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Book Reviews

Animals in Translation, by Temple Grandin

One of the reasons it is helpful to read this book is that it will give the reader some perspective of how animals view the world. The author of Animals in Translation has autism so this allows her to see in pictures similarly to animals. She is also super-perceptive which means that she catches things in the environment that other people don’t. She begins her book by describing how animals see. Typical dog visual acuity is 20/75, they can’t see a piece of kibble, this is important to note because animals don’t see the same objects the way that humans see them. This may be an explanation of why cattle get scared of shadows. She also talks about a small number, 15%, of German Shepherds who were nearsighted in a guide dog program. In the total population of German Shepherds, 53% of them are nearsighted. She interpreted this to mean that nearsightedness caused some of the dogs to be dropped from the program. She points out that pet owners can observe how difficult it is for dogs to find kibble fallen on the floor and is an example of the visual acuity of dogs. The author has a section on how animals communicate, one way is through pheromones. In season female dogs communicate in this matter. An interesting way of communication is by elephants who use their pads on their feet to talk to one another. In her breeding section the author says she believes mutts are more emotionally stable than purebreds. Purebreds are often unstable because they are bred for single traits. Aggression and predatory behavior are triggered by rapid movement, these are hardwired behaviors. One way to control aggression is to make sure that animals are socialized to other animals and people. Animals learn from other animals, this is why it is important for dogs to spend the first 16 months of life being socialized. For example stallions raised alone are more aggressive. It is also much easier to work with younger animals, rather than make changes when they are older. She says that both animals and people have hyper-fear systems. Normal people have some freedom from fear because of their frontal lobes, which allow them to reason and talk themselves out of fear. She believes it is easier to traumatize an animal than a human. It was amazing to read about Alex the grey parrot. It was startling to read that Alex was able to ask a question about himself, ‘What color?’ and then use the answer to categorize other grey objects. In her communication section she says that Prairie dogs have very elaborate communication warnings. For every predator animal there are different calls. The author also noted that the prairie dogs calls sounded musical. She believes that musical language is much more complicated than spoken language, because of the melodies and rhymes. The author finally concludes by recounting how similar autistic people and animals are. She says that animals and autistic people have talents in specific areas while normal people are more generally capable of many things. She says that talents of autistic people and animals should be used. In the end she says that dogs love to work and that it is a shame when dogs don’t.

Beyond Basic Dog Training, by Diane Bauman

Diane Bauman begins her book explaining the importance of training a thinking dog. In her training when a dog does something wrong it is great. This way a dog learns what not to do and it becomes clear to the dog what the guidelines of the behavior are. The author stresses the importance of giving the dog time to make a decision. When the dog is thinking, it will take him time to respond to a command. Through the book she says that tone is very important when working with a dog. A trainer should never sound angry. This is why she doesn’t like using the word “NO.” Diane takes time in explaining the difference between a correction and help. Sometimes a dog does a wrong behavior not because it chooses to do wrong but because it is confused. It is important to read the body language of the dog to determine why it isn’t obeying a command. Sometimes a dog just needs some help. Another way to help the dog make decisions is proofing the dog. This is where the dog is put into different situations and distractions and is asked to do familiar behaviors. Proofing helps the dog realize he should obey commands even when other things are happening around him. Diane also explains that it is important to make it clear to the dog when he is working and when he isn’t. The next chapters explain step by step (literally) how to do certain obedience techniques. One interesting thing she mentions is that dogs are smart enough to know when they are on leash or when the trainer leaves during a stay. One can trick the dog and use a walkie-talkie to verbally correct the dog on a stay and before going to off leash, a trainer can use a very long leash to make corrections in the beginning. The last part of the book talks about secrets of showing the dog, like ways to dress, how to prepare the day of a competition, and practicing at match shows.

On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals, by Turid Rugass

Rugass believes that what people call cut off signals are really calming signals. She believes that dogs use these signals as a way to conflict solve. She believes that all dogs and wolves possess these signals but that humans can suppress these signals or reinforce them. Calming signals include head turning, eye softening, body turning away, nose licking, freezing, moving slowly, play bow, sitting down, laying down, yawning, sniffing, curving in approach, and splitting up two dogs. Rugass then talks about signs of stress. Dogs that are stressed are more likely to lunge at people and other dogs. Often stressed dogs have more medical problems. Dogs can get stress by high demands, being in scary situation, too much noise, and sudden changes. We can help dogs by keeping to routines, not being harsh, using calming signals ourselves, giving dogs the right amount of exercise and being in close proximity to the dog without forcing them. Rugass argues that what a dog needs is not a leader but a parent. They want security and stability.

Don’t shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor

The author Karen Pryor begins by explaining reinforcement. A reinforcer is anything that increases the likelihood of a behavior. When we want to develop a complex behavior a trainer can use shaping. Shaping is made of small approximations to the final behavior. Pryor also mentions that when one wants to create a chain of behaviors it is best to begin with the end behavior and work towards the first behavior in the sequence. As the animal goes through the sequence it gets more reinforcing because it knows that the end behavior gets the reward. In Pryor’s training you should first establish a behavior and then establish the cue. This way the animal understands and learns what it is supposed to do rather than being forced. In addition to training a behavior Pryor shows how one can get rid of an unwanted behavior by using positive reinforcement. Methods of getting rid of unwanted behavior include shooting the animal, punishment, negative reinforcement, extinction, train an incompatible behavior, putting the behavior on cue, reinforce anything that isn’t the unwanted behavior and changing the motivation. Reinforcement can really be used in any situation from sports to business. Lastly Pryor talks about a new technology, clicker training. The clicker becomes a signal that what was done was the correct behavior and that reward will follow. Eventually just the sound of the clicker is reinforcing in itself. One of the clickers' benefits is that it is very fast and is able to freeze that moment when the animal did the correct behavior. The clicker is able to make training clearer and it seems to have made training difficult behaviors faster. Pryor recommends using positive reinforcement and a clicker in training.

Excel-erated Learning, by Pamela J. Reid

The book begins with a definition of learning. Learning is a change in behavior. The author also mentions that for learning to occur there must be motivation. Also an animal must actually have the ability to do the behavior. There are four stages of learning; these are acquisition, fluency, generalization and maintenance. There are two common ways of learning in animal behavior, these are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when an animal learns an association. In classical conditioning an animal learns to anticipate what is coming next. Operant condition is different in that an animal learns the consequence of an action. In the operant sequence there are four possible outcomes, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment. Reinforcement causes the behavior to be more likely and punishment causes the behavior to be less likely. Factors that affect reward are how deprived an animal is, the varying of the reward, the novelty of the stimulus, and the timing. When rewarding it is possible to have a secondary or conditioned reinforcer, these are things that the animal originally had no interest in before. One bizarre behavior that the book covers is Experimental Neuroses. This occurs when an animal is asked to make a discrimination when it is not possible. The author in one of her chapters explains negative reinforcement; this is often done by giving shocks to an animal and then stopping the shock when they do the appropriate behavior. Another piece of the operant sequence is positive punishment, the author stresses that the punishment must be immediate for it to be effective. Positive punishment is adding something to the environment that the dog doesn't like. An example is the Citronella bark collar. When the dog barks it adds an unpleasant smell which stops the dog from doing the undesirable barking behavior. Negative punishment the author says is limited in usefulness. A good example of negative punishment is a timeout. One way to develop a behavior is to shape it. A trainer can do this by successive approximations. At the end of the book the author talks about fear. One of the stories I remember from my previous classes was the story of Albert who was trained to be fearful of white fluffy things. Ways to change fear is counterconditioning, desensitization and flooding. Often fear can result in separation anxiety, interdog aggression and aggression toward people. The author concludes by saying that the way a dog will learn best is by his personality and by the personality of his trainer.

How to Speak Dog, by Stanley Coren

The book begins with the multiple misconceptions of dog and human communication. Most of these misconceptions are based on popular TV shows like Lassie. The author explains that dogs do communicate just not through spoken word. He explains that we can understand language through evolution. Language wouldn’t just pop up in a species, we should be able to find simpler forms in some species. Although dogs don’t have a similar productive language like humans, they do have excellent receptive language ability, so dogs can understand what we are communicating. Some dog trainers are able to train about 300 commands! One concern with scientist is determining if animals are just making noise or are they projecting animal speech. One interesting story was about vervets. These monkeys make different sounds for different predators in the vicinity. Scientist recorded the different calls and replayed them when no predators were in the area. The monkeys responded in the appropriate way. After the introduction the author explains different body parts of the dog that signal what the animal is feeling and what it is trying to communicate. These parts include tail, eyes, mouth opening, hair position (hair standing on end or flat), body position, vocalizations and ears. One thing the author stresses is that all of these parts must be taken into consideration of deciphering what is being communicated. For example a waging tail isn’t always a sign of excitement. A high vertical tail waging in short movements is a sign for potential aggression. Another way dogs communicate is by pointing with their noises. The author gives an example of a pack of wolves who perform an organized hunt. This hunt is conducted by the pack leader who signals to the wolves the location of where they are to go and when to attack. Other animals also communicate in other ways, one of which is sign language. Unfortunately dogs will never be able to communicate in this way because they can’t manipulate their paws. However, it has been considered that dogs can type letters and symbols to communicate. Other examples of animals communicating differently are the communication differences between dogs and cats. Many of their communication symbols are the opposite. In the last part of the book the author covers how humans commonly do communicate to their dogs. We repeat things to our dogs, talk to them and provide their answers and talk to others through our dogs.