Operant Conditioning

I can't remember if I've mentioned before that I have been a fan of BF Skinner concerning dog training for quite a long time. It's thanks to his research that we have such things as clicker training and positive training in the world of animals now instead of the classic way of force and control.

My only problem with this is that I often have difficulty coming up with ways to utilize positive training in unique situations. The one I've had the most difficulty with is getting the dog to stop bothering the cats. She likes to run up to them and shove her nose into their side making them jump and run, giving her something to chase. She will also curl her lip at them if they are lying near her and she's very jealous of the possibility of any food if they are around. 

About two months ago, I had a light-bulb moment and realized that instead of rewarding the dog for not bothering the cats,

I would instead reward the cats for being bothered by the dog. 

I set out to begin my training this morning with her most valued treat, cat treats. It was funny to watch her reaction the first time she shoved her nose into the cat and I gave the cat a treat! After a moment's contemplation, she tried a second time, shoving her nose into the cat's side. Again, I gave the cat a treat. The look on her face was priceless. You could almost see her working out the problem in her head. "Nose in cat, cat gets treat. That can't be right. Nose in cat...cat gets treat?!?" A third time, she shoved her nose into the cat and again, the cat got rewarded while she got nothing, not even a word from me.

She sat back on her haunches for a moment to contemplate the situation. She tried this behavior a couple more times and finally gave up bothering the cat, laying down on the floor. I wanted to reinforce the laying nicely behavior, so I finally gave the dog a treat. In my mind I was rewarding the most recent behavior, which was NOT bothering the cats.

 I was incredibly impressed that the dog had just run the equivalent of a science experiment to understand what was happening and I declared myself a dog training genius!

I was still patting myself on the back the next day when I took my coffee to the same chair and the cat jumped up onto the same ottoman. Charlotte walked up, looked at the cat and then looked at me and proceeded to shove her nose into the cat's side. I wasn't completely surprised. I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day. So, according to plan, I gave the cat a treat.

Without missing a beat, she shoved her nose into the cat again, waited for the cat to get a treat, and did it a third time. As I was handing the cat her third treat, the dog laid down and looked at me expectantly. 

I'm happy to say the light bulb went on immediately. I looked at her said "Oh-no-no-no! We are not creating a chain of behaviors!That is not how this works! No treat!" She cocked her head to the side and looked at me as if to say "Why not?"

All in all, I have to give it to her. It was pretty clever of her to think that she had somehow managed to get both herself and the cat a treat in addition to having her fun. I was not happy to see I'd been outsmarted by my dog. Border collies - too smart for their own good! 

Needless to say, I still haven't figured out how to get her to stop bothering the cats completely, though we now have a foster dog, and having an animal of the same species to bother has brought a small amount of peace to the cats lives.