When to Praise Your Dog

Two common mistakes I see dog owners make when praising their dogs:

1. People chase their dog’s mistakes yet rarely praise their dog’s good behavior. 
I often hear, “No! Stop! Off! Leave it!” A barrage of corrections letting their dog know when they’ve messed up. It’s not that these people aren’t loving and affectionate dog owners. To the contrary, they lavish affection on their pooch, but their affection carries no meaning since it’s not shared at meaningful times.

What should you do instead? Use praise and affection to communicate to your dog: “Yes, I want you to do this behavior more.”

EXAMPLE:
Let's say you have a dog who usually jumps up on people, you can play a modified game of "Hot and Cold," but instead you use the words: "Good and Eh-eh,"  to arrive at the destination, which is keeping all four feet on the floor.

• Your dog jumps up--mark that exact moment of jumping up by saying, "Eh-eh" firmly 
• At the same moment, turn with folded arms and walk away 
• Wait a 10-15 seconds, then call your dog to you excitedly to illicit this jumping response again 
• If he jumps up, repeat the above steps
• IF he jumps a little but then after your "Eh-eh" correction or on his own he puts his feet back on the floor, say, "GOOD!" And pet him. You're now letting him know that feet on the ground is what you want. 
• If you reach to pet him and he jumps back up--Your praise=excitement. Repeat the above. The goal is: Your praise=calm.
• After even five minutes, if your timing is good, you will start to see your dog's jumping start to extinguish. 
• If he manages to come to you without jumping--praise him like he's hit the jackpot. "Good!" TONS of pets and praise.
• Repeat during the day and every day, different people in the house should play this game. 
• Only when he's calm does he get affection or attention. Really notice when he does manage to keep all four on the floor and tell him, "Good!"
• Otherwise you merely say, "Eh-eh" and walk away. No more negative attention ("Off! No Fido! Stop!" and pushing him, touching him...attention, attention, attention) for his bad behavior.

Timing and consistency are everything. Sure, keep the corrections, however the praises should be used as much, if not more, because they are the behavioral road you are paving for your dog to travel.

2. Owners praise their dog at the wrong time. 

• Their dog growls at someone and they lean down and pet their dog, “Shhh! No-no. It’s okay baby.” 
• Their dog is very excited and they pet their dog to calm him down. 
• Their dog jumps up to get their attention and they say, "No!" but then pet their dog.

The message they are unintentionally sending is: “I condone your behavior. I want the behavior you’re exhibiting to continue." Sometimes clients say what they're doing works, the growling/excitement/jumping stops. Yes, for that moment, but they are building a reinforcement history for their dog to continue the unwanted behavior more, and for them to soothe him again, repeat, repeat, repeat. We're looking at extinguishing the unwanted behavior altogether.  

It's difficult with dog training to figure out when you correct, ignore or redirect an unwanted behavior. However it's very easy to remember, when you share affection you are sharing affection with their state of mind. 

Clear Communication: Its all Giraffes in Jars These Days

“Is it okay if we just focus on my dog’s aggression towards other dogs? His not listening to me and being a spaz in the house doesn't bother me.”

Sometimes I hear the above request from clients. However only treating your dog’s most annoying problem without addressing the root issues is like having brackish water coming out of a faucet. You can buy one of those water filter pitchers to clear the water but you never solve the water problem at its source. You continually correct the issue as the primary problem continues to exist.

So how can you get to the source of your dog’s issues? Even though each dog, owner, and case is different, there tends to be one truth: success starts with improving communication between dog and owner.

Let’s say your dog is like an unruly teenager named Alice. 

“Uh no wa-haaay! Like, I’m totally going to Tweet that you compared me to a dog. As IF! #DogTrainersRStoopid.”

Barbara has tried everything to communicate with Alice. She’s tried different strategies, reading books, looking on the internet, talking to friends, and even watching Dr. Phil. 

“You can’t lead a teenager to a giraffe hunt in a pickle jar!”

Okay, that cleared things up Dr. Phil.

Barbara has tried being more strict, using boundaries, praise, getting interested in Alice's music, but in the end Alice seems disinterested, and still acts out. Barbara's terrified of ruining their already fragile relationship. 

This IS a giraffe hunt in a pickle jar!

So what about the dog relationship? No matter the dog, nor the dog’s problem, when basic communication is brought into the equation, something shifts in the dog. Dogs that were disengaged become present. Hyper dogs start calming down. Anxious dogs focus. Reactive dogs relinquish control.

Owners also shift: Their frustration melts away, hope comes in, and a sense of pride in their dog and what the two of them can achieve together surfaces. This new way of communicating isn’t something you can practice for 15 minutes a day. Every interaction with your dog is an opportunity to either strengthen or weaken those lines of communication. And when that communication is solidly in place at home, outside, in the car, on the trail—that’s when you’ve gone to the source and cleared up the confusion. 

Now somebody let those poor giraffes out of that jar.

Treats and Training Wheels

“If I use treats, will my dog only perform when I have treats?” This is a great question. I don’t use treats for every aspect of training, however there is a time and place where treat training comes into play.

  

Treats can be like training wheels on a bike. Would a parent feel badly about sending a toddler out on their unsteady bike without training wheels? Doubtful.

“Woe is me Roger! Little Shirley’s going to turn 13 in 10 years and be the only kid in junior high with training wheels!”

“Great gadzooks Marcia! If she still needs these wheels when she’s at Harvard, we’ll have failed her!”

Highly unlikely scenario. These parents would probably realize using training wheels is a fantastic way to get their child used to balancing and coordinating all of those new skills. If Shirley continually fell off her non-training-wheeled bike, she might associate it with failure, or worse, with her parents saying the bike was safe and not trust them when they next try to convince her that the green goop on her plate is also "safe."

It's similar in dog training. Let’s take this bike metaphor for a metaphorical ride:

Let's say we're training Fido to sit and stay when guests enter the home. Usually it takes minutes with treats to capture this new behavior. We reinforce Fido’s new greeting routine daily because for the past months? Years? Fido has been in the habit of greeting guests any way he sees fit. By using treats as training wheels, we forge a steady, safe passage to this new, more desired behavior.

When Fido has mastered his new skill and both owner and Fido are confident, it’s time to raise the training wheels just a little. Fido’s owner treats less often, interjecting more praise, but still has treats in hand so those training wheels are in place if needed. Much further down the road the training wheels come up a bit further, then further.  

“Holy Toledo Roger! Poor little Shirley can’t ride her bike on gravel, sidewalks, or on hills. Bike riding isn’t for Shirley. Let’s get her a recorder.”

Hopefully Shirley’s parents wouldn’t jump to the assumption above. They would see that Shirley needs to practice daily under various biking conditions.

Similarly, Fido needs to practice, even if guests don’t enter the home daily. Practicing going to his spot at the door and eliciting an excited response by knocking on the door, or asking a family member to go outside and having daily “Fido drills,” all strengthen Fido’s new behavior. When guests do arrive and Fido’s shuffled off to another room, everyone has missed a great learning opportunity.

Remember those tikes with the training wheels so far off the ground they no longer served any real purpose? This is when the behavior is so well-established, Fido and owner knows what’s expected when the doorbell rings.

That’s when the training wheels come off!

**Warning: Once Shirley’s training wheels come off and she takes a three year hiatus from bike riding in her 20’s to pursue basket weaving in Timbuktu, chances are she’ll get back on her bike with little to no effort. 

Not so with Fido. If there’s a lapse in training with Fido, oftentimes the training wheels have to be reattached for a while to get him back on the road to success.