Merit Dog Project

05/07/2025

Who’s up to nerd out on function?

A functional behaviour assessment (FBA), especially when we’re addressing what gets labelled as a “problem behaviour,” gives us a foundation to work from. A good FBA is a working hypothesis, not a final answer. It helps us make an informed guess about what the behaviour is doing for the learner and what consequence is reinforcing it. That function isn’t necessarily fixed. It can shift depending on context, experience, or competing motivations.

Of course, not all behaviour is purely operant. Reflexes, emotional responses, and conditioned associations all play a role. But when we're trying to change or maintain behaviour in applied settings, understanding function gives us an essential entry point.

Once we understand the function, we can often teach a different behaviour that achieves the same goal for the individual.

Let’s say I’m trying to work. I’m mid-sentence or editing a paper, and my partner keeps interrupting me with questions or small talk. Eventually, I snap: “Can you not right now?” It’s not ideal, but it works. He backs off. I get the space I need. That snapping gets reinforced because it reliably leads to escape from interruption and a return to focus.

Now, what if instead I learn to say, “Give me 30 uninterrupted minutes, and I’ll check in after”? And what if that works, and I get the quiet I was asking for? That new behaviour still meets the same need: relief from disruption. It’s a lot nicer for him and a lot less frustrating for me.

That’s the core of this. We’re not just reinforcing a new behaviour. We’re making sure it actually serves the same purpose as the original one.

Sometimes we can’t match the original reinforcer exactly, but we can look for ways to come close or compete with it.

Still, it’s not just about delivering something reinforcing. Even if a new behaviour is technically reinforced, it may not hold across contexts unless the reinforcement actually meets the same need.

Take a dog who barks and lunges at other dogs. If I teach them to turn and look at me instead, and I reward that with a treat, but what they really needed was distance (and that’s not happening reliably), that behaviour may fall apart the moment the food disappears. Or it may never really stick if food wasn’t the relevant reinforcer to begin with.

That doesn’t mean treats are useless. Far from it. Food can be an excellent reinforcer and can help us build emotional safety into the process. It can build reinforcement value and strengthen new behaviours quickly and clearly. But if the original behaviour was functioning to prevent an interaction or create space, then the replacement behaviour should also result in space. The treat can enhance the learning process, but it doesn’t necessarily replace the reinforcer that actually satisfies the need.

Timing matters, too. If the dog turns to look at me but I don’t notice or I hesitate before responding, then the replacement behaviour isn’t getting reinforced under the right conditions.

The same is true for people. If I ask for uninterrupted time and my partner doesn’t follow through, the polite behaviour loses its value. This is where stimulus control comes into play. The cue to perform the new behaviour needs to be clear, and the consequence needs to follow consistently enough that the behaviour becomes reliable.

It’s also worth noting that some behaviours are emotionally charged. Snapping at a partner or barking at a dog may come with a surge of frustration, fear, or urgency. That doesn’t mean the behaviour isn’t functional, but it does mean we may need to support the learner in regulating arousal as part of the process, especially when we’re replacing high-intensity responses with more subtle or lower-effort alternatives.

The same principle applies to maintenance. If I ask my partner to give me 30 minutes, but he keeps interrupting anyway, I’ll probably snap again. Not because I’m being unreasonable, but because the polite request didn’t work. The original behaviour still does. (Sorry, Mike. I hope I don’t do that too often.)

Take Juno, for a slightly different example.

She’s generally uncomfortable around unfamiliar dogs who run up to say hello uninvited. Her default used to be a sharp, knee-jerk “telling off.” Sometimes it worked and the other dog would back off. Sometimes it didn’t. But the function was clear: she wanted space.

Over time, I helped her learn that she could say no in more subtle ways, and often before the dog even reached her. A stop. A head turn. A lip lick. A paw lift and hold. Avoiding eye contact. Sometimes just trotting off in another direction, depending on the approaching dog and how they were communicating. These are all natural and normal cut-off signals. These behaviours still communicated her boundary, but with far less mental and physical effort. And importantly, they still worked. In fact, they often worked better than the original outburst.

But here’s the thing. Sometimes, they don’t. Some dogs don’t take the hint. They ignore her signals. They pester. And in those moments, when her more subtle requests are ineffective, she sometimes escalates to shouting. The behaviour that was supposed to meet her need didn’t deliver.

This is why matching the function of reinforcement matters more than just offering something pleasant or preferred. A different reinforcer might work under some conditions, but not others. And if we want the new behaviour to last, especially when things get stressful or when reinforcement becomes intermittent, we have to make sure the need the original behaviour was meeting is still being met.

Depending on the situation, we can also reduce the value of that original reinforcer by offering it in other, more predictable ways. If I know I’ll get regular blocks of uninterrupted focus time during my day, and I trust that those boundaries will be respected, I’m much less likely to snap when my partner talks to me while I’m working. The behaviour loses its urgency because the need is already being met in other ways.

That’s the real work: identifying the function, matching it in our teaching, and reinforcing behaviours that truly serve the learner.

28/06/2025

We often say, “aversives are defined by the learner.” And that’s absolutely true. But here’s your friendly nerdy reminder: so are reinforcers.

Just because something is inherently good or typically valuable to a dog doesn’t mean it’s functioning as a reinforcer in that moment. Reinforcement isn’t about how nice a stimulus is. It’s about whether it increases the likelihood of the behaviour that preceded it.

Here’s a little example from today. Juno heard people outside our house. A group chatting loudly by the driveway. She barked for a few seconds to alert me (and probably also to warn them). I then said "thanks, friend!" and gently stroked her chest (something she usually loves AND of course I stopped to ask her).

And, well, she stopped barking.

So... did I just accidentally risk reinforce barking? Nope. The behaviour stopped. By definition, it wasn’t reinforced.

Let’s break it down into why the barking wasn't reinforced, even though she enjoyed the skritches (and asked for more):

1. You can’t reinforce an emotion. Barking may express concern or anger or fear, but those internal states aren’t behaviours subject to reinforcement contingencies. They’re feelings in response to context. Her barking was not a product of operant conditoning, ot was a reflexive response to an environmental cue.

2. The functional reinforcer for barking may not have been (aka, wasn't) petting at all. Juno was barking in an effort to make the people leave (which, had they left, would have most likely negatively reinforced her barking). That didn’t work. They stayed. They continued yelling and laughing and whatnot. In behavioural terms, her response wasn’t effective, and the contingency didn’t contact reinforcement.

3. It’s also likely that sitting quietly beside me became the more reinforcing option (and barking became the least reinforcing scenario). The petting may have reinforced her disengaging from the stimulus and settling in with me.

So while petting and attention is generally something she enjoys, in this moment, it didn’t reinforce barking. It wasn’t contingent on the barking, and the barking didn’t result in the outcome she may have been hoping for. Valuable doesn’t equal reinforcing.

Here's another example:

You go to te store and spend your money on a hot summer day buying a gelato.
Then, drop your gelato in the ground.
The store clerk kindly gives you a new one!
It’s a nice thing.
But… you don’t start dropping ice cream more often!
Why?
Because the replacement gelato, as nice as it was, didn’t reinforce the behaviour.
It was a kind response, not a functional reinforcer.

Just because something is good, kind, or enjoyable doesn’t mean it’s reinforcing.
Reinforcement = behaviour increases.
No increase? No reinforcement.

It’s about function, not just flavour!

26/06/2025

I am beyond thrilled to be heading to Taiwan in a few months to chat about communication, agency, and well-being!

台灣狗兒論壇(Dog Symposium)是由正向思維藝術狗兒行為諮商/訓練師Joeson(Polo拔)所策劃籌備，邀請來自世界各地的專家講師，帶給台灣及亞洲地區關於狗兒最新的資訊與研究。除了讓台灣可以與世界同步接軌，也給予從事與狗兒相.....

25/06/2025

As behaviour consultants, we’re trained to identify patterns, recognise maladaptive behaviours, and, where appropriate, apply diagnostic labels. These tools can be incredibly useful, both for clarity and communication. But we must also recognise that the act of labelling is never neutral. Labels don’t just describe behaviour; they also shape how we understand it, talk about it, and intervene. Over time, the repeated use of certain terms like “reactive,” or even “anxious,” can begin to reinforce particular worldviews about what constitutes “normal,” “problematic,” or “fixable” behaviour.

These labels are embedded in and reproduce cultural values and professional norms. They can subtly affirm assumptions about obedience, compliance, and emotional regulation that may devalue the dog’s lived experience. And when left unexamined, they risk pathologising behaviours that are contextually appropriate, adaptive, or simply misunderstood.

When a dog growls, hesitates, avoids, fixates, barks, or fails to comply, we often reach for labels like aggression, anxiety, reactivity, or resource guarding. But what if these behaviours are not indicators of something being “wrong,” but signs of a dog navigating a world that may be confusing, frightening, or constrained?

Perhaps it is a failure on our part and it's our own behaviour we need to "fix!"

Pathologising behaviour can shift our focus from understanding to controlling, from relationship to remediation. It risks interpreting a dog’s natural or learned responses as clinical problems to be corrected, rather than as communication to be heard. And while pathologies absolutely exist and some dogs do need clinical intervention, we need to stay critical of the frameworks we inherit.

We must ask: who defines “normal” behaviour, and what worldview underpins those definitions? How do social and professional ideologies shape what we consider to be behavioural health? And are we, however unintentionally, reinforcing a narrow vision of canine “success” that leaves little room for difference, agency, or expression?

23/06/2025

I have thought about this a lot over the year since first writing this. This concept is being further expanded integrated into my new book (in progress): Beyond Behaviour.

This morning a person walked by me and Juno, watched me toss a treat to her, and said, "Oh, are you training?"

Ugh, such a cringy question. (I just smiled and nodded, becasue, yes, I suppose I was).

In my first year as a PhD student, I joined a reading group. In it we read the book "The Mushroom at the End of the World." The author, Anna Tsing, talks about collaboration--working across differences and transformation through encounter. This embodies how I envision the dog-human relationship should be.

Donna Haraway, in her book "The Companion Species Manifesto" and later in "Staying with Trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene," talks about "becoming-with." This notion proposes a way for humans to live with companion species symbiotically, suggesting humans should/could "make kin" across species boundaries. Not kinship in a lineal or genealogical sense, but an understanding of cultivating "response-ability" to each other for the purposes of mutual flourishing.

We very often think of training as something we do TO our dog. You get dog, you train dog, then dog is suitable to fit into our lifestyle or home or society.

I don't see it this way. Like, Hawarway, I choose to think of learning and becoming-with, or maybe "being-with" Juno, as a mutual and symbiotic relationship, and something that happens in every interaction, in every moment of relating.

I see all interactions and all situations we share as learning, growing, adapting, communicating, and collaborating--for us both. We share an intimate relationship, not a master/servant, a teacher/student, an alpha/beta, nor transactional exchange. There is a certain ebb and flow. Training isn't linear or something I am "doing" (or maybe I am "doing" it all the time...?).

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Training to me IS something we do with our dogs and something important. We may teach them specific lessons about how to jump over jumps or how we want them to behave when people arrive at the door. But lessons are designed to teach skills, and those skills are then integrated into life in order to increase wellbeing and communication.

I use treats for all kinds of things, from enjoyment, to reinforcment, to maintaining a behaviour that serves us both well. Beyond that, if we really want to get specific, reinforcers and punishers are occuring in the enrivonment all the time, not just when I give Juno a snack (and that snack isn't always a reinforcer, either)! In other words, learning is not just occuring becasue I toss a treat! That is why I very much value the empricial knoweldge about learning science and behaviour that is so essential to ethical practice, too. That I can expertly apply to those crafted lesson plans and to "becoming-with."

So, to answer your question sir, "No, I am just being-with my dog, thanks."

21/06/2025

I had one of those moments the other day. You know the kind: I called Juno to come and she… didn’t. At all. She paused, looked directly at me, then trotted off in the exact opposite direction to sniff what I can only assume was a highly opinionated patch of grass.

And I stood there thinking, “Right. So… we’re doing that today.”

But here’s the thing. I didn’t correct her.

Not because I’m endlessly calm or above the occasional frustrated sigh. But because I’ve made an ethical commitment not to respond to uncertainty or error with pressure.

Instead, I got curious.

🐾 Did I interrupt something important to her?
🐾 Was the cue still meaningful in that context?
🐾 Had I reinforced “come to me” less than “go explore” lately?
🐾 Was this a breakdown in behaviour or in communication?
🐾Was the reinforcer less valuable in that context? Was something else more valuable in that moment?

In dog training, it’s easy to slip into the mindset of “She didn’t do it = she needs to be corrected.” But non-compliance isn’t a character flaw. It’s a clue. And "mistakes" (hers or mine, if you even what to call them that) are invitations to slow down and recalibrate, not tighten the screws.

So what do I do instead of correcting?

🔄 I reset the loop.
🎯 I reinforce the behaviours I do want to see, even if they’re approximations.
🧠 I reassess the conditions I’ve created.
💬 I treat every “error” as a conversation starter, not a power struggle.

Because training isn't about forcing dogs to comply. It’s about listening, adjusting, and co-creating a process where both of us feel safe enough to try again.

Mistakes will happen. That’s not the problem. The real question is, how do we respond? And that’s where ethics show up. In our smallest choices, especially when things go sideways.

20/06/2025

Today in class, we were talking about markers, conditioned reinforcers, discriminative stimuli, cues, and the complexity that arises when they do multiple things.

One of my student raised a really thoughtful question: Can you mark the termination of a behaviour?

And it led to a great conversation. Because here’s the thing: the termination of a behaviour is just the beginning of another. Behaviour doesn’t disappear. It transitions. Even stillness is a behaviour. Even “not doing” is doing something.

That matters. It matters not just for clarity in training, but for ethics in how we teach.

We often talk about marking behaviours we want to reinforce. But if we try to mark the end of a behaviour, what exactly are we marking? What behaviour is actually occurring at that moment? A shift in posture? A pause? A head turn? And does the learner understand what that marker means? Do WE?

This becomes especially important when we’re aiming to weaken a behaviour. If we’re not careful, we risk using punishment to suppress behaviour, instead of reinforcing something more appropriate or more adaptive to make the alternative more appealing and functional. Punishment, with all the weight it carried, also creates creates new avoidant or escape behaviours. Because behaviour isn't on an on/off switch.

The truth is, behaviours are always happening. They’re frequently chained, often subtle, and always influenced by context. If we’re reinforcing “the end” of something, we’re still reinforcing something. The question is—what?

Ethical teaching means recognising that clarity is a kindness. We can’t reinforce a vacuum, but we can reinforce what fills it - deliberately, transparently, and with respect for the learner's experience.

19/06/2025

"But my dog is friendly" you might say. "She's gentle!" you call after them. "She just wants to play!" you say in defense.

Of course! But let's consider the other side of the coin. The other dog your dog is greeting may be:

- Fearful of other dogs
- Anxious of greeting unfamiliar dogs
- Needing space to feel safe
- Not wanting to be bothered
- Friends with only a few dogs
- Painful
- Infectious (kennel cough IS going around right now, by the way!)
- Recovering from an injury
- Learning, and NOT looking for distractions
- Not in the mood
- Doing something else that they are more interested in

I am sure there are plenty of other reasons I have missed. It's really quite simple -- Ignore or ask! It's not hard!

If it's a "no", clip on a lead or ask your dog to stick with you/"leave-it" or whatever specific cues you've successfully taught your dog prior to having them off leash in public.

EVERYONE deserves to be able to walk in peace. Even those who are unsociable, like me!

19/06/2025

Reading the room…

I want to set Juno up for success and enjoy her time out on walks. That means creating an environment where she can feel safe, stay regulated, and engage with the world on her terms. Sometimes that involves creating space from things/people/dogs, intervening early, or using predictive cues (especially if another dog is about to get too close for comfort and I’ve failed to manage the environment as well as I’d like). $h!t happens!

Reading her body language and learned communicative signals is a huge part of that. It tells me when she’s feeling confident, cautious, curious, or just wants to be left alone.

But just as important? Reading the body language of the other dogs in the environment so that we can alter or adjust ourselves as needed.

Is that approaching dog old or young (young dogs generally tend to have fewer established social skills)? Are they engaged with their person or running erratically? Are they pulling on-lead toward us, or slowing down and turning away? Or just neutral? These details matter. Not just for Juno's safety, but for theirs, too. They’re communicating what they need, want or intend and often these thing undesirable outcomes can be easily avoided.

Juno’s not out here trying to make friends. She’s content to walk by and mind her own business. That is her choice. And it’s my job to support that choice and facilitate her feeling safe when we are together.

Setting our dogs up for success isn’t just about what we ask them to do — it’s about how well we read the room, make adjustments, and respond to the subtle conversations happening all around us.

12/06/2025

Laika didn’t volunteer. She didn’t dream of the stars. She didn’t ask to be made a symbol of “progress.”

She was someone, and she was sent to die alone in space.

There was no plan to bring her back. That part is often softened, or skipped altogether, in the retelling. But from the beginning, her death was a foregone conclusion.

It wasn’t science. It was sacrifice. Not heroic. Not necessary. Just chosen by those who believed her life was theirs to use.

Laika’s story isn’t just a relic of the Cold War. It’s a mirror. Because we still do this. We still justify suffering as collateral. We still call it “for the greater good.”

But progress that rests on the backs of the powerless isn’t progress. It’s cruelty dressed up in ambition.

Thank you, Barry, for honouring her not as a symbol, but as someone.

We haven’t forgotten you, Laika. And we will not stop asking who pays the price, for all nonhuman animals.

This time of year, I always take a quiet moment to remember Laika.

It’s been 67 years since she was sent into space. Not many talk about it now, but I think we should. Not because I’m a scientist or anything like that, but because it still matters.

Laika wasn’t just a dog in a rocket. She was a gentle presence full of trust. Her real name was Kudrjavka, which means “curly” in Russian. But the world came to know her as Laika — the little barker.

She was a stray found on the streets of Moscow. She was chosen because she was calm and had survived tough conditions. As if hardship somehow made her more suitable to be sent away with no way home.

On November 3rd, 1957, they launched her aboard Sputnik 2. The capsule had food, water, and padded walls. But no return plan. From the start, it was never about bringing her back.

Some say she lived seven hours. Others say a few days. Either way, she spent her last moments alone, floating in silence, not knowing why she was there. Just drifting, while Earth moved slowly out of reach.

She circled the planet 2,570 times before the capsule burned up on re-entry the following April.

And the truth is, Laika didn’t choose any of this. She didn’t sign up to represent science, progress, or the space race. She was just a dog. A little creature that wanted warmth and affection — and instead became a symbol.

That’s why I remember her. Because not all progress is kind. And not all breakthroughs are made the right way.

Laika’s story reminds us to ask better questions. To think about who pays the price for our achievements.

We haven’t forgotten you, Laika. And we never should.

Treasure her sacrifice here: https://spaceaustralia.com.au/

Regards,
Barry from Support 💙

09/06/2025

I did this podcast back in January (I think?). I just realised I didn't post it.

Enjoy!

In this episode, we’re joined by Dr Jill Steel - former primary school teacher...