The social organisation of the domestic dog/non linear dogs

I must admit to skipping some of it but one particular passage is totally relevant to an experience I had this week with Rose, my youngest bitch:

" She learned to experience human attention as a resource, whereas it had first been a sign of danger. FCan had also learned that certain signals of hers would be followed by certain signals from me, some of which predicted the appearance of these reinforcers – a new linguistic domain was established. Once these consensual domains been opened up, fCan was able to transfer it to other humans. She became interested in investigating whether she could safely establish social interactions with new humans. This indicates that there was a second resource involved. fCan got plenty of stroking from me, so there was no reason to seek more of this in and of itself. The more so since seeking this resource from another human meant voluntarily undergoing a strong perturbation of her inner state (a high level of anxiety) and – in her eyes – the risk of being attacked. I conclude that fCan actively sought to repeat experiences of non-violent interactions with humans because each new peaceful interaction led to decreased anxiety that a human meant, by definition, an extreme perturbation of the shared fitness landscape at the least, and a danger to herself as a functioning living system at the worst. Because fCan was willing initiate interactions in which she had to overcome fear and risk attack to test this stability, we must conclude she perceived stability in the social landscape as a resource in itself. fCan was attempting to find our how frequently this resource was available by actively seeking repetition of the experience she’d had first with me. If other humans turned out to share the linguistic domain (responding to non-threat signals with non-threat themselves), and if humans could be generally regarded as following the non-aggression rule, a great increase in the quality of fCan’s life would be reached. She would be able to move within a state space in which violent perturbations by humans did not occur on the binary level, and internal perturbations were decreased by her own changed perceptions of humans. Thus, generalized reduction of fear, increase of inner stability and increased stability in the general social landscape were clearly all resources fCan was willing to face fear to gain. This was, however, a binary process. The responses of the other dogs or myself to a new person had no influence whatsoever on fCan’s responses. Each new human had to establish its own predictability with, and thus value as a resource to, this dog."

I adopted this bitch I had accepted as a foster five years ago after she had bitten four people while being fostered and rehomed to other people. She was a highly nervous fear biter but totally safe IF the humans around her exhibited the right signals. She learnt to be relaxed around humans over the first year with us and to enjoy attention and cuddles and had never once exhibited threatening behaviour around strangers until this week.

I decided a few weeks ago she would benefit from 1-2-1 agility training after I familiarised her with the venue and the obstacles in it and we had our first half hour session this week. All went well at first and she cooperated happily with the trainer and the training until the trainer advanced towards us and gestured with her hands. Her reaction was startling and sudden: she stiffened, growled and barked threateningly. The trainer then went to move away presenting her back and I had to shout the dog's name very loudly to pause a forward lungeing movement from her. I took the bitch right away from the trainer, heeled her, rewarded her and took her back to the trainer where we continued the training with a happy cooperative bitch who exhibited not a trace of aggression for the rest of the session. This bitch has always amazed me by her desire to befriend humans in spite of her fear and by her ability to go from relaxed and happy to highly threatening if she suddenly thinks somebody is giving a threatening signal, and back again if the same person changes their behaviour. It is ironical that the first time this has happened in four years is with a very skilled agility trainer!

I still have to digest the whole piece. It is long and involved and some of the language is unfamiliar to me.

Edit: The assumption that agression is not caused by a desire to establish a hierarchy is certainly right in Rose's case. Anybody mistaking her aggression for dominance would have doomed her to be PTSd as she would have escalated her behaviour due to increased fear.

Next reflection: my experience highlights the need to have any agressive behaviour addressed only by a behaviourist who is highly experienced in rehabilitating agressive dogs. Very few behaviourists have actually done so consistently. as these dogs are mostly summarily put down. Rose and I were very lucky to meet such a behaviourist when she first came to me.
 
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You have done a lot better than me in wading through it, Planete. I only skimmed through. I do better with paper than a screen but it is 81 pages so I might give that a miss.

How pleased you must be with the progress you have made with Rose. I think we learn so much more when we adopt a dog with problems, it forces us to expand our knowledge in order to try and help them.

ETA I have managed to condense it to 42 pages of print.
 
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skinnydipper said:
You have done a lot better than me in wading through it, Planete. I only skimmed through. I do better with paper than a screen but it is 81 pages so I might give that a miss.

How pleased you must be with the progress you have made with Rose. I think we learn so much more when we adopt a dog with problems, it forces us to expand our knowledge in order to try and help them.
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How right you are! Steep learning curve would describe it...and yes, I am pleased but this was a sharp reminder not to become complacent.
 
Stiff Knees said:
You guys are way more intelligent than me! ?
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Nah, I have read the gist of it in easier to understand research. I am reading this one but letting the bits that are hard for me to understand just drift over my head;)

I have never felt that I know everything and am always eager to understand more :)
 
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Levrier said:
I just prefer to draw conclusions based on my own fairly extensive observations over quite a few years than scientific studies ??
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I too, observed a hierarchy. This is from an old post of mine

"In my experience, dogs instinctively know where they stand in the pack hierarchy and the top dog is not necessarily who you would have picked for the job. Some dogs are more comfortable lower down the totem pole. It may be that rather than asserting himself as top dog, he is uncomfortable with the role he has been allocated. Obviously you are in the best position to observe pack dynamics."

It was the comparison to wolves which caught my eye and why I posted the link to the paper.

I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
 
skinnydipper said:
I too, observed a hierarchy. This is from an old post of mine

"In my experience, dogs instinctively know where they stand in the pack hierarchy and the top dog is not necessarily who you would have picked for the job. Some dogs are more comfortable lower down the totem pole. It may be that rather than asserting himself as top dog, he is uncomfortable with the role he has been allocated. Obviously you are in the best position to observe pack dynamics."
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Regarding my own comments above and not related to the paper I linked to.

Strictly speaking I have never had a pack, which would be parents and off spring.

I have had a collection of dogs which I chose to live together - they did not get to choose who they lived with.

So the dynamics of my "pack" were based on the personalities of the dogs and I was fortunate that they lived together without conflict.

Wolf studies are interesting and would require a different thread. They differ greatly in their findings based on whether captive, unrelated wolves were studied or a natural family living in the wild. Something for another day I think.
 
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