Everyone wants a dog that listens…the first time.
A dog that’s well behaved; a dog that has manners. We’re starting a new series that will help you have that dog. It’s not complicated stuff, there’s no special collars or leashes. All you need is you, your dog, and some really good food. This month we’re kicking off a series of articles that starts at the basics and takes you through to the advanced stuff.
Stick with us and by the end of our series, you’ll not only understand your dog, you’ll be able to teach him whatever you’d like!
We’re starting this ride at the beginning, of course.
What is dog training really?
It’s taking the laws of behavior and using them on your dog.
What are the laws of behavior, you wonder?
Behavior that is reinforced will be repeated.
What does that mean? If you do something that works, you’ll probably do it again.
In real life: if you find a shortcut to work that helps you avoid traffic, you’re likely to use that route more often.
In dog training: if you reinforce your dog for sitting, he’s likely to sit more often (and therefore jump on you less).
Behavior that isn’t reinforced will go away.
What does that mean? If you do something that doesn’t work, you probably won’t do it again.
In real life: if you try a shortcut to work and it doesn’t save you any time, you’ll give up on the shortcut.
In dog training: If your dog noses you for attention and you keep on doing what you’re doing, your dog will stop begging for attention.
Why should you care about how behavior works?
Dog training is all about behavior and how it works. Understand this and you’ll be able to teach your dog just about anything, solve lots of common nuisance behaviors, and get along much better with your four-legged friend.
Vocabulary
It’s helpful to know some of the vocabulary you’ll be seeing here over the next several months. Here’s your glossary, of sorts. Behavior: Something your dog does. Lying down, barking, coming when called, retrieving, growling…all of these are behaviors. Cue: The “trigger” that gets the dog to do the behavior. Maybe you say “Sit” when you want your dog’s rump to hit the floor. Or maybe your dog barks when he hears the doorbell. No matter the situation, the cue is the reason the behavior starts. Consequence: What happens after the behavior, often a result of the behavior. For instance, the dog jumps on you (behavior) and you push him off (consequence). Reinforcement: A type of consequence that leads to the behavior happening more often. For instance, if I find $500 in my mailbox every time I open it, you can bet I’ll be opening my mailbox frequently! Punishment: A type of consequence that leads to a decrease in the frequency of behavior. Extinction: The absence of a consequence that leads to the elimination of a behavior. It’s imperative to understand that it’s the behavior that bears the consequence, not the dog. What’s the difference? The difference may seem slight in the beginning, but has a massive impact on how effective your dog training will be. Here’s a short and helpful example of the difference: Punishing the dog. Your dog poops on the floor while you’re out. When you come home, you raise your voice to the dog, point to the pile, tell him how bad he’s been, and then put him in his crate. Punishing the behavior. Your dog poops while you’re in the living room with him. As he’s mid-poop, you clap your hands together, yell “no!,” and put the dog in his crate while you clean up the mess.
This is the first “wrong turn” many dog owners make.
The difference is that you’re not happy or mad at the dog. You simply want to encourage or discourage your dog to repeat the behavior. Good trainers remain neutral even if their dog’s behavior is disappointing or maddening. In our next installment, we’ll get into the nitty gritty of reinforcement and punishment, easy ways to reinforce the behaviors you like, and force-free ways to get rid of the behavior you don’t like.
By the end of our series, you’ll have an arsenal of tools and knowledge you can use to get a well-behaved, polite dog everyone’s happy to meet.
Talk back: What do you want to learn about dog training and dog behavior in our series?
Photo courtesy of Andrea Arden (Flickr). Creative Commons License. Minor modifications done in Snapseed.
Okay Laurie, here’s the challenge I’m facing in training – how to get by the ‘don’t want to, don’t have to’ moments in training using reinforcement-based training. I know what the traditional correction-based trainer would do, but that’s not where I want to go. I.e., the dog happily retrieves the dumbbell a couple times and gets rewarded, then on the next throw, he just looks at it as if to say, ‘nah, I don’t feel like doing this anymore.’ What are some ways you keep the dog engaged in training?
Kathie R, thanks for this excellent question! It WILL be addressed in the upcoming articles, I promise. It’s a real issue and I have real solutions for you. One of the upcoming articles will talk about reinforcement: timing, strength, rate, etc. The answers you’re looking for will come from that article. I promise!
Kathie R, thanks for this excellent question! It WILL be addressed in the upcoming articles, I promise. It’s a real issue and I have real solutions for you. One of the upcoming articles will talk about reinforcement: timing, strength, rate, etc. The answers you’re looking for will come from that article. I promise!
My dog is 4 years old and very independent and hard headed. My challenge is that he gets single focus and tunes me out. Goes and does the behavior I asked him not to do and then comes right back to me – as if to say, see I listened. But he listens on his terms. For example, he heels perfectly off leash. The minute I put him on the leash, he constantly pulls ahead and then I stop walking, and wait for him to get back in position. We end up frustrated and unhappy with the walk.
Hi Jan,
Thanks for the comment. You’d enjoy my article on stubborn dogs: http://smartdoguniversity.com/how-to-deal-with-a-stubborn-dog-full-article/.
For loose leash walking, check out our articles and video series.
Articles with videos are here:
1: http://smartdoguniversity.com/dog-pulls-on-leash-heres-how-to-teach-leash-manners-video/
2: http://smartdoguniversity.com/how-to-fix-pulling-on-the-leash-part-2-video/
3: http://smartdoguniversity.com/how-to-fix-pulling-on-the-leash-part-3-video/
Let me know if those resources help in the short term. Stay tuned to the Dog Training 101 series — it’s pretty comprehensive and I’m betting it will answer a lot of your questions and help you see that your dog isn’t stubborn, and a few tweaks of your training will help! 🙂
I just found you via Pinterest/YouTube and I’m so excited to read this series. I have a 2 1/2 yr old yellow lab that was a rescued stray. I am taking a behavior class with her right now and she is doing really well! I want to learn how to continue to grow her knowledge and move to more advanced behaviors and tricks. I am a complete novice at dog training so I guess I’m looking for guidance more for myself than her! 🙂
I’m glad you’re here! As you go through the blog and the videos on YouTube, let me know what you think. If you have questions, send ’em in or leave a comment on the blog or video. I’m happy to help. And I’m partial to those yellow Labradors… 😉
I’m really looking forward to these articles and totally appreciate your sharing with us since I live far far away from you. I’m always looking to improve my knowledge/skill so that I can become worthy of my awesome, very patient dogs.
I hope you’re finding the articles helpful. It’s my hope that you can take this stuff from the blog to your backyard and use it with your dog right away! Thanks for taking the time to post a comment!
Hi, I’ve always owned an outside dog but am now experiencing my first house dog which is a male 2-year old Shortybull. We’ve had him since he was 3 months old. He has a mind of his own much of the time but also listens when he wants to. My main concern right now is that he repeatedly barks at sounds that he hears often enough to be familiar with and once he starts up its very difficult for him to stop even if we are with him trying to calm him down. He is also easily startled and responds by barking. Lastly he barks at the sound of my husbands voice and he knows him very well. I am stumped at how to correct this behavior. I also am extremely green at training a dog. Please help…
Hi Ann,
Congrats on your first inside dog! All animals have a mind of their own, right? They have to, right? 🙂
For the excessive barking, how easy is it for you to calmly and gently remove him from the situation? For instance, if the UPS person comes to the door and leaves a package, can you simply call him to another room? If not, can you put a drag line on him (only when you’re there to fully supervise, of course), so you can gently remove him when the barking begins?
I wrote an article that might help: http://smartdoguniversity.com/secrets-dog-training-success-redirect-substitute-reward/
Happy training!
Thank you, I will try these suggestions. Are there ways to teach him to not bark at or be startled by everyday household sounds such as something being dropped or the opening of the front door from the inside? It seems he’s hypersensitive to noises & no matter how often he hears them he barks.
Hi Ann, there are a few options.
1) Pair the scary noise with cooked chicken (salmon, steak, whatever). It looks like this:
noise happens —> chicken rains from the sky!
2) Check with a veterinarian who specializes in behavior and ask them if there are any medications that might be appropriate for your dog. Often, the dog needs a little help to lower the stress levels in order to learn. Once stress is lowered, learning can happen and you’ll see some progress.
Happy training!
Laurie