Operant conditioning

  • What you may not know about rewarding a dog’s fear or aggression

    What you may not know about rewarding a dog’s fear or aggression

    Can treats reinforce a dog’s fear or aggression? A person that posted a comment on our blog asked us such a good question in response to our article, 5 Harsh Realities of Treating Dog Aggression that we thought it was worth a blog post. The question came after a statement that treats can’t reinforce (strengthen…

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  • 5 Harsh Realities of Treating Dog Aggression

    5 Harsh Realities of Treating Dog Aggression

    On the surface treating dog aggression – if not a simple fix – can at least appear to be relatively straightforward. Teach your dog to do something that is incompatible with aggressive behavior. How hard can that be? Well, after the initial cycle of excitement and enthusiasm, there is the inevitable wake-up call to reality.…

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  • The importance of getting your dog’s attention at the earliest stage of aggressive arousal.

    The importance of getting your dog’s attention at the earliest stage of aggressive arousal.

    We and our dogs are unable to pay full attention to more than one thing at a time. Outside of dogs that are aggressive toward their owners, it means that if you can hold your dogs attention, they will not be attention to whatever else he is becoming aggressive towards. Dogs that are not attending to the threats…

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  • Do treats reward aggression?

    Do treats reward aggression?

    This dog was about to be euthanized because he was aggressive to kids and dogs.  See what happens when you blow in his face and watch what happens when he gets rewarded for this behavior in this video by the late Dr. Sophia Yin.  This is a must see for anyone who is counter-conditioning. Training Aggression? Counter-conditioning…

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