January 30th US Episode--disappointed in her strategies

[momtoharley]

We watched the episode last night about the dog who ran out the door, jumped on the table, chased the broom and barked at the TV. I was really surprised--and disappointed--at VS's approach to barking at the TV. She had the family take the dog out and shut him in a room every time he barked at the TV...he was to stay in the room until he stopped barking, repeat as necessary. This seemed to be an overly cumbersome approach, that low and behold did not work. What supposedly worked (though I don't know if it worked long term) was to have the family walk out of the living room every time the dog barked. I couldn't figure out why she just didn't clicker train, and click for every second that he wasn't barking. It seems like they could've gotten some almost immediate improvement with that. Why try to 'punish' with time-out when a simple DRO (differential reinforcement of other behavior) would work?

And I have to say...it never ceases to amaze me how clueless people can be. The owners said the dog ran out the door every day--yet they did nothing to prevent it (e.g., didn't have him on a leash, didn't hold him when they opened the door, etc.). It really was a clueless family in many ways--but they seemed to do well with most of VS's recommendations.

[Noobs]

Well as you can see he launched at the TV the second it was turned on, so how were they going to wait for him to stop barking? Also, I'm thinking her reasoning for using the removal method was that the TV was the thing setting the dog off, so removal from the room (and in turn, the stimulus that set off the barking) seemed logical to me. And it did work, although it took 25 minutes according to the VO when Victoria was doing it. The VO didn't say how long the family tried before the wife gave up. When Victoria came back and tried the removal of the family instead was when she discovered that the dog actually valued the family over wanting to bark at the TV. In the end she found the key to getting him to stop, so I don't see why it's so upsetting to you that the first method she tried wasn't as effective as the second one.

Well anyway, welcome to the board, that was quite the first post for you.

Maybe you can tell Victria herself if she does a live discussion on this board later tonight as she's done with the past few episodes.

[emmabeth]

I have to say, I havent seen this episode (not available in the UK yet), but...

Some dogs have learned to bark incessantly and seemingly without pausing to draw breath - if you have not experienced such a dog first hand its actually really hard to appreciate just HOW difficult it is to capture 'not barking' using the clicker. In addition the very talented and experienced barkers can often switch to barkign AT the handler/owner/trainer once they suss that there are treats on offer (because for the dog this is the behaviour that has 'worked' for so long and they are SO good at it, so it is the behaviour they choose when presented with any challenge, any frustration, any problem - SHout at it. Shout at it louder, longer..... etc etc).

It is also not just a question of what works for the DOG best... it also has to be something that works for the owners best too, if its easier for them to all leave the room the second the dog starts to bark, than it is for them to click and reward non barking (And I would think that is easier for most people) then that is going to be the method to use. So whilst you may find that clicker training would work for you, they may well not have the skills/timing/understanding of it required for that method to work.

Anyway there should be a live chat with Victoria this evening where you can ask her why she used this method over an alternative.

[dontpugme]

The time-out technique worked for my dog. He barked at IMOD on TV, too.

[forkin14]

What I like about Victoria is that she never uses the same technique on a dog with the same issues. She really does try to understand WHY the dog does what it does and work around it that way. When Cadence kept lunging/snapping at my boyfriend & I for being on the couch, we used to walk her out of the room until she calmed down. Well that did not work for us as she would eventually start to just play dead when we hooked the leash on her, forcing us to either drag her by her neck or just stand there. Well I figured she was lunging at us for not letting her on the couch WITH us, so we started to remove ourselves from the room when she would do this. The behavior changed almost instantly.

In my opinion, maybe buddy was trying to attack and "protect" his family from the dogs on the TV (as the owners stated that he would only bark at other dogs/animals on the TV) ? Who knows. But this episode did show viewers that every dog is different and nothing is going to work right away the first time.

I also agree with how negligent the family was with their little door dasher. If that was the case with my dog, I'd keep the leash next to the door all day incase someone came by!

[sj96skittles]

Ya. Well I don't get she had the whole family leave cuz how would they have ever been able to watch tv? But it did work and hopefully they won't have to leave the room so many times. I wonder why buddy was barking alot more when Victoria was gone.

[Mattie]

Some methods works on some dogs but not on others, the only way you can find out is to try them, putting the dog out is the first method to try, I have used that myself with barking dogs, it worked with some but not others. When it doesn't work you try something else. We do this when teaching humans, both children and adults, when I was training to be a riding instructor I was told if something didn't work after 3 times then think of something else. With one client I was getting desperate, she didn't seem capable of sitting upright in the saddle until I whispered to her one day, "The trouble with you sitting upright is your boobs are too big", success, she never learned forward again. She was so stressed by leaning forward she couldn't do anything else, she laughed so much that immediately she was upright.

[Noobs]

Love that riding lesson story, Mattie.

[thepennywhistle]

I, too, was intrigued with Victoria's means of dealing with Buddy, the JRT. The time out/isolation response is an old technique, and I tried it on my JRT some 20 years ago -- and had about as much success with it as they had with Buddy. Isolation brought peace for as long as she was in the bathroom and not a moment more. I am ashamed to admit that my training skills were so limited at that time I had nothing else to fall back on. And so I failed, both in training the dog and failed the dog as well. I ended up rehoming her as we clashed badly and my training techniques were the old yank 'n yell methods popular in those days, which was like a declaration of war to that terrier. I see so many options in what Victoria is doing these days, and I think that isolating Buddy by leaving him was a brilliant move. Just thinking in that direction opens up so many new ideas and possibilities. I wish I had that time with my dog back again. I would do so much differently. Even though it makes me sad to think back on what I didn't do, I'm delighted to learn new training ideas with every show. And congratulations to Victoria for gently reasoning with a Jack Russell, something I personally felt was nearly impossible. (Shows how much I know, doesn't it )