(Special O.P.S. K-9 Academy & K-9 P.S.I.)
As a K-9 trainer and instructor; I’ve had to deeply think about how to teach people so the information I have taught to students sticks in their minds. The worst thing that can happen is to teach a handler a skill set that they soon forget after our academy. For this reason; I have changed the way I teach K9 teams. I have been specializing in Dog Psychology for over 15 years. However, teaching the information to others in a manner that imprints the brain in a short amount of time is an arduous task. This is why I have decided to finish my degree in psychology, because understanding how humans learn and process information makes for better K9 Handlers. In this article, I’m going to talk about the human brain and how we process information, but will also create a parallel with a dog’s brain. So, let’s dive into this information.
Dogs have been evolving around us humans for 15,000 up to 135,000 years and according to Adam Miklosi “We’ve had such a huge influence on canine evolution that we have seemingly altered dog’s cognitive abilities.” So, with that being said, how have we altered dog’s cognitive abilities? We know that dogs can learn by watching us humans. Like the old drug commercials where the teenage kid tells his addict father, “I learned it by watching you.” This is a fact of dogs’ nature, they do learn how we solve problems. The department of Psychology at the University of Florida states, “Dogs modify their behavior with regard to the intentional state of humans.” This means that dogs will change their behavior per our current behaviors or state of mind. For example; in some cases, dogs will learn how to turn a door knob because they saw their human counterpart do it many times. This also means a stressed-out handler dealing with double shifts, family issues, loads of frustrations, will in fact affect the dog’s behavior. Many handlers are not being taught how to suppress raw emotion in the moment so their work dog remains effective in the field. Let me say this bluntly; Your behavior in the moment will affect your dog! To understand dog, I have found it is imperative to learn our own brains. Now, we are not going to go into every aspect of our brains as that would make this article thousands of pages long. However; I will be focusing on explaining two very important parts, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. So, let’s get started….
Did you know that your brain can perform an estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second without you even knowing it? I know that number has a lot of zeros in it, but that number is 10 quadrillion. We have on 50,000-70,000 thoughts per day and almost all of these 50,000-70,000
Let me give you a more detailed explanation. If you see something that you have never seen before and it reaches out and hurts you there would be a neuronal firing in your brain which would produce a chemical. If you are afraid of what you experienced due to the hurt, the chemical your brain produces is cortisol, the stress/fear hormone. You then would choose an action like running away, climbing a tree, fighting, etc. Next your body would act out what you chose as a response to the chemical production in your body. This would then be the beginning of programming your subconscious mind. The next time you see that same thing that hurt you, your body would respond as it did before but with less thought. The more you see this harmful thing and the more your body responds the same way, the more your subconscious is being programmed. In no time at all your body will automatically respond to that thing which hurt you without any thought. This, by the way, is also true in animals. I have learned in my psychology classes that learning plus repetition is what programs or re-programs our subconscious mind. Let me say that again, LEARNING + REPETITION = REPROGRAMMING. This same reality is true in animals. When they learn and repeat based on positive or negative reward, they will either continue with the behavior or dis-continue that behavior.
This fact can be a slippery slope for some people. As officers of the law, you sometimes lack empathy for the drug addict who, at the same trailer park, overdoses on a consistent basis. I know this happened to me when I worked as a Sheriff’s Deputy. However; if you look at action repetition and what it does to the subconscious mind, I think you may reconsider. According to Occupational Therapist Gary Kielhoffner’s Model of Human Occupation, addicts usually have a low self-efficiency and perception of personal performance. Therefore, they partake in risky behaviors, like shooting heroin into their veins. They know it can potentially kill them, but they don’t care about their own life enough to choose different coping methods. They typically started using to fit into a select group of people or to make a horrible memory go away. In some cases, it is environmental programming. They saw mom or dad shoot heroin over and over throughout their young life and so the idea of using is planted into the subconscious mind. My point is, they started using for a reason, the more they used, the more it became a habit and their neurological system became dependent. Proving that learning plus repetition creates habits. So, what is a habit? A habit is an idea placed/programmed into the subconscious mind over and over again. We see this in self-sabotaging behavior. A child that is given the idea that they will never amount to anything or that they are a loser, will grow into an adult who believes they are unworthy of success. Had that idea not been planted into the subconscious mind, their life outcome would have likely been very different.
This same ideology holds true in dogs. Just like a person making poor choices to solve a life problem, dogs can do the same. For example; One of my handlers was searching a car on the interstate and a big rig applied the engine brake just as it passed by. The handlers dog had never experienced that before, which caused neuronal firing in the dog’s brain and the brain produced cortisol. The dog, in that moment, consciously chose an action. The chosen action, after jumping in fear, was to pull the handler to the side of the road. The handler didn’t step in and help the dog choose a different action. Therefore, the programming had already begun. In the future, the dog subconsciously thought, “When I was on the interstate something bad happened, I ran to the side of the road and I was safe. I’m alive today to tell my story.” So, the next time the handler tried searching a car on the side of the interstate, this same thought crossed the dogs subconscious mind. The dog tried to get out of harm’s way when it felt cortisol in its body, by doing what it did last time. This is where handlers fail. They get angry or frustrated with their dog and begin to forcefully correct the dog back to the car. No handler wants to look like a fool because of the dog’s unwillingness to search a car on the interstate. Handlers then tend to wear their emotions on their sleeve and the dog begins to modify their behavior accordingly. From here, the Handler/dog dynamic begins to slowly deteriorate. The dog works less and less for the handler as the handler becomes more and more frustrated and angry with his dog. The harsh reality is, dog is the dumber specie. Therefore; it is always our fault for a dog’s poor choices. We should have stepped in and taught the dog a different way of handling the fear. In the previously mentioned case, the handler’s frustrations grew causing his dog to refuse to search any car. The dog associated the handler becoming angry when a car is presented for searching. Therefore; the dog rationalized, “Searching a car is bad.” I told the handler to only do car searches on the interstate and be very happy and patient. Bring the fun back to searching cars on the interstate by showing the dog patience and lots of love and affection. Before long the dog began to think, “I’ve been out here a hundred times and nothing bad happened, so what is there to be afraid of. Searching cars is fun.” This is called Systematic Desensitization and it worked like a charm. Yes, it took the handler extra time and energy but they got their effectiveness back on the interstate.
So, what we are talking about is rewards. After all, we shape behavior based on the outcome. If the reward is positive, we will continue the behavior because it equaled success to us. If the outcome equaled misery and punishment or something not of positive value then we choose to stay away from that behavior. For example, a child touches a hot stove, the burning sensation and the long pain of healing is the non-positive value causes the child to stay away from the hot stove in the future. Per Neuroscientist Dr. Greg Burns from Emory University, the Caudate Nucleus is the reward center of the brain. This is what triggers emotion based off rewards. Think about what speaks to you emotionally; Food, Money, Success, etc. These are rewards to us and trigger emotion (by the way this holds true in dogs also). What can our emotions do for us? Well, our emotions can cause us to do things like make rash decisions. Have you ever heard of impulse purchases? Our emotions can cause us to snap at someone or even do something to harm ourselves. Our emotions can place us in a position of success or ruin everything we have worked so hard for. We must think about dogs in the
When one of our ideas fail, we cross it off and move onto the next item on our mental list. Eventually, we find a solution to our problem based on a particular course of action. Others may not agree with this action, but if it solved our problem we are content with our decision. Example; An alcoholic military Veteran drinking to make the combat death of a close friend go away for a while. I am a service connected disabled Veteran who did just that. I didn’t know how to deal with the guilt and vivid memory of watching my buddy get his head blown off 10 feet from me. After I got out of the military, I thought to myself, “I know lots of booze allows me to live in the moment and not think about the bills, family issues, the death of my buddy, etc.”. This action was looked down upon by family and people at my church, but for me, it gave me a little bit of peace in my chaotic mind. So, you see, the people around me saw drinking as destructive, but my mind saw it as a reward. It gave me freedom from my broken mind. Yes, I was suppressing because I didn’t know how to change my subconscious thought process. VA was not helping, so self-medicating to forget worked in my mind. Even though it was negative to others it still gave me a bit of peace, which in turn equaled a reward to me. (Just so everyone knows, I have fixed the broken parts of my subconscious mind and have not touched a drop of alcohol for many years). Just because an action appears to others as negative, like smoking meth for example, does not mean it is negative to the person using. Meth users know their usage will likely kill them, but they are looking for reward in the moment of metal torture; Therefore, the act of forgetting by using equals success. Like some of my military brothers and sisters and myself, dogs will do the same thing. Their choice of problem solving action may not be what we feel is right and in an attempt to fix the problem we sometimes use harsh techniques in an already bad situation for the dog. We, in essence, are adding insult to injury and the dog’s behaviors will reflect this toxic solution. The most asked question is, “How do I fix my dog’s choices in the moment when I’m not even expecting it to happen?” I’m not saying you should have telepathy and see it coming. It’s all about identifying problem solving behavior then recreate that behavior when you are mentally prepared to begin to solve the unwanted behavior. For example; Your dog munches on cheese puffs left on the floor of a car that he/she is searching on the road. You just identified a conscious choice your dog has made. I’ve seen K9’s who were trained not to indicate on hidden food during training, but will still eat on the roadside. This is because the dog is not associating indication with eating. These are two separate things to a dog; Therefore, you just learned what you need to do in training. Make food accessible to the dog in training and correct the act of eating. The dog will view eating food on a search is bad and the behavior will cease to exist. This brings me to my next point; How do we correct unwanted behavior? I use Operant Conditioning to change behavior. Operant conditioning was created by
1. Positive Punishment - The addition of something to a behavior in hopes to change behavior. If someone has the bad behavior of speeding and you add a ticket to the behavior, we hope it changes behavior.
2. Negative Punishment – The removal of something in hopes to change behavior. If the speeding person doesn’t learn their lesson and they go to court and the judge removes their license.
3. Positive Reinforcement – The addition of something pleasurable to reinforce the behavior.
4. Negative Reinforcement – A response or behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing, or avoiding a negative outcome or aversive stimulus. A mom nagging her child to do the dishes. The child must do the dishes in order for mom to stop nagging. The bell that goes off in your vehicle telling you to put your seatbelt on. It won’t stop until you choose the right/desired behavior.
So, you see we use operant conditioning in every aspect of our lives. Let’s not forget that just as every human is different so are dogs. One method may work for one dog but not another. Point being, some dogs (even tough work dogs) may be sensitive to a handler’s tug on the leash, while others are oblivious to the same tug. We cannot treat every dog the same. We cannot use too heavy of an aversive condition (unpleasant stimulus) and kill the dogs desire to please. A dog working out of fear will eventually become psychologically unsound as they problem solve the over use of aversive conditions. We must have a perfect balance of love/affection and correction. People can also love the dog too much. The dog will problem solves, creating ways to get what they want, when they want it. Others can correct the dog too much. The dog will become frustrated and he/she will feel they cannot do anything right and checks out mentally. It’s much easier to physically show you how to use operant conditioning than to explain all the dynamics and timing in its entirety. I simply want to get your brain juices flowing so you begin to think like a psychologist. After all, you are the therapist for your dogs unwanted behaviors. The reality is, our thoughts create us and the same holds true for dogs and other animals. It’s our job to manipulate the situation and guide our dog to healthier ways of dealing with issues. We have to remember what our mission is. That mission is to intercept the transport of narcotics, track down and apprehend suspects. If your dog is shutting down on the job or is not very effective, you have to take responsibility and be man or woman enough to admit it is our fault. Remember, your dog is just a wild domesticated animal. They are not smarter than we are, so we must step in and find solutions for our four-legged partners. Being a handler is (in my opinion) one of the toughest jobs in law enforcement. You are not just a handler once in a while, you are a handler 24/7 and cannot let the dog slip even at home. You have to care for this animal all the time and do not get a day off. I like to refer to Vince Lombardi about winning, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning for some is a habit. Unfortunately, for others so is losing.”
About The Author:
Brian currently owns and operates Special O.P.S K9 Academy, you may read more about them by
visiting their website www.sopsk9academy.net
