How Dogs Learn
Dogs learn in two ways - Association and Consequence
Association - emotional response
Association is when dogs learn automatic, reflexive, involuntary emotional responses without thinking. Dogs spend their entire lives observing and responding to the things around them. They are constantly creating associations whether we want them to or not. Some associations we find comical, others.. not so much.
A common example, the doorbell rings. Your dog anticipates a new person coming to the door, because this has happened many times before, so they jump up and bark in anticipation. You can then play a doorbell ring recording and your dog will probably jump up looking towards the door because they associate the doorbell sound with someone coming to the door. Emotional responses will also be created by associative learning. Your dog learns very quickly if something is safe, dangerous, good for me, bad for me or neutral. These associations inform the decisions the dog makes and the reactions they have to various situations and things in their environment. |
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Human and dog comparison - Imagine you meet someone for the first time. You will come away with a positive, negative, or neutral association. If you enjoyed the interaction, you are likely to be happy to see that person again. If you found the person difficult or argumentative, you might get a feeling of dread when you see him or her again. You have formed a negative association with that person.
Now, imagine your dog goes into a dog park and gets bombarded by three pushy dogs. Your dog tries to run away but the dogs give chase which ends with your dog growling and snapping from overwhelm and defensiveness. Your dog is thinking - new dogs are unsafe, dangerous and not good for me. The next day, you take your dog out for a walk and you stop to allow your dog to say hello to your neighbors dog. Your dog is going off of their last interaction with new dogs which was a scary one. Your dog snaps and growls to get your neighbors dog away from them. A negative association with new dogs has been created.
Now, imagine your dog goes into a dog park and gets bombarded by three pushy dogs. Your dog tries to run away but the dogs give chase which ends with your dog growling and snapping from overwhelm and defensiveness. Your dog is thinking - new dogs are unsafe, dangerous and not good for me. The next day, you take your dog out for a walk and you stop to allow your dog to say hello to your neighbors dog. Your dog is going off of their last interaction with new dogs which was a scary one. Your dog snaps and growls to get your neighbors dog away from them. A negative association with new dogs has been created.
We can and should use association, also known as classical conditioning, when living with our dogs to adjust those emotional responses and reflexes. Simply by pairing a situation or trigger that results in an unbalanced emotion in our dogs with something good and calm. A high value treat, pattern game or obedience in the presence of a stimulus can help the dog start creating a balanced, positive association. Thus changing the emotional response and decision making in our dogs.
Consequence - does it work?
Consequences of behaviors teach dogs whether to repeat those behaviors or not. Dogs will learn very quickly if something works for them and will continue to do said behavior if it gets them what they want. This could be something as simple as counter surfing to get dinner leftovers or as deep as growling and biting to gain distance.
This type of learning happens naturally just like association does. It can also be applied by dog owners, too, just like association is. When you lure a dog into a sit and immediately give a treat when their butt touches the ground, your dog is most likely to repeat the sit behavior to get another treat and so on. The more the sit behavior is reinforced, the more a dog will do it. Over time, this behavior becomes part of the dog’s repertoire due to positive reinforcement, also known as operant conditioning.
This type of learning happens naturally just like association does. It can also be applied by dog owners, too, just like association is. When you lure a dog into a sit and immediately give a treat when their butt touches the ground, your dog is most likely to repeat the sit behavior to get another treat and so on. The more the sit behavior is reinforced, the more a dog will do it. Over time, this behavior becomes part of the dog’s repertoire due to positive reinforcement, also known as operant conditioning.

Human and dog comparison: Dogs learn by immediate consequence. Unlike humans, they do not have the ability to connect events that happened with lots of time in between them. Imagine you tell a child they will get a special award for showing up to class on time every day over the course of the year. When the child receives the award at the end of the year, they will understand it was because of the attendance he had all year. A dog could never understand a scenario of this nature.
Going back to the sit behavior example from above, say you lure a dog into a sit and don’t immediately give the treat. Say, you put your hand into your pocket in search of a treat. You dig through a noisy treat bag, meanwhile your dog loses patience and jumps on you to smell the treats moving around in your pocket. By that time you grabbed a treat and gave it to your dog when they were jumping. Your dog will connect getting up from the sit and jumping as the behavior that works to get the treat, not the sit.
Going back to the sit behavior example from above, say you lure a dog into a sit and don’t immediately give the treat. Say, you put your hand into your pocket in search of a treat. You dig through a noisy treat bag, meanwhile your dog loses patience and jumps on you to smell the treats moving around in your pocket. By that time you grabbed a treat and gave it to your dog when they were jumping. Your dog will connect getting up from the sit and jumping as the behavior that works to get the treat, not the sit.
How can we make this work in our favor? Teach our dogs behaviors that work for them and use natural reinforcers (consequences) in real life. Instead of walking forward when your dog pulls which teaches them the more they pull, the more it works to reach where they want to go. About face when they pull to get a loose lead and only continue forward when they walk on a loose leash. Teach your dog jumping on people does not yield any praise or affection, rather four paws on the floor does!
From the Dogs Perspective
Dogs do what is safe and what works. They learn by association/emotion and by consequence/doing.

Dogs see the world in two ways: What is safe/good for me vs. what is dangerous/bad and what works vs. what doesn’t. It is a myth that dogs may do things we dislike to be spiteful, stubborn or naughty. To dogs, the world is either safe or dangerous and things either work or they don’t. Dogs do not have the capacity for abstract thought so the theory of right and wrong does not come into view for them.
If a dog barks at you for attention and you give them feedback for it, rest assured they will do that again when they decide they want your attention. If you ignore the barking, they will eventually give up and try something else. The dog is not trying to be obnoxious; they are just doing what works. If you ask a dog to sit and they don’t, they are not being stubborn; you just haven’t trained them well enough yet.
In other words, dogs are dogs, not people. Be patient with your dog and careful about what you pay attention to and what you ignore.
If a dog barks at you for attention and you give them feedback for it, rest assured they will do that again when they decide they want your attention. If you ignore the barking, they will eventually give up and try something else. The dog is not trying to be obnoxious; they are just doing what works. If you ask a dog to sit and they don’t, they are not being stubborn; you just haven’t trained them well enough yet.
In other words, dogs are dogs, not people. Be patient with your dog and careful about what you pay attention to and what you ignore.
Written by Jamie Ianello, IAABC-SBA