The Dog Voice

Behavior Modification...It's NOT Just Training

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:51:28 GMT

Musings after working behavior cases in a new part of the country:

I primarily get called to help clients work with behavior problems. Many people, and even some trainers, think that means teaching the dog to sit, down, heel, recall, and/or stay. You know… obedience! In all honesty, most behavior problems have underlying ‘emotional’ issues and obedience alone isn’t the answer. If your dog is barking at someone, which is most often a ‘distance increasing’ behavior which comes from the place of fear, we need to address that emotion first, not suppress it. There IS a difference between training and behavior modification! Not all trainers understand behavior, and in all fairness, not all people who work with behavior problems understand training complicated skills. But again, dogs with behavior problems need to have the reason for the behavior addressed so that any ‘obedience’ training can result in a dog that isn’t compromised by negative emotions. Even the way obedience is trained can affect your dogs’ emotions. If your dog is working to avoid something (leash correction, bop on the nose, knee in the chest, stimulation from an electric collar for example) then the behavior that is learned will carry with it the emotion that goes along with that avoidance. Behaviors trained by reinforcing what you want means your dog wants to do the behavior to GET something instead of doing it to AVOID something. This often requires you to minimize the opportunity for your dog to practice the behaviors you don’t want until you can replace it with something you do want! Much like an alcoholic… you don’t want them to go to the bar every day if you want them to stop drinking. And you need to address the underlying emotional reasons for them drinking before they can change!

Addressing the emotional aspect, along with perhaps teaching some incompatible behaviors that also carry with them a positive CER (Conditioned Emotional Response), you can change behavior instead of just suppressing it.

Karen Deeds, Certified Dog Behavior Consultant - IAABC

Jumping Up to Say Hello

sardogdad@deedscanineconnection.com (Robert Deeds) — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 02:25:33 GMT

... Dealing with excited greetings.

Trainers will often hear clients say, “He always jumps on me at the door". ...Or, "He knows better. He knows he’s doing the wrong thing". ...And my all-time favorite, "When he jumps on me, he’s just trying to be dominant”.

When we break these scenarios down, they quickly fall apart. “He knows better…”. Then why doesn’t he do better? Doesn’t “better” mean that if he had an option that HE KNEW was really BETTER, wouldn’t he choose that better option instead?

To understand over-excited greeting, let's look at dogs meeting dogs. If you watch a dog meet another dog, it will often curve its body in a c-shape and lick the greeted dog on the muzzle. Sometimes when the greeted dog responds with a growl, or a "snark", the greeter will become obnoxious, frantically graveling. Dogs are on four legs, but people are bi-peds, which means a dog has to rise up to greet our muzzle. Our reaction is to push the dog away and down, (The Human "Snark") which often causes a counter jumping assault. Afterall, if the greeting wasn’t received right the first time doesn’t that dog, who always wants to please us, just try harder???

This brings us to the emotional part of jumping. It AIN'T about dominance! The illustration above is submissive by the very nature of the greeting. Think of your greeting interaction with your young puppy. We’re tall, and they’re short. We meet them half-way, which for a puppy, may just be knee level. They are SO cute at that young age. Each greeting is a smorgasbord of jumping reinforcement. Fast forward to seven or eight months of age. “Cute” has left the building. The new blouse gets mud all over the front, or that new dress shirt gets torn. My wife has this great saying, “Anytime your dog is with you it is learning something”. Did we teach our puppy to jump? Even worse, did we ingrain a behavior that is wrapped in a whole physiological response? Did your dog grow up thinking that that type of greeting worked, as in, "I survived the greeting"? I’ve interviewed thousands of dogs…None of them ever responded verbally, but their behavior still speaks volumes.

If you try to punish this away, the result is likely to be a more anxious greeting which can lead to a frantic increase of jumping or a dog that completely gives up on greeting. Both are evidence of a DING to relationship. In the rare case that it does work, trainers take it as a “gospel” method, even though the fail rate far exceeds the success rate. On the other hand, those trainers that teach clients to ignore the behavior and it will go away on its own, didn’t fare any better. How can that be…If you are ignoring it, you are removing reinforcement, right? Wrong…The dogs keep jumping. Reinforcement still comes in the dogs’ successful completion of the greeting behavior. It becomes a self-reinforcing behavior. Don’t forget that we don’t get to decide what is punishing and what is reinforcing…Your dog makes that decision.

So, what do we do? First, WE MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN…We change technique, we change the timing and placement of reinforcement, and we change the environment. If reinforcement or punishment strategies aren’t working, we do something new. How about reinforcement that changes the emotional response that makes a dog feel like it needs to jump in the first place? How about a reinforcement strategy that puts a dog into a very cognitive part of its brain, affecting the dog’s excitement level to a calmer state? …And…How about addressing the problem before the dog is in the location where the jumping always occurs. Then once we have a trained/conditioned behavior, (both physically and emotionally)we re-introduce the dog to the “scene of the crime”, but with both the skill and the mindset to change the old behavior in the old environment.

Guess what…We can show you how to make these changes.

Relationship

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 21:10:16 GMT

Knowledge is power...

The traditional notions of ‘alpha’ and how to establish that position is largely misinformed. However, the idea of relative hierarchies within the family unit is not a myth. A pack is simply a social structure within which some animals live. One of the other misrepresented notions is that your family, now containing a dog, has become a pack. Your dog is not a pack animal. A wolf is a pack animal. You very rarely will see a lone wolf. They live and THRIVE within a multi-WOLF structure that by its very existence, lends itself to success for that species. Dogs are not wolves. That’s why many dogs can live happily within a one dog household.

Humans are also social animals who live within various social structures. The concept that there is only one ‘alpha’ within any social structure is simply inaccurate. Blending the social structures between human and dog does not require physical means. In fact, humans are simply not physically or emotionally equipped to imitate dogs’ specific interactions. We cannot physically ‘correct’ a pup like an adult dog would… with precision and with the same emotion. Because of our emotions, over and under corrections and lack of physical expertise, our communication is less effective, and we often confuse the dog and reduce, rather than elevate, the dog’s confidence in our abilities and their trust in our judgment.

A relationship should be based on good communication and cooperation. Relationship does not utilize force, violence, or aggression. There are various activities throughout the day that we can utilize to create a pleasant, positive relationship with our dogs. We have things that our dog needs and wants. Food, toys, attention, coming indoors, going outdoors, resting places, and safety are all valuable commodities that your dog can earn reinforcement for. First, there needs to be something that your dog can offer to you as a form of ‘payment’ for the desired commodity. Calmness, whether it be simply standing still or sitting can easily be utilized as their currency. The ability to reward your dog by delivering a specific commodity in response to a polite request creates a partnership that helps the dog understand what is expected out of it. This will help reduce stress as well as increases confidence in the dog by empowering the dog to control its own environment. Dogs that struggle with anxiety thrive on predictability and structure. Teaching a dog to offer calm behavior instead of constantly telling the dog what to do, can impower your dog. Remember, Sir Francis Bacon said the famous Latin phrase, that every grade school teacher paraphrased, “Ipsa scientia potestas est”…Knowledge itself is Power”.

Children in the family should be included in the training of the dog so that the dog learns that even they can reward good behavior! What better way to include your dog into your family? (What better way for children to learn how to teach and to interact appropriately with a dog?)

Rewarding a sit with a session of petting, permission to jump on the bed or the sofa, or even entering or exiting a doorway are great opportunities to not only reduce the chaos and conflict that often accompanies those situations, but also to build a relationship of cooperation and understanding. We actually teach our dogs to ‘Ask Permission’, by offering a sit or down without a cue to let us know they’d like permission to leave the crate.

Food, toys, and interactive play time like tug of war are also great opportunities to create a history of reinforcement and rewarding good, controlled behavior. Using these resources as reinforcement means that they need to have value. If these resources (food, toys, attention, and freedom to come and go) are available to them without the need to acquire them, they have little reinforcement potential. Put your dog’s feeding times on a schedule – do not allow free feeding. Provide interactive play toys only when you initiate the play. Having ‘alone’ toys such as stuffed bones, Nylabones, stuffed Kongs, antlers, or other toys that your dog can use for self-entertainment can be available without your intervention. Free access through a dogie door reduces the opportunity to reinforce them for asking to go in or out. Ensure that your dog does not guard your seating or sleeping areas and looks for your permission to join you if you so desire. Teach your dog to check in with you when going for a walk. The reward for checking in with you may be something as simple as getting to sniff the fire hydrant ahead! Also, teaching your dog to settle and leave you alone, is also a good thing. Your dog can gain more ‘hang out’ time with the family, when they’ve learned to chill and quietly chew a bone, while the kids do their homework or the family watches TV.

Remember that your relationship with your dog should be based on cooperation for the benefit of each other. There are certainly rules and boundaries. Our dogs are happier when those rules and boundaries are clear and when the dog has good, alternative behaviors…What to do is often easier to understand, and accomplish, than what not to do.