What is operant conditioning and why is it used?
Operant and classical conditioning are just two different ways a dog can learn. Taught and self taught to put it in the simplest terms.
There is a lot of confusion when it comes to pet dog owners trying to find the right training for their dogs. There is so much talk about force free/ positive only training at the moment. In a nutshell positive only is rarely possible to use solely on its own and for a dog to fully learn and understand what is wanted and what is not.
The misunderstanding largely comes from the words used with in the four quadrants. Positive, negative, reinforcement and Punishment. We automatically assume positive is good and negative is bad but actually Positive just means adding something and Negative just means to remove something. Whereas reinforcement means to increase and Punishment means to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated.
I will be popping a post over on our fb page soon.
Ultimately in my own opinion, we need to look at the bigger picture and assess the dog in front of us. There is no one blanket fit for dog training. Every dog is different and they all learn differently. What one dog finds aversive, another dog might not think twice.
Find what training fits you and your dog, it is definitely a confusing world out there but most decent trainers will offer you a free 10 minute phone consultation so you can figure out if they are the right fit for you!