24/09/2025
Why it is so important:
Conditions Emotional Responses (CERs )influences behaviour, decision-making, and welfare.
Understanding and guiding CERs helps your dog to reduce fear, aggression, and avoidance, and promote reliable, relaxed responses in real life.
A conditioned emotional response is an emotional reaction (positive or negative) that a dog can develops to a stimulus because the stimulus has been consistently paired with a meaningful outcome, such as safety, reward, or punishment.
How it forms:
💙Neutral stimulus (e.g., a doorbell, a leash, a specific person) is paired repeatedly with an unconditioned emotional experience (e.g., safety and reward, or fear and stress).
💙 Over time, the neutral stimulus alone elicits an emotional response, even in the absence of the original outcome.
For example:
A dog that hears a vacuum cleaner and previously cowered, through training techniques your dog learns to associate the vacuum with treats and gentle exposure, resulting in a calmer reaction.
💙 A dog that sees a leash and feels excited because leash-walking has been paired with fun outings.
Little Macchi added for cuteness. 💙
