A big part of training your dog (or cat, parrot, goat, fish. . . ) is creating connections between stimuli.
Stimuli are the individual components of the A-B-C sequence, Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence. You’ve most likely heard of this before.
Antecedents
Antecedents include everything in the environment in which a behavior occurs. Stuff that interests your learner, movements and noises you make, and occurrences that scare your learner are all antecedents. Any changes that occur in the environment are antecedents to behavior. Your dog is always trying to figure out which stimuli he should pay attention to.
Behaviors
Behaviors are anything your dog does, including actions and emotions. They include the tiniest muscle movements that precede your dog’s left front paw lifting as well as the observable lifting of the paw. Salivation in anticipation of a soon-to-come treat is a behavior, even though it is involuntary. Behaviors also include the body language your dog exhibits. He might put his ears up and wag his tail happily or shift his weight back and purse his lips fearfully. The emotions he experiences behind these body language indicators are also behaviors.
Consequences
Consequences are produced by your dog’s behavior, at least in his perception. It makes sense when you consider that most consequences are produced by the environment. For instance, your dog digs a hole in the dirt and as a result finds something to chew on or gets to lie down in a cool place. If your timing is good and your reinforcement delivery is skillful, you can create the perception of the environment providing the consequence for the purpose of teaching your dog to do a new behavior. It’s also perfectly fine to simply hand your dog a treat. Of course, we will be talking about positive consequences like treats and opportunities to do fun things.
Consequences can also be punishers. In behavior science terms, punishers suppress behaviors and result in outcomes like avoidance, escape, and fearful emotional states.
Later in this article, we’ll talk about how emotional states and active behaviors change concurrently. The key concept to understand is how you can facilitate the connections that result in your dog performing the behaviors you want to see.
Connections Between Behaviors and Reinforcers
Connections are built between behaviors and reinforcers. Why does your dog sit? Because he gets a treat. As the behavior develops, new neural pathways grow in his brain. This results in intrinsic reinforcement.
I’m simplifying a complex process, but that’s basically it. When a connection forms between a specific behavior and an extrinsic reinforcer, whether it’s a treat, a play session, or an opportunity to go outside, the plasticity of your dog’s brain allows change. That change typically includes the dog learning to enjoy the behavior itself. Fewer extrinsic reinforcers are needed as the behavior starts to make your dog “feel good” internally.
Maintaining Connections
Notice I didn’t say you should stop giving reinforcers! Your dog’s brain remains plastic and change will continue, so you will need to maintain the behavior you want to see. As your dog’s trainer, you must ensure the connection you’ve facilitated keeps working. Remember, the environment is always giving your dog stimuli that he can make connections with. He is always looking for connections that make sense. You need to make sure the ones you want continue to be very important to your dog!
Connections Between Cues and Behaviors
Connections are built between cues and behaviors. When you say, “Sit,” your dog sits. Why? Hint: it’s not because he understands that the word “sit” is defined as putting one’s butt on the floor. The word is just a specific sound to him. You could just as easily use the word, “Banana” as a cue to sit. He sits when you give the cue because he made a connection between sitting and getting a treat. You build the cue into the process by facilitating additional connections.
The connection between the word, “Sit,” and the treat is already starting to form because of the two connections between (1) behavior and reinforcement and (2) word and behavior.
You Have the Power to Make Connections!
When your dog hears the doorbell ring, it sparks whatever connection he’s made between that stimulus and the behavior that follows as well as with the reinforcement resulting from the behavior. What does your dog do when the doorbell rings? What behavior would you like to develop for him to do on that cue?
When you approach the back door, what would you like your dog to do? When you go into the kitchen, where do you want your dog to go? What do you want him to do when you pick up a leash or put on your walking shoes?
Creating New Connections
You can create new connections for your dog. As I’ve written about before, you’ll be activating the learning power of Pavlovian conditioning combined with operant conditioning to achieve this goal. Pro tip: this is exactly how your dog learned whatever behaviors he’s currently displaying in the aforementioned situations.
Body Language
If you pay attention, you’ll see how your dog responds to various common stimuli. The indications lie in the dog’s body language. Most dog owners easily see when their dogs are happily excited, when they are scared or worried, and more. Keep studying general dog body language. In particular, continue learning the subtle signs your own dog expresses that let you know how he’s feeling. It will help you build connections more quickly and more effectively.
How Dogs Learn
Understanding how dogs learn allows you to actually change your dog’s connections. You have a lot of power to adjust the environmental stimuli your dog is exposed to, including your own actions. Training is fun and can improve the life you share with your dog! Observe the connections that already exist and make a plan to create the ones you want.
Simplify to Create Connections
The behaviors you want can seem complicated at first, but you can always break them down into very small components. Simplify and learn to see the first tiny bits of the “correct” behavior. These will reveal the connections you want.
Connection Example: Picking up a Leash
Separate the stimulus you want to create a connection with from all others. To work with the stimulus of picking up a leash, do not put on your walking shoes, dress the dog in his harness, or go to the door. Consider all the supplemental cues your dog gets, indicating he’s about to go for a walk. Don’t let any of them happen. This will take some planning.
Once you’ve created a situation in which your action of picking up a leash is the only change occurring in the environment during the training session, connect that action with a treat.
Make Your Training Clear
Keep the training clear for your dog. Pay attention to what else might be going on so you don’t inadvertently create a connection you don’t want or one that interferes with the connection you do want. That’s why we make training plans and often begin creating training connections in quiet rooms with as few stimuli as possible.
When you have a strong connection between picking up a leash and a treat, your dog will look for that treat, salivating all the while, as soon as you reach for the leash. He won’t be flailing about, jumping and running. Next, you can make a connection between putting your shoes on and a treat. Now you and your dog are having fun making connections together!
Connection Example: The Front Door
So many things are already connected with the front door! Cars driving into the driveway; people walking to the door; doorbells and knocking; people coming in and going out; the mailbox clanging closed in some cases, or people hanging things on the doorknob. Inside the house, you go to the door and look through the peephole; you may open the door and step out to retrieve a package. Your dog is doing things throughout the occurrences of all these stimuli. And who knows what you’re saying to the dog during these processes? Your dog makes connections between your actions and his behaviors, too.
Break Connections Down
Just like I described with the leash, take the time to break all this down. You’ll need to make a connection between each of the stimuli your dog perceives in relation to the front door and something good (typically, a treat!), but do so away from the door. As you do, your dog will begin to have positive feelings about each of those stimuli. This will help you with developing the behaviors you want, one by one. Create a plan to make your connections carefully, ultimately including the door itself in the process. In the Beyond Basic Manners Course, I’ll work through this real-world example and many more to help you and your dog learn the behaviors you want for your future.
Connection Example: Smells and Sounds
Detection dogs and service dogs learn connections between specific odors and treats and also between sounds and treats. Trainers set these connections up just like you would imagine. We set up the training environment to seem like the odor or sound caused the treat at first, and then that the dog going to the source – the place where the odor or sound came from – caused the treat.
The behaviors develop into a specific alert that gives the handler a clear indication that the odor or sound she is looking for is happening and where it is. It all begins with giving the dog a treat right at the source of the odor or sound.
Connection Example: Seeing Another Dog
What does your dog do when you’re out for a walk and he sees another dog across the street? If he “does nothing,” that might be the exact behavior you want! Of course, he doesn’t actually “do nothing,” but it may seem that the other dog has no impact on his behavior. What you’re seeing is a stimulus (another dog) connected with calm behavior in your own dog. That’s a win. Why not connect that calm behavior to a treat, in order to maintain and keep it developing? Remember, reinforcement (treat after a behavior) builds behavior!
If your dog barks and lunges when he sees another dog, you can use the same procedures I described above to change the connection between the stimulus and your dog’s behavior.
Separate out the stimulus of another dog from all others, and also set up the appearance of the other dog to occur at a great distance. Because the dog is farther away, you will be able to connect that visual stimulus with a treat, without your dog first showing you the behavior you don’t want.
Connections for Modifying Reactivity
Many people describe the behavior above as a dog being “reactive.” Call it what you want, it’s a set of behaviors that you can change by making new connections. Keep it simple in order to make a training plan.
Make connections (1) between the behavior and a reinforcer, and (2) between the stimulus and the behavior you want. An additional connection between stimulus and emotional state will occur through the process.
Connections Between Emotional and Operant Responses
Let’s dig just a little deeper into dog behavior. There is an emotional component along with an active component. Emotions are reflexes, but reflexes can be changed; Pavlov taught us that. Actions are not really chosen but selected through reinforcement. Skinner, Herrnstein, and others taught us that. Keller and Marian Breland and Bob Bailey taught us that emotional responses change concurrently with changes in operant behavior.
Body Language Again
Your dog doesn’t behave like a robot with no emotion. His body language shows you how he’s feeling while he’s performing a behavior. He’s always expressing some emotion, no matter what he’s doing.
If you pay attention, you’ll observe some dogs performing behaviors in emotional states showing you that they are likely doing the behavior because they are scared of what will happen if they don’t. Other dogs are performing behaviors in states of anticipation of good things to result from their actions. That’s what we prefer. This means that the dog’s behavior previously produced positive consequences.
The Brelands and Baileys taught us that although Pavlovian conditioning and operant conditioning are two separate processes for the sake of study, we can’t separate them while training.
Connections are Simple
When you understand how to interpret your dog’s body language and how animals learn, you can’t help but see how your behavior, your input and feedback, changes your dog’s behavior. Training really is that simple; it’s just not so easy to set your mind to learning new ways to set your dog up for successful learning. (Thanks, Dr. Bob Bailey, for the reminder!)
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