Dog Training
Why ‘No!’ Doesn’t Work
The secret to dog training.
The one big training mistake
Many dog owners make one big mistake when training their dog. They ignore their dog’s good behaviour which happens 98% of the day and focus on the 2% when their dog does something they don’t want such as jumping or barking.
The result? A frustrated owner who unfairly labels their dog as ‘naughty,’ or ‘stupid,’ an increasing frequency and volume of the word ‘NO!’ around the home, and a dog who doesn’t learn what the owner actually wants them to do. This becomes a vicious cycle.
Reward the behaviour you want to see
Do you want your dog not to run around excitedly all the time? Focus on the behaviour you want to see instead. Reward them for lying peacefully on the couch.
Yes that’s right, reinforce the behaviour of doing absolutely nothing. That might mean (calmly) saying ‘good boy’ when they’re just chilling; or perhaps dropping a food treat next to them; or whatever the dog perceives as something good happening.
The ideal reinforcement in this situation is one where something good happens for the dog, but it’s not so great that they jump down and get hyped up for more treats.
Prevent reinforcement of undesirable behaviour
Want your dog to stop jumping? Don’t reinforce their behaviour when they jump. Many people will yell at their dog to ‘get down’ and push them down.
Guess what? By doing this, the dog just received physical and verbal engagement. Their strategy worked! So they will continue to jump as this behaviour gets attention.
The owner in this scenario is oblivious to the fact that they just reinforced the very behaviour they don’t want from their dog. So, the dog repeats the behaviour and the owner continues to reinforce it, no doubt getting more frustrated with the dog.
Some poor advice that I sometimes hear is to ignore the undesirable behaviour. Well if you ignore your dog chewing your $400 shoes, they get to continue chewing and this is rewarding.
What happens next? Behaviour that is reinforced will happen more frequently, so don’t get too attached to your shoes.
Also, don’t give them old shoes to chew, thinking this will get it out of their system. They can’t discriminate between your old shoes and your favourite ones.
How do you prevent reinforcement of dog chewing shoes? Management — while they’re still learning, put your shoes away, out of reach. And give your dog something appropriate to chew on.
Teach an incompatible behaviour
One way to help your dog show more of the behaviours you want, is to first think about what you want them to do instead of the undesirable behaviour.
Let’s stay with the jumping example. Instead of jumping, what do you want your dog to do that they can’t do while jumping? Sit? OK teach a great sit.
Break the addiction to ‘NO!’
Most owners don’t even realise how many times a day they yell ‘NO!’ to their dog. It’s almost a subconscious reaction and becomes automatic.
What would you expect a waiter at a restaurant to bring out for you if you only told them what you didn’t want! ‘No’ is really unhelpful in training and it comes from the wrong mindset.
One way to break the habit, apart from asking someone to monitor them, is to make a commitment very day to do an exercise — find fifteen opportunities to say, ‘good boy!’ or ‘good girl!’ — within the first two hours of seeing their dog each day.
This can help people open their eyes to see how good their dog behaves most of the time and start to change the dynamics of training.
Then a miracle happens
Well, it’s not a miracle but it can seem like it when looking back in time, when a dog is rewarded for behaviour that is incompatible with the undesirable behaviour, that undesirable behaviour just happens less and less often, and the desired behaviour is more reliable.
Timing, repetition and consistency
When you want to reinforce a behaviour you need a reward the dog as soon as possible. Within one or two seconds is good.
If there’s more than three seconds between the behaviour and the reward, you run the risk that the dog won’t associate the reward with the behaviour and learning won’t be achieved.
Practice and repeat. Consistency is critical too. One person in the family reinforcing a dog for not jumping will be negated by another person playing with the dog when they jump.
In summary
Remember the golden rule — reward the behaviour you want to see more of and prevent reinforcement of undesirable behaviour.
Everyone in the home needs to be consistent, or the dog won’t learn.
Will there be exceptions? Sure, if a dog is about to do something dangerous, such as grabbing chocolate off the coffee table, or jumping on a toddler, do whatever you need to do to prevent an accident. But also remember management — be one step ahead of your dog and set up the environment for them to succeed.
Happy training!
