HOW DOGS LEARN UNDERSTANDING OPERANT CONDITIONING Operant conditioning defines how consequences influence behavior. Once you understand how operant conditioning works, you may be in a better position to decide for yourself which training methods are most likely to work for you and your dog. Reinforcement and Punishment When you reinforce a behavior, you increase the likelihood of the behavior occurring. When you punish a behavior, you decrease the likelihood of the behavior occurring. Positive and Negative We tend to think of “positive” as good and “negative” as bad. In the context of operant conditioning, however, positive means applying or giving something and negative means withdrawing or withholding something. This is an important point to keep in mind in trying to understand what these types of conditioning are and how they work. R+ Positive Reinforcement Positive reinforcement rewards a behavior by giving something pleasant. For example, you ask the dog to sit, the dog sits, you give him something he likes or enjoys. What you give him is not set in stone; it could be a treat, a pet, a “good boy,” or a game of fetch. If you give a dog a reward for sitting when told to, it becomes more likely he will repeat the behavior, or, sit again. If, your wife tells you how good you smell wearing that cologne, you are more likely to wear that cologne again. R- Negative Reinforcement Negative reinforcement increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated, because when the correct behavior was performed, something unpleasant was removed. One way to think of this is engaging in the correct behavior as an effort to escape or avoid the unpleasant consequence. P+ Positive Punishment Positive punishment decreases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated. Again, in this context “positive” does not mean something pleasant or nice, it means that you are applying a punishment. Here, an “incorrect” response produces an unpleasant or aversive consequence. P- Negative Punishment With negative punishment, a reward is removed or withheld. One of the most common uses of negative punishment, with both dogs and children, is the “time-out”. The child or dog misbehaves, and attention is withdrawn. Something good, attention, has been removed as a consequence of the bad behavior. Thus, the bad behavior is less likely to occur. If you ask the dog to sit and the dog lays down, you withhold the reward. In order for any of these approaches to be effective, the consequence must be delivered immediately (no more than 2 seconds), andconsistently. Where most dog owners go wrong is delivering the reward or the punishment too late or inconsistently (ie, letting the dog pull on leash into the dog park, but punishing the dog for pulling on walks). This is why it is beneficial to work with a professional trainer, who will work on improving your training skills and timing so you can avoid common mistakes. 4PAWS UNIVERSITYS METHODS Our training methods focus on positive reinforcement and negative punishment. We teach new behaviors through luring, capturing and shaping, rather than using force or fear. This is paired with careful management of the dogs environment to prevent unwanted behaviors from developing during the training process. For dogs that are already exhibiting problem behaviors, such as aggression, punishment-based methods are only temporarily effective, as they do not improve the dogs association to the people or dogs that trigger the aggressive behavior. Positive reinforcement, when part of a behavior modification plan, does change the dogs association. Heres a great video that shows the incredible changes positive reinforcement methods produces in a dog that had previously been very aggressive when the owner attempted to trim his nails: CONCLUSION If you are not comfortable with the methods and equipment used by the trainer, and are not willing to use them yourself, you will not follow through with your dog’s training and will not be successful. For you to train your dog successfully, you must implement the training yourself and be consistent. The laws of learning, like the laws of gravity, are always in effect. We as trainers just have to learn to use them effectively.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 08:18:56 +0000
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