Dog Learning

The puppy's learning capacity is expressed through its curiosity and playing around. When it sees a new object, it smells, bites and takes it down to its paw. Learning comes down to the puppy through the mother until weaning. After that the puppy's reference will be the owner. Naturally the learning mechanism is not the same in both cases. Now we will see the different types of learning processes the puppy has, in order to know how to educate the puppy so that it is balanced and can live a happy life in society. Learning requires a series of stages. The puppy receives information, codes it, memorizes and adapts its behavior in function to the information. In puppies four types of learning are distinguished: by association, by temptations and mistakes, by habits and by observation and imitation. Puppies also have short and long term memory.

Learning by Association: This is based on the association of new stimuli with known ones, in order for the puppy to respond the same way. We find a clear example of this in the experiments of Pavlov: a dog salivates when it sees the food arriving; each time the dog is fed a bell sounds. After this happens for some time, when the bell sounds the dog salivates even if there is no food arriving. This response is a reflex by association. 

Learning by Temptations and Mistakes: The dog will detect the different situations that will provide it with petting or a certain pleasure. The dog behaves a certain way to obtain the owner's compassion: if it gets away with this then it will do it again, but if it doesn't then it will let it go. It will learn really fast.

Learning by Habits: This learning mechanism is used in behavioral therapy. If a dog is scared of something then we must keep him close to the thing he fears so that it gets used to it and loses the fear. This is the simplest way of learning. The animal learns peacefully not to react to a stimulus to which it is used to.

Learning by Observation and Imitation: The puppy observes its species, and it learns to imitate them. The puppy imitates the mother, its brothers and sisters. It is not weird that the new dog that arrives at home imitates all the behaviors of the old dog that was living at home.

This is the technique that hunters use to teach their puppies. Dogs Education