Before we get to the right way to deal with this problem behavior, let’s look at another incorrect scenario on how to handle a barking dog. The “I’m going to have to put ‘em in their place” method or thinking that getting physical will fix the problem. The scene plays out like this; the dog barks, then barks again, the owner gets irritated and the dog keeps on barking. OK fast forward…owner blows up and smacks the dog or chases them out of the room to let the dog know that barking will not be tolerated. Stop and think about it, haven’t you heard of those kids who get no attention from those closest to them, who then act out so they will at least get some sort of attention. In their mind, bad attention (physical or not) is better than no attention at all. I know that owning a dog can be frustrating and that anger can get the best of anyone, but trust me, this reaction from you will fix nothing and will likely damage the relationship you have with your dog. Look at it this way – didn’t your dog just get you to stop what you were doing so that you would react to them? Even worse, you started a game of chase with your dog that might just become your dog’s favorite new game. Whenever Fido wants to play a game of get Dad to chase me, all he has to do is run into the room and start barking. Congratulations…you have just been trained by your dog!
One last incorrect scenario to observe, and this one is going to sting for some folks, is the “I’ve had a really bad day” situation. This one usually happens on those days where your boss is a jerk, your biggest client changes his mind, or your better-half calls to rip you up one side and down the other. You walk in the front door and your dog is so excited to see you that he starts barking like a crazy man. All you can think is that the only person in the world who loves you unconditionally is your dog, and the next thing you know, you are rolling on the ground hugging and loving your best friend. (OK this example might be a little overboard, but you get what I mean!) Unintentionally, you just guaranteed the fact that Fido will bark every time you open the door!
If you don’t believe me, think of it this way. Remember when there were payphones on every corner? (Yes, I am that old, just play along!) One day you were walking down the street and on a lark you checked the change slot on the phone and guess what, you found a quarter! Now what happens each and every time you walk by a pay phone, duh, you check the change slot. We, like dogs, don’t try things because we know we will get the payout, rather we try behaviors for the chance of winning! And yes it just takes one time getting a payout (reward) for a dog or human to learn to repeat a behavior in the hopes of getting your attention.
Another way to look at these attention seeking behaviors is to think of a small child, a 2-4 year old. Those of us experienced in the world of parenting know of (and have probably learned the hard way about) the skill in which children of this age can push our buttons to get our attention or to get what they want. Guess what, your dog is doing the same thing, you just never put two and two together and got four. Don’t shoot the messenger! Let’s just hurry up and get to the one scenario that actually can stop an unwanted behavior.
It all comes down to how you handle, give or take away your attention. Remember earlier when I told you that dogs will not do anything unless it is rewarding? Well, all of the previous examples about barking, rewarded or gave the dog attention in some way! The fourth and only correct way of dealing with the barking issue, to finally make it stop, is to IGNORE THE DOG AND THE BARKING. Now this will not work immediately, but once Fido understands that this barking behavior is getting him absolutely nothing, it will change the behavior. Over a period of time the barking behavior extinguishes (psycho babble for stops) until Fido finds a new behavior to try. So in the end, the behaviors you see from your dog every day are direct responses to the reactions you give them. If, on the other hand, you focus on ignoring bad behaviors and paying attention to good behaviors, then you probably would not have bought this book and might just have what it takes to be a dog trainer!
There is a lot more to cover about barking, and that will be covered in a chapter 9. This was just an opportunity to prove to you that regardless of the problem behavior, it is driven by the attention given to it. So, if you are rewarding a problem behavior, even inadvertently or unawares, you are making it worse. And I’m sure you wonder what if these behaviors are so ingrained that this simple technique of ignoring the behavior and the dog does not seem to work? Well turn the page and welcome to the world of REDIRECTION, the second part of ignoring the dog after the reward has been given.
Redirection…
So at this point we recognize how we give and withdraw attention can have a huge impact on behavior. Trust me though, there are going to be times you will not be patient enough or willing to wait long enough for the behavior to go away on its own…In those cases, there is one other trick I can teach you to speed up the process. You can use redirection in how you give or take away attention from Fido. Now I don’t want to get all “psychology guy” on you but… Remember that we have already determined that if a behavior is rewarding, it increases, and if it is not rewarding, it extinguishes (or goes away). What we have not talked about is the time frame an unwanted behavior has been occurring and how that directly ties to the length of time it takes to make that behavior go away. Take for example a puppy that has only been barking for attention for a month or two; it is pretty obvious that this behavior could be extinguished relatively quickly using the ignoring technique. On the other hand, if a dog has gotten away with this attention seeking barking for 4-5 years, the process is going to take quite a bit longer to extinguish.
What I suggest is a technique that will “supercharge” the idea of ignoring and make the extinguishing process happen much faster. I am going to choose another (or replacement) behavior besides barking, and reward that new behavior in the absence of the barking. This is called redirection. The key to redirection is that you, with or without a trainer’s help, have to sit down and decide just what behavior you want from your dog instead of the unwanted behavior. If you do not start off with a new behavior picked out and ready before you start, you will fail. So for the problem behavior of barking, I choose to reward the behavior of looking me in the face or what I call a “Watch Me” command.
A little known secret is that dogs typically don’t have the attention span to walk and chew gum at the same time; so this command is very handy for redirection. The dog is barking, so I am ignoring the dog. I then wait for a pause in noise (you know for the dog to breathe) and then ask for the watch me command. The moment I get eye contact, I reward him with a treat! This builds the relationship for the dog that barking gets me ignored, while quietly paying attention, and looking Mom/Dad in the face, gets me a tasty treat…
For arguments sake, we are going to pick another problem behavior…JUMPING UP…to illustrate how to use redirection. Don’t worry, as with barking, we will cover jumping up in greater detail in Chapter 10.
We know that if we yell at the dog for jumping up, it will reward the dog and likely excite him as well, leading to repetition of the behavior. We also know that pushing or attempting to knock the dog down physically will only lead to a great game of “pogo stick” (dog comes up, you push dog down, dog comes up, etc. what a fun game!) And finally, if you have a bad day at work, then love, touch or otherwise pay attention to our dog while he is jumping up; well you are getting what you deserve!
You have tried really hard to simply ignore the jumping behavior, but you just don’t have the time, patience or inclination to put up with this behavior any more…so now what? Simple, we add the idea of REDIRECTION