#17 - Debugging your counter conditioning

We talk about classical conditioning in dog training circles a lot,
and I’ve been hearing the term CER more and more frequently in
larger conversations, which is AWESOME. Most people know that
classical conditioning is one form of associative learning that
makes up part of what we call learning theory. And most recognize
the name Pavlov, and know that he did some experiments a long time
ago that involved some bells and some food and some drooling dogs.
But I think we can do a little bit better, because I am a big
believer that the more we understand about a process, the better
equipped we are to use that process to our advantage (lest it be
used against us). We can build a Conditioned Emotional Response to
some, initially meaningless, stimulus or event, by pairing it with
something that the dog already has a response to. And that is how
the clicker or other event marker is conditioned. The click starts
out as just some meaningless noise. Then by pairing it with food.
The click starts to initiate food-like responses. And the more this
happens, the stronger the response. But what if the event or
stimulus is not actually neutral... what if the dog already has
some experience or association with that thing, and so it already
has meaning (and what if it's a bad meaning). That’s where counter
conditioning comes in.