Parallel Classical Conditioning

Most dog trainers are familiar with Classical ConditioningClassical conditioning has nothing to do with behavior and is all about emotion and physiology. If you remember Pavlov’s dogs, you remember the bell, food and drool, but nobody knows what the dogs... More as the pairing of stimulus and a reinforcer (or punisher) in order to create an emotive response, physiological change, or state of being. Put them together at the same point in time often enough and you create an autonomic association.

What is Parallel Classical Conditioning?

There is another way to look at Classical Conditioning which is less immediate than pairing. It’s more duration based. We’ve coined the term Parallel Classical Conditioning here at Pawsitive Vybe. Is it a proper technical term, nope. Does it have a proper name in learning theory? Most likely. I’m all ears for getting the definition, btw…

But, this idea of Parallel Classical Conditioning is really nice when it comes to conceptualizing the classically conditioned state of being while doing an activity or being in a space. Pairing means as it happens – a point in time. Parallel means while it is happening – a length of time.

People know that the dog has a classically conditioned response to you grabbing the leash. They’ve already started on the walk. That is the result of the constant pairing of the start of the walk with you getting the lead. We all get the idea that this is Classical Conditioning in action. It’s paired and generates a physiological and/or emotional response. Sweet.

But there is another kind of classical conditioning that is happening while on your walk. What kind of walk is it? What is happening? Is the dog frantically working to stay above water in a challenging environment? Is the dog walking calmly on a loose lead sniffing the ground? Working a tight heel? Scanning for other dogs? Frantically sniffing? The actions you and your dog perform and the physiological state of being while you are on that walk have a Classical Conditioning effect.

Throughout the course of an activity there are many stimuli, behaviors, reinforcers, and punishers. Trainers tend to split them all up mark and reinforce them individually to create the behaviors we want. We wind up missing the forest for the trees. Each piece of eye contactUnsolicited eye contact or Attention is a great way to hook up with a dog. If you have something the dog wants he should give eye contact in order to get access to... More or release of the environment, each mark, each time you pair something, each little behavior you reinforce to manage that environment are the trees. The forest is the state of being that your dog is in while on the walk. That general state of being during disc play, during a shaping session, or during a play session with another dog is Parallel classical conditioning. The actions being performed and the state of being (or the situation itself) is being paired, over time, with the reinforcement (or punishment) being offered and the situation itself creates an autonomic association.

State of Being Over Time

This concept has great impact upon fearful and reactive dogs. If you are constantly working eye contact in a frantic state in a near over-threshold environment with a reactive dog, then it stands to reason that the act of giving eye contact could become uncomfortable. Any time the handler triggers that reactive dog methodology, the dog’s physiology and emotional state can change to match the Parallel Classically Conditioned state that fits the dog’s history of working that methodology – which is that reactive state. Not at all what handlers are looking for, but I think many handlers get that because they think that Classical Conditioning is just about pairing and are not aware of this Parallel concept.

In terms of performance dogs, how are your sessions structured? Are they on and off – 3 minutes on, 10 minutes off? Are they freeflowing with dogs running around – nonstop action? Are they controlled chaos? The state of being during your session will spill over into other areas, as Classically Conditioned states are prone to do.

How can you expect your dog to have an off switch if you never have down time while training or if you are subject to being pushed into throwing a ball? How can you ask your dog to slow down and think if they are constantly playing at or over threshold or you slavishly feed their drive?

How about you as a handler? Are you jumpy and nervous? Rushed by your dog? Whipping out cues to protect yourself from your dog’s drive? The emotional state of the handler has a huge impact on the emotional state of the dog. How you act, how you feel over the course of a session, can affect your dog’s state of being and performance – radically.

This might seem elementary to some of you, and semantical or silly to others, but it has been kind of a big deal here since we came up with it. It has been helpful in adjusting our approach to training in many situations and also helpful in training discussions. We’re now more aware of things happening in Parallel – while we’re doing something with our dogs or while something is happening. We’ve started to reinforce a lot more without marking, taking the focus off of the actions and discreet moments in time and trying to draw a line of reinforcement applied towards maintaining a state of being for a period of time. .

What is Parallel Classical Conditioning?

State of Being Over Time

Related Articles