Behavior Modification Protocols Flashcards

A dog growls when a child approaches its food bowl. The child's parent wants the growl eliminated immediately. The trainer's best response is to:

Answer: Explain that removing the growl without addressing the underlying anxiety increases bite risk

Suppressing growling removes the dog's warning signal, making a bite more likely; the underlying food guarding and anxiety must be addressed through counterconditioning.

The 'Look at That' (LAT) game developed by Leslie McDevitt is primarily used to:

Answer: Help reactive dogs acknowledge triggers with a calm, non-reactive glance

LAT teaches the dog to calmly notice the trigger and immediately orient back to the handler, changing the emotional response from arousal to calm acknowledgment.

Which of the following is NOT a criterion for determining if desensitization is progressing correctly?

Answer: The dog occasionally barks at the stimulus to demonstrate awareness

Occasional barking indicates the dog has exceeded its threshold, which means the current stimulus intensity is too high and must be reduced.

A dog with noise phobia shows panic during thunderstorms. The trainer recommends a protocol that includes both medication support and behavior modification. This combined approach is considered:

Answer: Best practice because severe anxiety can prevent the dog from learning during behavior modification alone

For severe phobias, medication can reduce anxiety enough for the dog to remain under threshold, making behavior modification effective where it otherwise could not be.

Shaping is used in behavior modification to:

Answer: Reinforce successive approximations toward a target behavior

Shaping reinforces small steps (successive approximations) that progressively closer resemble the final target behavior, building complex behaviors incrementally.

A dog has been on a strict management protocol for 6 months but shows no improvement in its reactivity. What is the most likely explanation?

Answer: Management alone does not change the dog's emotional response — active behavior modification is needed

Management prevents rehearsal of the problem behavior but does not change the underlying emotional state; active counterconditioning or desensitization is required for lasting change.

When using 'differential reinforcement of low rates' (DRL) for a dog that barks excessively, the trainer reinforces the dog when:

Answer: The dog produces fewer barks than a set criterion within a defined time period

DRL reinforces the dog when the rate of the behavior falls below a predetermined threshold, gradually reducing the frequency of the unwanted behavior.