DogBoston’s Dog Blog

We’ve all seen it – your friends get the cutest puppy; she’s so sweet and gentle and well-behaved that you wish you had a puppy just like her. You don’t see your friend for a while, then the next time you get together, this lovely pup has grown into an out-of-control adolescent: jumping up, nipping at your hands, running away when called – all they do is yell at her. What happened to that sweet puppy? Can you keep this from happening with that great puppy you’ve just adopted?The good news is you can, and it’s really not that hard to do. As well, it won’t take you any more time than it normally takes to take care of your dog.

More…It’s simple, really – all you have to do is pay attention and catch your dog doing something RIGHT, then reinforce that behavior with something your dog finds rewarding, such as little piece of dog treats, praise in a happy voice, play and petting.Catch your dog doing something right? What does that mean? It means that when your dog is not doing something wrong, he must be doing something right, so reward him. The learning style of dogs is pretty simple: whatever gets rewarded, gets repeated. If you’re proactive, and reward as many good things as you can, pretty soon your dog is doing a LOT of good things because he gets good stuff. However, if a behavior isn’t rewarded – either with food, play, praise, or by the environment – then it stops happening. That’s when the problems start – people forget to reinforce the GOOD stuff and it goes away!So, what kind of things are rewardable? Pretty much anything that isn’t a behavior you don’t want. A great one to start with is when your dog eliminates outside: reward him, because he isn’t eliminating in the house (and you’re well on your way to having a house-trained dog). Is your dog sitting down quietly? Then reward him, because he’s not jumping up on you

– sitting will become a default behavior for him because it gets rewarded.Those are the easy ones – there are plenty of great behaviors that most people overlook as being ‘good’. For example, whenever your dog comes to you, that’s another time to reward him. If coming to you is always a great experience, then your dog is going to come to you a lot more and you’ll have less problems with recall. Another one is walking next to you – whenever your dog is walking right next to you, either on or off leash, REWARD him! Pretty soon, your dog will begin to stay right next to you while walking along, and you’re off to a great start for loose leash walking. Need more? Lying down quietly is another good one – because then he’s not running around like a maniac. And he should get bonus points for laying quietly near you! Does he bring you toys? More chance for reinforcement! It might seem like you’re constantly feeding/praising/patting your dog, but it’s only while you’re helping him build good habits. Once he’s in the habit of being good, good habits are just as tough as bad ones to break – and a lot less annoying in the long run! copyright © 2006 Jo Jacques