OPERANT CONDITIONING

UNDERSTANDING POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

If you have a dog, the chances are you’ve heard of positive reinforcement — a training technique that relies on rewarding your dog when he offers you the desired behaviour.

The idea centres around making the right associations in your dog’s mind. If, for instance, your dog barks whenever you have visitors and you give him a tasty treat to try to keep him quiet, he’s going to bark every time someone comes over. If, on the other hand, he associates sitting quietly with getting a treat, he’s more likely to remain quiet and avoid barking. This kind of positive reinforcement training falls under the umbrella of operant conditioning.

OPERANT CONDITIONING EXPLAINED

You might have heard of Pavlov and his dogs — he rang a bell every time he fed them, and over time they associated the sound of the bell ringing with food, to the point that they began to salivate when they heard the bell, whether there was food around or not. This is known as classical conditioning.

Operant conditioning takes it a step further, and instead of honing a natural or automatic response — like salivating when there’s food around — you’re going to add or remove something from your dog’s environment to create a good or bad association with a specific behaviour. In other words, with operant conditioning, consequences shape behaviours.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

Operant conditioning doesn’t use the terms positive and negative to mean good or bad. Instead, these terms are more mathematical — adding something or taking it away. Positive means adding something to the circumstance, like a treat, and negative means taking something away, like a toy.

The next two pillars revolve around whether the training increases or decreases the frequency of the behaviour you’re working with. ‘Reinforcement’ makes the behaviour more likely, whereas ‘punishment’ is meant to decrease the behaviour in question.

Combining these pairs of pillars creates the four pillars of operant conditioning, which look like this:

• Positive reinforcement: This is the quadrant you should focus your dog’s training in. With positive reinforcement, you’re going to add something desirable to increase the frequency of your dog’s good behaviour. Give your dog something he loves, like treats and praise, when he does what you’re asking, and the chances are he’ll do it again to receive the same treatment.

• Positive punishment: Remember, ‘positive’ in scientific terms means to add something. So, positive punishment is adding something to the equation to decrease a behaviour, like a smack. This should not form part of your dog’s training.

• Negative reinforcement: Negative means to take something away, and reinforcement means to encourage a behaviour, so negative reinforcement means removing something unpleasant from your dog’s environment to encourage him to repeat a behaviour. One example would be removing the pressure on a lead when the dog walks alongside you. This quadrant also has little place in animal training.

• Negative punishment: Negative punishment is the second tool in your dog training arsenal. In this quadrant, you remove something your dog likes, like a toy or attention, to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour.

HERE IS ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW THE OPERANT CONDITIONING QUADRANTS WOULD APPLY TO A SCENARIO IN THE HOME: EXAMPLE - DIGGING IN THE FLOWER BEDS

Digging is a common challenge, especially with certain breeds like Dachshunds and Labradors. Using the operant conditioning approach, you could correct the behaviour in the following ways:

• Positive reinforcement: Give him a treat or a toy when you call him away from the flower beds, and he listens.

• Positive punishment: Give him a smack when he digs in the flower beds. This should not be done.

• Negative reinforcement: Remove pressure on your dog’s lead when he stops digging in he flower bed (negative reinforcement).

• Negative punishment: Withhold your attention when he is digging in the flower beds.

Using pillars one and four, you can successfully train your dog not to dig up the flowers simply by making him feel good when he doesn’t and ignoring him when he does. This method may take a little longer but is considerably more humane than physical punishments and pressure release.

SHAPING YOUR DOG’S BEHAVIOUR

As you can then see, operant conditioning is useful beyond simple obedience training. You can use this method to correct unwanted behaviours in your home or even teach complex tricks!

Tips and tricks for shaping behaviour

Creating a strong bond with your dog is about working with him on his level. Dogs don’t follow the same social rules as we do; they have to be taught. Without human intervention, a dog has no idea that snatching food off the dining room table or lifting his leg on all the curtains is a bad idea.

If you have a specific behaviour you’d like to change, keep the following tips and tricks in mind:

• Find the why: Before you can deal with a behaviour, you must understand the cause. If you can identify why your dog is behaving in a certain way and understand it from the dog’s point of view, you can start to correct it in a positive way.

• Learn to communicate clearly: Your dog must also understand what you want. Although he can respond to learned commands, he doesn’t speak your language, so you have to find a way to communicate so that you both understand the goal.

• Motivate your dog: What does your dog love most? It could be treats or toys, or physical attention. You can use all the things your dog enjoys as part of your training.

• Be kind: Putting your dog under physical or mental pressure will result in him working from a state of fear or confusion, which is not a kind or effective way to encourage the behaviours you want. Never hit, yank or scream at him.

• Go slowly: Rushing your dog to understand a strange concept just puts him under pressure. Take your time.

• Be consistent: Everyone in your home must be on the same page when training your dog. You must all be familiar with the rewards and how to handle unwanted behaviour when it arises.

• Consult a qualified behaviourist: Behaviourists are familiar with operant conditioning and adept at identifying the root cause of behavioural challenges and suggesting ways to manage them. Behaviourists are particularly important for managing aggression, anxiety and reactive behaviours.

FINAL THOUGHTS

As the saying goes, many roads lead to Rome. Trial and error have taught us that the kindest and most effective way to train your dog is a combination if positive reinforcement and negative punishment. As dog owners, it’s our responsibility to integrate them into our world so that they understand what they’re allowed — and not allowed — to do. This requires training with these two quadrants of the operant conditioning model.

Be patient and take your time, and you’ll have a good dog who understand the rules in the long term.