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Operant Conditioning for Dogs

Consequence-Based Training

Operant conditioning is consequence-based learning, in which the pleasant or unpleasant consequences of the dog’s behavior create the learning opportunity. It is broken into four quadrants: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. 

  • Positive = Adding 
  • Negative = Subtracting 
  • Reinforcer = Increasing behavior 
  • Punisher = Decreasing behavior 

These quadrants are important because they help you develop creative solutions for problems within training, which means you can adjust your training to fit your dog’s needs when you are having difficulty with certain behaviors. So, if one way isn’t working, you have other methods to pull from to achieve the same result. 

Positive Negative
Positive Reinforcement is adding something to make the behavior more likely to happen. Example: When your dog sits, you give it a treat. Negative Reinforcement is removing something to make the behavior more likely to happen. Example: You tell your dog to sit while adding leash pressure. Once the dog sits, you release pressure.
Positive Punishment is adding something to make the behavior less likely to happen. Example: You tell your dog to sit, and if they don’t, you provide a shock or a hit to “correct” the behavior.   Negative Punishment is removing something to make a behavior less likely to happen. Example: If you are playing tug-of-war with your dog and they put their teeth on your skin, then the game stops. 

Classical conditioning allows you to connect a word with behavior and establish a marker word to let the dog know when they are doing something correctly. This is also where emotions get tied to particular places and things: a visit to the vet may create fear, a walk is enjoyable, and so on. Understanding how classical conditioning and operant conditioning work together can help us teach our dogs to remain neutral in a variety of environments.  

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