The species of the animals, their history, and their
upbringing plays a vital role in personality development of the
pet. The characteristic 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 the training plan for it. But
some basic principles can be applied along with the designed
training plan. The training plan can be equipped with training
equipments, reference training book, etc.
Operant condition is the most important and basic thing to
concentrate upon during training. Operant condition 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 is the repeated force of behavior out
of the animal using something. They are repetitive behavior,
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, which should be repeated again and
again. And the result 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 the 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, the animal will learn from it and there will
be lesser 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 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 basic principles depict the learning traits of the
animals. Based on these training techniques are developed. The
owners can develop unique training programs for each of their
pets, individually.