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Home Pets The Woof
Gang The
WOOF Gang: Harnessing Pavlov's power

The
WOOF Gang: Harnessing Pavlov's power

Monday, 02 November 2009 06:42
Laura Garber

Don’t you smile whenever you hear the Mr.
Softee jingle?  How about that jig your dog does whenever you pick up his
leash?  Both come from associative learning, first identified by Pavlov,
who paired a bell with food, eventually getting dogs to salivate in happy
anticipation of a meal with just the ring. Pavlov has given us tools that we can
use when training our dogs -- and they can be more effective than you might
realize.

Socialization

Socialization
is a critical learning experience in your puppy’s life.  There’s no such
thing as over-socializing your dog.  In fact, even after your pup has
outgrown his sensitivity period, when the greatest learning takes place (ending
somewhere between 13 and 16 weeks), continuing his socialization education is
still important.

People come in all shapes and sizes, and that is
something your puppy needs to know.  Human attire can also make people look
very different: sunglasses, hats, facial hair, canes and wheelchairs, tool belts
and uniforms.  It’s not enough to introduce your dog to many different
people and ask them to give him a little pet and think this is socializing
him.  If he’s afraid of the big, tall fireman with the uniform and the tool
belt, then being handled by him will not be a pleasant experience.  In
human terms, this might be like being hugged by a grizzly!

However, you
can change the experience for your pup by having the fireman offer him a tasty
treat, an unconditioned stimulus in Pavlov’s equation.  If every bear you
met was to offer you money, you might start to feel differently about them!

Training ABCs

When employing positive training,
we use treats to reinforce, or reward, a target behavior.  My clients often
wonder how long they will have to keep giving treats; will they be tied to
treats forever?!  The answer is emphatically NO!  Treats are an
incentive for the dog to learn a challenging, new behavior.  Once the
behavior has been established, you reinforce intermittently, sometimes
rewarding, sometimes not.  Gradually, over time, the act of performing the
behavior itself becomes reinforcing because of its happy history.

An
example of this is training sit.  To start, we use a treat as a lure for
the dog to follow our hand as we pull the dog’s head up (and consequently his
butt down), resulting in a sit.  In no time, the dog is effortlessly going
into a sit when we cue it.  We ask for sits frequently throughout the day,
when we’re putting the leash on before a walk, when we’re putting down a stuffed
Kong, before we offer a rope toy for a game of tug.  Many wonderful life
rewards are earned by a sit.  The act of sitting itself becomes imbued with
positive, happy feelings.

Expectant Parents

When
I learn that clients of mine are expecting their first child in the months
ahead, I immediately suggest preparing their dog for the change.  They
often respond by saying that their dog is quite alright around children, that he
spent an evening in the company of another family with little ones and he was
perfectly fine.  Well, in short, I would hope so.  We’d have a lot
more to worry about if he hadn’t been happy in their presence.  Still, the
landscape might be quite a different one when the family dog realizes that he’s
going to be sharing his space and his favorite people with a little tyke.
It’s this added twist that I like to prepare him for.

My preferred
prescription for this is a special chewy, perhaps a pig’s ear, something your
dog thinks is pretty fabulous.  Purchase a CD of baby noises (such as the
one sold at www.preparingfido.com).  Start at a low volume and give your
dog his chewy.  Play it for a little while.  Then turn the CD off and
take the chewy away.  (Of course you shouldn’t use this technique if your
dog guards chewies.)  Allow for a bit of silence, then repeat: CD on, offer
chewy.  Little by little, you might notice a look of pleasant anticipation
when your dog hears the CD.  He has now built a happy association between
baby sounds and something pleasurable.  Over the weeks and months you do
this work, gradually increase the volume.

So, you might ask: Will you
have to give your pup a chewy every time the baby cries?  No!  We’re
imbuing baby sounds with positive feelings in our dogs.  Once achieved, the
sounds of the baby will make your dog feel inherently happy.

An
additional note: Make sure that you are not attending to your dog when the CD is
on and he is working away at the chewy.  Remember that, when you’re with
your baby, you will likely not have the resources to also attend to your dog;
hence you’re preparing him to share you.

Treating
Fear

Dealing with issues involving fear has an important added
component called threshold.  If your dog is above this threshold, he is
experiencing the fear caused by the stimulus while, below the threshold, he is
nonreactive and composed.  You must determine, when designing your dog’s
treatment, where his threshold is and stay below it.  Below threshold, your
dog is capable of soaking in the new experiences.  Above threshold, your
dog is in a state of fear and not capable of experiencing the learning needed to
discover that the scary thing is not really so scary.  So what would a
treatment like this look like?

Riding in a
Car

For instance, how would I treat a dog with a fear of riding
in a car?  Well, for starters, I’d try to discover something that he loves
– perhaps playing fetch with tennis balls, since it’s hard to be fearful when
playing. I might open all the car doors and play a game of fetch around the
car.  That would be enough for the first day.  The next day I might
start with that same game of fetch but perhaps throw a ball or two into the back
seat.  As the treatment progresses, I might sit in the back seat with the
dog with one or more of the doors closed, playing ball.  Then I might move
to the front seat with the dog in the back, playing ball.  Then maybe I’d
turn the key in the ignition just enough to turn on the electronics of the car
but not the motor and play some ball.  Then I’d turn on the ignition and
play ball and turn off the car.  Then I’d turn on the ignition, move an
inch, play ball, and turn off the car.  You can see how this is going… very
slowly and methodically.  If, anywhere along the way, the dog shows signs
of stress or fear (salivating, tucked tail, etc), then I’ve gone over-threshold
and must step back to where he’s comfortable again.

An additional
note:  Keep in mind that, though food can be used as the unconditional
stimulus in place of playing fetch, too much food could actually cause
carsickness when the car is finally moving, and this might intensify the dog’s
anxiety about riding in cars.

Sound
Sensitivity

Many dogs are afraid of loud noises, such as the
vacuum cleaner, fireworks, and thunderstorms.  How can we get below
threshold with these stimuli?  Putting the dog in one room with a chewy and
then having someone turn on the vacuum at the far end of the house would be one
way to start to treat the former.  Buying a CD that has fireworks or
thunderstorm sounds (www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DTB816 and
www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DTB818, respectively) and starting at a very
low volume might work for the latter.

An additional note:
Thunderstorms are tricky because, long before the start of the storm, the air
pressure changes might evoke the fear.  Also, should a storm sweep through
town, there’s no way to prevent the dog’s experiencing it above threshold during
treatment.  Medications such as Xanax can be used to take the edge off
during an actual storm.

Harnessing the Power

So,
as you train and socialize your pup, as you get him used to his crate, to being
handled, and to your handling his resources, and as you help him resolve his
fears, associate these challenging life lessons with the things that he enjoys
most in life – food, toys and playtime, walks, petting and love.

Dog trainer Laura Garber of Hoboken regards training
as an exercise in building relationships rather than obedience. She believes
such an approach promises greater understanding and symbiosis within our family
packs. Laura works with private clients in Hudson County and beyond. For
information, go to myWoofGang.com or contact her
directly at

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