Remember – there is always a reason for behavior.
Through life, all of us – including our non-human friends are continually learning from our past experiences associations that impact our emotions, our thoughts and our behaviors.
This is known as associative learning. It is a general term referring to the process whereby learned associations are formed between stimulus. It includes both operant conditioning where behaviors are learned, strengthened or weakened, or modified based upon the consequences of those behaviors; and classical conditioning, which is a reflexive or automatic type of learning.
Understanding and remembering this is valuable when it comes to developing positive approaches to solving behavior issues. Remember, behavior does not occur in a vacuum. Past consequences are predictors of future behaviors.
Here are a few real-life examples.
Often I see dogs back up from people who reach over their head, bend over the dog or give the dog a bear hug. With repeated occurrences (even with just one experience), there is a high likelihood that the dog will begin to come to or interact with those people less frequently to avoid being bent over, hugged, scratched in an unpleasant way (operant conditioning with positive punishment – adding of bear hugs, head rubs or looming above reduces the frequency of the dog approaching that person). The dog may also begin to pace, have an accelerated heart rate, tense its muscles or tuck its tail in the presence of the person who has done those things to the dog (classical conditioning).
If a dog had an unpleasant visit to a groomer, that dog could begin showing those reflexive responses (accelerated heart rate, tense muscles, etc.) when arriving at the groomer. And actually, as associations are generalized that dog could begin showing those responses in the parking, in the car, or even at home when approaching the garage door in anticipation of those things leading up to having to go into the groomer.
With my bird, Dreyfuss, at night time, she used to lunge at my arm when presented to her while she was on her window perch because at that time of day, past experience taught her that stepping onto my arm meant being returned to her cage and having her light turned off.
With any of these situations, analyzing the environment surrounding and impacting the specific behavior is the first step toward coming up with a positive and least intrusive actionable behavior modification plan.
There are many ways to approach it. They involve looking at the function a specific behavior serves the animal (such as, whether it is helping the animal move toward something positive or away from something negative), determining what acceptable behaviors you would rather see in that situation, and changing or managing the environment so as to prevent practice of the unwanted behavior while teaching new associations and behaviors.
For the dog backs away from people who put their hands and body in places that make the dog uncomfortable, those people would great strengthen their relationship with their dog by learning to understand and heed dog body language and avoid putting their hands that would cause their dog to back away or show other signs of stress. Instead, if their dog approaches they can practice less intrusive communication with their dog such as simply talking to their dog or waiting for their dog to initiate physical contact and only scratching or playing with their dog as their dog tells them through body language that it is wanting more (see this post for more on the pet test). They could also teach their dog to hand touch with positive reinforcement and ask their dog to touch their hand when the dog approaches. They could also work to teach their dog a different, positive emotional response to being petted by pairing petting with high value food.
Please click here to read my solution to the issue of my bird lunging at my approaching arm at night time.
These are just a few scenarios and a few ideas for solving the problems in positive ways. There are lots of ways to be creative with this process. The beauty of looking at behavior this way is that you are not only solving issues, you are enriching your pet’s life, and strengthening your relationship with it at the same time. Everyone wins!
