What Do We Do Wrong with Dog Behavior and Training?

Dog Behavior and Training can go hand-in-hand.

A lack of one side of the spectrum can result in unwanted habits of the other.

It is imperative to understand this relationship between training and behavior to set your dog up for success.

Many dog behaviors are a direct product of some type of training.

To be specific, dog training is everything that our dog learns while interacting with us.

How do we train our dogs?

Consciously; when you deliberately train the dog to perform a specific command.

Unconsciously; when we fail to react to some behaviors and we allow them to evolve, or by encouraging a behavior unintentionally.

These are the roots of most dog behavior problems.

What Do We Do Wrong with Dog Behavior and Training?

Common Mistakes: Knowledge (or rather, the lack of it), some dog owners get a dog without even knowing the basics about dog behavior, breed genetics, training and socialization.

Most dog owners don’t have a planned structure of rules which is an important foundation of the dog/human relationship to establish leadership.

The majority of dog behavior problems develop during the first part of a dog’s life when the dog is in the most significant learning period (first four months of life). Most dog owners tend to let their dogs get away with behaviors they don’t actually want, or don’t begin creating any structure during this time.

Inconsistency; this is the biggest mistake that you can make with your dog. Clear communication is essential for a stable relationship. You will eventually phase out rewards from 100% to 90% to 80% and so on to create variable reinforcement; variable reinforcement is when the dog doesn’t know exactly *when* a reward is coming.

Variable reinforcement can be utilized once the behavior/command has been proofed in a number of environments under different stimuli to strengthen the behavior.

The same thing applies with unwanted behaviors, if we are inconsistent with our response to our dog’s “unwanted behaviors,” the message that we are sending is that every now and then it is “ok” to practice that behavior and it is up to our dog to figure out when that time is.