A thorough understanding of Classical Conditioning can make or break your training.
Here you’ll learn why the training of static commands, or those that require a dog to hold an unmoving position like the sit, the drop or the stay, and the training of the dynamic commands like the recall, the fetch and the heel should be approached very differently.
This is one of those subjects where I’m going to use human examples at the risk of anthropomorphising dogs. I think the risk is worthwhile though because I found that if I could isolate instances of classical conditioning in my own experiences, then I could better understand the implications and impacts on training.
So what is Classical Conditioning? It may help in understanding to say what it isn’t. Most people who have anything to do with dogs know about Operant, or as it is sometimes referred to Instrumental Conditioning – that is how the outward or visible forms of behaviour are influence through the Motivation Matrix (I’ll cover this in another article). Classical Conditioning is about how associations are made between different stimuli and it’s primary impact is on feelings, emotions, involuntary reactions and biological processes. These do still influence a behaviour, but they do not necessarily control a behaviour.
“At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou.
The above quote is basically referring to Classical Conditioning, to me at least, and speaks to it’s potential to strongly influence behaviour.
Historical literature on Classical Conditioning gives us two major examples.
First there is the story of Pavlov and his dogs. First up, Pavlov took note that the dogs that he was studying started to salivate when their food was being prepared. They salivated because seeing their food being prepared, after a number of repetitions, could reliably predict for the dogs that food was on it’s way. This reliability of prediction impacted their feelings in that they became excited in anticipation of the food arriving, their biological processes and involuntary reaction in that they salivated.
There is an important distinction to make here between humans and dogs. Dogs are very in the moment, and unlike us they can’t just think of something and make themselves salivate like we can. For example, if I say ‘imagine that you are sucking on a very juicy lemon’, there would be very few readers who wouldn’t start to salivate at the thought alone!
Dogs generally cannot use their imagination to make themselves salivate – it’s an involuntary reaction to them. They either have to be presented with something that will make them salivate or be exposed to a Classically Conditioned trigger.
In the case of Pavlov’s dogs the Classically Conditioned trigger used was the ringing of a bell. In ordinary circumstances, the sound of a bell ringing would not have any meaning to a dog. It would be termed a ‘Neutral Stimulus’. However, when Pavlov paired the sound of the ringing bell with the delivery of food, the sound of the bell started to reliably predict for the dogs that food was on it’s way. Now the sound of the bell produced the same result in the dogs that food preparation had in the past. Hence Pavlov could make his dogs salivate and get excited in anticipation of food by ringing a bell. The bell had now become a ‘Conditioned Stimulus.
The second historical example is in the experiment conducted by Watson in regards to his theory about fear responses. Watson worked with a little boy called Albert. Albert liked white rabbits and Watson let him pat them. Then Watson made a loud crashing noise behind Albert whenever he was patting the rabbit. Soon enough, Albert learned to fear the rabbit because it reliably predicted the loud crashing noise which frightened him. Basically, the way that Albert reacted to the rabbit had been changed by pairing the presentation of the rabbit – or something that he liked – with something that he didn’t like.
Later Alberts fear of the rabbit was reversed. Watson gave Albert bowls of ice cream, which he liked, and started reintroducing the rabbit while Albert was eating the ice cream.
The upshot of both stories is that classical conditioning, through the associations we build, can explain why we might place a high value on something that has little inherent value, like the sound of the bell OR it can change the values we place on different things from positive to negative and vice versa.
Here’s an example from my own past.
When I was about 5 years old, my mother decided to crochet a dress each for me and my sister in a very pretty shade of pink. I really liked the shade of pink back then and was excited at the prospect of having a pretty dress. My mother made my sisters dress first and people would comment on how pretty she looked in it. I was keen for my dress to be made, but when I asked my mother about it, she said “No, it wouldn’t suit you”. I was devastated, it’s really hard to imagine now why I would be so concerned about a pink dress because I no longer like the colour!
My mother was correct though. I mean a crocheted dress really isn’t appropriate attire for a girl like me who liked climbing and had skinned knees more often than not, and probably also had grass and leaves in her hair from all the outside stuff I did – a dress like that would be far too delicate.
Despite the fact that my parents otherwise treated us fairly equally, a few Christmases later, my sister got a toy in that same shade of pink! I was hurt and angry – it wasn’t that I wanted that particular toy, my reaction was set off by the colour pink! In other words, the colour pink set off a reaction that was based in an old memory and I was feeling hurt and angry.
It’s also curious to note that my sisters favourite colour is pink to this day! Her conditioning around the colour was very different to mine.
So how does all of this impact training a dog?
The obvious answer is that you need to make sure that obeying you is a pleasant experience for the dog. But also, the foundational conditioning needs to be appropriate for the particular exercise that you are training. Many people use excitement to engage their dogs in training, but an overly excited dog will have more difficulty staying still in sits, drops and stands because these require the dog to be relaxed and calm, yet focused on you.
An excited attitude may be more appropriate for a recall, a fetch or a heel.
Things can go wrong in many ways when the classical conditioning is not congruent with the command you’re giving your dog.
For example, lets say you have been training your dog to come to you and he has been doing really well and you reward him. One day, you catch him doing something naughty and you yell at him. He doesn’t like being yelled at, so he stops what he is doing and starts coming to you. He associates coming to you with good things – but you continue to yell at him because you’re frustrated. Now you have introduced something he doesn’t like with coming to you.
Remember that dogs are very in the moment, so as far as he’s concerned, he has stopped doing the behaviour that you’re yelling at him for – now you’re yelling at him for coming to you! This, if repeated often enough, can have a negative impact on the speed and enthusiasm he displays when you call him.
Cross conditioning like this can create a lot of confusion in the dogs mind and he can start to doubt what he can reliably predict. When that happens your training and the dogs ability to be obedient can suffer.
After all, we know with people that they do a task much better if they enjoy it and have positive associations with it. If they don’t enjoy it or have negative associations with the task, they may still do the task but they may do a sloppy job, miss details or do it slowly. The same is true of dogs!
IT IS WHAT IT IS TO THE DOG!
Dogs, like people, have a great range of differences in genetic temperament. Therefore it’s best to choose training and conditioning styles and elements that are suitable for the particular dog rather than assuming a one style fits all approach. An engaged dog can learn fairly quickly if the elements of conditioning are well chosen. As one of my lecturers at the National Dog Training Foundation stated "The dog chooses his own rewards and punishers" and what he chooses is based in his own blend of genetic temperament and balance of instinctive drives.
Ahhh! The wisdom of working with nature rather than against it!