Behaviour Analysis | Habit Research | Neuroscience | Psychology- Humans & Animals
After a recent research project into the neuroscience of behaviour and a talk given at the ISCP, INTER Dogs and Dog Alliance (see recorded webinar) Introduction To the Science Of Behaviour (Beginners) Seminar we became interested in the concept of emotional contagion and what this means to dogs. To find out more about the neural mechanisms of this concept and what the current research is...
The mechanisms that occur when ANY animal feels stress or anxiety is conserved across the way the nervous system responds. We are looking at the limbic system and basically under the hat we are all the same (according to Panksepp et al) This is why we use Rat models to draw conclusions about human behaviour. Recent work by Greg Berns showed that...
Teaching your dog to come back to you is probably one of the most important tools you could train. The reasons are many! Firstly, if you have not trained a specific word (or whistle or any other cue) then it is quite likely that your dog is not trained to return to you on cue. It might be that he comes back...
Exposure to bad experiences early in life, will affect the way that animals anticipate and process sensory input. Traumatic experiences induce a complex series of (neurological and physiological) alterations in what the animal will perceive as a threat. This will be expressed in how they think, feel, behave and regulate their biologic systems. You will often hear us talk about something called...
The most critical period for puppy development is the age six to eight weeks (everything that happens prior to this is to do with setting the foundations of the animal & why it is essential that you have chosen a good breeder). Most puppies leave their litter around 7-12 weeks to go to their new home (in the UK this is sometimes...
After the phenomenal success and interest in the online seminar on the Introduction to the Neuroscience of Behaviour http://www.simplybehaviour.com/course/introduction-to-the-neuroscience-of-behaviour/) I wondered if you might like me to share some of my current thoughts on this fascinating subject. Firstly, I would like to keep this VERY simple and secondly, I would like to help people think about behaviour modification as a construct that...
Fear Or Pain Inducing Techniques.. The Facts. If a dog shows a behaviour which results in a perceived positive outcome, he or she is more likely to show the behaviour again on subsequent occasions – this is known as reinforcement. If a behaviour results in a perceived negative outcome, the dog is less likely to show the behaviour again – this is...
The solution to most behavior problems in dogs is simple and IF you adhere to the following. The principle is simple- dogs repeat behaviors that are reinforced. That means that if your puppy or adult dog behaves badly, by say barking at you through the back door when he’s outside and you’re inside, jumping on you when you arrive home, or dragging...
