{"id":695,"date":"2011-12-09T17:10:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T06:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=695"},"modified":"2021-08-02T14:43:05","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T04:13:05","slug":"mcgreevy-on-classical-conditioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/dog-training-dog-behaviour\/mcgreevy-on-classical-conditioning\/","title":{"rendered":"McGreevy on Classical Conditioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is a short summary on Classical Conditioning, as mentioned at Paul McGreevy\u2019s recent seminar.\u00a0 For a more inclusive approach, please see this post from the Reactive Champion blog<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Roger Abrantes’ post on “Unveiling the myth of reinforcers and punishers<\/a>“.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Classical conditioning is also called Pavlovian conditioning.\u00a0 In classical conditioning, an association is made between two things.\u00a0 That is, when I hear the letterbox clang, I associate this with getting mail.\u00a0 When I walk past a bakery, I associate the smell with the taste of bread.\u00a0 When I see dark grey clouds, I think about the forthcoming rain.\u00a0 Sounds, colours, smells, pretty much anything, can be associated with other things.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Puppies are more likely to experience novel events and form strong associations. (Picture courtesy of Yorke Peninsula Puppy Rescue.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Simply, classical conditioning makes the world predictable with \u201cX goes with Y\u201d, where \u2018X\u2019 could be anything and \u2018Y\u2019 could be anything else.<\/p>\n

The more closely X is followed by Y, the more likely the association will be made.<\/p>\n

When an animal makes an association (i.e. \u201cX goes with Y\u201d), and it forms an involuntary response, it is has said to be classically conditioned.\u00a0 Often, trainers feed dog-reactive-dogs in the presence of other dogs in order to have them associate \u2018dogs with food\u2019 and, involuntarily, feel more comfortable in the presence of other dogs.<\/p>\n

When this association is novel, then the association is more rapidly acquired because there are no \u2018undoings\u2019 to be done.\u00a0 For dogs, puppies that are attacked by a particular breed may associate that breed (appearance, smell, colouration, body language) with being attacked, and have a fearful response as a result of this classical conditioning.\u00a0 A single bad experience, if novel enough, can elicit a fearful response for life (this is also true of operant conditioning).<\/p>\n

Sometimes, dogs may make associations based on slight cues in the environment.\u00a0 This can lead to them responding in ways that can confuse human counterparts.\u00a0 Indeed, during any training and any interactions, classical conditioning may occur.\u00a0 Some are simple: The dog may associate the car with fun.\u00a0 Some are more complex: The dog associates your brother with thunderstorms, because that was the context on first meeting.<\/p>\n

McGreevy provided some insights into other animals and the classical conditioning that is typical in their species.\u00a0 He described how stallions used at stud often associate particular bridle gear with sex, and so become aroused and otherwise agitated when that bridle gear is brought out.\u00a0 (My stud dog associates \u2018new little wirey dog\u2019 in the house with sex, which is not always great when it\u2019s actually a male foster dog!)\u00a0 McGreevy also mentioned how dairy cows associate the sound of the vacuum with releasing milk, and sometimes release milk prematurely upon hearing that sound.<\/p>\n

Further reading: Ian Dunbar on Classical Conditioning<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul McGreevy’s thoughts on classical conditioning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[281,164,13,232,219,282,53],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-training-dog-behaviour","tag-classical-conditioning","tag-dog-training","tag-learning","tag-mcgreevy","tag-paul-mcgreevy","tag-pavlovian-conditioning","tag-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4886,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/4886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}