Even a trainer’s dog can take on bad behavior. Modesto columnist works to fix it now
COVID-19 is still affecting our way of life, and if you’re like me, that means a lot of additional time at home. An upside is that I have extra time to spend training my own dogs. Being a professional trainer in no way means my dogs are perfectly behaved, and sometimes when I turn my brain off, I allow a novel, annoying behavior to become a pattern that requires fixing. I have a few of those to address these days.
Having trained many, many dogs, there is no question for me that setting up your dog to behave the way you want is a much faster and effective way to train than relying on punishing mistakes. This is particularly important when raising a puppy. Provide multiple periods of exercise (fetch, tug, walking, play), containment when I’m not able to watch (in a crate or exercise pen), lots of appropriate things to chew on (before puppy begins to chew on something inappropriate) and short, fun training sessions to put behaviors on cue and strengthen the bond between you. Repeat every day, from puppyhood through adolescence, and you will prevent most unwanted behaviors from forming.
But despite the above routine, my 9-month old Belgian Groenendael, Roger, has an unwanted behavior that has emerged. It has crept in by happening once and receiving some sort of reinforcement for it, and then repeating with the same outcome. Roger’s annoying habit is tied with mealtime. I place my dogs outside while I prep their meals, then let them in to eat. Roger is an enthusiastic eater, so he runs inside and while I’m still bringing the rest of the dogs in, he runs back out to me, uses my body like a backboard and jumps off of me, and runs back inside. He repeats this 5-7 times as I continue to make my way to the kitchen where their meals take place. I’ve only been addressing it by turning around as Roger comes running back to me. Sometimes this prevents him from jumping up, other times he jumps off my back, so it’s clearly not going to fix the behavior. At most, it’s just preventing the 55-pound brute from bruising up my front side. And the reinforcement he gets for this behavior? It’s exciting, it’s a feel-good way to release some of that excitement, and at the end, breakfast or dinner is served. Roger has been doing this for at least two weeks now, so it’s a well-rehearsed behavior. What to do?
To fix this, I had to figure out what I wanted him to do instead, and then make sure he is only able to practice what I want. With repetition the new behavior will become the new habit. This morning, I attached a leash to Roger before allowing him back inside for breakfast. As he started to run ahead, I stopped and stood quietly. Once he stopped and stood still, we calmly began moving toward the kitchen again, repeatedly stopping each time he began to run ahead. An interesting side note is that he didn’t jump on me at all, probably because he couldn’t get far enough away from me to make that running leap, since he was attached to a 3-foot leash.
Once we made it into the kitchen, I asked him to “sit and wait,” both cues that are well rehearsed. As I reached for his food bowl, he got up, so I froze, waiting until he got back into his sit position. Then I unsnapped the leash and released him as I put the food bowl down. I will repeat this process at each mealtime until the new, desirable habit is well rehearsed, with Roger calmly walking with me into the kitchen. Then I will continue to monitor it with the leash removed and will go back to the leash routine if the behavior begins to creep back in.
This would have been so much faster to fix if I had begun the leash routine when I first noticed this pattern emerging, but I’m not always thinking like a trainer, especially before my coffee has kicked in!
Lisa Moore’s pet-behavior column appears once a month on the Pet Page. Write to her in care of LifeStyles, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto 95352.