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Food in Training: Part IIIHow do we shape what our dogs learn and what associations they make, so they can be good family dogs and companions? This episode is entirely dedicated to that question through the lens of Classical Conditioning. You'll learn how to help your dog create positive associations through the "Stuff-A-Dog Method" and the "Open Bar, Closed Bar" by Jean Donaldson and the science behind it. Think of this as a learning tool instead of a training tool!
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Episode Transcript
Emily 0:09
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next.
Hello, and welcome back to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:25
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:25
And today we are back with another training Basics episode. Today we're going to talk about food in training, part three, classical conditioning. So our first two food and training episodes, definitely go back and listen to them if you haven't already. The first one was why. The second one, we talked about a little bit of the how in regards to operant conditioning. And today we're just going to focus on classical conditioning.
Emily 0:52
I love it. And you know, technically classical conditioning would not really be considered training, like the operant conditioning, learning through consequences, I'd say is more technically training. This is more like behavior and learning. And as we know, dogs, all of us are learning all the time. And it's like, how do we shape what our dogs learn and what associations they make, so that they can be really good family dogs companions.
Libby 1:22
Absolutely. And I'm so glad that you made that distinction, because you're right, it's learning not training. And we're maybe going to get into the weeds a little bit about the sciency behavioral kind of stuff. But we're going to try to break it down into layman's terms. So everyone can understand what it is, why it's important, and why it's relevant for you, and how to incorporate it into your rescue dog dog's life.
Emily 1:47
And it's actually really simple and easy. And once you understand, you'll be like, This is so easy. Sometimes in my real life, I'm a dog trainer. And when I go to homes to do consults, I sometimes feel like I'm just throwing treats at the dog. But there is a science behind it, I'm actually doing behavior modification, changing the way the dog feels, which is so important.
Libby 2:12
And that's what classical conditioning is all about is changing how the dog feels about something. So let's start with the definition. Also called respondent conditioning, classical conditioning is learning through association, a process by which learning occurs through repeated stimulus pairing. So an example of this for humans, from my life is the smell of freshly cut lines. If I cut a lime, I almost instantly get a feeling of relaxation of that kind of care free feel good feeling because it reminds me of spending summers at the lake when we would cut lines to put in our Coke or our gin and tonic or something like that. So it instantly evokes a good feeling in me when I smell fresh cut limes and smells are a really, really rich example of this for humans. Everyone has a smell that instantly takes them back to Grandma's kitchen with all the warm fuzzies or something like that.
Emily 3:22
I love that. And you know the the thing about classical conditioning and one reason it's so important is because it cuts both ways. I actually when you were saying that I was in the hospital a few years ago with pancreatitis, and the ringtone on my phone while I was on morphine drip laying there. To this day, if anyone has that ringtone, I have such a negative association with it because I remember those days of being like I might die. So, you know, that's why it's so important for dog owners and guardians to understand is like, we want our dogs to have positive associations with things like bikes and strangers coming to the house and the mailman. Because consistently, those can be down the road. You know, you look at your sweet little puppy and you think this dog would never bite the mailman. Well, if you don't create a positive association with the mailman, it's it's in the realm of possibility
Libby 4:20
totally. And I and I'm so glad that you brought that up because you know a buzzword today is trigger and that's exactly what you're talking about. Classical conditioning. A trigger would be in our common parlance is something that instantly makes you feel a certain way, whether good or bad. And you know we most often refer to it to to mean something bad. So the most common example of this that almost everybody knows is pap, pap loves dogs. And Pavlov was actually trying to collect saliva, Pavlov rang a bell, and then they fed the dog's steak. And over time, he realized that just ringing the bell would produce the drooling response. So that's how Pavlov discovered classical conditioning. So using food for classical conditioning helps us address how our dogs feel about something. And because of that, we often refer to it as counter conditioning or classical counter conditioning, if we're trying to change a negative association to a positive association. And the most important thing to remember when we're talking about classical conditioning is that the steps have to be followed really carefully. It's the stimulus than the food.
Emily 5:53
So in simple terms, it would be the Man in the Hat shows up your dog oriented towards it in some way, ideally, looking but you know, you you notice that your dog knows that that man and a hat has appeared. And then you feed yummy treats, like quite a lot. And then when the man disappears, this the food goes away. Jean Donaldson of super famous famous behaviorists calls it open bar closed bar, and we could link to her little graphics on the open bar, closed bar. But it's basically that man in hat who was previously scary now means a buffet. And when he disappears, the buffet is closed.
Libby 6:40
So how, what are some other ways we could use classical conditioning for dog training?
Emily 6:47
You know, I like using it when I bring in any new foster dog, because I don't know what their previous learning was. They could have been living in a rural area and never seen ambulances or kids on bikes or you know, dogs walking on leashes. So I just always presume that they're, you know, almost a blank slate, or they have some negative association. So I feed a lot when I see new things in the environment, new stimulus, just that I can kind of tip the scales in my favor, so that they know like, oh, you know that that ambulance is no big deal. And by the way, I'm going to look to my handler, and I'm probably going to get like five pieces of chicken. Jamie Flanagan is a really well known trainer here in Boulder County. She's amazing. And she has, she was the first one who actually ever taught me about classical conditioning. She has a way she describes it as, quote stuff a dog. And I love that because it really is like that pairing and you're feeding as much as you can, if you have a real like scared dog. So I guess stuff a dog would be more if you had like a dog, reactive dog, or a dog that didn't like children. She's all about like, they see the children from a distance. Ideally, you don't want to like flood them. So they're totally terrified by the children. And then you're feeding them. So you have some distance, and then you just feed, feed, feed, feed, feed feed. So stuff a dog is such a great little thing to keep in your mind when you're like What am I supposed to be doing here? Oh, just feed them when they're noticing that stimulus.
Libby 8:34
Totally. And it's just all about the stimulus pairing. Over time, the dog learns that, Oh, scary man and a hat that predicts food. So scary man and a hat can't be that bad. An example I like to use often when I'm explaining this to people is I am a true arachnophobia, I absolutely have a real, very real fear of spiders. And if you just shoved a spider in my face, and expected me to act calm and get used to it, I might be able to hold my shit together. But inside, I would just be dying, I would feel so terrible, even if I could remain outwardly calm. But if you started from a distance, and you showed me a picture of a small spider and handed me a $20 bill, and we repeated this over time, eventually I would associate that picture of a spider with a $20 bill.
Emily 9:40
Yeah, I think that key also is that distance, you know, so you're not like putting the spider on your face for $20. You know, it's starting with like a low intensity version of that scary thing in the environment is really key.
Libby 9:56
So can you talk about working under threshold?
Emily 10:00
In oh, gosh, yes. So that's maybe an entire podcast unto itself is threshold and like where your dog still feels comfortable is what if you hear a trainer referring to under threshold or over threshold. So it's understanding body language and, you know, is your dog somewhat comfortable and just noticing the stimuli, that would be the time to work on counter conditioning, or just straight classical conditioning, you don't want to like bring them right up to the child and say, Here, it's a child, like back in the old day, this is one thing that most people don't know. You know, five years ago, if we had a dog who was fearful or just getting off transport, we would like hold out a treat, and be like, have your doggie, it's okay, I'm okay, come on up to me, and make them come to us for the treat. And sometimes you'll see dogs with like, I call them Scaredy legs, their legs are like way out behind them, and they're reaching for the treat. And if you're doing that you're not classical conditioning, you know, or, or counter conditioning, you're having your dog overstep their comfort zone in order to get the food. And that's potentially even more harmful than not.
Libby 11:10
The important point here is if you are engaging in classical conditioning, classical counter conditioning, is to stay under a threshold when at all possible. And this would look like a setup. So let's go back to the example of a man wearing a hat and your dog exhibits fearful aggressive behavior, when seeing a man with a hat. So you would figure out okay, my dog is still calm, if the man is 20 feet away. So we're going to start with my buddy and a hat. He's going to appear from 20 feet away, I'm going to pair that stimulus with food, food, food, food, open bar, closed bar stuff, the dog, one of these techniques, man goes away, food stops. And then because the dog is noticing the stimuli, but is not yet in a state of fear, hyper arousal, whatever it may be stress, they can create this begin to create this positive association.
Emily 12:18
Right? One place I see this classical conditioning going really wrong is door manners. It's almost like the bane of a dog trainers existence, because people get this cute little puppy. And then they have friends come over, Puppy jumps on people. And they're like, no, no, no, get down off of, you know, even some people like kick them in the chest like terrible idea. I recently saw a client that I hadn't seen in five months. I saw them when they had a three month old puppy who greeted me at the door super waggly. Happy easygoing puppy. Didn't see them for a while. I thought everything was going well. We'll they had a bunch of people over. I walked in five months later, and the dog was super fearful of me walking in the door, barking and they were like, sit, sit kind of grabbing for the dog so it wouldn't jump. And I was like, Okay, let's start from scratch here. What had happened was so many people had come over the dog didn't have great door greeting manners. So there's all this excitement at the door, and the dog would end up getting in a lot of trouble at the door. There was a lot of like, no off, don't jump, you know. And so people coming over created a negative feeling for the dog. It was like, I don't know. But people come over and my parents start yelling at me and bad things happen. I think maybe I don't like people anymore. And now they're dealing with an adolescent dog who has some significant stranger danger issues.
Libby 13:51
Totally. So it's happening all the time. I think that's the takeaway here is that classical conditioning is happening all the time. And if we can have any control over it whatsoever, it you want to create positive associations for your dog to all of these every day.
Emily 14:13
Jean Donaldson calls it puppy insurance, to like just work with like, you know, car means food, kids mean food, man, and hat means food people coming over means food, Puppy behavior insurance, and I would, I would say that, you know, for any rescue or foster, I would take that insurance policy and use it again of like, everything means food, everything means everything is good. You want your dog to feel safe. I think there's a common theme. You want your dog to feel safe. If your dog is doing something you don't like, put in some management strategies, which I think we're going to be talking to Mary Anjali about management strategies because, you know, punishing your dog can create those negative associations. Are they feel fearful?
Libby 15:01
Oh, Emily, should we talk about the potential negative fallout of punishment?
Emily 15:07
Oh my god, I think that's its own huge podcast. But that is why we don't use punishment at SDR and why we're really big advocates to have people understand because we live in a punishment culture. We put people in jail, we punish people with fines we put, like, everything's a punishment in our culture. And so it's a radical notion to be like tote, don't physically scare or hurt your dog. That is a radical notion. But all the science, the point of understanding classical conditioning is you will create, you run the high risk of creating an unstable dog that is fearful. And fear and aggression are cousins, so you have fight or flight. So you have, if you create a fearful dog, you're gonna have a dog that runs away, ideally, when people come over, or it will bite people when they come over. So I'd rather not have a fearful dog, I've had fearful dogs. So so fun.
Libby 16:11
All of this is to say that our goal here is to create a positive, conditioned emotional response to whatever is happening in your dog's environment. It's so easy to create a negative, conditioned emotional response. And it can happen so fast, you know, your dog, a really, really common example is your dog is at the dog park. A scuffle breaks out once and all of a sudden, your dog is now barking and lunging and other dogs because they had one really bad experience with other dogs. Okay, they have they have a negative conditioned emotional response. And that's classical conditioning right there in one instant.
Emily 16:56
It's so it's so true. Our brains are actually wired for fear fear inducing incidents to really more deeply ingrained in the brain, I believe those memories are stored in a different area that's much longer term than positive experiences. And it's a survival tactic. If you, you know, were attacked by a moose, and then you like, forgot about the moose incident the next time it could kill you. So it makes sense that as an animal, you remember the super dangerous, scary incidents, I was just reading that the survival they did a study on the survival of street dogs and Indian, I think it was like 70% die before age one. So the world is really dangerous. So this, the dogs that are successful are the ones who are hyper vigilant and looking for things that could kill them. So you know, we don't want to tilt the scale towards creating fear in our dogs.
Libby 18:01
Absolutely. And that is why we wanted to talk about classical conditioning today in terms of using food and training, because food as as an appetitive stimulus creates positive associations to stimuli that could be scary to your dog. And it's much harder to create those feel good feelings than it is to create negative feelings with one bad experience. All right, so I think that's all we are going to go into today on classical conditioning. We could obviously talk about this for a very long time, but this is supposed to be your little bite sized nugget of knowledge on on a training topic. So we'll stop here for today. We're gonna put some articles in the show notes as well as a really good episode of cog dog radio with Sarah strumming. And if you'll have any questions, please reach out to us. We're on social media at pod to the rescue on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can also email us at [email protected] so please let us know if you have any questions about this or want us to go into more detail
All right, so now we're gonna switch gears and give a really quick update on the dogs in Summit dog rescue right now we haven't done an update. All right, Emily, let's first talk about Boomer slash Finn
Emily 19:42
slash Finn. Well, we have a couple of good applicants for him. He's doing really, really well. It's really incredible to see him slowly. Shed those layers of fear and uncertainty Eat and start to get into a rhythm and start to. He really was a shut down dog. And I feel like he bonded very quickly with his people who his foster moms who are incredible and they love him so much. But he's really starting to like get into a rhythm and trust other people and we're really hopeful our favorite person lives out of state. And we're just kind of figuring out if, if how this is gonna work out of state adoptions are a little tougher, because she's planning on driving here 20 hours. And you know, and then when she takes them, that's a big commitment. I mean, it's always a big commitment, but it's a bigger one when you live 20 hours away. So yeah,
Libby 20:41
yeah, he's so sweet. I went and dog sat him for a few hours. And he loved playing with his Wabi that Kong toy with the you can toss and play tug with he just loved that he was so playful. Yeah. And he's definitely coming out of his shell for sure.
Emily 21:01
Thinking, learning to trust and realize that we're a team and we're behind them.
Libby 21:06
All right, so that's the boomer fin update. And then what about Bodie? He's going in for surgery, and he's doing he's doing prehab right now, right?
Emily 21:16
Yeah, he is doing prehab. And his surgery, I think is June 6, or June 11. I can't remember. But it's coming up soon. And they're only going to do the one hip. He is adopted now. So we're still fundraising to cover the cost of those hips because obviously we couldn't, nobody was going to adopt him with a $5,000. vet bill.
Libby 21:39
Yay. Bodie. That's so exciting. Adopted and getting a new hip.
Emily 21:43
Now, so exciting. And she she loves him so much. She can't believe how lucky she has been to get him. Yeah. And then Loki.
Libby 21:51
Yeah, so Loki is a doodle, right.
Emily 21:54
Oh, he's a Berner doodle. I have to say it's sometimes more difficult. You would think Oh, doodle easy to place because everybody wants them. But because everybody wants them. Sometimes it's difficult because it's like, we want you to want loki, we don't want you to want just the dog that doesn't shed. And so we've gotten lots and lots of applications for him. And it's like really nice people like some of them. We've had to be like your wonderful home, but not for this specific dog like, yeah, so we're still kind of interviewing people and feel like we have a few good candidates that we're sussing out, but there hasn't been that like ding ding ding naming one yet. Yeah, we're like this is it? Yeah, yeah. Well, these are all positive updates. Oh, except, well, there's Mo. All right.
Libby 22:45
So Mo is a dog who was adopted out first in 2017 as a puppy and then returned for leash reactivity and then adopted out again to a wonderful home in the mountains. And he made so much progress there. But his mom just went through some major life upheavals through no fault of her own. And so she we're trying to figure out hopefully a way for her to keep MO You know, ideally, we don't have to rescue mo again. Ideally, he can stay in that home, whether that means a temporary foster or something like while she gets back on her feet, something like that. So stay tuned for more news on that we're just trying to find really creative solutions. And where we're, we're short on Foster's at Summit dog rescue it's, especially as the pandemic is ending, people want to go out and travel again, they're not at home. They're not home as often as they were over the past year. And so it's a struggle to find fosters, who are equipped to take in big dogs with behavior issues. And unfortunately, we have a couple of those right now.
Emily 24:03
Especially Moe, it's really sad and I feel like even just four years ago, we knew so much less about puppies and puppy socialization, and I really feel like we failed mo I'd like to say that we have always been great and we did, you know, awesome with every single puppy but mo came in on a flight from Arkansas. And those puppies got adopted out really fast. I think it was like in June and people were all excited to get puppies and he went to some young people down in south of Denver and they worked with a trainer as was required but then they ended up going to work and leaving him in their house back to negative associations in a crate and they were having their kitchen redone. They never told us that that was part of their, you know, plan for the summer. So as a young puppy he was in a home being remodeled by strange men. And you know, with big gear and so he has loud noises and there he was all alone in his crate while they were at work like, and then at a year, this is the kicker, they returned to him, because they were they found a puppy that wasn't fearful. They didn't want a fearful dog. Or like, oh, anyway, try not to judge. Anyway. Um, so mo he has been failed repeatedly. And I just don't know if this one with this one lead losing the woman who was had him for the last two years. It's gonna be so hard on his heart. Like it's just, if there's a way that we could keep them together, if we could find someone who could temporarily watch Big 95 pound fearful mo while she gets back on her feet would be amazing. So that's the hope.
Libby 25:48
Totally. Absolutely. There is hope, though. There is hope. You know, that's why we're here where on the podcast, we're trying to educate people reach as many people as possible about the importance of training and intervening in behavior issues early on, and setting your dogs up for success.
Emily 26:07
Absolutely. All right. Well, as always, we so appreciate everyone listening to us.
Libby 26:13
All right, we will see you next time on pod to the rescue. Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next.
Hello, and welcome back to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:25
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:25
And today we are back with another training Basics episode. Today we're going to talk about food in training, part three, classical conditioning. So our first two food and training episodes, definitely go back and listen to them if you haven't already. The first one was why. The second one, we talked about a little bit of the how in regards to operant conditioning. And today we're just going to focus on classical conditioning.
Emily 0:52
I love it. And you know, technically classical conditioning would not really be considered training, like the operant conditioning, learning through consequences, I'd say is more technically training. This is more like behavior and learning. And as we know, dogs, all of us are learning all the time. And it's like, how do we shape what our dogs learn and what associations they make, so that they can be really good family dogs companions.
Libby 1:22
Absolutely. And I'm so glad that you made that distinction, because you're right, it's learning not training. And we're maybe going to get into the weeds a little bit about the sciency behavioral kind of stuff. But we're going to try to break it down into layman's terms. So everyone can understand what it is, why it's important, and why it's relevant for you, and how to incorporate it into your rescue dog dog's life.
Emily 1:47
And it's actually really simple and easy. And once you understand, you'll be like, This is so easy. Sometimes in my real life, I'm a dog trainer. And when I go to homes to do consults, I sometimes feel like I'm just throwing treats at the dog. But there is a science behind it, I'm actually doing behavior modification, changing the way the dog feels, which is so important.
Libby 2:12
And that's what classical conditioning is all about is changing how the dog feels about something. So let's start with the definition. Also called respondent conditioning, classical conditioning is learning through association, a process by which learning occurs through repeated stimulus pairing. So an example of this for humans, from my life is the smell of freshly cut lines. If I cut a lime, I almost instantly get a feeling of relaxation of that kind of care free feel good feeling because it reminds me of spending summers at the lake when we would cut lines to put in our Coke or our gin and tonic or something like that. So it instantly evokes a good feeling in me when I smell fresh cut limes and smells are a really, really rich example of this for humans. Everyone has a smell that instantly takes them back to Grandma's kitchen with all the warm fuzzies or something like that.
Emily 3:22
I love that. And you know the the thing about classical conditioning and one reason it's so important is because it cuts both ways. I actually when you were saying that I was in the hospital a few years ago with pancreatitis, and the ringtone on my phone while I was on morphine drip laying there. To this day, if anyone has that ringtone, I have such a negative association with it because I remember those days of being like I might die. So, you know, that's why it's so important for dog owners and guardians to understand is like, we want our dogs to have positive associations with things like bikes and strangers coming to the house and the mailman. Because consistently, those can be down the road. You know, you look at your sweet little puppy and you think this dog would never bite the mailman. Well, if you don't create a positive association with the mailman, it's it's in the realm of possibility
Libby 4:20
totally. And I and I'm so glad that you brought that up because you know a buzzword today is trigger and that's exactly what you're talking about. Classical conditioning. A trigger would be in our common parlance is something that instantly makes you feel a certain way, whether good or bad. And you know we most often refer to it to to mean something bad. So the most common example of this that almost everybody knows is pap, pap loves dogs. And Pavlov was actually trying to collect saliva, Pavlov rang a bell, and then they fed the dog's steak. And over time, he realized that just ringing the bell would produce the drooling response. So that's how Pavlov discovered classical conditioning. So using food for classical conditioning helps us address how our dogs feel about something. And because of that, we often refer to it as counter conditioning or classical counter conditioning, if we're trying to change a negative association to a positive association. And the most important thing to remember when we're talking about classical conditioning is that the steps have to be followed really carefully. It's the stimulus than the food.
Emily 5:53
So in simple terms, it would be the Man in the Hat shows up your dog oriented towards it in some way, ideally, looking but you know, you you notice that your dog knows that that man and a hat has appeared. And then you feed yummy treats, like quite a lot. And then when the man disappears, this the food goes away. Jean Donaldson of super famous famous behaviorists calls it open bar closed bar, and we could link to her little graphics on the open bar, closed bar. But it's basically that man in hat who was previously scary now means a buffet. And when he disappears, the buffet is closed.
Libby 6:40
So how, what are some other ways we could use classical conditioning for dog training?
Emily 6:47
You know, I like using it when I bring in any new foster dog, because I don't know what their previous learning was. They could have been living in a rural area and never seen ambulances or kids on bikes or you know, dogs walking on leashes. So I just always presume that they're, you know, almost a blank slate, or they have some negative association. So I feed a lot when I see new things in the environment, new stimulus, just that I can kind of tip the scales in my favor, so that they know like, oh, you know that that ambulance is no big deal. And by the way, I'm going to look to my handler, and I'm probably going to get like five pieces of chicken. Jamie Flanagan is a really well known trainer here in Boulder County. She's amazing. And she has, she was the first one who actually ever taught me about classical conditioning. She has a way she describes it as, quote stuff a dog. And I love that because it really is like that pairing and you're feeding as much as you can, if you have a real like scared dog. So I guess stuff a dog would be more if you had like a dog, reactive dog, or a dog that didn't like children. She's all about like, they see the children from a distance. Ideally, you don't want to like flood them. So they're totally terrified by the children. And then you're feeding them. So you have some distance, and then you just feed, feed, feed, feed, feed feed. So stuff a dog is such a great little thing to keep in your mind when you're like What am I supposed to be doing here? Oh, just feed them when they're noticing that stimulus.
Libby 8:34
Totally. And it's just all about the stimulus pairing. Over time, the dog learns that, Oh, scary man and a hat that predicts food. So scary man and a hat can't be that bad. An example I like to use often when I'm explaining this to people is I am a true arachnophobia, I absolutely have a real, very real fear of spiders. And if you just shoved a spider in my face, and expected me to act calm and get used to it, I might be able to hold my shit together. But inside, I would just be dying, I would feel so terrible, even if I could remain outwardly calm. But if you started from a distance, and you showed me a picture of a small spider and handed me a $20 bill, and we repeated this over time, eventually I would associate that picture of a spider with a $20 bill.
Emily 9:40
Yeah, I think that key also is that distance, you know, so you're not like putting the spider on your face for $20. You know, it's starting with like a low intensity version of that scary thing in the environment is really key.
Libby 9:56
So can you talk about working under threshold?
Emily 10:00
In oh, gosh, yes. So that's maybe an entire podcast unto itself is threshold and like where your dog still feels comfortable is what if you hear a trainer referring to under threshold or over threshold. So it's understanding body language and, you know, is your dog somewhat comfortable and just noticing the stimuli, that would be the time to work on counter conditioning, or just straight classical conditioning, you don't want to like bring them right up to the child and say, Here, it's a child, like back in the old day, this is one thing that most people don't know. You know, five years ago, if we had a dog who was fearful or just getting off transport, we would like hold out a treat, and be like, have your doggie, it's okay, I'm okay, come on up to me, and make them come to us for the treat. And sometimes you'll see dogs with like, I call them Scaredy legs, their legs are like way out behind them, and they're reaching for the treat. And if you're doing that you're not classical conditioning, you know, or, or counter conditioning, you're having your dog overstep their comfort zone in order to get the food. And that's potentially even more harmful than not.
Libby 11:10
The important point here is if you are engaging in classical conditioning, classical counter conditioning, is to stay under a threshold when at all possible. And this would look like a setup. So let's go back to the example of a man wearing a hat and your dog exhibits fearful aggressive behavior, when seeing a man with a hat. So you would figure out okay, my dog is still calm, if the man is 20 feet away. So we're going to start with my buddy and a hat. He's going to appear from 20 feet away, I'm going to pair that stimulus with food, food, food, food, open bar, closed bar stuff, the dog, one of these techniques, man goes away, food stops. And then because the dog is noticing the stimuli, but is not yet in a state of fear, hyper arousal, whatever it may be stress, they can create this begin to create this positive association.
Emily 12:18
Right? One place I see this classical conditioning going really wrong is door manners. It's almost like the bane of a dog trainers existence, because people get this cute little puppy. And then they have friends come over, Puppy jumps on people. And they're like, no, no, no, get down off of, you know, even some people like kick them in the chest like terrible idea. I recently saw a client that I hadn't seen in five months. I saw them when they had a three month old puppy who greeted me at the door super waggly. Happy easygoing puppy. Didn't see them for a while. I thought everything was going well. We'll they had a bunch of people over. I walked in five months later, and the dog was super fearful of me walking in the door, barking and they were like, sit, sit kind of grabbing for the dog so it wouldn't jump. And I was like, Okay, let's start from scratch here. What had happened was so many people had come over the dog didn't have great door greeting manners. So there's all this excitement at the door, and the dog would end up getting in a lot of trouble at the door. There was a lot of like, no off, don't jump, you know. And so people coming over created a negative feeling for the dog. It was like, I don't know. But people come over and my parents start yelling at me and bad things happen. I think maybe I don't like people anymore. And now they're dealing with an adolescent dog who has some significant stranger danger issues.
Libby 13:51
Totally. So it's happening all the time. I think that's the takeaway here is that classical conditioning is happening all the time. And if we can have any control over it whatsoever, it you want to create positive associations for your dog to all of these every day.
Emily 14:13
Jean Donaldson calls it puppy insurance, to like just work with like, you know, car means food, kids mean food, man, and hat means food people coming over means food, Puppy behavior insurance, and I would, I would say that, you know, for any rescue or foster, I would take that insurance policy and use it again of like, everything means food, everything means everything is good. You want your dog to feel safe. I think there's a common theme. You want your dog to feel safe. If your dog is doing something you don't like, put in some management strategies, which I think we're going to be talking to Mary Anjali about management strategies because, you know, punishing your dog can create those negative associations. Are they feel fearful?
Libby 15:01
Oh, Emily, should we talk about the potential negative fallout of punishment?
Emily 15:07
Oh my god, I think that's its own huge podcast. But that is why we don't use punishment at SDR and why we're really big advocates to have people understand because we live in a punishment culture. We put people in jail, we punish people with fines we put, like, everything's a punishment in our culture. And so it's a radical notion to be like tote, don't physically scare or hurt your dog. That is a radical notion. But all the science, the point of understanding classical conditioning is you will create, you run the high risk of creating an unstable dog that is fearful. And fear and aggression are cousins, so you have fight or flight. So you have, if you create a fearful dog, you're gonna have a dog that runs away, ideally, when people come over, or it will bite people when they come over. So I'd rather not have a fearful dog, I've had fearful dogs. So so fun.
Libby 16:11
All of this is to say that our goal here is to create a positive, conditioned emotional response to whatever is happening in your dog's environment. It's so easy to create a negative, conditioned emotional response. And it can happen so fast, you know, your dog, a really, really common example is your dog is at the dog park. A scuffle breaks out once and all of a sudden, your dog is now barking and lunging and other dogs because they had one really bad experience with other dogs. Okay, they have they have a negative conditioned emotional response. And that's classical conditioning right there in one instant.
Emily 16:56
It's so it's so true. Our brains are actually wired for fear fear inducing incidents to really more deeply ingrained in the brain, I believe those memories are stored in a different area that's much longer term than positive experiences. And it's a survival tactic. If you, you know, were attacked by a moose, and then you like, forgot about the moose incident the next time it could kill you. So it makes sense that as an animal, you remember the super dangerous, scary incidents, I was just reading that the survival they did a study on the survival of street dogs and Indian, I think it was like 70% die before age one. So the world is really dangerous. So this, the dogs that are successful are the ones who are hyper vigilant and looking for things that could kill them. So you know, we don't want to tilt the scale towards creating fear in our dogs.
Libby 18:01
Absolutely. And that is why we wanted to talk about classical conditioning today in terms of using food and training, because food as as an appetitive stimulus creates positive associations to stimuli that could be scary to your dog. And it's much harder to create those feel good feelings than it is to create negative feelings with one bad experience. All right, so I think that's all we are going to go into today on classical conditioning. We could obviously talk about this for a very long time, but this is supposed to be your little bite sized nugget of knowledge on on a training topic. So we'll stop here for today. We're gonna put some articles in the show notes as well as a really good episode of cog dog radio with Sarah strumming. And if you'll have any questions, please reach out to us. We're on social media at pod to the rescue on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can also email us at [email protected] so please let us know if you have any questions about this or want us to go into more detail
All right, so now we're gonna switch gears and give a really quick update on the dogs in Summit dog rescue right now we haven't done an update. All right, Emily, let's first talk about Boomer slash Finn
Emily 19:42
slash Finn. Well, we have a couple of good applicants for him. He's doing really, really well. It's really incredible to see him slowly. Shed those layers of fear and uncertainty Eat and start to get into a rhythm and start to. He really was a shut down dog. And I feel like he bonded very quickly with his people who his foster moms who are incredible and they love him so much. But he's really starting to like get into a rhythm and trust other people and we're really hopeful our favorite person lives out of state. And we're just kind of figuring out if, if how this is gonna work out of state adoptions are a little tougher, because she's planning on driving here 20 hours. And you know, and then when she takes them, that's a big commitment. I mean, it's always a big commitment, but it's a bigger one when you live 20 hours away. So yeah,
Libby 20:41
yeah, he's so sweet. I went and dog sat him for a few hours. And he loved playing with his Wabi that Kong toy with the you can toss and play tug with he just loved that he was so playful. Yeah. And he's definitely coming out of his shell for sure.
Emily 21:01
Thinking, learning to trust and realize that we're a team and we're behind them.
Libby 21:06
All right, so that's the boomer fin update. And then what about Bodie? He's going in for surgery, and he's doing he's doing prehab right now, right?
Emily 21:16
Yeah, he is doing prehab. And his surgery, I think is June 6, or June 11. I can't remember. But it's coming up soon. And they're only going to do the one hip. He is adopted now. So we're still fundraising to cover the cost of those hips because obviously we couldn't, nobody was going to adopt him with a $5,000. vet bill.
Libby 21:39
Yay. Bodie. That's so exciting. Adopted and getting a new hip.
Emily 21:43
Now, so exciting. And she she loves him so much. She can't believe how lucky she has been to get him. Yeah. And then Loki.
Libby 21:51
Yeah, so Loki is a doodle, right.
Emily 21:54
Oh, he's a Berner doodle. I have to say it's sometimes more difficult. You would think Oh, doodle easy to place because everybody wants them. But because everybody wants them. Sometimes it's difficult because it's like, we want you to want loki, we don't want you to want just the dog that doesn't shed. And so we've gotten lots and lots of applications for him. And it's like really nice people like some of them. We've had to be like your wonderful home, but not for this specific dog like, yeah, so we're still kind of interviewing people and feel like we have a few good candidates that we're sussing out, but there hasn't been that like ding ding ding naming one yet. Yeah, we're like this is it? Yeah, yeah. Well, these are all positive updates. Oh, except, well, there's Mo. All right.
Libby 22:45
So Mo is a dog who was adopted out first in 2017 as a puppy and then returned for leash reactivity and then adopted out again to a wonderful home in the mountains. And he made so much progress there. But his mom just went through some major life upheavals through no fault of her own. And so she we're trying to figure out hopefully a way for her to keep MO You know, ideally, we don't have to rescue mo again. Ideally, he can stay in that home, whether that means a temporary foster or something like while she gets back on her feet, something like that. So stay tuned for more news on that we're just trying to find really creative solutions. And where we're, we're short on Foster's at Summit dog rescue it's, especially as the pandemic is ending, people want to go out and travel again, they're not at home. They're not home as often as they were over the past year. And so it's a struggle to find fosters, who are equipped to take in big dogs with behavior issues. And unfortunately, we have a couple of those right now.
Emily 24:03
Especially Moe, it's really sad and I feel like even just four years ago, we knew so much less about puppies and puppy socialization, and I really feel like we failed mo I'd like to say that we have always been great and we did, you know, awesome with every single puppy but mo came in on a flight from Arkansas. And those puppies got adopted out really fast. I think it was like in June and people were all excited to get puppies and he went to some young people down in south of Denver and they worked with a trainer as was required but then they ended up going to work and leaving him in their house back to negative associations in a crate and they were having their kitchen redone. They never told us that that was part of their, you know, plan for the summer. So as a young puppy he was in a home being remodeled by strange men. And you know, with big gear and so he has loud noises and there he was all alone in his crate while they were at work like, and then at a year, this is the kicker, they returned to him, because they were they found a puppy that wasn't fearful. They didn't want a fearful dog. Or like, oh, anyway, try not to judge. Anyway. Um, so mo he has been failed repeatedly. And I just don't know if this one with this one lead losing the woman who was had him for the last two years. It's gonna be so hard on his heart. Like it's just, if there's a way that we could keep them together, if we could find someone who could temporarily watch Big 95 pound fearful mo while she gets back on her feet would be amazing. So that's the hope.
Libby 25:48
Totally. Absolutely. There is hope, though. There is hope. You know, that's why we're here where on the podcast, we're trying to educate people reach as many people as possible about the importance of training and intervening in behavior issues early on, and setting your dogs up for success.
Emily 26:07
Absolutely. All right. Well, as always, we so appreciate everyone listening to us.
Libby 26:13
All right, we will see you next time on pod to the rescue. Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai