Have a Plan
You must give your dog a clear task to perform in place of the behavior you want her to stop. If your dog has too many choices, she may choose incorrectly. This may leave you frustrated that she's not “getting it,” which is unfair to both of you.
To have a dog that is trained to be responsive and enjoyable, you will need to get your family's act together. The fastest way to change your dog's unwanted behavior is to stop reinforcing the incorrect behavior and start reinforcing an alternative behavior in its place. There are endless possibilities to choose from.
Sit down with your family and review the behavior questions. Then, come up with ideas on how you want your dog to respond in different situations. When choosing which behaviors to reinforce, you'll want to keep the following points in mind:
Keep it simple.
Choose something incompatible with the wrong behavior.
Plan ahead and be prepared. Carry your treats and clicker with you.
Control the variables, such as distractions and the environment.
Avoid reinforcing the wrong behavior.
Build a bank account for good behavior.
Teach your dog to perform the desired behavior anywhere.
Every time the dog gets to practice the old undesirable behavior she is putting money in the bank for doing that behavior again. Preventing the wrong behavior from happening is half of the training.
A trick your dog knows well can help keep her from jumping while greeting visitors.
Keep It Simple
Whatever you choose as the alternate behavior should be simple for the dog to offer quickly and reliably. Choose a single behavior, such as Sit or Down, and reinforce it often. If the behavior is too complicated or involved, your dog may lose interest and go back to the undesirable behavior. A simple behavior like Sit is something you are likely to notice and reinforce even in a distracting environment. Be sure your dog knows the behavior well by applying the Ten in a Row rule.
Choose an Incompatible Behavior
Make sure that the new behavior is incompatible with the undesirable behavior. For instance, a dog cannot sit and jump at the same time. If you reinforce sitting as the desirable behavior when your dog greets new people, it won't be long before your dog doesn't even try to jump.
Be forewarned: Replacing jumping with sitting takes lots of time and practice before the dog will offer it on her own. Practice in short, frequent sessions and as opportunities present themselves from day to day. Remember, preventing jumping as an option by putting your foot on the leash will help your dog to be right more often.
So often people know what they don't want a dog to do, but few people can define concisely what they want their dogs to do instead. Having a positively phrased goal will help you design a training plan that can be put to use right away.
Plan Ahead for Success
If you want a well-trained dog that responds to your commands everywhere, you have to train her everywhere. Dogs pick things up quickly, but they are lousy generalizers. They tend to revert to old, ingrained behaviors in new environments. If you haven't taught your dog to sit when greeting strangers at the park, that will not be her first choice. Always be ready to reinforce the right behavior and prevent the wrong one from happening as best you can. Have a leash hanging by the door so that you are ready to prevent jumping on guests, and have a container of treats ready to reinforce sitting.
If you're not prepared to train, don't allow your dog to greet the visitor. If you want to fix behavior that is deep-rooted, you have to combat it with welltimed repetitions, a high rate of rewards, and frequent practice around distractions. It may seem awkward at first to carry your clicker and treats with you all the time, but it is essential to capture the moment your dog makes the right choice.
Overall, learning this way is more like real life for the dog, and the learning tends to become more permanent because the dog begins to realize that her commands work everywhere. The more distractions she gets to practice around, the quicker she will learn to generalize her response to your commands.
For the new behavior to replace the old well-established behavior, it must be heavily reinforced with things the dog finds rewarding. A reward can come in the form of attention, a game, an opportunity, or a treat — anything the dog considers reinforcing.
Control the Variables
Controlling the variables means controlling what's shifting your dog's attention away from you. Distractions often ruin the best-laid plans simply because they are too stimulating for the dog to ignore. If you control the frequency, type, and distance of the distractions, you will increase the speed with which your dog learns. If ringing the doorbell sends your dog into a frenzy, you may want to work on desensitizing him to the doorbell sound first; then you can move on to actually greeting the visitor. In this example, the dog's response to the doorbell and the dog's response to the person would be considered two separate issues.
Other variables might include things that move (such as balls, off-leash dogs, cars, kids, and runners), environmental factors like being outside, or the presence of food. The key points to keep in mind for getting your dog to be successful around these distractions is controlling the distance between your dog and the distraction, and controlling the intensity of the distraction. For your dog's training program to be successful, you need to find your dog's critical distance, and work from there.
How does “critical distance” relate to training a dog?
The critical distance is the minimum distance between the dog and the distraction. If she is too close to the distraction, it will be difficult for her to pay attention, and she will be less likely to respond to the command.
The distance at which the dog notices the distraction but will still perform the behavior is the starting point. In subsequent training sessions, decrease that distance until she is able to work while the distractions are close by. You will immediately notice that the distance between your dog and the action is an important factor in the success of your training sessions. If the dog is overstimulated by the distraction, she will not be able to ignore it and will not perform the behaviors you ask of her.
The second point to keep in mind when working around distractions is to pay attention to how much of a distraction you are working with. To decrease the intensity of a distraction, offer less movement, fewer dogs, people, kids, or other visual stimuli before attempting to teach the dog anything. As your dog starts to learn to ignore distractions and perform the behavior well, you can gradually increase the intensity until he is working in the middle of the distraction.
Too often we assume because the dog is intelligent, she knows what we want. Dogs are perceptive and smart, but they can't read minds. Take the time to teach your dog what you want her to do and make sure you have taught her to do it reliably and in any environment.
As you train your dog to respond to you regardless of where you are and what is happening, your goal over time is to decrease the distance and increase the intensity of the distractions so that your dog will pay attention to you and respond to you regardless of what else is going on. Doing this in a slow sequence of progressions will help you attain your goals more quickly and reliably.
Prevention Is Half the Cure
Human nature is to notice what is going wrong and point it out. When trying to change behavior in animals, putting pressure upon an animal to change the choices it has made is a waste of time since the animal cannot change the past any more than you can.
If you want to make a difference in a future behavior, you must set up the animal for success. Limit her options, provide good consequences for the correct choices, and prevent or provide negative consequences for the wrong choices. Because the animal has choices, the learning is more permanent and the consequences will directly shape her response.
Pointing out a mistake acts as reinforcement and can actually teach the person or animal to make that same mistake over and over again. A much better approach to changing behavior permanently is to avoid reinforcing the wrong behavior in the first place. If possible, prevent the behavior from happening entirely. During the teaching phrase, it is important to avoid giving the dog any attention for the wrong behavior and concentrate on noticing what's going right. This also means that you should be ready to reward the unexpected good behavior your dog offers every time it happens. If you're not prepared to click and treat, then shower your pup with lots of praise and pats or games and opportunities.
Remember that prevention can come in the form of a leash, a crate, or a gate — anything that keeps the dog from practicing the wrong behavior while you teach her an alternate response.
Taking It on the Road
Get your dog to respond to all of her commands in new environments by training her everywhere. This will lead to generalization; the dog will be able to perform the behavior regardless of the distractions. Dogs need your help to get them on track in new environments.
The best way to help a dog whose behavior falls apart in a new environment is to go back to kindergarten. Help the dog perform the behavior with a treat or toy as a lure. The idea is to drill the dog for five to 10 repetitions to get her working again and then wean her off of the extra help. Repeating the command when the dog is obviously too distracted to hear what you are saying is not teaching the dog anything but how to ignore you. With a little patience and practice, it won't be long before your dog understands that her training works everywhere, regardless of the distraction.
