the joys of positive reinforcement

I was walking one of my clients’ dogs today and came across a sticky situation. My dog has had aggression issues towards other dogs (and sometimes people) so her owner and past trainer have done extensive work to desensitize and counter-condition her towards other dogs. So here I am, walking her down a busy NYC street when I come across the following scenario:

(yes, I have pink sneakers).

I first see Person B walking ahead of us – a man walking at least four dogs at one time. He is struggling to keep them under control while picking up one dog’s poop.

Then I see Person A coming towards us from the other end of the sidewalk. He is holding onto a boxer-mix type dog.

B sees A. B starts panicking and pulls his dogs toward the buildings to his right. A starts wrapping his dog’s leash multiple times around his wrist. Dogs of both A and B are pulling and lunging towards each other.

Then there’s me and my dog. My dog looks at me. I click and treat. While the other dogs are struggling to pull away from their human, mine is happy as a clam and staring straight at me.

ah the rewards of being a positive reinforcement trainer. ( :

the ABCs of desensitizing & counter-conditioning dogs that are agressive towards other dogs

All of the dogs I work with have/had aggression problems toward other dogs. How do we remedy the situation? Desensitize the dogs to other dogs and counter-condition them to learn that other dogs are predictors of good things. Here’s how it works:

1. Dog sees other dog on street
2. Owner clicks & treats immediately (as in, before dog reacts)
3. Dog gets chicken/salmon/good stuff

Dog learns that seeing another dog = yummy food and soon learns to associate other dogs with food. The ABC then becomes:

A: dog sees other dog on street
B: dog looks at owner
C: dog gets treat

Dog will then learn to look at owner to anticipate treat.

Positive reinforcement is yummy.

clicker training

Many dog trainers and owners these days use clicker training. The principles of clicker training are rooted in positive reinforcement and the conditioned reinforcer. Clickers can look like this:

or this: or this:

and maybe there are others – these are just some i found after a simple google search for “clicker”. They all make the same clicking noise (although the image in the middle is of a i-click which is a bit quieter than the average clicker). The clicking noise is paired with food. We (trainers) like to use high value food – better than the usual milkbone or “low-quality” dog treats that owners freely give to their dogs. We like to use chicken, steak, salmon, etc. The clicker is paired with the food by clicking and then immediately feeding the dog a piece of food. The dog then associates the clicker as a predictor of food so the clicker itself becomes a conditioned reinforcer. Many times when owners just take out the clicker, dogs get excited! They know good things are to come.

Tips on pairing the clicker with food:

• be in a neutral position – don’t make eye contact with the dog and try to vary your body positions. this way, the dog will not associate your body position or eye contact or anything else you may be consistently doing to the food, but just the sound of the clicker.
• always feed immediately after clicking
• the food should be of high value
• this does not take long – no more than 15-20 click/food pairings should be sufficient

Why do we use clickers?
Whenever we want to teach a new behavior to an animal, we want to use positive reinforcement. And usually, the best reinforcer to use is food. We are, in essence, playing a game with the animal. Telling them – if you do this behavior, you will be rewarded with food. However, during training, it is important that the consequence follows immediately after the behavior. For example, if you are teaching the behavior, the organism elicits the behavior, then thirty seconds later you give the food, who knows what happened in those thirty seconds?? The animal may have been doing a totally unrelated behavior and may not make the association between the behavior and the food. Therefore, we use the clicker as a bridging stimulus. It bridges the gap between the behavior and the reinforcer. We are able to click (after some human learning) faster than we can give the animal food. It increases efficiency in animal training.

the foundation: reinforcers & punishers

There are two classes of reinforcers & punishers: unconditioned and conditioned.

Unconditioned reinforcers & punishers are those that are innately reinforcing or punishing to us. As in, ones that do not require any learning. Some examples of unconditioned reinforcers include food, water, oxygen, and sex. Some unconditioned punishers are extreme temperatures, food (when you are full), eating, and pain.

Conditioned reinforcers & punishers are those that have been paired with other reinforcers or punishers in the past so in themselves have become reinforcing or punishing. These conditioned stimuli vary from person to person. While one stimulus can be a reinforcer for me, it may be punishing to another person. Conditioned reinforcers can be just as powerful as unconditioned ones. An example of a personal conditioned reinforcer is jewelry. An example of a personal conditioned punisher is cheese (blech).

Dog trainers use a lot of unconditioned (treats) and conditioned (clickers) reinforcers. Usually the conditioned reinforcer is paired with food and thus becomes a reinforcer. However, this in no way has to be a clicker – one could also use one’s voice or a hand motion.

More on clicker training coming up in our next training tips post!