Behavioral Modification in Pets (separation anxiety, inter-pet aggression)
Research: http://www.merckvetmanual.com/pethealth/dog_basics/behavior_of_dogs/behavior_modification_in_dogs.html http://www.treehouseanimals.org/site/PageServer?pagename=caring_ccg_changing_cat_behavior Meta Description: Modifying your pet’s behavior can be challenging, but it can be accomplished. Here’s a quick rundown of techniques that work and how to avoid mistakes.
Meta Key Words: Behavior modification dogs, Behavior modification cats, Dog training, Training your cat
Turning Your Pet into a Well-Behaved Companion Animal
Whether you are bringing home your first kitten or first puppy, attempting to re-home a rescue animal, or trying to correct newly emergent bad
…show more content…
Most stimuli that an animal is consistently exposed to it will become accustomed to over time. This is why socializing your pet to other animals and a wide-range of people are a good idea and will generally keep them for reacting to new people of animals. However, many animals will never habituate to potentially dangerous situations and spontaneous recovery (reemergence) of the behavior is possible if the animal experiences long periods without the stimulus in question.
Habituation is an example of conditioning. Most behavioral modification relies on conditioning of one form or another, whether by pairing a desired result with a reward, or by discouraging an unwanted behavior by removing a reward (typically attention of one form or another). Reinforcement of conditioning is accomplished through consistent reaction to behavior either rewarding or discouraging behaviors that are desirable or undesirable. Desensitization takes this technique to its extreme by flooding the animal with the stimulus in increasing stages until it stops
…show more content…
It involves the removal of attention that the animal may be seeking through the undesirable behavior. This technique is especially effective in dealing with dogs that jump up on people to gain attention. Ignoring the behavior and only rewarding the dog with attention when it is not jumping up are the keys to conditioning the animal away from the
Some medical professionals do not believe that mental health patients can benefit from therapy dogs and go as far as saying it is a risk far as to say that it is a to the patient and compromise the patients ability to take care of the dog. When people who suffer with mental health issues qualify to get a therapy dog. The mental health patient is tested to see if they are capable of taking care of the dog. Those in need of assistance should use therapy dogs frequently do to the part of the benefits to using these pets to improve mental and emotional health as and physical health. Therapy dogs are beneficial to people who suffer from mental health issues by providing companionship as well as support. Some people with mental health issues have a hard time trusting others and need someone to talk to; Service dogs are important because to make they people with mental health problems feel better and help people with these disorders deal with their emotions.
The missing element of negative-based reinforcement, or punishment & collars for training such as choke, shock or prong can allow positive canine training solutions a way for both canines and their owners. Such an element could well be the obvious advantage for such kinds of
Fear conditioning is a commonly used behavioral paradigm to test an organism’s ability to create associations and learn to avoid aversive stimuli. There are two methodologies: cue and contextual fear conditioning (Kim & Jung, 2006). In cued fear conditioning, a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) which activates a strong unconditioned fear responses (UR). After a continued training period, the neutral CS is now able to activate a conditioned response (CR). Similarly, context conditioning occurs when the background or context cues, during the condition training, is able to predict the US and activate the fear response. For example, a mice can be placed in a novel environment and given an aversive stimulus (e.g. footshock). When the mice is returned to that same environment, it will display a CR (e.g. freezing). The mice’s ability for contextual fear conditioning is dependent on whether it was able to learn and associate its environment with the aversive stimulus. (Curzon, Rustay, and Browman, 2009)
All dogs, like humans, have the potential to either be nice or mean, respond well or poorly to the environment, and interact with others either up to par with social standards or not. The amount and type of socialization
Pet Therapy A bus carrying several clinical students from the local college pulls up in front of the nursing home. The students begin to unload some boxes which contain puppies and kittens ranging in age from three to six months. Once inside, the students begin to pass the puppies and kittens out to the patients that are waiting expectantly in the recreation room. Some patients are alone, some are in groups, but all are delighted to see the animals arrive.
Classical conditioning refers to a type of learning in which a previously neutral stimuli took on the ability to stimulate a conditioned response in an individual (Gormezano & Moore, 1966). To prove that environment was more impactful than genetics, Watson conducted an experiment on an infant, little Albert. Initially, Albert showed little fear towards rats. When Watson repeatedly exposed Albert to the rat accompanied by a loud noise, the latter began to develop fear towards not just the rat but also other furry animals. Watson successfully showed that the acquisition of a phobia can be explained by classical conditioning (Watson & Watson, 1921). Regardless of their genes, the associations of the right stimuli can result in the development of a new behaviour in any individual.
Some of which deffienitly include the socialization of the animals with other dog and owners, and even children and wildlife. I personally had a young pup, who was not trained properly as far as prey drive was concerned. She would chase and bark at every single squirel that cross our path. Within just one month of training to ignore these critters, and with the help of other dogs setting an example of how to correctly interact with them in such a park, my pooch no longer gave any mind to
The other aspect in classical conditioning is extinction, which occurs when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus. For example, when the smell of tobacco that was initially paired with having a few puffs is now present, but the individual is not provided with the cigarette to get the puffs, when this is done for a long time the smell no longer produce the craving in the individual to have the puff. The extinction of the learnt behavior of smoking can be said to have occurred (Cherry, 2011).
Pavlovian Conditioning can be used to treat and explain addiction. We must first discuss Pavlovian conditioning and addiction before we can even begin to talk of the two together. Pavlovian Conditioning is better known as Classical Conditioning, which was created by Ivan Pavlov and later used by John Watson to explain human psychology. Classical conditioning is defined by Meriam-Webster dictionary (2016) as a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. For example, with Pavlov’s dogs, the unconditioned stimulus is food, the conditioned stimulus is the bell and the response is salivation, which we will discuss
However, effective therapeutic techniques all employ behaviorist techniques to change maladaptive or harmful behaviors in humans and animal. Many people, unknowingly, employ behaviorist techniques, be it an animal trainer, a parent or a teacher to help teach new behaviors or deject unwanted ones.
This is selective reinforcement. Pavlov and his dogs were and excellent example of operant conditioning. Pavlov rang a bell when it was time for the dogs to eat; eventually the dogs associated the bell with food. Each time the bell rang the dogs salivated. On the other hand, N.Chomsky who was a nativist argued that children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD).
Learning through operant conditioning allows a conditioned behaviour to increase or decrease in the presence of reinforcement or punishment. However, this process can be affected by instinctive behaviours that would disrupt the conditioned behaviour. According to a study conducted by Breland and Breland (1961) they tried to condition a raccoon to pick up coins and drop them into a container. The raccoon however spent time rubbing the coins together and rubbing the coin on the inside of the container before finally dropping it in and receiving its food reinforcement. Even after conditioning, the raccoon’s need to rub the coins together became worse as he spent more and more time just rubbing the coins. This is known as instinctive drift where the raccoon’s instinctive behaviours limited its ability to perform the conditioned response. Therefore the raccoon failed to learn due to its innate tendencies that acted as a biological constraint and operant conditioning failed in teaching the raccoon through reinforcement.
Dog training actually helps in correcting undesirable dog behavior. Some of these undesirable behavior include: digging up your flowers, barking at everyone and so on. Training it will make it develop desirable behavior.
Both operant and classical conditioning was used in my household. For example an act of operant conditioning was when I would ignore my chores my mom would say that I could not watch television until my chores were finished. She did this negative reinforcement to motivate me to complete my duties. However, this negative reinforcement did not encourage my brother to do his chores because he did not enjoy watching television. Because a certain consequence might not be the same for each individual, I believe that for operant conditioning to be successful the reinforcement or the consequence must correlate with the subject in order to increase or decrease a certain behavior. An example of classical conditioning in my life would be when my father opens the garage door when he arrives home. When he does this the door makes a distinct sound, and eventually my dog started to associate the sound of the garage door and his appearance. Now every time the door opens my dog gets excited expecting my father’s arrival, whether or not he is actually there. This example teaches me that my dog is experiencing classical conditioning. My dog is having an involuntary response to the sound of the garage door because of an association with my father’s
get out of bad homes and have a pet that is in trouble; should be taken out together. That