Puppy Assistant: the smart home for my dog | Hacker News Reader

Puppy Assistant: the smart home for my dog

dev.to

27 pointsatosatto35 comments

Am I the only one who wonders why a dog alone needs lights turned on when it gets dark? Are we afraid canine sleep cycles aren’t as damaged as our own? Or maybe he just wants to read.

Some dogs get uncomfortable or anxious if left alone in complete darkness.

Others might have poor night vision (mine tends to bump into things / have trouble using stairs if it’s pitch-black).

Learn to know your dog, they are not things that can be left alone in a fully dark, unheated home.

My dog is noticeably more scared of things in the dark. He will bark at strangers in the dog park after sunset, which he never does during the afternoon. I don't have any smart tech for my dog, but I can understand the desire.

Inside the house been in the dark is not an issue for my dog. Outside he just doesn't feel safe as when he is inside and he needs to be sure there's no danger around him

A lot of our smart home stuff is primarily around our dog as well.

Cameras to watch the dog when we're out and lights to turn on when it starts getting dark.

We also have a training treat dispenser so when she barks at strangers, it'll dispense treats to keep her distracted and learn to calm down instead of barking.

In many ways, dogs are like kids, and you go through the same things for them.

I can imagine that feedback mechanism could go badly. Want a treat? Randomly bark.

I say this only because we did not manage to successfully train out the bark at strangers behavior in our otherwise pretty well-trained dog.

If done with a proper supporting training, it's to redirect their attention onto their safe space.

It doesn't necessarily train them from barking at strangers but it gets them into a more relaxed state, which can let you use other tricks to decondition them.

In real life you achieve this by physically restraining the dog with your hands for 15 seconds in an unambiguous manner when it does the unwanted behaviour.

Please don't do this. This is a horrible way to train dogs, and not only is the efficacy questionable but it will very likely lead to behavioral issues down the line.

It's not a horrible way to train dogs. What is horrible is the image you have in your mind of what I am saying, which is a misunderstanding.

Please don't double down. I've raised several dogs, and fostered at least a dozen throughout my life. I am regularly the "last guy" for problem dogs because nobody else knows how to handle them, and have dealt with many dogs who have attacked humans (and I have been bit many times dealing with these dogs).

I saw from your other comment that you learned this from Cesar Milan. Well like most celebrities, his advice can actually be harmful. You have to realize this entire guy's job is to sell you himself so he can make money from his brand.

https://medium.com/@vandanni.hadai/cesar-millan-the-problem-...

EDIT: Redacted recommendation based on comment. Normally I'd leave it, but if there's even a 5% chance that comment in the reply is true I do not want to encourage it.

Instead, try this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761168850

Quite a few people in the dog community aren't fans of canine intervention either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/comments/lrok2i/whats_ever...

He's just another Cesar like trainer, just for a slightly newer age. I'd recommend not following his advice either, and consulting more positive reinforcement based behaviorists.

Have any good recommendations?

Based on what I saw, he was focused around positive-reinforcement. But I only watched 2 episodes. It was clear the show was edited, but it didn't seem nefarious.

Let's see if we agree on this. I recommend this book, do you (I'm not trying to pick a fight, just trying to see if/where we agree)?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761168850

Unfortunately I haven't read that book to be able to comment. It does sound promising?

My wife recommends https://www.amazon.com/How-Behave-Your-Dog-Behaves/dp/079380... as a book.

In terms of shows, there's unfortunately not a ton of positive reinforcement shows, at least that I can think of. Possibly because it's more work and less short term magic. The shows with Victoria Stilwell are probably the most prominent as a positive reinforcement show. Though perhaps a little dated. Supposedly she has a YouTube channel where she corrects her past episodes based on more modern thinking.

The puppy101 Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/wiki/subadmin/trainers ) generally has some good content listed, and I see they've listed Larry Kay there. So I'm inclined to think I'd be pro the book you linked just based on the other recommendations on there.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Cheers.

> Please don't double down.

I don't understand what you mean by that phrase. In the context of my comment, it is a non-sequitur. You're not really conversing with me. You are conversing with yourself.

> have dealt with many dogs who have attacked humans (and I have been bit many times dealing with these dogs)

As a non-dog person, may I ask how I can best deal with a dog attacking me?

It depends. Some may not like this but if I dog runs up to me while I am walking my dog and starts growling and attempting to attack, I will strike their nose/throat. One can also raise their voice. Additionally, if you have a weapon or a stick, you should definitely use it.

Obviously if it a small dog, I would take less drastic measures, but if it is a dog as strong as pitbull, I would not hesitate to use necessary force to protect myself. It is on the owner to keep the dog leashed and away from other people.

Not OP, but never turn your back and run - to a growling dog. I was once stuck with an unfriendly pitbull in a high fenced backyard(the dog's backyard). Once it is staring and growling at you, try to slowly back out of its territory. You will definitely find it hard to take your eyes off it.

Stand your ground in full posture, get ready for it to launch at you. Dodge hard left or hard right while throwing your hands infront of you (only if you have thick sleeves), I luckily had a thick winter coat and it nibbed the sleeve as I jumped hard left (Kind of like the matadors). It recovered and got back to the low growl staring contest before launching again.

It also matters where you position yourself, after it launches their inertia takes them some time to recover which gives you time to get closer to your exit. Just a few more of these and you are on your way out of trouble.

The owner luckily came out after it's second launch at me. It launched again at our hands when I tried to shake the owners hand to show I am friendly (not a great idea once they think you aren't). He keeps telling all my friends I am afraid of dogs..

The dog was calm and peaceful when I had entered the yard, I made the mistake of pulling my hoody over my head, it did not recognize me as the same person after that. Don't change your appearance especially when on foreign territory.

Looking back, the thought of fighting it physically never crossed my mind - I got tense and recognized I shouldn't show fear or my back. Once I figured I could survive dodging side to side, it was a relief.

TLDR - Dont turn your back, get ready to dodge and move as many times as it takes, also avoid changing appearance on foreign dog territory.

Thanks. I think this kind of info should be part of self-defense classes.

By the way, I read that dogs have no muscles in their belly area, so especially sensitive/vulnerable there. Not sure what to do with that info though.

Great idea for a self defence class. I am an amateur in dog fights though so don't go starting fights with dogs just based on this story/method.

If I ever am unfortunate to do it again, I might try some loud, strict voice commands to try to override the attack mode(you get a few seconds of conversation between growl/stare and launch).

That isn't really recommended training by most behaviorists. You risk upping the dogs negative association and stress with events.

Negative reinforcement training isn't great.

I didn't say to hurt the dog. This is a communication, not a stressor. It is recommended by Caeser Milan.

Cesar Milan is a terrible example of dog behaviour training. Most of the dog behaviorist community dissaproves of his methods.

Positive training is much more the norm these days. Cesar's techniques can create terrible feedback loops that create worse behavior long term.

Arguably what works really depends on your relationship, the trust you have or don't have yet with the dog. And we're all mostly speaking without referencing what exactly the positive or negative reenforcement methods we're even talking about, so it's a fairly shallow level of discussion missing the nuances.

It's not shallow because the comment specifically referenced Cesar's methods. They're very strongly negative reinforcement without much nuance.

Serious question. Humans have been dealing with domestic dogs for 10's of thousands of years, as work partners and companion animals. Obviously there should be some common methods that have been successful during that time, so why is it that every decade or so we have "new methods these days", instead of having a set of proven methods over the last few millennia (whatever those proven methods end up being)? Why does best practices with dogs seem to change quite a bit on the scale of decades?

For the same reason our understanding of human psychology changes every few decades. Our scientific observation and understanding evolves.

Just as you wouldn't commit electroshock therapy anymore for people with mental disorders, you wouldn't use shock collars today.

Or the same way we don't recommend corporal punishment for children, it's not recommended to manhandle dogs either.

Dogs respond very strongly to both negative and positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement unfortunately has the effect of making the dog associate stress or physical abuse with conditioned events. Much in the way that a child will stop doing things out of fear, but it builds up mental scarring.

Particularly many people try and condition dogs to not bark or growl by negative reinforcement. This causes the dog to be fearful of expressing itself and go more directly to biting when stressed.

Anyway Tl;Dr science doesn't sit still.

What I had to do 2 or 3 times total with my last dog when she was badly misbehaving in circumstances that simply aren't acceptable, where she wasn't wanting to listen/not calming down, was to take her, lay her on her side, put a lot of my body weight on her to gently pin her and grab her by the snout with both hands holding it down/together - while looking her in the eyes and in a slight low, slow, growly voice say "nooooo" - until she stopped resisting and became submissive again. It's over quickly and the behaviour stops from this "punishment"/control where she re-learns I am in control, and then regains confidence that I am an adequate pack leader.

This technique for barking is also very useful for quieting barking: some dogs will quiet very quickly and can be controlled just with the hand(s) over the snout with the low "nooooo" sound - others will fight to pull away and then you may need to add the gentle pinning action as well.

This technique comes from how that this is what mothers will do with their pups if they are barking and need them to be quiet - they will gently bite down on their snout from the top and growl quietly; maybe it's akin to a parent going "shhhhhhhhh" to a baby/child?

Also, my dog, Kylie, was 50 Lbs. The technique I described is harder to do on much larger dogs and much smaller dogs for various reasons, little dogs more often have alpha behaviours because the little buggers are hard to grab onto their snouts.

This is horrifyingly incorrect. Your dog is very likely to learn to bite you in the future and what you're doing is abusing your dog.

Also you reference alpha/beta behaviour which has been debunked ages ago. There is no such thing.

Your understanding of dog psychology is decades out of date. It only works because you are instilling fear in your dog. Maybe your dog won't ever snap at you, but your methods have a very high risk of creating a violent dog.

Please seek out a dog behaviorist. Your methods are not what anybody should be doing.

It's clear whatever understanding of animal behaviour you're indoctrinated into isn't the only method. Packs have leaders, a hierarchy - and that is determined in part by trust development and in part on taking a dominant stand. You can do this non-violently - and depending on your relationship with your dog, the trust, their intelligence - more subtle tactics work well - and it isn't violent at all; increased stress isn't fear, so you can't assume fear is being caused - perhaps for some dogs where there isn't trust with the person, sure, then fear is possible: I'd have fear if a stranger entered my house without me knowing them or them being invited, but if a family member comes in unannounced and unexpected I'll just perhaps be startled momentarily - but no harm was done.

You need more nuance on your rigid belief that what I did to successfully and safely train my dog - I can't imagine what you're picturing - but I was in full control and in no danger, and she wasn't going to bite me because I am far stronger than she is - and I had my hands over her muscle. And there was trust with her, she wasn't an aggressive dog - highly intelligent and so it took little influence to redirect her behaviour. For sure, certain dogs with certain temperament

Your blanket statement that what I'm doing is wrong is wrong.

I assure you there was no more fear or stress than if you raised your voice to a child who's misbehaving. Most dogs aren't lacking in experience with physical interactions with other dogs - making noises/barking to friendly nipping to more aggressive nipping for control/dominance. Gently putting your dog on their side in a safe and controlled manner, putting some weight on them - enough to know they can't move - and gently holding their snout together while deeply, softly, calmly, slowly growling "noooooo" until they calm down is very mild and subtle in reality. Arguably if you don't have trust with the dog or your dog is aggressive and they don't submit fairly quickly - then that tactic can't work.

You seem to be more on the coddling side of the spectrum. The "horrifyingly incorrect" and "abusing my dog" comments make me wonder what you're imagining too.

Citations needed on "alpha/beta behaviour" has been debunked is needed. You can see hierarchies everywhere including with animals - it's why dogs can learn to not bite or nip people, but will nip other dogs in playful or even aggressive ways - but not humans, because they know people are higher up in the hierarchy.

You don't seem to care to take nuance or context into account in your analysis, and it sounds like your experience with and behaviour of dogs is limited as well - as I said before, indoctrinated into whatever methods you suggest; I'd love to see videos of a variety of scenarios you think will help - and I wonder how realistic they will be or how serious and urgent of situations they are to take control of the situation.

Your understanding of pack leaders is out of date knowledge. It's as simple as that. You are operating on a much debunked theory of dominance and social hierarchy that was based on a misunderstanding of wolves in captivity.

Canines have much more complex shared social hierarchies. This is well established today.

You're doing the equivalent of passing off 1950s psychology as modern. Science has moved on. Please do the same.

Some citations on canine hierarchies

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/dog-behavior-and-trai...

http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2007250,0...

Any modern literature on dog psychology will disprove your methodology and understanding.

"These experts who study wolf behaviour describe the role of the wolf leaders as parents— guiding, teaching, and caring for their pack members. ... A parent-family model better describes wolf-wolf relationships than a competitive hierarchy model."

Parents will send their children to their room as punishment - confining them. Gently holding a dog (that isn't overly resisting, that isn't being aggressive) down with some body weight is the same as confinement. You realize parent-family mode, parent-child, is itself a hierarchy though - right?

I was spanked once as a child, just once, just one single spank - and I remember that moment clearly; stress response is literally how we remember, and why PTSD can become a thing for people when the stress is too high - and arguably animals. It was by an uncle because I had "run away" or hid from the family and they had to search for me, I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I was 5 or 6 years old. I didn't do it again. E.g. Stress applied can make memories more vivid for learning - and you continue to ignore that nuance, that spectrum, claiming the actions I took were "horrific" and "abusing" and fear inducing. Once again, I can assure you, the 2 or 3 times I had to do that were for the benefit and care of my dog because immediate harm (choking risk) or future consequences of harm would come to her if they weren't corrected.

I'd love for you to present videos of what you consider abusive and not abusive - and hopefully for correcting the same behaviours; I imagine you have some examples at both extreme ends of the spectrum.

I'm curious too what you'd do if a dog was viciously attacking your own dog and was dominating it, your dog was getting hurt and would get even more hurt very quickly? Please include nuance of the situation so I can understand how aggressive/violent the dog is, how much harm is coming to your dog. It sounds like you wouldn't intervene because you wouldn't want to hurt either dog - or you're saying that higher force than me gently putting weight on my dog to control her is reasonable sometimes?

Sigh.. you've become increasingly combative in the face of new evidence against your preconceived notions. You're also throwing out strawman arguments to save face.

I have never said not to intervene. That's purely something you've manufactured. You can intervene in the case of attacks. Nothing I've said contradicts that. However physical abuse in the case of defense is different than physical abuse as a training mechanism.

Also you justify spanking. Again this is not recommended behaviour by child and family psychologists today. Your methodology is very old school from an era that's passed. Whether you continue to practice it or not is totally on you, but preaching it as advice in the face of science and then getting defensive when pointed out that science has moved on, is not healthy.

I will not be participating further in this discussion due to your strawmen arguments and discussion in bad faith. It is clear you have no intention to understand the current field of science on both child and dog behaviour.

Sigh. This is discussion, nothing combative - and if you want to apply that label to me then you're equally "combative" - so it's a moot point.

You've ignored my questions or countering my specific points - instead saying I've used straw man arguments and saying I'm arguing in bad faith - in order to avoid actually responding to my specific points, likely because you don't have arguments to counter most of them.

Is firmly holding the hand of child to safely cross them across the street because they're acting in a wild way or having a temper tantrum considered abuse? I'm really curious what your line for what is considered abuse vs. what is considering caring.

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