Superstitious Behaviours 

This article draws on information from an article by Gary Wilkes.

As soon as you’ve read the title, you might be thinking, ‘Superstition, I know, like the black cat and walking under a ladder’. But this is a real thing that happens with animals, and I’ll be focusing mostly on your pet dog.

Let’s start with the Skinner box, because that’s where it all began. A behavioural scientist named BF Skinner invented and used this box for experiments. It allowed him to gather data on tests using a pigeon’s behaviour. Soon after he started using it, he stumbled upon something amazing. He set the mechanism to drop corn into the hopper at random times. There was no link between the corn’s appearance and a specific behaviour the pigeon might perform. The pigeon could do anything and still get fed—at random times. The pigeon amazed the researcher by developing new behaviours anyway.

But first, let’s try to understand this from Perky Pigeon’s perspective. As Perky moves around the box, she hears the sound of corn falling into the hopper. She gobbles greedily but is still hungry. Perky now wonders, ‘What caused the corn, and can I make it happen again?’ We know the corn is just available for any behaviour. But Perky remembers just before the corn, she turned her head to the left, and look, it happened again (by chance). So she repeats this left turn over and over again.

This is something that happens with pet dogs, too; there are heaps of stories from owners about their dogs making strange connections. 

Ken had a Labrador named Jay, and whenever someone laughed, Jay would spin around like a whirlwind! Ken didn’t even plan for this to happen. It’s a bit like how Perky Pigeon learned to turn left—it just happened! The first time Jay spun, he was trying to bite a flea on his tail. He spun so fast, he got dizzy and stumbled around like he’d had a few too many. It was so funny that Ken laughed and gave Jay a pat on the head. After a few more spins, it became more common and even linked to the sound of laughter. Friends and neighbours joined in, and Jay’s spinning became a regular thing. The way it seemed to just pop up was even funnier, and people kept laughing and watching Jay spin. As a pet owner, you can use this to your advantage. You can link certain behaviours to rewards, like keeping a dog out of the bin or teaching them to spin three times before getting a treat. Basically, training works because animals are happy to connect unrelated events that give them a reward. But if a behaviour seems strange, think about how the pet might have gotten a reward for doing it. Try using affection and tricks to help shape and pick out a small tendency in your animal that can turn into something interesting and unique.