Conditioned Responses

[Guest Willow]

When I was working, my dogs quickly became conditioned to my alarm clock.....hear the alarm, mum gets up & it's breakfast time. As soon as it went off, they would run to the bedroom.

Since I have been on maternity leave, I have no need for an alarm clock (I have natures most effective alarm clock now!!! ), but the other day, I needed to make sure I was up for a certain time, so I set it just in case....for the first time in 5 months.

I was up before the alarm went off anyway, but forgot about it, and was in the lounge with the dogs, playing with them & drinking my coffee, when the alarm went off....despite the fact I was right there interacting with the dogs, the conditioned reflex was so strong that they ran to the bedroom to look for me!!!

I was quite surprised at how ingrained it is in them.....

[Annabel]

That's funny.

Congrats on your baby by the way.

[Joan of Arc]

When I was working, my dogs quickly became conditioned to my alarm clock.....hear the alarm, mum gets up & it's breakfast time. As soon as it went off, they would run to the bedroom.

Since I have been on maternity leave, I have no need for an alarm clock (I have natures most effective alarm clock now!!! ), but the other day, I needed to make sure I was up for a certain time, so I set it just in case....for the first time in 5 months.

I was up before the alarm went off anyway, but forgot about it, and was in the lounge with the dogs, playing with them & drinking my coffee, when the alarm went off....despite the fact I was right there interacting with the dogs, the conditioned reflex was so strong that they ran to the bedroom to look for me!!! :D

I was quite surprised at how ingrained it is in them.....

Pavlov and his dogs

[Monah]

just what I was going to say, Pavlov :D

I think we can be conditioned too.

an example is, My kids came everywhere with me, when they started school, it took me about 6 months, occassionally even then there were 'moment's, to not go running every time I heard a child call mummy when I was out!!! :D

There are many other examples I can think of re humans, dogs and cats. :D

Edited July 8, 2010 by Monah

[anniek]

My dogs were shitting me once in the oval - they wouldn't come back to me and we had to leave. So in my biggest voice I yelled WALK - and thy both came running , so I clipped on their leads and off we went!

[wuffles]

Whenever Satch hears a bell of any kind, he thinks there is a cat somewhere -- it's conditioned! Once we got one of those Lindt bunnies out of the cupboard that had a tiny bell around its neck and he went nuts looking for the cat. I was dangling the bell in front of his face going "look, this is what's making the noise!" and he was going "yes I know, but I HEARD A CAT" :)

[idigadog]

My dogs sleep in during the week but when the alarm goes off on weekends, they whinge and whine because they know we are taking them to the forest for a run. I think they can actually count the days

[MolassesLass]

I usually feed my dogs at 7pm and so they have become conditioned to run to the back door when the Neighbours ending credits music comes on. So clever, yet so dumb at the same time.

Edited July 8, 2010 by molasseslass

[Aidan]

Skinner, running to the bedroom is operant behaviour. Sorry, I'm a nerd.

[Ravyk]

Unfortunately OH has taken the greatest delight in training our two to know all the different meats they eat plus some others that they dont get fed. They know, chicken, lamb, roo, beef, chops, chicken wings, sausages, steak... Which makes it bloody hard when you are trying to discuss your own dinner!! I end up with two dogs jumping up and down salivating because they think they're getting fed!

[bedazzledx2]

Harvey Norman ads!!!! Conditioned response for me to find the remote and turn it over or off!!!!! (Actually any loud obnoxious ads but HN head the list at the moment!!!)

just what I was going to say, Pavlov

I think we can be conditioned too.

an example is, My kids came everywhere with me, when they started school, it took me about 6 months, occassionally even then there were 'moment's, to not go running every time I heard a child call mummy when I was out!!!

There are many other examples I can think of re humans, dogs and cats.

[Joan of Arc]

we keep the dog stuff down stairs in the traditional beer and bones fridge (all bones no beer), and so doesnt matter what time of day it is, if one of us walks to the top of the stairs I can bet the dogs will be at the bottom before us.

Plus OH works late two nights a week and so at 9:30 on those two nights the two oldest dogs are sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for him to come up the stairs from the garage. They could be there till 10 but they are there by 9:30.

THe others are more attached to me so dont actually go to the steps until they hear his truck come into the garage.

This last one is more instinct but twenty years ago my GPs lived about 5 hours away and sometimes we would make surprise visits. They had a little chihuaha (sp?) who always knew when we were coming. She would get out of her bed and go and lay at the front door. After a while the GPs used to say to each other "looks like we're having visitors"