As we learned recently from Susan Giordano, the fantastic trainer at K9U Training and Behavior Modification, when it comes to training behaviors, there’s solid scientific evidence behind training dogs with clickers, treats and positive reinforcement. It’s Susan’s general philosophy that it is more effective to say, “please do this” rather than “don’t do that.” Classical conditioning produces an automatic response through association. Fears that your dog may exhibit are usually classically conditioned responses.  If your dog is afraid of thunderstorms, for example, it is likely because of one or two frightening experiences with thunderstorms. In time, dogs may exhibit fearful behavior as soon as the barometric pressure begins to change, since they can often sense this change before humans do.  Fear of thunderstorms, also know as brontephobia, can be “counter-conditioned,” as can all classically conditioned responses. (Give K9U a cal for help with that!) Operant conditioning is behavior modification in which the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement each time the behavior is exhibited, so the person or animal comes to associate pleasure or displeasure with a behavior. Clicker training, for example is operant. You ask for a behavior,and if your dog does it, he gets a click and a reward (treat). If you ask your dog to sit before putting his food down, for example, and he sits, then you put the food down, he eventually will sit automatically before you feed him.

The ABC’s of operant conditioning:
Antecedent
Behavior
Consequence.
Ex.: You ask for a behavior, such as “sit,” (antecedent), the dog sits, (behavior),the dog gets a treat (conseque

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