The mission of Dog Scouts of America is to try to keep dogs out of shelters and in the loving families where they belong. In shelters and pounds around this country, we are seeing 80% of the dogs surrendered because of some behavior problem that the “loving family” could no longer tolerate, and a coincidental 80% that have to be killed because there aren’t enough homes to adopt all of the unwanted dogs. We need to address a couple of factors, if we are to have fewer dogs become part of that “unwanted” population. 

One is that the dog did not meet the owner’s expectations. People adopt a darling, angelic puppy at 8 weeks of age, promising to love it forever. Of course, their expectation is that the darling puppy will remain angelic forever. By the time that puppy has reached 7 months of age, the owners are ready to abandon their commitment and cart him off to the shelter. He’s destroying the house, biting the kids, running off, digging holes in the backyard, and still hasn’t mastered the potty training. The angelic puppy has become the dog from hell.

Somehow, the naive puppy owners expected the little darling NOT to grow up to be the dog from hell. Their expectation was that the puppy would magically observe that the other members of the household were not messing on the carpet, and therefore, he should do likewise. They figured that he must be genetically programmed to learn to hold it for hours on end and then, on some signal the pup was to devise on his own, let the owners know when he had to go to the bathroom. Their expectation was that the puppy would somehow know the difference between the drapes and his rope tug toy. They expected that through clairvoyance, the pup would know when it was okay to jump up, and when humans really didn’t want him to. Their expectation was that even though the puppy was bored senseless, being left alone in the back yard or a crate all day, that he would turn his energy to quiet meditation, rather then working out his frustration on excavating a good hole or shredding his bedding.  When the owners’ expectations were not met, they became dissatisfied with the arrangement they had made. They decided to break the covenant they made with their puppy, and dump him at the nearest shelter, telling themselves that at the shelter he’ll find a new home... that’s what shelters do...

Where do prospective owners get these unrealistic expectations of what a puppy will be? Possibly they remember a dog from days gone by, that never caused a problem and was good as gold, seemingly without any training whatsoever. Or, perhaps owners see actor dogs on television, and assume that dogs just turn out like that on their own. Maybe the owners still have the memory of a recently departed dog in their minds. This dog was calm and quiet and never caused problems. Of course the dog was also 17 years old, and the owners don’t remember what it was like when that dog was going through puppyhood many years ago. Whatever people are basing these expectations on, we need to change those expectations, and bring the prospective owners back to reality with a few cold hard truths.

For starters:

·         Dogs don’t care whether they eliminate indoors or out, and indoors is more convenient, don’t you agree? 

·         Dogs don’t speak English and can’t communicate their needs to you without special training.

·         Everything is worth chewing to a puppy: furniture, shoes, drapes, hands, TV remotes, homework...

·         For a dog, jumping up is the only way to get closer to your face, and almost always gets your attention.

·         Chasing moving objects (like kids or cats) is fun and exciting for many dogs, especially if they’re bred for this activity.

·         Running away may be a way to alleviate boredom and get some exercise.  

·         Dogs really enjoy digging. It’s great exercise, and it gets them gloriously filthy. What fun for a dog!

Puppies will do what ever is productive (rewarding) for them. If they smell something good in the trash and they raid the trash and get to eat the yummy fish guts or whatever, then they’ll want to raid the trash as often as possible, in the hope of being similarly rewarded.  Even if they also get punished, they still got rewarded for the behavior first and punishment can’t take that away. For an owner to expect a dog NOT to want to get fish guts from the trash, or from any other receptacle, is unrealistic.  

Here is how the dog learned to be a garbage raider:

·         Something irresistible to dogs was placed in the trash container.

·         The trash can was left accessible to the dog.

·          The dog was left unsupervised.

·         The dog found the hidden “treasure” and delighted in eating it.

·         The first law of training dictates that a dog will repeat that which gets rewarded. 

·         The dog now exhumes the trash at every opportunity.

It doesn’t stop there, let’s continue with part II:

·         You catch your dog in the act of garbage raiding after the behavior is firmly entrenched.

·         You yell and maybe even punish the dog so the dog learns not to let you CATCH him in the act.

·         You now have a very cagey dog who only eats the trash when you’re not looking.

·         He still wants to eat garbage, because that has become a very rewarding pastime for him.

All of this unpleasantness could have been completely eliminated with a little preparation on the part of the owner. First, you must EXPECT your dog to want to forage for fish guts in the garbage. This is a very pleasant and rewarding activity. Therefore, if you would have eliminated steps one, two and three, you would not have taught your dog to raid the garbage. It’s easier to not allow the bad habits to form than it is to try to “break” the dog of bad habits after they have a pleasant reward history. 

To put it simply:

1.      Don’t put dog yummies in the waste basket--take them directly out to the street, or

2.      Put them in some other receptacle that your dog can not get into (like the freezer)

3.      Don’t leave the dog unsupervised at any time during his household education.

If you EXPECT your dog to perform normal dog behaviors, like foraging, chewing objects, chasing things, digging, and running, then you will be less likely to be disillusioned when he performs these behaviors. Most behaviors that owners find unacceptable are just normal, predictable dog behaviors. If your expectation is that you will see these behaviors surface in your dog, you will be better equipped to meet the challenge head on, and prevent the transgression from happening that very first time. By stopping the behavior before it gets reinforced, your chances are good that a random curious inspection will never become more than that.

Once you get your expectations in the proper perspective, nothing your dog does should surprise you! He’s not human. He doesn’t know right from wrong. You have to show him how to make better choices.

Learning to Choose

Twenty years ago, I decided to name my training business “Dog’s Choice Training Centers.” I thought that this was the best name in the world, because dog training boils down to teaching the dog to make intelligent choices. And, if a dog could choose where he went for training class, he’d pick Dog’s Choice, because the training is all positive. 

Dog training is so simple. It breaks my heart to see so many dogs given up because they display unacceptable behaviors. The dogs have no idea that anything they do is unacceptable at all. I’m going to give you the key to unlock the universe, right now. It’s as simple as teaching your dog to choose.

Your dog doesn’t know there is a RIGHT choice and a WRONG choice. Dogs are amoral. They have no idea of what’s good or bad. They do what pleases themselves. We must teach them to make the choices that please us. This is so simple. All you have to do is reward the choices you want the dog to consistently make. For example, you know you don’t want to have your dog jump on people. Most people wait until the dog makes the wrong choice and they punish him. What about the right choice that the dog was making right up until he jumped? He was practicing NOT jumping, and you didn’t reward it. Let’s hit the rewind button and try this again. Your dog is on the floor, the neighbor is at the door. The dog is choosing not to jump (yet). You catch that golden moment and give him a cookie. Now “not jumping” is developing a reward history. The dog has a positive association with not jumping. Not jumping is something the dog is going to subconsciously work at as often as possible. He tries not jumping again. Be sure to keep that positive reward history going.  You could even hold a cookie low as the person comes in to encourage the dog to follow the cookie while the person says hi.  If you don’t give him something that makes his “choice” worthwhile, he may switch to a different behavior, to see if he can get a reward. The alternate behavior might be jumping up. You don’t want jumping up (a self-rewarding behavior) to win out over not jumping up. Remember--”Good” or “Bad” is all the same to him. He only cares about “rewarded” or “unrewarded.” 

You may notice that “sitting” is a natural “not jumping” posture. You may choose to reward and ask for “sit” whenever you think your dog is about to jump up. Don’t let good choices go unrewarded. I don’t mean just a pat on the head, either. A smart dog can get that by jumping on a fool. I mean “big money.” Food is usually something that dogs value. Using food to reward a dog is a very fast and efficient way to make a positive association. Some people don’t like to use food to train, but I’m here to tell you there’s almost nothing better. I taught my dog to open doors, turn on lights, play the piano and put her toys away, all with the use of treats. This is something I couldn’t have accomplished in a million years using punishment.  Once the behavior is a habit, you don’t need the food.

People often use treats or cookies to teach their dog tricks. But for some reason, they think it is a cardinal sin to use those same cookies to teach obedience or manners. WHERE does that logic come from? Why do you think they’re so good at their tricks and only half-heartedly perform obedience? If it helps you to think of everything your dog learns as a “trick,” then that works for me! Let’s start this week by teaching your dog these new tricks:

1.      Not Jumping (reward “four on the floor”)

2.      Not peeing in the house (reward peeing outside--they’ll never choose to pee inside for “free” again!)

3.      Not running off (reward the choice to come to you on their own, whether you called or not)

When you’re done teaching these tricks (it should take a very short time if you’re good with timing your reward), then you can teach several other great tricks, like going for a walk without pulling on the leash, staying while someone goes in and out of the door, and staying until you say the “magic word” when feeding your dog his dinner. There’s no limit to the things you can teach your dog to do by rewarding the opposite of a bad behavior. Everything your dog does involves a choice. If you reward the choices that don’t get him in trouble, you will find that those “troublesome” behaviors go away by themselves.