Conditioned Emotional Response (CER)

Of the many things I’ve learned in my R+ training journey, CER is one of the most misunderstood and misused—and the one that has the best carry over if used correctly.

CER is, to over simplify, Classical Conditioning. It’s Pavlov—ring the bell, dog drools. The dogs didn’t choose to drool, it was an UNCONSCIOUS response to the bell. It’s an unconscious EMOTIONAL response to the prediction of food (bell predicts food). If the bell predicted a shock, you would see the bell triggering stress or pain avoidance behaviors—CERs are associated with both reinforcers and punishers.

Let’s use the bell-food analogy for articles. If the article (bell) predicts good things for the dog…he will start to anticipate the article (and might even drool!). If the article predicts things the dog perceives as bad he will avoid the article. And worse….CERs bleed backwards….he will begin to avoid the track, because tracking predicts the article which predicts the thing the dog perceives as bad.

NOTE: the DOG chooses what is good or bad—not you! You might think eggs for breakfast is great; I find them punishing. What we/our dogs like is individual, and part of our job as trainers is to identify things our dogs like and things they find aversive. “Like” by the way, does NOT mean reinforcing. But that’s another rabbit hole for another day. Anyway….nagging the dog, standing waiting….do YOU like to be nagged? Do YOU like it when someone stares at you and waits for you to do something…especially if you’re not sure what it is you are supposed to do? If you find these aversive, it’s likely your dog does too.

Articles are ALWAYS good. We don’t order the dog to “DOWN-DOWN-DOWN” because your dog likely finds that aversive—the article predicts you becoming authoritarian and demanding, so the dog avoids the article…and if you don’t listen to him, he avoids the track. If your dog pounces, or retrieves—it’s the act of pouncing or retrieving that we reinforce with food and rubs and happy talk. Wait too long….without getting into Training Loops, let’s just say the longer the time between the behavior and the reinforcement or bridge (click) the less likely it is that the reinforcement is going to strengthen the target behavior.

What about the cheerleader? The human who gets all excited before the dog does anything to the article? Well, if the cheerleading predicts something the dog doesn’t love…it becomes a cue that the bad thing is about to happen…so the dog now perceives happy handler as a bad thing—it predicts bad things for the dog. This is super common in obedience. The handler acts all happy at the gate before the dog goes into the ring…which is a place the dog finds stressful. The happy handler predicts emotional discomfort (stress) for the dog…and the dog starts acting stressed earlier (on the walk to the gate), and earlier(when he comes out of his crate), and earlier—eventually when they walk into the training building.

Let’s not go down that path. Take what the dog is offering, and build on it. Nose touch to article (at home, doing article games)? Pair the nose touch with something the dog loves—food, or a rigorous game of fetch (IF, and only if, the dog can give the toy back without conflict-cuz conflict is aversive). After 2-3 reps, wait for 2 nose touches…and then maybe a push or lick…. Reinforcement drives behavior—it’s what happens AFTER the dog touches/pounces on/downs/retrieves the article that makes the dog repeat the target behavior. By training all article skills off the track we avoid accidentally poisoning tracking behavior. When article skills are fluent we can add them to short, easy tracks. For the record, your instructors and assistants will decide when your articles are fluent.

It was what happened AFTER Pavlov rang the bell that made the dogs salivate. Let’s get our dogs drooling for the article!

Looking forward to seeing article videos from everyone!!!!

Little known item: Pavlov actually had 3 groups. Group. 1 was bell then food. Drooling happened in less than 10 reps. Group 2 was bell during eating. Drooling happened after about (I’ve forgotten)100 reps. Group 3 was bell after eating. Drooling never occurred. Remember, our “bell” is the article.