Abstract “Instinctive” behavior may be modified using operant techniques. We report here on
a field study of training herding dogs in which reinforcers and punishers were used by
owners, who were themselves being trained to control their dogs. Access to sheep was
assumed to be a primary reinforcer for herding dogs. While blocking their access was
aversive to them. Over several months, the number of blocking and access actions by the
human were scored during the training of seven naïve herding dogs. We found that rates of …