Positive reinforcement is a term that can spark many a debate. Some people feel very protective of the term, while others feel very threatened by it, and then everyone in between those responses. For those who are trying to weed through the issue to find what you should use to train your dog, let me explain a very important term that might not pop up in discussions about positive reinforcement. That term is LIMA.
What is LIMA?
LIMA is an abbreviation that stands for "Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive" and it refers to the guiding principle of what I would call "true" positive reinforcement training. This term holds an important truth that those who use positive reinforcement training need to understand. Positive reinforcement training does not, and was not invented to, completely eliminate stress in the animal.
Types of Stress
Okay so if positive training is based in this LIMA concept, and that does not completely eliminate stress in the animal, why not use punishment instead? The simple answer is because positive reinforcement uses a different kind of stress.
Let's take a deeper look at this. First, you must understand that there are varying levels and types of stress. There is low level stress, high level stress, and everything in between. The level of stress that is experienced is based on various factors including but not limited to, the individual experiencing the stress, the stimuli causing the stress, and the type of stress that is being experienced.
This dog had dealt with a lot of high level stress at the beginning of his life and for a few months before coming to live with me temporarily. As a result, he was hypervigilant and hypersensitive to noise. This individual was easily stressed by simple things, including a relatively familiar person opening the front door. His stress was based in insecurity.
Second, we need to remember what stress is, definition wise. In dictionaries, words are listed as having multiple meanings. We often go off the first meaning provided and forget about the others but the others are important (that's why the SAT asks you about secondary an tertiary word definitions). According the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, there are multiple definitions that are listed under "essential" definitions and "full" definitions.
The "essential definitions are as follows:
1. "a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc."
2. "something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety"
3. "physical force or pressure"
The "full" definitions are as follows:
1. "constraining force or influence: such as
a: a force exerted when one body or body part presses on, pulls on, pushes against, or tends to compress or twist another body or body part especially : the intensity of this mutual force commonly expressed in pounds per square inch
b: the deformation caused in a body by such a force
c: a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation
d: a state resulting from a stress especially : one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium job-related stress
2. "emphasis, weight"
3. "intense effort or exertion"
4. "intensity of utterance given to a speech sound, syllable, or word producing relative loudness"
5. "a: relative force or prominence of sound in verse
b: a syllable having relative force or prominence"
6. Accent
There are more definitions listed for verbs, but you get the idea. There are a lot of definitions for the word "stress" that are important to remember.
Now that you have seen most of the definitions for the word "stress", note the third definition listed under the "full" definition of stress. That definition is "intense effort or exertion" (reference 1). So, stress can refer to emotional and phycological discomfort, it can refer to physical pressure, and it can refer to effort and exertion (reference 1).
So why is this important? This is important because you need to understand that every training method out there will involve some form of stress for both you and your dog. The question is what type and what level of stress do you want to add to your dog's life and in turn, your own life.
Here I am working with Roca, a friend's dog. She appears to display stress when she shakes her head (dog's might shake their head because their ear gets touched, but in this case, I took this as a display of a little stress due to contextual reasons). This is low level stress that was due to learning. She was learning a knew skill and getting into the specifics of it, which was challenging. This kind of stress is not bad, as long is it is not prolonged for too long (we ended the session shortly after this clip was taken and took a short break before proceeding).
What Does Stress Do To Your Dog?
So what type and level of stress is healthy and useful? Stress, as in an effort to solve a problem, is good stress and is actually an important part of learning. However, stress that is physical, emotional, and/or psychological can easily get out of hand and become unhealthy and even damaging to the body. In animal training, we refer to something called "threshold". Threshold is the point at which the learners stress level goes from helpful, to damaging. When a dog is under threshold, they are thinking and learning. When they are over threshold, they are no longer consciously processing what they are doing, often displaying "triggered" behavior, and they are no longer actively learning. If an animal stays over threshold for too long, that kind and level of stress can be damaging to the animal's health.
Bad or prolonged stress (your dog needs a break even from good stress) can have a huge impact on your dog's health, such as a weakened immune system, diarrhea, behavioral problems, house training problems, and more (reference 2). Common causes of stress are things like moving to a knew home, puppy socialization done wrong, and more. But keep in mind that aversive training can also be a huge source of stress for dogs. Aversive training methods can cause stress in dogs that is manifested in avoidance behaviors, aggression, apathy (not doing anything, lost of interest in things), learned helplessness (inactivity due to constant fear), and much more (reference 3). When using aversive methods to train dogs, people run the risk of causing these damaging side effects, and more.
What Does Least Intrusive Mean?
So now that we know a little but about stress, let's look deeper into what LIMA means. Let's start with the L and I, Least Intrusive. What does least Intrusive mean and why is it important for learning? Least intrusive means that we will search for and act in accordance with what is least intrusive to the animal based on the moment and current circumstances. For example, in training, the least intrusive interaction would involve the least amount of physical pressure possible while still achieving the goal. We do this because the more intrusive something is, the harder it is for the animal to focus on what it is learning because it is focused on avoiding the intrusive behavior of others, which can also increase stress in the animal to an unhealthy point.
In these photos Rafiel is working with his mom (first photo) and me (second and third photo). In the first photo, his mom is teaching him the "touch" behavior. This behavior allows people to move an animal into position for various purposes without pushing or prodding them (this is behavior is often used in zoos!). In the second and third photo, Rafiel and I are doing an "observation session". In these sessions, I make sure the dog is well out of the range that would increase its stress and I set it up for calm observation (the dog sits at a distance from things and gets rewarded for simply watching rather than approaching). This distant observation, ensures that the animal can learn to observe, without ever feeling the need to act in a way that I don't like or don't want it to practice, thus limiting the amount of "intrusion" that would be necessary.
Now, before we move on, I must explain something important. There are times when you have to intrude. If your dog is not getting along with another dog, it might be safer for you to leash it (invasive to the dog) and remove it from the situation or, in an emergency, even dump a bucket of water on it (to break up a fight). Least invasive does not mean that we cannot or should not interfere when needed or have contact with the animal during lessons or daily life. It does mean, however, that we need to be actively searching for ways to solve problems without invading the animal's space and putting undo stress on the animal. The animal will face plenty of stress in its life, we do not need to add to the pot. Also, the animal needs to make the choice to interact and try things during training or is will not be more focused on avoidance, rather than learning.
What Does Minimally Aversive Mean?
Minimally Aversive means two things. First, that we are looking for the instruction strategy that will promote interest in learning (aversive promote avoidance, not learning). Second is that we do so with the least amount of coercion or pressure as possible. For example, if we are teaching a dog not to pull on the leash, yanking on the leash is aversive, damaging to the dog, and unnecessary. However, it is a good idea to teach dogs to give into pressure on the leash, which requires that we apply a soft and steady pull on the leash, then mark and reinforce the dog for stepping in the direction you pulled them. Note that even when we do pull in the leash, we use as little pressure (minimally aversive stimulus) as needed to get the job done. This is what is means to be minimally aversive. It does not mean that nothing aversive will or should happen to your dog. It means that during training, as the teacher, you need to promote learning, which takes place more effectively when the least amount of aversive stimulus is applied.
Final Thoughts
One last thing I want to point out that I think is very important to this topic is that training is not the same thing as an emergency or daily life. When we are training dogs, we have no need to make them fear us. Fear is not conducive to learning, but it can be damaging to the dog's health, so we need to train in a way that promote learning and health. Life is full of situations where dog's experience stressors. That is fine, as long as we take the time to teach them how to cope with that stress and don't just leave them to their own devises, or assume that they are not smart because they are afraid of something. As I mentioned previously, dog's will experience stress in their life, but we do not need to add to that pot. We need to be focused on helping them learn to navigate life in a way that will promote healthy living, a desire to learn, and strong relationships built on trust.
References
Reference 1: Stress | Definition of Stress by Merriam-Webster
Reference 2: 6 Ways Stress Affects Your Dog’s Health | PetMD
Reference 3: 9 Effects of Punishment - eileenanddogs
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