Patricia McConnell & How Behavioral Science Is Failing Our Dogs

Dog behavior and training expert, Patricia McConnell, a vocal champion of "the science of how animals learn," recently learned a hard lesson in how ineffective behavioral science techniques really are. The following is comment I attempted to post in reply to her most recent blog, in which she revealed she couldn't solve the behavioral problems of two of her dogs, Will and Hope. I had previously posted links to "The Pushing Exercise" and some of my PsychologyToday.com articles, in the hope that McConnell would read them and apply the exercise, which could very well solve, or at least put a serious dent in the problem. Instead, she chose to give up one of the dogs. 

Since McConnell has refused to approve my comment for publication, I'm posting it here, verbatim.

Patricia McConnell with One of Her Dogs

Hi, Trish. I commend you for your honesty, integrity and courage in discussing these problems so openly. If I were in your position I don't know that I would be so forthright.

The Pushing Exercise I also feel bad that I wasn’t able to show you that there’s a IVth option to the III you listed in your post, i.e., “The Pushing Exercise.” If I had been more convincing in my explanations and arguments for its effectiveness, and had been able to get you to just try the exercise with both dogs, I think you would probably have seen a dramatic difference in their behaviors, not just toward one another but toward other dogs, strange men, etc. And it would only have taken 2 weeks, not the 4 - 6 months you predicted it would using conditioning techniques. Plus, you may not have had to re-home Hope. 

However, no matter how effective the pushing exercise is (and it's extremely effective), it operates independently of the "laws" of behavioral science. This would probably be a major stumbling block for someone who believes those laws are inviolate.
Semiotics, Freudian Dynamics & Dog Training I studied film and theater in college, and was trained to use semiotics, rather than the auteur theory, in film theory and criticism classes. It’s a bit like the difference between the dog training techniques I now use (which are based on reading a dog’s patterns of behavior, and how those patterns reflect the dog’s internal emotional dynamic) and the alpha theory. As a result of my studies of semiotics in college, I began looking for recognizable and repeatable patterns not just in films and literature, but in everyday life.
A little over twenty years ago I noticed that many dog owners I knew related to their dogs in what seemed to be to be self-defeating patterns. Then I realized these people were actually repeating patterns of unresolved emotional issues left over from their own intimate personal relationships, esp. from childhood, where the dog often took on (or was given) the role of the owner's inner child, and the owner took on the role of a parent or authority figure. Once I saw that this was so (meaning I saw it happening enough times to be able to predict, with a fairly high degree of accuracy, when and how it would show itself), I began to be able to (sometimes) integrate it into my training practice.
Hope and Will Are Incompatible Qualities of Mind As a quality of mind, Hope is ephemeral, a form of wishful thinking, a wait-and-see attitude, which is reflected in how you began your III possible solutions to changing the dynamic between your dogs Will and Hope – I.) “Wait and see, and hope for the best." Meanwhile, the emotional and behavioral qualities connected to a person's Will are about taking the bull by the horns, and driving forward no matter what. 

So from a semiotics point of view (or from the view of poetic irony, if you wish), the qualities of Will and Hope are incompatible; Will dissolves Hope (when the Will is active the need for hoping things will improve is unnecessary), and engaging in Hope prevents the Will from manifesting its full potential (because Hope’s “wait-and-see attitude prevents Will from becoming fully operational).
Dogs Are Designed to Retrieve Our Unconscious Desires Does this mean that anyone who names their dogs Will and Hope (or gets dogs that come with those names already attached) will see the same kind of incompatibility that you’ve seen? No. What it may mean is that your dogs may have been responding to an incompatibility of some sort somewhere in your own thoughts and feelings about the situation. (I know this sounds far out, but I’ve written an article about this phenomenon for PsychologyToday.com called “Emotional GPS: How Dogs Find and Retrieve Our Unconscious Desires.”)
I believe part of your mind may be telling you that operant conditioning is not as effective as you once thought it was, that it may, in fact, be a flawed model of learning. That certainly seems to be the case with your inability to “fix” Will and Hope’s relationship using those techniques. After all, you're one of the most brilliant and effective dog trainers in America. If you can't solve this problem it's not because of any lack of skill or knowledge on your part, or because there’s something inherently wrong and “unfixable” with either dog. It's because the laws of learning you believe in aren't as effective as we've all been led to believe they are.
Will & Hope, and a Crisis of Faith This is not meant as a criticism of you or of anything you’ve done, written, or said. I had my own crisis of faith years ago when I began to realize that the alpha theory was false. It was very disheartening to come face to face with the truth about this. I then went through what I call my “Karen Pryor phase,”, and had a subsequent crisis of faith over that as well.
I think this is an opportunity for all of us to learn something both about ourselves, and about our beliefs regarding the us v. them dynamic currently going on in the dog training world (at least here in America). I believe that both the alpha theory and learning theory are inaccurate and incomplete models of learning.
Time Will Tell It also seems to me that the happiness both Will and Hope are now exhibiting may be temporary, since this is primarily due to the sudden removal of a single stressor (the other dog) from their lives. Hope will probably have an easier time adjusting, though I could be wrong about that. But for Will, I don’t think Hope was actually the primary stressor. His stress probably comes from an unresolved issue from his puppyhood that relates to your own personal journey, one that you've generously shared with your readers. And I think that sometime in the next 3 – 4 months you may very well see a return of Will's spookiness and fearful behaviors, which will hopefully give you another opportunity to face these issues head on.
In other words, Hope wasn’t the problem. The problem is that behaviorism is not, in fact, the “science of how animals learn.” It’s primarily the science of how rats run mazes and how pigeons peck levers. The science of how dogs get along with each other is a whole ‘nother deal. It has nothing to do with Konrad Lorenz or B.F. Skinner. It has to do with how a dog’s emotions either flow freely toward a satisfying, socially-acceptable outcome, or get blocked.
I wish you the best, and hope your heart finds solace and comfort in this difficult time.
LCK "Changing the World, One Dog at a Time" My Psychology Today Blog Join Me on Facebook! Follow Me on Twitter!