Training Techniques: There is more than one! Quiz

Answer: R+

Positive reinforcement is usually written as r+. P+ is the abbreviation for positive punishment. Pos RF was made up.

Answer: Positive punishment and negative punishment.

The common abbreviation for positive punishment is p+ and for negative punishment it's p-. Although it seems plausible to say that p+ is to add a punishment and p- is to take it away, this isn't completely accurate. In positive punishment one does add an adverse stimulus to decrease a behavior but for negative punishment we take away a pleasurable stimulus to decrease a behavior.

Answer: Negative reinforcement

The thing to always remember with reinforcers and punishments is that any reinforcement (positive and negative) is done with the goal of 'increasing' a behavior and punishment (positive and negative) has the goal of 'decreasing' a behavior.

Answer: False

It is a common misconception that something that has the term "negative" is bad and that something contains "positive" is good; however, in dog training terminology positive simply means to add and negative is to subtract. In this case, negative punishment is to "take away" a stimulus as a punishment; there is no adverse stimulus involved.

Answer: Slowly pulling the dog's front legs forward while it is sitting in order to get it to lie.

Non-operant techniques involve making the dog obey a command by pushing, pulling, or luring it a certain way to make the dog do the action that goes with the command. Pulling the front legs forward to get the dog to lie is a prime example because the owner is making the dog do the action. Non-operant techniques are not very effective if they are the only methods used in the training program.

However they are useful to teach the dog what exactly a command is asking of them; after that it should obey a command on cue.

Answer: Extinction

Extinction is a term used when one is eliminating a behavior. Ignoring a dog that is soliciting attention in an unacceptable manner is a form of extinction. However, during the extinction process the targeted behavior may temporarily increase, this is called an extinction burst.

In the case of the soliciting dog, the extinction burst would be an increase of the soliciting behavior e.g. barking or jumping. For the behavior to be stopped no reinforcement must be given.

Answer: lure

Luring is a non-operant training technique used to establish what a command is asking of the dog. Simply put this method involves taking a treat (or toy) and moving it a certain way/direction in order to get the dog to comply with a given command. The example given above is a good way of illustrating it or another scenario would be moving a treat downward and away from the dog in order to get it to lie.

Answer: Allowing the dog to associate the clicker sound with treats.

Charging the clicker means that you are allowing your pooch to understand that the clicking sound means something good. This is done by clicking and then giving a treat, and doing this repeated times. This is useful in that it effectively reinforces the desired behavior when the click is timed with the action.

Answer: Fear

Flooding is a technique to help dogs with fears of certain objects, it involves forcing the dog to be surrounded or near the fear-causing stimulus to extinguish the fear. This method's effectiveness is highly debated but is nonetheless used by some.

Answer: Counterconditioning

Counterconditioning is the act of teaching the dog a certain behavior or action that is incompatible with the undesirable one. The concept behind this technique is that the dog should not be able to do both things at once. In this example had the undesirable behavior been barking then telling the dog to sit wouldn't have been effective because the dog can still sit and bark.

Answer: Systematic desensitization

In this case, desensitization is the best option. This involves gradually exposing your dog to the fear causing stimulus slowly at first and gradually working your way to the real thing. With the thunder fearful dog, the owner would want to get a recording of thunder, play it at a low volume first and slowly turn up the volume if the pooch doesn't react negatively. Rewarding the dog for good behavior is vital to teach the pooch that it is doing the right thing by not panicking.

Some teach hunting dogs not to be scared of gunshots using this technique.

Answer: Shaping

This is a technique known as shaping. It is considered one of the harder but more effective techniques that one can use to teach a certain behavior or action. It involves slowly working your way up to the final action. With teaching dumbbell retrieve we start by rewarding simply looking at the dumbbell and after some time we work up to actually picking up and bringing the dumbbell.

This example does not illustrate modeling, r-, or CCDS (counterconditioning + desensitization).

Answer: Modeling

This is a non-operant training technique called modeling or physical modeling. What one does is grabs or pushes a certain part of the dog's body in order to teach them what a command is asking of the them. This is not abusive training because modeling should be slow and gentle; never push a dog that is resisting too much as this may hurt them as well as make the training process unpleasant.

A good example is pushing slightly on a dog's lower backside in order to get them to sit.

Answer: Dog becomes excited when he hears you say "Let's go for a walk".

This is an example of a classically conditioned response because the dog has learned that the phrase "let's go for a walk" 'precedes' a walk; no behavior is reinforced or punished. All other responses use operant conditioning in order to decrease or increase a behavior; p- teaches the whining dog that he will get no scraps by whining, r- teaches a dog to retrieve the dumbbell because an adverse stimulus is removed when he does, and p+ decreases the pulling behavior because pulling adds an adverse stimulus.

Answer: Negative punishment

Because the goal is to avoid biting hard (decreasing a behavior) this is a punishment, and in this case since it is the attention that is 'taken away' it is negative, thus bite inhibition is learned through negative punishment (p-). Classical and pavlovian conditioning are, in general terms, the same thing and are not exemplified here.