Has your dog ever limped when they weren’t hurt, faked a muscle pain, or pretended to be terrified? This is likely because of associative learning which is common in both dogs and cats.
Associative learning in dogs is where a dog learns that if they do a certain behavior they get a specific response from a human, another animal, or because they expect something to happen that will be either positive or negative. In the article above written by Daniela Ramos, DVM, MSc you’ll see that some dogs develop a fear of gray skies because they associate them with thunderstorms.
A real life example you may experience is taking your dog for a walk. As your dog goes outside excited, they see the clouds and immediately begin to whimper, even if their other senses tell them there is no storm coming. They learned to associate the gray sky with a scary noise at unpredictable intervals. And associative learning can be a result of positive reinforcement that leads to bad habits.
If your dog was sick, had a broken leg, suffered from sore muscles after lots of exercise, and you rewarded them with treats as they cried out, this could lead to an association where pretending to be in pain leads to more treats. They may mimic the same movements and whimpers from when they were not feeling well to get you to respond by feeding them a treat. This also applies to banging their food bowl as dinner time approaches, and faking a limp or being hurt if they want to come in from outside and the door is closed.
Associative learning in dogs and cats can combine with olfactory and auditory signals that let them know it is about to be meal time. They may smell you chopping onions, hear a microwave or cooking item activate, or even know that turning on the shower means breakfast is about to be served in the morning.
The associative learning connects with their sense of sound and triggers their circadian rhythm (they’re natural ability to know what time it is) which has been studied with feeding, and then perform a bad behavior to get a desired response.
The good news is these associative learning methods of guilting an owner to do a task are learned and not something to worry about. Many times you can untrain your dog by just ignoring the behavior and not giving in. Once the dog or cat has stopped the behavior for a period of time, then reward them for no longer doing it with positive reinforcement.
If the response is negative and due to external factors like in the thunderstorm example, try using something to calm them like a CBD oil for dog anxiety. And there’s more benefits.
Dogs that use associative learning and combine it with their circadian rhythms can become your new reminder. Their habits can help you to know when it's time to do a daily task, take your medication, and other tasks that can improve your day-to-day life while helping them know they're a part of making their best friend's lives better. This is how some service dogs learn their skills like reminding an owner when its time to take their medicine.
Sometimes the pain or injury is real, so if you think something is wrong, always talk to your vet and never panic. It may only be a learned behavior, and if it is you’ll be able to help your best friend break this learned behavior with a bit of patience and training. If you found this guide to dog behaviors helpful, enter your email below and we’ll email you more just like it.
