Why Aren't Dog Licences Like Drivers' Licenses?

What if we couldn�t just go out and buy a puppy whenever we wanted one?  Is it really okay to pick up a Chihuahua with your cheeseburger, or a Groenendael with the groceries?  

In this article, I�ll be arguing the case for making it more difficult to own a dog.  Dog licenses should be like drivers� licences - granted subject to passing a test to demonstrate that you know enough about basic animal welfare to give a dog a good life, and that you don�t intend to engage in any dangerous practices.

The question of whether dog ownership should be denied to some people is often put in terms of whether dogs are rightly seen as property.  Legally, all animals are property, and so people argue that if we have a right to own property, we must therefore have a right to own a dog.  On the other hand, some people claim that animals are living beings and are therefore better seen as something closer to a family member than an object.  

I�m going to nearly sidestep this particular thorny issue by offering one argument for each side.  I�ll argue that if dogs are fairly seen as property, this still doesn�t mean that people have a simple right to own one - the legal system distinguishes between different kinds of things we can own, and puts restrictions on some of them.  And, I�ll argue that if dogs are better seen as family members rather than property, this doesn�t give us an automatic right to own them like we have a right to family life, because the basis for the right to have our own children doesn�t apply to dogs.  

After I�ve given these arguments, I�ll then discuss what I see as the major obstacle to introducing a dog license, which is the question of how to avoid prejudice. 

Dogs Are Property

Earlier this year I read a blog post that claimed that the reason we all have a right to go out and buy a dog whenever we want to, is simply that dogs are property, and we all have the unconditional right to own property without government interference.  Unfortunately, the author of this article overlooked a class of rights that are conditional, which are rights to own dangerous articles.  

The most common example of this is a car.  Of course, everyone has the right to buy and own a car, but only people with drivers� licenses have the right to drive.  We can only legally do what the car is designed to do when we�ve proven to the government that we understand the rules of the road in theory and in practice.  Or, think about a gun license - in many countries a person can only own a gun when they can prove that they�ve undertaken some training, otherwise they are committing a crime.  

In both cases, the danger of letting someone have an unconditional right to own or operate an object merits interference.  Dogs can also be dangerous, the frequency of attacks on children show this.  The danger an untrained, poorly cared-for dog can pose also merits putting up a bar for people to clear before they can legally own one.  This doesn�t mean that people don�t have the right to own a dog, only that dogs ought to be classified as a different kind of property for the protection of others.  If we make getting a dog license contingent on proving you have a basic knowledge of dog welfare and skillset for handing a dog, we could potentially reduce the number of attacks.  

Dogs Are Not Property

This last argument is unlikely to convince people who just reject the idea that a living being can fairly be seen as someone else�s property, subject to the same rights as couches or minivans.  

So let�s say that any right we have to adopt or purchase a dog doesn�t stem from property-rights.  Where else might it come from?  One common paradigm is that dogs are family members.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights accords all humans the right to found a family, so therefore we all ought to have the right to take a dog into our homes.  

The key point in an argument against this is that the right to found a family was originally intended as a right to have children of one�s own.  This right to reproduce - to have a part in the creation of a life that carries some of your genes forward into the future - is not quite the same as a right to take a child into your home.  This becomes clear when we look at adoption agencies.  Most agencies from governments and charities have criteria that any potential adopters have to meet before they can be allowed to even meet a child in their system.  In fact, the stringency of these guidelines has been a hot topic in the UK in recent years, because it has been argued that they prevent children finding permanent placements in families.   

My point is, the reason it is okay for adoption agencies to lay out rules and make prospective adopters go through an often arduous process, whereas there is almost no restriction on who can conceive and raise children that are biologically their own, is because having a child of one�s own is seen as a fundamental part of human life.  To deny people that would be to remove their genes from the species in the future, something that veers dangerously close to eugenics.*

It�s clear that buying or adopting a dog has no such biological distinction attached - requiring stricter testing for people who want to buy a dog rather than rescue one seems more like levelling the playing field than denying a fundamental part of human life.  There�s no relevant difference between acquiring a dog from a rescue or from a breeder, so there should be no issue in being required to pass the same tests no matter where you get your dog.

A Problem with Prejudice

So far I�ve argued that making it more difficult to own a dog through requiring that potential owners demonstrate basic knowledge and skills is compatible with seeing dogs as property and seeing them as family members.  Now I will raise a worry about how such a system could be used to reinforce socioeconomic bias.  I�ll make the general case by giving a specific example.  

When my dog was experiencing gastrointestinal issues as a puppy, I signed up to a lot of dog food forums and groups. I was surprised by how heated some of the debates got - whether raw food was better than cooked, whether vegetables and carbohydrates were necessary, anything that mentioned bones - but the one thing everyone seemed to tacitly agree on was that if you didn�t feed your dog expensive food, you were a Bad Person.  If it wasn�t grain-free, artisan-made, air-dried, or fresh from the local organic farm, you might as well be feeding Rex shredded cardboard.  This made the price of admission so high that basically only middle-class people were thought of as good dog owners.  

Dog food is a vital part of dog welfare, so any kind of dog license testing would probably involve a question about feeding.  And, the armchair nutrition experts are a vociferous group, so if there was any consultation about the substance of the test, you can guarantee they�d try to weight it in favour of their own views.

The same goes for dog training.  Some shelters mandate that adopters sign their new pups up for obedience classes, which aren�t cheap.  Nor are they convenient if you don�t own a car - when I got my puppy, the nearest obedience class was a half-hour bus ride away, so by the time we arrived she was already over threshold.  Should all dogs have to go to (expensive) training as a condition for ownership?  What if the family doesn�t speak English, but the trainer doesn�t speak any other language?  Should all dogs have an (expensive) yard rather than an apartment, and an (expensive) insurance policy?  The list goes on.  

The point is, I believe that it�s possible for people from any background to give a dog a good life, and I worry that although introducing a dog license system like we have for drivers� licenses could be beneficial, there is also the risk of making dog ownership an elite activity that people from tougher neighborhoods, with less money and less education, are automatically precluded from.  

So, although there is a case to be made for tougher restrictions on owning a dog, we have to be careful that these restrictions are really doing what we want - weeding out potential abusers and minimizing the risk to dog and human welfare.  

This being said, if the proper care were taken to only include the most important parts of dog welfare and safety on the test, I believe that a dog license system could do a lot of good.  It would eliminate impulse buying of puppies, which in turn would impact puppy mills, and go a long way to identifying potential abusers.  There is no rights-based argument against taking such action, although I highly doubt there will ever be a public base of support for it. 

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*Note here that I�m not saying adoption �doesn�t count� as having a child of one�s own, merely that there is a genetic basis for the right to reproduce that can account for the reason we don�t need to pass any tests to conceive and bear children, whereas denying inappropriate families the chance to adopt a child seems like the right thing to do.  

Dogs Are Not People, But That's Okay

In the last few months, there has been a slew of fascinating new data about the emotional capacities of dogs.  The first comes from scientists� new-found ability to image canine brains whilst they are conscious and alert. We can now be more sure that dogs share many of the same emotions humans do, including love. This new data was summarized in an article in the New York Times, entitled �Dogs are people, too�, a sentiment that has been picked up by animal rights activists, dog lovers and dog trainers.

The second stream of data comes from Alexandra Horowitz and her team of canine behavioral researchers at Barnard.  Horowitz designed an experiment that showed the �guilty look� people see when they come home to find their dog in the middle of a pile of shredded couch cushions, for example, only happens when the dog is being scolded.  It is not correlated with whether the dog actually did anything �wrong�, only with the owner�s reaction to the dog.

Trainers have taken this to show two things.  First, that Horowitz has proven that dogs do not feel guilt at all.  Second, that because dogs cannot link actions to consequences over more than a few seconds and because the �guilty look� isn�t an indicator that the dog know it has done something wrong, we shouldn�t punish dogs when we get home to find a roomful of cushion stuffing.

Furthermore, trainers have taken this to indicate that we shouldn�t punish dogs at all, since it�s not true that they �know what they ought to do�.  Dogs shouldn�t be held responsible for their actions like humans are, even though dogs can behave as if they feel guilt, which is a moral emotion.

The way these two streams of new data about what dogs are have been interpreted has lead to a tension.  On the one hand, there is the desire to show that dogs have so many similar emotions to humans that they ought to be seen as people too. On the other, we want to show that dogs ought not be blamed or punished for their actions like we blame and punish people, because doing so is unjust. 

If dogs are people, but we don�t hold them responsible, then it�s meaningless to claim that dogs are people in the first place.  To say that a dog is a person diminishes what personhood is, and ultimately threatens to undermine both the welfare of dogs and the unique responsibilities of humans.  

What is a person? 

How do we define a person?  The core of my preferred definition is that only a person can be held morally responsible for their actions. Only a person can make promises and be expected to keep them.  Without persons, there would be no good and evil, no right and wrong, just nature.  Being able to be held accountable for failing to live up to moral standards of behavior is what separates persons from the rest of life on Earth, and what gives persons a unique responsibility to do the right thing. 

On this definition, most animals are not persons and not all humans are persons.*  We can use promise-making and accountability to draw a bright line between normal adult humans and everything else.

But wait, doesn�t this collapse into �speciesism�, the unfair privileging of one species above others?  Any assertion that persons and non-persons belong in different categories - that they are different in kind as well as in degree - is now confidently waved away as a simple error in reasoning.

My definition of a person does not amount to speciesism for two reasons.  First, because it is an irrelevance that many people claim only humans can be persons - persons could be aliens, angels or apes and still have this unique place in the world.  Second, because there is a difference between being expected to act a certain way, and being entitled to a certain kind of treatment.  We don't have to claim that only persons deserve to be treated fairly and without cruelty, but we can claim that only actions that persons do ought to be appraised as good or evil, fair or cruel.  

To say that persons are unique is not fundamentally unfair.  Persons are expected to act morally, and they are also entitled to be treated well by other persons.  Non-persons are not expected to be able to make promises, uphold the rights of others or do their duty, but they are still entitled to good treatment because of other features they have.  

Dogs aren�t people because dogs can�t make promises or be held morally responsible for their actions.   This doesn�t mean that dogs aren�t entitled to be treated well; far from it.  Most dogs deserve better than their lot in life.  To say that they dogs are people threatens to have the opposite effect to the one intended by dog trainers.  Instead of increasing understanding and empathy for dogs, we are in danger of forcing them into a human scheme of values.

An insidious speciesism 

When I adopted my first dog as a child, I spent the journey home in the car telling her all the things I promised to do for her.  I promised to feed her, walk her, be her friend, and make her happy.  I didn�t expect her to promise anything in return; how could she?  Dogs don�t choose who rescues or buys them, and they don�t have a say in the rules of their new home.   Dogs make no promises about their own behavior - they don�t promise not to guard the food bowl, or growl at the baby, or come with you everywhere without fuss.  Seeing dogs as people is an insidious harm because it threatens to see dogs as parties to a covenant, and therefore subject to blame and the loss of entitlements if they break that covenant.  

Seeing dogs as people also gives them little room for those behaviors that we can�t fit into the human-like rhetoric of victimhood, past abuse, or mental illness - the kinds of aggression that don�t come from fear, the prey drive, in short, the �animality� of the dog.  When a dog deviates from the human-like mould we�ve force him into, when he chases and kills the family cat, does he deserve less good treatment?  Is he a �bad dog� because he no longer appears to be the simple little person, full of love, that the �dogs are people too� message would characterise him as?  This is closer to dangerous speciesism than the claim that there is something unique about humans that gives us special responsibilities to other creatures.

We humans have a responsibility not to see animals as worth bothering with only to the extent that they provide us with good feelings or resemble the parts of ourselves we like. Animals are an Other that we have to learn to relate to on their terms as well as on ours.  The way a dog, pig, rabbit, or snail perceives and processes the world is radically different from our own worldview, and we should never lose sight of this difference in our dealings with them.  We have a duty to treat living things well because we as persons have the capacity to be good that is unrivalled anywhere else in nature, not because they are people.  

*Great apes and cetaceans are candidates for personhood; although their lack of language makes it difficult to know whether they can keep promises, their cognitive abilities are such that there is an argument to extend personhood to them.

The Case for Genetically Modifying Dogs

Since the creation of the first transgenic mouse in the early 1980s, there has been a great debate over whether it is ethical to deliberately alter animals at the genetic level.  In the current climate, just mentioning the term �GMO� is enough to send many people into a slavering frenzy.  Pictures like this are met with repugnance as well as with wonder at human scientific ability:

The first glow in the dark rabbits were produced at the University of Hawai'i - Manoa in 2013. 

These initial research projects sparked discussion over what the limits of our interference in animal genetics ought to be; there are arguments about the wrongness of �playing God� as well as the threat of a �slippery slope� into Huxley�s Brave New World for humans. 

Although the ability to create new animals �from the ground up� is still a long way off (further still for humans, and there are immense legal roadblocks), the first steps have already been taken towards genetically modifying living animals for purposes beyond research.  The AquAdvantage salmon, for example, has a gene from a different species of fish in its genome, so that the salmon can grow all year round instead of seasonally.  This is, at least, proof of concept that genetic modification is possible on a large scale.  If we can do it in salmon, we could do it in dogs.  

But why would we want to?  In the case of the AquAdvantage salmon, the reason is profit: farmers want bigger fish that are ready for the table faster.  For dogs, the reasons are more diffuse, and so are the potential modifications we could make.

Why modify?

Dogs have a number of roles in human society; they are beloved pets, service animals, sports competitors, livestock guarders, herders, and law enforcement operatives. Historically, dog breeding has been for the purpose of developing animals that fit the roles humans have set out for them.  More recently, dogs have been bred for even more fine-grained purposes, for example, �labradoodles� were originally bred as guide dogs for visually impaired persons with dog allergies.

We are already modifying the genes of dogs though careful breeding, but the ability to modify individuals and breeds of dog at the genetic level has the potential to give us unprecedented power in this project of tailoring dogs for roles in human society. Biotechnology could let us �zoom in� and isolate the genes that play the greatest role in the expression of behavioral and physical traits in the dog, and then decide whether to switch off these genes, switch them out for new ones, or boost their function.*  The technology could allow us to create new and better dog breeds, even more able to do the jobs we ask of them.

More importantly, genetic modification has the potential to increase the welfare of dogs, at both the individual and the species level.  It is this set of reasons that I will be focusing on, rather than on how we humans could benefit - although, the two are not cleanly divisible since dogs do better when they are able to perform better.

In this article, I will make the case for genetically modifying dogs from the standpoint of the welfare of dogs.  I believe that because of the way we have bred dogs for our own purposes, with little regard for their wellbeing, we have an obligation to explore genetic modification as a tool to restore dogs to health.

Classifying Genetic Modification

Genetic modification can mean anything from removing the possibility of passing on a gene for a serious disease, to the creation of human-animal chimeras.  These are two ends of the spectrum, however, and raise very different moral issues.  We need to be clear what we are talking about before we can see the problems with them.  According to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, genetic manipulation can be divided into �therapeutic� and �enhancement�:

�The way to distinguish between those interventions which count as �therapies� and those which count as �enhancements� is by reference to the condition that is to be altered: therapies aim to treat, cure or prevent diseases and to alleviate pathological conditions which place someone outside the normal range, whereas enhancements aim to improve already healthy systems and to advance capacities which already fall within the normal range.� 

This is a good baseline, although there are some potential interventions we could make in dogs specifically, which would count both as therapy and as enhancement.  I will divide up the interventions we could make into three classes; purely therapeutic; therapeutic enhancements and purely enhancement.

1. Purely therapeutic interventions

Creating different dog breeds has lead to �genetic bottlenecks� within the dog species, which have lead to some breeds being at an elevated risk for certain genetic diseases.  Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, for example, are at risk of syringomyelia, a terrible condition that leads to persistent headaches, seizure and death.  Chihuahuas are particularly vulnerable to luxating patella, a progressive condition of the knees that can lead to episodes of severe lameness.

Almost every breed has a particular set of genetic diseases associated with it.  Our ancestors, in creating today's breeds of dog by strict artificial selection, did dogs a great harm.  A harm that we ought to try to put right, however we can.  Genetic modification gives us the chance to eliminate the diseases we put dogs at risk of, both from individuals and from the species as a whole.

Responsible dog breeders are already working hard to rid dogs of these diseases, but the tools they have to use mean that there is still a long way to go, meaning that many more animals will be born blighted with genetic disease in the meantime.  If there is a duty to remove genetic diseases from the dog's gene pool, there must be a duty to do so as efficiently as possible.  With genetic modification there is the possibility to abbreviate the process with minimal loss of life.  Therefore, when the technology becomes available, breeders have a responsibility to use it.

2. Semi-therapeutic interventions 

On my definition, an intervention is semi-therapeutic when it takes an individual outside the range of normal functioning for a species in order to treat a pathological condition.  This is important because it takes the dog's capacities away from what is "natural" by introducing genes from other animals, which marks a critical moral boundary for some people.

For example, the squashed nose of the pug makes it more difficult for them to breathe properly, which leads to an increased risk of various medical conditions that come from a lack of oxygen.  We could counterbalance this by modifying the pug�s hemoglobin so it can carry more oxygen; making every breath it takes more efficient.

We know, to give another example, that giant breeds of dog such as the English Mastiff can suffer from a variety of health problems that come simply from being bred to be so big.  If we could make the bones of giant dogs stronger than they naturally are, we could prevent many of these problems.

Adding genes from other animals, or even creating genes from scratch*,  could be the key to preserving the health of these breeds without changing their appearance or behavior.  Given that we humans have created these problems though more primitive breeding technologies, and given that any attempt to remove these breeds would probably be met with huge resistance, we have a duty to do the best we can to make the lives of these dogs comfortable so that they can flourish rather than being, as Alexandra Horowitz puts it, �captive in their own bodies�.

Or, to take behavior rather than physiology, we could create a pet dog that is adaptable and calm enough to tolerate the constant imposition of city life; kids, other dogs, being left alone for long periods without developing the kinds of problems that can lead to being surrendered to a shelter.

Doing so would improve the lives of dogs without demanding that humans make the kinds of changes in lifestyle that history has shown many are unwilling or unable to make.  Many people get a dog and then have children, or get a full-time job, or expect their dog to be as comfortable at a sidewalk cafe as on a hiking trail no matter what breed it is.  Although it is possible to teach pet owners to manage their expectations, education is a slow process.  Creating dogs that can do these things without stress is a way to increase their welfare in the intervening time.

3. Purely enhancing interventions

The final class of interventions are the most morally problematic.  Enhancing a dog would mean giving it abilities that are outside the normal range of functioning for the entire species without aiming to treat any medical condition.

With pure enhancement, we could give guide dogs new senses like magnetoception, heightened intelligence, and full color vision so they can understand more street signs.  We could give detection dogs even better scenting abilities, or pre-program them to recognise certain odors.  We could make dogs that live as long as humans.  The question, as the biologist Lee Silver puts it, is, �Why not seize that power�?

Despite the public's association of genetic enhancement with Frankenstein or Superman, there are some morally sound, welfare-based reasons for undertaking such a project.

The needs humans have for dogs often put them under stress and at risk of harm. Dogs that do demanding physical jobs are at risk of injuries; dogs that work in combat and disaster zones are at risk of extreme stress.

If we could engineer dogs so that they were more tolerant to stress, less likely to get injured, faster, stronger, smarter, more long-lived than any dog could possibly be right now, perhaps we could increase the welfare of dogs even further.  We could give them new, enjoyable experiences that today's dogs could never have, or allow them to develop new skills to cope with their world. Enhanced dogs could be a part of society in ways that demand we recognize their rights and prevent their suffering - given that the science is still in its infancy, the only limit is imagination.

Pure enhancement raises the most moral questions about the limits of our creative power over another species, but it is easy to wall off from the other two classes.  We do have an obligation to use every available means to alleviate the harms we have done to dogs through breeding and through expectations, but this obligation does not simply translate to a duty, or even a permission, to enhance non-therapeutically.

Conclusion

I have made the case for genetically modifying dogs based on the claim that we have a unique set of duties towards them given our history of modification through artificial selection.  Genetic enhancement is still science fiction right now, but it is coming ever closer to science fact.  The practical and ethical implications of genetic modification for dogs must be taken seriously by the people who love them now, so we can get clear on what we believe is right before the technology catches up.

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*Of course, the actual process will be a lot more complicated than this - I am simplifying because I�m not an expert in biotechnology and because many of the breakthroughs that would let this happen are yet to be made. 

*This is much further out than the classical method of modification by taking the genes from one animal and transplanting them into another. However, in the last few months a team at the Scripps Research Institute has successfully created the first artificial DNA base pair, suggesting that synthetic genes are a possibility for the future. 

"Dog Sense" and the Appeal to Experience

Just because you�ve had dogs for ten, twenty, even fifty years, doesn�t mean everything you say is automatically credible.   Of course, it�s true that there is some plausibility to the claim that more experience is better - nobody wants a novice dentist - but there�s also the possibility that being experienced just means �being set in your ways�.  There are some ethical pitfalls with the appeal to experience that we need to be careful not to fall into, whether we�re using it or listening to it. 

Confirmation bias

The first is that experience can be colored by confirmation bias.  Often there are arguments from experience on both sides of a debate, but experience only seems worth listening to if it lines up with what you already believe.  A trainer could claim that you should only name your dogs Harold, because in her fifty years of dog training all dogs named Harold were good dogs, but we wouldn't see this as a good argument just because it comes from experience. Experience only has weight when it's combined with our own beliefs about how good the argument is. 

Secondly, as an experienced trainer, if you�ve had dogs for many decades, you�re not likely to remember absolutely everything that�s ever happened with them. Confirmation bias also means it is a lot easier to remember facts that support the position you�re trying to argue for. Experience alone doesn't make you an authority. 

Experience is not a substitute for science

Relatedly, having experience and being sure that your approach works well can lead to a rejection of more systematic, scientific approaches, either because of confirmation bias or because of a feeling that science can�t test for the �natural dog-sense� that decades of experience gives a person.  This can be a problem.  Although most people would agree that an experienced doctor, for example, is better than a novice, we regard a doctor who hasn�t kept up to date with any developments in medicine since qualifying with some suspicion. Having a �feel for� how sick a patient probably is can be useful but not as a substitute for knowledge. This is especially important if the patient is presenting with symptoms that would have been written off as �malingering� or �hysteria� not too long ago.  

New discoveries are also being made in the science behind dog-human interactions; for example, most trainers now believe the majority of aggressive behaviors in dogs are grounded in fear, not anger or competitiveness. This has lead to a revolution in how these cases are treated.  In dog training, many different approaches can �work�, but not all of them are equally ethical or effective.  It could be that a very experienced trainer found an approach that worked and simply stuck with it, without seeing the need to try anything else. This doesn�t mean their approach is better, just that it meets a minimum subjective standard of �working� for that trainer.  We can let our dogs down by assuming that we already have all the answers or that there is nothing new left to learn. 

Subjectivity and specificity

Subjectivity and specificity are the final suite of problems with the appeal to experience. Just because a trainer has had decades of experience raising herding dogs on a smallholding, does not mean they are experts in how to raise a French Bulldog in a studio apartment. Breeds differ, living situations differ, individual dogs and owners differ, so simple experience may not be relevant. 

We need to take special care with picking out relevant from irrelevant experience when we�re talking about behavior modification rather than more day-to-day issues in training. Dogs with emotional and behavioral problems pose very specific additional challenges. Whilst finding someone with the right kind of experience can be invaluable, the wrong kind of experience can make the problems worse. 

If you, as a human, were having problems with a relationship, you might consider talking to a trusted older friend, or your parents - someone who has successfully navigated relationships and has probably dealt with most common issues.  If, however, you found yourself having fits of uncontrolled rage, OCD or panic attacks, you would probably want to go to a psychiatrist - someone who has been trained to deal with these specific problems.  People with depression, for example, are often told by loved ones just to think positive, or to try harder - well-meaning advice that may have helped non-depressed people get over a bad time, but can have detrimental effects by instilling a sense of guilt and failure in people with clinical problems. 

So, how do we know when an argument from experience is a good argument? The answer is in whether the person using their experience to persuade you that they are right, is also giving you enough information to justify their argument independently. The explanation an experienced trainer is offering should be acceptable even if it came from a novice. Experience comes in as extra weight in favor of accepting this explanation rather than another - as I have said, talking to someone who has been there before can be a great help, so long as we take the time evaluate their claims.

The Ethics of Behavioral Medications 2: The Appeal to Nature

Many people believe that if you live with an anxious or fearful dog, it�s best to try dietary supplements first, before starting down a medical route that could include prescriptions for behavioral medications.  As a result, there are literally hundreds of different calming supplements available for dogs, most of which claim somewhere in the attending marketing spiel that they contain natural ingredients.  The fact that they are natural is often taken as a reason to prefer these supplements to behavioral medications. In this article, I�m going to argue that we can�t formulate a strong argument for the claim that calming supplements are in any way better than behavioral medications because they are natural.  

This claim has a practical and a moral component; I�ll dispense with the former before moving on to the latter.  

Practical

The practical part of the idea that natural is better is the claim that natural supplements are safer, with fewer side effects than �unnatural� medicines.  Leaving aside the fact that there are a great many natural plants that will kill you, the comparative safety of calming supplements is largely an empirical issue.  At the present time, there are no studies on the long-term side effects of any of the most common calming supplements; in fact, there are only a few studies specifically looking at the efficacy of using these supplements in dogs at all.  Furthermore, supplements generally are subject to fewer safety standards; US federal law does not require dietary supplements to be proven safe by the FDA before they go on sale.  

There are, however, well-documented side-effect profiles for all drugs approved for veterinary use by the FDA.  A drug has to be proven safe and effective before it reaches the market.  This difference in the amount of data in itself can skew the argument - prescription drugs can appear to be more dangerous just because we can read about their side effects and can only obtain them from a professional. But this isn�t necessarily true; side effects have been measured with many different supplements, even though there is no law that they must be labelled.    

Prescription drugs can indeed have side-effects, and knowing what to look for is a huge plus.  They are known to contain an element of risk that we choose to take on if we choose to give them to our dogs.  However, there is also an element of risk with supplements, which is aggravated by not knowing as much about them.  In the third part of this series, I will talk about the related risks of choosing supplements instead of prescription medications in more detail.  

Moral

The second component to this claim is that, other things being equal, natural things are morally better than unnatural things - that the more humans interfere with an animal, or a process, or a system, the less �good� it will be.  

This isn�t to say that anyone who argues supplements are a better option than prescription medications must believe that all natural things are good and all unnatural things are bad - we could never classify this consistently, because things like fire, clothing, all petrol are unnatural for humans, but all undeniably useful.*  But the underlying belief is that generally, if something is natural it is better than an unnatural alternative. 

One problem with with is with how we can sort natural things from unnatural things. Behavioral medications can�t be easily sorted into natural and unnatural for two reasons.  The first is that both supplements and prescription drugs are designed to do basically the same thing. In order for any effect to take place, the blood-brain barrier must crossed by whatever chemical is contained in the pill. And, in all cases, the chemicals in the pill work on existing neural chemical pathways; the brain architecture that is responsible for producing and reabsorbing the chemicals that cause emotional responses like fear and joy. These are the same pathways, by the way, that dog trainers use to build a reinforcement history for any behavior - see my last article. So the natural and unnatural chemicals are working in the same area.   

To be more specific, everything marketed as a calming supplement is designed to work on serotonin and on the GABAergic systems.  Prozac is designed to stop the brain from reabsorbing serotonin that it creates, meaning that overall levels of available serotonin in the brain will go up.  Tryptophan, a common supplement, is metabolized into serotonin, meaning levels in the brain will go up. Alprazolam and Lactium (also called Zylkene) are both meant to work on the GABA receptors. My point here is, whatever you�re putting into your dog to calm him, prescription or supplement, is going to be doing one of only a few possible things.  The difference is whether it will be doing these things effectively and safely.  Therefore it is not easy to divide natural and unnatural medications along these lines.  

The second reason sorting of natural and unnatural calming medications doesn�t work is because all supplements are processed in some way.  We don�t find any of these pills growing in the wild. 

Two of these are supplements, two are prescription.

There�s no clear cut way to say that one pill is natural and another is unnatural just by looking at it, or even at the processes used to make it. We still discover a lot of �unnatural� drugs from natural sources, for example, cancer drugs, aspirin, statins, anti-malarials, and opiates - many are easier and cheaper to synthesize than derive directly thanks to modern techniques, but they all come from plants.  Are they natural, and, if they are, does this give them any extra moral goodness?  These difficulties make it very difficult to hold on to the idea that natural is better.

I would contend that the only thing that matters morally here is whether what we�re doing works, and is worth the risk.  When faced with a dog who is suffering, we ought to go straight to the science, because we don�t want to be faced with a long process of trial and error.   Often finding the right prescription behavioral medications involves trial and error too, so there is already the potential for the dog to have to wait a long time before feeling any respite.  

If we combine the practical claim that it is better to use something that we know works, and whose side-effects have been fully studied, with the moral claim that there�s no reason to believe that we can isolate the property of naturalness and justify why it is good, we have compelling reason to reject the appeal to nature here.  People wishing to hold on to the moral difference between natural and unnatural things are faced with a burden of proof; they need to justify what it is about natural things that make them better, and to explain a clear way to distinguish natural from unnatural.  

Besides which, dogs themselves are inherently unnatural. There�s an air of irony when people talk about natural being better for dogs, because we humans haven�t interfered as much with any other species on the planet.  What is natural about humans choosing to create a chihuahua and a Great Dane out of the common ancestor of the European gray wolf?  Human artifice has created every breed of dog, designed for human purposes.  If humans are agents of the unnatural, then, dogs are our finest creation.

*Unless you�re a nudist on a raw diet, of course.  But every rule has its exceptions!  

The Ethics of Behavioral Medication in Dogs 1: Are Medications a Kind of Force?

This post is part one of a series I�m calling �The Ethics of Behavioral Medication in Dogs�, in which I�ll look at some of the common arguments in favor of and against giving dogs medications for anxiety, phobia and aggression.  

In this post, I�ll be discussing a claim I�ve seen on a few different dog trainer forums, which is that administering behavioral medications* to a dog is a form of force.  This ties in with a post from a couple of weeks ago on Force Free Training.  

Ethically speaking, the argument is this:

1. Any use of force within dog training is wrong; only methods that are �force free� are morally acceptable;
2. To force a dog to do something means to offer him no choice but to perform the behavior we want, usually by drectly manipulating his body. 
3. Medications like Prozac to treat anxiety compel a dog to behave differently to how he would otherwise behave, without giving him the choice by altering brain chemistry. 
4. Therefore this kind of medical intervention is a form of force. 
5. Therefore, using drugs like Prozac as an aid to training is wrong.

I'm going to argue that this argument doesn't give us enough justification to believe that using behavioral medication is wrong, because it doesn't adequately justify the claim that Prozac is a form of force, even if we accept the definition of force from premise 2.  We can see the flaws in this argument through an analogy with the old adage, �a tired dog is a happy dog�.  I am taking it as read, of course, that exercising a dog is not morally questionable.

Spot

Let�s say Spot is too bouncy and excitable around new people.  We want Spot to learn to greet strangers politely, but Great Aunt Mabel is dropping by tomorrow and we haven�t got a solid �paws on the floor� yet.  So the morning of Aunt Mabel�s visit, we take Spot out for the Best Hike Ever - fetch up and down a hill, running off-leash, some fun obedience too, and we give him a big breakfast when we get home.  We�re hoping Spot will be so tired and full that when Mabel visits, he�ll lay off the bouncing a little bit.  If we tell him to go to his mat, he�ll go instead of barreling past us into poor Aunt Mabel�s face.  

The �tired dog is a happy dog� idea is that if we give a dog exercise he is more likely to experience positive emotions like relaxation, and more likely to perform the calm behaviors we want.  Exercise is not just for his benefit, then, it�s also for ours - we want to avoid the behaviors that come from excess energy and lack of exercise. 

The brain chemistry changes that come with exercise are not something the dog has control over.  When we take him for a run or feed him a tasty meal, he can�t choose whether to release endorphins.  Exercise and the brain changes it brings are non-optional in a loose sense of the term.

Jape

Let�s say Jape is nervous around strangers, especially men, but Uncle Herbert often calls for a visit.  Jape�s owners want him to go lie on his mat quietly so that nobody will bother him, but Jape is so anxious that he can�t sit still, and often ends up getting too close to Uncle Herbert and scaring himself, making the whole thing worse.  Jape�s owners take him to the vet, who prescribes Prozac and suggests ways to make Jape happier on his mat. Everyone is hoping Jape will feel less anxious next time Uncle Herbert visits, so he can go somewhere where he won�t be bothered, and relax.  

Jape�s owners give him a pill every morning.  Jape doesn�t choose whether to take the pill and can�t understand what is in it. Taking the pill is non-optional and its effects are also non-optional. 

Prozac is designed to make Jape less likely to experience negative emotions and more likely to perform behaviors we want.  Jape�s owners want him to be more focused and less likely to go over threshold so he can listen to them and go to his mat, which is in his best interests. 

Like exercise, Prozac is not just for the dog�s benefit, it�s for ours - it is much easier to train and live with a dog that isn�t scattered and anxious; we are better equipped to give the dog coping skills rather than constantly needing to manage and worry.

Conclusion

The analogy holds because Prozac and exercise are similar in three ways.  The aim in both cases is the dog�s welfare and our own.  The mechanism is internal and not something the dog can directly control, and the chemicals involved create antecedents for behaviors that would not be likely to happen under normal circumstances.

In Spot's case, the effect of exercise as a training aid is short term; the chemicals released by exercise don't last forever. For Jape, the intervention is longer term, because Prozac is intended to correct a chemical imbalance. Even here, however, the distinction isn't that clear cut; dogs that are deprived of regular exercise can become frustrated, over-excitable and difficult to handle. The extra burst of tiredness and relaxation Spot's owners aimed at is backgrounded by a longer term commitment to regular exercise. 

In both cases then, the change in brain chemicals an antecedent, which effects behavior.  Behavior then has consequences, which then form a part of the next antecedent situation.  With Prozac, or exercise, we are altering the internal antecedents of a behavior.  If there's no difference in the relevant practical parts of two situations, there's no difference in the morality of those situations.  

If there is a moral difference between deliberately creating a situation where a dog�s brain has high levels of the chemicals released by exercise, and deliberately creating a situation where a dog�s brain has near-normal levels of the chemicals that mitigate depression and anxiety, it is not to be found in whether one is an example of �force�.



*I'm using "Prozac" as a generic catch-all term for behavioral medication, for clarity's sake. 

We Ought To Do The Best We Can

Let's say that Smith is a lifeguard, and he's sitting at his post when he sees Jones drowning.  When he goes to try to save Jones, Smith realizes he's been tied to his chair.  What ought Smith do?

Well, because Smith is a lifeguard, we can agree that he ought to save Jones, because it's a lifeguard's job to save drowning people.  But because Smith is prevented from leaving his chair, then, it seems wrong to say that Smith ought to save Jones, because Smith can't save Jones.  It's only true that we ought (morally) to do something, if we practically *can* do that thing.  

What, then, ought Smith do?  There are a couple of options. Either Smith can try to escape from his bindings, or he can call for someone else to save Jones.  So, to generalize, either Smith can try to make the situation back into how it was when we both ought to and was able to save Jones, or, Smith can change the situation so Jones is saved even though Smith is prevented from doing it. 

Most people would agree that the second option is better, because there's more chance Jones would be saved.  Trying to make the situation into one where the ideal is possible is liable to result in a bad outcome.  Smith ought to know this, so Smith ought to call for help.  Sometimes, if we can't do what we ought to do, we ought to do something else - the next best thing.  

How can this be applied to dog training?  One way is in how we approach training solutions.  Often, especially in training an anxious dog, we're confronted with a set of circumstances that mean we can't do the number 1, most ideal thing.  Maybe the dog lives somewhere that it has to confront other people and dogs just to go out to potty or exercise, so we can't completely control the distance of triggers.  Maybe the neighbors have a loud, barking do, so we can't completely control the desensitization process.  

Does this mean we should give up on training dogs in less than ideal situations?  No. Should we wait until the dog is in an ideal situation, even if that means never training, or training so rarely that no positive effect can happen?  No. 

My point is, if we can't do the best thing, we can do the next best thing.  And, it's not a moral failing if we accept that what we would have done in ideal circumstances is not possible here.  What is a failing, is to assume that anyone who asks "what is the best thing I can do in these less-than-ideal circumstances" either doesn't understand dog training, doesn't understand their obligations, or is not creative enough to make the situation into one where the ideal action is possible.  

Doing, Allowing and No-Reward Markers

Frustration is an unwanted side effect of positive dog training.  Although we strive for errorless learning and errorless performance, we can�t always control the antecedents as well as we might like.  Rewarding a dog for the behavior we want has the consequence that if a dog expects a reward and that reward is withheld, some frustration might ensue.  

Recently there has been a lot of debate about the place of �no-reward markers� (NRMs) in dog training.  Some trainers have argued that an NRM is a useful piece of information for the dog and can prevent longer-term frustration, others claim that it is an aversive and therefore has no place in �purely positive� training. Some clicker trainers claim that there is no need for an NRM because not clicking for a behavior is sufficient for the dog to understand that he must try something else to get a reward.¹

For the purposes of this article, I am defining an NRM as a noise or gesture that signifies to the dog that no reward will be presented for a behavior, but that does not cause the dog extra pain or fright.  The dog has to learn the connection between the no-reward marker and not being rewarded in the same way as he learned the connection between the clicker and a reward.  So, rolling one�s eyes and making a noise like �oops!� count as no-reward markers; dropping one�s keys on the kitchen floor or kicking the dog in the ribs do not. 

It�s reasonable to assume that the presence of an NRM would eventually become mildly frustrating in itself - pair it enough times with the disappointment of not getting an expected reward.  So when we use an NRM, we�re causing the dog to become mildly frustrated  - this is a conditioned emotional response.

Not clicking doesn�t cause the dog to become frustrated by itself - the frustration comes from an expected reward being withheld.  This means that the frustration the dog feels isn�t tied to an event like an NRM but it does still happen; the dog realizes that no expected treat is coming at some point after he performs the behavior, and that�s frustrating for him.  The difference is, in this case the trainer hasn�t performed an action that frustrates the dog, the dog has become frustrated �on his own�.  

So is there a moral difference between causing frustration with an NRM, and allowing frustration to happen by withholding a click?  I will argue that, in this particular case, there is not. 

In ethics, there is an ongoing debate about whether it is morally worse to cause harm than it is to allow harm to happen.  The general consensus is that it is worse to do harm than to allow harm, and there are literally hundreds of examples that illustrate the distinction.²  

One justification for the claim that doing and allowing are morally different has to do with probability - by doing an action, we make it certain that the consequence of that action will occur.  By allowing the action, we only make it much more likely that the consequence will occur.  There might, for example, be a tiny chance of a recovery if we turn off a patient�s life support, but no chance at all if we perform euthanasia. 

In dog training, we could make the claim that using an NRM definitely will cause frustration, whereas not clicking only probably causes frustration.  Therefore, it could be argued, we should avoid using the NRM.  

This argument doesn�t work, however, because adding an NRM doesn�t make frustration more likely.  We could imagine that although many dogs get frustrated if they don�t get the reward they expect, some just don�t.  However, a dog that doesn�t get frustrated when he doesn�t get the reward he expects also wouldn�t be frustrated by an NRM.  If not getting an expected reward just isn�t frustrating, he�d never develop a conditioned emotional response to the eye rolling, or the word �oops!�.  It would just be information.  The likelihood of frustration depends on the dog, and on the trainer�s skill, not on the mere presence of an NRM. 

The factors that make the difference between examples of doing and allowing in ethics don�t exist in dog training - factors like whether the harm would have happened if we were not present, whether we intended to cause the harm and so on.  This is because when we are training a dog, we are putting him in a situation we have decided he should be in and we have created.  What we do, or don�t do, in that situation is always our responsibility.

The frustration the dog feels at not getting a reward is our responsibility whether we cause it with an NRM or allow it to happen by withholding a click.  This being the case, it is better to focus on the way training is set up and create conditions to minimize frustration rather than focus on how that frustration comes to happen.  

Whether a dog gets frustrated during training is down to a combination of the dog�s personality, the task at hand, and the trainer�s skill in setting him up for success, not merely whether an NRM is used. If both approaches can lead to frustration, there is no obvious ethical difference between using an NRM and withholding a click.  If there is a difference, it must be empirical - that one approach leads to more frustration; that the conditioned emotional response to the NRM is worse than the frustration of not getting a click.  

1  Materials like this article from the Karen Pryor Academy make this claim.

2  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an excellent introductory article to the Doing and Allowing distinction with a bibliography.

Humiliation in Dogs

What�s wrong with these pictures?  

If you reacted to these pictures with any kind of repulsion, chances are part of your explanation for your reaction would involve the idea of humiliation.  It�s humiliating to clip a Poodle so that it looks like a My Little Pony toy, or to dress a daschund in a wedding dress.  This raises the question; what does it mean to humiliate a dog, and why is it wrong?  

This question isn�t just reserved for idle judgement, increasingly it's a legal issue.  Since 1992, the Swiss Constitution  has made provision for the dignity of animals.  Part of respecting the dignity of animals, the drafters of the Constitution claim, is protecting them from �humiliation�.¹  In the UK, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals has released a statement suggested that people who dress up their dogs could be prosecuted under some circumstances.²

In this post, I�ll discuss whether dogs really are being humiliated by being subject to extreme grooming and dressing up, and, if they�re not, how we can capture the intuition that there is something wrong. I�ll reconstruct both sides of the argument before concluding that doing these things to dogs is not humiliating, but there is still something wrong with it. 

Before we look at what it means to humiliate a dog, I�ll first explain what it means to humiliate a human being.  When one person humiliates another, she causes him to feel ashamed of himself; like he is less of a person.  Humiliation has a social component - it is done to one person by another, and part of feeling humiliated is feeling the �gaze� of others and feeling diminished in their eyes. Avishai Margalit defines a humiliating act as anything that gives the victim a sound reason to feel humiliated. What counts as a �sound reason� will depend on features of the individual - the sort of things he believes are humiliating given his culture and character; and features of the context.³

The most important part of humiliation is that we can�t be humiliated unless we believe we are being humiliated. This is because humiliating someone is designed to injure their self-respect, so the humiliator has to know enough about the victim to know whether the intended action will humiliate him. Being told to wear women�s clothing, for example, is humiliating to most men, but not all of them. 

On this conception of humiliation, it�s clear that dogs can�t be humiliated because they can�t believe they are being humiliated. They don�t have the kind of complex self-respect that humans do, the kind that link body image to a sense of personal identity.  I�m not saying that dogs don�t have a sense of self, just that if they do it is unlikely to relate to the way they look. With the example of �doggie marriage�, this is unlikely to be specifically humiliating because it is a sham marriage, since dogs can�t understand this concept.  To a dog, walking next to another dog in a silly costume and then doing a sit-stay whilst people say things is unlikely to register as impacting their self-respect.  

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS

So, it is unlikely that we can find an account of dog humiliation just by looking at what it means for humans to be humiliated in terms of their self-respect.  The concept needs to be altered if it is going to make any sense.  If humiliation can apply to dogs it must apply regardless of what the dog is thinking and feeling.  

Again, it might be possible to look at humans as an analogue.  In particular, those humans who don�t have the relevant ability for self-respect - comatose people, people with severe intellectual disabilities, people with late-stage dementia and so on.  If we can humiliate these people, then potentially we can humiliate dogs too.

This would be too quick, however, because the reason that certain actions are humiliating to adults who used to have self-respect, or who have the potential for self-respect, does not apply to dogs. We can think about what these people would have wanted, either before they got into their current condition or if they didn�t have their current condition.  Being left naked, for example, is humiliating to any adult because they would not have consented to it if they could.  This argument still relies on self-respect, so it cannot apply to dogs.  

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS AGAIN

Now that I�ve dismissed two conceptions of humiliation, I�m left with one final description that might apply to dogs.  This is that, by interfering excessively in a dog�s appearance by dressing it up or grooming it outlandishly, an owner is treating her dog like a doll, not like a dog.  Dogs are entitled to a special kind of respect because of the kind of thing they are - a living, sentient creature. Treating them like an object is wrong because it means treating the dog as if they do not have the features that make them worthy of this kind of respect. 

Literally, the word �humiliate� comes from the Latin �humus�, dirt.  Humiliating someone sets them below you, it grinds them into the dirt as you stand over them.  The overall effect is a lowering of status. So treating a dog like a doll is humiliating because it means lowering their status.  This would hold even if the dog can�t understand. 

Even this conception of humiliation does not quite work, because it relies on an indefensibly strong claim that dressing a dog up, or grooming him excessively, is automatically objectifying because it means treating the dog as something less than he is.  If this were true, we would be humiliating babies by dressing them up in little dinosaur costumes, because this would mean we�re seeing babies as entitled to the same respect as dinosaurs, or dolls.  Babies can�t understand clothes, so we can dress them however we like, and many parents enjoy putting their little ones in crazy costumes...

Concern about humiliating babies seems like a futile constraint on parental creativity; what matters is the baby is happy and able to explore and learn about the world in a loving, safe environment.  The same can be said about dogs - it is wrong to treat a dog just like a doll, but if it is possible to dress them up and groom them into weird shapes whilst also paying attention to their welfare, then the dog is not being treated just like a doll and therefore not being humiliated.  To paraphrase Kant, we are not treating the dog merely as a means to an end just by dressing him up, by paying attention to his welfare we are at the same time treating him as an end in himself. 

I would contend that the reaction people have to extreme grooming and dog clothing stems from the perception that the dog is being treated like something less than a dog. Part of this is a worry that the dog is being objectified, which I have dealt with here.  But another part comes from a picture of the ideal, or natural dog - a Lassie, or a Rin Tin Tin.  Deviation from this archetype strikes many people as necessarily a diminishment of what�s essential and good about dogs, and as we�ve seen, the concept of humiliation well captures what it means to diminish someone.  This suggests a �normative essentialist� conception of what a good dog is - an important theme I will return to in a later post.  Suffice to say, for the moment, that just because something is natural, or �the way it always has been�, doesn�t make it good now.  

If there is anything prima facie wrong with dressing dogs up or grooming them to extremes, it is that there is always the potential to overlook the dog�s welfare in the owner's pursuit of her own desires. But this is as true for dog shows, sports, jobs like search and rescue and everyday experiences with dogs as it is for dressing them up or extreme grooming.  Any time a dog is being used, there is always the possibility that it is being used merely as a means to an end, and there's no reason to restrict our worries to the more bizarre examples of the dog-human partnership.  This reminds us that we have a duty to pay attention to what our dog partners are telling us, whether it�s at the dog park or at their wedding.

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1. "The Dignity of Animals" (2001) Joint Statement by the Swiss Ethics Committee on Non-Human Gene Technology and the Swiss Committee on Animal Experiments. Available at http://www.cnz.uzh.ch/BurkiDignity-Animals-2001.pdf
2. "RSPCA says people who dress up their dogs could be prosecuted" The Telegraph, Jan 13 2009. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4227567/RSPCA-says-people-who-dress-up-their-dogs-could-be-prosecuted.html.
3. Margalit, A. (1996)  "The Decent Society" . Harvard University Press. 

The Role of Ethics in Discussions of Dog Training

This blog post was widely shared in the dog training community a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.yourpitbullandyou.com/what-is-the-proper-way-to-hurt-a-dog/

The post was well-written and it raised some great points, but one phrase stood out to me: �my ethics are mine and yours are yours�.  I immediately took issues with this because it appeared to be equating �ethics� with �moral relativism�; as if my ethical beliefs are like my opinions - something I am entitled to whether or not they make any sense.  

Ethical beliefs are not like opinions, they�re not vague statements of �stuff I feel� that nobody has the right to question.  Ethics is a discipline that follows logical rules and, theoretically at least, generates principles that are justifiable to any rational person. There might be disagreement over premises, but this doesn't mean there's no possibility of debate.

In fact, I strongly believe that talking about ethics is important in dog training just because it forces people to confront their own beliefs in a rational way, rather than walling them off behind "well I'm entitled to my beliefs and it's all subjective anyway".  The principles that inform dog training, like the desire to create strong, healthy relationships between dogs and their owners, are too important to be waved away as mere subjectivity.  

Most people become dog trainers because they care about the welfare of dogs.  They therefore have ethical principles about how we ought to care for dogs; giving them the skills they need to live in a human world through training is part of animal welfare. I would contend that almost all dog owners and professionals who work with dogs share the principle that causing a dog unnecessary suffering is wrong, and we have a duty to prevent it. 

But caring alone isn�t a guarantee of morally right action.  Being ill-informed about what dogs are and how they learn can lead to a course of action that is, strictly speaking, ethical insofar as the trainer is trying to do the right thing, but it�s still wrong because the facts it draws on are mistaken.  Not understanding the ways a dog shows us that he is suffering, for example, can lead to misinterpreting being shut down through chronic fear for �calm submission�.  It�s not enough to believe that unnecessary suffering is wrong if you can�t recognize it when you see it.  An ethical dog trainer understands dogs and brings this knowledge to bear when choosing a course of action.  

We can criticize arguments about whether an approach or a tool is morally right without insulting anyone or resorting to something like �if you do this you�re a monster� - a sentiment I�ve run across too many times in discussions with trainers. Discussing ethical principles should not be taken as an instant ad hominem attack.  By paying attention to what the underlying ethical principles in an argument are, the conception of what a dog is that informs those principles, and the logic behind the argument we can judge whether a trainer is making the right decision in the tools he chooses to use.

What Is �Force-Free� Training? A Conceptual Analysis

There are a lot of explanations of force-free training on reinforcement-based training sites.  Clicker training, for example, is claimed to be �force free� because it theoretically does not use aversives in any form, only positive reinforcement.  However, some aversive-based trainers also describe themselves as �force free�, because they do not physically touch the dog during the training process, only using remote corrections. There is some conceptual confusion over the meaning of the word �force� in dog training. 

In this article, I am going to make the argument that �force-free� does not capture what the shock collar trainer or the clicker trainer wants it to capture. 

First, I will give an example of what force-free training does mean, then show that it is inadequate.  Pushing on a dog�s behind to get him to sit, standing on his leash to get him to lie down, or pinching his ear until he drops a toy are all examples of force in dog training. On this definition, �force-free� training is any technique that refrains from physically manipulating a dog�s body, including the use of shock collars, bark discs and other remote aversives.  This is correct to a point, but it does not do the work that reinforcement-based trainers are using it to do, which is to distinguish reinforcement-based training from aversive-based training.

At this point I�ve talked about what force-free doesn�t mean.  Which leaves is with the question, what does it mean to force someone to do something?  We have to move beyond this basic definition of force and look to a more subtle understanding of the concept. 

An analogy with humans is informative at this point.  When someone says, �I was forced to do it�, they mean �I had no choice�.  But what they really mean is, �I felt like I had no choice�.  As Immanuel Kant put it in his characteristically Puritan way, 

Suppose that some one were to aver of his most passionate desire that it were irresistible if the alluring object and the opportunity to it were at hand; ask him whether he might not be able to master this desire if a gallows were erected before the house where he is to avail himself of this opportunity, in order that he might be hanged thereupon immediately after his savored passion . . . it won't take long to guess his answer.

We judge whether a person �really� has no choice by looking at what the potential consequences of his actions were and whether it would be reasonable to expect him to resist.  In Kant�s example, avoiding death is more important than seeing one�s mistress, to the point where no rational person would choose death.  Kant�s example is one where most people would claim they were �forced� to give up their mistress on pain of death.

A positive example is, for example, if I offered you a thousand dollars for the last candy in your bag.  You might have been looking forward to it, but really, you�d be crazy to refuse.  Although we don�t typically talk in terms of being �forced� to part with the candy, the mechanics are the same - in both cases we are being made an offer we can�t rationally refuse.  

Anyway, the point here is that on this definition, me �forcing� you to do something means making all options other than the one I want you to do seem like they are not really options at all.  This can be by making the other options so terrible that only one seems possible, or making this option so good that the others seem terrible by comparison.  

In dog training, we call this �setting the dog up for success�.  Why?  Because behavior is lawful. Dogs perform the behavior that they believe, at the time, will lead to the best consequences for them. Either they�re most likely to get food, or a toy, or praise or, they�re most likely to avoid a shock or a startle or a verbal correction.  We manipulate the antecedents and the consequences to make the behavior we want the one we get. 

When we give a dog positive reinforcement for sitting, we�re creating a history of positive associations between the command �sit� and sitting.  Create a strong enough history, the theory goes, and the dog will sit even in the presence of a distracting squirrel, because to them, sitting on command is like taking a thousand dollars for a piece of candy. 

When we give a dog positive aversive for breaking a sit before he�s told, we�re creating a history of negative associations between the cue �sit� and any action other than sitting. For them, even if there�s a squirrel, maintaining the sit seems irresistible, even if there�s nothing physically stopping him.  If the shock is aversive enough, the squirrel is like the mistress in Kant�s example - pleasurable, but not worth it.  In both cases, reliability of the behavior is dependent on creating the conditions where a dog would not rationally choose to do anything else. 

In human terms, if the examples I gave above are convincing, we would call this �forcing� because it would undermine a human�s sense of responsibility for her actions.  In dogs, it�s called �training�; making the choice we want the only one the dog would choose no matter what the situation.*

So once again �force� doesn�t really cut across reinforcement and aversive - the difference between these two is not in what�s happening in terms of creating choice-conditions for the dog.  In both cases we�re funneling the dog�s desires into the behaviors we want him to perform; because behavior is lawful, he effectively doesn�t have a choice.  

Other than the initial distinction between use of physical manipulation, the concept of �force free� training does not do the work that dog trainers use it for.  It cannot distinguish between reinforcement-based and aversive-based methods.  This is one reason why the phrase has been a source of contention in the dog training world. 

Is the concept of �force free� training worth anything, then?  I would argue that it is, for two reasons.  One is to make that initial distinction between physical force and shaping choices remotely, which is useful in some circumstances.  Secondly, much more importantly is that, for dogs, the illusion of choice is important for their wellbeing.  Arguably, the same is true of humans (although I�m not touching the free will debate with a bargepole!).  �Force free� makes us confront the fact that in shaping behaviors we are making certain actions irresistible for dogs, whether as part of a training program or accidentally, and the fact that dogs are so easily shaped and manipulated in this way gives us a certain responsibility to them.  

Even if we�re in the background doing the funneling, dogs want to feel like they�re a partner in their training, and they should be allowed to express their creativity where possible and not be controlled at all hours of the day.  We shouldn�t see dogs as robots that we strive to master the programming of - �force free� training to my mind is letting the dog decide what it wants without always telling it first.  It�s trying to accommodate a wide variety of reinforcers and developing a relationship so that both learner and teacher work out the best way to build a bond. Too much control over behavior can lead to compulsion, not obedience.  

*Of course, this isn�t always possible - a dog that reliably sits and stays in the presence of other dogs may not do so in the presence of a running chicken, even though he knows you have a pocket full of hot dogs.  A dog that reliably avoids the shock from an invisible fence might choose to run right through it if the neighbor passes by with a cat on a harness.