Three different strategies

I am behind closed doors taking some quiet time in.  My rambunctious board & train just realized that I am in my bedroom and she is adamant to get in. I do my best to ignore her barking at the door. I begin counting:

1,2,3,… I manage to not acknowledge her barking.  She stops the barking, but begins to whine. Her whining sounds so miserable, that one would think someone is really inflicting some bodily harm to this girl. I go back to counting as I try to breath deeper.  Once again she stops.  Good!  I think now I can go back to “quiet”.

Seconds later she decides that she will try yet another strategy just to make sure I know she wants in.

This time she begins scratching at the door. Okay, I lose it here. I definitively don’t want nail tracks on my wooden door.  I yell at her to go lie down and… the scratching stops!

Minutes later when I come out from puppy-hiding I see her lying almost asleep just outside my bedroom door… good dog! I tell her.  We resume with our day.

It is the nature of behavior to have different manifestations or responses that while manufactured by a given motivation have different expressions.  Dogs behave following this rule.  They try different strategies to what they want or need. Once they realize a strategy is not producing the intended results they try something else. Sometimes they will escalate the response just in case it works this one time as it did before.  This is called an extinction burst. In essence, there is an escalation (I know real fun sometimes) of the behavior or strategy before it is abandoned completely by the dog because it is not working. 

What does this mean to us- keeper of pups?  It means that we can pretty much pick and choose which of their responses work for us. If I had let my B&T in the minute she began to bark at the door what have I just reinforced?  Her barking. So now whenever she wants closeness or my attention she will try that first.  Laws of learning point to the fact that whatever behavior we reinforce we will see more of so be mindful as dogs are learning all the time, not only when boarded with a trainer or in a training class, let’s say.

Now, the example above is a really good one because it illustrates how “messy” life can be.

My board & train tried three different strategies, none of them were successful as I did not open the bedroom door. Instead, I asked her to do something else that suited my purposes but perhaps not hers.

Why then do you think that she finally chose to lie down after me asking her to do so? Well because lying down has worked for her in the past!  Having a dog lying quietly on their bed when I am trying to work or cooking is high on my list of trained behaviors. In her case, we had practiced over and over again with her lying down as a requisite for my attention or a piece of whatever I was cooking - if appropriate, etc.

As I teach new behaviors to a “green” dog- that is a young dog or one that has not had a lot of “formal” learning I must make sure that I do not just ask, but instead that I set things up so that the dog can be successful in understanding what I am asking her to do.

As the dog learns a given behavior in one context, say in my example lying down on the bed provided when I am in the kitchen so that she is not underfoot, I can begin to ask for that same behavior which is now fluent in the first context; in new context or situations. As I do this, I need to consider that while the dog has learned this well in one specific situation it is as a brand-new request in a different context.

Practice does make permanent.  Once a dog can perform a behavior in different contexts we can say with certainty that the behavior has generalized- something dogs do not do well. 

Your dog’s impulse control and my customer service

I have had a cutie of a pup staying with us for B&T for a couple of weeks now.  This pup, while young, has one of the most wonderful temperaments I have so far encountered.  She is friendly to people and dogs, very respectful of her adult dog companions, yet full of zest and confidence.  She is also a bit mischievous which is really okay in my book.

One trait that I noticed needs a bit of work is her lack of impulse control when it comes to being able to remain quietly in her crate after finishing her meal or the nightly chewy.  As soon as she is done she wants out! Period.  Don’t get me wrong, she can sleep comfortably in her crate for the night so it is not that she finds that the crate is aversive. The best way I can describe her behavior is a lack of impulse control which is often seen in young animals. Also true, some adults of all species may also lack impulse control.

Impulse control is like a muscle that needs to be made stronger by multiple repetitions.

As I approach her crate one morning, I find her sitting patiently. She has learned that sitting and waiting politely for a couple of seconds without barking is the key to that crate being opened.

I look at her and I smile because she is indeed flexing that muscle!  For some reason, thoughts of how I respond poorly in certain circumstances such as when talking to customer service or tech support, flood my mind.  Yes, indeed, there are areas where I too can flex the impulse/polite muscle a bit more- it is not only this young pup.

The point I am trying to make is that behavior and its motivation is so freaking complex. For example: an individual dog can exercise some awesome self-control under certain circumstances but not others.

I would say that it is more a practice than a temperament trait. Yes, indeed, some temperaments in dogs are more prone to easy arousal, while others appear to habitat the world as if they had no cares.

Being mindful that impulse control in young animals is something that needs not only our attention but also our understanding makes the process of teaching it more benign. We can appreciate that dog “x” is really good at waiting politely for the Kong now filled with their daily chow be delivered. This same dog waits at the door instead of rushing out with little regard as who’s toes they might step on, etc. However, he struggles with walking on a loose leash.

Rio, is a perfect example of this.  Her walking politely on leash is something we are still working on. However, this girl gets an A+ in not eating anything from the ground while we are cooking and while she waits (patiently- ever so patiently) for us to reward her with a tasty bit. There you have it. Two perfect examples of the same dog scoring high in some areas of self-control and not being so successful in others.

So here is my message to you: Observe carefully what your dog’s behavior is.  Don’t label your dog!  Instead, choose to see him by appreciating that they are complex beings and not automatons. They have better days and bad days, the have moments of brilliancy and moments of failure.  They can be taught to be patient, polite in all sorts of circumstances but above all they are alive and as such their behavior will be ever changing. Adapting to their surroundings just like we are.