CPDT KA UPDATED ACTUAL QUESTIONS
AND CORRECT ANSWERS
COMPREHENSIVE STUDY GUIDE
●● Classical Conditioning - Pavlov
Answer: Learned association between 2 events: 1 event is neutral and 1
event elicits an unconditioned response. Works with
INVOLUNTARY/automatic behaviors (like drooling) and placing a
neutral sign (like ringing a bell) BEFORE it.
●● Learning
Answer: a change in behavior that lasts for a long time
●● Performance
Answer: the doing of a behavior, doesn't mean that something was
learned
●● Discriminative Stimulus
Answer: Your command
●● Temporary Criteria
Answer: the beginning steps of an exercise towards performing a
command that is new to the dog
,●● Reward Based Training
Answer: uses positive reinforcement (rewards) and negative punishment
(removing something the dog likes - i.e. your attention)
●● Primary Reinforcer
Answer: food, water, anything dog needs for survival. Food activates
parasympathetic nervous system, can calm dog, make him less fearful, &
result in training process being enjoyable
●● Secondary Reinforcer aka Conditioned Reinforcer
Answer: Clicker, saying "yes", . . . marks a behavior as rewardable and
promises reward in near future. Rewards such as tennis balls, petting,
clapping, tug- dog is conditioned to like them. ALL OF THESE ARE
LEARNED THROUGH CLASSICAL CONDITIONING.
●● Tertiary Reinforcer
Answer: cues the dog knows and enjoys doing. the doing is the
reinforcer
●● One of the most important points about reinforcement
Answer: Do not feed or reinforce unwanted behaviors during training
●● Shaping
,Answer: rewards dog for successive approximations of the behavior
●● Luring
Answer: lead the dog into the behavior by tempting with a treat
●● Prompting
Answer: Much like luring only the animal can't see the treat
●● Chaining
Answer: method of teaching a complex sequence of behaviors. each
behavior signals the other behavior that eventually signals a reward.
Doing this from the last step to the first step is usually the most efficient
way - with the last behavior trained first, followed by a reward. Then
teach the behavior that will preceed that one, etc, etc.
●● Free Shaping
Answer: No instruction, cues or input is given, except for the clicker.
●● Stimulus Control
Answer: how a dog responds to cue
●● Under stimulus control
Answer: when dog does not:
, 1. refuse to give behavior when cued to do so
2.give the behavior if not cued to do so
3.give the behavior for a different cue
4. give a different behavior on the cue
●● Superstitious Behavior
Answer: some irrelevant behavior that the dog performs along with the
desired one thinking that it's required to earn the reward. Usually the
result of an accidental reinforcement
●● VSR
Answer: Variable Schedules of Reinforcement - for fluency
●● Differential Reinforcement
Answer: A type of VSR where we look for the best examples of the
behavior to reward & ignore other offers
●● Limited Hold
Answer: (VSR) Reward is available only for a certain length of time. It
rewards the SPEED of response.
●● Operant conditioning
Answer: Majority of dog training is this type
AND CORRECT ANSWERS
COMPREHENSIVE STUDY GUIDE
●● Classical Conditioning - Pavlov
Answer: Learned association between 2 events: 1 event is neutral and 1
event elicits an unconditioned response. Works with
INVOLUNTARY/automatic behaviors (like drooling) and placing a
neutral sign (like ringing a bell) BEFORE it.
●● Learning
Answer: a change in behavior that lasts for a long time
●● Performance
Answer: the doing of a behavior, doesn't mean that something was
learned
●● Discriminative Stimulus
Answer: Your command
●● Temporary Criteria
Answer: the beginning steps of an exercise towards performing a
command that is new to the dog
,●● Reward Based Training
Answer: uses positive reinforcement (rewards) and negative punishment
(removing something the dog likes - i.e. your attention)
●● Primary Reinforcer
Answer: food, water, anything dog needs for survival. Food activates
parasympathetic nervous system, can calm dog, make him less fearful, &
result in training process being enjoyable
●● Secondary Reinforcer aka Conditioned Reinforcer
Answer: Clicker, saying "yes", . . . marks a behavior as rewardable and
promises reward in near future. Rewards such as tennis balls, petting,
clapping, tug- dog is conditioned to like them. ALL OF THESE ARE
LEARNED THROUGH CLASSICAL CONDITIONING.
●● Tertiary Reinforcer
Answer: cues the dog knows and enjoys doing. the doing is the
reinforcer
●● One of the most important points about reinforcement
Answer: Do not feed or reinforce unwanted behaviors during training
●● Shaping
,Answer: rewards dog for successive approximations of the behavior
●● Luring
Answer: lead the dog into the behavior by tempting with a treat
●● Prompting
Answer: Much like luring only the animal can't see the treat
●● Chaining
Answer: method of teaching a complex sequence of behaviors. each
behavior signals the other behavior that eventually signals a reward.
Doing this from the last step to the first step is usually the most efficient
way - with the last behavior trained first, followed by a reward. Then
teach the behavior that will preceed that one, etc, etc.
●● Free Shaping
Answer: No instruction, cues or input is given, except for the clicker.
●● Stimulus Control
Answer: how a dog responds to cue
●● Under stimulus control
Answer: when dog does not:
, 1. refuse to give behavior when cued to do so
2.give the behavior if not cued to do so
3.give the behavior for a different cue
4. give a different behavior on the cue
●● Superstitious Behavior
Answer: some irrelevant behavior that the dog performs along with the
desired one thinking that it's required to earn the reward. Usually the
result of an accidental reinforcement
●● VSR
Answer: Variable Schedules of Reinforcement - for fluency
●● Differential Reinforcement
Answer: A type of VSR where we look for the best examples of the
behavior to reward & ignore other offers
●● Limited Hold
Answer: (VSR) Reward is available only for a certain length of time. It
rewards the SPEED of response.
●● Operant conditioning
Answer: Majority of dog training is this type
