Classical & Operant Conditioning

A Basic Understanding of How Dogs Learn

Here’s a quick run-down of the basic elements envolved in how dogs learn; classical conditioning, operant conditioning, motivation, and basic needs. 

Classical Conditioning

Discovered by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. A learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired. A response which is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. This is the first step in clicker/marker training; before you can start clicking your dog for the behaviors that you want, you have to teach your dog that the clicker means “a treat is coming”.

Operant Conditioning

Discovered by American psychologist B.F. Skinner. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through reward and punishment for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a consequence (consequence can either be a reward or punishment). Let’s also be very clear that the word punishment does not include animal abuse. We are never hitting, kicking, screaming, etc at the dog. Scientifically speaking, the term “punishment” is used to refer to a stimuli that is added to or taken away from the environment to decrease the likelihood of a behavior from occurring again in the future.? It can include anything as simple as withholding a treat, stepping into the dog’s personal space, taking a toy away, a vocal cue of “no”, adding tension to a leash. All of these are examples of punishments (a stimuli used to decrease the frequency of a behavior).

Motivation

A dog is an animal, it is motivated by a few things in life, we call these “drives”. The two most common drives are food and toy.

Basic Needs

Just like humans dogs have basic needs, think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Dog’s can’t ever reach self actualization, but they have physiological needs (food, air, water), safety needs, and belongingness needs (being a part of a pack).

To break this down very quickly classical and operant conditioning are how animals learn. Their drives and needs are the rewards in the training process.

Teaching a Dog a Behavior

To teach a behavior to a dog you will use classical and operant conditioning. The way we do is through classical conditioning first then we start operant conditioning. The first thing we teach is that the word “Good” or a clicker means food/reward. We call this a marker, in relation to classical conditioning this is the first stimuli. It elicits a physiological response in the dog of happiness, because he’s been fed food and (most) dogs love food. This is the beginning of our communication system.

The marker, “good” = food = happiness.  

Once we have conditioned the dog to understand this we can start working on behaviors and commands such as sit. We lure the dog into a sit and mark the behavior with the word “good”. The dog feels good we feel good! Now we are starting to introduce operant conditioning to the dog, He does a behavior and he gets rewarded! This is positive reinforcement.

Let’s get further into the dog we just taught to sit.  Now I am attempting to get the dog to think on his own and sit without the use of the lure. So I withhold the food until he does. This is negative punishment (removing a stimuli to change a behavior). When he sits, boom! Give a treat, positive reinforcement (adding a stimuli to encourage repeat occurrence of behavior).

Another dog, maybe a little less food motivated. What are we going to do? I’m going apply a bit of leash pressure to encourage the dog to sit. This is positive punishment (adding a stimuli to change the behavior) As soon as he sits I relax the leash Voila! This is negative reinforcement. Give the dog a treat or head scratch or a toy, now we’ve added positive reinforcement (adding a stimuli to encourage the behavior)

This graphic explains the 4 quadrants of operant conditioning and specifically how it is used in dog training.

Remember :

  • Positive and Negative do NOT refer to Good and Bad qualifiers. They are referring to Adding and Subtracting stimuli to the environment (treats, toys, leash pressure, etc)

  • Reinforcement - your goal is to increase the frequency of a desired behavior

  • Punishment - your goal is to decrease the frequency of an unwanted behavior