Get in Your Dog’s Head
What we as humans understand and how we understand it is different to what and how your dog understands the world around him. There are 4 aspects in your dog’s life that affect their relationship with the world around them:
Food – the order in which dogs in a pack feed is important and it establishes order within the pack. When there is competition for food this is very evident. The order is established with the more dominant dog feeding first and the least important member of the pack feeding last.
Sleep – the territory and the sleeping arrangements are controlled by the most dominant dog. The dominant dog always has the choice of sleeping positions and the subservient dog will always move out of the way. It never works in the opposite way.
Games – In play the dominant dog will control all playing, especially if it involves physical strength and the ownership of anything. Once won the dominant dog will guard the bone or whatever the trophy is.
Gaining Attention of others in the pack – grooming between members of the pack is again controlled by the dominant member and they will always decide when grooming will take place.
Behaviour Rules
1. What the dog owner may think of as being a punishment to the dog is often seen by the dog as a reward for what it has been doing. Take an example. The owner goes out of a room and shuts the door to keep the dog in. The dog barks, the owner shouts “Be quiet”. The owner thinks he is telling the dog off, as the dog goes quiet for a few seconds or even minutes but it then starts barking again. The dog got what it wanted the attention of the owner, even if it was the owner shouting at it through a closed door. The owner returns to the room and shouts at the dog to be quiet. The dog has won again it even got the owner to come back into the room.
Rule 1 – if a behaviour is rewarded the dog is likely to increase the use of that behaviour.
2. Same example as above but imagine the owner just ignores the dog, or might even be scratching the door now. When the owner returns to the room he just gets on with whatever he is doing and totally ignores the dog, this could last for several minutes. The dog has stopped barking and scratching for several minutes by now. The owner can then go and praise the dog, that is what the dog wanted. This time though the association with the dog getting the praise is the fact that it was quiet. So barking or scratching got no reward whilst quiet and settled gets the reward. The scratching behaviour is therefore likely to decrease whilst the rewarded behaviour will increase.
Rule 2 – if the behaviour is not rewarded it is likely to decrease.
There is a slight problem with the second rule in that the behaviour does not fade away instantly and it is highly likely to increase in severity. This can cause the owner to think, this is not working and therefore give it up even before it has had a chance to work. This is because the dog is trying the things he succeeded with, barking and scratching thinking if I do it more I will get my reward.
So as the owner, you must realise what is happening. Think of what the dog is doing and what does it get rewarded for. If the dog is pulling on the walk to get to the park and gets there then the pulling is being rewarded. If the owner realises that, and stops or goes in the opposite direction from the park, he is not rewarding the dog for pulling. If it stops pulling, you reward the dog by continuing your walk to the park. You keep repeating this process and your dog will gradually learn.
When the light final goes on in the dog’s head, perfect you get the dog walking on a loose lead!
Using a Dog’s Hearing Ability to help Training
Train my dog to Come – the recall
Train my dog not to jump up at visitors
Train my dog to stop pulling on the lead
Train my dog to not show anxiety when I leave him along
Training my dog to use a crate
