Could AI Train my Dog?

Michael Baugh CDBC

Some dog training is robotic. In fact, I teach some techniques that way. Keep your hands relaxed and still. Cue a behavior. If the dog performs the behavior associated with the cue, mark the behavior with a click or a clear marker word. Then, reach into the treat bag and deliver a bit of food to the dog. The process is crisp and clear. Non-human artificial intelligence could pull it off.

Actually, AI would nail it. Dogs perceive cues from non-human sources all the time. AI can already perceive live video. Remote feeding devices have been around for decades. It’s a no-brainer, literally. (Well, our dog has a brain, but you get it).

With some work, artificial intelligence could actually train with environmental cues, like teaching a dog to station on a bed when a doorbell rings. That would be cool.

The only thing missing would be everything else.

Training with our dogs isn’t only about teaching a list of tasks. It’s about learning communication. Our dogs learn from us, our verbal phrases, our body language, and facial expressions. And we learn theirs. Faced with a new and potentially challenging situation, the discourse is easy. Our dogs and we navigate the situation on the fly. This is how our dog learns behavioral flexibility. It happens in real life, with us.

Artificial intelligence is excellent at learning patterns. It’s quick. It uses pattern recognition to infer outcomes. That’s amazing. And it’s getting better. AI can learn a great deal about us. It can learn about our dogs. Artificial intelligence will never be human, though. Never a dog, either.

I fell in love with my dogs while teaching them. It’s intoxicating, that flood of neurochemicals: oxytocin, dopamine, adrenaline. I don’t know them all. It’s a cocktail you can only make with a dog. A friend. Another living being.

The first time I ever taught a dog to stay, we looked lovingly at each other from across the room. My dog wanted to run to me. I wanted her to. But we both knew the game, so much fun, waiting. Artificial intelligence is helpful; I’m glad it’s here. But AI will never know what I felt teaching stay that day. It will never feel.

Humans and dogs evolved with each other. We grew up together over millennia. Our interactions are as sloppy and unpredictable as they are inspired. Yes, we communicate with clicks and treats. And we communicate with laughter, and play bows, and winks, and smiles, and stillness, and brief moments of silence. Yes!

Trainers sometimes tell students that dogs are forgiving of our messy, inconsistent training. I wonder if they thrive on it. This is who we are together: dogs and humans. Organic. Alive. Perfectly flawed.

I know it sounds diminutive, but AI has its place. Help my brain, my wobbly memory. Help me see the pattern here I don’t see. Maybe artificial intelligence will claim some big spaces. Heal our bodies. Enrich our lives. Open a world at our fingertips.

Things dogs do.

Tread carefully, my dear sensitive, loving fellow humans. Take my hand. Laugh with me. Tremble if you must. So much is unknown. Make room for this artificial invention of ours, but keep it out of your heart. Meet me out on the path instead. Walk with me, just a couple of people chatting.

And AI, our helpful illusionist. Respectfully. Stay away from my dog.

MIchael Baugh teaches dog training in Sedona, Arizona and Houston, Texas. He specializes in aggressive dog training.

The Sedona School of Dog Training: Learning from Nature

Michael Baugh CDBC

In Sedona, Arizona, we keep the lights low at night. It’s a community decision, an ordinance: dim our light so we can better see the heavens. It is one of the beautiful ways people live here, a gift to ourselves and our non-human neighbors.

Fewer than ten thousand people live in Sedona. More than three million visit every year. We answer to the call of coyotes, to the dry, rusty sand and the afternoon monsoons, to the prickly pears and the soothing calm of towering sandstone. We come to find ourselves, only to find that we are part of something much bigger. The natural world, that which we cannot bend to our egos, welcomes us, teaches us flexibility of will, sharpness of mind, and softness of spirit. We learn to dim our own light so that we can better see.

Nature taught us positive reinforcement dog training. Living things seek safety, nourishment, opportunities to grow, and to reproduce. Their environment, all the living things and natural forces around them, guides their choices and reinforces their best decisions. We didn’t invent that. We harnessed it. Positive reinforcement dog training involves adjusting our dog’s environment so that they learn which behavior earns the things they seek. We use food in training. It’s a natural driver.

National forest surrounds Sedona on all sides. Our homes nestle in nature. We see the beauty and sometimes the horror: a broken deer’s leg from a coyote kill, plants gone dormant from drought. Flooding. Fire. Nature, as they say, is cruel. We don’t have to be.

Even our decisions have natural consequences. We succeed. We falter. Animals win and eat and reproduce. Animals fail and suffer and die. Wrong behavior choices can be punishing. The definition of punishment is a consequence that reduces the likelihood of a behavior in the future (assuming the animal survives). Nature provides consequences. Some consequences reinforce behavior. Others suppress it. Some are benign. Some are fatal. Reinforcement teaches the animal novel solutions, which behavior to choose again and to perfect.

If there were a “Sedona School” of dog training, a way of thinking about how humans interact with and teach dogs, its foundation would be positive reinforcement training. We learned how to build and sustain desired behaviors from nature. Celebrate that. Because we’ve also learned that punishment belongs to nature. In our hands it is inelegant at best and, more often, it is dangerous. Punishment in dog training damages dogs and ruins our relationship with them. Positive reinforcement dog training builds bonds and teaches solutions.

Humanity’s misguided sense of exceptionalism drove us to bend nature to our will. Too many times we’ve simply broken it. People still talk about breaking a dog with a choke or a shock. Our ego shines while nature fades in its shadow.

The Sedona School would align with nature. We learn about and from our dogs as we teach them. We see nature’s elegance, its guiding forces, how it drives success in all its creatures. Nature isn’t something that’s out there. It’s in here. Nature is in our bodies and our growing minds, and in our blossoming spirits. Come to Sedona, look out your window, visit the national forest, and the vibrant desert. But don’t forget to turn to your side, to the dog at your feet or on the sofa next to you. Right there. That’s the natural world in your own home.

Michael Baugh Teaches dog training in Sedona, AZ and online everywhere. He specializes in aggressive dog training.

What is positive reinforcement dog training?

Positive reinforcement dog training teaches dogs which behaviors work by making desirable behaviors worthwhile. Instead of using pain, fear, or intimidation to suppress unwanted behavior, we arrange the environment so that the behaviors we want become more likely. In Sedona, that approach fits naturally with learning to live responsibly alongside our dogs, our neighbors, wildlife, and the desert environment we all share.

The Only Dog Training Energy We Need

Michael Baugh CDBC

There was a time when a television personality popularized the idea of “energy” in dog training. Dominance energy. Pack leader energy. Alpha energy.

It made for interesting television. He became a star. Too many dogs paid the price.

Those ideas about energy often translated into kicks, hard leash yanks, intimidation, and electric shocks delivered through remote collars.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with the idea of energy in dog training. I live and teach dog training in Sedona. I’m surrounded by and immersed in the very best kind of energy.

But that alpha, dominant, pack leader nonsense? I call bullshit.

That’s not the vibe any of us should aspire to. It’s not the energy our dogs need. At best, it’s ego. At worst, and far too often, it’s abuse.

So what kind of energy should we bring to our dogs?

Kindness.

Patience.

Humility.

The willingness to listen instead of overpower. To teach, instead of intimidate. To ask, “How can I help my dog?” instead of “How can I make my dog submit?”

Every great religious tradition points us in this direction. So do the philosophers. So do the saints. They all arrive at the same conclusion: kindness is strength, not weakness.

The only dog training energy we really need is love.

Go ahead. Roll your eyes. Then hear me out.

Love isn’t soft. It isn’t permissive. It isn’t letting your dog do whatever they want.

Love pays attention.

Love notices when a dog is confused instead of calling them stubborn. Love sees fear instead of defiance. Love slows down when learning gets difficult. Love sets a dog up to succeed instead of waiting for them to fail.

Of course, we set boundaries. Of course, we don’t leave dogs to their own devices. That would be irresponsible. Life in our human world is tricky (ask any human), and our dogs depend on us to help them navigate it.

But anger is not a training technique, and shrouding it in the language of energy is an insult to our dogs and ourselves.

Look at your dog. They aren’t the ones hung up on leadership and dominance. Science debunked that idea long ago. Look at them in their quietest moment. See how they stare back at you, that slow, soft blink. Such patience, so much kindness from an animal who will never speak a word.

My dear fellow humans, that’s their vibe. That is your dog’s energy. I know you feel it. It’s Love.

Michael Baugh teaches dog training in Sedona Arizona and online everywhere. He specializes in aggressive dog training.