Reinforcers

Author: Denise Partlow

Instagram: @modernk9 Carolinas

A reinforcer can be positive or negative. As stated yesterday, I like to think of these two terms as relevant to mathematics:

Positive means “add” (+)
Negative means “ take away” (-)

A positive reinforcer means:
I want to reinforce your behavior by taking away (-) something you find unpleasant. This can be removing leash pressure or the stim from an E collar, or even removing them from strangers or other dogs. (are use the removal of strangers frequently with my foster dog Reid). It would have to be what your dog finds to be unpleasant.

With both of these, timing is crucial. It must occur at the same time the dog carries out the action. The dog must understand what behavior is being reinforced. In addition, they don’t have to be used in isolation, they can be used together – you could apply negative reinforcement and then positive reinforcement right after or vice versa (see example in comments)

But it is important to remember that what one dog finds to be reinforcing (positively or negatively) may not be the same for the next dog.

Tomorrow we will discuss punishers, both positive and negative and how it relates to dog training.