How does a bear learn to play trumpet and sit upright in one of your Mother’s colored lawn chairs? Or how does your dog roll over or do amusing things? Well, if you have yet to see the YouTube video I’m referring to or learned about this in a psychology class like I did, then you may be wondering what a bear is doing on a lawn chair or playing a brass instrument. These actually happened! But how you say? It was done by a form of operant conditioning called shaping and technique called successive approximations.

Let’s take this more familiar example. When I was younger I used to have a dog named Shmuffin. No typo there, actually ‘Shmuffin’. Not sure how my younger self and sister concocted that doozy of a name but muffin with a SH- as a prefix it was. He was a small little Yorkie dog with so much energy. Basically, he was the best. Well, he liked to play with all his energy. And as children, I think we had the energy to match, if not surpass his stamina after running around for hours. I really wanted to teach him something. Hm, so instead of teaching a new dog, old tricks (see what I did there), I thought I’d try something different.

I wanted see my dog spin around on his hind legs and spin around when presented with a treat. There were multiple steps involved of course. First I had to get him to stand up. Usually standing him up by holding two of his paws. Then, once he learned to stand without my assistance, I got him to spin. This was certainly more difficult but I managed to run around him while holding the treat to get him to spin. After multiple attempts he could do every motion without my assistance because he anticipated his treat. Even way before presenting the treat he would do the motions many times, even if he wasn’t getting a treat! This was all because of shaping and successive approximation.

The more common form of successive approximation. But it is theoretically possible to teach pigeons to discriminate flowers or people. Obviously there are some practical uses of training animals by way of shaping but the possibilities are endless. Maybe we could teach dogs to help disabled people get certain objects because they are immobile or bedridden. Maybe you could even teach your dog to get you a drink, even if you are capable, from the fridge. So, this isn’t practical whatsoever. I think a lazy college student on game day will beg to differ…

All in all, its pretty exciting to see the things you can do by using psychology. You can train bears to do crazy things, dogs to do funny things, or even other animals to be useful. I’m kind of surprised we do not see this more often. Maybe there will be more advancements with this type of  psychological conditioning with pets, especially dogs. Oh the things a dog will do for a treat.