Dog Training And Behavior

Learned Helplessness Learned helplessness is a complex behavior first identified by Seligman in 1967 who was studying experimental neurosis. One of Seligman’s experiments found “…dogs exposed to traumatic inescapable shock showed signs of neurotic elaboration and disintegration on cognitive, emotional, and motivational levels of organization” according to Lindsay (2000). The experiment included three groups, one group, escape trained (ET), one group (YC) was controlled with restraint and no option to escape and the final group was the control (C). Both the ET and YC groups were exposed to continuous shock, but the ET group was allowed to escape the shock by giving an appropriate response and the YC group was prohibited from making any response to turn off the shock. The C group received no escape training. The next phase of the experiment was the following day when all three groups received escape-avoidance training that included jumping over a low hurdle to avoid the shock triggered by a CS (light). What the results revealed was both the ET and C group learned the shuttle-box avoidance response and the YC group had “great difficulty mastering the required behavior” rather responding by displaying “…intense pain reactions followed by impassivity” lying down and whimpering on the wire grid (Lindsay, 2000). An astounding outcome was “inescapable shock had dramatic negative and interfering effects on postshock learning” and even those few dogs who were successful in escaping the shock were unable to repeat the behavior in subsequent trials (Lindsay, 2000). Additional characteristics for learned helplessness included “time course” with most dogs recovering after an elapsed 24 hours, but those exposed to repeated uncontrollable shock failed to recover, a general lowering of “competitiveness (aggression)” and “vitality,” the “development of a negative cognitive set” believing they had no options and finally a “loss of appetite” (Lindsay, 2000).

What Seligman theorized was it wasn’t the traumatic event but the lack of control over one’s choice to use a normal escape-avoidance behavior, concluding that for learned helplessness to manifest both a traumatic experience as well as removing the subjects control over their environment are necessary ingredients.

Two additional pieces of information provided to Seligman included 1.) dogs continued to suffer the effects much longer than the 24-48 hours he had originally presumed and 2.) “…animals raised under laboratory conditions tended not to recover from the helplessness effect.” Later trials revealed naïve rats raised in laboratory settings and not subjected to previous traumatic experiences were less able to cope because they lacked any previously learned history associated with such outcomes that would have provided necessary information regarding one’s ability to control such outcomes. He confirmed in these subsequent trials “previous exposure to escapable shock appears to have immunized the escape group against the effects of learned helplessness” (Lindsay, 2000).

How can learned helplessness affect the family dog?

Lindsay (2000) says, “[f]amily dogs habitually exposed to unpredictable/uncontrollable punishment are at risk of developing disturbances associated with the learned-helplessness disorder.”

How does this manifest?

It can easily manifest when dog guardians fail to interpret clear signals for avoidance responses, pain associated with inappropriate punishment and excessive startle reactions are all capable of contributing to the manifestation of learned helplessness.

Some of the most commonly seen cases are when owners punish dogs’ behavior well after the offending behavior has taken place and quite possibly out of anger. Rather frustrated owners should consider a more appropriate plan that might include management and behavior modification. It is best to avoid punishment during any training process and according to Lindsay (2000), “…dogs exposed to excessive punishment will never reach their full potential” and instead grow “…callous to their owner’s abusive treatment” often “…appearing not to feel punishment by their lack of responsiveness.”

Lindsay (2000) says, according to Drugan et al., (1985) “…helpless dogs appear to develop an endorphin-mediated analgesia stimulated by uncontrollable trauma” and “…on a cognitive level, helpless dogs have simply learned to take punishment but not benefit from it.”

It has been argued “…that an aversive stimulus engages a compensatory opponent process” that has the effect of reducing the impact of pain. According to Grau & Meagher (1999), [p]sychologists…realized that exposure to an aversive event, or the expectation of such an event, could undermine learning and behavior by inducing the release of an endorphin” and the “inescapable shock schedule used to induce learned helplessness in rats produces a powerful opioid analgesia,” sensitizing the effects of pain.

Further studies confirmed that “loss of controllability” was responsible for an inability to learn suggesting “…the cognition of the contingency between a response and an outcome is an important factor in governing an organisms behavior” according to Sonoda et al., and according to Lindsay (2000).

Controlling one’s environment and providing predictable outcomes for behavior

When we condition stimuli using classical conditioning we are setting the subject up to understand a specific expected outcome as a result, the same holds true in instrumental conditioning when we use signals to gain responses, that in turn give the subject information regarding whether reinforcement or punishment will be delivered. In instrumental conditioning, we use acquisition, reinforcement schedules and extinction to provide necessary information regarding expected outcomes or contingencies. It is with this information the subject can draw conclusions regarding their own behavior and consequences. One may use continuous reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement or differential reinforcement for other desirable behavior.

However, it is vitally important for dog trainers and owners to realize how predictability for both rewarding and punitive consequences may affect the learning process. It is imperative in training to provide a clear link with any proceeding antecedents with behavior and consequences otherwise; the subject may be unable to link their behavior with rewarding or punitive consequences. This would create a very unstable relationship, which can lead the subject to either learned laziness or even worse learned helplessness.

According to Lindsay (2000), the “lack or loss of controllability of positive outcomes affects not only subsequent appetitive training but also the animal’s ability to learn aversive contingencies’ and additionally one may inadvertently reward undesirable behavior and superstitious behavior.

Lindsay (2000) says, “…unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive stimulation” and its effects can be even more “pervasive and debilitating, when a subject is not given the opportunity to learn avoidance cues pertaining to negative reinforcement and noncontingent punishment. In addition, he says “…the loss of control over significant events via the noncontingent presentation of appetitive or aversive stimuli results in reduced operant initiative and retards associative learning processes.”

The devastating effects on dogs can include becoming “overly cautious, nervous, and insular” since they are unable to predict outcomes concerning their behavior. Additional observed behavior might include punishment passivity, pain insensitive, stubborn, failing and resistant to learning and appearing to struggle with training often resorting to withdrawal (Lindsay, 2000).

Social and Environmental Influences

In addition to providing clear signals and consequences for dog behavior, there are certain environmental influences that can cause deleterious results further contributing to learned helplessness. Even though biology may contribute to the “development of normal and abnormal behavior, the vast majority of behavior adjustment problems are social” involving human – dog relationships and those problems that may arise due to environmental related to “home adaptation” according to Lindsay (2001).

Lindsay (2001) says, there are “…numerous contributory factors…environmental stressors, unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive or attractive events, sensory and physiological privations (lack of providing one’s basic needs), boredom…excessive confinement, socialization and environmental-exposure deficits, and mistreatment.”

Rather than classifying any of this maladjusted behavior as “pathological or abnormal” Lindsay (2001) prefers to classify it as “normal behavior operating under abnormal or dysfunctional conditions” offering “disorganized contingencies of reinforcement and punishment” which result in “disorganized and dysfunctional behavior.”

Lindsay (2001) says, “most behavioral problems respond exceedingly well to cynopraxic and behavioral intervention” since this method of intervention “frames and organizes the problem situation so that disorganized antecedents and consequences are reorganized in a way that results in the development of more effective and adaptive behavior” resulting in undesirable behavior being replaced with more acceptable or alternative behavior.

Deprivation, Trauma and Over-indulgence

Some naturally occurring trauma can’t be avoided and can have long term deleterious effects on future behavior, but in many cases trauma caused by abusive owners and long term isolation can “present behavioral signs indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder…and learned helplessness” and contrary to this some dogs may be “extraordinarily resistant” showing no sign of abuse, said Lindsay (2001). He further says, “…temperament appears to play a significant protective or facilitatory role in the expression of disturbed behavior.”

Dog are social animals and when exposed to “social isolation and sensory deprivation” often times the “development of various emotional and cognitive disorders” will occur. Contrary to this, “excessive or inappropriate contact and indulgence can also contribute to the development of maladaptive behavior” further emphasizing the importance of providing clear behavior expectancies allowing the dog to predict reliably what the consequences are for their subsequent behavior (Lindsay, 2001.

Early Separation and Learned Helplessness

Normal puppies can form strong relational bonds with their mother, littermates, the breeder’s family and some may be very susceptible to being removed from the original social situation (breeding environment) causing a “sense of helplessness” due to loss of control over their environment and cast suddenly into an unfamiliar setting. This feeling of helplessness may further be exacerbated by …”excessive crate confinement, noncontingent punishment, and a general perception that significant events (both attractive and aversive) occur independently of what the puppy does” (Lindsay, 2001).

Conflict, Stress and the Expression of Compulsive Behavior Disorders

There are several explanations for the development of compulsive behavior disorders including conflict, stress, biological factors, the cumulative effects from learning and general coping skills under adverse conditions (Lindsay, 2001).

Lindsay (2001) has suggested “…an acquired cognitive deficit” may be responsible for those dogs who appear predisposed and having difficulty adapting to conflict and stress related to environmental pressures. He suggests, some of these dogs may have a “…pervasive belief or negative cognitive set” indicating no matter what their choice behavior may be it will be “ineffectual and irrelevant” having no consequence in place.

This deleterious effect may create emotional conflicts when the animal is faced with making choices between two opposing behaviors, resulting in “…a history of excessively unpredictable and uncontrollable learning events.” Dogs predisposed to this cognitive deficit may respond to “…stressful situations in more arbitrary and rigid ways” and under this influence these dogs may “…be affected by a global pessimism or learned helplessness” thus making them predisposed to thinking, “all possible responses…will be equally useless and ineffectual” (Lindsay, 2001).

As a result, these dogs “when exposed to heightened stress and conflict…unable to act functionally and voluntarily…[will] be compelled to adopt compulsive behavior as a stress-reducing strategy” according to Lindsay (2001).

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