Leaping Lassie? 8 Ways To Help Her Behave
November 16, 2008 by Dog Service Network
Filed under Dog Behaviors, Dog Training
In her charming book, Don’t Shoot the Dog!, first edition, Karen Pryor outlines eight methods to modify an animal’s behavior — usually an unwanted behavior.
- One: Shoot the animal. You will never have to deal with that misbehavior again.
- Two: Punishment. Punishment may stop the behavior (in the presence of the punisher).
- Three: Negative reinforcement. (Children may put a finger into a candle flame and cattle might touch a hot wire, but usually this only happens once.)
- Four: Extinction. Let the behavior go away by itself by never reinforcing it — even accidentally.
- Five: Train, reinforce a behavior incompatible with the unwanted one.
- Six: Put the behavior on cue — under stimulus control — then only give that cue once in a blue moon.
- Seven: Reinforce the absence of the unwanted behavior.
- Eight: Eliminate the cause of the behavior. Change the motivation.
Let’s consider a common behavior that most dog owners don’t like: jumping up on people. Let’s also assume that we are not going to implement number one above and simply shoot poor Lassie to prevent her jumping up on people.
How about number two, punishment, and number three, negative reinforcement? Everyone from your fourth cousin to the person who helped bag your groceries will have something to offer along those lines. Use a shock collar. Catch Lassie in the chest with your raised knee. Step on Lassie’s hind feet. Hold her front paws until she becomes very agitated and then throw her over backwards. Squirt Lassie in the face with lemon juice. The list of methods two and three is nearly endless. No matter what is being suggested from these categories, it is vital to remember that these things only work when everyone is willing to employ them. In other words, Lassie may never again jump up on you after you do a number two or three on him (if your timing was excellent), but Aunt Maude, Grandpa, all house guests and the toddler next door are still fair game.
If our leaping Lassie is still young or a small dog, we can let her unwanted jumping extinguish itself by never, ever reinforcing it; see method four. There is zero reaction from any human Lassie greets by inappropriately jumping. This is not a safe or appropriate approach when there are children in the home or any other family members who can’t comply with your extinction program.
My personal favorite method is number five, teach an incompatible behavior. What behavior is incompatible with jumping up on people? Sit. Why is Lassie jumping up in the first place? To be nearer our faces, to greet us or otherwise obtain attention. Teach sit to greet all people, sit to obtain attention, sit when the doorbell rings, sit before we throw the tennis ball for her, sit when simply asked to do so. When in doubt, dear Lassie, just sit.
Sit is incompatible with so many of the unwanted things Lassie might do that most dog owners opt to completely pass by number six (although some of us do enjoy inviting Lassie to jump up on us from time to time).
Remember, we all can employ number seven by reinforcing the absence of jumping by praising, treating or otherwise rewarding Lassie.
Since jumping up on people is almost always a simple greeting behavior, folks usually don’t want to inhibit Lassie from her desire to greet by using change the motivation, eight. We just want that greeting to be something other than jumping.
We can apply these eight methods to modify unwanted behavior in almost every scenario with our dogs. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is Pryor’s advice. “Some methods are good for one kind of problem, some for another. If what you are doing isn’t working, try another method!”
Training is a lot like landing an airplane. The end result depends on the approach!
Reprinted with permission by Maggie Blutreich, CPDT http://www.ccpdt.org
Charter, Professional Member #30, Association of Pet Dog Trainers http://www.apdt.com
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American Kennel Club Canine Ambassador, AKC Legislative Liaison
American Kennel Club Public Education Coordinator
AKC Canine Good Citizenship Evaluator # 2826 http://www.akc.org
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