What You Need To Know About Reinforcing Behavior On Your Dog
A dog’s concept of good and bad is not the same as a person’s understanding of it. For example, a dog has the natural need to eliminate. He doesn’t care where he goes – it is his owner that cares. This is why you must reinforce his good behavior. If he relieves himself outside or in his designated area, he gets a treat. You are reinforcing that he did well with a reward. With enough positive reinforcement, he will soon know exactly what he is expected to do.
The only way your dog will learn to avoid breaking a specific rule is if there is a negative consequence every time he breaks or attempts to break that rule. Quite simply, the formula is that breaking rules equals unpleasant consequences and abiding by them results in reward of some kind. But in order for this to work, the unpleasant experience has to occur every single time the unwanted behavior occurs, and it must occur immediately upon breaking the rule. Being corrected for bad behavior some of the time or later in the day means absolutely nothing to a dog. Negative consequences then become something that happen at random, rather than as a result of having done something specific. Soon your dog will equate good behavior with positive rewards.
Why then do dogs insist upon doing things that will get them into trouble? They may know they will be in trouble when they raid the trash can and scatter the contents over the kitchen floor, but the behavior continues.
This is about satisfying a need. There is no doubt that the dog got some reward – perhaps the last of the prime rib – as a result of his first trash can raid. The next time it happened, the prize was a meaty soup bone. Now you have to think like a dog. Which is worse? Being reprimanded by you later or passing up the gourmet treat just a few nudges of the trash can away? After several successful trash can raids, your dog knows for certain there is a pot of gold under that lid. Forget the scolding! That comes later; the pork chop comes now.
Whose fault is this? Yours! (Of course, you may say, the parent always gets the blame.) But seriously, one of the most important principles of successful training has been ignored here – avoidance. The trash should not have been made accessible to the dog in the first place. Now the problem behavior is set. And now that the dog has been able to raid the gourmet treasure box for a second and third time, the thrill of victory is worth the agony of getting caught.
There are transgressions that merit correction, but the correction itself must be appropriate. Having your brand new rug chewed to bits or the stuffing pulled out of your sofa isn’t exactly funny. However, don’t make the mistake of interpreting your dog’s action in human terms. What you may interpret as retaliation on the part of your pet is more is far more apt to be instinct, or even anxiety and frustration. Although it may appear your dog did something out of sheer spite, it is very important for you to understand that this was not part of some diabolical plan to punish you.
Some people say that their dog “pays them back” for being left behind by destroying the most expensive thing they can sink their teeth into. They have entirely misunderstood why their dog did what he did. First, dogs don’t know what “expensive” or “valuable” means. Second, the dog simple missed his favorite person and got as close as he would to the loved one in the best way the dog knew how. The owner, of course, has misinterpreted this behavior as retaliation.
Yelling and screaming will only make a bad situation worse, and a dog should never be hit or abused in any way. Because your tirade usually comes well after the fact, the dog is thoroughly confused by your behavior, and physical violence will not only endanger his welfare, but will make him mistrust and resent you. The only way to ensure that this kind of bad behavior will never happen again is to confine your dog to a safe place when you are away from him or if he is unsupervised. If you catch him in the act of doing something wrong, be calm, be fair, and be consistent. Don’t punish him for something that he has been permitted to do before or do in another place. A firm, “No!” and the removal of your dog from the situation is all that is needed to get your point across.
This should give you some idea as to why a dog does or doesn’t do what we think he should. Understanding how he works from his way from A to Z will contribute tremendously to the success you will have in teaching him anything you want him to learn.
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