Reinforcement
Many would have you believe that there are only two types of reinforcement.But in the quadrant of conditioning there are 4 hence the name quadrant.Though they are not all called reinforcement they all do the same thing ..reinforce a behaviour to occur or not to occur.
With a balanced training regime all four of the quadrants are used.
Positive reinforcement
- Providing something enjoyable to increase the likelihood of the behavior eg. at pat or a gentle word
- You go to work and you get paid
This is very good for teaching a dog to do something not so good to teach a dog NOT to do something
Negative reinforcement
- Is a decrease in a consequential behaviour by adding an aversive stimuls eg leash correction
This is very good for teaching a dog what not to do but not good for teaching a dog to do something
The dog has a choice of what to do.
Avoidance conditioning where a behaviour prevents an aversive stimulus happening or start to happen
or
Escape conditioning where a certain behaviour will stop the aversive stimulus after it has started
We use all four of these things in our training hence i can confidently say we are very balanced in how we train.
