The Pros of Practicing Positive Reinforcement

Why should we use positive reinforcement when working with our dogs?

So what is positive reinforcement? The thing that comes to mind for most people is food rewards. These are a form of positive reinforcement, but to begin to understand what makes positive reinforcement the best option for our dogs’ learning process, we need to understand a little bit about learning theory. Anything that will increase the chances of a dog repeating a behaviour is known as a reinforcer. Reinforcing the behaviour means that the dog is more likely to do it again. There are two kinds of reinforcement – negative and positive.

Finding a path past fear

As humans, we know about the extent to which fear can be subjective. Some people like that feeling, being a little bit scared in certain circumstances, which explains the existence of horror novels and films, and scary games. Others find the idea of voluntarily exposing themselves to something scary as utter insanity. Still others find difficulties in everyday living because they have a phobia of something most people regard as commonplace. I fall into that final category – I describe it in brief as a phobia of dolls, but it actually extends to what is known as automatonophobia, which is a fear of anything that imitates the human form. This can make clothes shopping ‘interesting’ as, while I’m usually ok with most store mannequins, some provoke a big old ‘NOPE’.

Why understanding is critical

I often talk about how important understanding body language is, to all levels of people that may be around dogs or interact with them in any way, as a canine professional, rescue volunteer, fosterer or dog owner/guardian. It has become something I no longer really think about saying but just add in to posts and articles, because it is such an obvious part of helping people help dogs, showing them that they need understanding before anything can change or progress. A few evenings ago though, the importance was brought back to me sharply, in a very personal way.

“I’m not going to BRIBE my dogs to do as I tell them!”

This is along the lines of my absolute most hated comments. This idea that dogs should follow our commands, just because. As for the respect thing? Don’t even get me started! I don’t want my dog to have to ‘respect’ me. I’m not looking for an underling, or someone to look up to me. What I want from my dogs is for them to enjoy my company, to want to be with me, and to want to cooperate with me.

Distraction doesn't work to change behaviour

In my last post, I discussed the use of increasing distance to help a dog that finds their environment difficult learn to see less danger around them all the time. In some of the comments in places where that post was linked, there were numerous references to distracting dogs as part of the behaviour modification process. The thing is that distraction is not actually helping to change the behaviour.

The function of behaviour modification is to change the dog's emotional response to the thing that triggers the response in them. For this response to actually change, the anxious or fearful dog needs to notice the trigger at that distance where they feel safe and will not go over threshold. This will not happen if they are being distracted from seeing the trigger.

Distance - your first and best tool in reactive behaviour modification

By its very definition, reactive behaviour is an issue with proximity. For whatever reason, the dog at the end of the lead feels that the thing they are reacting to is WAY too close for comfort. This means that the best thing you can do for your dog is to keep safe distance between them and their triggers.

Obviously, this can be easier said than done - we don't refer to the process many of us have to undergo when walking our complicated canines as 'ninjaing' for nothing! There will be times when a trigger emerges upon you and your dog unexpectedly, It happens, and is not something you should ever feel the need to beat yourself up over.

The longer we spend sharing our lives with one of these complex dogs, the more we seem to develop the ability to constantly scan our surroundings and analyse potential issues at an ever-increasing distance. This comes in very useful when we begin to think about using behaviour modification methods, as it means we can start exposing dogs to their triggers at a safe enough distance (although it may be a HUGE distance in the beginning) to keep them under threshold and work on their acceptance of those things.

An anniversary and some observations on enrichment

I have held back from posting anything for a while because, if your online feeds are anything like mine, they are absolutely crammed with advice for surviving the current situation with your dog, and I have felt like I would be likely to do no more than parrot what someone else has said better than I would.

Today is a special day in the Blue Merle Minion household though, and so today I have to post. 3 years ago, a small bundle of blue merle patterned fluff made the journey from Wales right across to the south east corner of England. He snoozed the entire way across on my lap, waking up from time to time to watch the big trucks on the motorway that he seemed to like. He walked into the house as if he had been here his whole life, and spent the rest of that day and evening either sleeping against my hip on the sofa or sleeping on my feet. The quiet didn't last and the true chaos that we had introduced into our family soon made itself known!