Not “Bad” Behavior, Just Dog Behavior
“I just wish my dog would stop being so bad. He jumps on me all the time, barks at
me when he wants something and he walks me instead of the other way around. When
he jumps I push him down and yell at him to get down. When he barks I yell and tell
him to be quiet and sometimes I get what he wants just to shut him up. Honestly, we
don’t go on many walks because it’s not fun.”
Do you have these problems, or know someone that does? Read on to understand
these problems and do something about them.
As un-romantic as it sounds, dogs are opportunists. Dogs do what works to get
something they want. Our dogs love us and want our attention. They aren’t being
“bad”, they are doing what comes natural. Our dogs are being dogs! We need to teach
them what to do by using signals they understand, not our human language.
People talk to get a point across. We have a verbal language that has developed and
evolved into hundreds of variations. To get someone to understand something, we
open our mouths and talk. Unfortunately, we do the same to our four-legged friends.
We tell them, verbally, what to do. When they are being “bad” we raise our voices and
yell, thinking that will get the point across.
Let’s see how dogs talk to one another. Canines mostly use body language. They
are visual animals. They read one another’s signals and respond. If one dog is being
especially pushy to another, the dog that wants to be left alone will turn away. This
technique is called avoidance. The second dog is taking away his attention from the
annoying one. We humans can use this for common “bad” behaviors. What follows is
a look at a few.
A dog that jumps up wants to say hi, and,”look at me!” Most dogs have actually
learned this behavior from us. The reasons are twofold. Reason one is that jumping has
probably been reinforced since the dog was a puppy when he was “so cute”. No one
minded that a 10 pound puppy jumped up on them. Reason two, is that sometimes it
has been ok when your dog jumped on you. There may have been times that you came
home and were so happy to see your dog that you didn’t care. So now you have an
eighty-pound dog knocking you over or are wearing your best outfit and you can’t
stand it. Jumping has now earned a yell, push or a knee in the chest. Come on, that’s
not fair…talk about mixed messages.
What can you do now? If you have a puppy, you can prevent this habit from
starting by not encouraging the behavior. If you have an experienced, Olympic jumper,
use his language to make the jumping behavior simply not work anymore. What does
the dog want when he jumps? Our attention. When your dog jumps up, quickly and
without a sound or eye contact, turn your back. Take away his reward…you. Now give
your dog his coveted attention when all four feet are on the ground or better yet, he is
sitting. Wait a few seconds before you praise though, you don’t want a dog that jumps
up first and then gets down thinking that the sequence of “jump up then get down” gets
a reward. The petting, hugs and treats should abound once he has been sitting or
standing nicely. Everyone in the house must be involved and doing the same thing. No
sabotaging. Kneeing, pinching feet and yelling all give some form of attention, even
though it is negative attention so it’s still a reward to your dog. It also can hurt him and
make him not want his feet touched for nail trims or grooming. Pushing the dog off
you may seem like a game to some pups so that doesn’t work either. If the jumping is
constant, and turning your back isn’t working right away, calmly walk away from your
dog until he has calmed down.
Another common problem is barking. Does your dog bark at you when he wants
dinner or a snack or just to be pet? You can use the same method as with jumping.
From now on, barking simply doesn’t work either. If your dog barks at you, simply
turn away and ignore him. Walk out of the room if you have to. Here’s a warning, it
may get worse before it gets better, (think of a child throwing a temper tantrum). You
must ignore it until he stops and is quiet for at least 5 to 10 seconds and then lay on the
praise. Get up and play with your dog. Soon enough, he’ll realize that sitting quietly
gets what he wants, not barking like a maniac.
Last but not least, let’s touch on another common problem, pulling on the leash.
We don’t need choke collars, we just need to take away what the dog wants, (do you see
a pattern here?). The dog wants to go, move forward and explore. So, when the dog
hits the end of that leash, stop and quickly walk backwards. Don’t jerk on your dog’s
collar, just change directions fast. This is called the ‘penalty yard’ technique. If there is
tension on the leash your pup loses the ground he gained. After you have backed up
and he is paying attention to you, you can begin moving forward again. Do this as
many times as you have to until your pooch gets the hint that if he walks with slack on
his leash, he gets to keep walking forward. At the beginning you may want to use
another powerful reinforcer to speed up the learning process. When your dog is walking
by your side, give him a treat. It works well if you throw the treat on the ground near
your foot so he sees that staying near your legs earns him good stuff. At the beginning,
you may be stopping every few steps, but if you are consistent, he will get the hang of
it. It’s ok to carry treats with you on your walk; you need to be more interesting than
all those good smells on your sidewalk.
So in closing, remember that your dog is not “bad”, he is just acting like a dog.
Remember some things he’s doing have been reinforced by you so give him a break and
explain what you’d like him to do instead by using language he understands.
-Andrea DiMaio, behavior specialist