Any puppy behavior that repeats frequently is done so because he or she gains some benefit from exhibiting it. These beneficial outcomes may be:<\/p>\n
We recommend using positive reinforcement training for dogs as this aligns with how puppies learn. Most people know that the best way to motivate a puppy to perform a behavior is to reward them for doing so; understandably, they then believe that the best way to discourage him from a behavior is to do the opposite. For most people, the natural thought is that the opposite of reward is punishment. However, while punishment certainly can discourage unwanted behaviors it is often unsuccessful. because:<\/p>\n
Puppies do not have the ability to reason so often do not make the connection or simply become confused and just associate you with unpleasant outcomes. This rarely changes a puppy\u2019s motivation to display that behavior again but often makes him fearful of his owner opposed to positive reinforcement which builds the bond.<\/p>\n
No matter how good a trainer you are and no matter how consistent you try to be, it is impossible to deliver the punishment immediately every time the puppy starts the unwanted behavior. This means that they don\u2019t learn thoroughly.<\/p>\n
Even if 1 & 2 do exist, the puppy may decide that the benefit they gain from the behavior is worth enduring the punishment often resulting in progressively more severe punishments being necessary to achieve the same result. A negative, stressful and pointless cycle. With positive reinforcement, rewarding a good behavior will result in more of those good behaviors for hope of a treat.<\/p>\n
Here at the Company of Animals, we would NEVER condone physical punishment. In order to discourage unwanted behavior you should firstly identify what benefit your dog is gaining; often this is simply your attention. In this case, more often than not, the removal of your attention will do the trick. (Typical attention seeking behaviors include jumping up, stealing and often barking).<\/p>\n
However you look at the opposite of \u2018reward\u2019 as \u2018no reward\u2019, you are likely to have much more success. No intelligent animal continues a behavior that never achieves a result, long term. With this in mind, when you want to change a puppy\u2019s behavior, the most effective way is to control the outcome so that it no longer benefits the puppy. Further success will be gained if you also offer them an alternative behavior (that is incompatible to the first) and make that very rewarding. This basic principle applies to all puppy behavior and you simply need to work out just what benefit the puppy is gaining so you can then control it.<\/p>\n
Most of the time, the benefit your puppy is seeking is simply your attention. Attention seeking is one of the most common reasons for puppies to display unwanted behavior, jumping up<\/a>, stealing items, barking<\/a>, mouthing and nipping are all common attention seeking puppy behaviors; even negative responses (such as being told \u201cno\u201d<\/em> or \u201cdown\u201d<\/em>) may prolong the problem as your puppy will be interpreting this vocal command as the attention they\u2019re after!<\/p>\n Worse still, if the puppy manages to engage you in what they perceive as a game, they will learn that their naughty behavior = fun!<\/p>\n For example, your puppy picks up an object that you don\u2019t want them to have and you chase after them to remove it, your puppy doesn\u2019t learn that picking up this item is wrong, on the contrary, they are now likely to experiment with picking up different items to see which brings the best response!<\/p>\n If your puppy is exhibiting attention seeking behaviors this does not necessarily mean that he or she is lacking in attention or that you are a bad pet parent. It simply means that they have learned a successful way of becoming the center of attention in the same way that young children often do. It\u2019s very common for pet parents to inadvertently \u2018train\u2019 their dogs to exhibit attention seeking behaviors by responding every time they perform, usually because it is annoying! Often attention seeking can be a secondary reinforcer even if there is another motivator present. For instance, your puppy may chew at the rug because it\u2019s fun to play with, but when their chewing then also gains a response from you, this gives them double the motivation to chew in future!<\/p>\n Whether you have an attention seeking puppy, or you\u2019re just taking on puppy behavior training for the first time, these tips should steer you in the right direction for a well behaved dog in the future. Remember consistency is key and don\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Any puppy behavior that repeats frequently is done so because he or she gains some benefit from exhibiting it. These beneficial outcomes may be: A directly rewarding outcome from the owner i.e. a treat, a game, gaining your attention or being allowed to do something he or she wants to do. Something the puppy finds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6051,"featured_media":3179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","family-puppy","content-puppy-training","behaviour-puppy-training","content-entity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3195"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24611,"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions\/24611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/companyofanimals.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Top tips on how to train a dog <\/strong><\/h3>\n
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