The Bitey End of the Dog
A podcast dedicated to helping dogs with aggression issues. Michael Shikashio CDBC chats with experts from around the world on the topic of aggression in dogs!
The Bitey End of the Dog
Rethinking Aggression: The Science Beyond Labels
Chirag Patel brings his decades of behavior expertise to unpack the complex topic of aggression in dogs, exploring why labels are less useful than understanding behavioral function and how human-centered perspectives often complicate our work.
• Defining aggression as subjective – what falls under this label depends on the observer's learning history and context
• Looking beyond topography (what behavior looks like) to examine the function that behavior serves
• Understanding emotions as part of contingencies rather than as explanations for behavior
• How classical and operant conditioning work together rather than as separate processes
• The importance of functional assessment in determining what maintains unwanted behavior
• Moving past simplistic "body language" interpretations to analyze behavioral contingencies
• How caregiver behavior influences dogs through reinforcement contingencies
• Ethical considerations in behavior change strategies for aggression cases
• The future of dog behavior work combining behavior science with new technologies
CHIRAG'S SITE:
https://www.chiragpatelconsulting.com/
Learn more about options for help for dogs with aggression here:
AggressiveDog.com
Learn more about our annual Aggression in Dogs Conference here:
The Aggression in Dogs Conference
Subscribe to the bonus episodes available here:
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes
Check out all of our webinars, courses, and educational content here:
Webinars, courses, and more!
In this episode I sit down with Chirag Patel to unpack the layered dynamics of aggression in dogs and the human behaviors that so often shape them. We explore why aggression is such a subjective label, how functional assessments can lead to more ethical and effective interventions, and why empathy and scientific thinking are both essential in behavior change. And why empathy and scientific thinking are both essential in behavior change. From classical and operant conditioning to future technologies that may transform our field, chirag offers a thought-provoking look at where we've been and where we're headed. Chirag is a globally respected behavior consultant who has worked with everything from family dogs to zoo animals and even A-list celebrity pets. With a background in veterinary science, clinical behavior and applied behavior analysis, chirag is best known for his science-based, low-stress approach to training and behavior modification. His work spans TV appearances, international speaking engagements and consulting for top organizations like Guide Dogs UK and consulting for top organizations like Guide Dogs UK, dogs Trust and the Kong Company. Before we jump into today's episode, a quick heads up If you're looking to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, head over to AggressiveDogcom. We've got something for everyone. For pet pros, there's the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, the most comprehensive course available on aggression, packed with expert insights and CEUs For dog guardians. Check out Real Life Solutions, a practical course for everyday challenges like leash reactivity and dog-to-dog aggression. And if you want full access to expert webinars, live mentor sessions and exclusive discounts, the Ultimate Access Membership is just $29.95 a month. You'll also find info on the 2025 Aggression and Dogs Conference happening in Charlotte this September. That's all at AggressiveDogcom. Check it out after the show.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, welcome back to the Biting into the Dog. This week, I have a very dear friend and I would consider a mentor. Chirag Patel is with me and somebody that I've learned a lot from over the years, and we were just talking about his Brain to Bites DVD that I think I watched about 15 years ago, which was part of my growth and journey in aggression cases, which was part of my growth and journey in aggression cases. And, of course, we've all seen or at least most of us have seen his wonderful videos on YouTube. Domesticated Manners is his channel the muzzle video that I think is probably about 20 years old now, that has been shared countless times because it's so good and it's timeless. So, without further ado, welcome to the show, chirag.
Speaker 2:Hi Mike. Thank you for having me and for the lovely introduction. I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited for this because I know we're going to take some deep dives. This is not going to be a surface level conversation, I think, so let's kick it right off with talking about. You know, I always ask my guests what their definition of aggression is. But let's go a step further because, going back to that Brain to Bite DVD, we could talk about some of the internal mechanisms and, given your background in ABA or Applied Behavior Analysis, we often are looking at sort of that observable behavior approach to defining what aggression is. What's your elevator pitch for this is what aggression is in dogs.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great question. So for me I would say, first of all, it's behavior. Well, depending on which perspective we're looking at it, are we looking about the internal changes, the physiology, the biology? So, from a behavior perspective, I'm looking at various behaviors the dog is engaging in and I would say behaviors. So behaviors that potentially, subjectively, people might class as dangerous. So, again, dangerous might be subjective. What do I class as dangerous or not? Could do harm?
Speaker 2:And so for me I find it really tricky when I talk about aggression, because I was like wait, we're talking about a set of behaviors that people might say this is aggression or not.
Speaker 2:And I suppose my definition is actually a little bit more fluid in terms of aggressive behavior are behaviors that take on the or fit under the category of aggression because of the person's definition that they're applying, based on their learning history, and whether they're using a definition in a textbook or in a paper and whether it's matching that. But for me I see it as, essentially, if I give a seminar on aggressive behaviors, it's likely to sell out. But if I give a seminar on behavior change, people are like oh, I know that behavior change, I just want to focus on the aggression side, but I actually see it as the same thing. Really, it's just that the behaviors that we're looking at are the ones that people label as aggressive or reactive. So, yeah, I don't know if that really answers your question, but for me it's a bit open and, um, I suppose certain topographies, like a dog putting its mouth, but then you could say a puppy putting its mouth on hand and biting is not aggression, and so, yeah, it's very subjective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that muddy term or description of intent to do harm is often put in there. But that also is subjective. You know, the dog just lightly puts their teeth on skin and doesn't do any harm. Do they still have intent to do that and do we know the dog's level of intentional thought right? So there's a lot of questions that go into it. But we often look at the function of behavior, right. I always define the function as to increase distance from or eliminate a particular threat. That the dog finds is, again, another subjective thing, but the goal is to increase distance or eliminate the threat for aggression. However, you know, if we look at the behaviors you were just saying biting maybe we say that the the goal is to increase distance from that. So it could be the person's hand reaching to touch the puppy and the puppy doesn't want to be touched. At the moment they put teeth on skin and the person's moves their hand away. So is that aggression or not?
Speaker 2:right. Yeah, and I think it's so interesting because I'm starting to work with, say, I think I've got more of this perspective from a learning history and exposure to working with non-canines or like more zoo animals is I saw so many cases where when we looked at, say, a dolphin, and the dolphin would bite or do a big tail slap and those might be considered precursors to aggressive behavior or aggressive behavior. And so when you start looking at, okay, under what conditions does a dolphin do that and what outcomes? So when we talk about the function, for me from a behavior, behavior analytic perspective, a function is more what are the maintaining consequences? So is it maintained for a positive and negative reinforcer? What are those stimulus changes that we're calling that function? So basically, if I look, I've seen so many times when an animal's been trained to do something and maybe the steps are slightly too big, or that the animals actually learn I make, I do something, it doesn't, an outcome doesn't appear, that normally appears, which would be a whistle and a fish, uh, for a dolphin. And then what happens is the dolphin? Um, there's like extinction, essentially.
Speaker 2:So where behavior normally at contact, some kind of predictable reinforcer, um, there's a break in that and you get operability. So you get maybe other behaviors occurring that wouldn't occur otherwise. And the dolphin goes to tail slap, or dolphin does tail slap and the trainer reduces criteria or asks for what we call easier behavior and I'm using air quotes when I say easy with my fingers. That people probably can't see because again that's a bit subjective when we say easier. But then suddenly the animal as behavior contacts reinforcers and we maybe establish a certain condition as a cue that signals that reinforcers are available under these conditions for tail slapping. And I see so many cases where dogs and other animals will engage in what we might label as aggressive behaviors. And when we look at the function, the maintaining consequences, they're actually positively reinforced if we do a functional assessment, and so I think that's really interesting as well that we don't maybe always talk about when it comes to aggressive behaviors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would class those sometimes in dogs. Let's just give an example, like a livestock guardian dog keeping coyotes away from the sheep, right? And is that? You know, depends on what the function is right and also what we selected for. So, yes, and we can start talking about the internal mechanisms, you know. So, for instance, the dolphin may be experiencing frustration and then gets reinforced for that behavior with the fish, versus making a threat go away, which would be a negative reinforcement contingency, right. So let's dive into that side of things, right? And how? The emotions? We were talking about emotions a little bit before we started the show. But how do emotions and what's going on as the motivation or the cause for these aggressive responses? In each one of those contingencies, we could talk about an animal being happy in some cases and maybe not in some other cases, and it's still positively reinforced.
Speaker 1:So give us your thoughts there. Emotions side, causes side.
Speaker 2:So I think this is a fantastic, like a really interesting discussion and something that I was fascinated by and with friends were talking about and you mentioned the Brain to Bite DVD and I remember that was a time where I think I'd just been through the master's program at the University of Lincoln, like I didn't actually finish all my assignments and stuff to get a master's, but I did the whole year. I attended all the lectures and I saw cases and things and that's where I was introduced to like a lot of Panksepp's work work and at the university under Danny Mills they talk, they use a lot of that, they look at cases and it's like what system do you think is or what system is maybe occurring right now? So they use that level of analysis and it's something that I kind of struggled with or not really got my head around. In terms of a clinical perspective, like an application in some of the work we do Now there's pros and cons, I see, like when there are benefits, but we can come back to that as well. But in terms of emotions, I think for me, and also being like following Skinner's philosophy in terms of behaviorism, radical behaviorism it's interesting like watching Skinner do lectures and seminars and like he videos or recordings and luckily I haven't seen him live, but he talks a lot about like a psychiatrist asked him about what? About all the internal mechanisms and things that are going on, isn't that important? And Skinner's answer was actually like I've never said black box, and I don't believe there is a black box. I believe that the organism is rich and full of a nervous system and everything plays part together. I don't say it because I don't know. I don't know what's happening inside right now, but there are physiologists learning and inventing things like MRIs and stuff to learn what's going on.
Speaker 2:So, moving with that analogy, he also in another interview where he's talking about counseling, he says you about like the emotion as um. He says you go to a dentist if you have tooth pain. The dentist doesn't necessarily treat the, the pain. They treat the environment, the tooth, the decay, the exposure to the roots, and when they do that then the pain disappears. Obviously you can also use pain medication and things like that as part of the, the treatment program, and so that really gave me a light bulb moment in terms of thinking about emotions and the way I think of them in my work and I'm not saying I'm right, this is just my learning history and the way I think of things.
Speaker 2:So when I see a case, for me that contingency is super important in terms of contingency meaning, like the if-then relationship, and we talk about a four-term contingency or three-term contingency, meaning you have your antecedent, your behavior and your consequence, the relations between them, how they are linked. And also we talk about motivating operations, which are like a stimulus, change and an arrangement in the environment that influences the value of something as a consequence of something. As a consequence, say, for a dog, if I haven't walked Miska for three days, my German shepherd then maybe certain things are more valuable as a consequence. So I can manipulate what we call the MO and establish something or abolish something's value as a reinforcer by changing things in the environment. If you have a headache, that might make music less valuable to contact music as a reinforcer, whereas if you don't have a headache, that might make music less valuable to contact music as a reinforcer, whereas if you don't have a headache, it may make it more valuable. If you haven't listened to music all day, okay, it may really work hard to access that song or to be able to have that time to listen to music.
Speaker 2:So that contingency when does it happen? I think of it like a Google search, a www, the when, the what and the why. So the when is what we call the antecedents, the what is the behavior, what does it look like? And the why is what are the maintaining consequences? And through contingencies you establish what we call functional relations and so when you have a contingency occurring and it's a strong contingency, like the relationship is quite strong, it happens predictably under the like. Only when this happens, under these conditions, this outcome is accessed, then potentially have a strong functional relation where when I engage in this behavior, I bite someone, I show my teeth, the hand moves away, or I bite someone and the person asked me for port and gives me a treat, so, whatever that is. So by understanding that, I believe I get a lot of information about what's occurring From an emotional or internal perspective.
Speaker 2:I personally don't really know what emotion, the animal's feeling that I'm working with, and I'm going to say that because I could say like, oh, I think the animal's happy or I think he's frustrated, I think he's sad, and I can sit there in the pub later and put any of those labels A friend of mine could put different labels, but I really don't think it's actually that important in that moment because for me it's if I understand the functional relation and for a functional assessment. When I make a change to that contingency, I'm going to make a change to the emotional experience the learner is having and if I can change it from a negative reinforcement contingency to a more positive reinforcement contingency, potentially I'm hypothesizing that there's a better emotional experience, and whether I'm right or wrong I don't know because I can't really read inside the animal, but that's yeah. So that's how I kind of thinking about emotions and I think dogs feel emotions. I don't know exactly what emotions they feel and how they feel then, whether it's the same as us or it's different, but emotions are important because it's an experience the individual's having. Or if I'm feeling frustrated, that's really real.
Speaker 2:But what I train myself to do is go okay, I'm feeling frustration, but understanding frustration isn't gonna help me deal with my frustration. What's gonna help me deal with my frustration? What's going to help me deal with my frustration is under what are the contingencies? I'm trying to do something. I keep failing. Oh, I've got access in the reinforcers I'm used to accessing. I don't have a skill set to access them in other ways. So maybe I need to try and learn something different to access those, and suddenly I feel less frustrated, and so for me it comes back to that contingency and that functional assessment and to change what my emotional experience is. So that's, I suppose, how I train myself is, and then I'm feeling something like that. I ask myself wait, what are the contingencies? And rather than trying to understand the emotion more, yes, all right.
Speaker 1:So I want to break this down a little bit further. Sorry that was very long. No, I love it. I love it. I love where this is going, because I think especially with and we'll talk later about technology and how that's changing things. But, you know, as we're going along, we're getting better at truly identifying what's going on from an emotional state or level of an animal, and mostly in the positive balance of emotions, because it's hard to do an MRI on an animal that's fearful of something or certainly ethical concerns with that.
Speaker 1:However, I think we are getting information that says, okay, if an animal is doing X, y or Z in terms of the body language, we're observing. So we're observing behaviors or communicative gestures of an animal and we can make educated guesses, I guess, for lack of a better label on that, to say this dog might be experiencing fear, this dog might be experiencing rage or anger. So what are your thoughts just on that, in terms of our ability as professionals, is it good to kind of assume or make a guess about an animal's emotional state or a dog really or is that going to hinder us in some way?
Speaker 2:I think both. So I love to. I think one thing you definitely like what you said is like. I love the fact to use like. So he might be experiencing this, or I think he's experiencing this, and I think it's really important to think about that language when we're using it, because sometimes we could say, oh, he's showing's showing aggressive behavior, it's fear, and then we make a whole. So are we saying that he's engaging like this because he's fearful, and are we saying I think he's experiencing fear? And that's two different things, because and I think sometimes we're trained to the negative aspect of this is or let's actually just start with the positive. So the positive aspect, I think, is great, because I think we do start thinking of dogs as more than just machines or they we want to like. I love my dog, I want Miska to be happy, I want her to have the best life possible. She essentially is my family member and so from that perspective, I really do think in society, the way we use language, where we think about things, talking about emotions, with a customer saying I think your dog might be frustrated, can have a lot of value.
Speaker 2:However, on the other side, as a professional, I need to separate what may be a correlation or maybe what I don't have data for, what it might be my subjective interpretation compared to what the data might say, or if I even have any data, and am I forming a hypothesis to test and then trying to get the answers. I've already made an assumption that I'm basically setting my behavior mod program on because I've already said the dog's fear for is happening, I fear. And suddenly I'm going to pick this type of intervention wait, where is the data for that? I don't see any data. Show me the data. And so for me it's really important if I say that, okay, I think this animal might be frustrated, okay, that's fair. But that doesn't help me with my intervention or my assessment, and I know that sounds a bit controversial. But for me what helps me with my assessment is a functional assessment, so understanding the contingencies. So I said I think the animal's frustrated, the learner is frustrated. Then I put a full stop there and my next page essentially is also, or even even before, that I probably wouldn't start with the animal frustrated. I would go wait, what's the data to say I'm going to correlate what I'm seeing with frustration.
Speaker 2:So I start with my functional assessment. Let's see what the ABCs are. What are the maintaining consequences? Is it, have I got correlation data or causation data? And then based on that I go oh, I think there's a negative reinforcement, a positive reinforcement, maintained contingency here. And I might think, under these conditions or situations, I would say, maybe my experience or the data I have, the dog might be feeling frustrated or angry or whatever you want to say. And then, when it comes to the intervention, the intervention comes back to the data from my functional assessment, not my inference of the emotion. And so that's where I would struggle to kind of I know some people go on without the inference of the emotion, they can't do the intervention, and that's where I struggle to understand that link. I haven't understood that link yet for me, let's dip our toes in there then.
Speaker 1:Okay yeah, and you're spoken like a true scientist too. Like you know, you need to see the data to inform your decisions on the behavior change strategy in a meaningful and objective way, right, versus the subjectivity we might have in looking at a dog and saying, oh, I think it's fearful, or using one of those labels or constructs. Now let's take it a step further. Let's use a few case examples. Maybe we'll take, we'll consider three different dogs and what we suspect, based on the body language we're seeing and the communication, that it might be a certain emotional state could I add one thing?
Speaker 2:because I think it'll be important for the next bit of our discussion is yes, so you mentioned the body language bit, and this is actually something that I'm going to talk about at your conference, um, later this year. Which I'm looking forward to, is what is body language and are we actually thinking about body language very incorrectly? And where's the science to support the data on body language? And if we go back into actually looking at the data on the science, going, oh, when the dog's lip licking it must mean this, or when this human is smiling, they're happy, again, it contradicts completely for me the approach from a functional perspective as opposed to a topographical perspective. So when we talk about topography, we're talking about behavior in a form that it looks like. So you see the lips, the mouth open or grin or whatever the physical look is, the function is.
Speaker 2:So science of behavior analysis isn't really that focused on what we call the topography. It's more about okay. So science of behavior analysis isn't really that focused on what we call the topography, it's more about okay. So a child is smiling, but that doesn't really tell me anything more than a child is smiling. Because now a child could smile, because humans are born to smile and it's in their genetics. Now, that could be a possible hypothesis.
Speaker 2:However, because from the moment we're born, our behavior is under control or affected by consequences.
Speaker 2:I can learn to smile in situations because it has a different outcome to me being happy, so the person stops talking to me, or the person says something, then does something nice, or doesn't do something or gets away from me, so whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 2:And so if I get stuck at the level of not stuck, if I use, um, body language as a essentially a focus on a topography, the dog is yawning or lip licking, so that must mean they're stressed or frustrated, blah, blah I may miss a whole bigger picture, which is not bigger picture. I miss a different perspective, which is okay. The dog is yawning or the tail is tucked, not because I'm happy or sad or fearful, but when the tail tucks, people walk away, or people bring out food or the trainer starts asking for quicker behaviors are likely to contact reinforcers, and so can I see that predictability in that data. So for me that would. That's just another I wanted to add in in terms of body language, in case that changes anything in our future discussion yeah, no, that's a really good point, uh, because you're evaluating what's happening with that particular behavior, you know so again smiling or a grimace or a growl or ears going back, we classify under that umbrella of behaviors.
Speaker 1:and so if we step from that operant lens into more of a classical lens I guess, for lack of a better description and we use, you know, we have a few different dogs that we would witness. So we have a dog that is growling near their food bowl and has, let's just say, he's practiced it a bunch of times so it's somewhat habitual, but the function is making the hand go away. So if somebody goes to stick their hand near the food ball, dog growls, the hand goes away. So that's the ABC, very straightforward.
Speaker 1:And then you have, let's say, a dog that is you know, has issues is under socialized, hasn't met a lot of people scary, deep voice individual comes into the front door and the dog tail tucks and air snaps and runs away. So again, function is or the ABCs person enters, growl, consequences the person walks, moves away. And we're going to put that under. We're going to assume the first one's a rage or anger system going on, we'll assume the second one's a fear based emotional response. And then let's go with the third one where it's that livestock, guardian dog scaring away somebody, that or scaring away an animal that's threatening the sheep. So we will put that into a positive, balanced emotional category. Again, the ab ABC is pretty straightforward Wolf approaches, globstock Guardian barks, wolf goes away. So all three have similar functions making something go away, right.
Speaker 1:But we look at what approaches are we going to use for? So for resource guarding could be the standard person approaching, doing a counter conditioning or even a differential reinforcement. We just select a behavior that's alternative to growling or snapping at a hand. And the second one what if we're looking at? We just want to help this dog feel better about the strange man entering the home, and so we might go with a more classical desensitization and classical conditioning approach. And then the third one. We might go with a straight operant approach because we're not necessarily looking to undo a negative balanced emotion.
Speaker 1:So does that make sense? So there's three different cases. I know that's a lot to kind of think about and digest. But and then we're assuming different emotions in each one of those. We're making educated guesses based on the behavior we're seeing and the body language, the topography, so to speak. So thoughts, thoughts there. And do we run the risk of prolonging things if we're saying to that, oh, the livestock guarding dog, we're just gonna do straight counter-conditioning here. So you see a wolf, we're going to help you feel better about wolves and toss you treats and, you know, keep the wolves at a distance or something, if we had the luxury to do that. And so do we run the risk of prolonging things or maybe having some issue with how that behavior change strategy is going to affect the animal if we're missing a potentially strong emotional response in that animal or strong emotion?
Speaker 2:Ah, so okay. So I can't remember the exact details because I'm really, unless I write this down, I'll go back and break it down, but I think from the. So I might ask you for some more detail, like ask you to remind me about this, but from a general perspective, I'm going to start with I think so for me because I see the emotion as like almost it's part of the contingency occurs. So you have your motivating operation, whether that is in that moment, whether that value is like how sleep and all the other things that have made something valuable or consequence valuable, you have your cue that's signaling if something's available or not. So if I growl, now the person leaves my house or keeps coming in the house, or the wolf goes away, or in all of these. So for me, the three different scenarios I'm going to bring this same level and the same analysis to, regardless of whether it's a livestock, guarding dog or whatever, emotion could be going on and so something signaling that now a consequence is available if I engage in this behavior. So then, basically, for me I wouldn't look at, and I don't even look at, if I go to a house, the breed in terms of the dogs, to explain the dog's behavior. Again, that probably going to sound very controversial to many people. I've moved away from that a lot. So for me, whether it's an elephant, a dolphin, a tiger, so yes, there are going to be from an ethological perspective, and the genetics, like these animals are going to be more likely to engage maybe in certain topographies of behavior. And if we call them natural but they're not, I would argue that I think it's an inaccurate kind of description because, like, operant conditioning is natural. If they're engaging in these behaviors because it's a livestock guarding dog, how do I know it's engaging in this behavior because it's a livestock guarding dog, whereas a boxer or something else could engage in this behavior for the same function, for the same outcome, the same contingency occurring.
Speaker 2:And so I try to take that assumption off the table and go with again, what's the data in front of me from as a scientist or a scientist practitioner, what are the antecedents, what are the behaviors and what are the consequences? I don't know if it's because it's a boxer or a Jack Russell. I could go back and say, oh, it's a Jack Russell. Of course they're going to be nippy and barky and chase things, but I don't know that. All I know is what data I have in front of me which is currently through this functional assessment or analysis and again, both those are a little bit different as well. I have a correlation or causation, like data that shows me causation, and that causation is again not about wants or needs of the learner in terms of, but it's basically the animal's not behaving like this because it wants someone to go away. So I even the language I'm using, so my customers, of course, I'll say I think he wants this or he wants that or he needs this. But from a scientist's perspective, a clinician perspective, I'm thinking that learner's engaging in this response, this outcome.
Speaker 2:If I can switch this, switch on or off, which is the person leaves the room or doesn't leave the room, a person stands still or backs away, can I then alter how much behavior is occurring from the learner? And if I can, I can demonstrate a functional relation. If I can demonstrate that, I go okay. So the behavior of the dog growling with its teeth coming forward, I want to change that to what I might label as a happier behavior. I need to define what those behaviors are and I can shape those behaviors specifically rather than trying to shape a happy dog.
Speaker 2:If I start with, I want the dog to be happier with a person coming in. What is happy? How do I know if the dog is lying in its bed that they're happy? A dog lying in its bed could be an unhappy dog or a frustrated dog. So for me it's what are the specific topographies and not just topographies Like?
Speaker 2:For me, behavior is not just a topography. Behavior is actually an action, and an action doesn't occur in isolation. It occurs when you behave because there's a change in the environment. So really, when we talk about behavior, we can't really talk about just the lip lick or the growl. It always has to be growling when someone walks in the room, and often when someone walks in the room and the dog growls, the person walks out the room or someone opens a garden door, and so we really should maybe change.
Speaker 2:If we're thinking from a behavior analytic perspective, from talking about behavior as just what we see the animal doing to it can't really talk about it unless you talk about when and the why, and for me that changes the whole perspective of the emotions are always there and the contingency that's occurring is maybe like the emotion is part of that and different people based on their learning histories, might label that as frustration, sad or happy or whatever.
Speaker 2:The label is going to be. There, the emotion is going to be, but that's not going to change my intervention, my intervention. Change is going to come from the glass dog guarding dog is growling and this occurs if I want more or less growling or I want the livestock guarding dog to go and ring a bell, because when they ring a bell the wolf runs away. I'm gonna do that by going. What is the maintaining outcome? If the maintaining outcome is person walks away, the wolf goes away. Can I allow the animal to access the learner, to access the outcome without taking it away, but by maybe engaging in a different behavior topography that might be safer or more suitable for the home we're working in. So that's my thinking currently, based on what you said if that is useful at all, it does.
Speaker 1:It makes perfect sense, and certainly from that ABA perspective. So do you find there's merit in ever just going with a straight classical counter conditioning strategy? So let's say there's no target behavior that we're focusing on, it's just let's see if we can get a suite of behaviors that look like happiness. Yeah, because yeah. So yeah, give us your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:So again I would say no. Well, okay, I'm going to explain this. It's not just no. So I actually even again don't think about using classical conditioning as a prior Like. It's not classical or operant, because a lot of the data now shows that we can't just have one or the other. You can't just have a dog as operant and not respondent, or you can't turn off the operant Like. People go, oh, he's operant or he's not. And when I say people, I used to say this. My learning history has changed, so I'm changing what I say. But I can't say the dog is operant or not in terms of like. It's always operant until it dies. The dog is always there's behavior is going to be under influence of respondents until you die, and so for me it can't really isolate either. One is, both are always happening, and I kind of think about the aged analogy I think maybe I heard Bob Bailey say many times, maybe others have is Skinner's driving the car. Pavlov is sitting next door on the passenger seat, because many of the behaviors and the contingencies that are occurring are operant contingencies. Generally speaking, in terms of like, the respondents are there. But when we talk about respondents, we're talking about relations between almost reflexes and things that are not. So there's like you sneeze and there's an antecedent that elicits that sneeze behavior and it's not necessarily that the sneeze is under control or consequence, but in some of these behaviors that we see you can go wait, that could be more under the control of a certain antecedent stimulus without a consequence being there. But actually if a consequence starts becoming involved then that becomes like Susan talks about as a popper and I think like it's partly operant, partly respondent. So that's my backdrop.
Speaker 2:And then my next bit. Where I go with this is I stopped using respondent conditioning approaches or classical condition approaches, primarily in my work because I have a dog. They see a dog. I throw food open, bar, close, bar type stuff. Because what am I actually trying to shape? And a lot of times we go I want the dog to be happier. But what does happier mean? And are we just hoping for happiness?
Speaker 2:Or, as a scientist, as someone who can predict and like, manage contingencies, I don't have to hope that I can get happier dog if for happy looks like to me, the dog can lick the floor, sniff, pee on the floor, eat treats off the floor, engage in a hand target when another dog is present and I label those as happy. I can shape those behaviors, I can arrange contingencies and have a happy dog quickly, compared to just throwing food, which I might be reinforcing. I lunge and I get food. I lunge and I get food.
Speaker 2:And so I think for me, I sometimes do say to my customer what I want you to do right now is just throw food when you see a dog, and I don't call that counter conditioning, because I think again, if you think about the concept of counter conditionconditioning, even desensitization to a certain extent, I think it breaks apart when you start really looking at what we might call learning theory in quotes, if we look at the ABCs and what it actually goes, because there are antecedents, there are behaviors that are consequences.
Speaker 2:So I don't think it is just respondent counter-conditioning occurring. So, yeah, I think we can target things more specifically and get better outcomes. We can be more objective and ethical, I would say even because I can follow data to help my learner get to a place where I think they're having a better life Again, that's probably subjective, but or helping the client achieve their goal of I want my dog to be able to walk past other dogs without growling or whatever the without is defined as in the positive way. So for me that's one of the big reasons I can't really just say I go to counter-conditional classical conditioning is because what am I really shaping? And also, if it's not a reflex relation, it's not really just counter classical conditioning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but very well explained again because you know my mind's going to. You know, as as practitioners positive reinforcement practitioners our job is to set the environment, set the stage well for the animal to learn.
Speaker 1:And and really what we could be doing is setting the stage for capturing relax. What we would classify or we could, you know, put our best guess in this dog is showing happy, balanced emotional behavior, such as a relaxed, open mouth, a soft tail wag, and we can capture those operantly, because those are the behaviors we would define as being happy right. So we might say could be classical conditioning, helping, could be a change in the emotional balance, but really we're just looking at those observable behaviors that were or are desirable for us to see and observe in our data. So, yeah, yeah, I love how this conversation is going. We're going to take a quick break, though, to hear a word from our sponsors, and we'll be right back. We're going to jump into more of the caregiver influence as well. So be right back. We're going to jump into more of the caregiver influence as well, so be right back. Hi, friends, it's me again and I hope you are enjoying this episode.
Speaker 1:Don't miss the sixth annual Aggression and Dogs conference, happening from September 26th through the 28th 2025 in Charlotte, north Carolina, with both in-person and live stream options available. Whether you're a seasoned behavior professional or just diving into this work, this is the premier event for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of dog aggression. This year's speaker lineup is packed with world-renowned experts, including Suzanne Clothier, kim Brophy, trish McMillan, Jorag Patel, sarah Fisher, leslie McDevitt and so many more. Topics span from cutting-edge research and behavior and welfare to hands-on strategies for working with aggression in shelters, veterinary clinics and client homes. Join us for a weekend of powerful learning, community and connection, including what will be a legendary cocktail party hosted by Chirag Patel and yours truly that will be streamed live for our virtual attendees as well. Spots fill fast every year, so head on over to AggressiveDogcom and click on the conference tab to reserve your spot and check out the full agenda. Whether you're going to attend in person or from home, you'll be part of a kind, welcoming and supportive global community committed to helping dogs and their people. You can also get your conference swag, as we are happy to be collaborating with Wolf Culture again this year. Check out the show notes for a link to get your favorite t-shirts, hats, hoodies and more. Just for listeners of the podcast, wolf Culture is offering 15% off your order. Use the discount code BITEY at checkout. That's B-I-T-E-Y, like in the bitey end of the dog.
Speaker 1:I also want to take a moment to thank one of our wonderful sponsors this year Pets for Vets. What if there was a way to help both shelter animals and veterans struggling with emotional trauma by engineering a powerful, near instantaneous bond between them? That's exactly what Pets for Vets, a nonprofit focused on positive reinforcement for animals and veterans, is designed to do. Pets for Vets' unique program model creates a super bond, a carefully crafted, professionally trained version of love at first sight that leads to a lasting connection between a veteran and a shelter animal. Because each animal is evaluated and selected to match the veteran's specific personality, lifestyle and emotional needs. The result is a reciprocal healing relationship. The organization, founded by Clarissa Black, is actively expanding its network of positive reinforcement trainers nationwide. It offers an incredibly rewarding opportunity for trainers who receive stipends, grow professionally, enjoy flexible schedules and can live anywhere in the United States. Pets for Vets is also seeking new partnerships with animal shelters and rescue organizations across the US. To learn more or get involved, visit petsforvetscom.
Speaker 1:All right, we're back here with my good friend Chirag and we've been deep diving into classical and operant approaches, or lack thereof sometimes, but let's keep going with this because you know there's so much we can go into here, but I think we should look at I think, a hot topic these days how much the humans influence their dog's behavior, and there's been some recent research paper just came out last year on some of this. So what are your thoughts on, especially when you're working your aggression cases right? So let's kind of focus on that topic and how much, because people are always worried. They're saying, oh, it's my fault or I did something wrong, I broke my dog, or things like that. And yes, we know again, talking about reinforcement can happen. However, let's get into again they're maybe their emotional side right and how I can kind of guess how you might see this actually.
Speaker 2:So but let's, let's, let's dive into that boring podcast let's dive into that and what you know.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts on when you have that conversation with a client, if they're worried about or you're seeing something that they are actually influencing their animal's behavior through their own. You know what you're observing in their body language for behaviors and things like that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's fun to say as well, I love this podcast, like this just discussion of chat with us, because sometimes, like it's just cuts the fluff and we've gone straight like we're going into like deep stuff and almost talking about the nitty-gritty. Really I love it just I think I thank you for this opportunity, um, and your questions and the thoughtfulness of like the way you've constructed this. So, yeah, with customers, um, I would approach again the customer's behavior because, like for me, I'm not a psychologist so I'm going to stay away from that's not my expertise, I don't have those skills. So, as a behavior for me, from a behavior perspective, um, I'm going to approach the customer's behavior and look at that and again the function of that behavior. So, when a person is crying, or if I have a customer who's crying, I'm not going. Oh, you're crying, you must be upset. I need to be like. I need to like, I want to be empathetic, but that's not the right word. I'm not going to go because you cry, I need to slow down. I need to say oh, my god, I'm so sorry. Let's not talk about this, let's use a different word. What I need to do is go, okay. So what's the contingency here, what functional relations could be occurring. So I'm essentially doing a functional assessment on the human's behavior.
Speaker 2:So, as the customer's crying sometimes, I'm just even based on if I've got previous data. If I'm not, it's just new behavior, I'm just observing. I'm going okay, they're crying. They told me about this with their dog and I'm going to engage in a response in a moment and I might be just, I might stop talking or give them a break. I just say that's okay. When you can, when you're ready, you can let me know, and if you don't know an answer or you just want to take a break, that's completely okay as well. So I'm going to try and arrange the environment, generally speaking, that I want the human to feel great through arranging that contingency. But also, rather than focusing on the crying, I'm focused on that relationship between the crying behavior, the consequence and the conditions that crying is happening under. So that's one thing I'm going to think about. The other aspect is I think it's life that when we say, does a human's behavior impact on the dog's behavior, for me that's going to be an maybe, of course, answer from a behavior analytic perspective, in that not always, because what the human might be doing may not actually function to change anything on the dog's behavior at that moment. That's why functional analysis is important. Is we look at person, does this? And I've noted there is a relationship between human doing this and the dog growling more. Now we can subjectively call that the fault of the human or not, and a part of that is going to be about.
Speaker 2:Like skinner talked about selection at three levels. He talked about selection at the um sort of evolutionary level, darwinian selection. He talked about selection of concept by consequences. So you natural selection is great, but you doesn't explain what happens within the lifetime of the organism. And so he believed, or he demonstrated, I would say um, for much work and people after him, that selection for consequences is a level of selection that we do can explain the change in behavior for a lifetime of an organism.
Speaker 2:The third one where he talks about is the idea that as individuals we also live in societies and we have a culture, and a culture in japan might be different to a culture in the uk, to america. And is it innate, is it learned? That's a different discussion, again, I think, or maybe not, but I think why I'm saying this is there's a TED talk as well that on language. I love it. It's by Laura someone. If you type in TED, talk language, laura will come up. She's wearing like this, really very nice clothing, like red or pinky color, and she gives this amazing 20 minute talk on language. And one of the things she says in there is this idea that if someone hits a vase, like a flower vase, and it drops on the floor, in some Western culture, in some English speaking languages, I should say we go, he broke the vase or she broke the vase, because our training from a young age is to kind of go he broke it or she broke it, and there's a reinforcing system there that, from a young age, is like who did this?
Speaker 2:If you are a Spanish speaker, in Spain people wouldn't say that he broke the vase, they would say the vase broke. Saying the vase broke compared to he broke the vase is again, two different ways of saying this. And the topography could mean two very different things to learners with different learning histories and different cultures. So, again, two different ways of saying this. And the topography could mean two very different things to learners with different learning histories and different cultures. So, again, with the customers I'm always thinking about okay, so I don't know the exact learning history, but if I say when you do this, your dog is growling more, they might start going to the idea that he said this is my fault and that could be the internal thinking behavior, the private behaviors occurring and that might not be an environment that's going to help me, help them and their animal.
Speaker 2:So I'm always careful when I'm talking to customers that can I construct language in a way that could be the antecedent arrangement or my behavior as an antecedent arrangement, for their behavior is less likely to create contingencies that are not useful for this moment. And if I do say something and they start crying or they're upset or they start going oh my God, it's my fault, then that just is data for me to say okay, I need to use different constructions of the environment to promote different verbal behavior and responses, non-verbal responses from my human learners. And so if I have customers like, oh, so my dog is doing it, because I'm doing this wrong, I'll often say things like well, that's one way to look at it, but that's life, like I do, things I learn. If I don't know something, I do the best I can and I assume you're doing the best you can to help your dog. You've done all this research, you've gone on YouTube, you watch all these people and that shows me that you really want to help your dog and you've come across advice that may be not helping your dog. But I don't even go into this idea that we have good trainers or bad trainers, or we have positive is good and negative good or whatever, because I just don't think that's a discussion of having. Personally, I think it's better to just go.
Speaker 2:What we're, what we're learning today is in our session we saw that doing it this way compared to the other way of doing it, we're seeing different results. So what that data would suggest to me is let's try a week of doing it this way and if you see the benefits continuing to occur, then we have our answers. So it's nonjudgmental. It's kind of saying and also it could be that last week your dog wasn't ready for this way of doing it because the conditions are different, but now your dog isn't in pain or there's something else happening, or this has happened more sleep or you're not in a new house, or there's no building work going on. The contingents are different. What's valuable as a reinforcer is different. The MO as a reinforcer is different, the mo's are different. I don't use a technical language. My customers generally speaking, so that's the way I would approach my customer. I don't know if that answers the question I hope it does.
Speaker 1:I think it does. Yeah, definitely, because, again, it just reiterates that well, when you think about it, the client is part of the animal's environment. They're learning experiences right. So now, in terms of you mentioned empathy early and that's really, of course, an important part of the work we do. We have to, especially in aggression cases. It's probably the number one tool that a consultant a good consultant can possess in helping a client and building that you look anxious or you look angry, you know, so we can frame it as you know. Or I would actually ask do you do? This Is like, do you feel anxious or is this making you anxious, or how are you feeling? So you can get some of that information from them? Do you do that? Because I find that can also help them empathize with their dog, especially if I find a disconnect. So if they start to say I'm processing my feelings, well, my dog probably has feelings too. Do you start using those labels then?
Speaker 2:or Definitely so I would say 100%. Like I use labels, I use constructs, my customers, people might like if I had a trainer watching. Sometimes I have students watching and at the end I know we're always gonna have a debrief and discussion because I want to ask them like okay. So I said to a customer the dog was probably frustrated. Or I said, oh, I can understand why you're really angry right now and I would probably be angry. Or like there are times when my dog, if they've rolled in dog poo or they've eaten fox poo outside and they come in trying to give me a kiss, I might not feel the best, I might go, oh, don't do that. And oh, my God, I shouted about something and not purposefully, but it's just a reaction I had and I think it's okay. But what I want to say with this is I think all of this is okay completely and I think we should have the ability to say different words, and words aren't good or bad necessarily. What I think we need to do I love Kay Lawrence's discussion of like she says about trained thoughtfully, and for me that's really important is that use your words thoughtfully Now.
Speaker 2:Don't use your words from a construct perspective or from. This is my advice, like I'm not saying right, but from a behavioristic perspective, and Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior as well. It's really interesting to listen to that. If you're not aware of it, or like anyone listening is not aware, is the verbal behavior gained. Or we often say he said this. It must've meant this because he said this. For me that's the same discussion as the dog growled or did a lip lick, so they must be stressed. No, that just looks at the function. It doesn't look at the topography.
Speaker 2:And so when I say I feel angry, am I really saying that I'm? Am I what Skinner called tacting? Almost it's like you're labeling something. Am I saying that I am labeling an internal experience? Or am I saying I am angry because that's to get me, the person I'm talking to, to do something different? And so, as humans, we're not always labeling something. We're saying those words for a different outcome. And if you look at relationships and partners, you see this all the time. Someone might go I'm angry, and you go and do something you think that can make them less angry. But they weren't saying that I am angry right now. What they're saying is I need you to do something different. And so, with human language.
Speaker 2:I think it's so important that when I'm with my customer I'm thinking function rather than topography, and words don't just mean one thing because I sound like one thing, but what's the maintaining consequences of those words for those individuals? And obviously you have to make some generalizations, because when we work with so many people or groups we may not be able to do individual functional assessments for everyone. But why I'm saying that is it's completely okay to say to a customer in my perspective. Oh, you must be feeling angry, but I'm not saying that just from empathy, as in I just want to be nice, like I love to be kind.
Speaker 2:Like for me, I want to be as kind as possible. But I think kind has to be objective in a certain way. Like I don't think it can just be a fluffy feeling that we just try to be nice, because by being kind you might be actually not being helpful. If I'm being kind to my dog and just quickly picking them up or walking across the road, maybe I'm shaping more fearful, anxious behaviors that we might label as in their quotes and actually not helping them feel better, because the contingents are shaping more what we might call panic behaviors. And so I really think we can be more better like I want to be. I don't know how you could label it like scientifically empathetic or um, objectively I don't really like thoughtfully, yeah, thoughtfully um.
Speaker 2:So that's where I would be going with this answer is, I think, yes, definitely, but I will want, let's be thoughtful and analytic about it Analytically empathetic, I like it, Some people might go oh my God, it's so cold, can you not just be?
Speaker 2:a human Like I, have friends who say can you just not analyze that and just be a human? But what does that actually mean? Am I just closing my eyes to the world at large? That is real for me. For me, the only way I can be more kind is by actually understanding function. I'm not living my life all the time just trying to do ABCs, but if I really want to understand something and be helpful to someone, I believe the best way I can be helpful is by being analytic and being a scientific practitioner. Not by just being nice or kind and saying what I think could be the right thing, but actually saying something, that I'm doing it for a particular reason. I'm understanding those reasons.
Speaker 1:I like where this is going, because I want to take a segue into the next topic here, which is sort of the ethical considerations in our behavior change strategies, because we're again looking at observable behaviors in the work we do and we get into the discussions of tools and approaches and the quadrants and which ones are you know. So we have all this debate that's happening and then when we add in the layer of aggression, you know, or aggressive aggression cases, I should say, and the potential for risks and danger and management strategies that might be more intrusive or taking away some of the agency for the learners, so we have a lot of dynamics when we're looking at behavior change strategies. And again, this is a big topic that it's talked about quite often and we see it in social media. Of course it's the big topic. So for me we could talk about tools, but that's not really the thing I focus on.
Speaker 1:Again, people are like do you use e-collars, do you use this or that? And of course no. And though I think that's the wrong focus, because you and I actually I was just out in Switzerland and place same place you've done workshops and also in Denmark same thing, where most aversive tools are not allowed. Actually, they're banned. However, most aversive tools are not allowed actually, they're banned. However, there's still some struggles about people using punishment. So instead of whatever tool, they can just reach for or make something else up.
Speaker 1:So it's really a punishment culture that can dictate how animals are treated. Now, all that being said, we often talk about the level of aversiveness that an animal might be experiencing, so these arguments typically fall around that Be like okay, well, this is aversive. Well, and then some arguments are like well, this particular approach can be much more aversive, and that's true. Is there some things that dogs would find much more aversive, in terms of tools or situations, than any particular aversive, you know, commonplace tool we see in these conversations? So, that being said, how do you sort of navigate that conversation when it comes to, okay, this particular situation, context, environment, tool is aversive to this learner. How do you evaluate that when we're looking at behavior rather than focusing on oh, dog's tail tucked, so they must be fearful of this tool or this situation, which is often a good a guess, but yeah, it doesn't really tell us so. Thoughts on that um.
Speaker 2:so that's another amazing question, um, and you have such a great way of like summarizing or asking that, um, I take many more words to say the same thing as you. You're very fluent in like, beautifully saying it um. So, okay, yes, I think it's such an important discussion and topic and I think I love you. I love you for many reasons. I love your work for many reasons. I think one one of the like you do engage in conversations with many different people, even if they have different perspectives or different learning histories, and I think that's super important. My Ian Dunbar was a huge mentor for me early on and he very much taught me about be open, talk to everyone, see what you can learn. It doesn't mean you're going to be using an e-collar and for me, I love talking to different people, different trainers. I don't see them as bad people. Their behaviors they engage in, there's conditions under which they engage in those, and most people I work with who use aversives, they love their animals. I can't remember the last time I met someone who hated their dog or hated the police dog they work with, even if they're using an e-collar or they're hanging them in the air and to sit down with them and to see them in tears if their dog is being struck by someone or something happens on a patrol dog or something like that. You see these big men crying. They love these animals, the dogs they work with. So I think just the idea that if someone does something again, what's the function, rather than topography, because someone raises their voice, doesn't mean they hate the child. So I think if there are like, so the tool, like again, people might hate me after this, but that's okay. Um, the tool isn't the bad thing, generally speaking. Now, of course, there are certain tools that probably don't have much benefit, but it's. I think. Again, you can ban as many tools as you want, but again, what are contingencies? So, when a learner is doing something and I raise my voice, I can train an animal, and I have inadvertently trained my dogs in the past and probably even with Miska.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, like something is something I don't want, or I get irritated by something and, yeah, I get irritated. I like to try and live my life giving as many choices of control, try to be as kind and nice to her as possible, but, like in my life, there are times like Miss could just stop it please. Or, um, like I'm feeling I don't know I have things going on in my life or something bad happened and um, the MO's in place, like maybe I'm not as patient as I normally am, and so, if I think about it, there are plenty of times where, even if I look in a certain way or if you have a child, you probably noticed this you can raise your eyebrow or something and that becomes a cue for signaling availability of a punisher or something. So you might go wait, eyebrow raising that doesn't look like it's going to kill someone or hurt someone or cause pain. But that could be having control over a human's behavior or learner's behavior, I should say not even human. We are animals, non-human animals, animals. So behavior, a cue signals the availability of a punisher, the topography of that cue, the stimulus may be what you label as more or less bad or good or evil looking or not evil looking, but it doesn't actually tell you how evil or how bad aversive that actually is. So without understanding the function, again, the function, sorry, I'm not sorry, sorry, but not sorry. David Lovato love that song, is that yeah? So basically you're without understanding contingencies and the functional relations, like when that is happening, is it actually helpful to the learner or not? And when I say helpful, how are we defining? If it's like, is aversiveness in that moment the main priority, or is it about the 24-hour life cycle of that learner, or is it about the week or the year? And if we're thinking about just this moment and I'm being kind, like I said before, maybe by being kind and moving across the road, I'm actually not being kind in the long term, potentially if something's maintained through a negative reinforcement contingency.
Speaker 2:So, for example, with Miska, my German Shepherd. She came from a client. At young age she engaged in what people might label as reactivity anxious, aggressive behaviors, so lunging, screaming, like any change in the environment people, dogs she would actually on a walk, hackles would go up from the top of her neck to her tail and nothing. I didn't see a change. But two minutes later a dog would appear around the corner and she was air-senting out dogs and literally flying and screaming. As she was five months of age and so she wouldn't take food outside, so if I presented food, she'd turn her head and walk away or like just keep dragging, and by functionally assessing, like taking her out the house, she would be essentially dragging all the way back to the house. So to me the data seemed to suggest like there's a massive negative reinforcement loop happening there. Like I leave, you get all this barking and screaming stuff, but then you end up back at home and if I try to give her treats outside, like there was no treats, so you might say, wait, do I not take her out? Do I take her out? How do I start adding in positive reinforcement loops into this?
Speaker 2:And for me, the reinforcers were negative reinforcers early on, like when I left my house, or not even left my house, maybe I just opened the front door, the porch door, and worked in my hallway and came a bit out. But actually and I wasn't going I'm going to throw you in a situation of trying to leave but she would be leaving, going forward for a second, seeing something, and she could run back if she wanted to. But then she lunged forward and she screamed at something. Did I just open the door, like did I just go, oh, let's run back inside. Or did I say, well, let's just hang out here, because nothing's really going to kill you for a second? And you see the person go by? Yes, she screamed and barked and the person disappeared You're eating treats. She wasn't eating treats, she's sniffing or something.
Speaker 2:As soon as she started sniffing, we went back inside and I had a dog who I was able to. Now, if you give her a treat she's actually looking for treats on walks and she's like asking for more treats. And I had to shape all of those different behaviors. But if someone saw her now they might go oh, she looks quite happy outside, she walks past dogs or she can be off leading stuff, and so again, I think if I would have gone down the route of weight, I can only use positive reinforcement. I want to try and use as much positive reinforcement. My philosophy is to maximize positive reinforcement, but I'm going to say that for me I can't get away from real life and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment, because they are all around us and I don't have to actively set up contingencies to use those. But if my learner is under those contingencies or already, just by being in that situation, I'm going to go wait.
Speaker 2:What is the current maintaining reinforcers? How do I act now? That might look not as necessarily kind in that moment, because maybe I'm standing a bit longer than another trainer might, or what I might've done two years ago. But the moment I decide to take a step or put my hand in my bag or turn my body, all of those could function as conditioned reinforcers or cues, and so I'm very thoughtful in my body movements and what I find is that the dogs I work with, my customers, week later or six weeks later, you see such a happier dog or even much quicker results, whereas previously I felt I held animals back because I was like this idea of threshold we have to be below threshold. What does that threshold even mean? And that's another topic maybe we could go down the rabbit hole of. But when I stopped doing that and stopped looking at because a doged, they're practicing it.
Speaker 2:No, lunging doesn't mean you're practicing it, you only practice something. Well, depends on what your definition is. If you engage in a behavior and there's a reinforce under those conditions, under those conditions that behavior is more likely to happen. But if the conditions are different, behavior is going to be different. And so when I started to become more analytic, I found I was able to help animals faster. But it it's not just about speed, but actually help them more and not just have a dog that I go. Oh, you missed the socialization period. So he's reactive eight years later. I don't believe missing a socialization period is a reason that you're reactive eight years later, because how many dogs in India in the streets were not socialized and they sit there and lie there while you walk straight past them? Yes, if you touch them they're probably going to bite you. But what is socialization? That's a construct.
Speaker 2:And so yeah so I'm going to stop there for a second.
Speaker 1:You can respond or say whatever you want, but that's where I'm going with that kind of thought. Yeah, no, it's definitely a deep dive into it and you know my mind's going to again this debate over what, what we need to look for for when a dog is experiencing something we think would be aversive, because that that common saying the dog will tell you if it's aversive, but what does the dog?
Speaker 2:tell us, let the data tell you yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:And so let's let's use an example, maybe just to help our listeners kind of wrap their head around it. And they, you know, you have a let's use the dog outside on the leash and they're having a tough time, they're barking, lunging at things, and so you know the the common argument like, oh, we have a certain training collar on the dog and somebody's yanking it and they're showing pinned back ears. And so we're describing behaviors, observable behaviors that we'd say this dog is likely experiencing aversive, but we don't know for sure. Again, because we could take a dog that's much less expressive, I guess, or that we don't see those overt behaviors popping out, but that dog still could be experienced having a very aversive experience.
Speaker 1:It may be the data that says okay, they show, no, no, nothing, they're like just stoic dogs. But then they start to the behaviors I show, but they're avoiding the area more in the future. So we see a decrease in frequency of that behavior of going to that location. So expands for us and you know, even if it's a dog guardian listening in right now, like how would they know what their dog's truly experiencing? And then we also want to prevent people from not going anywhere or doing anything else with their dogs, as they're worried. Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 2:So I think the first thing is I asked a question about okay, so we see something, uh, we label it, we, we have our initial uh when we say, see, you only see what you've been trained to see. So I could be with a friend and they say, oh, did you see that hotel? They had this picture and this. I was like what hotel were you in? But because they've got a learning history of seeing colors or the colors mean something to them, when they walk into a hotel, they see all of these things that I wouldn't see because I don't look for those things. So when we say I see, not everyone sees the same we see, based on our learning, yes, we all have biology that I've learned and optic bits and bobs, whatever happens with the eyes, but basically that biology doesn't mean we all see the same. Maybe the underlying principles or mechanisms are similar, but the learning histories. So this is why biology isn't just like separate to operant, and operant is separate to like. Biology is all connected and so you have a learning history of observing. And so I stopped and I go. Okay, so I see something happening here. My dog is growling and they see a dog outside, or I'm going to go with a slightly different example, because I think it might be. If it's different to what you're actually asking, let me know.
Speaker 2:But I've got this video, this doberman that I was training with canada, like with the trainer, and she was amazing and she said, um, he does these behaviors outside, barking and screaming at things. Can we have a look at that? I was like sure. So she got, she got a treat bag, she had the clicker, she put the harness out, she goes. He sometimes gets a bit anxious. The harness I think it could be connected to him going outside or whatever. I can't remember exactly what she said. Like that might be. Let's just say that's a scenario and I was like, okay, cool. But again, what I'm looking for is okay, let's take a step back and look at the contingencies and what's actually happening.
Speaker 2:And one of the things you observe in this video is the harness comes out, the dog gets a treat. She does a beautiful job of doing things, slowly giving a treat. Every time she does a step. But if we're just focusing on, I need to do a classical thing or I just need to be kind and harness treat. What I observe, and you see clearly in the video is.
Speaker 2:There's times where the dog actually, if she goes to clip a clip on the dog, takes a step away from her and leans away and then, if you watch, what happens happens next. Often the hand goes in the treat bag or the dog then comes forward again, she gives a treat and then she goes to clip the lead on or harness on the dog, backs away and leans away and and then she gets her, puts her hand in the treat bag. And what we changed in minutes was if your dog leans away, you're just going to have your hand by your side and stand still when your dog comes forward and takes a step forward and you move the collar harness towards the dog and the dog stays standing forward. Whatever approximation that is, it could be one centimeter, one millimeter we're going to give a treat Over a few minutes. What we quickly see is you've got this dog standing there, you're able to put the harness on, there's no leaning away and you see a difference in the dog's behavior.
Speaker 2:And so I think that's what's super important here for me is when we're looking at, is it aversive or not is sometimes without that analytic aspect to it, we don't know. And so I see a dog. I do something, I go. He hates this. It doesn't hate this. This is cruel. It's not cruel.
Speaker 2:Take a step back, maybe consult with, again, different experts. We're not all the experts in the same thing. We've got different learning histories. We see things in different lenses. So if you want to stay away or minimize the use of pain or things that could be causing discomfort as part of the learning process, then you find a trainer who focuses more on that philosophy and approach. Or if you don't care, then you use a different philosophy.
Speaker 2:But let's say you make that choice as a human, as a caregiver and like, and you might think that choice is not really a choice because a person might be not have access to oh, I didn't know that you could use food and achieve the same outcomes. I thought because it's severe behavior. You have to have a severe like strategy and I would say that's not true. Um, like, you can and again, food can be bad. If I have many cases or myself use food and taught dogs to do things you don't want. So food isn't good. Positive reinforcement isn't good. You can use positive reinforcement to shape behaviors you don't want, but what we're looking for is really a trainer who can be analytical and use things that maybe aren't going to be causing discomfort and pain to our learners, maybe minimize our learners experiencing those aversive or maybe things that aren't nice feelings and emotions.
Speaker 2:I can't do them directly, but through the contingencies I set up and then go down the route of okay, let me analyze what is the maintaining outcome for these behaviors. Is the behavior getting more or less, and under what conditions? And again, I think sometimes when we look at this we just think about behavior and consequences, we don't think about the A. So you can't do a Google search with WW, it always has to be WWW. And the reason I say that is if we start thinking WWW, the Q or what we call the antecedent, which is a signal of availability of a certain BC relationship, behavior, consequence relationship. You can't just say my dog is reactive or not reactive, my dog is reactive or not reactive, my dog is aggressive or not aggressive, because they're not 25 hours a day showing those aggressive behaviors. All those behaviors are occurring under a context of those signals of availability. And so we start to go oh okay, the dog engages under these situations, under these conditions, and by understanding all three, maybe a certain tool or music could be aversive under a certain condition.
Speaker 2:If I'm trying to focus, get something done there, a certain tool or music could be aversive under a certain condition. If I'm trying to focus, get something done, there's certain music appears. It could start becoming irritating because I love that music. But now I really want to get this email done and now it's irritating me, but once I don't have the MO in place that sending this email is important, suddenly that music is the best thing in the world, and so we have to stop and move away from this idea that it's like okay, like not even use the word shotgun, but let's say even the food, because I use food, I did a good thing.
Speaker 2:Because I use food, I did positive reinforcement. We did not do positive reinforcement because we added a treat. That is not the definition of positive reinforcement. So I think we have to clarify some of these terms as well, of what we call learning theory, because I think we misunderstand or our learning histories maybe aren't as clear in terms of what they really are. We often talk about I use food, so I'm doing positive reinforcement. I used a clicker, so I'm doing positive reinforcement, but a clicker doesn't mean positive reinforcement. Food doesn't mean positive reinforcement. What's the function, what contingencies?
Speaker 1:that gives us more information right and an aversive doesn't always mean positive punishment no negative reinforcement. No, it's right.
Speaker 1:We need to see the data yep, exactly yeah, that's such a great way to to wrap up that topic, because I think it's it's so much goes into. We have to observe the data. That's and that's what a good analytic consultant or trainer is going to do. So in that regard let's talk about, just to wrap up the show what do we see in the future direction? What are our future wishes for the direction of the dog training and behavior industry, especially in aggression? Maybe some new gadgets out there or certain procedures or different sciences that you're seeing? What's exciting you these days in terms of where you see the next steps in our industry?
Speaker 2:so a couple of things. One is going back to our foundations and really going back to the science of behavior change, behavior analysis and going what is this science? What is actually learning theory? It's more than what we often think of, as in dog training, and I think it may actually not even be new. It's what's already there, like when I watch Skinner's videos or I go and read like ABA papers or actual lectures, I go, oh my God, it's mind blowing. It's so new but it's not really new. It's just I haven't had exposure to this and I think the more we actually start really going wait, there's more here I think suddenly we're going to be able to help more animals and people. Well, people are animals, like I said before, but we're going to help more learners, and so I think for me, going into the future, I would love to see more science coming to a table, not science as in oh, this is published in this book. He's a scientist, so it's science. That's not really because you could have science or something and actually make an inference and that's not really science-based methodology, but like science in terms of a scientist practitioner and the principles of the most basic level of science is observation, correlation, causation, data, experimentation. So I really would love to see more of that perspective come to dog training and actually become the predominant way of how dog behavior and training and behavior changes happens. And I know people would say that's we already do that, but like what level? And, um, like I think some of the discussions had today really highlight that and I think that's such a so that's one of the things and you mentioned earlier on the. Something you said earlier was about ai and like I laughed when you said that and I was. I'm so happy because I found so many uses for AI that have helped my life. There's antecedent arrangements and consequences writing emails for me, helping me actually have a system of more productivity and organization and helping me do things and I think you need to learn how to use a system and do that. But the more I learn, I was like, oh my God, there's so many things we can do Data keeping, helping liaised with clients, helping clients problem solving the moment if we're not there and are learning what kind of questions they can ask AI and how we can use that. So I think that's going to be super exciting and I think Skinner was really passionate about the idea that radical behaviorism was radical because Skinner's approach was we shouldn't ignore the inside.
Speaker 2:Behaviorism was radical because Skinner's approach was we shouldn't ignore the inside. We don't call thinking as something that's magical. It's a physical thing that happens and it should have a physical explanation and data and what actually is happening. Skinner's really passionate on not ignoring something because you can't see it.
Speaker 2:In behavior analysis a lot of people think you ignore it if you can't see it. That's not true. You look for a way to study as objectively as possible without just making stories about it. And so I think this idea that biology and I think again you mentioned this previously when we were just like getting started or chatting before the podcast recording is the idea that there could be tools that allow us to see inside what's going on. And again, like having those tools doesn't necessarily mean there's a causation. It could mean there's a correlation. So heart rate changes, there's certain maybe biochemical changes, maybe certain endorphins are like, even whatever. Like our app suddenly tells us there's a chip inside the human, like I was thinking the other day on the toilet. I don't know why, but it would be cool if I had a chip inside me because, like, I'm always sticking things on my body and collecting data.
Speaker 2:So I'm like apple watch, a fitbit, this, that, and I was like sticking a little blood glucose monitor and monitoring what happens when I engage in different activities. But for me again, is it my blood sugar causing me to be unhappy or is it that there were these events that changed what my blood sugar did and then that it also could function as an antecedent arrangement for the next thing? But again, not just. I see a change inside. That's the causation. It could be correlation. So for me, that is what I'd love to see in the future, and always more Skinner. And I'll quickly plug, if I can, the BF, skinner Foundation. They've got this amazing Spotify recording that's come out recently, a series of recordings on verbal behavior, and because it can be quite intense to think about Skinner's approach to verbal behavior and it's different how we normally think about it. So I think, if you're interested, go check out on Spotify anywhere Skinner Foundation Verbal Behavior and listen to the recordings. It's mind-blowing, it's amazing, and Skinner Foundation has lots of free information out there delving into radical behaviorism, behavior analysis.
Speaker 1:Amazing, and I'll be sure to add those to the show notes as well. Thank, you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the technology, I think, is just going to be amazing. You know we were talking about the devices, both of us. You can't see us people listening in, can't see us right now but we've got the Whoop device which measures all of your sleep and your heart rate and your heart rate variability and your stress levels and it tells you how much you should do the next day. You know in terms of your workouts and you should take it easier, do more.
Speaker 1:So imagine if we had the same for dogs. You know where it's going to because the, the app or the device is really going to help us with the science and the data of it and there also will have nice big data sample size from all the dogs, you know. So whoop tracks all the humans data you can opt out, but it does a great job of saying, okay, based on this number of people you know doing these workouts or whatever, we found that this is the best for their next productive day. So a dog that, let's say, had a terrible night because they were experiencing thunderstorms and sometimes that stress can impact their heart rate availability dehydration, things like that can impact that. Bigger or higher levels of heart rate availability are supposedly a good thing. I've learned on the app.
Speaker 1:So it's good for your next day, the better you. Actually, if you're not dehydrated, your heart rate availability is bigger and it looks at your resting heart rate. But imagine that for dogs, you know. Imagine the person that can say what does my app tell me I should do with my dog today? Or did they have a hard time? Because we don't always notice that we can barely pay attention to ourselves, let alone our animals, right, when we're looking at that kind of their daily structure and routine. So, yeah, I'm excited for the future, for sure. And speaking of the future, we've got you speaking at the Aggression in Dogs conference happening September 26th to the 28th. Real, quickly, you're talking about body language. Is that your focus?
Speaker 2:Yeah, body language kind of thinking about is it time to throw out? I think I said, is it time to throw out the baby in the bathwater? And so we kind of hit upon some of the points in this recording today. But, yeah, really going into this idea, what is body language and how useful is it? And is it useful, is it not, or when is it useful? And should we not talk about body language? Should we talk about it? And so what are some of the data say as well, and so I'm going to be discussing that topic in a lot more detail with some videos, and I've got some really cool practical videos actually of cases and you will take the lens and see how we can apply to practice. Hopefully people can actually leave with um something straight away. They can apply to the day-to-day work after the session as well amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1:Looking forward to that, and where else can people find you? What are you up to for the rest of the year?
Speaker 2:oh, um, so I'm working on my organization system, as I said, so it's hard to find where. But, like, um, if you look up chirag patel consulting on instagram, youtube, uh, my website, which is not up to date, but youtube, instagram are usually the most up to date and I've been taking a little break from social media generally this year working on myself, but I am starting to go back on to plug it in, like using social media more. So you'll find a lot of stuff on instagram and facebook and youtube. So I say, check out those and hopefully in the future, my website will be more up to date as well amazing, and I'll be sure to include those in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Drug, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been an amazing conversation and I'm looking forward to seeing you at the conference.
Speaker 2:I can't wait. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:It was such a privilege to talk with Chirag Patel and hear his thoughtful insights on the science and heart behind understanding aggression in dogs. His ability to bridge the worlds of behavior analysis, compassion and practical application is something we can all learn from as we work to improve the lives of dogs and their people. If you're ready to go deeper into understanding and helping dogs with aggression, visit AggressiveDogcom. Whether you're a professional or a dedicated dog guardian, you'll find everything from the Aggression in Dogs Master Course, the most comprehensive program of its kind, to expert-led webinars, informative articles and the Aggression in Dogs conference happening from September 26th to 28th 2025 in Charlotte, north Carolina, with both in-person and virtual options. And don't forget to check out the Help for Dogs with Aggression bonus episodes, which are solo shows where I walk you through real-world strategies for issues like resource guarding, fear-based aggression, territorial behavior and more. Just hit, subscribe or head to the show notes for more info. Thanks for listening and, as always, stay well, my friends. You.