The Three Parts of the dog’s brain:
The brain stem, which controls many basic life functions.
The cerebrum, which is the center of conscious decision-making.
The cerebellum, which is involved in movement and motor control.
Sensory neurons carry information from the body to the spinal cord or brain stem, and then on to the cerebellum, brain stem, and cerebrum for interpretation. Sensory information includes sensations of pain, position, touch, temperature, taste, hearing, balance, vision, and smell.
The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for increasing the dog's arousal in response to stress and the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for counteracting the arousal and calming the dog.
The Cerebral cortex is the limbic system – this regulates the dog's emotions from fear, rage, and aggression to anxiety, joy and euphoria.
Dopamine, the chemical in the brain that regulates happiness. Dopamine is a chemical that is stackable and can be produced at high levels in the brain.
Cortisol is one of the body's natural steroids. This is the chemical that is the stress hormone. When it is produced it becomes present and does not stack unlike dopamine.
Latent learning happens when an animal (or human) stores information in its long-term memory and displays this knowledge, when needed, at a later date. Latent learning is particularly effective when a dog is learning a new behavior. Latent learning is particularly effective when a dog is learning a new behavior. It enables the dog on subsequent occasions to have a clear memory of the successful way it did the training by recognising the triggers it learnt to gain its reward.
What is Operant Conditioning? Operant conditioning is the basis of animal training. It is a type of learning in which an animal learns (or, is conditioned) from its behaviors as it acts (operates) on the environment. In operant conditioning, the likelihood of a behavior is increased or decreased by the consequences that follow. That is, a behavior will happen either more often or less often, depending on its results. When an animal performs a particular behavior that produces a favorable consequence, the animal is likely to repeat that behavior. Animals learn by the principles of operant conditioning every day. For example, woodpeckers find insects to eat by pecking holes in trees with their beaks. One day, a woodpecker finds a particular tree that offers an especially abundant supply of the bird's favorite bugs. The woodpecker is likely to return to that tree again and again.
In Operant Conditioning Theory, there are essentially four quadrants: Positive Reinforcement, Positive Punishment, Negative Reinforcement, and Negative Punishment.
Positive Reinforcement: is essentially adding something to the equation to encourage the subject to repeat a desired behavior. Positive Reinforcement in dog training does not necessarily have to be with a food item, but can be given through praise or playing with a favorite toy.
Positive Punishment: means adding something after the dog did a behavior that makes the frequency of that behavior go down.
Negative Reinforcement: Negative reinforcement is when you reinforce a behavior by removing something, for example, you command your dog to “SIT” and then you apply downward pressure to their hindquarters until the dog sat, at which point you remove the pressure from their hindquarters that is why it is called negative because you at taking away the pressure. The reason why this kind is not punishment is because you are increasing the behavior rather than decreasing the behavior which is what punishment does.
Negative Punishment: Negative punishment is when you take away a desired stimulus after an undesired behavior is performed making the behavior less likely to happen in the future. For example you are walking your dog and they start to pull, You stop walking and wait till your dog stops pulling. You are negatively punishing the behavior of pulling by taking away the stimulus of walking, so it is less likely that your dog will pull in the future.
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