Management

People often ask me how to change their dog's behaviour and are surprised when I explain the first thing is management.

Manage the environment to prevent the behaviour taking place.

This is key. The more times the dog practises the behaviour, the more frequent it will become.

Take the simplified example of a dog that lunges at other dogs.

Every time he practises this behaviour he learns that the behaviour works - the other dog goes away.

In order to change how the dog feels about other dogs, we need to prevent him practising the lunging. We use distance.

At a distance, we begin to change how the dog feels about other dogs. Seeing other dogs at a distance leads to sniffing, play, food or whatever it is the dog enjoys most.

Take the simplified example of jumping up on strangers.

Every time he practises this behaviour he learns that the behaviour works - he gets attention from the person (however, it could be a number of things that reinforces jumping up, including attention from owner and it is important to identify why the dog jumps up first).

In order to change how the dog feels about strangers, we need to prevent him practising the jumping up. Again, we use distance.

At a distance, we can wait for the dog to be calm, reinforce calm behaviour and give him permission to say hi. Or we can reinforce him for not jumping up at a distance.