Can E-Collars Change Behaviour with Negative Reinforcement?
• When an animal chooses to avoid a consequence it is strengthening an alternative behaviour. E-collars that emit a warning tone, such as confinement collars and some bark-reduction collars, are teaching a dog to avoid a consequence and this is thereby negative reinforcement. Notes. • A useful example of negative reinforcement is that a driver will choose to slow down when seeing a police radar to avoid the fine. By using marked police cars, road-side radar vans with adequate sign marking and road-side speed cameras with sign marking, the police are strengthening slower driving using negative reinforcement. Drivers choose to avoid the fine. • Because a dog or cat chooses not to get the electric stimulus, the knowledgeable implementation (by a behaviourist) of warning tones can be more welfare positive than the use of the aversive stimulus (shock) Can E-Collars Change Behaviour with Positive Punishment? • E-collars attempt to change behaviour by positive punishment when an aversive stim
