Blog Post #1

Classical Conditioning

            Conditioning isn’t just a great way to make your hair shiny and silky. It is also the way you train most animals, including dogs. It was discovered and named Classical Conditioning by Dr. Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s.

He rang a bell before feeding his dogs. Eventually, the dogs would salivate at just the sound of the bell. They were trained to expect food whenever that bell was rung. In reaction to this they would salivate because that is what they did every single day. Do something the exact same every day for a long enough period of time and that animal, be it canine or human, will expect it without realizing it.

When you get hungry what happens? Your mouth starts producing saliva, your stomach rumbles and/or aches, and your mouth will feel dry. You instinctively want nourishment. It is the same thing with the bell and the dogs. The bell is just the trigger that initiates the salivating to begin.

For example, my family owns two cats. They roam around in my backyard during the day and come in at dusk for the night. The way they are brought inside is by my mother shaking a bag of cat treats on our back deck. They hear the sound of the treats moving around in the plastic bag and come running to her feet. The sound of the bag being shaken is the trigger. That sound lets them know that they will get treats and then go right inside the house. My mother conditioned them to do the same thing every night. They are only given said treats after they are inside and the door is locked. If they do not follow this order then they know they will not get a single treat that night. It happened quite a bit in the beginning. But they have learned since then because they want the treats.

This is just another way to condition someone or something. You train them over a certain period of time to do a certain act and they will be rewarded for it, either by Pavlov giving his dogs dinner or my mother giving her cats treats. It is even possible to condition a human being. They use similar tactics in the military. Though I don’t think quite as nice as getting a treat.