered. So I'll leave it at "they suck"

 

[Emily]

"they suck" works for me as I came to the same conclusion!

 

[Boogie]

I use ‘ah ah’ and ‘no’, but not deliberately - it just comes out!

So I’ve accepted that I do it, I don’t try and stop myself and I train for it - positively. I treat it as an interrupter. So - if, after I’ve said either word, the dog looks at me I praise and treat.

It works a bit like my use of ‘enough’. Whenever I say or shout ‘enough’ they get a treat (fish cube). So ‘ah ah’, ‘no’ and ‘enough’ are all positive sounds to the dog and I don’t have to work against my natural instincts in the moment.

 

[Joy]

There is a world of difference between saying the word "no", "ah-ah", "getoffthatyoulittlegit" and all those sorts of things in everyday life compared to during planned training.

Yes, I think this is the key thing.

 

[Joy]

There is this study into the use of no reward markers. However it only involved 27 dogs and is very limited in its scope.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/...httpsredir=1&article=1025&context=hc_sas_etds

As a human learner, I'm not discouraged by being told I'm wrong, provided I am given an explanation as to why and shown how to do the thing correctly. The problem with telling our dogs they are wrong is that we can't give them that verbal explanation. I think that's why I favour luring over shaping in dog training because it seems to me that it's a way of showing the dog the behaviour you want. (I dont think I'm very good at shaping. I've only tried it occasionally but both Molly and I have ended up frustrated as she looks bewildered when I up the criteria - 'but I got a treat for this last time!')

 

[Anne123]

I am constantly talking to Finn as if he is a human. I always did to our dogs. Of course there are opportunities for me to say no....I say it sometimes, especially when he wants to jump in dirty filthy water, or go and have a roll into poo. It is a natural thing we do as humans, we communicate like this. Of course I know that Finn doesn’t understand me, it’s the way we talk. Is it in a kind way he like it, even the word no. Are we harsh and full of anger, he knows that I am angry and is upset. Not that he understands my words, it’s the tone in which it is said.

 

[snowbunny]

I've upped my shaping game recently and both I and the dogs absolutely love it. The key thing is really, really breaking down the behaviour and setting up your environment so that the dog is almost bound to make the correct choices. At the moment, my preference is to shape absolutely everything that I can - partly because it is helping me to improve my shaping skills, but also because it seems to me that it is creating far stronger behaviours than I was getting with luring. It's very easy to get that frustrated learner if you "lump"the behaviour too much, and I'm still learning how to effectively split. I was listening to a podcast the other day (can't remember if it was Hannah Branigan's or Sarah Stremming's) and "she" (whichever it was!) was saying how splitting is something that you get better at the more you do it, almost like exercising a muscle. I'm finding that to be totally true.

I don't know if you've heard about the idea of "R+ 2.0" ( (™) Amy Cook ) but there's a lot of chatter about it at the moment, and effective shaping seems to be a big part of it - really making what they call "loopy training", where you split extremely effectively, set the environment up to almost guarantee success and - one of the most important parts - use your reinforcement strategy to "close the loop" so that you are set up to make the next rep. An easy example is with the orientation game. If you feed the dog from your hand when he looks at you, you then have to add "something" in in order to get him to be able to look at you again. Whereas if you simply mark and reward on the floor, you can click the instant the dog lifts his head up, as that's an approximation of looking at you, and then you slowly work it later on, so the dog is actually turning towards you. It's a very natural progression without any big cognitive leaps, and the position of the reinforcement sets up the start of the next rep. When you see it done well, it's very cool - and I'm certainly paying a lot more attention to where my reinforcement is going now, to help make those loops.

Apparently it's something that Bob Bailey said several moons ago that has been mis-quoted. He said "Click for action, feed for position"; many people mistook this to mean "feed in position", but actually it's far broader scoped than that.

 

[Peartree]

I have been reading the thread on that particular forum and feeling very smug as I very rarely say no to my dogs. Not because I don’t believe in it but because they rarely do anything that requires me to say no or interrupt. Yesterday I videotaped myself for an online training exercise and taped my self saying No THREE TIMES in a very cross voice.

I have made myself watch it several times to see exactly what went wrong and needless to say I did not post it! It is interesting as the exercise finishes with a stay and I turn and find that Bingley has followed. In a very conversational tone I tell him that he’s been silly and that we need to start again but he immediately realises that he’s wrong and starts jumping all over me - a sure sign that he’s quite bothered. The shouting occurs because he then bounces over to Diesel to jump at him. Diesel is tied up on a slip lead and has an injured shoulder which we are expensively rehabbing. The mistakes are all mine, I did not make it clear that I wanted a stay, I should not have left Diesel outside and I certainly shouldn’t have tied him up while on a slip lead. All my fault...

 

[HAH]

I have been reading the thread on that particular forum and feeling very smug as I very rarely say no to my dogs. Not because I don’t believe in it but because they rarely do anything that requires me to say no or interrupt. Yesterday I videotaped myself for an online training exercise and taped my self saying No THREE TIMES in a very cross voice.

I have made myself watch it several times to see exactly what went wrong and needless to say I did not post it! It is interesting as the exercise finishes with a stay and I turn and find that Bingley has followed. In a very conversational tone I tell him that he’s been silly and that we need to start again but he immediately realises that he’s wrong and starts jumping all over me - a sure sign that he’s quite bothered. The shouting occurs because he then bounces over to Diesel to jump at him. Diesel is tied up on a slip lead and has an injured shoulder which we are expensively rehabbing. The mistakes are all mine, I did not make it clear that I wanted a stay, I should not have left Diesel outside and I certainly shouldn’t have tied him up while on a slip lead. All my fault...

Live and learn - don’t beat yourself up, but what a great example of how useful videoing is! I really have an aversion to it, but every time I video myself training I see so much more. Normally stuff that needs work but the other day I did it with wrapping practice and realised quite how much eye contact we have! It was a very pleasant surprise.
I hope Diesel’s shoulder rehabs well.

 

[Candy]

Yep, NRMs suck. Just my opinion

Occasionally, I'll let something slip out, too. "Try again" is my usual one. I don't like it, and, again, it makes me rethink my training plan.

Many years ago, just before we got little puppy Solstice, Trevor bought a book on puppy training as he'd only ever had adult rescue dogs before. This book spoke about NRMs and recommended buying this strange little thing that was basically three small metal discs on a piece of ribbon. The idea was that when you wanted to mark No Reward you rattled it at your dog in a non threatening way. I was a bit puzzled, to me No Reward is fairly straightforward, you just don't give a reward. However Trevor was keen to try it, so bought one. The first time he shook it at Solstice she jumped up in delight, grabbed it from his hand and did zoomies all round the house shaking it.( A typical Sol response to many things). It remained as a toy for her for years and No Reward was quickly forgotten.

 

[Boogie]

Many years ago, just before we got little puppy Solstice, Trevor bought a book on puppy training as he'd only ever had adult rescue dogs before. This book spoke about NRMs and recommended buying this strange little thing that was basically three small metal discs on a piece of ribbon. The idea was that when you wanted to mark No Reward you rattled it at your dog in a non threatening way. I was a bit puzzled, to me No Reward is fairly straightforward, you just don't give a reward. However Trevor was keen to try it, so bought one. The first time he shook it at Solstice she jumped up in delight, grabbed it from his hand and did zoomies all round the house shaking it.( A typical Sol response to many things). It remained as a toy for her for years and No Reward was quickly forgotten.

Excellent!

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

This book spoke about NRMs and recommended buying this strange little thing that was basically three small metal discs on a piece of ribbon.

Sounds like a kind of shake can? Maybe it's along the same lines as the ever-popular spray water in their faces. I don't know who came up with that, but every dog I've seen it done to either doesn't care or actively likes it.

Still remember the advice I got from my vet in Spain when Brogan licked the top of one foot raw. She said to throw something soft at his head while he was doing it and to make sure he didn't see that I was the one who threw it. She said Brogan would think God was telling him not to lick on his foot. I think that last bit was said with good Catholic Spanish tongue in cheek, but who knows.

Next time Brogan licked his foot, I lobbed a sock at his head. He turned and looked at me as if to say, "Are you quite through yet?" and went right on licking. Instead of lobbing the sock at his head again, I put it on his foot with a bit of loose vet band at the top. That stopped the licking better than the Spanish Sock God.

Back on 'no', I realised back in December that I was using Carbon's name essentially as 'No' or 'You're doing something I don't like'. I complained that he didn't know his name and no wonder he didn't: I didn't use it in a good way. When I lost my voice for nearly a week, I figured out that saying nothing to him during training actually works better. Now I do a double click (like a giddy up for horses in old westerns) as an interruptor. If he's really in sniffy mode he ignores me, but when he starts walking again he always gets a treat, so he actually really likes that noise. He also finally learned his name about a month after I made a real effort to only use it in a positive way.

I'm still guilty of my CM "eh eh' noise if I get stressed and forget myself. Old habits die hard. But I'm trying to get rid of it and Carbon 'helps' by completely ignoring it!

Really interesting post, @snowbunny - thank you!

 

[Sophiedoodle]

This is actually really interesting, as I am learning about punishment in dogs in the unit of my course I’m on currently. I actually have to write an essay on “Punishment in Dogs” as my answer submission just now which I am researching but not quite started yet (I struggle with essay writing as my English skills are not that great, so it takes a lot of effort for me to write down what I’m thinking to form some piece of writing!)
Positive punishment is where an aversive stimulus is added to induce changes in behaviour (like a rattle bottle). In contrast, negative punishment is where you are taking away something a dog wants (such as withholding food or a toy).
I have to admit I am quite firm with my training and although I use positive reinforcement much of the time, I am not afraid to use positive punishment if the dog is doing any unwanted behaviours, such as using a verbal reprimand. I have to be quite confident and assertive in my training as I am training puppies, or dogs who do not live with me or know me as well as some others do. But it’s clear that I am doing something right as the dogs behave SO much better for me than they do for the other girls at work, and even my boss!

 

[Joy]

, I am not afraid to use positive punishment if the dog is doing any unwanted behaviours, such as using a verbal reprimand.

I'd like to suggest that you explore an alternative - cueing the dog to do something you do want rather than telling them off for doing wrong. Steve Mann's 'Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy' is a really good, and fun, read full of advice on raising puppies with positive reinforcement.

 

[Sophiedoodle]

@Joy i shall take a look at it - thank you x