Why does my dog tump over the trash?

[happywaffle]

My dog, whom I love very much, just cannot resist tipping over the trash can in the kitchen every time we leave (and forget to put it away). She's generally very well-behaved and pretty smart - she'll sit two inches from a juicy steak and not touch it until I say so. But if I leave for as little as 15 minutes, I can return to a flipped-over can and trash strewn all over the floor.

She is obviously very aware that she's in trouble for doing this; any time we come home to a flipped-over trash, she's *already* hiding under the couch in fear. We've tried yelling and ignoring her, alternately, but to no avail. She's forbidden from even setting foot in the kitchen at all times.

Now, I know the obvious answer: she's a dog, there's food scraps in there, she wants em. But I don't understand why she so compulsively tips over the trash as though all her discipline just flies out the window as soon as we're gone. Does a dog need its master in the room to keep its sense of obedience and discipline? Any pet psychologists out there?

[Lissa]

She is obviously very aware that she's in trouble for doing this; any time we come home to a flipped-over trash, she's *already* hiding under the couch in fear. We've tried yelling and ignoring her, alternately, but to no avail. She's forbidden from even setting foot in the kitchen at all times.

Dogs have a very poor grasp of cause and effect. She has no idea that you're upset about the trash-- that happened a long time ago and is now just a dim memory to her. To her, you're coming through the door and yelling at her for no apparent reason.

She's not hiding because she's feeling guilty. Dogs aren't capable of guilt. She's hiding because you've come home and gotten mad several times now. She's hoping that by being very submissive, she'll avoid your anger.

Here's one way to train her: On your next day off, leave the house just like you were going to work or out with friends. Go around to the back of your house, (or wherever it is that you can see inside the kitchen window.) Wait. As soon as the dog starts trying to tip the can, bang on the windows loudly and scare the holy hell out of her. (Make sure she doesn't see you.) Lather, rinse, repeat. You want her to get the idea that whenever she goes to knock over that can, something scary happens.

Whenever you have to really leave the house, put the can up on a table, or brace it with heavy objects so it can't be tipped. Or, if you've got a little extra cash around, you could buy one of those motion-sensing alarms. (They sell them to put on hotel doorknobs to sense if someone's trying to enter the room.) As soon as she nudged the can, it would start to blare and probably scare the wits out of her.

If she's a dog with a large nose, you could try small mousetraps. My grandmother did this with her Airedale. Whenever he would start sniffing around in the top of the trashcan, the trap would go off and startle him. (His nose was too big to get pinched.) After a while, she didn't even have to set them: just seeing a mousetrap was enough to keep him away from the trashcan.

Dogs only understand immediate consequences. As it stands now, she's getting an instant reward for her disobedience. Instead, you want there to be an instant negative consequence.

[happywaffle]

Sorry to express some doubt, but my dog acts *distinctly* different when she's done something, vs. when she hasn't. This is before yelling enters the picture. 90% of the time, I remember to put the trash away and she's perfectly happy (or, more often, sleepy) when I walk in the door. The other 10% of the time, she's cowering and looking at me sideways, and I know before even checking the kitchen that she's done something wrong.

Another example: one time I woke up in the morning and my dog was sitting near my bed, looking a little odd. I asked her to get up in the bed, and after several commands she finally did, only to start shivering heavily. I thought she was sick, then suddenly realized she was terrified of getting in trouble. Sure enough, she had peed on the floor at some point during the night, and she felt the trouble coming!

So, it seems like she does indeed have some sense of guilt. Maybe that's just me.

[Cunctator]

Is "tump" an American version of some other verb, or just a typo?

[happywaffle]

"Tump over" is American slang (at least in my part of America) for "tip over."

[Cunctator]

"Tump over" is American slang (at least in my part of America) for "tip over."Thanks. I've never heard it before.

[diggleblop]

She's not hiding because she's feeling guilty. Dogs aren't capable of guilt.

I have to disagree. When my dog does something bad, she holds her head down, tail between her legs and looks at me like her world is ending.

[Lissa]

Well, ask yourself how many times the dog has "acted funny" and you discovered there was nothing wrong? You may not even really remember such instances because they don't stick out in your mind, but you would remember the times when "acting funny" had a reason.

Dogs are amazingly attuned to body language. They can detect even a slight tension in their humans and might misinterpret it as anger, causing them to cower (and let's face it, a cower always looks "guilty.")

Let's take the example of you waking up in the morning and seeing the dog "acting funny." It could have been caused from you making an angry-sounding noise in your sleep right before you woke up, or having residual tension from your dream. As soon as you see the dog "acting funny", you start to get tense and suspicious, making the dog act even more "funny."

The same thing is true for when you come home. You might have some residual tension left from the day, so when you come through the door, you don't look as relaxed to the dog as you think you do. She senses the tension and says, "Uh-oh! The furless male is angry! Better go into appeasement mode."

Dogs simply don't have the brain power to connect an incident earlier in the day with an incident happening now. If she got sick from eating from the trash, she wouldn't think, "Man, I need to stop eating that stuff!" No-- she would have no idea where her belly-ache came from. They are creatures of the present. They have some memory capability, of course, or else we wouldn't be able to train them, but it usually takes repetition of the behavior in order for the dog to make a connection between behavior and reward/punishment.

Nor do dogs have a moral sense. They don't have a sense of what sociologists call the "generalized other", meaning the ability to see one's self through the eyes of others and interpret your actions through their point of view. This is actually a somewhat advanced concept. Human children don't acquire it until around the age of three or so. Dogs are incapable of acquiring it since it requires a higher reasoning capacity.

In essence, dogs are creatures of conditioned responses. They are intelligent enough to sometimes make intuitive leaps based on what they know, but it doesn't extend to conciousness of guilt.

[diggleblop]

Anything is possible I guess. I may be mistaking it for something else, but damned if it doesn't look like guilt. But I know that she knows when she's been bad. :)

[Pullet]

What Lissa said. Her views on dog psycology and training are the same ones held by every veterinarian I've ever interacted with. Maybe VetBridge will be along in a bit to add her $0.02.

Odds are, your dog is getting into the trash because she's bored. In addition to removing the can as a source of play, give her other puzzels that are okay to play with. A Kong with a peanut butter inside, or one of these. (http://www.petexpertise.com/item--Amaze-A-Ball-Treat-Dispensing-Toy--amaze_a_ball.html) And be sure that she gets good and exhausted when you take her out for her daily walk. Teacher her to play fetch. Train her on basic commands like sit and stay. The fun of figuring out what she has to do to make you give her a cookie crumb is endlessly entertaining.

Here are some ideas to remove the trash can from her interest: Depending on the size of the dog, either get a can that is big enough (and lidded) that she can't tip it over, or small enough that you can keep it in a cabinet with a child-proof lock on the door.

The mousetrap idea worked well for a stubborn cat of mine who would not stay off the kitchen counter. You could also rub down or wrap the can and the immediate floor area with citrus oil. Most dogs don't like the smell. How well these work depend on how determined your dog is.

[diggleblop]

And to add my opinion, I say it's seperation anxiety.

[Renee]

Anything is possible I guess. I may be mistaking it for something else, but damned if it doesn't look like guilt. But I know that she knows when she's been bad. :)

I have my doubts too. My current dogs are really well behaved when we're gone (and therefor have not exhibited guilty behavior), and our old dogs were too, most of the time. And most of the time, when we came home, they were ecstatic to see us. Absolutely beside themselves with joy at our arrival. Unless something bad had been done. Then they did not greet us at the door, but stood in the corner trying to look invisible. This was not after we come in and they "sensed our tension," this was open the door and there they are in the corner, trying to be invisible. This never happened, never, unless there was a problem, which was pretty rare. I'm not sure why people are so convinced that dogs have no sense of cause and effect; I think there is ample evidence that they do.

[Pullet]

It's not that they don't know cause and effect, it's that they generally need it to be pretty immediate for the effect to be linked to the cause in their heads.

Those times when the dog seemed to feel guilty about something that had happened earlier, where they usually incidents of bad behavior (being destructive and the like), or were they things that could have been the result of or resulted in transient illness, like urinating/deficating in the house, eating a bunch of garbage and getting an upset tummy?

But all this really isn't the point of the OP. The dog gets into the trash when your back is turned. You don't want her to. Make the trash so she can't get into it and give her something else to play with or play with her often and hard enough that she's too tuckered out to fuss with the trash. Whatever her particular motivations are, the treatment course pretty much remains the same.

[Renee]

Those times when the dog seemed to feel guilty about something that had happened earlier, where they usually incidents of bad behavior (being destructive and the like), or were they things that could have been the result of or resulted in transient illness, like urinating/deficating in the house, eating a bunch of garbage and getting an upset tummy?

.


With my Weim, it was always because she chewed up a piece of furniture (with 1500 dog toys scattered around the house). This pretty much only happened when she was young, but it was always destructive behavior, not potty training issues (of which there really weren't any). She was a really smart dog, so ymmv, but I am certain she understood when she had been bad, and if she got yelled at she knew why.

[happywaffle]

Okay, my dog was "kind" enough to provide me with another example of guilt behavior just this morning. This morning I woke up and looked over and Lola wasn't in her doggy bed. She is NEVER not in her doggy bed; she gets up when I do, not a second before. I was immediately concerned. I got out of bed and started to check the living room, but I found Lola curled up at the foot of the bed on the bare floor. I looked at her with no tension in my body - I was concerned, not angry - and she gave me that sideways glance and slight tail twitch that tells me she knew she was in trouble.

Sure enough, Lola had gone poop in the living room during the night. I'd just forgotten to take her outside before we went to bed.

I could have a zillion vets say "Dogs don't feel guilt" but I can't just explain that behavior away. She obviously knows she's in trouble before she's in trouble. Hence my original question.

[Lissa]

Far be it from me to try to use science to trump overwhelming anecdotal evidence. ;)
I will say this last bit and leave it at that:

To have "guilt" you have to have conciousness that something is morally wrong. You have to remember that you did the act and feel bad about doing it. Dogs don't have that ability. They know that some acts generate disapproval from their people if they're caught doing them, but they don't have the ability to reflect on their actions and judge them in retrospect while simultaneously worrying about what the punishment will be once the humans find out.

[CurtC]

"Tump over" is American slang (at least in my part of America) for "tip over."
I popped into this thread only to discuss that word. I've had the impression for quite a while that "tump" is slang regional to Texas. Are you in Texas?

Most of the time when I hear it, it's referring to upsetting something floating on water. You're sitting on an air matress in the pool, and your kids tump you over. In my estimation, most people in Texas would use the word "tump" in this situation.

So are you in Texas?

[StinkyBurrito]

My dog is very food oriented. He will get not only into the kitchen trash, but will also pots and pans off of the stove if they've been left there, and will pull dishes out of the sink that I will later find scattered throughout the house (never once broken, amazingly enough).

When I come home from work, I usually have papers, a coffee mug, the mail, and I am fumbling around with my keys. Most of the time I get the door open and the dog is jumping up at me, inspecting any bags that I have to see if it is anything yummy, and just plain old happy to see me. If garbage has been gotten into, then as soon as I get the door open, he sneaks past me and hides in the back yard. This is before I have any knowledge of bad behavior.

I don't know if dogs feel guilt, or how long it takes for the cause / effect relationship to wear off etc. But I DO know that when the garbage or dishes have been gotten into, the dog knows he is in trouble.

It is very dangerous for a dog to eat garbage. I have found large pieces of plastic wrap, paper towels, and zip lock bags in his poop in the yard. This stuff can bind up their intestines and kill them.

Also, no matter how well you train the dog with mouse traps or scary noises or whatever, there is no guarantee that the dog will never do it again. You must always try to remember to secure the trash from the dog.

I have gone with the two prong approach - moving the trash everyday and training as a backup in case I forget. I have trained him with the 'pretend like your leaving but watch through the window' trick (though I did it at night and I think I almost got the cops called on myself), and I have used the very bitter spray that they sell in pet stores. I just baited the garbage with some pork lo mein that was soaked in the bitter spray. He got into it and had a nasty surprise. I did this a few more times and he started leaving it alone.

Also, I would like to share this trash can (http://www.simplehuman.com/products/trash-cans/kitchen/steel-beam-round.html) with you. It has a lid lock feature that will keep a dog out of it. I don't have one yet because I am lazy and haven't gotten around to it yet, but I think it would be well worth the cost.

p.s. I have never heard the word 'tump'. I am from Ohio.

[Renee]

Far be it from me to try to use science to trump overwhelming anecdotal evidence. ;)
I will say this last bit and leave it at that:

To have "guilt" you have to have conciousness that something is morally wrong. You have to remember that you did the act and feel bad about doing it. Dogs don't have that ability. They know that some acts generate disapproval from their people if they're caught doing them, but they don't have the ability to reflect on their actions and judge them in retrospect while simultaneously worrying about what the punishment will be once the humans find out.

Picky, picky. ;) Really, though, what I think happywaffle and I are talking about is not really guilt in the higher sense, but the idea that dogs do know that certain behaviors will lead to punishment, even if discovered hours after the behavior happened. "Guilt" is just a convenient word. It is often claimed that it makes no sense to punish a dog for something you did not catch him in the act of doing because he could not possibly understand it, but lots of anecdotal evidence shows that at least some dogs do remember that they chewed up that chair leg and that doing so is likely to lead to some retribution. Why can you train a dog to do tricks if his memory is so poor as some suggest? It doesn't make sense that a dog can remember certain cause/effect relationships, but not others, especially when many people have seen very obvious signs that they do make that connection reliably and regularly.

What is the scientific evidence that such connections cannot be made by canine minds?

[StinkyBurrito]

Oh, a couple more things I forgot to mention.

A Kong stuffed with peanut butter and frozen is great and helps to alleviate the separation anxiety, whether or not there is a garbage problem.

Lissa's advice is good for normal training. I have been reading a book that claims 2-3 seconds to give the dog a reward for good behavior. It seems to work well.

My dog recently ate a slab and a half of spare rib bones and about 3 packs of cigarette butts out of the trash. I was aghast when he puked it all up. It was amazing.

There was also 'the flour incident'. I had recently purchased an antique oriental rug. I left a sack of flour on the kitchen counter. Dog eats flour on rug. Dog gets thirsty. Dog drinks water and drools A LOT. His thirst quenched he resumes eating flour. Repeat. Did you know that flour and water make paste? I now know first hand. :smack:

IANA Vet or a Dog Trainer... I am simply relating my own experiences and what I have learned from past research on the subject.

[Lissa]

Picky, picky. ;) Really, though, what I think happywaffle and I are talking about is not really guilt in the higher sense, but the idea that dogs do know that certain behaviors will lead to punishment, even if discovered hours after the behavior happened. "Guilt" is just a convenient word. It is often claimed that it makes no sense to punish a dog for something you did not catch him in the act of doing because he could not possibly understand it, but lots of anecdotal evidence shows that at least some dogs do remember that they chewed up that chair leg and that doing so is likely to lead to some retribution.

The problem with anecdotal evidence is that everyone tends to anthropomorphize their pets and attribute motives which weren't actually present. Secondly, the owner isn't able to observe their own behavior objectively.

Case in point: happywaffle said that he/she "looked her with no tension in my body - I was concerned, not angry . . ." Let's focus on this statement for a moment.

Dogs, being relatively simple creatures, often aren't able to seperate when their humans are displaying "concern" rather than "anger." They just know that you're staring at them. Eye contact has significant meaning to dogs. The only times humans usually stare at their dogs is when the dog has been given a command and we're waiting for a respone or when the dog has done something wrong and we're correcting them.

Try an experiement right now: turn around and just look at your dog. Stare right at him without doing anything. Your dog will react in several different ways, depending on their personality. He may wag his tail, get up and come over, expecting a pat on the head, or may get a toy to try to initiate a game. A dog with a submissive personality may put his ears back and hunch a little in a submissive posture. He may start looking very worried and try to appease you.

Now, on to body tension. The best actor in the world couldn't fool a dog. When you're trying to look casual, the dog can sense that and it can make them even more nervous. Witness people who claim their dog "knows" when they're going to go to the vet's office. No, the dog doesn't know where they're going, but they can sure as hell see from your too-casual demeanor that something's up and it's probably not going to be pleasant.

Sometimes, people are amazed when their dogs freak out when a visitor comes over. "Sparky never does this! He must have disliked Jim." Well, not necessarily. Jim may have looked calm and self-assured to you, but he may have actually been a bit tense and nervous about coming over. The dog sensed it even though you couldn't. It's much like their sense of smell-- incredibly acute, picking up on things that humans cannot detect.

Let's explore what happens in the OP. happywaffle comes home. For the past two days, the dog has been getting in the trash, so he/she is expecting that it might have happened again. He/she is alert for signs of trouble the moment he/she walks through the door, even if not conciously. The dog instantly recognizes that tension and goes into appeasement mode. Then happywaffle finds the mess and his/her suspicions that the appeasment behavior was "guilt" is confirmed.

Why can you train a dog to do tricks if his memory is so poor as some suggest? It doesn't make sense that a dog can remember certain cause/effect relationships, but not others, especially when many people have seen very obvious signs that they do make that connection reliably and regularly.

Of course they're able to learn. I didn't suggest otherwise. Learning involves long-term memory. Very few dogs learn a trick instantly-- it usually takes many patient repetitions before the dog understands what behavior you want, and throughout its life, you have to keep repeating the trick, or the dog will forget.

What is the scientific evidence that such connections cannot be made by canine minds?

What we're talking about in this discussion is short-term associative memory. The anatomy of dogs' brains shows us that they have very little capability of it. The neural connections necessary for such complex thoughts simply aren't there. For a dog to connect a behavior with a consequence, the result must be immediate and they'll likely need several repetitions before the lesson sinks in.

My dogs love to rip apart stuffed toys. I gotta watch them, though, because they'll sometimes eat bits of the cloth or some of the stuffing. Then they'll puke all over the rug. If they had the ability for short-term associative memory, you would think they would realize, "Every time I eat this, I get sick." No-- they don't have that ability. To them, the sickness has nothing to do with something that happened hours ago. If they have a memory of ripping up the toy, it's a vague, foggy one at best and of no particular significance.

Now, if I corrected them every time I saw them eating a bit of cloth or stuffing, after a while, they would catch on that the action was forbidden, but I would have to be consistant, or the lesson would take a lot longer to sink in.

[Jackmannii]

The dog in the OP gets bored when the pack leader is away.

Digging into garbage is fun. Even if there is nothing strictly edible (by human standards) there are nifty things to chew on and tear up. It is a smorgasbord of good times.

Find a way to block off the garbage. Berating the dog is almost certain to be futile. Buy it some more toys to play with.


Anecdotal evidence though it be, I am certain that dogs feel guilt and other "human" emotions they're not supposed to have, even if it's not anywhere near as complex as a human struggling with his/her conscience over a major dilemma. Dogs have lousy impulse control when it comes to temptation. They'll tip over and rummage through the garbage or steal food off your plate. Hearing you come into the room or through the door likely triggers realization that the Pack Leader Will Be Pissed. Thus, the hiding or cowering, even before it picks up your "cues".

One of my two dogs (a Lab) has been known to alert us by barking when the other dog gets into the trash or does another favorite nasty by grabbing the end of the toilet paper roll and unfurling it through the house. Am I anthropomorphizing by interpreting this behavior as tattling? :D

[lissener]

Lissa, search these boards for evidence of how strongly I agree with you, in general.

However.

Over enough time, and enough repetitions, some dogs are indeed capable of putting not just two and two together, but two and two and two. I have trained many, many dogs, and have owned quite a few myself. Some are obviously smarter than others. The smartest dog I ever knew, my dog 99, eventually became perfectly capable of doing just what the OP has observed in his/her own dog. 99 times out of a hundred, when I came home, 99 would greet me joyously. Every once in a while, though, I'd come home to a quieter greeting, or none at all, and would look around the house to find her curled up in her bed, looking at me with sad eyes, and broadcasting "guilt" on all channels. On those occasions, all I'd have to do was look around the house, and I'd find a garbage can tumped or a turd dumped or a book or a pillow chewed. The correlation was 100% consistent: she only acted that way--in a manner that could easily be anthropomorphized as "guilt"--when she had done something that she knew she was gonna get yelled at for.

I don't remember how old she was when she'd experienced the relatively abstracted cause and effect of these situations enough time to be conditioned to know that, if I came home to a house that contained a shredded book or a rifled garbage can, she was gonna hear about it. But the repetition was eventually sufficient to overcome the abstractness.

[commasense]

I am fifty years old and have lived in the United States of America my entire life.

I am pretty well read (if I do say so myself), and am a writer and editor by profession.

AFAIK, I had never heard or seen the word "tump" before 8:15 on 9/14/06.

I assumed it was a typo for "dump."

As someone once said, to my extreme mortification, I grow wiser every day.

[yBeayf]

Just to continue the hijack, I'm from Texas and all my life I've used the word "tump" to mean tipping over something such that the contents of whatever was tipped over fall out (as the word implies -- it's a combination of "tip" and "dump"). It also implies that the contents are solid, for some reason -- I would say a trash can was tumped over, but not a bucket of water.

[whole bean]

I popped into this thread only to discuss that word. I've had the impression for quite a while that "tump" is slang regional to Texas. Are you in Texas?

Most of the time when I hear it, it's referring to upsetting something floating on water. You're sitting on an air matress in the pool, and your kids tump you over. In my estimation, most people in Texas would use the word "tump" in this situation.

So are you in Texas?
Alabamian by birth Georgia resident here chiming in to say that it is not specific to Texas. I have said for as long as I can remember. I think of it as somewhere between tip and dump -- tump.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

"Tump over" is American slang (at least in my part of America) for "tip over."
What is your part of America, if you don't mind my asking? I've never heard that either, and I'm curious.

[lissener]

What is your part of America, if you don't mind my asking? I've never heard that either, and I'm curious.
I too am a person obsessed with words. I read a LOT. I write a lot. I have worked as an editor, as a proofreader, and as a factchecker. I was born in Texas.

And I have never, ever heard that word before this thread.

[The Eater in the Round]

I've used tump my entire life, I use it far more often than saying tipped. I can't imagine saying, he tipped over the trash, for instance, it doesen't sound right. It must be tumped. The difference in my mind comes down to the size and sturdiness of the thing being pushed over, with smaller and more delicate things being tipped and large and heavier items being tumped. I was born and raised in Texas.

[StinkyBurrito]

Not to hijack the hijack but my dog ate ANOTHER slab of rib bones today after 'tumping' over the trash. I'm an idiot and forgot to secure it this morning. I really hope he pukes it up as it could be life threatening if he doesn't. He eats the bones whole or close to it.
:(

Also, so far 'tump' seems to be a southern word.

[groman]

Dogs simply don't have the brain power to connect an incident earlier in the day with an incident happening now.

That is a mostly unfalsifiable claim and does not belong in GQ. You can only form hypothesis as to what dogs DO have the brain power to do, not what they cannot. Just like there is no true statement to the effect of "Humans simply do not have the brain power to _________". I'm sorry, but things like that just grate me, you cannot use behavioral observation alone to make a generalized claim like that - it's somewhat akin to claiming foreigners simply do not have the brain power to speak English because you have not observed some foreigners doing so.

[Lissa]

That is a mostly unfalsifiable claim and does not belong in GQ. You can only form hypothesis as to what dogs DO have the brain power to do, not what they cannot. Just like there is no true statement to the effect of "Humans simply do not have the brain power to _________". I'm sorry, but things like that just grate me, you cannot use behavioral observation alone to make a generalized claim like that - it's somewhat akin to claiming foreigners simply do not have the brain power to speak English because you have not observed some foreigners doing so.

My statement was not based on assumptions gleaned from observing dog behavior. It was based on research I have seen done by scientists who were looking at the neural connections in dogs' brains. The areas which control short-term associative memory are very weak.

[groman]

My statement was not based on assumptions gleaned from observing dog behavior. It was based on research I have seen done by scientists who were looking at the neural connections in dogs' brains. The areas which control short-term associative memory are very weak.

My statement was based on mathematical analysis of abstract neural networks and the result that between two networks, if analyzed as approximations of the same f(), the entropy, complexity, size and node speed cannot be correlated to accuracy at approximation of f() without referncing specific properties of f(). Assuming a mammalian brain, f() is by definition non-deterministic, and the only lower limit that is put on the neural system is that it must have entropy greater than the observed data set for that individual. The practical ramifications of that is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that given two similar neural sections in two networks that seem to roughly calculate the same subcomponent in the approximation of f(), that their size in any way correlates with their accuracy or speed.

In simple terms, measuring brain size, complexity and activity only works until it doesn't, and then it doesn't. I recommend this book (http://www.amazon.com/Neural-Networks-Pattern-Recognition-Christopher/dp/0198538642/sr=8-4/qid=1158420058/ref=pd_bbs_4/104-3785879-8562362?ie=UTF8&s=books) as a good primer on the subject. Specifically the sections about Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimensions and feature extraction. Bishop does not really talk about any ramifications outside of artificial neural network theory since it's just a computation model and is not meant to be representative of a biological model, which has significantly more complexity per node and significantly larger sizes than possible for practical network analysis.

[robcaro]

"Tump over" is American slang (at least in my part of America) for "tip over."
I have lived in: South Dakota, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida, Utah and Colorado. I have never heard of this American slang.

[Lissa]

My statement was based on mathematical analysis of abstract neural networks and the result that between two networks, if analyzed as approximations of the same f(), the entropy, complexity, size and node speed cannot be correlated to accuracy at approximation of f() without referncing specific properties of f(). Assuming a mammalian brain, f() is by definition non-deterministic, and the only lower limit that is put on the neural system is that it must have entropy greater than the observed data set for that individual. The practical ramifications of that is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that given two similar neural sections in two networks that seem to roughly calculate the same subcomponent in the approximation of f(), that their size in any way correlates with their accuracy or speed.

I do see your point. Size doesn't necessarily matter. My brain, size-wize is smaller than my husband's but I think even he would admit I'm smarter than he is. ;)

However, I think it's a safe bet to say that the statement: "Birds can't do calculus" is true. Why? Their brains are not "wired" for it and no scientist has ever observed a bird doing calculus.

Likewise, the combination of (1)the "wiring" in a dog's brain and (2) that the experiments done to study dog behavior have shown a poor ability in short-term associative memory and (3) that dogs lack the same moral sense as humans make it a pretty safe bet to say that they are not displaying "guilt."

[Chronos]

Well, ask yourself how many times the dog has "acted funny" and you discovered there was nothing wrong? You may not even really remember such instances because they don't stick out in your mind, but you would remember the times when "acting funny" had a reason.That would be... Let me see here... Zero? Selective memory would only work here if "the dog's acting funny for no particular reason" was unremarkable. But "dog acting funny" is so often correlated with "dog did something bad while humans were gone" that in fact, "dog acting funny for no particular reason" would be grounds for at least a few days of sporadic discussion: "Say, did you notice the dog's been acting funny lately? Do you think there might be something wrong?".

And you can say that dogs inherently can't feel guilt. But they feel something, which manifests in the same behaviours a human would manifest if feeling guilty, and under the same circumstances under which a human would feel guilty. Occam's Razor tells me what I'll call that phenomenon.

[Lissa]

That would be... Let me see here... Zero? Selective memory would only work here if "the dog's acting funny for no particular reason" was unremarkable. But "dog acting funny" is so often correlated with "dog did something bad while humans were gone" that in fact, "dog acting funny for no particular reason" would be grounds for at least a few days of sporadic discussion: "Say, did you notice the dog's been acting funny lately? Do you think there might be something wrong?".

I'll have to take your word for it. I have three dogs and they act weird all the time. You are lucky.

And you can say that dogs inherently can't feel guilt. But they feel something, which manifests in the same behaviours a human would manifest if feeling guilty, and under the same circumstances under which a human would feel guilty. Occam's Razor tells me what I'll call that phenomenon.

In 1994, I saw a UFO. Looking out my bedroom window, I saw something hovering over the field across the road from my house. It was hat-shaped and had two rows of big, square lights that lit up in a counter-clockwise patter. It hovered for a moment, zoomed to a nearby house, hovered there and then shot away at an amazing pace. Never have I seen a picture of a terrestrial aircraft that looked like that.

The simplest explanation would be that I really did see a UFO. It's always simple just to say, "There must be more than meets the eye." But the rational side of me says that a more complex answer is likely the right one: that I had either dreamed it, thinking I was awake, or my sleep-fogged mind misinterpreted what I saw. It could have been a reflection from some far-off lights. And I just could be that I'm lying or exaggerating and I've thought about it so much that I've convinced myself.

My "simple explanation" of my UFO encounter really isn't all that simple, is it? To believe that I actually saw the object I described, you would have to believe in advanced extra-terrestrial life and all explain away all of the logistical problems of space travel. Either that, or you'd have to believe our government is making odd-shaped aircraft that are bizarrely ostentatious and flying them at low altitudes above civilian areas.

Likewise, the "simple" explanation that if it looks like guilt, it is guilt also has complications. First of all, you have to assume that the mapping and study of dog brains has somehow missed complex neural connections, and that dog behavior researchers have somehow failed to notice this phenomenon. Lastly, though certainly not of least importance, you have to give greater credence to anecdotal data than scientific research.

I'm perfectly willing to agree with lissener that there's a reason why a dog might display a behavior that might be interpreted as guilt. If I come home six days in a row and yell at my dog for getting into the trash, yes, she's likely to cower when she sees me walking toward the kitchen because she's been trained by past experience to know what's coming. However, this is conditioning, not guilt. If I just yelled at her for no reason six days in a row, she'd display the same behavior.

She doesn't "feel bad" for getting into the trash. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Trash is not "yucky" to a dog, nor do they understand that it's dangerous. The only thing keeping them from pigging out every time you throw something away is that you're conditioned the dog that if they get into that container, you will punish them.

Guilt is actually a complex social construct. You feel guilty when you do actions which violate your society's norms because you were taught to feel guilty. A human infant has no guilt-- it will cheerfully pull its mother's hair or urinate on her. It isn't until around age two that children start understanding that others have thoughts and feelings, too. They learn to see their actions through the eyes of others ("How would you feel if Jimmy pinched your arm?") Some people actually miss this crucial stage and so as adults, they don't feel guilt. No matter how horrible others view their actions, they have no sense of shame over what they did. They were never taught to feel that way.

So, is it really the simplest explanation to say if it looks like guilt, it must be guilt? Given that you have to assume that they actually do have the brain-power when everything I've read suggests otherwise and that they're somehow acquiring human moral values with which to judge their actions, I'd say it's actually more complex than saying that the behavior likely has other explanations.

[MaddyStrut]

I've had to put those kiddie locks on all my cupboards containing trash cans (and the one where I keep the dog food). My dogs are pretty well behaved, but I came home too many times to find evidence that a doggie trash party had occurred.

And, yes, they always acted very suspiciously when I came home before I realized what had happend. I've also read 1000 times that "dogs can't feel guilt." My theory is that they may not feel guilty or even remember that they were responsible for knocking the trash all over, however, they probably do know that trash all over = very upset human! So, when I walk through the door, they know there's trash all over, they know I'm going to discover it, and they act accordingly.

[Jackmannii]

The idea of guilt as a "complex social construct" in humans can be exaggerated.

Frequently human guilt seems to take the form of "I screwed up, I'm gonna be punished/someone's gonna be mad at me". Complex deliberations with one's conscience are often absent.

The resemblance to dog guilt is striking.

My dog takes great pleasure in catching Identifiable Flying Objects and manifests excitement when she sees me take them out of the drawer. Or at least that's the hypothesis I entertain in lieu of large-scale controlled experiments. :D

[Renee]

Lissa, I too, usually agree with you, but do you have a cite for the studies on dog neurology and the behavior studies? I have always been under the impression that brains were extremely complex things that we don't fully understand, and that we don't know exactly what parts of the human brain are responsible for all the functions/feelings, but I haven't looked into it in a few years. If our knowledge of the human brain is limited, I doubt more research has gone into mapping the canine brain.

I'm perfectly willing to agree with lissener that there's a reason why a dog might display a behavior that might be interpreted as guilt. If I come home six days in a row and yell at my dog for getting into the trash, yes, she's likely to cower when she sees me walking toward the kitchen because she's been trained by past experience to know what's coming. However, this is conditioning, not guilt. If I just yelled at her for no reason six days in a row, she'd display the same behavior

You're misinterpreting what were saying here. In my case, maybe 6 times a year I would come home to completely, totally different behavior from my dog. Night and day. Every other time I came home, regardless of my mood (my dogs never cared what kind of mood I was in, they wanted to play whether I'd had a bad day or not) dogs were thrilled to see me. On the rare occasion that something had "happened" while I was away, the behavior was completely different. If my dogs were acting guilty (again, I don't equate this with human guilt, more like "I'm gonna get in trouble" behavior) and I didn't find anything wrong, I would have been very concerned and would have taken them to the vet if it had continued.

Likewise, the "simple" explanation that if it looks like guilt, it is guilt also has complications. First of all, you have to assume that the mapping and study of dog brains has somehow missed complex neural connections, and that dog behavior researchers have somehow failed to notice this phenomenon. Lastly, though certainly not of least importance, you have to give greater credence to anecdotal data than scientific research.

I think we can agree that dog neurology is not a major field of scientific inquiry. If enough people's experiences contradict scientific research, especially if it is something that hasn't been researched all that extensively, I think it's fair to question the conclusions of that research. We aren't questioning evolution or anything here. This isn't a field with thousands of scientists working around the clock.

[Johanna]

I have lived in Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Virginia. I have never heard of the verb "tump" in my life, until now. If it was included in The American Language by H. L. Mencken, I must have missed it. All I knew is that a "tumpline" was a strap across the forehead, used by Indian women to help support loads carried on their backs. From an Algonquian word, mattump. But that carries pretty much the opposite meaning: holding something up instead of capsizing it.

[AWB]

"Tump over" is American slang (at least in my part of America) for "tip over."

Which part of America? I've lived in the east and west and visited the northeast quite a bit, and have never heard "tump over".