The Good, The Bad and the Behaved - June 11

by Patty Homer

Too often dog owners try to train their dogs by only telling them what not to do by giving frequent or constant negative feedback and forgetting to tell the dog what it CAN do. Dogs are much like humans in that, they learn by motivation and being positively reinforced (rewarded) as well as having consequences for their behavior.  A reward is something that increases the chance of a behavior being repeated. A consequence is something that decreases the chance of a behavior being repeated.

Rewards and Consequences
Rewards: A proper reward should be something that motivates your dog whether it is praise, food, affection or a toy. The majority of dogs are food motivated, so let’s talk about food rewards. I categorize food rewards into 3 different levels:

Level 1 — is a something that your dog wants- like their dog food or a dry dog treat

Level 2 — is a treat that your dog loves - like liver treats or other soft training treats

Level 3 — is a treat that your dog will do anything for - like turkey, chicken or cheese

When teaching a new cue to your dog, use level 3 treats. Once he is responding to the cue consistently, start rewarding based on performance. Give a level 1 reward for a slower response, level 2 for a better or quicker response and level 3 for a great response. Once your dog is responding at a very good level consistently, start replacing food rewards with life rewards (praise, affection, toys or privileges).

Random Rewards
To continue to keep your dog interested and responsive, give him random rewards for the rest of his life. Giving random rewards is similar to the “Las Vegas” theory that people will sit in front of a slot machine feeding it quarters because they know they will get a reward at some point – and it is a surprise and totally random.

Consequences/Corrections
Consequences or corrections are necessary in the learning process. I recommend using as small a consequence as needed to make the dog not want to repeat that behavior. Consequences may include ignoring non harmful behaviors like jumping or barking, giving a verbal correction for a wrong response to a cue or to interrupt behaviors, like chewing or digging.

For a consequence to work, it must be given immediately and followed through with. For instance, if you give a verbal correction (EH-EH) when your dog is chewing on a chair leg and he doesn’t stop chewing, you must get up, go to him and interrupt his chewing. The instant he stops chewing on the chair leg, he must be praised and his attention redirected to an appropriate chew toy with more praise for chewing on the chew toy. 
To decide on an appropriate consequence, first figure out what your pup’s payoff is for that behavior. Dogs will not repeat behaviors that don’t get them some kind of pay off. So, to extinguish an unwanted behavior, you give an appropriate consequence, take the pay off away for the behavior and then give the pay off for a desired behavior.

For instance:
Jumping is an attention seeking behavior, therefore the pay off is attention. Attention comes in 3 forms — look, talk and touch. So to extinguish jumping, remove all attention by ignore him completely (ignoring is the consequence as well as removing the payoff), then when he has 4 on the floor, give him attention (the payoff HE wants for a behavior YOU want – this is called rewarding an alternate behavior).

Molding Good Behavior
When you figure out what your dog’s pay off is for any given behavior and take it away when he does it, you have a good chance of stopping the behavior. If you can then reward an alternate behavior you can mold your pup’s behavior to fit your desires.

Training through physical punishment, pain, domination, intimidation and/or fear will create a dog that may behave temporarily or with the one person the dog is afraid of, but this kind of training creates frustration. Frustration will build to a point that it explodes, sometimes towards the aggressor, but typically the aggression will be redirected towards another member of the family, other animals or children.
Set yourself a goal of giving your dog at least 3 atta-boys for every bad-boy, in other words — tell him yes three times more than you tell him no. Teach your dog what to do instead of just what not to do and the whole family will be happier.

Patty Homer is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer and a Pet First Aid instructor. She has been training dogs for 20 years. She owns Good Pup dog training and boarding in South Kansas City. Her certifications include CPDT-KA (certified through the Certification Counsel of Professional Dog Trainers); CDT certified through the International Association of Canine Professionals. She is the Founder and President of HEARTland Positive Dog Training Alliance. For more information, visit her website at www.goodpupkc.com.