Animals in Translation (47 page)
Read Animals in Translation Online
Authors: Temple Grandin
Principles of Troubleshooting
- Genetic defects are most likely to occur when animals are selected and bred for a single color, appearance, behavior, or productivity trait, such as rapid growth, blue eyes, a certain body shape, or a single behavior.
- These problems can be avoided by selecting breeding stock that are free of behavioral or structural defects such as poor leg conformation that can lead to lameness. Look at the
whole
animal.
T
RAINING
M
ETHODS
Reward-Motivated Training (No Punishment)
Examples
- A dog fetches a newspaper and is rewarded with praise and petting.
- A dog learns basic, sit, heel, and stay commands. Reward with praise, petting, and a few treats.
- A drug-sniffing or rescue dog learns its task by receiving lots of praise and petting.
- A dolphin is trained to jump through hoops using food rewards.
- Animals are trained using food rewards to cooperate with veterinary procedures. Example: a dolphin presenting his tail to the vet for blood sampling.
- A dressage horse is taught a complex movement using clicker training.
- This form of training works well because a click sound that has been previously associated with food can be given within one second of the horse performing the desired movement.
- A rat in a laboratory behavior experiment learns that when the light is flashing he can press a lever and obtain food.
Principles
- Use no punishment. This means no stimuli that cause fear or pain.
- All operant and classical conditioning methods that use rewards are in this category. There are many books available on operant conditioning.
- Clicker or target training is effective for teaching new skills, tricks, or behaviors, especially in low-sociality animals where food is the best reinforcer.
- Standard rewards: praise, stroking, food, or a stimulus such as a click that has been associated with a food reward.
- Timing of the reward is critical so that the animal associates the reward with the desired behavior. Reward within one second after the desired behavior occurs.
- Ignore behaviors you wish to eliminate.
- You may also withdraw positive reinforcement to stop undesirable behavior. Withdrawing a reward is not the same thing as punishment.
- For dogs, praise is often the only reward needed. Cats and many other animals will require either food rewards or a stimulus associated with food such as a click because they have lower levels of sociality.
- Reward-motivated positive training methods are the best methods for teaching new skills, tricks, or behaviors. Trainers have personal preferences on training methods, but the important principle is to use positive reward-based methods.
Undesirable Behaviors That Occur Because a Person Has Inadvertently Rewarded Them and How to Correct Them
- A dog begs at the dinner table. Ignore the begging dog to stop the behavior.
- A horse paws the feed bucket before feeding. Wait until the horse stops pawing and then feed him.
- A horse pushes up against you. Instantly withhold treats or stroking until he stops pushing.
- A young puppy mouths your hand. Withdraw stroking and/or play and move your hands out of reach the instant a tooth is felt.
Punishment-Motivated Training
Examples
- A dog learns to stay in his yard after an electronic invisible fence has been installed. The animal learns that when he hears the tone coming from his collar he can avoid a shock by moving away from the boundary.
- Cattle stay away from an electric fence.
- A shock collar is used to stop a dog who is chasing cars, joggers, or deer. This is one of the few legitimate uses of a shock collar.
- A rat in a behavior experiment learns to avoid a shock by pressing a bar when a light comes on.
Principles of Troubleshooting
- Operant or classical conditioning in which a punishment such as a shock is used to stop an undesirable behavior. Example: a dog learns that he can avoid a shock by not chasing a jogger.
- Behaviors with a strong instinctual motivation such as deer chasing are least likely to respond to positive methods and more likely to respond to punishment.
- Beating an animal or other severe punishment to exert dominance over an animal is cruel and not very effective. Use obedience training or imitation of natural instinctual behavior to exert dominance.
- Do not use punishment to teach new skills or tricks. Reward-based methods work better and are the most humane.
Chapter 1: My Story
1.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner,
Beyond Freedom and Dignity
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971).
2.
You can see the cover online at http://www.goldbergcoins.net/catalogarchive/20010331/chap006.htm.
3.
John J. Ratey,
A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain
(New York: Vintage Books, 2002); John J. Ratey and Catherine Johnson,
Shadow Syndromes: The Mild Forms of Major Disorders That Sabotage Us
(New York: Bantam, 1997).
4.
O. I. Lovaas, “Behavioral Treatment and Normal Educational and Intellectual Functioning in Young Autistic Children,”
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
55 (1987): 3â9.
5.
John Ross and Barbara McKinney,
Dog Talk: Training Your Dog Through a Canine Point of View
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), pp. 71â72.
6.
D. J. Simons and C. F. Chabris, “Gorillas In Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events,”
Perception
28 (1999):1059â74.
7.
Rita Carter's book,
Exploring Consciousness
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002) has a photo on page 17.
Chapter 2: How Animals Perceive the World
1.
N. J. Minshew and G. Goldstein, “Autism as a Disorder of Complex Information Processing,”
Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews
4 (1998):129â36.
2.
C. J. Murphy, K. Zadnik, and M. J. Mannis, “Myopia and Refractive Error in Dogs,”
Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science
33 (1992): 2459â63.
3.
Oliver W. Sacks,
An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales
(New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
4.
A Web site called “Pawsitive Training for Better Dogs” has some nice examples of color photographs as they would be seen by a dichromatic animal versus a trichromatic person. Dichromatic animals probably see a similar world to what people with color blindness see, but with much less saturated colors.
5.
Arien Mack and Irvin Rock,
Inattentional Blindness: An Overview
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998). They did almost all their research with vision, but they have preliminary findings showing that people have inattentional blindness for touch and hearing, too.
6.
Minshew and Goldstein, “Autism as a Disorder.”
7.
Paul D. MacLean,
The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions
(New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990).
8.
Elkhonon Goldberg,
The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
9.
Rupert Sheldrake,
Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000).
10.
Katy Payne,
Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants
(New York: Penguin Books, 1999).
11.
National Geographic News,
July 8, 2002, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/0701_020702_elephantvibes.html.
12.
Jianzhi Zhang and David M. Webb, “Evolutionary Deterioration of the Vomeronasal Pheromone Transduction Pathway in Catarrhine Primates,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
100, no. 14 (July 8, 2003): 8337â41.
13.
Oliver Sacks,
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
(New York: Touchstone, 1998).
14.
Mack and Rock,
Inattentional Blindness,
pp. 176â77.
Chapter 3: Animal Feelings
1.
L. Zecca, D. Tampellini, M. Gerlach, P. Riederer, R. G. Fariello, and D. Sulzer, “Substantia Nigra Neuromelanin: Structure, Synthesis, and Molecular Behaviour,”
Journal of Clinical Pathology: Molecular Pathology
54 (2001): 414â18.
2.
D. Creel, “Inappropriate Use of Albino Animals as Models in Research,”
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
12, no. 6 (1980): 969.
3.
Facts about albino Dobermans: http://www.geocities.com/~amazondoc/albinism/textframe4.html.
4.
Brian Kilcommons and Michael Capuzzo,
Mutts: America's Dog
(New York: Warner Books, 1996), p. 13.
5.
Pennisi, “Genetics: Genome Resources to Boost Canines' Role in Gene Hunts,”
Science
304 (2004): 1093â95.
6.
Carlos Vila, Peter Savolainen, Jesus E. Maldonado, Isabel R. Amorim, John E. Rice, Rodney L. Honeycutt, Keith A. Crandall, Joakim Lundeberg, and Robert K. Wayne, “Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog,”
Science
276, no. 13 (June 1997): 1687â89.
7.
D. Goodwin, J. W. S. Bradshaw, and S. M. Wickens, “Paedomorphosis Affects Visual Signals of Domestic Dogs,”
Animal Behaviour
53 (1997): 297â304.
8.
Susan Milius, “The Social Lives of Snakes from Loner to Attentive Parent,”
Science News
(March 27, 2004): 201.
9.
National Institutes of Mental Health, “Teenage Brain: A Work in Progress,” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/teenbrain.cfm.
10.
Robert M. Joseph, “Neuropsychological Frameworks for Understanding Autism,”
International Review of Psychiatry
11 (July 8, 1999): 309â25.
11.
Jaak Panksepp,
Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 27â28.
12.
Ibid., p. 144.
13.
Ibid., p. 291.
14.
Ibid., p. 149.
15.
Dr. Panksepp writes SEEKING in capital letters.
16.
R. A. Fox and J. R. Millam, “Unpredictable Environments and Neophobia in Orange-Winged Amazon Parrots (
Amazona amazonica
).” Animal Behavior Society meeting, July 19â23, 2003, Boise, ID.
17.
Panksepp,
Affective Neuroscience,
p. 161.
18.
Joanna Burger,
The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship
(New York: Random House, 2002).
19.
Pat A. Wakefield and Larry Carrara,
A Moose for Jessica
(New York: Puffin, 1992).
20.
Paul H. Hemsworth and G. J. Coleman,
Human Livestock Interactions: The Stockperson and the Productivity and Welfare of Intensively Farmed Animals
(New York: C.A.B. International, 1998).
21.
Z. Wang, L. J. Young, G. J. De Vries, and T. R. Insel, “Voles and Vasopressin: A Review of Molecular, Cellular, and Behavioral Studies of Pair Bonding and Paternal Behaviors,”
Prog Brain Res.
119 (1998): 483â99.
22.
J. T. Winslow and T. R. Insel, “Neuroendocrine Basis of Social Recognition,”
Curr Opin Neurobiol
14, no. 2 (April 2004): 248â53.
23.
John M. Stribley and C. Sue Carter,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
1999 October 26; 96 (22): 12601â604, “Developmental Biology: Developmental Exposure to Vasopressin Increases Aggression in Adult Prairie Voles.”
24.
J. Panksepp, R. Meeker, and N. J. Bean, “The Neurochemical Control of Crying,”
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
12 (1980): 437â43.
25.
J. Panksepp, P. Lensing, M. Leboyer, and M. P. Bouvard, “Naltrexone and Other Potential New Pharmacological Treatments of Autism,”
Brain Dysfunction
4 (1991): 281â300.
26.
J. Panksepp, N. J. Bean, P. Bishop, T. Vilberg, and T. L. Sahley, “Opioid Blockade and Social Comfort in Chicks,”
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
13 (1980): 673â83.
27.
J. A. Byers and C. B. Walker, “Refining the Motor Training Hypothesis for the Evolution of Play,”
Am Nat
146 (1995): 25â40.
28.
PBS has a nice Web site with a simple three-dimensional “tour of the brain” that shows most of the areas I mention in this book, although it doesn't go into Paul MacLean's triune brain theory. But you can look up areas like the hypothalamus or the cerebellum and get a good picture of where they are in the brain along with a short summary of what they do. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/3d/. Another excellent Web site that does cover the triune brain theory as well as all the parts of the brain I've mentioned in this book is run by an Oregon psychiatrist named Jim Phelps. http://www.psycheducation.org/emotion/triune%20brain.htm.
29.
Rodolfo R. Llinas,
I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).
30.
J. M. Faure and A. D. Mills, “Improving the Adaptability of Animals by Selection,” in
Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals,
ed. T. Grandin (San Diego: Academic Press, 1998), p. 235.
31.
B. Knutson et al., “Selective Alteration of Personality and Social Behavior by Serotonergic Intervention,”
Am J Psychiatry
155 (1998): 373â79.
32.
I want to be sure to add that not everyone agrees that Springer rage is related to epilepsy, so down the line researchers may develop a new explanation.
33.
Susan Milius, “Beast Buddies: Do Animals Have Friends?”
Science News
164, no. 18 (November 1, 2003): 282.
Chapter 4: Animal Aggression
1.
Jeffrey J. Sacks et al., “Special Report: Breeds of Dogs Involved in
Fatal Human Attacks in the United States Between 1979 and 1998,”
JAVMA
217, no. 6 (September 15, 2000).
2.
Ibid.
3.
Credit for this goes to John Siegal and his work on cats at the University of Medicine in New Jersey.
4.
Jaak Panksepp,
Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 194.
5.
Ibid., p. 198.
6.
Debra Niehoff,
The Biology of Violence
(New York: Free Press, 2002).
7.
Panksepp,
Affective Neuroscience,
p. 168.
8.
Antonio R. Damasio,
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
(New York: Grosset/Putnam, 1994).
9.
Panksepp,
Affective Neuroscience,
p. 194.
10.
M. J. Raleigh, M. T. McGuire, G. L. Brammer., D. B. Pollack, and A. Yuwiler, “Serotonergic Mechanisms Promote Dominance Acquisition in Adult Male Vervet Monkeys,”
Brain Research
559 (1991): 181â90.
11.
Nicholas H. Dodman,
If Only They Could Speak: Stories about Pets and Their People
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), pp. 130â44.
12.
The Monks of New Skete,
How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend: the Classic Training Manual for Dog Owners (Revised & Updated Edition)
(New York: Little, Brown, 2002).
13.
Sacks et al., “Special Report.”
14.
Rachel Smolker,
To Touch a Wild Dolphin
(New York: Nan A. Talese, 2001).
15.
William J. Broad, “Evidence Puts Dolphins in New Light, as Killers,”
New York Times,
July 6, 1999, http://www.fishingnj.org/artdolphagress.htm.
16.
“Pull Fido pull!”
New Scientist
19 (January 2002): 24.
17.
Michael D. Lemonick, “Young, Single and Out of Control,”
Time
(October 20, 1997).
18.
John McGlone,
Pig Production: Biological Principles and Applications
(Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Learning, 2002).
19.
Ed Price and S. J. R. Wallach, “Physical Isolation of Herd Reared Hereford Bulls Increases Aggressiveness Towards Humans,”
Appl Anim Behav Sci
27 (1990): 263â67.
20.
L. S. Shore, “The Question of Dogs, Off-Leash Safety, and Recreation,”
A Review of the Literature on Dog Bites
(April 12, 2002): 2.