A Crash Course in Dog Training

Many of the things we want our pets to do are not natural behaviors for our pets. Imagine for a moment you were attempting to brush the teeth or fur of a wild animal. Chances are, you won’t get too far without the animal running away, or even attacking you. Getting your teeth brushed simply isn’t natural.

Running away, fighting or biting when someone attempts to brush your teeth, cut your nails, or give you a bath is natural. I am certain no matter what species you attempted to drag in for a grooming, if it is wild, it is going to try and run away.

Training is how we communicate to our pets the way we want them to behave when faced with nail trims, baths, brushing and other types of grooming. There are two major types of training that we will be using, and understanding how they work will help you train your pet more effectively.

Type one: Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is how you teach your pet to like something, even if they didn’t care about, or even disliked the particular thing before. It involves pairing something, such as the sight of a pair of nail clippers, with something else–a tasty treat.

By repeatedly seeing the nail clippers and getting a treat, eventually the dog feels happy when they see the clippers, because they know they are about to get a treat.

Classical conditioning happens everywhere, all the time. Music for example, has nothing whatsoever to do with ice cream–but watch a child’s reaction when they hear an ice cream truck’s tune as it slowly rolls by. They get excited and immediately start begging for ice cream!

They’ve been classically conditioned to understand that when they hear ice cream truck music, there is a truck loaded with ice cream just waiting to give them a tasty snack.

In dogs, a common example of classical conditioning is the doorbell. A dog hears the doorbell and immediately starts barking because they associate the sound with a stranger at the door. They start barking at the sound alone, well before they see the stranger, because they’ve made that connection.

Classical conditioning is all about making connections between things, but in this case to our own benefit. We want to connect grooming with treats, praise, affection, toys, or what ever fun exciting thing your dog loves. By breaking up grooming into very small steps and pairing each step with positive reinforcement, your dog will learn to look forward to grooming instead of hate it.

The primary goal of classical conditioning is changing your dog’s emotions. It works on a subliminal level, and the dog has no control over it. Let’s look at the second type of training now, that the dog does have control over.

Type two: Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is the fancy term for the type of training you more likely think of when you hear the word, “training.” Operant conditioning is the act of teaching your dog that when they see or hear a certain signal from you, they need to offer a physical response.

This means coming when called, sitting when told to sit, or lying down when told to. You know, basic obedience.

To a dog, the word “sit” is just a sound until you connect it through training with the physical act of sitting.

When we say a dog is “operant” we say the dog understands that when they are in training, you are trying to connect up words to actions, and they can get rewards for complying. An operant dog is easy to train, because they know the game well.

We will be using both operant conditioning and classical conditioning to help give your dog a solid foundation for grooming. These two types of training are both equally important, and we will share whether we are focusing on classical conditioning (emotional training) or operant conditioning (a cue to respond to) at the beginning of each section.

Similar Posts:

• Dog Vocabulary: Classical Conditioning
• Alfie and the Clippers of Doom
• Dog Vocabulary: Operant Conditioning
• Dog Vocabulary: Counter Conditioning
• Pre-Training Checklist: All Tools Needed