There are some aspects of dog training that are incredibly simple. Your dog does something you like, you give her a treat. While this scenario is certainly a building block to a type of training method, knowing a little more about types of conditioning, how each is applied, and the overall effectiveness of each type can be helpful.

Molly Stone, a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant and Certified Dog Trainer and the Animal Behavior Specialist at the SPCA of Wake County, provides more details on operant conditioning, classical conditioning, and counter-conditioning and applies each to real training scenarios you may encounter.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning involves pairing something the dog has control over (especially a behavior we would like him to repeat) with an outcome. For example, your dog sits, and he gets a reward. Boom.

Behavior A simply results in Outcome B.

There are 4 “quadrants” in operant conditioning:
Positive Reinforcement (this one is bold because it is the coolest.)
Negative Reinforcement
Positive Punishment
Negative Punishment

In Behavior Nerd terms, “positive” doesn’t mean “good,” it means the addition of something. “Negative” means the removal of something. This is not always easy to remember. Think of it as if it’s math, rather than a way to describe awesomeness (or lack thereof.) NEGATIVE = MINUS. POSITIVE = PLUS. That’s it!

Reinforcement is something that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated, and punishment is something that decreases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated. (Reinforcement = Paycheck. Punishment = No dessert for a week!) Easy, right?

Positive reinforcement is the addition of something that increases the incidence of a behavior in the future. For example: You go to work, and you get a paycheck. Your paycheck is the positive reinforcement for going to work (which is a behavior your boss would probably like to see you repeat in the future.) Positive reinforcement works like a charm.

Negative reinforcement is more confusing, and it’s trickier to implement. It’s taking something away to increase the incidence of behavior. An example: Torture. The BadGuys have your thumb in a device that twists it slowly. Your bones start to crack. You start offering up State Secrets, and your thumb is released. The next time the BadGuys come into the room, you start sharing information more readily. They stopped hurting you when you did what they wanted, and now you’re probably more likely to do what they want sooner. Your homeland security breaching behavior has been negatively reinforced.

Note: If TORTURE is the best example I can think of to help illustrate negative reinforcement, it’s a safe it should be avoided when training your dog. Negative reinforcement is frequently Not Nice.

Positive punishment is the addition of something to decrease the incidence of a behavior. Common dog training example: Dog jumps to greet owner, owner knees dog in chest. Dog learns to avoid jumping up while greeting his owner.

The problem with positive punishment is that it can sometimes have some pretty significant fallout. For example, if after being kneed in the chest for jumping, the dog in the scenario above decides that people are dangerous and threatening because they hurt him when he greets them, he may become defensive and unpleasant to be around. That’s a much bigger problem for most owners than an impolite greeting. Positive punishment should be avoided when training your dog.

Negative punishment is taking something away to decrease the incidence of a behavior. Easy example: Dog jumps on owner, owner abruptly leaves. Dog learns that jumping causes the opposite of what he’s after (attention.) Dog decides it’s in his best interest to keep his feet on the ground.

Negative punishment generally doesn’t rely on pain or fear to cause learning so it’s preferable to positive punishment by a long shot. Still, it can sometimes cause our learners to become frustrated, and it can also take some time and patience to implement.

Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning involves your dog’s emotional response to a particular stimulus. For example, when your dog was very small, the sight of a leash meant nothing to her because it was not associated with anything she knew. Over time, the leash began to predict her fun walks with you and an emotional response grew, also known as a conditioned emotional response (CER). Your dog now associates her leash in a positive manner because it predicts the walk, so you see a happy dance from her before each time you reach for the leash. CERs can be joyous or–Unjoyous–since dogs basically think of things as either Safe and Fabulous or Scary and Dangerous. For example, a dog who dislikes his harness may duck and dodge when he sees you carrying it. He associates the harness with unpleasantness so he has learned to feel unhappy when he sees it.

Counter-conditioning

Counter-conditioning is a process used to change your dog’s mind about something he already dislikes. This is most often paired with another process called Desensitization. In that process, your dog is exposed to the thing that he dislikes at very small intensities, building up to full-blown exposure at some point down the road. The dog mentioned above with the harness issue may be slowly introduced to the harness–first on the ground, getting a treat each time he looks at it and gradually moving up to being able to hold it over his head and ultimately having him wear it. We are attempting to change his emotional response to the harness while making sure the way we’re exposing him to it is gradual enough that his old feelings of angst don’t resurface and cloud his learning process. This is known as “working below threshold” and it’s super-crazy important.

To learn more about how these scenarios can be used to help your dog, consult with a professional dog trainer.

Molly Stone
Association of Animal Behavior Professionals Certified Dog Behavior Consultant/Certified Dog Trainer (AABP-CDBC/CDT)
International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants-Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (IAABC-CDBC)
Animal Behavior Specialist, SPCA of Wake County
www.spcawake.org

Follow the SPCA of Wake County on Facebook, Twitter @spcawake and Instagram @spcaofwakecounty. Contact Molly at mstone@spcawake.org or 919-532-2096.