Regretfully Rewarding the Reactive Dog
HELLO! My Name is Jacob, I have spent the past 25 years working with animals… from behavioral training and modification to health and wellness, surgical intervention, as well as performance and working dog training, handling and evaluations. It all started as a 14 year old boy with a Golden Retriever and a 4-H DPA Project on how to train dogs and ever since….its all gone to the dogs lol.
One of the biggest issues we see (and hear about) at our training center upon intake as well as at visitations and graduations, is the continual reward of reactive behavior. Before we discuss what this means lets break down some definitions. Dog trainers are REALLY REALLY good at using big words when talking to prospective clients and we don’t want to do that. We want to simplify this for you as much as we can to help break these tendencies and give new perspective to living a good life with your well mannered pup.
Definitions:
Regret: repentant or disappointed over
Reward: a fair return for good or bad behavior
Reactive: acting in response to a situation rather than creating or controlling it
Q: So what do we mean when we use the term "reactive dog"?
A: Dogs can be "reactive" at many different degrees. Basically what that means is that a dog can react to many different things in different ways and we call is all "reactivity". For example if a dog is growling, ears penned back and barking at the door because the door bell has been rang we could assume that the dog is not happy and would bite the visitor if the door were to be opened, yet in another scenarios where the door bell is rang, a dog could be barking and wagging its tail, doing zoomies around the house in excitement and we would assume the dog is happy and excited to see the person and most likely about to clobber them with dog hugs and kisses…… in these two scenarios one dog is suggested to be a Angry or Scared dog and the other a Happy or Excited dog, regardless of which, we would conclude that both dogs suffer from "reactivity".
Q; What do we mean when we say we are "rewarding the dog"?
A: Rewards are something a dog views as a good exchange for a behavior… If rewarded enough with the appropriate reward it can greatly influence behavior or the likeliness of that behavior reoccurring. This is SUPER GOOD if we are talking about sitting, but SUPER BAD if we are talking about jumping on someone right? JACOB I WOULD NEVER REWARD MY DOG FOR JUMPING ON SOMEONE!!!! - I know I know! ( But do you know? Lol).
If I were to ask a dog to sit and it sits and I reach in my pocket and give it a dig treat, we could all agree that that dog was just "rewarded" for good behavior ( the behavior being, - SIT). That is pretty easy for us to think about because throughout life if we do something good, we get some form of tangible reward. In elementary school, we would read books and collect points and if we had enough points we could buy tangible goods such as pencils or books and we could look back and say "because we read those books, we were able to buy pencils….Then when we grew up we saved our money from working hard to buy a house and we conclude that because we worked hard we were able to buy the house etc.
Much like Points/ Dollars…… we use treats or desired objects such as balls, tugs etc as a positive reward for dogs when they do what we have trained them to do as a way for them to understand that when you work hard you get rewarded for it by something you enjoy. The reality is at some point overuse of the reward is going to result into it not being as effective because either the tummy will get full or game of tug or ball toss gets boring…. OR…. The neighbors cat has MUCH MORE DESIRED VALUE than pumpkin/yogurt treat or the tennis ball! All this talk about enjoyment and positivity…..From a dogs perspective, tennis balls and tugs and treats MUST MEAN IM A GOOD BOY! So if I climb on the kitchen table to get the treats, or if I chase the neighbors tennis ball or turn the couch into a tug toy, this must all mean IM A GOOD BOY….. I've been shown that Treats, Tugs and Tennis Balls are all GOOD ( despite the fact that I have had to either sit or lay down for them in the past….. Why do all that work if I can figure out a short cut to getting what it is that I'm working for?).
(sound familiar? Sounds like tiny humans today right? I have a 9 year old daughter and I can remember when we were potty training her and we would give her a sucker when she used the bathroom to promote potty breaking, well it wasn’t long before she realized the suckers were in a bag on the counter in the bathroom and began to just go get a sucker when she wanted one despite using the bathroom or not and soon the sucker became very less valuable at potty breaking. Now as parents we didn’t say I know, lets give her two suckers because that will keep make it more valuable than one (regardless the location of the bag being the same place). Instead, we removed the bag of suckers from the bathroom and recreated the environment that you will only get a sucker if you potty in the toilet). So outside of something I can tangibly give the dog what else are "rewards".
500 FT VIEW (DON’T TRY TO GO MUCH HIGHER)
In short, rewards are anything (food, petting, interaction, praise, etc). Opening the dog for the excited dog in the text above would be the reward for its behavior and if rewards (like we have discussed before ) promotes behavioral reoccurrence then we could conclude that by opening the door to the barking dog, giving him the reward, is going to assure that next time, the dog barks more, zoomies more, and overall looses his ever loving mind to ensure that someone is going to open that door because IM BEING A GOOD BOY just waiting on the reward is all! What about jumping though? This one always makes me chuckle.
Client: We need him to be trained so that he doesn’t jump on people, everyone comes over and he's jumping on everyone.
Me: Have you done anything to promote that behavior?
Client: No, we always tell him no or turn around from him and give him our back until he gets off and then we turn around really fast and tell him good boy and give him a treat!
Me: OHHH so you’ve taught him that the humans are walking PEZ dispensers and if you jump on me Ill shoot a treat out of my hand
Client: Well I didn’t think about it like that…
Me: Bring the dog over lets take a look…
(client brings dog over, dog jumps up on client in front of me as client baby talks and scratches the ear and head telling him he's such a good boy)
Client: I just don’t understand why he keeps acting this way!
Me: Oh I certainly understand it. About a clear as it was for me when I was 8 and touched an iron that was on and never had to ever question if irons were hot….. That’s how clearly I understand it……. I understand that your dog is so damn confused as to what is "good behavior" in your eyes because Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays its okay to jump up but Tuesdays, Thursday and Weekends are off limits….. Your reward of behavior is about as effective as marking those days on the calendar and dropping the magnet lower on the fridge where the dog can see what days he's good for it.
In the event that you missed the breakdown from the above conversation, The dog is learning that its okay to jump on people although the owner may be saying NO or BAD there seems to be a valuable reward that comes along with it at some point and the ability to differentiate between the timing of the treat or verbal commands etc… there is still a reward so all this must be good things, like playing a never ending game of Simon says without the ability to speak English.
CLIENT: "SO YOU MEAN BY ALLOWING THINGS TO HAPPEN, I AM IN SHORT REWARDING MY DOG ASWELL FOR THOSE BEHAVIORS?"
ME: YES!!!!
If you allow the door to be opened or allow the dog to jump and there is simply the withhold of what YOU CONSIDER a reward, it doesn’t actually mean that the dog is understanding the behavior is BAD. Lets talk about Rewards a little differently for a moment. Remember in the definition about "fair return for good or bad behavior". We have talked a LOT about rewarding a dog for good behavior….. But what the heck is rewarding a dog for bad behavior? "NO…WE aren't going to give the dog a treat for barking and going nuts in effort to stop the behavior.. We just talked about that". We are going to teach the dog WHAT a NO command is (replace NO with BAD, LEAVE IT,…Whatever it is you choose…Just don’t be that person with 87 commands that all point back to the simplified version of "NO"). In effort to do this we are going to teach a few default commands (what we call REDIRECTIONS) so that in those moments where we need to use a NO commands, we can simply ask the dog to change gears and in turn self reward off of behaviors that its been show ARE ALWAYS GOOD! Lets use the Heel command for the purpose of this text. We have taught the heel command and the dog has been rewarded but also corrected through whatever means of corrections you think of)
(PAUSE). Lets talk about correction for a second…..Purely Positive Possie would have you shake at the idea of a correction BUT when you break down their methods for them they always use some form of correction they just don’t view it as a correction…. For example they may use a head halter or a martingale training collar and think that’s "positive" while looking at a prong or slip chain collar and promote them as "abuse". The reality is BOTH devises are a form of correction and the only difference should be the dog in which your using them on…Not the size or breed etc but the overall animals behavior… A martingale may work great for a low key Vizsla but a high energy beagle nay blow it off and pull deeper in collar…… The reality behind the correction is that the dog feels a certain way ….a way in which they interpret - "This is uncomfortable and when I do this (alternate behavior) its easier or better for me as a whole". If the dog does not have that mindset about whatever tools your using then they are ineffective period.
(UNPAUSE)
So the dog is at heel and understands this……. Lets say we are going to work on the dog jumping on people….. We have out dog on a 10' leash and lets say a martingale for the purposes of this text. Next, We are going to have a person approach the dog (No closer than 10' as to prevent the dog from ever making contact with the person) and as we see the body language of the dog begin to ramp up in excitement we are going to ask the person to walk back away and we are going to give the dog a heel command and if we need to add any body language or leash pressure ( fancy word for tension on the leash or snap of the leash) until the dog return to heel and then we are going to reward the dog for heel. The next attempt we are going to shorten the leash a bit and allow the dog to receive that tension closer to the handler and we will use the decoy ( the person walking up) to make some noise and excitable motions etc in which the dog can get a little more excited and we will continue to do this recalling the dog back to heel and rewarding the dog at heel as we make the leash shorter and shorter until we have the dog remaining in heel as the person approaches. Once the person approaches we will ask them to pet the dog, at any time the dog begins to jump, we will elicit the NO command and walk the dog backwards away from the decoy. We will repeat these drills while the decoy comes and goes until we can hand the leash over to the decoy and the same behavior to be expected. There will be very OBVIOUS signs to the dog of what is GOOD and what is BAD. We will use not only commands but tones and some nay even choose to use hand signals or gestures as a part. Regardless at the end of the session the dog understand " If I jump, the reward goes away, I have to return to my handler and sit down into heel and start over so the faster I can control myself the faster I get to meet the new guy….. Over time the dog learns what's acceptable and not……..Where you throw a HUGE WRENCH in the training session is when you get home that evening and the dog is not on that 10' leash and the kids come home from school and he jumps on all three of the 87 times before you can gain control of him ….. THEN your training session was a waste of everyone's time because the takeaway from today has been - If mom has me on a rope and someone walks slowly up to me kind of weird acting, I have to sit still, but If I'm at the house I can clobber everyone - So its not behavior driven rewards its scenario driven……
SO WHATS THE REWARDS IN THE SCENERIO ABOVE?
- The verbal praise when returned to heel(or treat if you used a treat)
- The pat on the head from the decoy
- THE REMOVAL OF THE LEASH TENSION WHEN THE DOG CAME BACK TOWARD THE HEEL COMMAND
- THE REAPPROACH AFTER THE DECOY WALKED AWAY
Although the decoy moving away from the dog or the tension around the neck from the martingale both are negative in the dogs mind, the INSTANT that the tension on the collar relaxes or the decoy begins moving back toward the dog- the dog views these both as REWARDS. Dog training professionals run everything through the four quadrants of dog training. They are listed below as well as an example of how the dog in the scenario above experienced all four quadrants during the training sessions.
Positive Reinforcement: The reward for sitting at heel, The decoy coming closer and petting the dog
Negative Reinforcement: The dog sitting at heel to avoid the tension on the collar or the decoy from walking away
Positive Punishment: The collar/leash tension
Negative Punishment: The decoy walking away from the dog due to reactive behavior
Dogs (or humans) will self reward every time they are given an opportunity to do so. While we talk so much about POSITIVITY, the reality is we have to expound and grow the scope of learning with the dog at the appropriate ages and timing in effort to create the best all around companion and meet the expectations of the family (and these expectations differ 100% of the time, family to family). Positive Only Reinforcement methods would have you GET MORE TREATS, SHAKE THE BAG LOUDER, SAY GOOD BOY WITH A HIGH PITCH, MOVE AND FIND A NEIHGBORHOOD WITHOUT CATS, SURRRENDER YOUR DOG TO A FAMILY THAT HAS A FARM WITH NO OTHER DISTRACTIONS……. I've heard them all from clients who have sought training advice for similar behaviors and these are some of the answers they received. So, for the pet parent that says….There has got to be a better way, a different way, a way to communicate GOOD and BAD BOY!
SO………..Back to the start of this topic, "Regretfully Rewarding the Reactive Dog". If we as pet owners spend some of the most influential moments in learning teaching a dog that if they simply pull harder, (Because they want to see their best buddy) or we carry them around with us in our laps because they are small enough to do so, or give them treats for standing up on their back legs or teaching them to speak for a treat…(the list goes on). THEN WE CAN ONLY EXPECT These behaviors to become worse and before long you have successfully CREATED a dog that REACTS the way they do simply because they have been motivated and conditioned to do so……. USE THE COLLAR, USE THE LEASH, USE THE CRATE, REWARD GOOD BEHAVIORS, TEACH THAT BAD BEHAVIORS GET YOU NOWHERE, SET YOUR TRAINING SCENERIOS UP ACCORDINGLY TO OFFER FACTORS THAT CHALLENGE YOUR DOG, GIVE THE REWARDS WHERE NESSESARY BUT DON’T BE AFRAID TO SAY NO. Remember that having a happy dog DOES NOT equal giving the dog control of every factor of its life or saying YES to everything the dog WANTS. Our current society would have you believe that your dog should come before your child or your spouse and telling it NO is simply being a bad pet owner……BUT ITS NOT! Having a well trained dog, suitable for all environments is the safest thing you can do for yourself, your family and society! In order to maintain a healthy relationship, It must start at the handler and flow down through the leash to the dog, It does not work in reverse. Find you a good dog trainer with good reviews and ask for help!
Thanks for hanging on with me through the break downs! Any questions please feel free to reach out! Its hard sometimes to get everything out onto paper but this is the best attempt at it currently! God Bless You and GET OUT OF THE DOG HOUSE!!!!!!
Our Location
Screven, GA 31560