Date of Award

Spring 5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Masters in Behavior Analysis

Department

Education and Human Services

First Advisor

Robbie Hanson

Abstract

Undesirable behavior, such as excessive barking, jumping up, and biting, is prevalent among pet dogs with an estimate of 72%-85% of dogs exhibiting at least one type of undesirable behavior (Dinwoodie et al., 2019; Powell et al., 2021; Salonen et al., 2020). Further, canine undesirable behavior has been found to be the leading cause of owners relinquishing their dogs to rescue shelters (Powdrill-Wells et al., 2021). Functional communication training (FCT) is a method that has shown to be effective with human populations for reducing challenging behaviors by teaching an individual an alternative response that results in the same class of reinforcement that maintains maladaptive behavior. However, FCT remains largely unexplored with non-human populations to reduce undesirable behavior. Further, there has been limited research on the use of augmentative communication devices for non-humans and recently, the use of talk-buttons with dogs have grown in popularity across the United States despite a lack of empirical evidence for their effectiveness. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the use of FCT to reduce undesirable behavior across four dogs using voice-recorded buttons. Although none of the dogs met overall mastery criteria, the results showed an increase in independent movements towards the talk buttons following intervention for the dogs in which intervention was implemented as well as a reduction in undesirable behavior for one dog.

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