Decoding Problem Behaviors
Aggression Towards Guests
Perhaps I've already ‘established dominance’ over my pig… unfortunately, I have possibly been reinforcing unwanted behaviors and also confirming to this pig that people are unpredictable and indeed scary! Now I say to myself, “well, my pig respects me because I’m top pig in this house. But he bites other people because they haven’t established dominance over him.” Well, no, not exactly… my pig has simply learned that with me specifically, if he backs away when I'm threatening him, it usually gets the threatening behavior to stop (that is, assuming that I have used dominance theory and actually seen a decrease in aggression. Sometimes I might not see good results but am told that I must not be doing it right or aren't convincing enough as 'top pig' and so I may continue using the method even without seeing results). But even if it's worked for me specifically; backing down when he's cornered is not the pig’s instinctual behavior when he feels threatened. So now if other people approach my pig, the pig reacts fearfully by snapping or biting. This pig is not engaged in a dominance fight with your mother-in-law or rowdy teenage nephew. He likely does not perceive them as a threat to his resources (remember: dominance is a relative position between two animals of the same species where one animal has priority access to MULTIPLE resources). He is simply lashing out because he is fearful, and my continual reinforcement of those behaviors through the use of dominance theory only exacerbates the situation.
Pigs and other prey animals rely on generalization as a way of avoiding potentially dangerous situations. In the blog post, Generalization Behavior of Pigs, I review a study that investigates this phenomenon. In this study (Hemsworth et. al.,1994), researchers found that "in situations in which pigs are briefly handled by one of two stockpersons in a predominantly negative manner or in which pigs are briefly handled by stockpersons who differ markedly in the nature of their behaviour towards pigs, pigs are likely to exhibit stimulus generalization as measured by their behavioural responses to humans." In other words, pigs learn to associate rough handling from their specific handler, and subsequently responded to any humans in the same manner, by practicing avoidance, fearful or defensive behaviors. If I use aversive methods with my pig, this pig may associate that with all people, which may lead to a pig that is aggressive and who reacts with an "ask questions later" attitude when a new person approaches them.
Often in conjunction with this, is my accidental reinforcement of bad behaviors. If my pig is feeling nervous when a guest approaches him and I scold the pig and put him outside, I have simply used reinforcement those behaviors and have essentially told the pig that he was right to be fearful. More significantly, while I might perceive putting the pig outside or in 'timeout' as a punishment, the pig will very quickly get the OPPOSITE message; that biting and snapping gets him moved away from the scary people! The pig will be even quicker next time to bite and snap at strangers so he will be moved away from them! See Pigs don't care much for real estate... for more information.
Pigs and other prey animals rely on generalization as a way of avoiding potentially dangerous situations. In the blog post, Generalization Behavior of Pigs, I review a study that investigates this phenomenon. In this study (Hemsworth et. al.,1994), researchers found that "in situations in which pigs are briefly handled by one of two stockpersons in a predominantly negative manner or in which pigs are briefly handled by stockpersons who differ markedly in the nature of their behaviour towards pigs, pigs are likely to exhibit stimulus generalization as measured by their behavioural responses to humans." In other words, pigs learn to associate rough handling from their specific handler, and subsequently responded to any humans in the same manner, by practicing avoidance, fearful or defensive behaviors. If I use aversive methods with my pig, this pig may associate that with all people, which may lead to a pig that is aggressive and who reacts with an "ask questions later" attitude when a new person approaches them.
Often in conjunction with this, is my accidental reinforcement of bad behaviors. If my pig is feeling nervous when a guest approaches him and I scold the pig and put him outside, I have simply used reinforcement those behaviors and have essentially told the pig that he was right to be fearful. More significantly, while I might perceive putting the pig outside or in 'timeout' as a punishment, the pig will very quickly get the OPPOSITE message; that biting and snapping gets him moved away from the scary people! The pig will be even quicker next time to bite and snap at strangers so he will be moved away from them! See Pigs don't care much for real estate... for more information.