1. The Adventures of Bella Bambina Bella Saves Dinner

2. One lazy summer day as Bella a cute little Shi Tzu watch her favorite show “The Dog Whisperer” . The phone rang!!

3. Bella! Bella!! Bella!! Bella!!

4. WOAH WOAH!! What's going on Oscar?? Sorry about that Bella I can get a little loud some times.

5. Haha!! That ok Oscar that happens to me all the time So what can I do for you Oscar??

6. Ok, I just met this adorable little golden Shi Tzu. Everything was ok until I realized that she had some issues Well umm I don’t know if your going to like this but ok, here goes…… BEHAVIOR ISSUES!! Hmm.. What type of issues? WHAT!! Oh no nono, I will help her!!

7. Tell me exactly what the problem is. Ahhh.. Poor little dog. She has no manners. But no worries we will help her behave like a good dog. Ok her name is Bridget and she is only two years old. Right before dinner when her human parents set the table. Bridget sneaks up on the table when no one is looking. Then she steal their food.

8. WE?? What do you mean? I don’t know anything about behavior training Bella. Ok sounds good. Hehehehe… ahh I thought you would say that but don’t worry it’s really not that hard. Just watch and learn.

9. Bella ran immediately to her room. She looked for her favorite red blanket, which also doubles as a super hero cape!

10. Hello Oscar I’m here. I told you I would be fast! Of course it’s me silly. I’m super Bella Bambina now!! Now shall we? Whoa! Is that really you??

11. Ok so now that we are here the first thing we must do is simply observe. However we also will take down some baseline data. We will also do what is called a “functional asssesment” Baseline data? Functional assesment? Whoa hang on a bit you are going to fast.

13. In which the behavior is measured

15. Of the contingencies responsible for

16. Behavioral problemsOk so that means that we will observe to see what is maintaining the behavior of jumping on the table. Right? Right you are!!

17. Alright. Get ready for it here it comes.

18. Bella and Oscar observed Bridget for a week. Ok Oscar, now that we have all the baseline data we need we can analyze what is really going on here. Lets see if there is something reinforcing the behavior Reinforcer: A stimulus that increases the frequency of a response it follows

20. Presentation of

21. A reinforcer

22. Resulting in an increased frequency of that responseBridget jumps on the table and eat the food Bridget has attention from family Bridget has no attention from family One of the things we noticed was that during the time that mom was cooking dinner everyone was doing their own thing and poor little Bridget was left alone to watch TV. By jumping on the dinner table she was able to get a nice treat but also the attention of the family.

23. Wow, when you put it that way it’s much easier to understand Yes. I know that was called a behavioral contingency Cool!!

24. So Bella? Where do we go from now? Ok, so now that we know what the problem is and what is causing it we can begin Well we need to extinguish the behavior

26. For a previously reinforced response

27. Causes the response frequency to decrease Waite! I have question. How well we stop reinforcement if we aren't providing the reinforcing? Awesome! your totally getting it. We can’t so we will have to train her.

28. But before we establish a procedure let look more at what is maintaining the behavior Before: Behavior: After: Before: Behavior: After: This is a diagram of Bridget’s behavior No attention Has attention Jumps on table This is also known as an escape contingency! And this is Mom’s behavior Mom sees aversive sight of Bridget on table Runs pick Bridget up and lectures her Mom has no aversive sight of Bridget on the table

30. Removal of

31. An aversive stimulus

33. You see how Mom’s behavior is reinforcing Bridget's behavior? Now since we can’t stop Mom’s reinforcing because of the obvious language barrier, we must train Bridget instead. Say what?? Now since we know that a puppy can get sad and lonely sometimes we understand that she just wants attention and love. So we will help Bridget find a behavior that is more appropriate and will still get her the attention she craves if not more. The good kind of attention  Exactly! We will use DRO Differential reinforcement of other behavior.

34. Differential Reinforcement of other behavior: Replacing an inappropriate behavior with a specific appropriate behavior producing the same reinforcing outcome So we are going to replace jumping on the table with what? Gotcha!! Hmm.. Take a look at this before we jump so far ahead From our baseline data we noticed that Bridge is only doing the behavior when no one is around. So lets look at a few more concepts

37. In the presence of one stimulus class

38. And extinguishing it or

39. Allowing it to recover

41. And less often in the presence of

42. another stimulus class

43. because of concept trainingWhhhaat??? Yea yea I know it seems like a lot but let focus on the last one the others are just to help you understand Conceptual stimulus control

44. Remember when we discussed how Bridget only jump on the table when dinner was served? Ok so the response (jumping on table) happened more often when there was food but not when there were just plates. Also even though she jumps when no one is looking someone is still has to be around to reinforce the behavior. Conceptual stimulus control. Ok ok now I'm getting it. Yes… Ok look at this contingency!

48. Ok let get to it!! Part 2 Training

51. Reinforcer: Treats from Bella's homeGot it!!

52. Before: No yummy pup corn Behavior: Hops on two legs After: Yummy pup-corn Before: No pain on shoulder from Oscars bite Behavior: Jumps on the table After: Pain on shoulder from Oscar bite After two weeks of training Bridget was an expert and doing to bunny dance. She was getting way more attention that before. Not to mention positive! Oh yea I forgot to mention that they also involved a punishment contingency at the same time. This was in order to reduce the inappropriate behavior Reinforcement Punishment

53. So that’s how we saved dinner !! Ahhh what a story. Thanks you too for all the help I love the new attention I'm getting!!