Grrrr-quack!

Just a humble mixture of things this little tigerduck likes.

[heathens-and-kings]

“I want to speak to a manager,” the middle-aged woman said in her stern I-used-to-be-a-soccer-mom-ten-years-ago voice, looking down at me over the top of her Gucci reading glasses.

A wicked grin split across my face and the gates of Hell opened up behind me, releasing a gust of hot wind that whipped my apron around my body and forced the woman to shield her face. Demons came forth, dancing around in flames with songs of, “She wants to speak to a manager. Did you hear that? She wants to speak to a manager!” before erupting into earsplitting shrieks of laughter, none louder than my own cackling.

I took in the woman’s look of utter horror before my eyes rolled back into my head and I growled,

“I am the manager.”

[owawaaa]

a thing for one of my favorite posts on this site

[thx]

[dogsaremypatronus]

Operant Conditioning in Dog Training

So after reblogging the post earlier discussing negative punishment vs. negative reinforcement, I got 4 or 5 messages asking me to elaborate on the different quadrants and if x tool falls in which quadrant. 

These are the four quadrants:

Positive Punishment

Negative Punishment

Positive Reinforcement

Negative Reinforcement 

Positive doesn’t mean good or bad in this context. Positive in the context of operant conditioning means “to add”. You are adding something. That is all it means. Negative in this context means the exact opposite: you are removing something. Again, these terms cannot be understood in terms of every-day semantics. 

Punishment means you are attempting to stop or discourage a behavior. Reinforcement means you are trying to create or encourage a behavior. 

So here is the breakdown: 

Positive Punishment means you are adding something to stop or discourage a behavior. 

Negative Punishment means you are taking something away to stop or discourage a behavior. 

Positive Reinforcement means you are adding something to encourage or create a behavior. 

Negative Reinforcement means you are taking away something to encourage or create a behavior. 

So when people ask questions like “so is this tool positive punishment or negative reinforcement?” it depends on the context of your use. 

The quadrants in and of itself are mere arbitrary nomenclature that you are supposed to cover in dog training 101 and then move on from there. The tools you use cannot be neatly labeled and put into a corresponding quadrant box. I’m continually surprised at the number of people who don’t think that a head collar can be an aversive tool, or that a reward isn’t always food. 

Even a flat collar can be used as a tool for positive punishment. The tool itself is neutral, just like the quadrants. It is how you apply them that determines whether it is positive punishment or something else. 

So what do these quadrants look like in practice? 

Positive Punishment: Remember, you are adding something to stop a behavior. If my dog is pulling on her leash and I apply a strong force and jerk her backward, I am using positive punishment. If my dog barks at birds and I zap her with an e-collar, or spray her with a garden hose, I am using positive punishment. If I have a prong collar around my dog’s neck and it applies pressure to her when she pulls, I am using positive punishment. 

Negative Reinforcement: Remember, you are taking away something to encourage or create a behavior. If I have prong collar around my dog’s neck and it is applying pressure to her, because she is pulling, and she stops pulling and the pressure is removed, I am using negative reinforcement. Yes, that means that in one single training moment, the prong collar is being used by two quadrants. If I want my dog to sit, and I zap her with an e-collar until she sits, I am using negative reinforcement. 

Positive Reinforcement: Now here is the example, where most R+ trainers lose their minds. I have personally witnessed one person fail their dog trainer exam over this very question, because she could not wrap her around it. If I tell my dog to sit, and she does not move fast enough, and I zap her with the e-collar once to spurn her on, I am using positive reinforcement.Why? I am adding something (the shock) to create or encourage a behavior (the sit). Here is something I want to stress and I cannot stress it enough: positive reinforcement does not equal force free. You should have seen my face when my teacher told me this. My world view was shattered. The most common and popular example of positive reinforcement is to reward a dog for doing a desired behavior by giving them a treat, but it is not the only example. Use of an aversive can be positive punishment or positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement all at the same time, depending on how you are using it. Aversives are a whole different terminological league. 

Negative Punishment: We are removing something, to stop or discourage a behavior, so an example of this is if I am playing with my dog and she is being too rough, so I leave the room or stop playing with her until she plays nice. Every time she plays too rough, I stop, until she eventually stops being so rough. Another example is if I am teaching her to not pull. She wants to keep walking because she wants to sniff that very cool looking butterfly, but I stop walking because she is pulling and I want her to knock it off. In this moment, she wants nothing more than to keep walking, and I am punishing her by not allowing the walk to continue. Once she stops pulling, we keep walking, which is her reward (positive reinforcement). 

The quadrants were never meant to describe a training style, but to explain the four basic ways we can influence canine behavior during training.R+ training has become an accepted term to describe non-aversive trainers, and many popular and famous dog trainers use it in that way, but it’s technically inaccurate. Positive does not mean “good” in the colloquial sense. It simply means “to add”. And even a “positive” tool can be an aversive, depending on the dog. 

On a final note, no training is ever “purely positive” in a (admittedly extremely) technical sense. We all use negative punishment at some point or another, and that is okay. In terms of dog training terminology, negative is a completely arbitrary word used to describe a course of action. 

It is important to understand the quadrants in their entirety, but don’t spend so much time worrying about whether you’re being a positive enough trainer that you neglect perfectly valid training methods to help your dog, or even condemn a method entirely simply because it has the word “negative” or “punishment” in it. 

[oregonforestdog]

Thank you for this post! I love your explanations! Last month I found myself wondering what quadrant the “be a tree” method of loose leash walking falls under:

Positive punishment: dog pulls leash/dog gets enough uncomfortable pressure from the leash and collar/harness/whatever tool/ that he is brought to a stop.

Negative punishment: dog was pulling because he wants to smell a smell/ leash pressure prevents dog from smelling smell

Negative reinforcement: dog stops pulling/uncomfortable leash pressure stops and leash goes slack

Positive reinforcement: dog is now able to smell the smell as a reward for the slack leash

??? The more I think about it the more I’m not sure exactly what it is. I guess maybe that is down to the dog and what the dog finds most motivating or bothersome?

I am also having trouble wrapping my mind around your example above: “If I tell my dog to sit, and she does not move fast enough, and I zap her with the e-collar once to spurn her on, I am using positive reinforcement.Why? I am adding something (the shock) to create or encourage a behavior (the sit).”

Could this also be considered positive punishment? The behavior being punished would be ignoring the command? Maybe this is where my feeble human brain can’t grasp a stim from an ecollar being positively reinforcing. My mind is seriously blown over this example.

[biomedicalephemera]

Canis Jubatus (now Chrysocyon brachyurus) - The Maned Wolf

[Another entry from bird and moon’s comic.]

While it might have a mane of sorts, the maned wolf is not a wolf. In fact, it’s not even a fox, even though it might look like a fox on stilts. Speaking of stilts, these guys are the tallest living canid, measuring up to 42 inches (106 cm) at the shoulder! Historically, the maned wolf was placed in the genera Canis and Vulpes (the wolves and foxes, respectively), because of superficial morphological similarities.

However, on further anatomical examination, and later, DNA analysis, the maned wolf was found to be unique in the genus Chrysocyon. There are no known extant or extinct species that come close to the maned wolf, though part of that is almost certainly due to a lack of fossilized remains - there may have been other members of the genus in the Pleistocene and Holocene that have not been found yet.

Currently, one of the most accepted theories on why the maned wolf is so unique is that it just happened to be the sole surviving species of its genus, during the Pleistocene (or Quaternary) extinction. That extinction event snuffed out all the large canids of South America, along with almost ¾ of all the large mammals living at that time. 

The diet of this species may lend a clue as to how it survived the mass extinction: it’s extremely omnivorous. While they search out and eat birds, small mammals, and reptiles, they also eat  berries, leaves, fruits, and tubers, and spread the seeds of many plants. Their diet also lends the maned wolf its nickname - the Skunk Wolf. They produce pyrazines and other musky plant derivatives that they spray about to mark territory. In fact, the smell of the maned wolf enclosure at the Rotterdam Zoo set off a search for marijuana, before they discovered the true source!

Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoologic Society of London. Part III (May-June), 1877.

[tomshardy]

2 FAST 2 FURIOSA

[hipnotycs]

life lessons

// weheartit.com

[imnot-done-yet]

[tiger-duck]

I've just been so sad lately. I use to sing and play around with my boyfriend, but now I don't even want get out of bed. School's not helping either. Teachers don't want to answer emails, give advice or help in any way really. I just keep getting told "it's in your notes" or "you should've paid attention in class". I did pay attention, I promise, but it's still difficult to understand. Maybe I'm not fit for college. But I have too many loans to quit now. Mer. I just don't want to do anything, but lie down, cry, and sleep.

[notyourdaddy]

[glumshoe]

You know you grew up on Steve Irwin when you see a photo of a crocodile and think, “Wow. Just beautiful.”

[oboet]

And you see Stingrays as the devil themselves

[glumshoe]

nah man Steve would have forgiven that stingray and absolved it of its sins

[the-hermits-guidance-blog]

He would have apologized for getting into the stingray’s space and making it afraid. 

[autobotsaboteur-archive-blog]

He actually did! Some of Steve Irwin’s last words were, “it wasn’t his fault. I startled him.”

He actually did forgive the stingray. He knew that he had scared it, and that it was only acting to protect itself.

[zooophagous]

If you put your ear up to a seashell you can hear the sound of mY HEART BREAKING INTO A THOUSAND LITTLE PIECES

[maeaneke]

This is why I get so mad whenever my folks have Animal Planet on lately and it’s all about WHAT ANIMALS ARE GOING TO MURDER YOU IN YOUR FACE? EXOTIC PETS RIP OWNER TO SHREDS! SNAKES! WILL THEY EAT YOU? (YES) Steve Irwin (and at the time at least his contemporary follow-behind Jeff Corwin) ushered in such a pure unbridled LOVE of exotic, ferocious, terrifying animals. He respected the animals so much, he loved them. Yes, crocs would charge and snakes would lunge, but he would respect when the animal deemed its boundaries well crossed and let it go back on its merry reptilian way. This was the Tone for my childhood. My education of wild animals was Steve Irwin talking about how beautiful this deadly crocodile was, how majestic and chill and peaceful coexistence could be. It was Jeff Corwin screaming and yelling at people at the discovery of a snake carcass, killed because of ignorant fear of it. It was harmless, and lost, and scared, and decapitated and he was livid. Why? Why would you do that? It was non-venomous, it didn’t want to be where it was any more than you wanted it to be where it was – why didn’t you call someone to release it? And now it’s just… “Everything is murderous and animals will eat your face and everything is Ruthless Killing Machines” and just. I feel like I’m watching my own father’s work be tainted whenever AP is on. It’s so upsetting.

[nomalifromsoweto]

[the-uncensored-she-deactivated2]

Women should NOT be forced to feed their babies in a bathroom, all because we live in a misogynistic, porn-warped society that’s been brainwashed to believe that female breasts used for anything other than male pleasure is “indecent”. Support public breast feeding and end the porn culture.

[littlezombiekid-blog]

Forever reblog

[the-anti-fandom]

No. I’m eating. I don’t wanna see you hang out your goddamn tits while I have food. My kids don’t wanna see it. It’s not some misogynistic ideal, it’s fucking public indecency. Can I take my cock out under the table and feed my wife/girlfriend? No? Fuck you

[elliegalaxies]

i genuinely cannot believe that you just compared a blowjob to breastfeeding oh my fucking god 

getting a blowjob is a sexual thing and it also does not ‘feed’ anyone whereas breastfeeding is literally not even a sexual thing a baby is having food that they need to live like it’s nowhere near on the same level as getting a blowjob omg

if you are uncomfortable seeing a woman breastfeeding then that is your problem because you have oversexualised breasts so much that you can’t even stand seeing them being used for their actual purpose and also you’re an idiot

go eat your dinner in a public bathroom, you trash bag

[patrickat]

End skeevy dudes who compare whipping out their dick in public to breast feeding 2k15

[ugly-bread]

DO YOU FEED YOUR CHILDREN SEMEN? SHOVE A TRASH CAN UP YOUR ASS

[babiesandbones]

Pediatric anthropology student, here.

1.) Breasts as sexual fetishes is a (largely Western) cultural construction. Yes, it’s a fetish – anything you are sexually attracted to that is not the genitals of an adult is a fetish, or paraphilia. My professors have met non-Westerners who think our men are “like babies” because they are attracted to breasts.

Breasts ≠ genitals. Scientifically, they are considered secondary sexual characteristics – same category as facial hair. They can be sexual in a sexual context, just as necks and feet can be. But their primary purpose is reproductive.

2.) Breastmilk is not a “bodily fluid.” It is FOOD.

It is not categorized by the CDC as a biohazard, and so no you don’t need to freak out if your coworker wants to store her milk right next to your Lunchables.

MOREOVER,

Breastmilk is not just protein and vitamins. It is a living, dynamic substance that BUILDS HUMANS.

It has hundreds of ingredients (<— actually that list needs to be updated because they’ve discovered more already). There is a lab at the University of Washington St. Louis, where they have written all of the ingredients of human milk on the wall – They have run out of room on that wall. Among those ingredients:

The exact ratio of protein-sugars-fats that human infants need (cow’s milk doesn’t even come close)

Antibodies to pathogens in the baby’s environment (synthesized by the mother within hours of coming into contact with a given pathogen) and other immune factors

Stem cells. FUCKING STEM CELLS. (They used glow-in-the-dark mice to find out what they do!)

Hormones (support growth and regulate behavior)

peptides

Self-digesting fats (what the whaaat)

Growth factors

water, vitamins, minerals, carbs, etc.

prolly other awesome shit we don’t even know about yet because we’ve barely scratched the surface of this research!

These ingredients change hour-to-hour according to the baby’s needs. It will even add more water on hot/dry days. Fuck, breastmilk kills cancer in a petri dish. Breastmilk. is. not. a. bodily. fluid. It. is. liquid. gold. 3.) When you tell a woman to go to the bathroom to breastfeed, you are perpetuating the notion that it is dirty and shameful and needs to be hidden away. This idea is the biggest barrier to achieving breastfeeding goals in the United States. Because women feel ashamed, they often stay isolated at home when they should be spending time out and about with friends and family and having, like, a life. This isolation can contribute to postpartum depression. From the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding: Women may find themselves excluded from social interactions when they are breastfeeding because others are reluctant to be in the same room while they breastfeed. For many women, the feeling of embarrassment restricts their activities and is cited as a reason for choosing to feed supplementary formula or to give up breastfeeding altogether. And since we have this culture of shame and privacy surrounding breastfeeding, young girls and women don’t see it enough to learn what is normal/not and how to do it, so they often give up when they run into problems because they don’t realize there’s an easy fix. Moreover, an infant needs to be integrated into society in order to develop properly. He/she needs to see faces and hear voices. Isolating them – or throwing a blanket over their head – takes this important component of their development away. It also often annoys them because they are understimulated. 4.) YOU NEED TO SEE IT. That’s right, YOU. Even if you are a dude. Maybe you aren’t a parent, but you probably have loved ones who are. Or you might become one yourself someday. And if you are American chances are you have no idea how breastfeeding actually works, because you never fucking see it. It’s messy and complicated, and hard. It used to be a part of everyday life, because there weren’t any alternatives – So we learned how to do it by being around it all the time, NBD. The whole sexualization/modesty thing surrounding breasts wasn’t a thing until like the mid-20th century. Check out this 1871 drawing of a woman breastfeeding IN FUCKING CHURCH:

She’s covered head to toe, in accordance with modesty standards of the time – except for her breast, about which the people around her give zero fucks. More from the Surgeon General: In American culture, breasts have often been regarded primarily as sexual objects, while their nurturing function has been downplayed. Although focusing on the sexuality of female breasts is common in the mass media, visual images of breastfeeding are rare, and a mother may never have seen a woman breastfeeding. Mothers need to see it. Future mothers need to see it. Future fathers need to see it. Family members need to see it. Everybody needs to see it. SO THEY FUCKING GET USED TO IT. So, no, I’m not gonna go to the bathroom to feed my kid. If you don’t want to see it, then DON’T. FUCKING. LOOK.

[t-hy-lla]

someone just gave me this

[renegadecupcake]

I need 500 of these.

[art-tension]

The Most Stunning Stained Glass Windows In The World

When stepping into a holy place, our eyes seek the light. If we’re lucky, the light will be shining through a stained glass window, adding illumination and beauty at once. Stained glass windows tell stories, educate and inspire.

Doctor Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the mind behind the theory of the five stages of grief, once wrote:

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.  Source:huffingtonpost

Take in their beauty here:

Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

St. Salvator Cathedral, Bruges, Belgium

Glory Window,’ Chapel of Thanksgiving, Dallas, Texas

La Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France

Reims Cathedral, Reims, France

St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Lavenham, Suffolk, United Kingdom

Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, United Kingdom

Cathedral of Maringá, Maringá, Brazil

Aix Cathedral, Aix-en-Provence, France

[juelzsantanabandana]

Yeah..u could say im a hardened criminal *eats a grape in the grocery store* LIVE BY THE GUN IMMA DIE BY THE GUN FLOCKA!!!!! *police siren.mp3* 💥🔫😤👮🏾🚨🚔

[onlytwitterpics]

[ofvikingpower]

Truth.

[lolfactory]

[bogleech]

Would the chicken be the leader or the violent loose cannon who wants to be the leader but grudgingly knows goat is better suited to the role

[bonelessnerd]

I live on a farm and can confirm-

Goat is leader, tactical genius with a shrewd and cunning intellect but the burden of command weighs heavily on him, he can escape any prison or restrains. He dreams of freeing his people from slavery.

Rooster’s hot-headed nature get him into trouble but his Flaming Spurs fighting-style can almost always get him back out and though he sometimes clashes with his teammates his hard-won friendship is unshakable 

Highlander is just a simple country-girl blessed with immense strength calpable of sending a man flying with the lightest tap, the others must protect her from those who would take advantage of her naivety and innocence

Sheep is the Team Mom and voice of reason, you will never find a more loyal friend. she never hesitates to shield her loved ones from even the fiercest assault with her thick fleece and can draw on the power of her friends in times of great need

Llama is an enigma to even his fellow warriors and wields unusual and mysterious Forbidden Techniques

[postapocalypticflimflam]

Crouching Llama, Gamma Rooster.