In order to stop a dog’s bad behaviors, you will have several strategies to resort to, but it’s important that you choose force-free options so that your training won’t have any negative repercussions. Force-free options are not based on intimidation methods which can cause serious side effects (such as defensive aggression), but rather force-free methods are meant to help you better bond with your dog and develop a relationship based on trust. It’s important to stop a dog’s bad behaviors by nipping these behaviors in the bud, so you will prevent them from transforming into major problems that will be more difficult to eradicate. Sometimes, you may need a combination of these methods to stop a dog’s bad behaviors.
Method 1) Management of the Situation
One very important strategy that is often overlooked is managing the dog’s environment so to prevent the dog from rehearsing the bad behavior. To stop a dog’s bad behaviors, you will therefore have to focus on preventing them from happening in the first place.
Let’s face it: dogs are creatures of habit. If they engage in a “bad behavior” they will likely engage in that behavior in the future more and more if it’s not nipped in the bud. Practice makes perfect and this applies both to desired behaviors and the undesired ones. Soon, the bad behavior puts roots, and becomes more and more difficult to eradicate.
In some cases, the bad behavior may even become the dog’s default behavior, in other words, the dog will start automatically engaging in it in various situations without much thinking involved.
So for a puppy barking at visitors, a good management strategy would entail keeping the pup in another room or confined to a crate/playpen with a safe, puppy-approved chew toy (remember to always check on your pup every now and then to make sure he’s OK), so to keep him from repeatedly barking.
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Management is a temporary measure to prevent undesired behaviors from occurring in the first place. Management may not directly tackle the cause of the problem, but preventing exposure to stimuli that evoke the bad behavior prevents rehearsal and enables you have to have control over the situation until you can use some of the techniques described below.
Method 2) Redirection
Redirection is a form of discipline that is also employed in child education and is considered an appropriate strategy to modify the behavior of infants, toddlers and school-age children.
Its purpose is to basically “switch gears” allowing to transform a child’s behavior from inappropriate to appropriate. This method allows your dog to stay out of trouble and develop self-control whilst dealing with his emotions and desires.
To implement redirection, you first need to acknowledge what triggers exactly the bad behavior. Once you have determined exactly what triggers the bad behavior, you will be able to put a stop to it by having your dog perform a mutually exclusive behavior, in other words, a behavior which makes the other one impossible.
So for sake of an example, back to child education, if your child is running around the house, instead of telling him “stop running” you would redirect him by saying:”By running in the house, you can hurt yourself, please go outside if you wish to run.”
Of course, with dogs, you cannot verbally tell them to do so and so, therefore a typical redirection example would go like this: if your dog tends to excitedly bark and jump when visitors arrive, the next time you expect visitors, be ready to ask your dog to go to perform an alternate behavior that gets his mind off of the barking and jumping habit. Practice this alternate behavior at first under low distractions, with no visitors around and aim to get a fluent response.
For instance, you can ask your dog to sit and stay at a distance, look at you and then chase a treat, go to his mat or perhaps perform a trick. One of my favorites, is making a smacking sound with my mouth or saying “over here!” and rewarding the dog for coming. The smacking sound or “over here!” tells your dog to turn towards you and come to you for a treat.
Whatever behavior you choose, make sure you reward these alternate behaviors with rarely given rewards that you provide only in this particular circumstance. Then, once your dog seems calmer, you can allow him to be free again, but be ready to redirect at a moment’s notice if you see any signs that he is about to engage in any rowdy behaviors again.
Method 3: Negative Punishment
In dog training, there are two types of punishment, positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive punishment is the addition of something that the dog perceives as aversive that puts a stop to the unwanted behavior. Positive punishment is the removal of something the dog perceives as pleasant that puts a stop to the unwanted behavior.
An example of positive punishment is the addition of a loud, startling sound (think airhorn) the moment the dog barks at visitors. In order to put a stop to the unwanted behavior of barking, the sounds need to be of a level of intensity that is high enough to stop the behavior in its tracks.
Sometimes, one or two repetitions are enough for the dog to start associating his barking with the sound, but there’s often more than that going on emotionally when you suppress a behavior. Because positive punishment involves aversives, it’s not recommended as it may lead to unwanted side effects (the dog may no longer bark when visitors are at the door, but may develop excess fear in approaching visitors, approach-avoidance behaviors, defensiveness, not to mention more barking but this time at a distance from visitors etc.)
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One should consider that barking is often an internal manifestation of something going on emotionally, therefore suppressing it typically does not tackle the underlying issue.
Negative punishment, on the other hand, is a much more dog-friendly approach. Don’t be fooled by the word punishment. It’s not as bad as it sounds. An example of negative punishment is the removal of attention the moment a dog barks to prompt a play session. In order to put a stop to the unwanted barking behavior, the dog owner will therefore stop interacting with the dog, cross his arms and totally ignore the dog. By not providing attention the moment the dog barks, the dog learns that barking doesn’t work to get the owner to interact with him and play. After several reps, and possibly, some extinction bursts along the way, if the behavior of barking had a reinforcement history, the dog gets the point.
Method 4: Rewarding Absence of Behavior
Sometimes, the best way to stop bad dog behaviors is rewarding anything other than the problem behavior. This is quite a powerful technique that is often underestimated. It takes careful observation and taking notice of all neutral or even good behaviors that naturally unfold.
Dogs don’t want to be bad. It is often forgotten that dog behavior is driven by what is reinforcing. Dogs are naturally drawn to engage in behaviors that lead to pleasant consequences, while avoiding as much as possible the unpleasant stuff. Your dog is not being bad if he’s barking to get attention or if he is wary of strangers and is barking in hopes that they go away. He only needs you to help him and guide him into performing good behaviors.
Here’s is something that many dog owners are not aware of: by gaining control of the contingencies that evoke bad behaviors and of the dog’s reinforcers, dog owners are capable of changing behavior.
So if you have a dog who tends to bark at any trigger in the yard when you are out with him, start rewarding him for sniffing around, ignoring a car passing by, playing with a toy, checking in with you. Do this every time you’re in the yard with him. You basically reward any behavior other than the bad one you are trying to eradicate. If you are concerned about calories and your dog loves his food, save your dog’s kibble specifically for these training sessions. If your dog barks, you can always use redirection as needed.
With time, you will see an increase in the “other behaviors” and a decrease in the barking behavior. Granted, if you let your dog bark his head off when he is alone in the yard, chances are, he may revert to barking when left alone to his own devices considering he has nothing better to do, but if you are diligent in doing this when he is out with you, he’ll likely get a hang of the game.
Method 5: Put the Behavior on Cue
Putting a dog’s bad behavior on cue may sound counterproductive, but there’s some science behind it. When a dog responds reliably to a verbal cue (a command), in dog training lingo it’s said to be under stimulus control. The great perk of a behavior being under stimulus control is that it happens only when you tell your dog to do so.
This teaches the dog self control because good things happen when he barks when asked to, whereas, when he barks without being asked for it, he doesn’t get any reward (other than perhaps some self-reinforcement, but that should be far lower than the reinforcement provided by rewarding when the dog barks on cue).
On top of that, when a behavior is put on cue, dogs start acknowledging what they are doing, which gives them more power to control it.
To teach this, you would first have to trigger the barking which is fairly easy to do with a dog who is predisposed to barking. Knock on the door, and when your dog barks, click and reward. Repeat several times, then, start adding the cue “who’s there” right before knocking. Click and reward for barking. After several reps, you can make the knocking sound more and more subtle and at some point you may get your dog to bark on cue upon saying “who’s there” without you needing to have to knock at the door.
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As much as this method may work for some problem barkers, it might not work for other dogs. For instance, consider that barking caused by fear, anxiety or excitement may interfere with a dog’s ability to learn because these emotions may shut down cognitive functions.
“I avoid teaching dogs to bark on cue if they don’t already bark a lot, but for those who are problem barkers, it can be a superb solution to the barking behavior challenge.”~Pat Miller, The Power of Positive Dog Training.
Method 6: Desensitization and Counterconditioning
What we classify as bad behavior in dogs, is often simply a manifestation of the puppy or dog manifesting fear or a sense of discomfort. For instance, a puppy or dog who barks at visitors, may be intimidated by the visitors and bark because he’s not comfortable around them and feels threatened.
The home is often a place where dogs feel very safe. Their food and sleeping areas are there, their family is there and the intrusion of visitors may feel overwhelming to them. They are unable to relax as they normally do, and along with visitors comes a package of associated stimuli that may scare them.
Dogs therefore may bark when visitors get up from the couch, when they make sudden movements, when they cough or laugh in certain ways etc. Being aware of what triggers exactly the barking is important because it provides the opportunity to work on the issue through desensitization and counterconditioning.
Desensitization means to make the dog less sensitive towards triggers, and this is accomplished by exposing the dog to less intense versions of what is concerning the dog. Counterconditioning, one the other hand, aims to replace a negative emotional response towards a stimulus with a more pleasant, adaptive response.
So in a dog nervous about a guest getting up, the guest would be asked to make the movement as if getting up (a less intense version of getting up) while the dog is at a distance observing and being fed by the owner high-value treats (changing the emotions towards the action of getting up).
The process is very gradual, with small increments towards the action of getting up. If at any time the dog barks, it’s a sign that he was exposed to a more intense version of the action of getting up that made him uncomfortable. This signals a need to take a step back and work on less intense versions. For correct implementation and safety, it is best work with a force-free behavior professional when dealing with dog behavior problems.
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