Behaviour change

We live in a society where consumerism is driving everything to become instant. We are used to instant information via the internet, ordering instant online deliveries, instant answers and responses. We even get instant gratification via social media with short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops as people like or love our posts. We see something we want and we place an order online, expecting it to arrive the next day. Our world has become an “instant” world. If we must wait for something or something takes a while, we become impatient. Why is that?

The five stages of human behaviour change are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Lally et.al., 2009 found that new habits and behaviours are dependent on the individual person, and it can take from 18 days up to 254 days for people to form a new habit. We know from studies on human behaviour that for behaviour change to take place, the human must be ready to change and have sufficient coping strategies in place. So why, when we are trying to create behaviour change in dogs, are we so impatient and why do we expect immediate results?

Every dog is an individual and every dog has a unique set of circumstances related to genetics, environment, learning, how long they have been performing the unwanted behaviour and so on.

We need to ensure dogs have coping strategies, feel emotionally secure and safe and then begin working on behaviour change – with bucket loads of patience!

Lally P, van Jaarsveld C, Potts H, Wardle J 2009 How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. Wiley online library https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

Maltx, M 1959 Psycho-Cybernetics Penguin Putnam Inc ISBN-13 9780399176135