Distinctions Between Pet Training and Animal Conditioning

Every day, people communicate with their pets: offering praise when they're well-behaved, comfort when they're uncertain, and love when they're snuggling. We also address them when they misbehave. You might hear someone ask their dog, "Why did you do that?" or scold a cat with, "Don't touch that!" as they carefully move a valuable heirloom across the room.

But is there ever a time when it's justified to reprimand or scold an animal?

Consequences

When people refer to "punishment," it implies more than just the loss of privileges. The term suggests that someone is expected to learn a lesson after breaking a rule they are capable of understanding. However, an animal's comprehension differs from that of a human, raising concerns about what lessons animals can absorb and whether any form of rebuke is morally acceptable.

These questions touch upon what researchers understand about the cognitive abilities of different animals. But they also raise deeper questions about the moral status of animals and the responsibilities of humans who train or interact with them.

As an ethical philosopher, I have delved into these and related issues, often collaborating with colleagues from psychology and anthropology. I would argue that it’s crucial to distinguish between three types of learning: conditioning, instruction, and education.

Conditioning

One form of learning, known as “classical conditioning,” was made famous by psychologist Ivan Pavlov shortly after the turn of the 20th century. By repeatedly ringing a bell while offering food, Pavlov famously trained dogs to salivate simply from hearing the bell. This type of learning occurs by associating two stimuli: a sound and food, in this case.

When scientists discuss punishment, they are typically referring to “operant conditioning,” a concept popularized by psychologists Edward Thorndike and B. F. Skinner shortly after Pavlov. In operant conditioning, positive or pleasurable stimuli are used to reinforce desired behaviors, while negative or painful stimuli discourage unwanted behaviors. For example, we may reward a dog with a treat when it obeys the command to sit.

However, the type of learning sought by operant conditioning lacks a key element of human punishment: responsibility. When people administer punishment, it's not just to discourage undesirable behavior. It’s to communicate that someone has violated a rule — that the individual's actions warrant punishment.

But can nonhuman animals truly transgress? Do they ever merit a rebuke? I would argue they do — though with significant differences from human wrongdoing.

Instruction

Training animals, such as horses and dogs, often involves more than conditioning. It encompasses a more advanced form of learning: instruction.

A key difference between instruction and conditioning is that instruction involves direct communication between the instructor and the trainee. Pet owners and trainers talk to cats and dogs, and while these animals may not grasp grammar, they can recognize the meanings of many human words. Caretakers also often pay attention to the sounds animals make, trying to interpret their intentions.

Indeed, people do condition cats and dogs — for instance, spraying a cat with water when it chews on a houseplant. The goal is for the cat to associate the forbidden snack with an unpleasant experience, encouraging it to avoid the plant.

However, pet training can go beyond mere behavior modification. It can focus on enhancing an animal's capacity to reason about actions: For instance, a trainer may teach a dog how to master an agility course or how to use a new pet door. Instruction involves comprehension, while learning through conditioning does not.

An animal’s ability to be trained comes from the nature of its mental processes. Scientists still don't fully understand which animals’ cognitive abilities entail comprehension, true problem-solving, and the ability to reason or infer.

But research on perception — on how humans and other animals transform sensory input into mental representations of physical objects — has enabled philosophers and psychologists to distinguish between thought and more basic cognitive abilities such as vision and hearing.

It is highly probable that some nonhuman animals — such as dolphins, apes, and elephants — are capable of thought, as philosopher Gary Varner argued in his 2012 book “Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition.” My research suggests that the divide between thinking and nonthinking animals aligns closely with the divide between animals that can be trained and those that can only be conditioned.

This distinction is essential in determining how different pets should be cared for. An owner should certainly care for their pet frog, attending to its needs, but there’s no need to treat the frog the same way they would a dog: by engaging with it, listening to it, and providing comfort.

While an owner may reprimand a dog to make it accountable for its actions, they must also accept their own responsibility toward the animal, which includes considering how the pet perceives and interprets events.

Education

Certain nonhuman animals have exhibited remarkable cognitive abilities in controlled environments, such as recognizing themselves in mirrors and retrieving memories of past events. For instance, some birds show awareness of the food they’ve hidden, noting details like its freshness and when it was stored.

Nevertheless, scientists do not yet have solid proof that animals possess critical thinking skills or a self-concept, which are essential for true education. Unlike conditioning and instruction, education aims to help a learner explain the world, evaluate the reasons behind decisions, and engage in discussions. It also prepares individuals to ask — and try to answer — ethical dilemmas like, “How should I live?” and “Was that action justified?”

A cat or dog cannot ask such philosophical questions. Often, humans don’t focus on these questions either — but they can. Caregivers, for example, often consider such matters in child-rearing, as seen when they ask children, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” or, “Do you think it’s okay to act that way?”

If we assume that animals don’t engage in self-reflection or critical thought, and thus can’t be educated, I believe they hold no moral obligations. It’s reasonable to say that a pet has transgressed, as animals like dogs and cats can learn how to behave better. However, from a moral standpoint, animals cannot commit wrongdoing, because they lack a conscience: They might understand parts of their actions, but not the nature of their own minds.

In my opinion, interacting with an animal while considering how it understands events is key to ethical pet training. However, when someone treats an animal as though it must justify its actions to us, as if it could offer excuses or apologies, they are anthropomorphizing the animal and expecting too much. Pet owners often do this jokingly, saying things like, “Now you know you shouldn’t have done that” — similar to the way they might speak to a child.

Unlike a child, the animal’s misdeed is not a failure to meet a moral duty. In human relationships, we strive for connections built on mutual justification, where we share reasons and evaluate excuses and apologies. However, this dynamic doesn’t apply to our bond with pets — no matter how much we may sometimes want to think it does.

This article has been republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. You can access the original article here.