The Power of Involuntary Responses

Heed the power of the involuntary response! What is an involuntary response? It is based on the wiring of our dogs, from the “way they come”. Dogs are compelled/can’t help but to behave “that way”. The involuntary response also tends to be the one that frustrates us, gets our dogs in trouble, seems impossible to fix, and has tenacious qualities.

We are reminded how deeply engrained these involuntary responses are in our dogs when we consider chasing behavior. The dog may chase an object (squirrel, car, etc) for its entire life without ever becoming successful at catching the object (no reward), yet never loses its intensity and purpose in chasing that object. ….to never lose intensity without ever being rewarded… that is a very compelling response, time over time over time! We use classical conditioning to modify this wiring, mindset, and attitude in the dog to make behaviors manageable over time.

In stark contrast, behaviors we teach to our dogs through operant conditioning, such as a Sit or Down, must be reinforced occasionally or the behavior will become less reliable, less intense, and eventually fade. Needless to say, a behavior based on the wiring of the dog always has the potential to override a behavior taught through operant conditioning.

An example of the power of the involuntary response: My dear Sydney, who since passed, was a car chaser. He was very good at it; up and down the fence line he went, all the time. I never modified this and chose to do damage control instead to keep him safe.

In the last few weeks of his life, lymphoma had grossly overtaken his body, and there was not much of Sydney’s signature moving going on. BUT, he still chased the cars. As a fan of dog training and psychology, I watched on with amazement and found new respect for this involuntary response business. Sydney’s mind told him, as it did for 11 years, “must….chase…..cars….”. He was compelled to chase the cars, you could see it in the very little movements his body attempted. His facial expression even revealed a sense of confusion as his body simply could not deliver what his wiring told him to do. Behaviors so deeply engrained that they disregard the broken and dying body must be very powerful and strong.

Involuntary responses can be modified. However, it takes time to mold something as strong as the involuntary response into something manageable to us and there are often limitations. We need to be gentle and patient with our dogs and ourselves when attempting to change the wiring of the dog through classical conditioning. Achieving proximity to cars without the dogs lunging after them may take an inch at a time through methodical and effective repetitions of successive approximations, but it can and does happen, and therein lies the rewarding journey.

Let’s celebrate our dogs no matter how they come, ourselves for recognizing our dogs’ wiring, and realizing that there are ways to groom all behaviors. Some are just a bit more tenacious in their modification.

Happy Conditioning!

Should We Reward Effort?

Effort gets an A+! Or does it? Dog Training is rarely black and white. In the dog’s learning process, there are the desirable moments when the dog is correct, and we reward. There are other (common and normal) moments in the dog’s learning process where the dog is incorrect and we either withhold the reward, or go a step further and correct our dog, depending on how fair it would be to correct. But what about that fabric that fuels learning, that intangible concept of e f f o r t.

Do we communicate anything to our dogs about effort? If so, how important is that to the dog’s learning process. If we don’t, should we? How does it make us humans feel when we attempt a task, trying hard, giving everything, sometimes with success and sometimes without, and are acknowledged for trying. Do we care if nothing is said to us?

Innocent mistakes due to the dog’s overzealous desire to please us fall into the same category, in my opinion. How do we communicate those mistakes? Is it appropriate to withhold the reward? Is it fair to correct a dog, who knows the behavior, for an excitatory mistake?

This post is to challenge our approach and viewpoints when we train and communicate with our dogs and to be mindful of the fact that learning does not only entail marking either a clean cut ‘Sit’ or not, but attitude, spirit, and effort also matter towards payment. A dog that tries hard deserves to be acknowledged, in my opinion. A dog that makes a mistake because it wants to please us deserves to be acknowledged as well.

There are certainly exceptions and circumstances where we simply need to “get with the program” in order to achieve desired results and thus, recognition of mistakes and effort no longer applies. However, for the most part, I tend to err on the side of the dog to harness that spirit, to make learning a fun experience, and to avoid squishing the dog’s desire to work for me. Back to the human example, being acknowledged for trying hard makes me want to try equally hard or harder the next time.

“Thanks for trying, Woofi”!

Physical Praise Counts!

Physical Praise...the reinforcer we tend to forget. We all pet our dogs plenty but we may not realize that physical praise is actually a PRIMARY reinforcer which means it is a very strong (innate) stimulus to the dogs, one that did not need to be paired with a function (like secondary reinforces). Toys and food are the other two very common primary reinforcers and we use those a lot more.

It is common that dogs would prefer a toy or food instead of physical praise in a momentous time where a reward would be given, however, physical praise counts for the powers it holds!

How many of the ambitious pet owners amongst us have had mediocre success in teaching a new behavior in a training session but then find the dog offering the behavior perfectly on the casual stroll around the neighborhood? And we get upset because we were not prepared, did not bring food or toys along on the walk, and feel we miss an opportunity to reward. At all times, under all circumstances, you still have physical praise to give! Pair that with some serious verbal praise and more dogs than you might think are impressionably reinforced with that, it's marvelous!