Unwanted Behaviours

Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be about humping behaviour, I just didn’t have any photos of my lovely pooches being naughty. Humping behaviours are a different challenge to tackle altogether and won’t be covered here.

The sorts of unwanted behaviours I’m going to be talking about here are things like, but not limited to begging, jumping up and excessive barking. I want to start by introducing a term called behaviour extinction. Put simply, this is when a behaviour that previously occurred, no longer occurs. So if you’re dog used to come back to you every time you called them on a walk, and now they just completely ignore you, their recall has undergone behaviour extinction. Behaviour extinction can be a pitfall of training where a trained behaviour ceases to occur due to the lack of proper maintenance work. However, sometimes behaviour extinction is what we want when the behaviour is one like your new Labrador is nearly flattening everyone that comes into the house. So what makes a behaviour go extinct?

Everything a dog does is usually guided in someway by pleasure or reward seeking. They eat because it feels good, stops them feeling hungry and keeps them alive. They sit with us because they feel safe and comfortable in our presence. They sit for us because they get a tasty reward. If they do something, and it does not feel good, or brings no reward, they are much less likely to keep repeating it. This notion was well summarised in Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect in 1898 which simply put, states that behaviours that have satisfying consequences are likely to be repeated and behaviours without satisfying consequences are less likely to be repeated.

This is all very simple and, when you think of it, very obvious. However, it is something that many dog owners don’t utilise with their own dogs. You can even see this working in humans. A child that gets scolded for drawing all over the walls is much less likely to repeat that behaviour than a child that gets a hug and a high five for it. If we are late to work and get put on performance monitoring, we’re much less likely to come into work late again that someone who gets greeted with a smile and a pat on the back. So, how does this work with our jumpy, barky beggy dogs?

Consider this, if your dog jumps up at you all the time, begs at the dinner table, or barks when you’re in the kitchen getting food ready, it’s very likely that this behaviour has previously been followed by pleasurable consequences. When the dog was a puppy he was showered with affection and encouraged by family, visitors and likely you to jump up by being showered with cuddles, praise and strokes when he did. As that dog grew up, he was probably given bits of food under the table by one offending family member. While you were routing through the kitchen cupboards making tea, he barked at you so you fed him, now he barks every time you open the cupboards until you fill up his food bowl. These problems, more often than not, have usually been created by those around your dog, be it you or your family. Now your dog can’t understand why he shouldn’t jump up at people, he does understand that begging and barking get him food when he wants. This behaviour has previously resulted in a positive outcome for your dog, so now they are repeating it. How do you now stop it?

The answer is quite simple, you make sure the behaviour doesn’t have a pleasurable outcome. This isn’t about using force or punishing your dog, it is just about not reinforcing the behaviour so that it keeps occurring. Many people who have a dog that jumps up at them and want it to stop, will often try to tell it off and even push it away. The problem is, the dog is seeking attention, and even doing this is giving your dog that attention. Pushing the dog away may even be seen by your dog as a sign you want to play since they often use their paws in the same way when playing with their friends. People with particularly excitable dogs may be able to reflect on that last sentence and recognise that when they push their dog away, they seem to bound back over even more excited. The dog is not understanding the signals you are trying to give it. So what should you do instead?

A common method and often effective method of behaviour extinction is to just completely ignore the behaviour. This sounds simple, but it is very effective. Ignoring the behaviour means not engaging with it in anyway, positive or negative. No eye contact, no stern words, just disengage completely. When the dog jumps up at you, break eye contact, if standing turn your body away from the dog, if sitting try to block off your space with crossed arms and legs and just completely ignore the dog. It is important to maintain this behaviour until the dog has stopped jumping and is now just standing or sitting on the ground, probably looking a bit confused by the situation. When, and only when they have completely stopped the behaviour, do you turn round and give them praise. Overly excited praise is likely to cause them to start jumping again so you want to keep it calm with nice long strokes rather than rapid little ones. If your dog jumps back up at you during the praise, back to step one. Completely disengage the moment their feet leave the floor and continue until it has stopped. It is very important to mark the correct behaviour with praise. Eventually, the dog will learn that jumping does not lead to a pleasurable outcome and therefore is less likely to keep repeating it. This can take some time and requires patience and consistency from everyone in the household. If you are having visitors round, make them aware beforehand that they are not to reward the jumping behaviour. Eventually, your dog will learn that staying firmly on the ground wields pleasurable results and jumping all over people leads to nothing, so they’ll stop doing it.

The same goes for barking for food. This can be particularly stressful as you have to wait until the dog stops barking before you give them the food and some dogs can be particularly persistent, but sooner or later they will stop, and then you need to reinforce by giving them the food. This method of behaviour extinction is usually useful for attention seeking behaviours so you may want to do some extra research on your particular issue. If your dog has a habit of stealing your slippers and chewing them up, ignoring it is unlikely to be of any benefit, except to your dog who can now chew them in peace.

One last thing. In some cases, a few weeks after behaviour extinction, we see something called an extinction burst. This is where the behaviour that has gone extinct suddenly comes back in full force, often with greater intensity that it initially had. Your dog may suddenly, weeks after completely stopping the behaviour, suddenly begin to bark at you in the kitchen again for food. This is sort of like a last ditch attempt by your dog to get what it wants. The critical thing to do here is to maintain the status quo, don’t reinforce, don’t give it to it. Just ride it out, again ignoring the behaviour and it will go again, usually in a relatively short space of time. Many people can become disheartened during an extinction burst and give up completely. Do not do this, this is expected and will stop again if you just continue to do what you did the first time.

As always you should do your own research on your specific problem and these blogs are only meant as a general guide on principles and techniques. Best of luck!