The best way I know of to prevent common nuisance behaviors around the house is to not let them happen.
How do you do that?
You stop them every time they happen. It is inevitable. And when your dog knows that it is inevitable, it doesn’t take very long before they decide it’s not worth their while to try. Because you will stop them. Every. Single. Time.
Now I have mixed feelings about talking about this, because this is a concept I learned long ago when it was associated with pain, fear, and retaliation. Dog pulled on the leash? You corrected them with a collar correction. Dog jumped up on you? You kneed them in the chest. I could go on and on, but the dog learned two things. If they did something you didn’t like, it would be stopped. That was the good part. The second thing they learned is that you can be scary and erratic and in need of a watchful eye. That’s not good, and there’s no reason for it anyway because you can absolutely separate out the concept of the inevitable from punishment. We do it with kids all the time and it’s not scary at all. Here’s a dog example.
Your dog gets on your couch and is not allowed there.
You remove them. Within one second of being up there, you remove them. What happens if you remove them two or three times in a row and they still jump up? You remove them from the room. What happens if it’s still an issue? You crate them or put them outside or attach them to you or whatever works for you. Not for a long time – just a few minutes.
You don’t need to scream or yell. First I tell my dog, ‘eh!’ – that is a warning I will use for life for pretty much anything I want to see stopped. No response? I remove them physically by picking them up or by their collar or with a leash. Back up on the couch? I remove them from the room. Start making trouble? Outside. Can’t catch the dog because he avoids you? Drag a leash in the house. You get the idea. You won’t get on the couch.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter that much exactly what you do. You simply need to convince your dog that when they do specific things that you’re not thrilled about, you are going to stop them. Because you said so.
And what happens if you are not consistent?
That will depend on how much the dog benefits from the behavior. If they snag something off your counter and you let them, and if it’s particularly tasty, then you can count on the fact that counter surfing will come back pretty regularly, even if you stop that behavior nine times out of ten. So maybe you shouldn’t have tasty things on the counter where the dog can get them while they are young and learning, and save both of you some trouble.
But if it’s a behavior that doesn’t bring the dog a lot of value, it may go away even if you’re not consistent. It just depends.
So the second thing, in addition to the rule of inevitability, is that you better have a pretty good idea in your head what behaviors you absolutely never want to see. And then you are going to stop them, without exception.
I know this is hard. We have other things to worry about in our lives, like phones ringing and children crying and jobs to do. But here’s a rule of reality: you’re going to get what you allow, plus what you train for. And the purpose of this blog is not to talk about training, it’s to talk about things you didn’t train for, or cannot train for, or will not train for. Training is good! but when it comes to basic house rules, I tend to use the inevitable more than training. Inevitability is a fine management strategy that leads to understanding – training, I suppose.
Manage misbehavior at the exact moment it happens – before the dog even knows it’s misbehavior!
You can run out the door and visit guests, but that’s it. Then you need to come back in. If you go wandering off? I’m going to bring you back in. It is inevitable.
You cannot sleep on my couch. You jumped up there anyway? I will remove you within one second. It is inevitable.
You cannot bark hysterically at me when you want something. If you do that, I will stop your barking by telling you to stop. Still barking? I will putting my hand through your collar and hold you still. If you continue to bark after my clear communication to stop then I will remove you. It is inevitable.
At the same time, I’m pretty sympathetic to the reality of puppies and dogs, and I accept that they have needs too. So if I remove the dog from the couch I like to make sure they have another soft place to sleep. And I’m not going to make my dog go hours and hours between meals when I know they are young and hungry and then expect them not to eye the leftovers on the table. I’m going to give them things to eat and chew! (and not leave leftovers on the table to keep an eye on). And I don’t expect my dog to know to come when called until after I train it, so I’m not going to let my dog run out the front door if they are too young to understand a recall cue. I will prevent that too.
But for now? For this blog? The thing I want you to focus on is the inevitable.
Sometimes people say things to me that I find it a little confusing. They tell me that their dog pulls on a leash or runs around barking at them or makes trouble in their house and I get the feeling it is allowed to continue. Why is that? I keep thinking, why don’t you tell them to stop? And if they don’t, why don’t you stop them?
Presumably sometimes the handler doesn’t actually know how to stop the dog, or it’s been going on for so long that the process of stopping the dog is not going to be trivial.
So maybe start there. Make a mental list of the things your dog does that you find irritating around the house, and set up a plan for the inevitable.
First a verbal warning. Then back it up physically if necessary – there is no reason for this to be painful, but it should be inevitable. Still no go? Remove the dog altogether if you haven’t made your point. Your dog may need to drag a leash around the house for awhile or have one attached before critical points when you know the beahvior will soon occur – that’s fine.
What if you’re afraid of your dog? What if you approach your dog to remove them from the couch and he is growling at you?
Then you have bigger fish to fry, and you need to get hold of a professional. I won’t give advice on aggression over the Internet without seeing what’s happening.
The earlier your puppy learns the rules of inevitability, the easier your life is going to be.
Remember. Inevitable. Tell me your plan in the comments.
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What do you mean inevitable? And what physically kind of warning should I do if dog doesn’t listen? Will this method make them hound and run from me.
Here are some human examples. Your toddler wants to hang from your curtains and swing because that is fun. Your toddler wants to climb on your antique sofa; the one piece of furniture he is not allowed on. Your toddler is attempting to climb your pantry shelves to get to a bag of sugar. Your toddler wants to climb on your kitchen table.
In all of these examples, I would presume that you would simply remove them. And you would remove them as many times as necessary until they finally got the point; it is inevitable that they will not be allowed to proceed.
Now I’m a pretty big fan of management with human children as well, so when my children were small I largely rearranged my house to make it as child friendly as possible, which made my life a lot easier. But I’m not going to remove all of the curtains, every piece of furniture, and take sugar out of the house altogether – And I don’t use play pens for human children much either – I manage, redirect when that goes over well, and use the reality of the inevitable.
So we find middle ground. I manage most of the time, and then there are a few basic rules that I expect to be followed. If they are not, I remove the child. I certainly don’t think that’s frightening to them. And if they make a game out of it and continue to return? That’s fine; they will be removed from the room for a period of time. Eventually, with consistency, they get the idea.
And with my puppy on my new couch? Pretty much the same. If you go up there 20 times in a day, you will be removed 20 times in a day. And after a few days you’ll have the idea. And that’s the end of it; I have communicated my expectation and the dog has recognized the futility of proceeding. Some dogs are easy and others will test your patience to the point that you may decide that removing all of the furniture from your house isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Not to your sentence about physically warning the dog if she doesn’t listen… I honestly don’t know what you are referencing in the article. I never mentioned any physical warning nor do I know what that is.
;Great article. And you have given me a clue to what happened with my dog 40 years ago. I was a new mother with baby crawling. We adopted a cute little long haired stray who showed up to our door one day. I knew absolutely nothing about dog training except that I had never been good at teaching tricks. I remember our new dog never stepped on the area carpet in the living room but I don’t remember how I did it. Now I know it must have been by simply removing the dog whenever he stepped on the rug in order to keep dog hair off the baby. That’s
the only thing I remember teaching this sweet pet. This dog always stopped at the edge of the carpet without fail. I was too naive to even realize I taught him something. Your article makes all kinds of sense and has given me a clue of what I did years before I learned anything at all about dog training.
One thing I would like to contribute, in terms of understanding, to the pet dog community is that the vast majority of dog training is not something you set aside time to do. It’s not intentional. It’s a way of living with the dog, much the way we live with our children.
No one thinks in terms of 10 minutes a day of teaching their child how to be polite, or how to behave in society. It is simply molded over time, and it is a pleasure as we watch the learner progress.
When I hear people say “the dog is always learning” that’s a start to what I mean, but I always feel like there’s a sense of a threat in there. That the focus is on all the things the dog does wrong if not constantly monitored. I have a much more holistic perspective. The dog is always learning, but they are learning just as much about how pleasant it is to be with you as anything else.
I believe that structure, consistency, warmth, getting everyones needs met and friendship all blend together beautifully to create a confident dog who is a pleasure to live with. Does that take time? I guess so, but it’s not intentional time. It’s the benefit of living with another.
Once it hits 20, 30, 60 times a day and you’re still crating — aren’t you just practicing a bad behavior, almost forming a habit?
Not sure what you’re referring to. Crating doesn’t practice a bad behavior?
I’m probably just confused. In the example a puppy on the couch 20 times, puppy gets removed 20 times. After a few days the puppy should learn that couch time is not groovy. If all goes according to plan that’s great. But if after 20 times for let’s say a week and the dog doesn’t get the lesson, would you still keep removing and keep course…I’m basically asking what do you do if this fails.
(My sister has a dog that will poop in the house, then on her own goes and lays down in her crate.)
if the dog’s behavior was not improving over time then there is more going on. Does the dog have a place to rest? Does the dog have a medical condition making it uncomfortable? Are you truly consistent? Preventing the dog from accessing what they want? If the dog NEVER gets to rest of the couch – it is inevitable – then the behavior will decrease. I cannot think of an exception.
Your situation is different – the poop already happened, the dog got what was wanted (or I suppose needed) and the relief occurred (needed to poop) so you need to change what happens before the dog poops and structure for success – right now you have the opposite – the pooping is inevitable so the dog got what he needed.
Thank you for clearing up my confusion.
Yes! My puppy will not be allowed to take clothing out of my laundry basket, nor take my shoes. I stop her as soon as she approaches the laundry basket, uh-uh, and if she can’t leave it and take a toy then she’ll be put in her x-pen while I’m busy. The shoes are now behind a gate, because I can’t seem to be aware enough and fast enough to stop her before she gets one. She is starting to ignore the laundry.
Same thing with trash on the street – leave it, come to me and get a cookie, and never is allowed to keep anything she manages to pick up, and she is getting it, I see her notice and pass by a bit of paper, a bottle (yeah, I live in the city)
5 mos. old GSD puppy