Proving the Rules

If I were to punch triple heavyweight champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko in the face, several things could happen.  I could end up on the floor.  I would almost certainly break my fingers.  I may end up spending a night in jail.  Lots of potential outcomes, but one thing is nearly certain: I wouldn�t hurt him.  

Does my inability to injure Klitschko mean that the claim �punching people in the face hurts� is untrue?  Logically, yes.  But not practically.  The rule �face-punching = pain� is still a good enough guide that we would rely on it to guide our actions.  We can still say with enough certainty, �since I don�t want to hurt this person, I should refrain from punching him in the face.�  Klichko�s iron jaw is a corner case, an exception that �proves� the rule, it�s not a reason to reject the rule outright.  

Getting on to dog training, I�ve sometimes seen it claimed that because pain is subjective and one dog will feel something as painful when another won�t, we should dismiss phrases like �shock collars are painful�.  I can easily believe that a Klitschkoesque mastiff would experience the same force applied from a shock collar differently from a antelope-necked Italian Greyhound, but the individual corner cases once again don�t obviate the usefulness of the rule in general.  Shock collars might not hurt every dog at every level, but shock collars still hurt.  When we decide whether training a dog using shock is okay, we can still take "shock collars = pain" as useful data in most cases. 

Why might there be resistance to the idea that we can talk about variation at the level of individual dogs whilst still maintaining the integrity of general rules at the more abstract level?  One reason is the way that some of these rules have become entrenched to the point where even one deviation is considered heretical. 

To give a non-P+ example, every so often someone reports their frustrations when R+ training a dog who is not food motivated at all.  A dog who just doesn�t want to work for treats, or even toys.  Online at least, reports of these dogs sometimes come up against R+ trainers who simply refuse to believe in their existence, claiming that �dogs are food motivated� must mean that every dog, everywhere, forever must be interested in working for treats.  They�re wedded to the rule to the point that any exception creates cognitive dissonance, which gives rise to creative attempts to avoid accepting the account, often phrased as �you don�t have high enough value treats� or, �your timing must be wrong�.  

The answer to escaping from this nest of dissonance and dogma is practically simple, but unfortunately nearly impossible to implement in the environments in which these rules are discussed.  It�s just to know the dog in front of you; his physiology, temperament, what interests him and what he doesn�t like.  Remembering that the individual level of interaction and the abstract level of theory demand different types of observation and reasoning ultimately strengthens the theory that grounds the rules, by giving theorists the chance to introduce some flexibility and exceptions to their techniques whilst retaining their fundamental insights.