The Importance Of Animal Training

The communication barrier that exists between humans and nonhuman animals can make training an animal feel overly ambitious at times. Pet owners strive to achieve obedience from their pets with a multitude of training techniques that they see on TV. Zoologists and researchers attempt to train wild zoo animals, primates, and other lab animals to cooperate with medical care, hygienic procedures, and various experiments, much of which is trial-and-error based training (Bliss-Moreau, Theil, & Moadab, 2013). Though training an animal takes quite a bit of effort, people have been training animals for “thousands of years” (Sea World, 2014, para. 1). Historically, dogs have been trained for companionship, for herding livestock, and for hunting. Elephants

Widely used animal training techniques have varied from using force and sedation to make an animal comply, to dominance training, to reinforcement training. There has been much speculation about the most effective training methods for different types of animals, and training philosophies have shifted throughout the years. A restored awareness surrounding the psychology and welfare of animals has generated a significant amount of social change in the last few decades. Many view the animal-welfare movement as a separate entity from social change; however, the two are interconnected because the animal-welfare movement seeks to change society’s perception and treatment of animals. The movement has been a slow march toward broad awareness because various organizations and individuals view animal-welfare differently. For policymakers, it is often necessary to view animal-welfare through the lens of other social causes that involve human needs, which are usually of greater concern than animal needs, rather than as its own altruistic cause. This mentality is one of the many issues

Watson and Edward Thorndike, B. F. Skinner introduced a new training perspective known as operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a type of training in which an animal learns to perform or not perform a specific behavior based on its positive or negative consequences. Skinner believed that reinforced behavior tends to be repeated, and behavior that is not reinforced tends to diminish (McLeod, 2015). Operant conditioning includes positive reinforcement, which is the application of a reward after a desired response occurs in order to strengthen the good behavior. Operant conditioning also governs negative reinforcement, which is the removal of an adverse stimulus after a desired response occurs in order to strengthen the good behavior. Additionally, operant conditioning defines punishment as a way to weaken a behavior by taking something rewarding away or applying something unpleasant after an undesired response occurs (McLeod,