20 MayEpisode 8 | Let’s talk about classical conditioning with dog trainer Anamarie Johnson

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Meet Anamarie Johnson, School For The Dogs’ longtime General Manager and one of our trainers. Anamarie is relentlessly peppy, talented and effortlessly funny woman and being her employer these last three years has been a complete pleasure.

Podcast Episode 8: Let's talk about classical conditioning with dog trainer Anamarie Johnson

Transcript:

Annie:
So I am here with a woman who I have known for three years. I met her in July, 2015. I could almost tell you the date that's, that's how important this day was to me. And um, and to everyone at School for the Dogs, her name is Anamarie Johnson. She is our general manager and has been training with us for almost three years. And is just the smiliest, sweetest person. All the dogs love her. I think the people love her too. But Anna Marie, tell us a little bit about how you came to be the ray of sunshine you are at school for the dogs.

Anamarie:
Oh I don't know how I became the ray of sunshine!

Annie:
You were born in a small town in California.

Anamarie:
San Francisco, [laughing] not so much small. Yeah.

Annie:
I picture you raised in the woods by like fairies and bunnies. No?

Anamarie:
No.

[laughing]

Anamarie:
I was raised in Daly city, but, uh, basically grew up in San Francisco and there were no fairies and bunnies in my backyard. The fact that we got a squirrel that came to my house in high school was like the biggest moment of my mom's life. It's a running joke actually that, my friend was at my house and my mom just started screaming for everyone in the whole house to come look out the back window because the squirrel had arrived in the back,

Annie:
The squirrel had arrived?

Anamarie:
We didn’t get squirrels in Daly City.

Annie:
What color squirrel was it?

Anamarie:
Brown squirrel.

Annie:
Brown? Have you seen black squirrels? Is that like a New York thing? The black squirrel?

Anamarie:
We don't have, I mean, we didn't have black squirrels in California. It was just the brown boring, you know, whatever. Gray squirrels. And then where I went to college at UC Davis, I mean we're overrun with squirrels. That was actually a funny thing. Like one day on campus, all of a sudden all the squirrels were, some of the squirrels were spray painted and it was actually a big issue. Cause Davis has like a really big animal department and everything like that. They had actually um, taken and they were spray painting squirrels because they were giving–

Annie:
Who's they?

Anamarie:
Like one of the departments, one of the like the animal research departments because they wanted to test a prophylactic on the squirrels. So they were giving some of the male squirrels and drugs to make them uh, not reproduce because the squirrel population was crazy. So they wanted to have like a noninvasive way.

Annie:
So what color were they spray painting them?

Anamarie:
They were like green and orange.

[laughing]

Anamarie:
And then there was all these like poor undergrads on campus that were sitting on little corners and they were recording cause they wanted to see preemptively if this, whatever drug they were giving them was affecting their “natural” behaviors, so to speak, rather than just reproductive behavior. So all these students were just sitting on these corners and they had their little notebooks recording animal behavior of the squirrels.

Annie:
I had an idea that I've never done, but if somebody is listening to this and would like to do it, I get in touch cause I think it would be, it would be an interesting experiment to spray paint rats in the subway

Anamarie:
For what purpose?

Annie:
So you could train them to do stuff. Trick training for subway rats.

Anamarie:
That's disgusting.

Annie:
Is it? I don't know. I mean there, there are people all over the world are training rats. Most of them just are in cages. But why can't, I mean the rats are already pretty well trained to, to find, [laughin]–

Anamarie:
You would have, you would have to determine that the rats were staying in the same either same subway line or same, I guess you would have, I mean the first step would be spray painting one and then following it.

Annie:
The first step would be spray painting one or microchipping it.

Anamarie:
Yeah. Microchipping wouldn't be hard though, because like you would have to get, like, you would have to actively catch the squirrel and then like–

Annie:
The rat.

Anamarie:
Well, yeah, the rat. Squirrel [laughs]. You would have to actively grab the rat and then, yeah.

Annie:
I'm not gonna do any rat grabbing, but you know, Ilana is coming to New York this summer.

Anamarie:
There you go.

Annie:
Our trainer Ilana has a Bobby bookshelf, an Ikea Bobby bookshelf that she's divided into different floors and on each floor there's a different mouse family that lives there. She has a mouse apartment building. In her apartment.

*music*

Anamarie:
I grew up in San Francisco. Surprise, uh, did not actually have any dogs growing up.

Annie:
Did you want dogs?

Anamarie:
Yeah, I always wanted dogs. Um, we got my first–

Annie:
Why couldn't you have a dog?

Anamarie:
It wasn't that we couldn't have a dog. It was that my mom didn't want a dog. There was a family, like, we always loved animals. So for a long time the family joke was that we didn't have any pets, but we had the cute little fruit flies, that came into our house. My mom had a little jingle that was, some people have cats and people have dogs. We have flies.

Annie:
That was her jingle? [laughing]

Anamarie:
That was my mom's jingle.

Annie:
Did she sing it? I want to hear the song.

Anamarie:
Yeah, it was just like [sings] “some people had cats, some people have dogs, we have flies. And that was it. And then she would like throw the little flies

Annie:
I think your Mom should not pursue that jingle writing career.

Anamarie:
Its not a good jingle. she would put the flies out the window.

Wwe actually didn't get our first family pet until we, I was seven. And the only reason I remember like the exact timeframe, cause her name was Mississippi and she was a little cat. She was actually a regular sized cat from, San Francisco SPCA. And we had gone down, um, cause San Francisco SPCA every year, they actually take over the windows of Macy's. Um, which I always thought would have been a really good idea at the Macy's here. But whatever. They take over the windows at Macy's, they've done it for years and they actually have like volunteers down there. And so they do, they put kittens, they put cats and dogs in the windows for adoptions. So we always used to go down there and she actually, Kitty, invented name, was not actually in the window, but she was like down the block cause they were still at, they had other animals for adoption. So we loaded her up in her little box in the middle of downtown San Francisco, union square. Um, and we brought her home and she was excellent.

Annie:
And kitty was a cat.

Anamarie:
Kitty was a cat.

Annie:
Just checking. Just making sure.

Anamarie:
Yeah just to reiterate, Kitty was a cat.

Annie:
Because that would be, that would fall into the group of ironic dog names.

Anamarie:
No we were not, we were a non inventive family. So we had Kitty till I was 11. Um, and then she passed away, which was hard. And then we got two new cats from the San Francisco SPCA. But my mom was still insistent. She didn't want a dog. She could handle the cats. Um, part of it also was, she said it was too much of an emotional bond, which I feel like is a really illogical statement, but she felt bad. She felt like the cats didn't necessarily care when you left, the dogs really had a connection to you. And so that's why she didn't want to deal with them. Um, because she felt bad if we ever left, which, I mean, I can see that.

Annie:
She had cats because she, she didn't want a dog that would have to be alone.

Anamarie:
Yes.

Annie:
Okay. But weren’t you guys home a lot?

Anamarie:
Yeah, [laughs] but, yeah. She just felt bad. So we ended up, Donna and Pepper then became another inventive name. Poochie and Poochie Mama. Um, because we discovered that they weren't sisters because Poochie, in her hiding space we heard, we discovered a very odd noise one day and Poochie being the very special behaviorally cat that she was, continually for the rest of her days would nurse on her mother. Even though there clearly was not anything left, she would just nurse on the fur. So Poochie mama had this gross yellow discolored fur.

Annie:
Kind of like a Grey Gardens situation. [laughing]

Anamarie:
It was very weird. So all this time in part because we had had the cats growing up and everything like that, I had actually in high school, volunteered for San Francisco SPCA, as a high schooler, which I would recommend to any high schooler. It was an awesome way for me to hang out with cats during the summer and also crank out my summer reading cause, I was hanging out with cats and they would sit on my lap and I would get through my summer reading and it was awesome. Which was also very funny, I thought cause come senior year of high school I actually won the service award, which I thought was, I was like, Oh, I'm really glad that I got the service award, but I was kind of like all I was doing was sitting with cats.

Annie:
Wasn't that a lesson. Your job should always be that fun.

Anamarie:
Exactly. Um, then I went to UC Davis and I had grand visions of me. I've always been a little bit of a nerdy child.So always really liked history of medicine kind of thing. So I actually went into UC Davis as a classics major and, um, I thought classics would be the way to go in terms of my history of medicine desires. My winter quarter of freshman year, I realized, in one of my history of medicine classes that there was an alternative major named science and technology studies that didn't require me to take Latin. So I dropped out of Latin. The one thing I've ever dropped out of. And then I got my major in science and technology studies. I was able to double major, so I did evolutionary anthropology, so I studied monkeys. But all along this path, sophomore year of college I got an internship at the national library of medicine.

Annie:
So were you thinking you were gonna do vet work?

Anamarie:
No. No, never. So I was volunteering while doing

Annie:
You were just like hey, I like animals?

Anamarie:
Yup, so I volunteered for the Yolo County SPCA, which was a very small foster based organization and I really liked doing that and I was hanging out with dogs all the time. You know, all that kind of stuff. But I still just kind of envisioned myself, Oh, I'm going to do this academia, I'm going to become, you know, professor or whatever the heck I was thinking.

Annie:
Part of this is interesting to me because I feel like you made choices that never would have occurred to me to like, and I think we both, we're both interested in animals and we both get into the nerdy science of it.

Anamarie:
Yeah.

Annie:
But I think I just always felt like, well, I'm not good at science. That's not like something, I'm good at. And so I can't be a vet and I don't know what other options there are and..

Annie:
Yeah. For me it was, for me it was a different position.

Annie:
But, I also didn't, I literally don't think I knew that there were people out there researching animals and that you could,

Anamarie:
Oh, you mean, my monkey research?

Annie:
Well, well you also have a masters, and you’re researching dogs. But I, I don't think that, I thought that was like a job option. So it's cool that you did.

Anamarie:
Yeah. And I had, you know, going to UC Davis, as Annie had mentioned it's a very prominent vet school. Um, so there were actually, you know, there was actually an undergraduate major in animal science, but at this point in time I knew I liked animals, but I still had this whole dream of, you know, doing whatever [inaudible] At that point I knew I didn't want to be a vet. But

Annie:
Is that why you went to UC Davidson? I mean, as opposed to any other school? Was it because it had a program like that?

Anamarie:
No, no, no. It was just convenient. I got into other schools and UC Davis gave me the best financial aid package. Um, so yeah, there was no reason for me at the end of the day, initially it was for me to go to Davis for animals. It wasn't, you know, this wasn't a plan. So I was still volunteering and did animal stuff on the side. I had all these roommates that did animal science stuff, which was cool. But I didn't, you know, it wasn't, uh, you know, I had no point in my mind that I was, I wasn't going to transfer or anything like that in part because a lot of the animal science stuff, because I had roommates that were–you know, Davis being a vet school also has a very large agriculture program. So it was like, Oh, you know, we're going to go to the, you know, the UC Davis run slaughterhouse and like all that kind of stuff. Cause it was a very ag driven school.

Annie:
Right. Well, people, I think it's easy to forget this, but up until very recently, if you were a vet, you were working with farm animals.

Anamarie:
Exactly. Yeah.

Annie:
You're working with horses, farm animals. And there's still vets where that's the only thing they do, is treat cows.

Anamarie:

Yeah, my roommate, one of my roommates, she just got her PhD studying canine genetics, but she just announced the other day that she is officially going to study equine. Um, so that is going to be her forte. Actually both of my roommates that were animal science majors, neither of them are doing companion animal science. Um, which is interesting. So that was kind of how I viewed animal science at UC Davis was I was like, Oh, I don't .. Like, you know, I don't know want to go to a slaughter house to study classes or whatever. So I ended up in DC for a summer. I was working at the National Library of Medicine. I was studying really, really old books, which was very cool.

But I actually had this grand epiphany. My brother came to visit and I'm telling him my future, ah, you know, I'm going to live in this house and I'm going to have acreage. I'm going to have all the horses and piggies and animals and all this kind of stuff. And my brother just like not meaning to say anything was just like, um, how are you going to do this when you have a PhD? I was like, Oh crap. Yeah cause I'm actually going to have to work. I'm not going be able to just play with animals all the time. Cause that was ultimately kind of, you know what my grand thought was. So kind of had a panic attack in the middle of DC.

Annie:
Why can't those two dreams be coexistent again?

Anamarie:
Well like for me it was like I really envisioned myself as just permanently in that position of like animals all around me. Right? But then I was like, Oh my whole plan in that sense was like, Oh I'm going to be an academic or professor and you know that is a rigorous, can be a rigorous dog. So at that point I was like, Oh it was just kind of a realization cause–

Annie:
Like I want to hang out with animals rather than studying them and–

Anamarie:
Exactly. Yeah. Because that was another thing that I also saw from like my friends that were animal science major as was more of a kind of analytical approach, and you know, both of us like science and all that kind of stuff, but it was almost like the animal becoming subject, of kind of just like more of like a robotic analytical side of things of just like animal as subject as opposed to animal is being and kind of researching the similarities and that kind of thing. Um, so I had a little breakdown in the middle of DC called my mom. I was walking to the Trader Joe's and Georgetown and crying on the phone in the middle of this middle of DC and I'm saying, “I don't want to do this. I don't want to get my PhD!”

Annie:
And you're like, “I don't want to go to a fancy school. I just want to hang out with puppies and the ponies and the piggies!

Anamarie:
Exactly, exactly. My mom did ask me, she said, are you going to drop out? And then I was like, no, I'm not going to drop out.

Annie:
But this was when you were an undergrad?

Anamarie:
Yeah, and my mom just was, “are you dropping out?” and I said, no, I'm not gonna drop out. So I ended up reconfiguring my life a little bit. I emailed the rescue organization that I was working with at the time and I said, Hey, does anyone need any employment? And conveniently they were looking for a volunteer coordinator. So that started the next five years into graduation and post-graduation of me living in Davis and I worked for, um, an animal rescue organization. Um, like I said, very small, not many employees. I kind of did different things. Title was volunteer coordinator and outreach. But like I said, I did lots of different things. Um, and I thought it was kind of, you know, fleshing things out. I realized, um, I still liked the scientific kind of behavior thing. I read, you know, I always would read books about, you know, animal behavior and kind of that psychological aspect of it humans and dogs. Um, and that I started getting more interested in behavior. So I did an apprenticeship with a trainer back in California and Davis, um, really liked it. Nancy Aucklandoff with thinking dogs. Uh, we know we did a puppy class, we did a basics, you know, manners class. She does like a canine college. So they do like schools field trips in downtown Davis and they go like,

Annie:
That’s so great. So cool.

Anamarie:
And parents go and get like a drink with the dog not watching so they can go in and the dog gets independence and mat work and all that kind of stuff. So she's done some of that.

Annie:
And then you ended up moving to New York.

Anamarie:
Yes so came to New York, got the program at Hunter college.

Annie:
Anamarie has a master's in animal behavior and conservation from Hunter, which has a great program.

Anamarie:
Yep, and, uh, started off cause I thought I still want to do shelter stuff. Um, I worked for a couple months or nearly a year at, um, the animal care centers of New York city. And then I said, Oh shoot, my master's degree is really great and it's going to be really great. But, um, you know, if you look at kind of dog training opportunities, a lot of it they ask for some level of certification. And this is one thing that we've discussed on our blogs and written about and everything like that, but certification and the dog training world is a very hazy thing. But there's some standardized organizations. Um, one is the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. Um, one is Karen Pryor Academy, which Annie went through. Um, so I was like, Oh, okay, so you need to get apprenticeship hours to get a certification, which is a nice thing to have I guess also in lieu of a master's degree. Um, so then I reached out to school for dogs, um, and here we are three years later. All of those memories of when it was just, you know, Annie and Kate and me and just the one room studio on second street.

Annie:
Well I think you were our second employee. And that was three years ago. And, tell us what have you been doing in the last three years with School for the Dogs?

Anamarie:
What have I been doing in the last three years? Well, it's been a range of things. Um, you know, early 2015 was when Annie and I were first getting our feet wet with the day training program or the day school program.

Annie:
We started that right around when you started.

Anamarie:
Like October. Yeah. So we did at that point, God, it was only like one day a week, like one day a week day school, which now is five days a week with two afternoon sessions. Yeah. You know, it's gotten crazy.

Annie:
Day school, for the uninitiated is our drop off program now that we do. Um, it's a half day. We do morning and afternoon sessions and there's usually four dogs and a minimum of two trainers. And if we have apprentices, sometimes it's even like almost one-on-one. So it's a lot of fun. We have fun with them. They're our buddies for those hours.

Anamarie:
So, did day school.

Annie:
Which you still do sometimes

Anamarie:
Which I still do sometimes. And then once I had gotten kind of more of my feet, quote unquote wet in terms of shadowing, which we still institute now for our apprenticeship program, I started taking on clients. So I had taken some that had branched off from Annie and Kate. Then started getting my own clients. So for the last three years, it's been a mix of, you know, day school. It's been a mix of private clients, which is, you know, seeing them one-on-one. And working with just puppies, and working with leash activity, and working with all kinds of fun things, um, in the grand, a big world of New York city.

Annie:
And teaching classes.

Anamarie:
And teaching classes, Puppy K and Prep and all that kinda good stuff.

Annie:
Here's the question that I bet nobody's ever asked you to before. When did you first learn about classical conditioning?

Anamarie:
Hmm, okay. So when I first learned about, well, I mean, everyone knows about Pavlov from school, elementary school.

Annie:
Well, so everybody knows about classical conditioning. They just don't…most people don’t know what it’s called

Anamarie:
Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think for most people

Annie:
But a lot of people don't know about Pavlov and, and don't learn about Pavlov in school. So tell us about Pavlov.

Anamarie:
Well then I guess I got a good education. My Catholic school girl days. So Pavlov was Russian.

Annie:
And he was studying gastrointestinal systems in dogs. Early 1900s

Anamarie:
And he was studying the gastrointestinal system and was trying to get them to, he was measuring their salvation. Right? And he would get them to salivate, um, with what we now define as an unconditioned stimulus, which was meat. I feel like that's a very pop culture reference, too.

Annie:
Yeah. But do you remember like learning that in school? I don't. I mean, I guess I did. You remember like a class where they taught you this?

Anamarie:
Not a specific class, but yeah. I mean in like psych.

Annie:
Well, I don't know. Not all schools have psych,

Anamarie:
[laughs] A psych section in class.

Annie:
I don't think I learned about, I don't think I learned about what classical conditioning was in school. But finish talking about Pavlov. So he actually, I believe, I mean I wasn't there but I believe it started out as a nuisance where he was entering the room to start these experiments. But the dogs were salivating before they got the food. And he was like, wait, actually I think there's something happening here. So he just started doing different things like having someone else enter the room with a white lab coat to see if white lab coat would become a conditioned stimulus. And um, but we're getting ahead of ourselves cause we haven't even defined what a conditioned stimulus is.

Anamarie:
Exactly.

Annie:
And dog training has all of these terms like this, which are not purely dog training terms. They're related to the science of behavior that I feel like when you explain it, it's so obvious, but they sound, they sound off-putting and fancy. So Pavlovian conditioning basically is called Pavlovian condition because Pavlov realized that whatever preceded giving these dogs their food would eventually take on the meaning basically of the food. And that here in the case of Pavlov, they, I think it was, it was actually a buzzer. Buzzer, bell, whatever it was presented prior to giving the food will eventually create the same reaction as the food itself. And that became known as Pavlovian conditioning.

Anamarie:
And there's been lots of pop culture references as of late. The one I think of is The Office reference where Jim keeps on turning on or he keeps shutting off his computer,or turning it on. And then as soon as he's–so you hear the Microsoft noise, and then he'll offer Dwight across the way from him, a mint.

[clip from the Office plays]
Jim: Oh damn. That's another file. I have to reboot again. [Reboot sound] Hey Dwight, do you want an altoid?

In school, we learned about this scientist who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by feeding them whenever a bell rang. So for the last couple weeks, I've been conducting a similar experiment.

[Reboot sound] Hey Dwight, want an altoid?

Dwight:
Okay….my mouth tastes so bad all of a sudden.

[end clip]

Anamarie:
So sometimes if you keep your eye out, sometimes you'll see it in kind of like television and stuff. Cause people think it's like kind of funny, funny association.

Annie:
Well if you keep your eye out, though, you'll see it in every part of your life. I mean, yeah, you'll see references to Pavlovian conditioning. But what's funny to me is sometimes when people are watching dog training happening, they'll say, Oh, it's so Pavlovian, but really I want to be like, yeah, but so is like everything, right? Like, anything that we're not born knowing about that we associate a meaning with eventually because of paired repetitions is something that has been classically conditioned, um, Pavlovian conditioned. So what's an example of an unconditioned stimulus?

Anamarie:
An unconditioned stimulus is something that already kind of has a reinforcing factor to it that you didn't need to be–You know, kind of think of like natural things. Um, so like, you know, like quote uquote instinctual, like food, um, anything, you know, something that is inherently pleasurable, that didn't require any additional learning on top of that.

Annie:
Food, sex.

Anamarie:
Food, sex. Right. And it doesn't necessarily have to be, it doesn't have to necessarily be a positive. So touching your hand to a hot stove, uh, you know, I would consider that an unconditioned stimulus because the immediate effect–

Annie:
Well, seeing flame, it’s more like the flame. Wouldn’t it be the flame that’s the unconditioned stimulus, you know, where we have an inherent fear of something like fire. Or, you know, a baby doesn't have to be taught to go to a nipple. You know, they're not conditioned to know what nipple is. But dogs and humans and all of us are conditioned to know what lots of things are based on the associations we make with those things.

Anamarie:
Yeah. I think a funny example I like to give is–these are common things that I do every single, like that happen every single night and like my husband and I joke about it now. You know, common things for my dogs are–well the one embarrassing, you know, embarrassing conditioned response that my dogs had elicited is when I used to work from home for the rescue that I worked with back in California, used to wear pajamas all the time. And as soon as I started putting on actual clothes, my dogs had the response that, Oh my God, mom's going outside. [laughs] And they get really, really excited, which was somewhat embarrassing.

But kind of on my day to day life now, my husband and I will watch TV at night and the dogs are kind of relaxing and calm and everything like that. And as soon as the television goes off and you heard that the television boop, they bolt because they're like, Oh my God, we're going to dinner. Or, you know, it's going to bed and having our quote unquote second dinner. Cause one of my dogs has issues, but whatever, um, and we're doing a second dinner and they immediately run to the food bowls and they just like stand there.

And Kenny and I will be like, no, we just shut off the television because we don't want to watch it anymore. And then the dogs just get really amped up and really upset. Cause they're like, no, no, no, no, no. We heard the buzzer!

Anne:
So when they hear that, they run to food bowls? Well, that's actually, that would be an easy thing to teach as an added cue to. So if you wanted to teach your dog run to your food bowl, you would say “run to your food bowl” and then turn off your TV. And then eventually “run to your food bowl” will become the conditioned stimulus.

Anamarie:
Exactly.

Annie:
Which is really just what language is. Right? Like it's so interesting when I think about learning languages in that way, you know? Like all you're doing is teaching your dog a language by saying like that thing that you're doing now, we used to call it “badaboop!” but now we're going to call it, “run to your food bowl.”

Anamarie:
Yeah, exactly. It's like, I tell clients when I'm saying like, don't start labeling, like, don't start giving a cue to something if your dog doesn't know it. I like to define it as like, Oh, this is, we're just like labeling it for the dog. Like you've already done this in existence. Um, you know, my hand signal up or me standing here has already been, uh, you know, your response to sit and now we're just going to label this whole sequence of behavior of you sitting with this random arbitrary word.

Annie:
Right.

Anamarie:
Cause they don't really know what it means.

Annie:
Like if I was trying to teach you how to, say, go to the bathroom in French. I could say, I could say Anamarie, go to the bathroom in French over and over and over. But if you don't know what that means, I mean, eventually you might go to the bathroom and then I could like throw a party, but it's like, it's more efficient to just

Anamarie:
Train me to go to the bathroom and then you'd label it.

Annie:
Right. And otherwise what I've really trained is like I've trained in frustration with you and the eventual going to the bathroom is just part of like a larger thing that has now been paired with, like me saying, go to the bathroom million times and who wants to tell anyone to go to the bathroom? Um, you know, it's funny, speaking of go to the bathroom, um, everything's funny related to that. For Amos, when I rinse my mouth out with mouthwash, he like perks up. He's like, okay, must be going out.

Anamarie:
Yeah. Toothbrushing too, like at night, that's another, you know, they immediately run to the back door.

Annie:
Or my dad used to say that our dog had a concept of money because every time he would rip a check out of the checkbook, he, she would run to the door. Cause it meant that they were going to the bank and he would bring her to the bank.

Anamarie:
Aw that’s funny [laughs]

Annie:
So classical conditioning is one of my favorite topics of all time. One which doesn't relate to dog training is that, it's all of advertising basically.

Anamarie:
Yeah.

Annie:
And it relates very much to how we relate to each other and the way that we present ourselves and choices that we make. So I think all of that's fascinating. But the other thing is that it, uh, if you can focus on classical conditioning in dog training, before you start focusing on operant conditioning, which is the other kind of learning that we're dealing with with dogs. I think if in most cases, if an owner, whether it has a dog who is just starting out training or has a puppy or a dog who has issues, if all they think about is the classical conditioning, almost always, you're setting up your dog for success. And you're also keeping bad things from happening as far as fear goes, because I think most of the time, the behaviors we don't like in dogs stem from fear.

*music*

Anamarie:
I personally, as we were discussing ourselves being classical conditioned after years of doing skateboard reactivity work, I have such a natural, almost classical conditioned response.

Annie:
It is classically conditioned.

Anamarie:
In terms of when I hear a skateboard, I don't even have to be working a dog. And my immediate response is to go “find it!” [laughs] Which is one of the behaviors that we’ll teach dogs to, in order to, you know, move them away and go hunting for food.

Annie:
So we have a lot of dogs who are so scared of skateboards that just, there doesn't even have to be a person on a skateboard. Just the very sight of a skateboard is scary.

Anamarie:
One of my foster dogs back in California, we literally put a skateboard out and we didn't expect there to be a response. And he literally peed on the floor. Um, we were in the house, he was just scared by the sight of it.

Annie:
I was gonna say, we should talk about Rudy.

Anamarie:
Oh Rudy. Rudy's the King of classical conditioned fears.

Annie:
Many dogs have fear of skateboards? And like you're saying, there are, I've met owners and I've felt it myself actually at times, like you're saying you felt it that…[laughs] you explain.

Anamarie:
So like, you're so in tune, like when I'm working with a skateboard reactive dog–I just saw a client the other day that was skateboard reactive. And they were like, okay, my dog's heightenedly aware when we go outside, and now I'm heightenedly aware. And so there's all this just like, even though you're essentially, you're working off your dog’s fear, it becomes this own like intense classically conditioned response where you're just like, Oh my God, I'm on look all the time. And “where's the skateboard. Oh my God, there's a skateboard. Oh my God!” And then you almost become the same response as your dog does. Right. Just in anticipation of it, even though you don't have our association of it. Um, your initial association of a skateboard was, Oh, it's a person's skateboarding, but now that you're stemming off your dog's fear, everyone now has this conditioned response to a skateboard.

Annie:
And these kinds of fears, that jumping that happens like that, can happen from one part of the thing to the other in the same way–Like it can go from, you know, the sound of the skateboard to the sight of the skateboard. It can then be like the kid who's on the skateboard that's causing fear. Like Rudy.

Anamarie:
Yep. So generalization.

Annie:
Right. So we have this one dog Rudy that both Anamarie and I have worked with.

Anamarie:
Shout out to Rudy. So yeah, Rudy, he is a very interesting, uh, very interesting personality. Rudy has a lot of fears and I think this is one thing that's important to discuss in terms of, um, conditioning and fear responses is that, um, it doesn't necessarily, you know, a lot of people think, and that's one thing that we always deal with with my background in the shelter world is, you know, people are very in tune of wanting to get a puppy from the getgo in terms of, Oh, I'm going to prevent X, Y, and Z behaviors. But one thing that's important to think about with classical conditioning is that you can't always anticipate what their response is going to be and what that fear might lead.

So with Rudy, he was actually adopted as a puppy. And they did all the right things, right.

Annie:
He has the best owners. I would like to be adopted by them.

Anamarie:
Yes, exactly. And, uh, Rudy was actually adopted as a puppy. And in kind of my background of experience, um, you know, they did all the right things that you would say on paper, right. They took the training classes, they did all of that. But for one thing that is aware to think about is Rudy, probably just genetically, which is sometimes you can't overcome genetics. Rudy genetically is probably just more of a fear responsive dog. Um, he just has a more heightened fear response. So despite doing classical conditioning as probably recommended in his puppy kindergarten, um, he just tends to be a little bit more reactive or not. We can go back to that. Um, he can maybe be a little bit more reactive than another dog that could have been the same age and adopted.

Annie:
I think that's very true. People make the false generalization that if a dog has problems, it's because something happened to the dog or if the dog has problems, it's because they're reflecting the human’s problems. And those are both such fallacies. Because I mean–I think it's possible for it to go in the other direction. I think it's possible that if you, if you are a person and you have serious problems, your dog might…

Anamarie:
Yeah, for sure. [laughing]

Annie:
But I think it would be false to say that that's always the case because we have owners who have done everything right, sometimes since the dog was literally born. And the dog has issues. And I mean, is it possible that it was caused by something that happened that none of us can perceive? And that's yes, that's possible, but it's also possible the dog was just born with like

Anamarie:
Higher levels of anxiety.

Annie:
Yeah. Higher levels of anxiety. Which is part of, you know. Like fear evolutionarily has a lot of benefits. So talking about fear. So Rudy though, Rudy, I call, I call him the Woody Allen of dogs. Cause he was just like the extra, extra neurotic. But it also, we should say it can be epigenetics, right? Like it's, it's not just, you know, everything's been fine for every generation. And then this one dog pops out with issues. Like stress in the mother or what–

Anamarie:
Which for him, i's very, very likely considering that he was in a shelter, you know, as a puppy. To list some of the things that Rudy is afraid of. One is children. Now having had Rudy since he was four months old, his owners know fairly well that there was no reason for Rudy to not like children. It's not like he was exposed. He didn't have children growing up, anything like that. Um, there weren't kids that were in the house that were potentially, you know, messing with him or anything, but for some reason, kids just tend to elicit a very strong fear response in him. He'll bark, he'll lunge, anything like that. Now that all this being said, Rudy has gotten far, far better with the help of our training. I don't want to say that. I don't want to act that, you know, uh, we ha we've been working for all this time. But one thing to be aware of is, one thing, and we can get a little bit more into it. Um, one thing that we do utilize with classical conditioning is what we call this idea of counterconditioning.

Annie:
But what I think is funny about Rudy with the generalization is Rudy went from–not funny. I mean, it's just a unfortunate, unfortunate, but it's a good example, is Rudy went from being, scared of, you know, I think something having to do with movement. I mean, I think the children thing has to do with children running around and that has now extended to any child standing. But also, you know, skateboards and where, where he used to live in the East village was right near our school. And there'd be like lots of kids on scooters. And so it seems like it, it, it also had to do with anything having to do with wheels.

Anamarie:
Essentially the, the main goal is that we change the association that has already been classically conditioned. So, you know, you counter a classical condition, something, And a lot of times we utilize food. Um, but one thing that is also important is that especially for something that is fear-based, um, sometimes it can be movement away from the object. Um, so rather than requiring the dog to just stand there and then continue to get fed food, which might be too stressful, um, you can also reward by moving away or giving an alternate behavior.

Annie:
You’re pairing the formerly scary thing with something good, which could be distance, or it could be food, or it could be a scratch on the head.

Anamarie:
Yes.

Annie:
But usually we use the bigger guns, like the bacon, the Turkey.

Anamarie:
Um, because it's tends to be a little bit more high value and a little bit more salient to the dog than something like kibble or just movement. So in a positive note of Rudy, the Mister of all problems, we love him very much. I've actually gotten to the point with him, um, cause with skateboards, one of the, the bane of our existence with training is that a lot of it is the unpredictable, um, which is really hard when dogs like to have consistency in their lives. And then when you just kind of throw skateboards at them every which way, it's scary. So what I've actually been able to do, um, is we go to the McCarran dog park in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, um, and we'll just kind of stand outside the park. And every time he looks and he gets a treat. Rudy has also played the game so much that now he just does a quick look. So I've had to build in duration for him.

But we've gotten to a point where he actually is now refusing to leave the skate park because he knows that it equals Turkey. So I would say that's a good sign of his conditioning. Now that doesn't mean in that context, in that skate park where it's a little bit more controlled and managed and he's working with me and he knows there's all that kind of stuff. He doesn't have that same–It doesn't elicit that same fear response. But you know, I do check in with his parents and you know, sometimes 10 o'clock evening walks when a random skateboard comes out from around the corner. He still will resort back to that. You know, more conditioned, classical response where it's more of that fear based thing.

Annie:
Right. Because it's hard to practice those moments, but by doing the work you're doing, you would think you're lessening it to some extent. Now here's the surprise answer that I think you're going to give to my question or surprise perhaps to our listeners.

Anamarie:
Okay.

Annie:
Rudy goes crazy. Let's say it's 10:00 PM. They're walking him. And the guy, uh, the food delivery guy goes by, And he goes nuts. What do you tell them to do?

Anamarie:
I would tell them to move away, increase distance. Right? Cause at that point that's going to be more rewarding.

Annie:
Or?

Anamarie:
Or you could give them something like a, find it or treats at the ground. Right. Cause you're still wanting to change that association. Even if he is reacting, it's just kind of the experience.

Annie:
And by reacting, we mean barking. The reason I think this was a surprising is because I know when I first started to understand this in dog training, I was like, “what? science must be wrong!”

Anamarie:
“You're rewarding the barking!”

Annie:
You're rewarding the barking. And this is like this, the special thing about classical conditioning. That's so, so important to remember is behavior doesn't matter. Yep. It's not about what they're doing.

Anamarie:
Purely experiential.

Annie:
It's about what they're feeling. It's about their experience of the world, and what they're doing has absolutely no play. Do you explain it to people that way?

Anamarie:
Yeah. I say, like I remind people that the behavior doesn't factor into anything. It's literally just, I want you to experience this moment in this moment is a scary thing now equals something good. Treats get shoved in my face. Because I think a lot of times a lot of people are very set on, especially when they're in the midst of like having a puppy and they're doing all these great things like practicing sits and downs and all that kind of stuff. It's our default to be like, Oh, my dog has to earn the treat. And it's our default to be like, Oh my God, well, there's a skateboard that came by. I have to ask my dog to sit and then they get a treat and then that everything will be fine. Cause now my dog will learn to sit when thing comes by and then they get a treat and blah, blah, blah. And it's really just like the muddying the water,

Annie:
It’s overthinking it. It’s poor language teaching really. [laughs]

Anamarie:
Because that's not how it would work. Um, I don't think we would learn that way either.

Annie:
Well it might, and I think that's the reason training like that persists, is like, it might work, but you know, your definition of work, might not be so spot on. So Rudy's fears have escalated to the point where he is, or was, I dunno.

Anamarie:
He's been really, really good.

Annie:
But when I was working with him, I watched, it was like, it was like switching seats in the Titanic actually to be able to be like, Oh, we solved this problem. Oh now–It's like, it became like a whack-a-mole situation because we deal with one fear and another would pop up. But invariably the fear that would pop up would be somehow related. So it seemed as if–and also, you know, dogs are making associations all the time, every day, like every moment of every day. So a lot of the times we're not even tuned into the associations they're making, we can just make guesses.

But for him, I watched it go from, like anything with wheels, bikes, to delivery men on the bikes to, anyone wearing like a bike-like vest. So even if they weren't on a bike. To basically anyone carrying shopping bags, and anyone who was like Hispanic. Because people joke that their dogs are racist, like dogs can seriously be racist. And I think he made the connection that there were a lot of, well, maybe Asian too, but like sort of smaller, like darker skinned men.

Anamarie:
Those tend to be the populations in New York city that deliver food. If it happened be blonde hair and blue eyed people it would have been the same thing.

Annie:
Well, Rudy is a great example, as far as clients go, I think of people who want to do dog training with their dog and not because it's gonna solve all of their dog's problems, but because they realize that their dog has a propensity to develop problems because they're very sensitive, and you know, and they're having these dogs live in what might not be the absolute ideal environment. But they've chosen to put him in this life and he's doing great. They're using training as a way to enrich his life and to ensure against problems. And I think a lot of the stuff that we do with him is stuff that his owners could do with him is just it's, you know, if you can bring in a professional to do that, and for you.

Anamarie:
I've been described, my last Christmas letter from them was described as the, uh, auntie slash therapist, the beloved auntie slash therapist for Rudy.

Annie:
Well, I mean, to be fair, I know it's not, it's not something everyone can afford, but I think it's really great that like they've made this a priority in their life. And when you think about the money people spend on cars and other ridiculous hobbies, like Rudy is like the most unridiculous hobby.

Anamarie:
He’s the best. But one thing that is good to think about in terms of us discussing all of this is yes, we do this in our like day to day life. Yes, I do an hour per week with Rudy. But you know, it's funny the last couple of weeks that I've done it, like it's pretty common that Rudy will just come in and then like flat out, like pass out on the ground. And in my view, I'm not even, I like been teasing him. I'm like, we're here. We literally did nothing today. We literally like walked down to the park, I fed you some cheese. And he’s like exhausted after it. And like his dad is like, he's always so tired after training! That's an important thing to think about too, in terms of even just a little bit of enrichment and doing this kind of like classical conditioning is, you know, classical conditioning requires a lot in terms of consistency.

Like, you know, every time a skateboard comeback, when you're using it in training. But that doesn't necessarily–classical conditioning as Annie would agree is happening all the time. So it doesn't have to be anything beyond your normal scope of your scheduled day. Um, you don't have to be like, Oh my God, I didn't do my three hour session of classical conditioning today with a skateboard. You know, just making sure that every time you have you're going on a walk, you're having cheese out and, you know, you're preparing for that.

Annie:
But also, you become the conditioned reinforcer too, and, and you know, just the fact that you are feeding. I think the fact that you are feeding your dog at any point, you know, even if it's in your kitchen is helping build a good association with you.

Anamarie:
And I think that's one reason why I think a lot of our clients always say like, Oh my God, my dog loves you so much or focuses on you. It's like, we've just become giant conditioned reinforcers for feeding treats. [laughing] and the fun and excitement and all that kind of stuff. And the kisses.

Annie:
Well, and, and I think that's also why they enjoy coming to school. Yeah. I mean, I, I think most schools would do a lot better with kids if they made the food a lot better. [laughing] And if they made them more enjoyable places to be.

Anamarie:
Yeah. And I think ultimately that is the hugest. I mean, that's the hugest compliment that we can get is that the school itself becomes this giant conditioned reinforcer for our clients to the point where clients get upse, that they have to walk down second street and not go to school, where the dogs just associate this random, it's a random storefront in the East village. It has so much meaning and conditioned response to them that they will plant themselves outside of school.

Annie:
Which is so not how I felt about school.

Anamarie:
Which none of us felt about school.

Annie:
It's the difference between, you know, training with the positive reinforcement and, you know, and conditioning, classical conditioning, rather than coercion and having to be somewhere cause you feel like you have to be there.

Anamarie:
Cause it’s a legal requirement.

Annie:
Yeah. Cause it's a legal requirement to be in school. Well, yeah, I also think that if the dog likes going there, that the person is also being classical conditioned to like going there cause the dog, you know, people, they see their dog light up and they're, they're making an association. This place makes my dog happy.

*music*

Annie:
Anamarie is leaving us. She's moving to California. She is going to be doing shelter work there. I say, she's leaving us, but she's only, she's only leaving us

Anamarie:
Physically. Digitally and emotionally, stay tuned! [laughs]

Annie:
But um, thank you, Anamarie, for all you've done for School for the Dogs, for our clients. For me. And I love you and thank you for being on this podcast.

Anamarie:
Love you too. No problem.

Annie:
In honor of Anamarie, our fun dog fact of the day is about California. Did you know that the California state dog is actually the shelter dog. They chose the shelter dog to represent the state in order to draw attention to the need to find homes for shelter pets. Isn't that cool?

Special, thanks to Ellie launen for letting me use her ukulele cover of the wonderful song, Aba daba honeymoon, and our Wolf shout out of the day goes actually to a human this week, specifically to the human who was one half of the team that created Anamarie, her mother, Anne Rutia of Daly city, California. I know earlier in the episode, I criticized her jingle writing talents, but upon consideration, I think she might have a future in jingle writing. That is if she wants to pair up with me and my husband, Jason. Here is our reimagining of her jingle.

*acoustic guitar plays*

“Some people that have dogs, some people they have cats, but we have flies. They fit better into our lives.”

**music**

Annie:
Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with another show. If you'd like this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and give us a five star review on iTunes. And of course tell your friends, if you have suggestions for future topics or questions about training, please make sure to join our Facebook group. facebook.com/groups/schoolforthedogs. See you next week.