How Dogs Learn

Learning theory

Understanding how dogs learn is vital to dog training as you will be able to effectively communicate with your dog and guide him in learning what works and what doesn’t work for us humans. It is well worth taking the time to acquire this fundamental knowledge, as doing so will prevent you from making potentially serious mistakes when training your dog.

So how do dogs learn? Dogs learn primarily through a process of association. They learn very early in life that their behaviour causes consequences they like and those they don’t like. In this respect, the behaviour of dogs will reflect what they’ve experienced.

Operant Conditioning: can be summarized in this way; behaviours are likely to increase when a pleasant consequence happens, and are likely to decrease when an unpleasant consequence happens.

Putting theory to work

Clicker training applies the principles of operant conditioning, you reward desired behaviours you want and you ignore undesired behaviours. You’ll be surprised at how quickly your dogs learns how to earn rewards from you.

Some people have concerns that this kind of training uses bribery to get a dog to do what you want. However this is not what happens. If you gave your dog a food reward first and then expected a desired behaviour to occur, this would be bribery. With operant conditioning your dog is only rewarded after a desirable behaviour occurs. The same applies when using a food treat as a lure to jump start a new behaviour, your dog knows the food is in your closed hand, but he will only be given his reward after he performs a desired behaviour, and the food lure is phased out within a couple of repetitions. With reward based training you are simply paying your dog for a job well done!

Repetition

Repetition is a key factor in successful dog training, repeating behaviours, coupled with reinforcement, helps establish a pattern of learning in a dog. Every new behaviour you train will need to be repeated, re-trained and reinforced (rewarded), in lots of different environments, with different levels of distraction. You should not expect your dog to be reliable or fluent in a behaviour in many environments with varying distractions within a couple of weeks, this would be unrealistic. Dogs typically need many repetitions before a behaviour is reliable, especially when working around distractions. To be realistic you should be looking at 24 months of committed, consistent training, you can then relax and simply maintain good behaviours.

What about unwanted behaviours?

Unwanted behaviour in dogs is either instinctual based or is learned. To a dog there is no such thing as “right” or “wrong” behaviour. Everything they do is just behaviour. An example of an instinctual based behaviour is puppy biting. Pups use their mouths in an instinctual way to learn about their environment. However, for most people puppy biting is an unwanted behaviour. Another example of unwanted behaviour is begging at a table. In this example a dog may learn that sitting near the table when people are eating will gain them food. Once established, this becomes a learned behaviour and will be repeated. The behaviour of begging has been reinforced.

In both cases we can change the behaviour of the dog by removing any source of reinforcement the dog has been receiving as a result of their behaviour. By removing reinforcement, behaviours will diminish. Eventually the dog will learn that reinforcement no longer happens as a result of the unwanted behaviour. This process is called extinction.

What about Punishment?

Some trainers don’t use the term punishment, but rather, the term “correction” to describe how they attempt to reduce unwanted behaviours. They say, “we are correcting” the animal. Correction is a euphemism for punishment. Punishment is the opposite of reinforcement. Simply stated: Behaviours are likely to decrease when an unpleasant consequence happens.

Should punishment be considered when training? After all, aren’t we just “correcting” unwanted behaviour? Before this question can be answered, let’s discuss two terms often misunderstood in today’s world of dog training - the terms are Positive and Negative.

Positive and Negative: Good vs. Bad?

What does Positive and Negative mean in regards to training a dog? I like to ask this question of other trainers just to hear their response. So many misunderstand and misuse them. Many people will say, “Positive means good, and Negative means bad.” In other contexts, good and bad are synonyms for positive and negative. Is this true when we talk about Negative Reinforcement and Positive Punishment? Are we saying there is Bad Reinforcement and Good Punishment?! No, not at all.

When we use these terms in a training context, Positive and Negative are really mathematical terms. Positive means addition and Negative means subtraction. Better stated, Positive means Give To (the dog) and Negative means Take From (the dog). What does all this mean? It can best be understood by looking at the contingency chart below:

	Give To Positive = Addition	Take Away Negative = Subtraction
Good	Positive Reinforcement Present something good; behaviour is more likely.	Negative Punishment Take away something good; behaviour is less likely.
Bad	Positive Punishment Present something bad; behaviour is less likely.	Negative Reinforcement Take away something bad; behaviour is more likely.

So, back to the question about using punishment. As you can see from the chart above, there are two forms of punishment - positive and negative. Positive punishment involves giving a dog something they don’t like. Yanking the leash applies force on your dogs neck they don’t like. This is positive punishment. Turning your back to your dog when they jump on you is negative punishment. You are taking away your attention to get them to stop jumping on you. Positive punishment is risky because you could potentially injure or even frighten your dog, as well as make your dog anxious. Also physically punitive training methods have been shown to make certain dogs react aggressively. Negative punishment is benign in terms of risks to your dog. Therefore, avoid using positive punishment and use negative punishment to reduce behaviours.

Be consistent

Being consistent is critical when training. This is probably one of the toughest aspects of training. Don’t allow a behaviour one day and then not allow the same behaviour the next day, don’t change the rules! Be consistent with what you expect of your dog. Work with them everyday. Everyone in your home should be included in some way in the training process, even older children (supervised), should be involved. Use the same cue words. If one person uses “off” and another is using “down” your dog will get confused.

Keep training fun!

Try and keep training fun by rewarding your dog for behaviours you want. Problem behaviours can be solved through better management of your dog in their environment, and by removing things that reinforce behaviours you don’t want. Over time, your dog will give up behaviours that don’t bring consequences they like.

Keep your training sessions short. Train for 3-5 minutes in most cases. Use play to try and teach your dog such things as wait, stay, come, and others. Don’t over do your training sessions or you and your dog will burn out.

Training a dog may seem like a difficult task, but if you learn some key points, training can be very fun and interesting for you and your dog. You don’t have to dominate your dog and you certainly don’t have to use force. Train your dog from the moment you bring them home. Training is a life long pursuit.