History is the best yardstick for judging the ability to modify behavior. It tells us just how long we may expect the learning curve to be. The longer a behavior has been effective for an individual, the more resistant she will be to changing this pattern in the future. This is why nobody—human or dog—escapes a therapist’s office without digging into family history; how far back a habit goes really makes a difference in potential outcomes.

Sometimes the consequence of an action is extremely favorable not only for one individual, but for generations of individuals. In this case, the habit has been literally embedded in the genetics of the animal and thus has the power to motivate behavior even as it continues to fail or be punished. Such a behavioral survival strategy has become an impulse—a modal action pattern—that is automatic and self-reinforcing (even chemically rewarding the animal with a dopamine release in the brain for engaging in the behavior). It is largely unconscious and unintentional.

For example: a natural predator may continue to hunt when an opportunity presents itself, long after he has learned that food will be provided for him in captivity. For a tiger in a zoo or a Husky in the suburbs, the free meals we humans offer do not erase the powerful, subconscious impetus to respond to fast-moving prey. The rewards that resulted from this behavior in their predecessors reinforced and literally shaped their DNA to respond. This kind of reinforcement history has such staying power in the biology of the learner that it can persevere, despite changing conditions in the environment, for a very long time.

So unless there are some seriously sufficient competing motivations—strong enough to rearrange the priorities in the moment by rendering the hunt suddenly too dangerous or secondary to some other survival demand—the modal action patterns will just emerge without a thought. And once again, the animal will enjoy the cascade of dopamine surging through its system, reinforcing the behavior further.

Your black lab’s little jumping habit is fueled by more than the attention everyone keeps feeding him for doing it; it is also a behavior that has worked out really well for friendly, solicitous pups greeting their buddies for thousands of years.

While humans are sometimes able to control these sorts of unconscious urges better than dogs, we are still susceptible to unconscious patterns of behavior. An action that we found useful at a meaningful moment in our life can become engrained to a point where we are barely aware of our behavior. These habits can be benign (like absentmindedly driving to the old office where you worked for years, long after you started your new job across town) or harmful (being stuck in cycles of abusive relationships after learning relationship skills in an abusive childhood home). Even when habitual actions are repeatedly punished, their resilience in the face of reminiscent conditions can be profound.