(Or:  The Inner Rat Is Always Right)

 

How much time have you spent thinking about how your training behavior is reinforced by your animals’ responses to it?  Many of you have heard the expression, “The rat is always right”.  Behavioral researchers who work with lab rats say this to mean that if the rat is doing something it’s because that is what the environment is set up for.  In other words, if he’s not doing what the researcher wants him to do, the researcher needs to do change how the experiment is set up. 

 

Did you know that in any training procedure you are part of, whether as teacher or learner, YOU are one of the rats? 

 

Last week, Shane Isley, a teaching supervisor at UNT told a meeting of teaching fellows and teaching assistants that we should not only remember that our behavior is affected by our students’ behavior, but that we could benefit from telling them that it is.  What he was talking about was that it is not just the instructors who affect the students’ responsiveness in class when they reinforce their responses to questions and their participation in discussions, but the student reactions also reinforce … or extinguish or punish … how instructors present material by their responses.  If we are aware of influences their behavior may be having on how we teach, we can tailor our instruction to be more interesting for them. 

Part of how we can do that with human classes is to simply ask.  “Can you suggest ways I might improve this part of my presentation so that it’s more interesting?”  Maybe offer a few ideas to get them started.  Let them brainstorm.  Maybe offer them the chance to respond anonymously.  It is one way of letting them know that their behavior influences how we teach… and it takes it a step farther and gives them permission to influence how we teach.  Another way is to simply tell them, “How you respond to my questions reinforces or extinguishes or punishes how I present information.”  Telling them they are always welcomed to make specific recommendations… and then acting on many of those recommendations… is another way to boost your effectiveness and influence your students.  By all means, don’t burst into tears or get angry if someone suggests an improvement or asks a hard question!  Consider such things gifts!  When you make the change or add the information to your repertoire, you’ll be a better instructor. 

 

Why Fido Can’t Learn

 

When we are teaching animals, they won’t tell us what we could do better directly.   Animal communicators notwithstanding, they can’t.   But if we learn how to watch what they’re doing, they will tell us what we need to know.  What often happens during training is that when our animals don’t do what we are trying to train them to do, we come to a bunch of conclusions that may or may not be true.  I’ll list a few to give you the idea.

 

Conclusion 1:  This breed is hard to train.  This breed can’t learn this behavior.  Various breeds were bred for various things.  But because a terrier can be tenacious doesn’t mean he can’t also respond to reinforcement and learn new behaviors.  Everyone knows Afghan Hounds are stubborn and uncooperative, right?  I recently heard about an Afghan Hound who finished an advanced Utility title.  Was it as easy to train that hound as it might have been to train a border collie or a golden retriever?  I don’t know.  It depends.  Was the Afghan trainer’s behavior reinforced?  You bet it was.  If it wasn’t, she would have given up on her hound, and that Afghan Hound would still be stubborn. 

 

Many trainers talk about training as a dance.  The thing that keeps time during that dance is the reinforcement received by BOTH of the parties in the training team. 

 

Conclusion 2:  He has a long history of aversive training techniques so he’s hard to train.  (It’s usually worded this way, “He was abused.”)  I’m guilty of underestimating my hound in this way.  My retired racing Greyhound, Bravo, is much harder to train than Pan, my Chinese Crested mix.  She has signs of an aversive training history.  She quits working after only a few trials.  She doesn’t offer a lot of new behaviors readily. 

So, when I want to train someone to do something, I head straight for Pan, or even my cat, Yoda. 

 

Does this mean Bravo is untrainable?  No, it means that my behavior as a trainer gets more reinforcement from Pan and Yoda.  Bravo can still be taught.  She’s learned a whole lot of stuff in her years here.  But I will admit that I simply haven’t bothered to teach her a lot of stuff beyond simple household manners and the very easiest of tricks because my behavior as a trainer is on such a thin schedule of reinforcement with her.  She is not bad.  She is not lazy.  It’s just that for whatever reason I have not yet figured out the form of reinforcement that will make her into a crazy training machine.  And since I find it very reinforcing to sit on the couch with her and rub her ears, I’m okay with that. 

 

Even if her training history was aversive, that doesn’t mean she can’t be trained.  It only means I have to be a better trainer to train her.  And no matter how good the trainer is, the trainer needs reinforcement, too. 

 

Conclusion 3:  He obviously doesn’t enjoy this activity so it isn’t right for me to keep trying to teach him to do it.  Well… maybe.  There are things I don’t think my animals need to learn because they are not responsive during training and I am not motivated to help them become responsive.  Does that mean that the animals don’t like it, or does it mean that I haven’t found the right way to provide reinforcement? 

 

I also ask myself this question, “Who am I doing this for?  Me or him?”  Either answer is a good enough answer to continue with the training.  It’s okay to train a dog to do something that makes him easier for you to live with, even if he would choose something else if left to his own devices.  Clarifying your understanding of the value of this skill for you and for the dog may increase the reinforcing qualities of a training program for you. 

 

Extinction of Training Behaviors

 

What makes us start thinking about giving up teaching a certain behavior?  It’s the schedule of reinforcement OUR training behavior is on.  When people write in to training lists online with the plea, “I’ve been working on X behavior for weeks and my dog still can’t do it.  I’m starting to think I’m wrong to try to teach him!” what they are really saying is that they’re not getting enough reinforcement for their efforts.  The email to the mailing list may actually be part of the trainer’s extinction burst.

 

Whenever you feel trainer frustration, or feel like you’ve hit a brick wall with the behavior you’re trying to train, stop and look at the whole situation.  For most trainers a big part of the reinforcement derived from training is seeing the animal do the behavior, right?  If the animal isn’t getting it, the trainer isn’t getting her reinforcer.  She starts going through withdrawals, and that’s when that frustration sets in. 

 

When a training procedure isn’t working, it’s not going to work if you train the same way, just harder.  It’s not going to work to train the same way more often.  It’s not going to work to train the same way you trained your other dog who picked it up in a flash.  You’re working with a different dog and the rules may be completely different with Fido than they were with Rover. 

 

If the Behavior Isn’t Increasing, It’s Not Being Reinforced.

 

If your dog is not learning it, what is the most basic reason he’s not learning it?  It is not being reinforced.  The first thing to look at is your reinforcers.  Will he work for food?  (If not, is he full, or sick, or tired of that kind of food?)  Will she work for THAT food? (Dry bland Milkbones vs. chunks of ham… it’s not rocket science, Folks!) Will he work for THAT food in THIS situation?   Is there a bigger reinforcer in the environment that simply will always out-compete Scooby Snacks?  If so, can it be incorporated into the training program?  Is he a toy hound?  Why use food if you can use a stuffed Pokemon doll? 

 

There’s another thing to consider.  Sometimes the reason his behavior isn’t being reinforced because the dog can’t find anything in his repertoire close enough to the behavior you want to earn reinforcement so he loses interest.  Tailoring your reinforcement delivery to where the dog is now can reinforce his ability to perform, and thereby reinforce your training behavior.  Maybe you’re making your approximations too big.  If you want him to stand on a step stool but he has never even put his foot on it, you can’t hold out for the completed behavior of all four feet on the stool.  You have to start with any gesture toward the step stool.  Maybe you’re not managing to reinforce a bunch of approximations so he’s not sure that’s what you want.  (Remember that intermittent schedules aren’t for the shaping process… they’re for behavior that is already solid.) 

 

These are the kinds of things to look at when you find YOUR behavior as a trainer isn’t being reinforced.  Remember that the frustration that comes when your learner isn’t learning is probably related to the reinforcement YOU are

(Continued in next column)

Coral