Made famous by Pavlov’s dogs, classical conditioning is the process whereby two events become so closely associated that one predicts the other.
This article is part of a series on clicker training for gundogs.
But it is also important information for those wishing to participate in dog training of any kind, including gundog work.
How does it work?
[wp_ad_camp_1]Pavlov demonstrated that by ringing a bell whenever he fed his dogs, eventually the sound of the bell by itself was sufficient to cause the physical reaction of ‘drooling’, previously only caused by the presence of food.
A meaningless sound was now generating a feeling within the dog so identical to the feelings aroused by the presence of his dinner, that a physical reaction (the drooling) was induced.
This process of a previously meaningless signal becoming meaningful by association, has been thoroughly tested.
Why is it useful?
Giving giving an articial sound or signal the power to change the feelings and physiology of the dog, allows us to use an artificial signal to make a dog ‘feel good’.
This in turn enables us to ‘mark’ or identify for the dog, the behaviour we want him to repeat through the use of the signal. In other words, the signal tells the dog that ‘food is on its way’.
We call this type of signal, an event marker.
Just like Pavlov, we have to ‘build up’ this association between our event marker and that ‘good feeling’ over time.
The event marker you are probably most familiar with will be a ‘clicker‘. But you can use verbal event markers and other types of signal too.
By repeatedly following random clicks or verbal event markers with a treat or reward of some sort, the click itself takes on the characteristics of the reward and is therefore able to reinforce the dog’s behaviour.
This charging process is only necessary once for each dog, but it is essential that it is carried out before clicker training commences.
A temporary association
Typically classical conditioning may be temporary. That is to say if the two events are not associated with one another for a while, then the association between them breaks down and the training effect is lost.
For this reason, we always follow the click with a reward as soon as possible.
However, and this is the important bit, a small gap in time between the two does not seem to diminish the power of the click.
This is this very useful phenomenon, which allows us to click and strengthen behaviour even when we cannot reach our dog. The reward can be given after we have relocated.
Provided the time elapsed is small, and/or we do not break the association too often, the clicker will maintain its power. How clever is that!
You might also like to read ‘operant conditioning in a nutshell for gundog trainers’.
This article has been revised and updated for 2015
Terry says
We have a 6mth old male springer spaniel who is very strong willed. In the house he is fantastic, will retrieve, sit ,stay with excellent recall but outside is distracted by all smells etc and isn’t interested in us at all, he does come back but when he’s ready! we’ve just had him with a gun dog trainer who says not to let him run on the field . We kept him in the garden doing the training we’d been shown which includes lead training doing short sessions round the block but feel he’s missing out on socialising and also as he’s deprived of the smells n excercise he needs also he’s now seeing the lead as something horrid and doesn’t want to go out when walks should be exciting. We read another site which says if they’re not allowed to have a run and sniff around they’ll be even more distracted as its all new to them!! We took him on the field today and rightly or wrongly let him off to have a run. His tail was wagging and he seemed to enjoy himself for the first time in ages he ran round and round and came back and seems far happier in himself. Please could we have your advices please on walking as it seems the more we restrict him the more he seems to want it and surely pups need to run off some high spirits and excercise is important?