What is avoidance behaviour in puppies?

sarah29*

I'm currently reading about young puppies, as I'm trying to learn as much about their behaviour as possible, and have just read that puppies can show avoidance behaviour towards visual danger from 6 or 7 weeks, but there's something I don't understand...

What is actually meant by avoidance behaviour in this situation?

An example of what I read was avoidance behaviour is a dog wearing an electric collar. The collar beeped everytime the dog got close to a barrier, and shocked the dog if it crossed the barrier. So the dog then learned to avoid being shocked by stopping when the beep sounded.

So, how is avoidance behaviour different to one trial learning (eg - a dog touches a hot stove once, it hurts, so it never touches the stove again)?

:think:

DogsBody

I always thought that the 'avoidance' behaviour shown by pups at 5-7 weeks was an instinctive neophobia rather than a learned response? IIRC it ties in with the time that pups would first be leaving the 'nest' and getting out into the 'world', where it would make biological sense to be wary of new things?

I know Scott & Fuller did work on learned avoidance behaviour in young pups when studying development of the immature nervous system/sensory responses etc back in the 50's and 60's - is that the sort of thing you mean?

Raksha

I#'d suggest that One trial learning is the touching of the thing which delivers the unpleasant stimulus - ie an electric fence - avoidance learning is where the unpleasant stimulus comes from an unconnected device, so the source of the discomfort/pain isn't as obvious.