Always remember, dogs will be dogs. Like small children, they do what comes naturally, and what's advantageous — and pleasurable — for them. Behaviors like jumping up, chewing, and barking are all hard-wired into dogs as effective means for them to communicate. Problems don't appear out of nowhere, but their sources can be hard to pinpoint. If your puppy or dog is doing something you aren't happy about — raiding the garbage, jumping on the furniture, begging excessively — part of solving the problem and changing his behavior is understanding it and applying a commonsense approach.