Thorn Judith M, Templeton Jennifer J, Van Winkle Kimberly M M, Castillo Roberto R
Department of Biology, Knox College, IL 61401, USA.
J Appl Anim Welf Sci. 2006;9(1):25-39. doi: 10.1207/s15327604jaws0901_3.
Human contact in the shelter may lessen effects of change in environment and smooth transition into a home. Training can increase a dog's interaction with people in a shelter environment. Experiments were conducted to determine how rapidly shelter dogs learn to sit, if the dogs can retain sitting behavior over time, and if sitting transfers to novel locations and people. Two experiments trained shelter dogs (n = 21) to sit when a stranger approached over a 10-trial session. Food and a verbal cue or a clicker reinforced the sit. The experiments measured latency to sit for each trial. Latency to sit decreased significantly over trials. Another experiment included reinforcement given to dogs (n = 20) on a noncontingent basis or for sitting. Five days of the experiment (condition training) were in the same room with the same experimenter. The last 4 days (testing) varied by both experimenter and location (familiar or strange). Results indicate that short training sessions are effective for teaching shelter dogs to sit, that dogs can retain sitting behavior over 2 days, and that training transfers to novel people and situations.
在收容所中的人际接触可能会减轻环境变化的影响，并使狗狗顺利过渡到家庭环境。训练可以增加狗狗在收容所环境中与人们的互动。开展了多项实验，以确定收容所的狗狗学习坐下的速度有多快，它们能否长时间保持坐下的行为，以及这种坐下的行为是否能迁移到新的地点和面对新的人。两项实验对收容所的狗狗（n = 21）进行训练，让它们在陌生人接近时坐下，共进行10次试验。食物以及口头提示或点击器用于强化狗狗坐下的行为。实验测量了每次试验中狗狗坐下的潜伏期。随着试验次数的增加，狗狗坐下的潜伏期显著缩短。另一项实验对狗狗（n = 20）进行非偶然性强化或因坐下而给予强化。实验的前五天（条件训练）在同一房间由同一名实验者进行。最后四天（测试）则在实验者和地点（熟悉或陌生）两方面都有所变化。结果表明，短时间的训练对于教会收容所的狗狗坐下是有效的，狗狗能够在两天内保持坐下的行为，并且这种训练能够迁移到新的人和情境中。
