More Discussion on Operant ConditioningEvery animal is trained using one of four actions, and I add a fifth which is a combinationYou, the trainer, either Gives or Takes Away. You Give a reward or punishment. This is called a "Positive Reinforcement." You Take Away a privilege or pain. This is called a "Negative Reinforcement." When you Give a reward, the animal learns to repeat the behavior. When you Give a punishment, you hope the animal resists the behavior. When you Take Away a privilege, you hope the animal resists the behavior. When you Take Away pain, the animal learns to trust you. Let's look at how these work with cats...Giving a reward works well. Additional cuddles, treats, praise and special toys. You find a behavior that you want to see repeated and you praise with a treat. This works especially well with clicker training. I also teach you to use praise in litter box retraining. Giving a punishment doesn't work so well in cats. They retaliate - like pooping in your shoes! Yelling, hitting, and so on are not recommended. Your animal will be afraid of you, or will turn on you. Cats don't forget as readily as dogs, so try not to yell or use punishment on your cat. Taking away a privilege doesn't work in cats, except in confinement. That, combined with praise helps to retrain your cat to the litter box. Mostly, however, cats don't respond to this. Your teenager will, however! Taking away pain will build trust with a feral cat. If you see one in pain, taking away what hurts them helps to get the cat to trust you. It's always a good idea to take away pain; to make things better. But with feral cats, it's particularly helpful. The Fifth Way...The fifth way that I add is called Redirection. If a dog has my shoe, I will take a favorite toy and replace the shoe in the dog's mouth. If I just pull on the shoe, the shoe gets damaged, but if I offer a replacement, the dog will release the shoe. I give a favorite toy so that my cat will leave the plants alone. I have to keep giving the toy until the cat moves away from the plants. If you give an alternative instead, the transition is more seamless and the animal is more open to taking the alternative. With some cats, you have to do this several times, but just keep at it. Operant Conditioning works on all animals! Even People!Sabine Schroll, author: "Environment Enrichment for Indoor Cats. Increasing the Quality of Life"
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