The Effect of a Trained Attending Response on Rate of Acquistion in Canines.

Abstract

Established dog trainers have used anecdotal evidence to make the claim that the training of an attending response is crucial for effective teaching. Although there is empirical support from human studies on the importance of trained attending (Fox, 1977) there is no research in the animal training literature to confirm these findings. The present study assessed the effect of a trained attending response on rate of acquisition in canines.