If you do a Google search on how to counter condition reactive behaviors on leash, it spits out a simplified version of the process. Use super high value treats, make sure your dog is under threshold, feed your dog when they notice another dog,  and with time you'll change your dog's emotional state from a negative one to a positive one. Sounds great, right! So then why is it that some people will do this for years, and not get that result?  Is it possible that people just don't have a full understanding of processes like counter conditioning, classical conditioning, and systematic desensitization? 

To help us understand these concepts, I wanted to bring in Dr. Simon Gadbois. In this episode we cover:

- What counter conditioning was originally designed to do

- Why the identification of the the aversive stimulus (or trigger) can be so complicated

- How we are almost always using a combination of processes, whether we are aware of it or not

- How dogs pick up on our cues, including our pheromones

- Simon's work in his olfactory lab

- And so much more

About Simon:

Simon Gadbois did a PhD in animal behaviour and non-invasive behavioural endocrinology in the 90’s with Drs John Fentress and Peter McLeod at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research (1974–2007). His PhD dissertation focussed on lupine socioendocrinology (Canis lupus) but he also worked on other projects in motor behaviour sequences in red foxes, coyotes, wolves (with Drs John Fentress and Fred Harrington), spatial cognition in pigeons (with Dr. Werner Honig), and olfactory learning in rats (with Drs Vincent LoLordo and Richard E. Brown).
In the past 15 years he has focussed on research with sniffer dogs as the common denominator: Reptile conservation (using dogs as research assistants to find the species-at-risk), non-invasive surveys of coyotes with canines (via scent-marking information), and working with sniffer dogs in biomedical applications (early detection of diseases, alert dogs). He also worked with a few fish species in olfactory learning (zebra fish), social communication (elephant nose fish), and behavioural ecotoxicology (mummichogs).
Simon Gadbois integrates ethology, experimental psychology and neuroscience in his research on domestic and wild canids. He favours a synthetic approach that includes a strong focus on the importance of motivational factors in working dogs (and canid behaviour in general) as well as a post-cognitivist approach (including a zoosemiotic approach) to behaviour and information processing in dogs.
In 2006 he founded the “Canid Behaviour Research Lab” now the “Wildlife Ethology & Canine Olfaction Lab” at Dalhousie University where dozens of Border Collies (and other working breeds - mostly from working lines) set paw as volunteer research assistants and experimental participants.

https://simon.gadbois.org

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