Help Your Dog Be Welcome
I would guess that if you have a dog, you love your dog (otherwise why would you have him?) And, because you love your dog, you like to take him with you on family outings, festivals, walkathons, or other places which may allow dogs to be present. If you want your dog to be able to accompany you, you must give him the skills necessary to be kept under control and not be a safety hazard.
It is so extremely EASY to give your dog a few basic manners, so that he will be welcomed into public places. Yet, many people think that teaching ordinary control exercises are beyond their capabilities. Or, they think that obedience training is just for people who want to make a career out of it, or something.
Teaching your dog some basic manners is all common-sense stuff. You did it with your children (if you had children), and your parents did it with you. If you would have been left to your own devices and never learned right from wrong, imagine what kind of person you’d be. Yet, some people expect to raise their dogs without any “coaching” on the matter of acceptable vs. unacceptable behaviors. Your dog needs even more coaching and “parental guidance” from you, since his social background is completely different from yours. He has much more to learn. The nature of his canine upbringing automatically makes him a “delinquent” by human standards.
Without getting into a long manuscript on basic training, you can improve your dog’s behavior dramatically by just following THREE simple steps.
Accentuate the Positive
Look for GOOD behaviors and reward them. So often, we don’t notice that our dog is doing ANYTHING until he is doing something we don’t like. Then, the yelling starts. The dog gets all kinds of attention for his misdeed, and he’s thinking this is a really good way to get people to notice him.
Instead, start looking for the ABSENCE of the bad behavior or the opposite of the bad behavior. If the dog is annoying you with nuisance barking, reward his silence with your praise and attention. If the dog jumps up on you to greet you and you want him to stop, reward only sitting greetings (or with all four feet on the floor) with your praise and attention.
Example: One time I had a man bring a “whiney” Labrador Retriever to the first night of my obedience class. The dog whined and barked almost continuously, and the man asked what he could do to make him stop. I’m sure he expected my answer to be some form of punishment to nip the behavior in the bud. I simply told the guy to wait until the dog went several seconds without whining or barking and to reward the silence with attention, praise and treats. Within 20 minutes, the man remarked at how unbelievable the transformation was. By the end of class the Lab was quiet as a clam, and the man thought that I was the world’s best dog trainer!
Eliminate the Negative
When the dog does something you don’t like, stifle your urge to react to the incident. Ignore the bad behaviors, and they will usually go away by themselves. There is no need to persist in a behavior that is not “working” in some way to gain the dog something he wants. If your dog jumps up to greet you, and you ignore him and turn away, he will try another behavior to gain your attention (like keeping his feet on the ground). Make sure you reward the more acceptable behavior when it is offered. If the dog is bored, and the behavior is self-rewarding (like barking, garbage raiding and digging), you will need to work very diligently on “rewarding the absence of the behavior” side of the equation, and on managing the dog’s environment a little better to PREVENT the dog from trying the behaviors you don’t like.
Example: When your dog lives in relative solitary confinement, any event or change in his environment is exciting for him. Ted Turner, a whale trainer at Sea World says that when the animals are bad, the trainers must steel themselves to remain totally neutral to the event. If the trainer tried to “punish” the whale by grabbing his bucket of fish and stomping off, it would serve to amuse the animal and therefore reinforce him. Ignoring a behavior gives it zero reinforcement value. If the dog is doing something dangerous (chewing on a power cord for example) obviously you need to stop this. Remove the dog from the cord silently and calmly, then grab one of his toys and start playing with it like it’s the most fun thing in the world! Make a huge fuss over the toy and see if you can get the dog interested in that instead. Praise the dog for making such a smart choice (choosing his toy) and then prevent the dog from going back to the cord. It won’t take him long to forget about it. Be sure you make a fuss over the dog when he’s playing with his own toys and not your valuables. You can also teach your dog the “bad dog” retrieve found in the Behavior Problems section of the website.
Manage the environment.
Minimize the dog’s potential for getting into trouble by removing “dog magnets” from the environment (don’t leave things out for him to get into or chew up). Control the Reinforcement Value of everything in your dog’s life. Everything that could be a possible reward to your dog should be strictly controlled and the dog can only get access by doing something you like or if you allow the item to be accessible. To reduce the reinforcement value, make the items impossible to attain on his own. Move them as far away from your dog as possible. Make the possibility of the dog getting one without your permission than remote. To increase a reinforcement value of his treats, toys, and playing with you, make these something that is accessible or much more likely to be attainable.
Example: If your dog’s greatest desire is to chase pigeons, then don’t practice his training sessions in the park next to the pigeons. The reinforcement value of possibly getting to pounce on pigeons is far too great for you to expect him to give you his attention. Distance him from the thing he wants. This will make it less attainable. Let him see that the chance of receiving the reward of a nice piece of liver (and your attention) is far more likely. In other words, your dog may see eating liver and playing with you as an “eight” on a scale of one to ten. Pigeons, however, are a “nine.” If you want to possibly get through to your dog with any training, you must reduce the reinforcement value of the pigeons. If you can make them a “seven” by moving them out of reachable range, and drop their value considerably lower if they are out of sight, then your liver treats will win out, and you will have your dog’s attention, and find that the dog is able to concentrate on you and what you are asking. When the dog gives you an exceptional response, THAT is when you go back with the dog to the pigeons and let him enjoy himself. When he’s had a bit of fun, go back to the distance at which he can think about you again and repeat the process. It won’t take long for the dog to realize that listening to you and watching you is the best way to get what he wants (to be closer to the pigeons.) And as you work though this, you’ll have a highly focused dog even when the birds are close!
Put it to use today!
These basic training principles work the same on spouses, kids, and employees. Put yourself in your dog’s “shoes.” Do you work better for praise and attention, or for punishment and being ignored? Many bosses and parents miss the boat by not paying attention to these simple fundamentals. I had a job with a large company 20 years ago. I worked from day to day with a boss who only seemed to notice mistakes and not successes. I was loaned to another department one time, and worked under the supervision of a different person. At the end of the first day, my temporary boss took me aside and told me what a great job I had done, and named several specific things that she liked about my work. I don’t know if she was telling the truth, or if it was her standard operating procedure, but guess what kind of work I did the next day, and the next? I would have just about killed myself trying to work harder for this person, because she appreciated my effort and positively reinforced it. What do you think my attitude would have been on subsequent days if she would have found fault with my work?
If you follow these three simple guidelines, you will see a positive behavior change in your dog. You will notice an increase in good behaviors and a decrease in bad ones, without even having to teach your dog any obedience cues. Remember that you are in control of the situation. If you notice your dog has developed a behavior that annoys you, ask yourself what the reward history of that behavior was. Make sure the behavior stops being rewarded, and replace it with a more acceptable behavior which you will reward each time you see it in the absence of the other behavior. It’s amazing how many bad behaviors develop in dogs whose owners don’t even realize that they are reinforcing the bad habits with their attention, when they should be rewarding the opposite thing instead.
When your dog develops a set of “manners,” he will be a joy to own, and no problem to take with you in public. We do recommend basic obedience exercises (teaching your dog to come when called, walk on a loose leash and stay when told.) See the pages on positive training for more information.
Train yourself to “wake up” and notice the “good stuff.” Reward it when you see it. Keep everything positive. Remember that it works on dogs, children, spouses and employees. Positive reinforcement works on every organism that has a brain.
And when your dog is better behaved, he can accompany you more places, which allows you both to enjoy each other much more!
