Things to Know About Dog Behavior for Science Projects

Dogs are convenient, enthusiastic and compliant science project subjects. A small treat or even a "Good boy!" is usually enough payment for their participation. Their behaviors are easy to see and record, so behavioral principles such as positive reinforcement and extinction can be observed. There are a few caveats where dogs are concerned, however. They don't always stay focused. They often perform behaviors just to make you happy, and sometimes their natural instincts get in the way.

  1. Physiological Response

    • Perhaps the most famous science project about dog behavior was Ivan Pavlov's pairing of a bell with the delivery of food. The researcher first rang a bell whenever he put food in front of them. After doing this many times, he rang the bell without the food being presented. When the dogs heard the bell ring, they began to salivate, as if they were actually seeing the food. In this case, the bell was the stimulus, and the drooling was the response. You can use a dog's physical responses to a stimulus -- e.g., perking up its ears when it hears a strange sound -- to design a science project.

    People Pleasers

    • Dogs love to make people happy. This can cause problems in using them for science projects sometimes. Take the process of extinction for example. Extinguishing a trained behavior means making the behavior go away. This is often done by stopping a reward when a behavior is performed. Say you train your dog to touch your hand whenever you say "Touch" by giving it a treat. Ordinarily, you can extinguish this behavior by not giving the dog a treat when it performs the trick enough times to where it gives up. Often, dogs don't care about the treat after a while. They will do their trick just because they think it will make you happy.

    Orienting

    • Dogs can be easily distracted, often because of their orienting reflex. You may be smoothly conducting your science project when all of a sudden your dog turns his head away from you. This is probably because he has heard something, such as someone opening a potato chip bag in another room. All animals have this orienting reflex, according to Temple Grandin, an animal science expert. Orienting helps an animal decide whether a strange sound or smell should be ignored or checked into, but it can cause problems when you are trying to get your dog to focus.

    Curiosity

    • You can use a dog's natural curiosity to help you conduct your science project. Curiosity is something all animals use to explore their environment, find food and protect themselves from predators. Dogs need novel objects and situations to stay mentally and physical healthy, so they naturally and enthusiastically seek out new things. Sparking a dog's curiosity can keep it motivated to assist you with your science project.