Valentine’s Day is approaching…the holiday of love.
The trainer in me loves this quote by B.F. Skinner. Absolutely, love is the use of positive reinforcement and vice versa. In other words, love is about giving those in your life feedback that you like what they are doing by your doing something back that they value.
And the more you do that, the more those in your life will want to be around you because you make them feel good. They associate you with positive experiences.
As a result they may give you more attention. They may work harder on tasks when you are around. They may solicit more learning, more playing from you.
This by the way, applies to people, as well as dogs, cats, birds, elephants, dolphins, and any living being.
BUT, not all positive reinforcement is created equal. And not all attempts at using positive reinforcement are effective at creating behavior change.
Here are a few tips to help you use R+ to build value for what you want to see…and in the process, spread that love.
- Know what your learner values. Remember, only the animal that is doing the behavior gets to decide what is of value or not to that individual; and that can change throughout a day. A tired dog may value rest more but a rested dog may value play more. A hungry dog may value food more will be less motivated by food. A dog that wants distance from something will value moving away. A dog that wants to sniff a fire hydrant will value the opportunity to go sniff. Watch your learner and get to know his preferences.
- Present the reinforcer immediately after the behavior. The sooner after the behavior that the consequence occurs, the quicker the animal can learn an association between those two events. This is one of the reasons why using a marker such as a clicker or a verbal word (like YES) that is followed by another stronger reinforcer is more effective. You can click or say YES! Much faster than you can deliver a treat.
- When teaching a new behavior, don’t be stingy with the reinforcers. To minimize frustration and speed the learning curve, mark and reinforce your pet each time your criteria is met for the behavior. Later on you can move to intermittent reinforcement to maintain the behavior but not during the learning process. Even later on, your pet will probably get reinforcement for the wanted behavior – it just may be different kinds of reinforcement, some of which may be intrinsic. As an example, after spending a lot of time giving my Dawson treats when he laid on his mat; over time, he also just chooses to lay there now because he has a positive emotional feeling doing that, and the fuzzy surface may be comfortable.
- Vary your reinforcers. This could mean having a variety of types of food in your treat pouch. It could be that sometimes you may feed a treat to your dog’s mouth, other times you may toss a treat. Or sometimes it could be that you pull out the tug toy that was hidden in your pocket. Unpredictability can add to the fun.
