Animal Characteristics, Operant Conditioning and Training a Pet



The species of the animals, their history, and their upbringing plays a vital role in the personality development of pets and in training a pet. The animal characteristics of a specific species cannot be generalized, although some habits can be common. It is therefore recommended that the characteristic of the individual animal should be studied before designing a plan for training a pet. But some basic principles can be applied along with the designed training plan. The training plan can be assisted with training equipment, reference training book, etc.

Operant conditioning is the most important and basic thing to concentrate upon during training. Operant conditioning explains the effect of the training technique on the behavior of the animal. For example, the pet will understand that if he uses the litter box properly it will get a treat. And he can avoid a punishment by not jumping on a sleeping person in the middle of the night. A human learns that if he works hard, he will be able to get good grades, and if he touches the flame of a burning candle he will burn himself. All these are example of the outcome of operant conditioning.

The categories of operant conditioning are reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement for a repeated behavior is a technique to get the animal to do what you want them to do or to stop doing something offensive. These follow repetitive behaviors, which can be positive or negative. Punishment is the consequence of a bad behavior, which shouldn’t be repeated again. Punishments can be either negative or positive, but they help to decrease the repetition of the behavior. They can be further divided as positive reinforcement, positive punishment, negative reinforcement and negative punishment.

Good behaviors are behaviors that you want to be repeated again and again. And the consequence of the good behavior should also be good, which is known as a reward. For example, if the dog does an expected action upon hearing a command, it knows that it will get a treat as a reward in return. If the animal doesn’t pounce on the human and instead pounces on the toy, it should be rewarded with a pat or a hug. All these are known as positive enforcements.

Negative enforcements are repeated behaviors, which will stop something bad or which will help in getting rid of something. This term should not be confused with punishment. For example, if a dog is trained to bark upon sighting a stranger in the house, it will make the intruder run away, this is negative enforcement. The subject does something so as to stop the occurrence of something unpleasant.

Positive punishment is given when the animal does something bad very rarely which results in something undesirable. Since the animal is punished with an unpleasant consequence, the animal will learn from it, and there will be a reduced chance of repetition. For example, if the puppy is sprayed with water when it pounces on the human, this is positive punishment. The puppy will foresee the punishment before pouncing again.

When the animal does something and the consequences is that something good is snatched away from it, this is known as negative punishment. For example if the dog tries to snatch the food right out of the hand of the owner, it will not get any food.

These are basic principles that depict the learning traits and characteristics of animals in training a pet. Based on these training techniques, programs are developed to condition the animal. The owners can develop unique individual training programs for each of their pets based upon animal characteristics.

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Household Pet Articles

All You Want to Know About Vaccinating Your Pets

Allergies to Pets and Causes

Animal Characteristics, Operant Conditioning and Training a Pet

Animals Languages

Cat Delcaw Alternatives

Choosing an In Home Pet Sitter

Dog Shows

Domestic Aquarium Fish Keeping

Finding Lost Pets

Hedgehog Pets

How Dogs Communicate

Selecting a Vet for Your Pet

Insurance for Pets

Intestinal Blockages in Pets Caused by Foreign Objects

Keeping Cats for Pets

Leash Training Tips for Your Pets

Maintaining Goldfish

Mellowing Down a Wild Pet

Pet Crate Training

Pet Passport and Pets

Pet Training and Classical Conditioning

Pets for Seniors and Pets for People with Disabilities

Problems Faced During Litter Box Training

Raising Peafowl as Pets

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