Classical conditioning frequently happens without us even being aware. It will have happened to your dog already at some point. What happens when you pick up your dog’s lead? Do they get excited? That’s classical conditioning! The lead predicts positive things (a walk). With enough repetition your dog will experience those feelings of joy soon as they hear thesound of the lead or see you pick it up. This is an involuntary response meaning your dog feels this way automatically and there is no thought process or decision making behind it.
This type of learning requires no behaviour from your dog, it’s a simple pairing process where one thing predicts another. In Pavlov’s experiments he caused dogs to salivate when they heard the sound of a bell ringing. These dogs did not salivate to the sound of the bell beforehand, there was no reason for them to. But by pairing the sound of the bell with food classical conditioning took place and they started to salivate just to the sound of the bell before any food was presented to them.
Although classical conditioning frequently happens with the pleasant things in life, it happens with the unpleasant things too. Many dogs are scared of the vet and begin showing signs of fear when approaching the car park, this is because the dog has unpleasant memories about what happened with the vet and has picked up on certain cues predicting these unpleasant things. This is classical conditioning.
Although the process of classical conditioning sounds quite simple and it can be useful; it can be more complicated and troublesome in cases where multiple things are associated with something negative or when we have no control over them. Many dogs are frightened by the sound of fireworks and there are multiple things that can be linked to them such as darkness, meaning lots of dogs with severe firework fears are too scared to go outside in the dark at certain times of the year.
If you’ve ever had a dog that suffers from separation anxiety you may have noticed that they become stressed before you’ve even left the house. These feelings can be triggered by so many things from the sound of your alarm going off at a certain time, the sight of you making your packed lunch or picking up certain items, this is classical conditioning!
The problem is, we are not always aware of what cues we are giving off to our dogs and what associations are being formed.
Can classical conditioning be reversed?
Yes, but it’s not simple.
Desensitisation is a process which tends to be used to reduce a dog’s fear. It involves introducing the fear inducing stimulus at a low intensity, so to not trigger the fear response. Over time the stimulus is increased so that eventually the dog can tolerate it at a normal level. This is a frequently used process for noise fears such as, fireworks because the sound of fireworks can be played at a very low volume and gradually increased as the dog’s tolerance grows.
Although often used with sounds, desensitisation can be done with all kinds of things including sights, sounds, smells, tastes and even sensations such as touch. If you work with a behaviourist for your dog’s behaviour problem then desensitisation may be part of the process.
For many fears desensitisation can be difficult because there are likely multiple things connected to those feelings of fear; for example if you’ve got a dog that is scared of thunderstorms you can use desensitisation to reduce their fear of the sound of thunder using pre recorded sounds but you cannot replicate all of the other factors such as, changes in air pressure, cloud cover, humidity levels, rain and lightning.
And even when desensitisation is successful the fear response can suddenly appear again at a later date especially if it appears suddenly and at high intensity.
This is why it can be so difficult to “fix” a behaviour problem especially as there is usually a deep rooted emotional response involving so many factors. Memories rooted in fear are especially difficult to resolve.
How can you be mindful of classical conditioning?
We cannot prevent classical conditioning from taking place; dogs have feelings and those feelings become connected to certain stimuli. You don’t need to be scared of classical conditioning but you do need to think about the experiences your puppy/dog is having and the associations that are being formed.
The process of classical conditioning can happen from one single event. And this is why it’s so important, wherever possible, to keep our dogs feeling safe and try to avoid them having negative learning experiences. My ‘dog trainer head’ is on at all times when I am working with any dog and I am constantly aware of what associations could be formed because they are not always easy to un-do.
Recently I accidentally dropped a drink bottle lid on my dog’s head. When I open this particular bottle it makes a distinct sound which she linked to having the lid dropped onto her head. Several weeks later she still backs away if she hears this sound. Her nervous system had made the link between that sound and her pain/startle/fear. I did not intend to teach my dog to be scared of the sound of my water bottle that day yet it so easily happened.
I meet many dogs that have become fearful of all other dogs approaching them as a result of one single attack, or that have become fearful of all loud noises due to one incident of hearing a bird scarer. Sometimes these things happen and we can’t prevent them, it goes the other way too and our dogs can learn pleasant things…
My dog has been classically conditioned to our postman! The postman always gives her a biscuit, so now she is happy and excited just at the sight of him or his van!
It’s often impossible to know if and when our dogs will learn through classical conditioning. We can’t always know what’s going to happen and we can’t know how our dogs will perceive them. We may feel like an experience wasn’t bad but the dog is the only one that knows how it felt for them. We need to be careful about the situations we put our dogs into in everyday life and the training methods we use because dogs will often become classically conditioned to things we don’t want them to.
Blog written by Claire Mcknespiey of Educating Paws.
