BEHAVIOR SOLUTIONS

Does your dog: 

  • Jump all over your guests when they arrive?
  • Take you for a walk instead of you walking him?
  • Steal food from the counter when you’re not looking?
  • Bolt out the door, dash out the front gate or jump out of the car before you were ready?  
  • Forget everything you thought he knew if you go to town together?
  • Have ‘selective hearing’ when you call him to ‘come’? 

When you first got him, did you dream of having a dog be part of the family, but he gets left home more and more because he isn’t welcomed as much at gatherings any more?  We can call all of these concerns ‘behavior problems’,  and they all have pretty straight forward solutions.  I can help you with these challenges and more.

Much of what is often referred to as ‘aggression’ can be more accurately described as ‘reactivity’.  The dog is reacting to something; we may or may not be accurate in our assumption of what it is.  Reactivity is, scientifically, a ‘conditioned emotional response.’  The dog was not born this way; he has learned to become this way.  Therefore, we need to address it as an emotional reaction, not just the behavior itself, which is a symptom of the underlying issue.  If we ignore the emotional cause and simply ‘discipline’ the behavior, we can escalate the very behavior we had wanted to stop.

The dog on the left is doing what is called Resource Guarding.  He is communicating.  We may not like what he is saying, but we have to acknowledge that he is expressing his feelings at this moment in the only way he knows how.  We then need a plan to address the cause.

I will work with you to help you understand what might be driving your dog’s behavior and what a solution might look like.  Many dogs that appear aggressive are simply reacting, and we can asses these dogs and decide the best way to proceed.  There are some types of behavior I’m not willing to work with, specifically aggression cases, and I would recommend a trained ‘Veterinarian Behaviorist’ or a certified ‘Fear Free’ trainer specializing in fear and aggression.  

Behaviors I am willing to help you with are on-leash skills, ‘naughty dog’ behaviors such as door dashing, jumping up, stealing food, barking, getting overly excited/reacting on walks or at the door, etc.  I also teach all puppy and obedience skills, including sit, down, stay, come-when-called, settle on a mat/bed, and politeness in  taking treats. 

I DO NOT advocate the use of shock collars or similar devices, prong collars or choke chains to address behavior.  It is well established that the use of prong and choke collars can cause irreparable damage to nerves, etc in the neck and the thyroid gland itself.  While pain and punishment may, in fact, stop some behavior by suppressing it, it cannot teach what “to do” instead and may actually create a new or worse behavior as a result.  Those who feel the need to inflict pain to ‘train’ a dog are simply showing that they are more powerful, yet lack the basic knowledge and understanding of how to change behavior in a humane way.

 So what is the process to teach life skills and change behavior we don’t like?

Positive Reinforcement Training is built upon layers of understanding.  I approach training from a place called DO-LAND.

Dogs don‘t understand don‘t or ‘NO’ because don‘t is a concept. A more successful approach, one that is not conceptual but rather absolute, is to approach your dog training challenges from the land of ‘DO’.  Do-Land is the place where we teach our dogs what it is we want them TO DO, instead of focusing on the don‘t.

Rather than putting all our energy into continually coming up with strategies to ‘stop’ our dogs from doing something (resulting in frustration for our dog and us), we train our dogs in strategic layers to build a strong foundation and create an abundant reinforcement history for behaviors that we want to see.

 

What is the process? Think of 5-C’s.

First: we must create a Connection with our dog, based upon safety and trust. Without this, learning is difficult and unpredictable.

Second: we teach in a way that provides Clarity for the animal.  This always means this, that always means that.  Are we easy for the dog to interpret from his perspective as a different specie than us?  Are we consistent?  Does our yes always mean yes or are we ambiguous? Perhaps our communication is not always very clear.

Third:  Clarity builds Confidence.  As we create a connection and train with clarity, we grow our dog’s confidence.  This is a natural outcome of the process.  He says, so to speak, ‘Oh, that is what you wanted.  Yes, I can do that, watch me!’

Fourth: Now we can add Challenges.  Only when our dog is confident in his understanding of what we are teaching can we then ask questions such as, ‘can you do that in this room, or in the yard outside, or at the park, or at a store, or around people or other animals you don’t know, or around distractions you might never have seen before?’. 

As you introduce a challenge of ‘Do you know how to do this in the environment I’m asking you to do it in?’ (perhaps walk at your left side in public or sit in a store when another dog approaches) your dog answers you with his behavior.  He can do no more than we have taught.  

Perhaps his behavior says ‘no, I don’t understand what you want’, or ‘what that means’ or ‘No, I can’t do that in this environment’.   It is up to us to discover why our dog’s behavior gives us his answer.  Is he nervous, scared, overwhelmed, not feeling safe, confused, overly excited, etc.?  Is he perhaps telling us “You didn’t train me to do what you thought you trained me to do”.

Anytime we, as the trainer, shift the blame to the animal, such as ‘he is just being stubborn, willful, dominant, is stupid’, or ’it’s his breed’ or _________, then we have relieved ourselves of any responsibility to do better. 

Remember:  Our dog is doing the best he can with the education we’ve given him in the environment we have asked him to perform. 

Fifth: Lastly we come to Choice.  Our dog now willingly chooses to do as we have asked because he knows how, has the confidence to do it in multiple environments, and his behavior now reflects this.  This is the outcome of good training.