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Dog doesn't seem to experience guilt
MushroomStick
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So the dog I grew up with would always have this guilty look on her face and her tail between her legs if she got into the garbage or something while we were out. Now I have a 10 month old German Shepherd named Winston. I've had him through an obedience class and he learned to sit and junk with all the positive reinforcement stuff. He understands that he gets treats when he does good stuff, but he doesn't seem to understand digging through the trash, tearing stuff up, etc. is bad though. The place I did the obedience class through just says to enroll him in more classes, for like a billion dollars. Now my question is, is there some kind of trick to getting Winston to understand that some behavior is unacceptable without beating the crap out of him or writing some animal trainer a blank check?
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Consistency is the key, though. Keep watching him, dissuading him from doing bad stuff, rewarding him for good, and he'll straighten up in another two-three months.
He may need more exercise, too.
In all seriousness though, this sort of thing will take time to develop. Every dog has its own personality, and your new dog may just react to stimuli different than your old one.
Dogs also are said to have no memory of doing bad things, and when you punish them for doing something bad while you were out of the house, they don't know what they're being punished for. I don't know how much I believe that though, because if my dog (very similar to yours) tears shit up while I'm gone, she hides just before I get home. If i walk in the door and she's not there to greet me, then there is some unpleasant surprise I'm about to find. It did take her about a year to develop that response though, so it may still come for you.
On another note, this guilt feeling isn't really solving the problem of the dog tearing shit up in the first place. That will take daily walks to release the dog's energy, and some diligence on your part to put easily accessible garbage away. Our dog knocked over and tore up garbage cans, boxes of Kleenex and chewed up shoes. We took the Kleenex off of the coffee table, and put it on the counter, moved the litter baskets into rooms with doors and closed them, and put up a baby-gate in front of the closet with the shoes. Now she does none of that.
We've also been in the habit of rewarding her with treats and lots of love when we come home and find no mess in the house.
Stay patient, stay calm, and I'm sure the dog will come around. If you're already investing in classes, I'm sure you're a responsible pet owner and things will work out if you stay on track.
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Probably the best thing you can do is minimize the number of things he can get into. Put the trash can where he can't get it. Don't leave shoes, socks, etc out of a closed closet. I'm sure folks will come in with a number of suggestions for you behavior-wise for him, but the easiest course of action is for you to change your behavior and not give him the opportunity to create mayhem.
EDIT: Apparently Rderall and I were typing at the same time
You have a working dog. He craves work and stimulation. How long do you leave him at home? How long do you walk with him? Play with him? What kind of toys does he have?
I'm by no means an expert, but I got a shepard mix a year and a half ago, and I researched the fuck out of it. Seriously, the amount of episodes of It's Me Or The Dog I've watched is staggering. (Obviously that's not the only research I've done, but you get the point.)
We were afraid of the scenario you're describing, so we kennel trained ours. The idea is you want him sleeping during the day while you're at work or whatever. I've had a lot of people tell me you should never lock your dog up, but fuck that. Dogs are den animals. They crave small, dark places to feel safe (obviously not too small. A kennel should let the dog stand up and turn around comfortably. So for a shepard, you'll need a fucking big one.). If you make the kennel a happy place, a safe place, he'll want to go to the kennel. Never, ever use the kennel as a punishment if you're looking to kennel train. Make the kennel a place where he gets a treat every time he goes inside. Seriously, our dog sees us putting on our shoes now and sprints upstairs to his "den" because he knows he's getting a sweet potato stick.
Now, even if we are home during the day, the time when he's normally in his kennel, he'll sleep all fucking day. It's great. And when we get home from work or whatever, we play with him a lot to stretch him out and give him his exercise.
Otherwise, as I said, shepards are working dogs. You're going to have to teach him a shit load of tricks, and believe me shepards can learn some complex tricks. Keep that cute little brain stimulated and challenged.
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Your dog is going through adolescence. He will occasionally have brain farts where he forgets his name or the fact that he has back legs. Tiring him out and limiting his access to things he shouldn't have will do infinitely more for your sanity than trying to develop a sense of guilt.
I think the main points:
1. Dogs do not feel guilt. They may look guilty--that is just a submissive behavior however (tail between legs)
2. Studies show that a dog which has been trained will behave "guilty" if you place dog do in the house, no matter where it came from. The dog knows that when you see dog do, you get angry, and so it behaves submissively to make you stop being angry.
3. Working dogs need work. Young german shepard? You need to exhaust that thing.
Funny you should say that. I have a chihuahua mix that will try to eat the turd if I turn my back on it after I've noticed it. I found him abandoned, so god only knows what was done to him to forster that kind of behavior.
Also, I should point out that "drop it" is an excellent trick to teach your dog.
Eating poop doesn't take abuse. Dogs are notorious for doing it, even if they're not trying to hide it from their owner. They'll eat it off the ground, dig it out of a cat's litter box...
Also to further push the point that Shepherds are working dogs. Get him a job, whether it be a ball/frisbee, fetching the paper or your shoes, patrolling the yard, whatever you can give the dog to keep him stimulated. This will help him learn the hierarchy and also expend energy doing what Shepherds love to do - WORK
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You're right, but it's pretty clear that he's trying to hide the evidence. If I look at a turd and then turn around to grab some toilet paper, he'll sneak over there and try to eat it. It might not be specifically due to abuse, but he does show a lot of the classic symptoms, like constantly cowering and hiding, fear of going outside, and an aversion to loud noises.
First thing is to establish a list of ground rules and to adhere to them completely. Dogs thrive on consistency and want to follow, it's your job to be the alpha who leads. That means you set the pack rules. Ground rules are things like when and where he eats, rooms/furniture/beds he's allowed into, access to toys and treats, acceptable playing, etc etc.
The second thing is to set the dog up to succeed. Problems with the trash, ensure the dog can't get access to it. Reward good behavior lavishly. Try to catch bad behavior when it happens and stop it accordingly. Do not lose your patience, do not yell, a simple, stern no is enough. You can also try a can with pennies in it and shake it at him when he does bad. Another good thing to have is a confined area for the dog for when you're gone.
3rd: Exercise, a 10 month old german shepard is going to have boundless energy. If you run it out of him, most of your behavior issues will probably go away. And keep training at home, a half hour of working on settle and some fancier tricks will go miles.
Sounds like the best thing I could do is get Winston more exercise. His behavior isn't all bad, he knows that my pet parrots aren't for chewing - in fact, my macaw is like his best friend. When the weather is nice enough, the macaw comes with on walks.
Yelling at him after the fact, much less so, the dog will know you are angry but not know why. The more often you catch him in the act, the better. The more times he gets away with it in relation to times he gets caught means a longer training time, but eventually he'll make the mental connection.
Now that that's done, the title of this thread sparked a small discussion in D&D chat earlier today, and Arch shared some fascinating information with us about animal emotion. Bottom line is that the emotional center of the brain is very similar in all mammals, and studies done with electrical stimulation show that other animals do use this part of their brain.
Dogs, having been the longest domesticated species at least 15,000 years (possibly much longer than that even). So you have an animal with a similar emotional center as ours, who has been living with us for thousands of years and you don't think that their emotional lives jive with ours? Dogs do indeed experience "guilt" or whatever the doggy analogue to guilt happens to be, but it is rather similar to our own.
Can't say much else, everyone here has given you great training advice. As I say (and others have said) in just about every dog training thread, exercise never hurts. Dogs love to run and play and generally be tired, and if they don't have that chance they act out.
I put the (now empty) plastic box back under the sink, and when Rex is feeling the urge to be bad it's the first thing he goes for. I find it where he left it, and put it back. It's easier to just keep the box around than to worry about securing everything in the bathroom or trying to catch him in the act so I can scold him.
I actually do something similar, my dog loves to destroy things with his mouth, ruining a shoe, soft toy, or whatever is heaven for him. I got tired of buying toys all the time to just get destroyed, so now I just give him my old shoes. Yeah, I'm reinforcing a bad behavior and have to always keep my current pair of shoes hidden, but honestly it's cheaper than buying toys, so I can live with it.
Different people offered different suggestions but what ended up working was we took the dead chook and the dog and placed them together in a wheat sack outside in the corner of the yard. The bag was tide so the dog could not get out and he was left there for 5+ hours.
Took 5 dead chooks but now the dog no longer touches them and both party's happily share the yard together. Dog's don't learn accepted behavior without realizing certain actions have consequences. They are smarter than you may think they are though.
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As for going though the trash one of your options is to start a compost for food scraps, (If you have a yard). Buy a smaller container for food scraps and do not put them in the main trash on the floor. Empty them directly into the compost every few days or directly into the trash. Your do will quickly stop going thought the trash as he cannot smell anything interesting in it.
Tying you dog up in a sack with a dead chicken for 5 hours x 5 attempts is probably excessive.
I doubt you taught the dog consequences, it sounds more like you created an aversion to chickens.
As others have said, dogs have very short short term memories. It is important to catch them in the act, or mere seconds afterwards in order to make them associate the punishment with the action you are punishing.
This is why most dog training experts emphasize positive reinforcement over negative. It's not that negative reinforcement doesn't work with dogs, it's just that the window to do it is so brief that it makes it difficult.
Leaving your dog "tide" in a sack for five hours is an awful "training" technique and you are lucky no one reported you to animal control.
OP--Is there a smell your dog doesn't like? Oranges, perhaps? You could set up some booby traps with trash he finds utterly unappealing, which should make him less gung ho about the trash.
Also as previous posters mentioned, "drop it" is a great trick to teach.
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